'She needed steadying?'
He sipped his martini. 'De mortuis and all that. One hesitates to speak candidly of the dead. There was a restlessness in Barbara. She was a bright girl, you know. Very attractive, energetic, quick-witted. I don't recall where she went to school, but it was a good school. Doug went to Hofstra. I don't suppose there's anything the matter with Hofstra, but it's less prestigious than Barbara's alma mater. I don't know why I can't remember it.'
'Wellesley.' London had told me.
'Of course. I'd have remembered. I dated a Wellesley girl during my own college career. Sometimes self- acceptance takes a certain amount of time.'
'Did Barbara marry beneath herself?'
'I wouldn't say that. On the surface, she grew up in Westchester and went to Wellesley and married a social worker who grew up in Queens and went to Hofstra. But a lot of that is just a matter of labels.'
He took a sip of gin. 'She may have thought she was too good for him, though.'
'Was she seeing anybody else?'
'You do ask direct questions, don't you? It's not hard to believe you were a policeman. What made you leave the force?'
'Personal reasons. Was she having an affair?'
'There's nothing tackier than dishing the dead, is there? I used to hear them sometimes. She would accuse him of having sex with women he met on the job. He was a welfare caseworker and that involved visiting unattached women in their apartments, and if one's in the market for casual sex the opportunity's certainly there. I don't know that he was taking advantage of it, but he struck me as the sort of man who would.
And I gather she thought he was.'
'And she was having an affair to get even?'
'Quick of you. Yes, I think so, but don't ask me with whom because I've no idea. I would sometimes be home during the day. Not often, but now and then. There were times when I heard her coming up the stairs with a man, or I might pass her door and hear a man's voice.
You have to understand that I'm not a busybody, so I didn't try to catch a peek of the mystery man, whoever he was. In fact I didn't pay the whole business a great deal of attention.'
'She would entertain this man during the day?'
'I can't swear she was entertaining anybody. Maybe it was the plumber come to repair a leaky faucet.
Please understand that. I just had the feeling that she might have been seeing someone, and I knew she had accused her husband of infidelity, so I thought she might be getting a bit of sauce for the goose.'
'But it was during the day. Didn't she work days?'
'Oh, at the day-care center. I gather her schedule was quite flexible. She took the job to have something to do. Restlessness, again.
She was a psychology major and she'd been in graduate school but gave it up, and now she wasn't doing anything, so she started helping out at the day-care center. I don't think they paid her very much and I don't suppose they objected if she took the odd afternoon off.'
'Who were her friends?'
'God. I met people at their apartment but I can't remember any of them. I think most of their friends were his friends. There was the woman from the day-care center, but I'm afraid I don't remember her name.'
'Janice Corwin.'
'Is that it? It doesn't even ring a muted bell. She lived nearby. Just across the street, if I'm right.'
'You are. Do you know if she's still there?'
'No idea. I can't remember when I saw her last. I don't know that I'd recognize her anyway. I think I met her once, but I may just recall her because Barbara talked about her. You say the name was Corwin?'
'Janice Corwin.'
'The day-care center's gone. It closed years ago.'
'I know.'
THE conversation didn't go much further. They had a dinner date and I'd run out of questions to ask.
And I was feeling the drinks. I'd finished the second one without being aware of it and was surprised when I found the glass empty. I didn't feel drunk but I didn't feel sober either, and my mind could have been clearer.
The cold air helped. There was a wind blowing. I hunched my shoulders against it and walked across the street and down the block to the address I had for Janice Corwin. It turned out to be a four-story brick building, and a few years back someone had bought it, turned out the tenants as soon as their leases expired, and converted it for single-family occupancy.
According to the owner, whose name I didn't bother catching, the conversion process was still going on. 'It's endless,' he said.
'Everything's three times as difficult as you figure, takes four times as long, and costs five times as much. And those are conservative figures.
Do you know how long it takes to strip old paint off doorjambs? Do you know how many doorways there are in a house like this?'
He didn't remember the names of the tenants he'd dispossessed.
