The office walls were bare white. There was a green couch against one wall. Jesse had never been on it. Through the window Jesse could see the treetops tossing a bit in the wind, and the gray clouds being pushed aside by the same wind. There was some blue sky showing.
Dix smiled briefly.
H I G H P R O F I L E
“It is these people,” he said, “whom we see most often.”
“And their partners,” Jesse said.
“Often,” Dix said. “I am not enthusiastic about couples counseling. But in some cases it seems effective. If more intensive therapy seems indicated, I refer one of them.”
“Is there anyone in Boston,” Jesse said, “especially famous for dealing with such issues?”
“Jonah Levy,” Dix said. “He’s a psychiatrist, in practice with a gynecologist named Frances Malloy, who probably knows more about the biology of infertility than anyone in the world, and a urologist named Edward Margolis, who would know more about infertility than anyone in the world if it weren’t for Frances.”
“They’d be widely known?”
“Very.”
“Nationally?”
“Worldwide,” Dix said.
“So it’s plausible that Walton Weeks might come up here to seek his help.”
“It is quite plausible,” Dix said. “Any fertility specialist in the world might well refer a difficult fertility case to Jonah. Particularly a high-profile one.”
“Because?”
“High-profile?”
“Yes.”
“Because Jonah is both very expensive and very discreet. One assumes Walton Weeks could afford him and would want discretion.”
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R O B E R T B . P A R K E R
“Do you know them?” Jesse said.
“I know Jonah.”
“If he was treating Weeks, and maybe Carey Longley, would he talk about it? Privileged communication and all?”
“Most doctors are guided by their patients’ best interests,” Dix said. “It would seem that Weeks’s best interest, and Longley’s, if she was a patient as well, would be served by talking about it.”
“Inasmuch as it might help solve their murder,” Jesse said.
“Inasmuch,” Dix said.
“That sounds pretty sensible,” Jesse said.
“Don’t believe that all-shrinks-are-crazy myth,” Dix said.
“Would a man who had unresolved emotional issues about fertility be likely to be a womanizer?” Jesse said.
“Such a man might keep looking for the woman who could conceive for him,” Dix said. “Or he might avoid women
