“Are you married?”
“Sort of.”
“How can you be ”sort of“ married?” Clarice said.
“We’re not married, but we’re monogamous.”
“Except for the roving eye,” Clarice said.
“Except for that,” I said.
“Live together?”
“Not quite.”
“Love each other?”
“Yes.”
“How long you been together?” Clarice said.
“About twenty-five years.”
“So why don’t you get married?”
“Damned if I know,” I said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Pequod Savings and Loan was essentially a suburban bank. It had branches in Concord, Lexington, Lynnfield, and Weston. There was a home branch next to a gourmet takeout shop on the first floor of a good-looking recycled manufacturing building in East Cambridge, near Kendall Square. A clerk passed me on to a bank officer who questioned me closely and passed me on to the home-office manager. In less than an hour I was sitting in the office of the vice president for public affairs.
She was a good-looking smallish woman with thick auburn hair and large dark eyes and a wide mouth. She was wearing a pale beige suit. Her nails gleamed with polish. She had a big diamond on her right hand. An engraved brass sign on her desk read AMY PETERS.
“Would you care for coffee?” she said.
I had decided to cut back on coffee. Three cups in the morning was plenty.
“Yes,” I said. “Cream and sugar.”
“How about milk and sugar?” she said.
“Oh well.”
She stood and went out of the office. The pants of her beige suit were well-fitted. On her desk was a picture of two small children. On a shelf in the bookcase behind her desk was a picture of her with Bobby Orr. There was also a plaque recognizing her as Pequod Person of the Year. When she came back in carrying the coffee, she brought with her the vague scent of good cologne. She gave me one cup and took the other around behind her desk and sat and had a sip.
“So,” she said. “You are a private detective.”
I had some coffee. It wasn’t very good. I had some more.
“I am,” I said.
She smiled. Her teeth were even and very white.
“And what are you detecting here at the bank?” she said.
“You know that Nathan Smith has died,” I said.
“Yes. I understand that he was murdered.”
“Do you understand by whom?” I said.
“Whom? What kind of private detective says ”whom“?”
“Handsome intrepid ones,” I said.
She looked at me steadily for a moment, as if deciding whether to buy me. Then she smiled a little. “The papers say it was his wife.”
“They do,” I said.
“And what do you say?”
“I say I don’t know. Tell me about Nathan Smith.”
“Whom do you represent?” she said and smiled, pleased with herself for saying “whom.”
“I’m employed by Mary Smith’s attorney,” I said.
“So you are predisposed to assume she’s innocent.”
“Me and the legal system,” I said.
“Oh… yes… of course.”
“So what was Nathan Smith like?” I said.
