Swan Dive

Christides would have gotten Hanna a nice nest egg to start a new life. So instead you have to play El Cid with Roy , and he looks for love in at least one wrong place and ends up dead. Forever. If you just could have waited till he was over the spouse-lock, nobody—”
    ”The spouse-lock?”
    ”Yes. It’s a term some pop psychologists throw around. It means being fixated on the spouse you’re about to lose, or already have lost through death or divorce.”
    I couldn’t avoid thinking about Beth as Arnold went on.
    ” Roy didn’t care about Hanna in the loving sense anymore. Maybe he never did. But he wasn’t about to let her go. Not until he was finished with her. I was like that with my husband. He died, out drinking with the boys and killed in a car crash. I was twenty-one years old. Fortunately we hadn’t started a family yet, and I damn well wasn’t interested in starting one without him. He had a whole-life policy that saw me through law school without any debts. That way I could start on my own, instead of for some potbellied lecher who was the only lawyer interested in hiring a ‘female associate’ back when I graduated. But I couldn’t get my husband off my mind for months afterwards, even though it was his fault that I was alone and without him.”
    I was still thinking about Beth when Arnold said, ”Are you all right?”
    I said, ”Yeah, fine.”
    ”You look a bit weary. How about a drink?”
    ”No, thanks.”
    ”Oh, come on. I’ll bet we have a lot in common.”
    I looked at her a little too long. ”No, I don’t think so.” I stood to go.
    ”At least bring me the drinks that Paul made.”
    I walked toward the pool edge. She said, ”You know, Paul really couldn’t have had anything to do with ‘setting you up,’ as you say.”
    I thought about Chris giving him an alibi, but said, ”And why’s that?”
    ”Well, for one thing, he’s too proud of his boxing prowess. If it had been him, he would have made sure you had seen him, so you’d know that he had beaten you.”
    I bent over and picked up the drinks. ”Any other reason?”
    ”Yes. I litigated a lot of criminal cases before I gravitated to divorce practice. His attitude is all wrong. If he had done it, he already would have tasted his revenge and acted smug, not angry, toward you this afternoon.”
    I walked back, setting the glasses on her table.
    She said, ”I liked the way you handled yourself with Paul today.”
    ”Macho posturing.”
    She laughed, deep in her throat the way some older women can. ”Macho posturing can have its place. And charms.”
    Her left hand had been lying relaxed on her flat stomach. Now the fingertips slowly began strumming near her navel. The spider, mending a weak spot in the web.
    ”You know you ought to be more careful around Paulie, Ms. Arnold. There’s no worse enemy than one you’ve trained yourself.”
    ”Really?”
    ”While you think you’re teaching him everything he knows, he’s learning everything you know.”
    Her expression hardened. ”Mr. Cuddy, I’ve kept myself looking like this and feeling fine by learning a lot myself. Over the years I watched plenty of women slide from bombshells into craters. I do aerobics and Nautilus three times a week, and I can recline-press as much as the average fifteen-year-old boy. When I need your advice, I’ll ask for it.”
    I turned to go and went about ten steps before I said, ”Oh, one more thing.”
    She’d pulled off half of one of the drinks already. ”What is it?”
    ”How’d you happen to know Roy Marsh?”
    ”Oh,” she said, thumb and index dipping toward the slice of lime in her drink and voice supremely casual, ”He was my insurance agent.”

    From Marblehead I drove south, angling toward the Marsh house. I wanted to have a talk with Sheilah Kelley, and I remembered Chris mentioning she was off on Tuesdays. There was a car in the driveway, but it wasn’t her little brown Toyota . The brightly polished red Buick was at least ten years old. I pulled to the curb three houses down and walked back up, ringing the bell in front this time.
    A burly older man in a lumberjack’s shirt yanked open the door. He had bushy eyebrows, a longish crew cut, and unfashionable muttonchop sideburns. He gave me a disgusted look and said, ”We don’t want any,” as he swung the door closed.
    I put my foot at the jamb and used the palm of my hand to cushion the door’s arcing momentum. My greeter balled his right into a fist and