"He wanted to know what you asked about Mr. Smith, and what I told you."

"And why are you telling me?"

She stopped as if she hadn't thought about that before. I nodded encouragingly.

"I, well, I guess I thought it was important," she said.

"Un huh?"

"I mean, you are investigating his death."

"Do you have a theory about what the connection might be?" I said.

"They seemed pretty worried about you."

""They" being Marvin Conroy?"

"Yes."

"Why do you call him "they"?"

"I don't know. I guess..." She paused and thought about my question. "I guess it's because I think there are people behind him."

"How so?"

"I think he has allegiances outside the bank," she said.

"Why do you think that?"

She was sitting very straight in her chair, sitting with her knees together, leaning forward from the waist. The position hiked her short skirt to mid thigh. I admired her legs.

"Well, he came in as a partner all of a sudden," she said. "This was a family-owned bank for more than a hundred years and all of a sudden here comes this man who's not a member of the family, and not, um, not of the social cla.s.s you'd expect. And he wasn't in the bank much. When he was, he was... I don't know how to explain it. It's just an impression. But he was like some kind of court-appointed monitor, you know, like he was overseeing something."

"What social cla.s.s is Conroy?"

"I don't mean he's what my mother would have called low cla.s.s. But Mr. Smith was always so civilized and charming and gentle. He'd never fire anybody. He always made sure people were taken care of if they were sick or on maternity leave or anything. If there was an employee problem, he would call them into his office and talk it through with them."

"Conroy was a little less civilized?"

"He wasn't a dese, dem, dose kind of man. He was obviously educated. But he was very..." She searched for a phrase. "He was a bottom-line person. Very hard-nosed, no nonsense."

"Do you have an address for Conroy?" I said.

"Just the bank," she said.

"Okay. I'll go see him there."

"You won't tell him I spoke to you?"

"Not if you don't want me to."

"He's so..." She fluttered her hand. "He's so cold. He seems like someone who doesn't care about people."

"Does he frighten you?"

"Yes."

"It'll be our secret," I said.

She sat back, her body still straight, her knees still together. Both her feet were firmly on the floor, and she tugged the hem of her skirt slightly forward toward her knees. It was an automatic grooming gesture, like fluffing her hair. She probably didn't know she was doing it.

I smiled at her.

She looked at me.

"That's the other reason I came to tell you about this," she said.

"Which is?"

"That he frightens me."

I nodded.

"You seemed like someone to talk to if I'm frightened," she said.

I didn't have anything to say about that, so I smiled encouragingly.

"You seem like someone who would protect me," she said.

"Do you think you need protection?" I said.

"No, not really. I think I'm probably being a bit of a sissy."

"Anyone threaten you?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that. Conroy said I wasn't to talk of this matter, but he meant if I wanted a letter of reference for my next job."

I gave her my card. On the back of it, I wrote Hawk's name and cell phone number.

"If you feel threatened, call me, at any hour. If you don't reach me, call the number on the back. It's a large black man with his head shaved who could protect Australia if he were asked."

"Will he know who I am?"

"Yes."

"It's silly, of course. But I feel better knowing there's someone I can call."

"Anyone would," I said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

"Do you think she's in any real danger?" Susan said.

"Probably not," I said. "She's a bright young woman. Went to school, got an MBA, and this is the first time she's been fired."

"So her ego requires her to invest it with cosmic proportion."

"Once she's been fired a few times, she'll get used to it," I said.

"The voice of experience?"

"Something like that," I said.

I was cooking supper and Susan was pitching in by sitting at my kitchen counter drinking white wine and watching.

"Are you sure you're cooking those scallops long enough?" she said.

"Of what can we be sure," I said, "in this uncertain world?"

"We're not going to discuss the nature of being, are we?" Susan said.

"No."

"Thank G.o.d."

"Or whoever," I said.

"Stop that," Susan said.

She sipped her wine. I tossed the scallops in the saute pan one more time and slid them onto a plate.

"They don't look cooked to me," she said.

"Suze," I said, "when you make tea, you burn the water."

"Do I hear you saying shut the f.u.c.k up?"

"At least about cooking," I said.

"Mum's the word."

I also dente'd the pasta and found it correct and poured it through a colander. I added some green peas and the sauteed scallops and tossed it all with some pesto sauce and put it on the counter. We ate at the counter, sitting side by side. Susan broke off a tiny piece from a loaf of French bread and ate it with a minimalist forkful of the pasta.

"You're right," she said. "You don't need my help."

"Not to cook," I said.

"Or much of anything else," she said.

I glanced at her sideways. "What about, you know?" I said.

"I don't consider that help," she said.

"Well, you are certainly not a hindrance," I said.

"Sometimes I think it's the only thing I'm good at."

I drank some beer. "Well, if there could only be one thing..." I said.

She didn't say anything. I could feel us drifting into a more serious corner of the evening.

"I can't get that kid out of my head," Susan said.

"The suicide?"

"Yes."

"Would you expect to, this soon after?"

"No," she said, "I suppose I wouldn't."

"In time," I said, "the sharp edges round off."

"I hope so."

"Seems a shame," I said, "that so harmless a variation should cause such pain."

"I know," Susan said. "People, especially young people, often think the circles they are in are the only circles that matter. They don't realize that there is a world where n.o.body much gives a G.o.dd.a.m.n."

Susan finished her wine. I poured her some more. She gestured me to stop at half a gla.s.s.

"It's not the condition," she said, "or whatever. It's the concealment."

"Like Watergate," I said. "It wasn't the burglary that caused all the trouble; it was the cover-up."

"Something like that," Susan said. "Pretending to be what you are not fills people with self-loathing. If they share their secret, even with a s.e.x partner, then others have power over them. They are vulnerable to blackmail of one kind or another."

I carefully twirled some pasta onto my fork. Susan could eat with chopsticks, but she was nowhere at twirling pasta.

"You know," I said, "prior to Mary Smith, I cannot find any sign of a s.e.x partner for Nathan Smith."

"How old was he when he got married?"