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his protestations of discretion.
    “Not the river here. I mean, she took me rowing nearby, as far as the Watertown dam, but that’s as far upstream as you can go in a racing scull. She was a kayaker, too, and she took me where the Charles is — well, I never knew, but it’s winding and it changes. Up in Waltham, in Newton — it was like we were a million miles from the Northeast, in a different country.”
    “Where did you have sex? Did you take her to your house?”
    “Never.”
    “Your office?”
    They had done it in his office and in a locked classroom, as well as in a Somerville motor court and a small Cambridge inn. She was a goddess, all the good things that had ever happened, and I was wickedly undermining her goodness with suggestions that she’d spilled the beans about her married lover.
    I blew out a breath and considered his impassioned defense of Denali Brinkman, his refusal to discuss her demise. She was dead, elevated to the dream-lover status Sam Gianelli had achieved while still alive. She was flawless, rowing tirelessly on the river at twilight, bathed in a Technicolor glow, forever young.
    I snapped my notebook shut. I had a place to start. Harvard freshmen live on campus, and one of the few facts that Chaney had retained was the name of the dormitory in which Denali had lived. Phillips House was within easy walking distance.
    The doorbell rang, and damned if my wristwatch didn’t agree with the wall clock: 5:35. Leon. I’d been so deeply into the memory of Chaney’s words and actions that I’d forgotten, and what would a professor with a background in psychology say about that?
    I put my eye to the peephole, a habit of mine. Leon Wells rocked on the stoop, moving almost imperceptibly on the balls of his feet in a way that would have identified him as a cop even if I didn’t know he’d been one before his ascent, or descent, to the FBI. Leon is six two, handsome, the color of mahogany. His head is shaved and oiled, and his smile reveals even white teeth. He’s part American Indian, like Chaney’s girlfriend, but he shows it, with a hawklike nose and jutting cheekbones. He waited with an air of alert stillness, as though he’d be ready for anything that popped out from behind my door.
    I wanted to ask about his friendship with Wilson Chaney, but I couldn’t. I unlocked the door, which takes awhile. Two good standard locks, plus the dead bolt. Neighborhood’s popular with thieves as well as Harvard grads.
    “You ready?” he asked.
    “Come in, get yourself a drink. I have to change.”
    “You look fine.”
    “It’ll only take a minute.”
    I helped him locate a Rolling Rock, grabbed a package off the dining room table, and scooted upstairs. I’d bought black bikini underwear at the Gap. Why bother getting new stuff if you’re not going to wear it?
     
Chapter 4
     
    Leon left the house just before 6:30 A.M. I didn’t give him the early-morning boot because of concern about gossipy neighbors. If I’d been concerned about the neighbors, I’d have made him sneak out while it was pitch-dark, 6:30 being way too late to escape the righteous bunch of early-morning joggers who live nearby. Leon left early because sometimes my little sister drops by before school starts to have a cup of coffee, pick up a change of clothes, or grab a textbook. She doesn’t live with me full-time, but she sleeps here two nights a week when her mom works late. On those two nights, I never entertain gentlemen callers, and she never finds a man here in the morning. You might think my behavior hypocritical, and that’s the point; she would think it vastly hypocritical that I, an unmarried woman, sleep with my boyfriend and yet strongly discourage her from sleeping with hers. She wouldn’t see the difference, but I do. I’m over thirty and she’s under sixteen, and that’s the biggest difference in the world.
    So I rushed Leon out the door, and of course she didn’t show. I thought about going back to bed