Simmer Down

but the woman was Hannah. And when I saw the newspaper the next day, I figured out that the man was the guy who was killed: Oliver.”
    I knew it! “So Oliver was after Hannah?” I asked excitedly. “Wait, could she have been holding a bag of dried snap peas? And not chips?”
    Sean took a sip of his beer. “I guess. There was some green on the bag, now that I think about it. I wasn’t really paying attention to what brand she was using to batter the guy with. Maybe I should’ve gone in to help her, but I guess I was afraid of embarrassing her. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but then Oliver was murdered, and it wasn’t until the next day that I made the connection. And I’d seen Hannah fighting with him. I’m not sure whether or not to tell the police about it.”
    My Global Warming arrived. I took a long drink and then remembered that I was driving and shouldn’t drink much of it. Before responding to Sean, I pretended to be studying the contents of my glass. Okay, I thought, so the anonymous woman tvho’d been calling Naomi worked for the Full Moon Group, as did Hannah. The caller was being harassed, as was Hannah. At least one time, that is. So, was Hannah, in fact, the caller? Was Hannah driven to kill the man who was harassing her? As overeager as I was to throw Hannah in the slammer, it sounded as if she’d defended herself pretty effectively against Oliver. From what I knew of her, she was outspoken and tough. I wasn’t sure she would’ve put up with routine harassment from her boss.
    Then I caught myself. I had just blamed the victim. As Naomi was forever pointing out, harassment was not something that women allowed or didn’t allow. Strong, independent women were victims of harassment all the time.
    Our food arrived in all its deep-fried, high-calorie glory. “Ooh, this looks good,” Sean said, grabbing a chicken wing. Sean’s culinary preferences seemed to have deteriorated since we’d dated. In those days, he hadn’t displayed a marked craving for frozen appetizers. “So, what do you think? About calling the police?” He had a large glob of buffalo sauce on his cheek.
    “I’m thinking,” I answered, scooping up dip with a tortilla.
    If Hannah was the anonymous caller, she certainly had the support of the Boston Organization. More to the point, at the Eliot Davis Gallery, when Oliver had forced himself on her, she’d known that she was not alone in dealing with harassment—if, of course, she was our caller. And Naomi had been right there in the gallery. A terrible thought entered my mind: If the anonymous caller was Hannah, Naomi, who had spoken to her quite a few times on the phone, would have recognized Hannah’s voice when they met at the gallery. Naomi, herself the victim of harassment, had a passion for defending harassed women and had a particular interest in this case since she had formed a relationship with the caller. Seeing Oliver at the Eliot Davis Gallery, had Naomi connected Hannah’s description of her harasser with Oliver, who was also there that night? Maybe Naomi had even witnessed a scene like the one Sean had just described and had taken radical action to end Hannah’s victimization. With all of her yoga muscles, Naomi could easily have lifted up the Robocoupe and slammed it down on Oliver’s head. I had a clear image in my mind of Naomi leaving the office this morning for the Eliot Davis Gallery, supposedly to deliver a gift to Eliot. But didn’t criminals often return to the scene of the crime?
    “Chloe?” Ugh, Sean still had the sauce on his cheek. Couldn’t he feel it? Should I shove some napkins at him or just reach over and clean him up? Or would he take that the wrong way?
    “No, don’t call the police.” The last thing I wanted was for Naomi to be implicated, and if the police heard about the harassment Sean had seen, they’d inevitably follow the new lead to my supervisor. “I don’t think the Hannah and Oliver incident has anything to do with his murder,” I lied.
    “Good,” my ex said. “I still feel like I should’ve done something when I saw them fighting. I didn’t really want to have to tell the police about Hannah because—”
    “Look,” I interrupted. “It sounds like Hannah handled it.” I was done talking about Hannah the Horrible.
    Relieved that Sean obviously had no interest in reviving our failed relationship, I asked him about his life and caught up on his family. Twenty boring minutes later, I had