“Good point,” I said. “But as far as I can see, this is one of those instances when the cigar is just a cigar.”

“Maybe you should talk to Clarice Richardson again,” Susan said.

“Because she’s smart enough to understand what she may have experienced,” I said.

“Yes.”

Susan was between patients. I was sitting in her office, across the desk from her. I was silent for a little while. I eyed the couch against the wall to my right.

“Anybody actually lie down on that thing?” I said.

“I believe you and I have,” Susan said.

“I mean for therapy.”

“You and I have,” Susan said.

“Not that kind of therapy,” I said.

“Yes,” Susan said. “It is kind of a cliché, but some people find it very helpful.”

I nodded. Neither of us spoke for a little while.

Then I said, “I can’t do it by phone.”

“No need,” Susan said. “I’m sure she’ll see you.”

“Care for another trip to Hartland?” I said.

“No,” Susan said.

“Two hours out, two hours back,” I said.

“An easy day trip,” Susan said.

“What about the naked frolic in the Hartland motel?”

“Nothing to stop you,” Susan said.

“By myself?”

“Whatever floats your boat… snookums.”

CLARICE RICHARDSON CAME around her desk and shook my hand when I entered her office.

“Come in,” she said. “Sit down. I’m glad to see you.”

I looked around.

“No campus cop this time,” I said.

“You’ve charmed me into submission,” she said.

“Happens all the time,” I said.

“I assume you are still chasing Goran,” she said.

“I’m trying to figure him out,” I said.

Clarice smiled.

“You, too,” she said.

“You mentioned when we talked last that when you were intimate, he seemed very strong.”

“Yes,” she said.

She smiled and looked away from me out at the now wintry landscape of her college.

“I attributed it to passion,” she said.

“Susan suggested that it hints of sadism,” I said.

“And she thought you should ask me about that?”

“She thinks you’re the only one intelligent enough to understand your experience.”

Clarice nodded.

“But not intelligent enough to have avoided it.”

“Nobody gets out of here alive,” I said.

She nodded.

“I didn’t think of it at the time, but perhaps there was something… I’m not sure sadistic is exactly right… but vengeful, perhaps.”

I nodded.

“Can you give me an example?” I said.

She blushed.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I made this bed, so to speak. If I have to lie in it, I have to lie in it.”

I might not have chosen that metaphor. But maybe if I felt guilty…

“He would say things,” she said. “When he was… in me, he would say things like ‘Got you now, don’t I?’ ”

“Say it often?” I said.

“Things like that,” she said.

“You think he had some animosity toward women?” I said.

“I never felt it,” she said. “But in the circumstance, I was not at my most analytic, I fear.”

“None of us is,” I said. “Why do you suppose he had an affair with you?”

Clarice smiled.

“He found me attractive?” she said.

“Almost certainly,” I said.

“And available,” Clarice said.

“Were you wearing your wedding ring?” I said.

“I was,” Clarice said.

“Even though you were, ah, trolling?”

“Maybe I was ambivalent,” she said. “Maybe I didn’t want to admit to myself I was trolling. Maybe I didn’t want to look like an old maid.”

“Fat chance,” I said.

She smiled faintly.

“Thank you,” she said.

“So he knew you were married,” I said.

“But not to wealth,” she said.

“Maybe the wealth was an afterthought.”

She nodded.

“The thing is,” Clarice said, “in an odd way, Eric and I owe this man a great deal. If I had not been with him, and if he had not tried to blackmail me, I don’t think either Eric or I would have found the strength to get help with our problems… nor to solve them.”

“But you did,” I said.

“Yes.”

I stood.

“I won’t bother you again,” I said.

And I left.

I TALKED WITH SUSAN on the phone for nearly an hour before we hung up. It was dark outside. My apartment was nearly still. There was a fire going, and the hiss of the logs supplied the only sound. I sat at my kitchen counter with a scotch and soda in a tall glass, with a lot of ice.

Was I involved in this thing because it resonated with me and Susan a long time ago? It had happened to me before. I didn’t think I was, but I had learned enough to know that motivation, including my own, was often murky.

I sipped my scotch and looked at the fire.

One of my problems was trying to figure out which side I was on. I wasn’t even sure how I wanted things to turn out. I had some sympathy for the women in the case, more for some than for others. I kind of liked Gary. The cuckolded husbands deserved some sympathy, but maybe some blame, or at least some of them.

I drank the rest of my scotch and made another drink.

I wasn’t exactly sure what real crime had been committed. I didn’t want Regina and Clifford Hartley’s complicated but functioning marriage to be destroyed. I thought it would be a shame if Nancy went on through life thinking her sexuality was a sickness. Abigail was a drunk. Beth was… I didn’t know what Beth was, but it wasn’t good.

But there was something wrong with the whole setup. Everything kept turning out not to be quite what it started out seeming to be. There was a lot of bottled-up stuff lying around, and Boo and Zel were rattling around like loose ball bearings. So why did I care? One reason was that no one else had hired me to do anything, and I like to work. It might have had to do with me being stubborn.

I drank some scotch. It was clarifying. People always claimed it was a bad sign if you started drinking alone. I always thought to sit quietly and alone and drink a little now and then was valuable. Especially if you have a fire to look at. What was it Churchill said? “I have taken more from alcohol than alcohol has ever taken from me.” Something like that. Good enough for Winnie, I thought, good enough for me.

I took my glass to my front window and looked down at Marl-borough Street. The lights in the brick and brownstone buildings seemed very homey. Outside it was dark and cold. Inside was light and warmth. There were people living there together, some of them happily, some not.

Sometimes I thought that Susan was the only thing in life that I cared about. But I knew that if it were actually so, it would destroy us. We both needed to work. We had to do things. Making moon eyes at Susan was not a sufficient career. It was cases like the one I was on that reminded me now and then that I could care about other things.

There was more sex in this case than I’d seen in a while, but none of it seemed connected to love. I realized as I looked out my window at the still city street that one of the things I was looking for in this mess was something grounded in love. Maybe the Hartleys, in their odd and bearded marriage, might be driven by love. Maybe not. Clarice Richardson’s reformation and triumph might have been grounded in love. But it could have been grounded in guilt, and survival… and courage.

“Good for you, Clarice,” I said. “Either way.”

As I drank my final scotch, I decided that I had two things to do next. One, I had to defuse Chet Jackson, and second, I had to find out a little more about Gary Eisenhower, aka Goran Pappas. Having a plan made me feel decisive, or maybe it was the three scotches.

I washed my empty glass and put it away. I put a steak on the kitchen grill. In a sauté pan, I cooked onions, peppers, mushrooms, and a handful of frozen corn with olive oil, rosemary, and a splash of sherry. I had some herbed biscuits left from Sunday when Susan and I had breakfast. I warmed them in the oven and when everything was ready, I ate.