We didn’t make love. I lay down in bed nude, like I always used to sleep with her. She slept in her panties, a new innovation. We made out a little but then she patted me on the arm and pulled away, gently but obviously. It was like a switch flipped off. This had been happening for a long time. It made what took place last year more remarkable. Every marriage has its ups and downs. Every marriage has moments when you think you’ve awakened with a total stranger, when you have moments when you really dislike this person you know that you love. Our story was nothing special. That’s what I told myself. But Lindsey’s waning interest in sex didn’t mean she wasn’t interested. I wasn’t that self-absorbed. It meant she wasn’t interested in sex with me. I lay awake as she slept. On her side of the bed, I noticed a blue pack of Gauloises Blondes. She was smoking again, but not around me. I wondered who else she might share a cigarette with?
In the study now, Robin joined us. Judson Lee stood and introduced himself, holding her hand in a courtly way. “What a beautiful name, Robin,” he said. I thought he was going to kiss her hand.
He sat back down and resumed. “This isn’t about Harley Talbott, directly. My client is Nick DeSimone, the restaurant owner. He’s a great guy. Have you been to his place?” His hands gesticulated in his small lap.
“When I can afford Scottsdale prices.”
“Ah.” One of the black slashes of eyebrows arched. In the light, his face bore the signs of Scottsdale or Paradise Valley privilege-or rather lack of signs: in spite of its sun-leathered color, it was barely wrinkled. “Well, Mr. DeSimone’s grandfather Paolo worked for Harley Talbott when he was young. He was an impressionable kid. Harley was a big personality. Paolo went to prison for Harley Talbott.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m out of the cold-case business.”
“This was a miscarriage of justice,” he said. “Paolo was no angel at times, that’s true. But he had cleaned himself up, started a family. Then this incident happened and he was made to take the fall. His family deserves to have his name cleared.”
I told him I could recommend some good private investigators.
“But you’re a historian, no? What I’m proposing, Dr. Mapstone, and what my client is willing to pay for, is what you might call family history.”
“A family history that clears his grandfather?”
“I can’t think of a better person to do it. You solved the murder of the FBI agent, after how many decades? And the Yarnell kidnapping. I know your reputation.”
