Act of God

“Once.”
    “How long?”
    “Not long enough.”
    Rivkind looked at me. “Oh, John. She died, too?”
    “A time ago. It... passes, mostly.”
    The woman became almost animated, maybe distracted from her own grief by being concerned for someone else’s. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...” Then Rivkind seemed to remember why she was in my office. “Anyway, I knew my Abe pretty well. The last couple of months, it was like...” Rivkind turned her head, as though she were concerned about the State House dome, too. “This is very embarrassing to have to say.”
    “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” Rivkind came back to me. “Abe and me, we always had a good marriage. I mean in... in the bedroom. The last couple of months, though, it was like he didn’t have his usual... pep, you know what I mean?”
    “I think so.”
    “I asked him, was he worried about work, he said no. I asked him, was it me, he said no. I already went through... the change, five years ago, so I didn’t think it could be that. I even bought some magazines said they had articles about men when they’re older—don’t get me wrong, Abe wasn’t old, he was only fifty-seven—but these articles, they talked about ‘testosterone,’ so I thought that might be it. I even asked him once…” Rivkind looked down toward her hands, maybe at the band and diamond on her left ring finger. “I said to him, I said, ‘Abe, you being unfaithful to me?,’ and he said ‘No,’ and so I figured that was that.”
    “Pearl—”
    “You see, my Abe, he never lied to me. Never, not once. He survived the camps, John, the Nazi camps. Buchenwald . To live you had to lie, every day, every way. He never, ever lied to me once during our marriage, John. He never lied to anybody. Ask his partner, Joel; ask our son, Larry. Everybody called him ‘Honest Abe.’ The store didn’t already have a good name when they bought it, they would have changed it to ‘Honest Abe’s.’ Believe me.”
    “Then I don’t see what you want me to do.”
    Rivkind deflated a little. “I don’t know, can you find out who killed him. It’s so... random. Joel, he said to me, ‘An act of God, Pearl . An act of God, who can explain these things?’ But maybe you can, and if you can, I want to know. I want to know who killed my Abe.”
    “ Pearl , the police are a lot better at that sort of thing than a private investigator. They have the resources.”
    “Resources?”
    “Squads of detectives, laboratories, access to other criminals who might give the killer up to cut a better deal for themselves. I’d have to get awfully lucky.”
    “Okay then. Like I said, I don’t know from murder, except what I see on TV. This kind of thing, it never... touched me before. So you don’t find out who killed my husband, I’d understand. But it seems to me there’s one thing you can find out. You can find out did my Abe lie to me. You can find out, was he having an affair on me.”
    “Pearl—”
    “Look, I know what you told us before, about your conflict thing. And I know if I was sitting where you are, I’d be worrying, ‘Is this Darbra that one client wants me to find also the woman that my other client wants to know had an affair with her Abe?’ Well, I don’t care who the other woman is. I mean that now, and I’ll mean it all the way through. I just want to know did my Abe lie to me, and I got to tell you, John, I don’t think I can go through this with somebody else if you won’t help me.”
    Pearl Rivkind crumpled what was left of the first tissue and dipped into her bag for another. With all the practice she’d probably had recently, she still didn’t do it very well, and somehow that kind of persuaded me.

    I said, “How was your coffee?”
    The corner of his lips curled a little more. “Excellent. I found the most charming hole-in-the-wall place with a hazelnut blend that was out of this world. I really would have been happy to bring you some.”
    “Thanks anyway.”
    “Mrs. Rivkind said she’d be back in fifteen minutes. The poor woman, you can just see how badly she’s taking all this.”
    I watched William Proft. He spoke without emotion in his voice, as though he were reporting accurately rather than caring at all about her. It reminded me of how we used to talk in class during my one year of law school.
    “Mr. Proft, can you tell me what you know about your sister’s disappearance?”
    “Certainly. I got a