a cocktail?”

“I could,” Jesse said.

Jenn took a small green apron out of the shopping bag and tied it on.

“Serious,” Jesse said.

“Dress for success,” Jenn said and smiled at him.

Jesse made them martinis. Jenn put some grilled shrimp and mango

chutney on a glass plate. They took the drinks and the hors d’oeuvres to the living room and sat on Jesse’s sofa and looked out

the slider over Jesse’s balcony to the harbor beyond.

“It’s pretty here, Jesse.”

“Yes.”

“But it’s so … stark.”

“Stark?”

“You know, the walls are white. The tabletops are bare. There’s

no pictures.”

“There’s Ozzie,” Jesse said.

Jenn looked at the big framed color photograph of Ozzie Smith, in midair, stretched parallel to the ground, catching a baseball.

“You’ve had that since I’ve

known you.”

“Best shortstop I ever saw,” Jesse said.

“You might have been that good, if you hadn’t gotten

hurt.”

Jesse smiled and shook his head.

“I might have made the show,” Jesse said.

“But I wouldn’t have

been Ozzie.”

“Anyway,” Jenn said. “One

picture of a baseball player is not

interior decor.”

“Picture of you in my bedroom,” Jesse said. “On the

table.”

“What do you do with it if you have a sleepover?”

“It stays,” Jesse said.

“Sleepovers have to know about

you.”

“Is that in your best interest?” Jenn said. “Wouldn’t it

discourage sleeping over.”

“Maybe,” Jesse said.

“But not entirely,” Jenn said.

“No,” Jesse said. “Not

entirely.”

They were silent, thinking about it. Jesse got up and made another shaker of martinis.

“What is it they have to know about me?”

Jenn said when he

brought the shaker back.

“That I love you, and, probably, am not going to love

them.”

“Good,” Jenn said.

“Good for who?” Jesse said.

“For me at least,” Jenn said. “I

want you in my

life.”

“Are you sure divorcing me is the best way to show that?”

“I can’t imagine a life without you in it.”

“Old habits die hard,” Jesse said.

“It’s more than a habit, Jesse.

There’s some sort of connection

between us that won’t break.”

“Maybe its because I don’t let it

break,” Jesse

said.

“You don’t,” Jenn said.

“But then here I am.”

“Here you are.”

“I could have been a weather girl in Los Angeles, or Pittsburgh

or San Antonio.”

“But here you are,” Jesse said.

“You’re not the only one hanging

on,” Jenn said.

“What the hell is wrong with us?” Jesse said.

Jenn put her glass out. Jesse freshened her drink.

“Probably a lot more than we know,” Jenn said. “But one thing I

do know: we take it seriously.”

“What?”

“Love, marriage, relationship, each other.”

“Which is why we got divorced and started fucking other people,”

Jesse said. “Or vice versa.”

“I deserve the vice versa,” Jenn said.

“But I don’t keep

deserving it every time we talk.”

“I know,” Jesse said.

“I’m sorry. But if we take it so

seriously, why the hell are we in this mess.”

“Because we wouldn’t let it

slide,” Jenn said. “Because you

wouldn’t accept adultery. Because I wouldn’t accept suffocation.”

“I loved you very intensely,” Jesse said.

There was half a drink left in the shaker. Jesse added it to his

glass.

“You loved your fantasy of me very

intensely,” Jenn said, “and

kept trying to squeeze the real me into that fantasy.”

Jesse stared at the crystalline liquid in his glass. Jenn was still. Below them the harbor master’s launch pulled away from the

town pier and began to weave through the stand of masts going somewhere, and knowing where.

“That you talking or the shrink?” Jesse said.

“It’s a conclusion we reached

together,” Jenn

said.

Jesse hated all the circumlocutions of therapy. He sipped the lucid martini.

“Why do you think I’m so

wonderful?” Jenn said.

“Because I love you.”

Jenn was quiet. She smiled slightly as if she knew something Jesse didn’t know. It annoyed him.

“What the fuck is wrong with that?” he said.

“Think about it,” Jenn said.

“Think about shit,” Jesse said.

“Just because you’re getting

shrunk doesn’t mean you have to shrink me.”

“You think I’m wonderful because you love me?”

“Yes.”

They were both quiet. Jesse stared at her defiantly. Jenn looking faintly quizzical.

After a time, Jenn said, “Not the other way around?”

Jesse nodded slowly as if to himself, then got up and mixed a new martini.

9

Jesse’s hangover was relentless on Monday morning.

He sat behind

his desk sipping bottled water and trying to concentrate on Peter Perkins.

“We spent two days going over that guy’s apartment,” Perkins

said. “We didn’t even find anything

embarrassing.”

“And him a stockbroker,” Jesse said.

“So what do you

know?”

Perkins looked down at his notebook.

“Kenneth Eisley, age thirty-seven, divorced, no children. Works

for Hollingsworth and Whitney in Boston. Parents live in Amherst.

They’ve been notified.”

“You do that?”

“Molly,” Peter Perkins said.

“God bless her,” Jesse said.

“Coroner’s through with him,”

Perkins said. “Parents are coming

tomorrow to claim the body. You want to talk to them?”

“You do it,” Jesse said.

“You pulling rank on me?” Perkins said.

“You bet,” Jesse said. “How

about the ex-wife?”

“She lives in Paradise,” Perkins said.

“On Plum Tree Road.

Probably kept the house when they split.”

“Seen her yet?”

“No. Hasn’t returned our calls.”

“I’ll go over,” Jesse said.

“Swell,” Perkins said. “I get to

question the grieving parents,

you talk to the ex-wife, who is probably delighted.”

“Not if she was getting alimony,” Jesse said.

“That’s cynical,” Peter Perkins

said.

“It is,” Jesse said.

“What’s the ME say?”

“Nothing special. Shot twice in the chest at close range. Two

different guns.”

“Two guns?”

“Yep. Both twenty-twos.”

“Which one killed him?”

“Both.”

“Equally?”

“Either shot would have done it. They both got him in the heart.

You want all the details about what got penetrated and stuff?”

“I’ll read the report. We figure two shooters?”

“Can’t see why one guy would shoot someone with two guns,”

Perkins said.

“Any way to tell which one shot first?”

“Not really. Far as the ME could tell they entered the victim

more or less the same time.”

“Both at close range,” Jesse said.

“Both at close range.”

“Both in the heart,” Jesse said.

Perkins nodded. “Gotta be two people,” he said.

“Or one person who wants us to think he’s two people,” Jesse

said.

Perkins shrugged.

“Pretty elaborate,” Perkins said.

“And it gives us twice as many

murder weapons.”

Jesse drank more spring water. He didn’t say anything.

“We got his phone records,” Perkins said.

“Anthony and Suit are

chasing that down.”

“Debt?” Jesse said.

“Not so far. Got ten grand in his checking account.

Got a mutual

fund worth couple hundred thousand. I’m telling you, we’ve got

nada.”

“Somebody killed him and they had a

reason,” Jesse said. “Talk

to people where he worked?”

“No. I was going to ask you. Should I call, or go in to