Susan stirred some Equal into her coffee. Pearl heard the spoon click in the cup and left me for a more promising prospect. Susan gave her a small forkful of black beans.
“Talk about bad habits,” I said.
“At least I’m teaching her to use flatware,” Susan said.
“Important for a dog,” I said.
Susan smiled. She put her spoon down and put her chin on her folded hands and looked at me.
“It’s very odd,” she said. “It’s like suddenly discovering Beowulf’s childhood.”
“I met him about the same time this happened,” I said.
“When you were both fighting at the Arena.”
“Yes.”
“You think he’s all right?”
“Hawk?”
“Yes.”
“Few people are more all right than Hawk,” I said.
“He’s very contained.”
“Very.”
“And he pays a high price for it,” Susan said.
“You think?”
“The distance between containment and isolation is not so great,” Susan said.
“He’s got a lot of women,” I said.
“But not one,” Susan said. “I guess that’s right,” I said.
“You ought to know.”
“You think I’m too contained?” I said.
“You have me,” Susan said.
“A claim no one else can currently make,” I said.
“It makes your containment more flexible,” Susan said.
“More fun too,” I said.
“You’re just saying that because I balled your ears off an hour ago.”
“Not just that,” I said.
Susan ate some of her food.
“This is very good,” she said.
“You deserve it,” I said.
“Because I’m deeply insightful?”
“Sure,” I said. “And you also balled my ears off about an hour ago.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I had a couple of ways to go in chasing down Louis Vincent. I could talk to the cops in Hingham where he lived. Or I could talk to people at Hall, Peary where he worked. Hall, Peary was closer, so I called over there and talked with Phyllis Wasserman, the human resources director. She told me that of the five complaints of sexual harassment they’d had in the past year, one involved stalking and remained unsolved. Two others, she said, were much closer to angry disagreement than they were to sexual harassment, and the last two had been resolved by firing the harasses I asked who was involved in the stalking, and she said she was not at liberty. I asked if she would give my name to the victim and ask her to call me. She said she would.
While I was waiting hopefully, I called the Hingham police. It took a little while but I got to the chief, whose name was Roach. They’d had two stalking complaints in the last year. In one case the stalker had been in violation of a court order, and they had been able to arrest him and urge him to change his ways.
“You give me the name?” I said.
“Not without a good reason,” Roach said.
“Well, was the stalker a Hingham resident?”
“No.”
“Was he a stockbroker?”
“Hell no.”
“Okay,” I said. “What about the other one?”
“Never caught the guy.”
“But the stalking stopped?”
“Yep. My guess is he found someone else.”
“That’s my guess too,” I said. “Can you give me the name of the victim?”
“Nope.”
“Can you give her my name and number, and remind her that I’m trying to help some other woman who’s going through what she went through?”
“I can do that,” Roach said.
“Thanks.”
I hung up and sat. The phone was quiet. I swiveled my chair so I could look out my window at the corner of Berkeley and Boylston. I opened the window so I could listen to the traffic. People were already in summer clothes although we were only about half done with May. There was a Ford Explorer waiting for the light on Boylston Street. The sunroof was open and there was heavy metal music thundering up. As I watched, someone stuck a sign out of the sunroof that said Brendan Cooney for King. The light changed. The Explorer moved on, its exuberant sign still deployed. The young are very different than we are, I said to myself. Yes, I responded, they have more time. What if you could be young again and were able to undo the things that were done that made you into the person you would later become. But then who would you be. Would Hawk have been Hawk if he hadn’t met Professor Crawford/Abdullah? Maybe this wasn’t a useful avenue of inquiry. Maybe I should run over a list of the women I’d slept with and see if I could remember how each of them looked with their clothes off.
I was up to Brenda Loring, who had looked excellent with her clothes off, when the phone rang.
“This is Meredith Teitler,” a woman said. “Phyllis Wasserman gave me your number.”
“I’m a detective,” I said. “I represent a woman who is currently being stalked.”
“I understand,” Meredith said. “What do you wish to know?”
“You worked at Hall, Peary?”
“Still do,” she said.
“You were a stalking victim.”
“Yes.”
“Is it still a problem?”
“I am no longer being stalked,” she said.
“Did you ever identify the stalker?”
“No.”
“Did you ever date anyone at Hall, Peary?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“He wouldn’t have been the stalker.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Well, he just wouldn’t. He was, is very nice.”
“Can you give me his name?”
“No, really, I’m happy to help. But I don’t wish to make trouble for a man who’s guilty of nothing.”
“Did you ever date Louis Vincent?” I said.
There was silence.
After a moment I said, “May I take that as a yes?”
“Why did you ask about Louis?”
“He’s suspected in a stalking on the North Shore,” I said.
Again silence. This time I waited her out.
“Yes,” she said finally, “I dated Louis Vincent.”
“And what caused you to stop dating?” I said. “I… I went back to my husband,” she said. “I had dated Louis while my husband and I were separated.”
“How’d he feel about you reuniting with your husband?”
“He was very much for it,” she said. “That’s why I can’t…”
“Did he have any thought that you might continue to see each other after you reunited?”
“I… well, he did say at one point it would be fun if we could still meet once a week or so and… ah… be in bed together.”
“And you said no.”
“I said I didn’t see how that would work if I were married again. He said he understood.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Will this have to come out?” she said. “I mean my husband and I… well, it’s working now. I’d hate to drag this thing back up.”
“I don’t see why it has to be a public thing,” I said.
“I don’t really believe it was Lou,” she said.
“You never know,” I said.
Profound.
I hung up and went back to looking out the window, and thinking about nudity. It was late afternoon and I was up to how Susan looked with her clothes off, when the phone rang. It was a guy named Al.
“I’m calling for a woman in Hingham,” he said. “You know who I mean?”
“Yes,” I said.
“She doesn’t want to talk about the stalking thing. But if she can help stop it for some other woman she wants to help. She asked me to call.”
“You her husband?”
“Something like that,” Al said. “I can answer most of your questions.”
“One, really,” I said. “She ever date a guy named Louis Vincent?”
“I’ll ask her,” Al said.
The line was silent for a minute or so, then Al came back on the line.
“Yes,” he said.
“Anything she can tell me about him?”
“No.”
“Already been discussed?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Thank her for me,” I said.