“The night before my wife died.”
“With your wife?”
“Certainly, with my wife. We’ve been through this.”
“Why aren’t you angry with me? You should be at least a little angry,” she said. “I was angrier at the HMO clerk than you are at me for suggesting you might have had sex with someone other than your wife the night before she died.”
The chair I was sitting in was a recliner. I reclined and clasped my fingers together on my stomach.
“I don’t get angry anymore,” I said.
“Nothing makes you angry?”
“I don’t know. I think I’m looking for something to make me angry and I don’t want to find it. Does that make sense?”
“Perfect sense. Next question: Why do you always say ‘my wife’ instead of using her name? You have never spoken her name to me. You want to answer or you want to spend a week thinking about it?”
“It hurts.”
“To say her name?”
“Yes.”
“Pain sometimes just sits there waiting. If you confront it, perhaps it will get smaller. Do you want that pain to grow smaller?”
“I don’t know. No, I don’t want it to get smaller. I want it right there where I can find it.”
“And feel sorry for yourself?”
“Yes, there’s a great comfort in feeling sorry for myself.”
“When you’re ready, you’ll be able to say her name. It will hurt, but it will feel right.”
“I don’t want it to feel right.”
“We’ll see.”
“Her mother was overweight. Nice face, but overweight. I…”
“Yes?”
“Nothing.”
“Your wife was a lawyer.”
“Yes. I don’t want to talk about my wife today.”
She leaned forward, pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows and said, “Then we’ll put that aside for now. You are working? You plan to pay me so I assume you are working. What are you working on? Besides your dreams.”
“A runaway wife. A runaway girl.”
“This is one person or two? A runaway girl who is also a wife?”
I leaned farther back in the recliner and looked up at the ceiling.
“Two people.”
“And you are engaged, interested in finding them. It’s more than a job, a way to make money?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your wife ran away,” she said.
I remained calm and said,
“She died.”
“And you never had children.”
“You know that.”
“Are you angry yet?”
“Not even close.”
I didn’t look, but I was aware of her rising.
“Enough for today. Go look for your missing females. We’ll talk about them next week. A missing wife. A missing daughter. And that dream. One thing I think it might be telling you is to stop punishing yourself. You know the Italian ice shop on Seventeenth Street?”
It was my turn to sit up. The recliner slid back and I felt slightly dizzy as I opened my eyes.
“I know it.”
“Stop there. I recommend the banana chocolate. Melvin likes watermelon. Be good to yourself, Lewis.”
Ann Horowitz is a good six inches shorter than I am, and I’m touching the lower edge of average. I took out my wallet and handed her two twenty-dollar bills. I had first met her when I served papers on her to appear in court to testify in a case involving one of her patients. She had taken the papers at her door, dropped them on the table inside her apartment and invited me in. No one had ever invited me into their home after I served them papers.
She was fascinated by process serving, wanted to know all about it, told me that serving papers for appearances before tribunals went back to biblical times. I was a member of a historically important profession. That wasn’t the way I saw it. For me it was anywhere from twenty-five to fifty dollars for a few hours of work.
Ann Horowitz had said she saw pain in my eyes and asked if I wanted to talk about it. I said I didn’t and she asked, “How long can a person enjoy their pain?”
“Till they die, if they’re lucky.”
She gave me her card and said that she wanted to talk to me even if I didn’t want to talk to her. She planned to do more research on my honorable profession and fill me with history if not pride. She also said that she would charge me only ten dollars for each session. After our first session, I gave her twenty dollars and that became the fixed rate for our meetings. There had been a few times when I was behind on my payments, but I always caught up. I learned from a lawyer whose daughter was seeing Ann Horowitz that he was paying her an even one hundred per session, most of which was covered by his expensive health-care plan.
She handed me a copy of an article from Smithsonian magazine about John Marshall, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court.
“Jefferson hated him,” she said. “America was formed as much or more by Marshall than Washington or Jefferson. Great man. Read it. Tell me what you think. No hurry.”
There was a couple sitting in the outer office when I left holding my article. They looked embarrassed and familiar. The woman looked down, pretending to read a recent office copy of People. The man smiled and adjusted his glasses.
Ann told them to go into her office. Before she followed them, she whispered to me, “Someday you will be able to say her name and we can really begin.”
“I thought we began months ago,” I said.
“No, I’ve just been softening you up.”
She followed the couple through the office door and closed it behind her.
The wife’s voice came through to the reception room. I couldn’t make out the words, didn’t want to, but there was immediate pain, immediate anger.
I went in search of someone who might know how to find Adele Tree. I had someone in mind. My bicycle was locked to a No Parking sign. I had made up my mind. I had to rent a car. Carl Sebastian had to pay for it.
The EZ Economy Car Rental Agency was six doors north of Dave’s Dairy Queen on 301. EZ was located in a former gas station. There were cars parked in front, cars behind the lot. The bigger rental agencies were out at the airport. EZ claimed that they offered lower rates by being in a low-rent neighborhood and catering to those who wanted anything from a banged-up semi-wreck with 80,000 miles on it to a new Jaguar with a few thousand miles on it.
I had rented from EZ before when I had a job that required it. I preferred the bicycle.
The two men in rumpled suits inside the office of EZ were leaning back against the desk, arms folded, waiting for the phone to ring or me to walk in.
“The detective,” said the younger one with a smile that seemed sincere. He was no more than thirty and quickly growing as round as his older partner.
“Process server,” I corrected.
We had gone through this routine the last four or five times I had rented a car. It seemed to amuse both of the men.
“What can we do ya for?” said the older man.
They had introduced themselves when I first met them. One was Alan. The other was Fred. I couldn’t remember which was which.
“Compact.”
“We’ve got a Corolla,” said the young one.
“A Geo Prizm,” said the older one.
“Same difference,” said the younger.
The older man chuckled.
“How long?” asked the young one.
“What’s the weekly rate now?” I asked.
“For you?” asked the older man. “A hundred and eight-five plus insurance. The usual. You get it gas full. You return it gas full.”
“What have you got for a hundred and forty including insurance?”
“An Amish three-wheel bicycle,” said the young one.
They both laughed. The older one turned red and started to choke. The younger one patted him on the back till he returned to semi-normal.
“Oh God,” said the older one, wiping away tears.
“Geo Metro,” said the young one. “It’s clean. It’s this year. It’s white. It’s small and it runs. You just have to play the radio a little loud if you want to hear it. Air conditioner is great. We’ll throw in an air freshener, a green one shaped like a pine tree.”