A Fine Line by William G. Tapply Page A

opera they piped in through the speakers, and we didn’t talk about arson fires or the deaths of friends or missing college boys.
    When we got back to my place, Evie said she guessed she’d head for home. I went down to the parking garage with her. She climbed into her car, rolled down the window, and stuck her face up at me for a kiss, which I readily delivered.
    “Given it any more thought?” she said.
    “Shacking up, you mean?”
    She smiled. “Couldn’t we call it something else?”
    “I saw you studying the real estate section.”
    “I figured you were so engrossed in the sports you wouldn’t notice.”
    “I noticed,” I said. “See anything?”
    “I saw a lot.” She started up her car. “Maybe a picnic this week?”
    “I’d like that. I’ll probably have a dog with me.”
    “Good. I like Henry.” She reached out and touched my cheek. “Are you okay?”
    “I’ll feel better when Ethan Duffy shows up.” I hesitated, then said, “I’d feel a lot better if you weren’t leaving.”
    She nodded. “Me, too. But that’s how it is right now. Call and tuck me in, okay?”
    I watched Evie pull out of the garage. Then I got into the elevator and went up to my apartment.
    I was thinking: I’d had several fairly serious relationships since I split with Gloria. For a while it seemed that Alex Shaw and I had a chance of making it. I know I loved her. But with Alex, our “weekend marriage,” as she called it, felt just right to me. She lived in southern Maine, more than a two-hour drive from Boston, and I didn’t mind being apart from her Monday through Friday. I liked spending the weekends with her, but I liked missing her during the week when we didn’t see each other, too.
    With Evie, I didn’t like missing her during the week at all. I wanted to be with her all the time.
    Scary.

T EN
    W hen I got to the office Monday morning, Henry came bounding over from Julie’s desk. I squatted down to rub his ears, and he licked my face and wagged his entire hind end.
    “How’d it go?” I said to Julie.
    “Megan cried this morning when I told her I was bringing him back to you. She played with him the entire weekend. He slept on her bed.”
    “On the bed, huh?”
    “I told her he could sleep in her room provided he stayed on the floor. When I went in the next morning, he was curled up beside her with his chin on her shoulder. I bawled her out. She claimed he must have snuck up there after she went to sleep.”
    “At least he didn’t crawl under the covers.”
    She smiled.
    “You better get Megan a dog.”
    “That’s what Edward says. We’ll see.”
    When I went into my office, Henry followed me. When Isat at my desk, he slipped around my legs and curled up under them. I liked having him there by my feet while I talked on the telephone and read legal documents.
    Julie buzzed me a little before noontime. “There are two people here to see you,” she said.
    “Who?”
    “Detective Mendoza and Lieutenant Keeler. I told them you only had a minute.” That was for their benefit, I knew. Julie likes to promote the illusion that I am busy and in-demand.
    “I’ve got many minutes,” I said. “Tell them to come on in.”
    A minute later, the door opened and Detective Saundra Mendoza came in, followed by Keeler, the tall redheaded arson cop I’d met Sunday morning at the scene of the fire. Keeler looked tired. Mendoza looked angry.
    Henry scrambled out from under my desk and went over to sniff them. Each of them gave him a perfunctory pat on the head.
    I told Henry to come back, and he did, reluctantly. I pointed at the floor and told him to lie down. He did that, too.
    “You got him trained,” said Mendoza. She was wearing black leather pants, black boots, and a red short-sleeved jersey.
    “The offer’s still open. You want a dog?”
    “Not me,” she said. “My sister’s cats don’t like dogs.”
    “What about you?” I said to Keeler. “You want a dog?”
    He smiled quickly and shook his