High Profile

“So you figured it was his, ah, fault,” Jesse said.

“I know, fault isn’t the right word, and by the time I was having my children, I wasn’t really thinking much about Walton—but yes, one would have assumed that he was the infertile one in our marriage.”

“Apparently neither of you were,” Jesse said.

“He never had children in either of his other marriages,”

Ellen said.

“Maybe this time he got medical help.”

“That would not be the Walton Weeks I knew,” Ellen said.

“People change,” Jesse said.

“Not without help,” Ellen said.

“Psychiatric help?”

“Yes. And Walton would never consider it.”

Jesse smiled.

“Sometimes people change,” he said.

Ellen shrugged slightly.

“Or circumstances do,” she said.

“You think he needed shrink help,” Jesse said.

“The infertility thing bothered him,” she said. “And that distance-around-him thing, and . . . the womanizing. Yes, he needed help.”

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R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

“Do you know the other wives?” Jesse said.

“I’ve met them. I don’t really know them.”

“Do you know why he was in Boston?”

“No.”

“Do you know of any connection with Paradise.”

“Of course,” she said. “You don’t know?”

Jesse shook his head.

“He used to come here as a boy. His parents would rent a place every summer. He and his mother would spend the summers here. His father would come on the weekends.”

“Where was the house?” Jesse said.

“He said it was near the beach. Some college professor went to Europe every summer and rented his house out.”

“Did he ever come here later?” Jesse said.

“Not that I know of. But it was always, pardon the pun, a paradise lost for him. He always talked about it as if it were magical.”

“Do you have any idea who might have killed him?”

“No,” she said.

Jesse was quiet.

“But,” she said, “I’ll bet it was a woman, or about a woman.”

“Do you have an alibi for the time of his death?” Jesse said.

“I know you have to ask,” she said. “Yes, I have an alibi.”

“I haven’t told you exactly when he died,” Jesse said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ellen Migliore said. “I haven’t left Italy in five years.”

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H I G H P R O F I L E

“And you can prove it,” Jesse said.

“Yes.”

“That should cover you,” Jesse said. “Do you have time to give us a statement today?”

“Of course,” she said. “Will there be any kind of memorial service for Walton?”

“Not that I know of,” Jesse said.

“How sad. Shuffled off the stage so quickly, and with so few trumpets.”

“He may not care,” Jesse said.

Ellen nodded.

“I’ll ask Molly Crane to take your statement,” Jesse said.

“Police chiefs don’t take statements?” she said.

“Police chiefs tend to screw up the tape recorder,” Jesse said.

“I’m not so sure,” Ellen said, “that I believe you’ve ever screwed up anything.”

“Maybe a few relationships,” Jesse said.

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28

Some people,” Dix said, “find that they are infertile and are saddened but say, in effect, ‘We still have each other,’

and get on with their lives. Some adopt. Some fear infertility as a personal failure and refuse to be tested, or even admit to it. These people usually blame their partner.”

The office walls were bare white. There was a green couch against one wall. Jesse had never been on it. Through the window Jesse could see the treetops tossing a bit in the wind, and the gray clouds being pushed aside by the same wind. There was some blue sky showing.

Dix smiled briefly.

H I G H P R O F I L E

“It is these people,” he said, “whom we see most often.”

“And their partners,” Jesse said.

“Often,” Dix said. “I am not enthusiastic about couples counseling. But in some cases it seems effective. If more intensive therapy seems indicated, I refer one of them.”

“Is there anyone in Boston,” Jesse said, “especially famous for dealing with such issues?”

“Jonah Levy,” Dix said. “He’s a psychiatrist, in practice with a gynecologist named Frances Malloy, who probably knows more about the biology of infertility than anyone in the world, and a urologist named Edward Margolis, who would know more about infertility than anyone in the world if it weren’t for Frances.”

“They’d be widely known?”

“Very.”

“Nationally?”

“Worldwide,” Dix said.

“So it’s plausible that Walton Weeks might come up here to seek his help.”

“It is quite plausible,” Dix said. “Any fertility specialist in the world might well refer a difficult fertility case to Jonah. Particularly a high-profile one.”

“Because?”

“High-profile?”

“Yes.”

“Because Jonah is both very expensive and very discreet. One assumes Walton Weeks could afford him and would want discretion.”

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R O B E R T B . P A R K E R

“Do you know them?” Jesse said.

“I know Jonah.”

“If he was treating Weeks, and maybe Carey Longley, would he talk about it? Privileged communication and all?”

“Most doctors are guided by their patients’ best interests,” Dix said. “It would seem that Weeks’s best interest, and Longley’s, if she was a patient as well, would be served by talking about it.”

“Inasmuch as it might help solve their murder,” Jesse said.

“Inasmuch,” Dix said.

“That sounds pretty sensible,” Jesse said.