“It’s hanging over me, not us,” said Jeremy. “She’s gone. She’ll be more gone in a month, even more so in a year, and one day I won’t think about her much at all.” The backs of his eyes ached. Now his own tears had welled. “Intellectually I know all that, but my damn soul hasn’t adjusted.”

She dabbed at his eyes with her fingers. “I didn’t know psychology believed in the soul.”

It doesn’t.

Jeremy said, “It’ll take time, there’s no shortcut.” He looked at her.

Angela kissed his forehead.

Jeremy wrapped his arms around her. She felt small. He was about to lift her face for another kiss when a gangly teenage boy, probably someone’s grandson, came out of a patient room, loped down toward the coffee machine, saw them, and grinned lewdly.

“Go, dude,” the kid muttered, plunking coins down the slot.

Angela laughed in Jeremy’s ear.

They moved to his office, spent another quarter hour there, sitting quietly, Angela in Jeremy’s lap, her head resting on his chest. The portable radio Jeremy rarely played was tuned to insipid stuff that billed itself as smooth jazz. Angela’s breathing slowed, and he wondered if she’d fallen asleep. When he lowered his head to look, her eyes fluttered open, and she said, “I really need to get back.”

When they returned to Endocrinology, a prune-faced nurse said, “There’s a catheter waiting for you, Dr. Rios,” and walked away.

Jeremy said, “Nothing like the old Welcome Wagon.”

Angela smiled, grew serious. “Time to do some plumbing- Jeremy, thank you. For taking the initiative. I know it wasn’t easy.”

“Like I said, you’re important to me.”

She played with her stethoscope, kicked one shoe against the other- a little-kid gesture that pinched Jeremy’s chest. “You’re important to me, I wish we could spend some real time together, but I’ll be on for the next two nights.”

Me too.

He said, “Let’s aim for lunch.”

“Let’s do that. Dude.”

45

Hand-holder by day, self-deluded voyeur by night?

For two evenings running, Theodore Gerd Dirgrove left the hospital, drove straight home, and stayed there. Both nights, Jeremy watched the cream-colored high-rise until 3 A.M., alternating between sitting in his car and walking around the glossy neighborhood. He no longer felt the cold; some sort of internal oven was raging.

A good place to be spying- the glut of cafés and high-end cocktail lounges ensured a constant sprinkle of pedestrians that made his appearance less conspicuous. The second night, he patronized one of the lounges, a place on Hale called the Pearl Onion, where martinis were the thing. He hazarded one, straight up, mixed with Boodles gin, the eponymous vegetable- a pair- floating in the silky liquid. Arthur’s mix.

One drink, only, chased by coffee. He sat at a window booth that afforded him a view, through lace curtains, of Dirgrove’s building.

Fitting in. Enjoying the soft music- real jazz- the clink of glasses, the eager conversation of good-looking, affluent singles at the bar.

He’d made sure to dress well- had taken to dressing better, in general, to meet the needs of the… job. Donning his best sport coat and slacks, and a lush, black merino-cashmere overcoat that he’d bought in a deep-discount sale years ago at Llewellyn’s department store and had never worn since-saving it for what?

He’d even brought a crisp shirt to his office so he could change before he set out on his-

Mission?

Find me a windmill, and I’ll tilt away.

That night, Dirgrove’s Buick never reappeared. The back of the building was an enclosed courtyard with only one way out of the subterranean parking lot, so even if the surgeon had chosen to retrieve the car himself, he’d have to drive around in front.

Ted was in for the night. Saving his energies?

Jeremy voided the quarts of liquid he’d ingested in the lounge’s minty-fresh men’s room and drove home. Tomorrow night, Angela would be off-call, and he’d have to find an excuse not to see her. Was feigning illness the tactful choice? No, that would boomerang, she’d want to be with him, dote on him. He’d think of something.

As he crawled into bed, he thought: Martinis; Arthur’s drink.

Where was the old man?

What had happened to his family?

Eight o’clock, he was back at his desk, logging on to the Clarion archive. He’d tried once before, plugging in “Chess homicide” but finding nothing. Wondering if he should dig deeper.

Now he was better educated; he set his parameters.

The Pathology Department secretary knew Arthur only as a confirmed bachelor, and she’d worked at Central for years. No one Jeremy had spoken to had ever talked of a marriage in the old man’s life.

So Arthur had been single for a long time; the tragedy that had shredded his life had taken place decades ago.

Someone besides the CCC people knew the truth- Arthur’s neighbor, Ramona Purveyance. She’d known him as a handsome young physician who’d delivered her children.

Before…

An open woman, prone to chatter, but when she’d talked about Arthur leaving his home in Queen’s Arms, she’d grown evasive.

Knowing the ordeal that had transformed Arthur from a liberator of squalling newborns to a surveyor of the dead.

Leading Arthur to a position at the Coroner’s. The remainder of his life nurtured by the cessation of life. Still, the old man had hung on to the bricks and the mortar and the baseboards of his memories.

Two children. The doting wife Jeremy had conjured.

That flip assessment seemed so cruel, now.

Arthur, living with ghosts.

And yet, he smiled and drank and enjoyed late-night suppers. Traveled and learned.

And taught.

Suddenly, Jeremy was suffused with admiration for Arthur; but at the same time, the thought of ending up like Arthur scared him out of his wits.

He wrenched himself away from all that, escaped to the cold comfort of calculation: Ramona Purveyance was at least in her midsixties, so her babies would most likely have been born anywhere between thirty and forty-five years ago.

Arthur was what- seventy? Med school and Army service would’ve made him close to thirty by the time he came to Central to deliver babies.

Jeremy chose forty years ago and plugged in “Chess homicides.”

Using the plural because that’s what had happened. The computer wasn’t smart enough to show discretion; perhaps that’s why it had spat back his first search.

Nothing.

How about “Chess family homicides”?

Good call.

Thirty-seven years ago. A strangely dry July.

Three Bodies Found in Wreckage

of Summer Cabin

An early-morning arson fire in a cabin near Lake Oswagumi, in the Highland Park resort area, turned into a murder scene after three bodies were discovered in the charred ruins.

The remains have been identified as those of Mrs. Sally Chess, a young matron, and her two children, Susan, 9, and Arthur Chess, Jr., 7. Arthur Chess, Sr., 41, a physician at City Central Hospital, was not present at the rental cabin when the blaze overtook the three-room structure. Dr. Chess had been called to the hospital to perform an emergency Caesarean section and claims to have stopped at a local tavern for a beer before driving the sixty miles back to Highland Park.

Sheriff’s investigators have reason to believe that Mrs. Chess had been murdered and that the fire was set deliberately to conceal that crime. Both children likely perished in their sleep. The investigators further state that while Dr. Chess is being questioned, he is not considered a suspect at this time.

The last sentence reminded Jeremy of something else he’d read recently. The account of Robert Balleron’s murder. The judge had been questioned, but police had insisted she’d not been considered a suspect.