“Sarah's in Boston. Teaches pediatrics at Tufts. David's a biologist at the National Cancer Institute in Washington.”

“Three for three,” I said.

She smiled and looked at the fish tank. “Batting a thousand . . . Harvey liked baseball. You only met him once?”

“Yes.” I told her where and when.

“Harvey,” she said, savoring the word, “was the nicest man I've ever known. My mother used to say don't marry for looks or money, both can disappear fast, so marry for nice.”

“Good advice.”

“Are you married?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you have someone?”

“Yes. And she's very nice.”

“Good.” She began laughing. Very little sound came out, but her face was animated. Managing to raise one hand, she touched her chest. “Forget the Ph.D. I'm just a Jewish mother.”

“Maybe the two aren't all that different.”

“No. They are. Therapists don't judge, right? Or at least we pretend we don't. Mothers are always judging.”

She tried to lift an envelope from the mail stack. Got hold of a corner and fumbled.

“Tell me,” she said, letting go, “about my husband.”

I began, including the other murders but leaving out the savagery. When I reached the part about “bad love” and my revenge theory, her eyes started blinking rapidly and I was afraid I'd caused some sort of stress reaction. But when I paused, she said, “Go on,” and as I did, she seemed to sit up straighter and taller, and a cool, analytic light sharpened her eyes.

The therapist in her driving out the patient.

I'd been there. Now I was on the couch, opening myself up to this tiny, crippled woman.

When I was finished, she looked at the dresser and said, “Open that middle drawer and take out the file.”

I found a black-and-white marbled box with a snap latch resting atop neatly folded sweaters. As I started to hand it to her, she said, “Open it.”

I sat down beside her and unlatched the box. Inside were documents, a thick sheaf of them. On top was Harvey Rosenblatt's medical license.

“Go on,” she said.

I began leafing. Psychiatric board certification. Internship and residency papers. A certificate from the Robert Evanston Hale Psychoanalytic Institute in Manhattan. Another from Southwick Hospital. A six-year-old letter from the dean of the NYU medical school reaffirming Rosenblatt's appointment as associate clinical professor of psychiatry. An honorable discharge from the Navy, where he'd served as a flight surgeon aboard an aircraft carrier. A couple of life insurance policies, one issued by the American Psychiatric Association. So he had been a member—the absence of an obituary was probably due to shame about suicide. As I came to his last will and testament, Shirley Rosenblatt looked away.

Death certificate. Burial forms.

I heard her say, “Should be next.”

Next was a stapled collection of photocopied sheets. The face sheet was white. Handwritten on it was “Investig. Info.”