There was a long pause on Wolfe’s end of the line before he spoke. ‘Alright. Can you tell me which patient?’

‘I’ll tell you when I see you. Where are you?’

‘In my office. Trying to finish a paper I’m writing for one of the journals.’

‘Why don’t we meet there in, say, twenty minutes?’

‘Alright. That’s fine. I need to break for some dinner anyway. If you haven’t eaten yet, why don’t you join me? I’ll order some takeout, and we can eat while we talk.’

‘Deal.’

‘Good. What do you feel like? Chinese? Thai? Pizza?’

‘Your choice.’

‘Ring the buzzer to the right of the front door. The building’s locked on weekends. Office 301.’

‘I remember.’

‘Yes. Of course you do. If I don’t come down and get you right away, it means I’m on the phone. So just wait and don’t buzz again. Okay?’

McCabe decided to walk. It was ten minutes from 109 Middle Street to 23 Union Wharf, and the air was warmer than it had been in a month. Upper twenties, according to Weather.com, and still rising. Leaving the building, he overheard a couple of uniforms talking about a January thaw. Sunday temps, they said, might hit fifty or more. He imagined frostbitten Portlanders leaping out of their long johns into shorts and T-shirts, hoping for a winter tan. He might even join them. McCabe headed east on Middle, turned left, and walked down Exchange. The Old Port shopping district was crowded with people, some even pausing to check out shop windows instead of just darting from car to doorway and back again.

He called Kyra. Wherever she was, he could hear voices in the background. ‘I’m having people over for drinks,’ she explained. ‘Reestablishing connections. Letting my friends know I’m still alive.’

‘Anyone I know?’

‘Mandy’s here. Said she served you and Maggie lunch today. And Joe Turco. You know him.’ Turco ran a letterpress printing operation in the old bakery building where Kyra’s studio was. Limited edition portfolios. Art books. Other high-end print jobs. McCabe had met Turco a couple of times. ‘We’re heading over to Joe’s studio in a while to look at the proofs for a new edition he’s printing . . .’

Kyra talked some more about the portfolio edition. McCabe only half listened. He was missing her already, and she’d only moved out this morning.

‘How’s your murder going?’ she finally asked.

‘I guess we’re making progress. Hard to tell sometimes. Actually, I have a question for you.’

‘About the murder?’

‘Yes. You know most of the good art photographers in town, don’t you?’

‘Most of them,’ she said. ‘The ones I don’t know personally, I know by reputation.’

He described the shots on Lainie Goff’s bedroom wall. ‘I’d like to know who shot them.’

‘Industrial detritus and naked lawyers? Interesting range. Does Goff still look like Sandy? With her clothes off, I mean.’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s it?’ Kyra teased. ‘Just yes? No elaboration?’

He didn’t answer, so Kyra changed the tone. ‘The prints weren’t signed?’

‘No.’

‘Interesting. If they’re as good as you say, they’re worth less without a signature. Besides, most serious photographers want people to know their work.’

‘Maybe Goff asked the photographer not to sign them. Maybe she didn’t want people to know who was photographing her in the nude.’

‘Possibly. Or maybe the photographer isn’t a pro. Just a talented amateur. Or,’ she said, a tinge of conspiracy creeping into her voice, ‘maybe Goff and the photographer were lovers and she wanted to keep the affair a secret?’ McCabe smiled. Kyra was getting into this. ‘I’ll nose around for you,’ she said. ‘See if any of my friends have any idea who’d shoot that kind of stuff.’

‘Thanks. Just be discreet. Don’t tell them why you want to know,’ said McCabe. She said she wouldn’t. He continued, ‘Any chance of me seeing you tonight?’

‘None. I’ve got to make my willpower last more than one day, don’t you think? Anyway, I love you.’

He sighed, told her he loved her, too, and put the phone back in his pocket. He turned right onto Fore Street and jaywalked to the other side. Overly polite Maine drivers stopped in the middle of the block to let him pass. Had he tried the same thing in New York, they would have been swearing and laying on their horns. Or maybe just running him over. He glanced at the sex toys in the windows of Condom Sense. Pasta boobs and marzipan penises. He wondered who bought that stuff. A few doors down was Edward Malinoff, Purveyor of Rare Wines. Malinoff also carried a great selection of single malts and the odd box of contraband Cuban cigars, the latter available only to Malinoff’s friends at astronomical prices McCabe couldn’t afford. Not a problem. McCabe hadn’t smoked a cigar in years.

He turned left at Union Street by the Portland Harbor Hotel, went down the hill past Three Dollar Dewey’s, crossed Commercial Street, and walked out onto Union Wharf, one of the many piers that form most of Portland’s working waterfront. Wolfe’s office was in an old three-story wooden building toward the end. He could see lights shining from a wall of windows on the third floor. A shiny black Lexus IS 350 was parked directly in front. He figured it had to be Wolfe’s. The rest of the building looked dark and empty. McCabe climbed three steps, pressed the buzzer for 301, and peered through the glass into the dark lobby. Once a warehouse or maybe a fish processing plant, the building’s interior space had been updated in a style McCabe liked to think of as SoHo Modern. Shiny black walls, exposed pipes crisscrossing the ceiling, big windows looking out on the harbor.

Dr Wolfe apparently wasn’t on the phone, because he pushed the door open less than a minute later. McCabe’s former shrink was in his mid-forties, six-one or maybe a bit more, with close-cropped gray hair that was considerably shorter than McCabe remembered it. He wore round rimless glasses that seemed to intensify the blue of his eyes. Dressed in a black pullover, black pants, and black canvas walking shoes, he looked more like the film director McCabe once dreamed of becoming than a successful Portland psychiatrist. More LA cool than L.L. Bean.

‘Good to see you,’ said Wolfe. He ignored the elevator and pointed McCabe toward the black steel stairs. They started up. ‘Been about a year, hasn’t it?’

‘A little over.’

‘How have you been doing?’ Wolfe asked, the question clearly medical, not social.

‘Fine,’ said McCabe. ‘How about yourself?’

‘No more nightmares?’

‘Nothing I can’t handle.’ Not quite the truth, but what the hell.

‘Still taking the Xanax?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Glad you don’t need it. Still drinking?’

‘Some.’

‘Too much?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Wolfe shared the top floor with another psychiatrist named Leah Peterson. ‘Let’s talk in my office,’ he said.

The contrast between the office and Wolfe’s treatment room next door, where the Abby Quinns and Michael McCabes of the world came to tell their tales, was startling. Two different worlds both inhabited by the same man. The treatment room was small and cozy with a big comfy couch facing the doctor’s chair and walls lined with books and bric-a-brac. Designed to put patients at ease. The office was nothing like that. Instead it mirrored the cool, hard-edged modernity of the lobby. All shiny glass and chrome with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the harbor. McCabe looked out. A pair of tugs were pushing a large container barge toward the International Marine Terminal. The lights of cars moved in a steady parade across the Casco Bay Bridge.

There was a separate seating area with four chrome and leather chairs surrounding a free-form glass table.

‘I ordered Thai,’ said Wolfe, pointing McCabe toward one of the chairs. ‘From the Siam Grill.’ McCabe knew the place. High-end Thai and creative martinis on Fore Street. Some of the best Asian food in town.