“You went to high school with him. Dated him for a while, I believe.”
“Oh, that one.”
“Yes.”
Mary sat, quiet and attentive and blank. It wasn’t like talking to a dumb seventh-grader, it was like talking to a pancake.
“You still see him,” I said.
Mary smiled and shrugged.
“Old friends,” she said. “You know? Old friends.”
“Whom you just a minute ago said you didn’t know.”
She smiled and nodded. I waited. She smiled some more. Rita crossed her legs the other way.
“Tell me about the young men that your husband, ah, mentored,” I said.
Rita glanced at me. Mary smiled some more.
“He was so kind to them,” Mary said. “He’d been a lonely little boy, I guess, and he wanted to make it easier for other lonely little boys.”
“He give them money?” I said.
“Oh, I don’t know. I really never had much to do with our finances.”
“Help them out going to school? Maybe?”
“I’ll bet he did,” Mary said. “He was such a generous man.”
“He’d not been married before?” I said.
“No. He was a confirmed bachelor,” she said. “Until he met me.”
“Do you know why?” I said.
“Why what?”
I took in some air. It was tinged with her perfume, or maybe Rita’s, or maybe both.
“Do you know why he was a confirmed bachelor?”
“No.”
She shook her head. Eager to please. Sorry that she couldn’t supply more information.
“Do you know that he’d taken in a partner at the bank?”
“Oh no, I know nothing about the bank, or any of the other things.”
“Other things?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She laughed. “Nathan was always up to something.”
“Do you know what they were?”
She shook her head.
“Are you sure you won’t have coffee?” she said.
I shook my head. I was sure I needed a drink.
“Do you stay in touch with any other people from your high school days?” I said.
“Well, Roy.”
“Anyone else?”
“Not really.” She smiled again. “I’ve reached out to them, but they aren’t, um, comfortable in my, ah…” She made a circular gesture with her hands.
“Circles,” Rita said.
“Oh, yes, thank you. Sometimes I have such trouble thinking what I want to say.”
“Lot of that going around,” I said. “You know Felton Shawcross?”
“Felton? I don’t think so.”
“CEO of a company called Soldiers Field Development Limited.”
“I don’t really know anything about companies,” she said.
“He was on the list of friends you had Larson give me.”
“Oh, well, mostly Larson keeps that list. They are people who contribute money to things and when I have a big charity event, Larson invites them.”
“So you don’t know Shawcross?”
She shook her head sadly.
“Would Larson have consulted your husband on that invitation list?” Rita said.
I could tell she was getting bored. She didn’t like being bored. Her voice had a small edge to it.
