“Two days ago, three if you count today,” she said. “I came home from the library. . . .
God, I don’t need this in the middle of my dissertation.”
“Must be a distraction,” Jesse said.
“You have no idea,” she said.
“No,” Jesse said.
“I came home and there was a note on the kitchen table.”
She opened her handbag and took out a piece of white printer paper and handed it to Jesse.
“I’m going away for a while,” it said. “Don’t look for me.”
Jesse put the paper on his desk. She looked at him. He looked back.
“Well?” she said.
“I guess he’s left,” Jesse said.
“Of course he’s left,” she said. “Can you find him?”
“Maybe,” Jesse said.
“What do you mean ‘maybe,’ ” she said.
“Police work is uncertain,” Jesse said. “You have any thoughts?”
“Like what?” she said.
“Where he might have gone?” Jesse said. “Why he went? How long is ‘a while’?”
“No.”
“Have any reason to suspect foul play?”
“No,” Hannah said. “But why would he leave like that?”
“Any trouble in the marriage?” Jesse said.
“No, of course not. We were very happy.”
“Anything about the Free Swingers that might be helpful?”
“Oh, naturally, all you moralistic yahoos, you’d love to blame it on swinging, wouldn’t you?”
Jesse was resting his elbows on the arms of his chair with his fingertips at chin level. He tapped the tips of his fingers together slowly.
“I don’t mean to be too repressive here,” he said. “But you asked me to find your husband.
To do that, I need to ask questions.”
She was silent for a moment.
“As a matter of fact,” she said, “we stopped going to swinger parties.”
“When?” Jesse said.
“It’s been several weeks,” she said.
“Do you know exactly?” Jesse said.
“Not now. It’s on my calendar. When I get home I can call you,” she said.
“Do,” Jesse said. “Why did you stop going?”
“My husband said he’d lost interest, that he was bored by it all.”
“And you wouldn’t go without him?” Jesse said.
She looked at him the way she might have studied a caveman.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” she said.
“Guess not,” Jesse said.
“Going alone is not the point,” she said.
Jesse nodded.
“Has he ever left before?”
“Absolutely not.”
“No arguments, nothing to precipitate it?”
“None.”
“Did you argue at all about giving up swinging?”
“I wouldn’t call it an argument,” she said.
“What would you call it?”
“I wanted to continue,” she said. “He wished to stop. We disagreed.”
“Angrily?”
“No, we don’t have an angry relationship,” she said.
