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Boulder Safe House. I helped Safe House raise money each year. I was an advocate for all they did.
    But I didn’t know where the actual sanctuary was located. None of my patients who used the services had ever told me. None of the Safe House staff had ever told me. My wife, the DA, had never told me.
    Why? The more people who knew the location of the building, the less safe Safe House was.
    So I wasn’t surprised when Diane’s message informed me that the five-thirty meeting with the Safe House director to discuss Gibbs Storey’s situation would be at our offices on Walnut Street, not at Safe House.
    Celeste Clayton-CeeCee to her friends-was a contemporary urban
balabosta
. She was all smiles and hugs, competence and compassion. If she couldn’t tuck you in, feed you, or wipe away a tear, her day was ruined. Ten minutes late for our meeting, she bustled into my office with a big smile and with her arms spread wide to engulf Diane in an embrace.
    My turn was next. I’d been perfunctorily introduced to Celeste at a couple of fund-raisers and had spoken with her on the phone a few times about mutual clients. Still, the hug she gave me was every bit as robust as the one she gave Diane.
    She plopped onto the chair across from me, looked around my office, and said, “Nice digs.”
    Diane said, “Don’t be fooled. The decorating panache is mine. He just wrote the checks.”
    It wasn’t completely true, but Diane knew that I wouldn’t contradict her in front of company. I said, “Celeste, thanks for doing this on such short notice.”
    “ ‘Notice’ is a foreign concept in my business. People don’t usually anticipate when they will need emergency shelter from abusers. So what’s up? Diane said this one would raise my eyebrows. That’ll take some doing. I’ve been in the battered spouse business for so many years that I know most of the stories before anybody tells me word one.”
    I handed Celeste a signed release from Gibbs Storey. She glanced at it and proceeded to stick it into a fat Day-Timer that screamed “black hole.” I was confident there were papers stuffed in that book that were older than my Social Security card.
    “Years ago, ten or so, Diane and I briefly treated a married couple. The wife’s name is Gibbs Storey. They left-”
    “Gibbs. That’s
b-s
?”
    Diane laughed. I said, “Yes. Well, two
b
s and an
s
.”
    “Go on.”
    “The Storeys left town after what, Diane, three or four sessions?” Diane nodded. “Neither of us heard from them again until ten days ago when Gibbs called me for an appointment that took place this morning. She told me they’d moved back to town a few months ago. Within a few minutes she went on to implicate her husband in an unsolved murder in California.”
    “Implicate?” Celeste asked.
    “She accused him of murdering a friend of theirs with whom he was having an extramarital affair.”
    “Wow.” My impression was that Celeste wasn’t registering amazement at the facts. She was registering amazement that she was really hearing a new battered woman story.
    “Gibbs feels that she will be in significant physical danger from her husband once he discovers that she has spoken with the police. I don’t have any valid reason to question her conclusion.”
    “Is there a history of battering?”
    Diane spoke up. “We’re in a difficult position with you on that, CeeCee. Alan and I saw the Storeys as a couple. Virtually all of what we know about him comes from that couples treatment. That therapy is confidential-we can’t talk about it without his permission.”
    “Even if she’s in danger?”
    “Danger’s not enough,” Diane replied. “He would have had to make a threat against her for us to breach privilege. Sterling”-she cleared her throat-“hasn’t done that. At least not in our presence. Absent the overt threat, we can’t talk about him without a release.”
    Celeste said, “Something tells me he’s unlikely to grant the release, isn’t he?