“If that’s what you want it to be,” said Hanratty. “Is that what you want it to be?”

“Why don’t you stop holding it in and tell me what this is all about.”

It was Sims who broke the news. “Dr. Wren Denniston was found murdered in his Chestnut Hill mansion this evening.”

I tried to say something clever, but the words caught in my throat. I caught a whiff of burnt coffee in the air.

“Shot in the head,” said Hanratty.

“Imagine that,” said Sims. “Can anyone vouch for your whereabouts at around eight tonight?”

“No.”

“You sure? We’re talking around eight o’clock. No one saw you at the office, at the store, didn’t happen to stop into the tap on your way home for a beer?”

“None of the above.”

“That’s a shame. Makes things a little tougher on you.”

“You mind if we look around?” said Hanratty.

“Not at all,” I said slowly, “as long as you have a warrant.”

Sims smoothed out the pleat on his pants. “So it’s going to be like that.”

“Yes, it’s going to be like that.”

“Have you seen Wren Denniston’s wife lately?”

“Thank you so much for coming.”

“We’re talking about Julia Denniston. The girl you were engaged to. The girl who broke your little heart. Have you seen her?”

“But I think it’s time for you to go.”

“You’d remember her, I’m sure. No flower has sweeter nectar than the old love who broke your heart. Isn’t that from an Eagles song? No, maybe not.”

“I’m done talking.”

“You hear that, Hanratty? He’s done talking.”

“I heard.”

“Which is funny, actually, because I don’t think he ever started. What should we do?”

“You know what we should do.”

Sims slapped his knee. “Give us a moment, Hanratty, won’t you?”

Hanratty glared some more at me, turned his glare on Sims, and then slipped out of the apartment. Sims stood from the couch and came over to where I was standing. He thumbed at the door, lowered his voice to a conspirator’s whisper.

“Hanratty wants to bust you right now, jerk you downtown, sweat you in the box. He’s that kind of cop. Hands-on, if you know what I mean. But lucky for you I caught lead on this case. You’re pals with McDeiss. McDeiss has attracted the eyes of the brass, he’ll be head of detectives someday. And word is you’re close to Slocum in the D.A.’s office, too. The downtown boys are trying to get him to run against his boss next term. That’s a lot of protection for a small-time lawyer who upholsters his couch in pleather. I don’t see any reason to ruffle your feathers.”

“There’s nothing to ruffle my feathers about,” I said.

“Good. That’s the way we’ll play it. Don’t worry, I’ll find someone to pin this on. I always do.”

“What is it you want, Detective?”

“I just want to retire with a pension and a nest egg and spend my days hunting and fishing, that’s all.” He chucked me on the shoulder. “Remember me at Christmas,” he said before following his partner out.

I locked the door after he left and then loped over to the window. I watched the two men leave my building and step over to their car, parked illegally on the far side of my street. They got in and sat. And sat. I was still watching them sitting there when the door to my bedroom opened.

“Who was that?”

I turned. She stood there, trim and tawny, long legs falling out of a towel wrapped tightly around her body. Her head was tilted to the side, and she was rubbing a second towel over her long dark hair as she stared at me. To see her standing in my living room was to see a future devoid of want and strife, all my dreams satisfied, all my hopes fulfilled. She was a worker’s paradise in one stunning figure. I stared for a moment, I couldn’t help myself.

“It was the cops,” I said finally.

“Really? What did they want?”

I looked at her for a moment longer and then turned back to the window. The car was still there, Sims and Hanratty were still there.

“They came,” I said without turning around, “to tell me that your husband’s been murdered.”

Oh, right, like you’ve never done it.

I don’t mean the stonewall-the-cops-while-the-dead-man’s-wife-is-lathering-herself-in-your-shower thing. I mean the other thing, the important thing. There is much that is easy in this world: downloading porn, stealing cable, Serbian girls, you know what I mean. But of all that is easy in this world, nothing is easier than falling into bed with an old lover.

“Victor, is that you?”

“It’s me all right,” I had said into the phone, the soft, level voice on the other end of the line disturbingly familiar. This was before, weeks before.

“Hi,” said the voice. “How are you?”

“Fine, I suppose.”

“You don’t recognize me.”

“Not really.”

“I should be insulted, but it has been a long time. It’s me,” she said. “It’s Julia.”

My heart just then held its breath as it dived into dark, cold waters.

“Hello?” she said. “Are you still there?”

“I’m here.”

“It’s me.”

“Okay.”

“Do you have anything to say to me?”

“Let me turn down the television.”

I pulled the phone from my ear and sat there for a moment. There is always one that gnaws at the bones. You think of her when the alcohol floats you into a tidal pool of regret. You dream of her still. In the simplest of moments, waiting for an elevator, mailing a letter, the memory of her slices into your heart as naturally as a breath.

“Okay, I’m back,” I said.

“Are you still mad?”

“That’s a funny question. You get mad when your fiancée flirts with your old pal Jimmy. I think what happened sort of transcends mad, don’t you?”

“Is that why you’re sending me the letters?”

“What letters?”

“Maybe we should get together and talk about it.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Then you have to stop.”

“But I’m not doing anything.”

“How about some coffee, Victor? The letters are a bit deranged, don’t you think? And I know deranged, believe me. I’m worried about you.”

“I’m not sending any letters.”

“Just coffee, Victor. Please.”

That was the start, the first step in our version of the old-lovers’ tango. You meet again by chance, you meet by design. She’s thinking about you, he wants to make amends, she wonders why you’re writing her anonymous letters filled with hate. You deny it, although it sounds just then like a pretty good idea. You meet, slyly, surreptitiously, as if your meeting together like this is somehow indecent, as if you already know the way it will end. You ask how he’s been, you ask how’s her job, how’s his mother. You look good, she says.

“So do you,” I said. And she did, damn it.

Julia had been a slim, dark girl when she crushed my heart beneath the sole of her boot, and so pretty she’d been hard not to stare at. Glossy black hair, sly eyes, thin wrists, breasts like ripe tangerines, a feline curve to her lips that drew out startlingly indecent thoughts. She had been a walking explanation for the burqa; to see her in the flesh was to want to do all manner of things to her, slowly, over and again. And she had a surprising accessibility that made it all seem deliciously possible. It was that voice, sexy and impassive and sweet, like Honey West’s. She was easy to talk to, easy to flirt with, easy to kiss, easy to kid yourself that maybe you understood what was going on inside her pretty skull. But even so, you never lost the sense that she was forever holding something back. It was as if she carried in her heart a truth that could make everything perfect if only she would share it, though you sensed she never would.

At the Starbucks now, elbows atop the bare wooden table, she remained stunningly beautiful, but noticeably older and more prosperously dressed. No more black jeans and loose white oxford shirts, not for her. She had pinned an Hermès scarf around her long, lovely neck, she wore a Burberry skirt, she sported a fragrance, like a Frenchwoman or a grandmother. Still, when she smiled, my heart seized. Did I mention her smile? It was a rare enough sight, true, but so dazzling it hurt. Even the lines around her eyes when she smiled caused me pain. It was as if she had spent all the years after me laughing.