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House for breakfast. There was an older man who had pancakes and a younger one who just ordered coffee.”
    Randy marveled at her ability to remember such details. But of course, she
was
a Harvey Girl. “Josh was the older one,” he said.
    â€œI was only with him and the other man for a short time. What do you want to know about him?”
    â€œHis last name. Did you hear—and remember—a last name?”
    She thought again for a few seconds. Then, as if recalling something, she turned back to Randy. “I do remember something about the other man—the younger one. He was a doctor. His name was Mitchell. Yes, I’m pretty sure it was Mitchell. I know that because there were some big doctors in town then by that name—still are, for that matter.”
    Randy felt good. He had another name. His curiosity had somewhere else to go.
    Common courtesy dictated that he stay and chat with Janice Higgins for another couple of minutes. But common sense told him to go. Who knows what might be squawking out of that radio on the front seat of his car.
    So he said he had to go and rose to his feet.
    She stood also. “You’re a police officer, aren’t you?”
    Randy was certain she could see the red that was coming from the heat he felt in his cheeks. “Yes, ma’am, I am. I should have identified myself. I apologize.”
    â€œAre you people still trying to get poor Birdie to talk about whatever it was he witnessed those many years ago? That’s it, isn’t it?”
    Randy just shook his head. He didn’t know what she was talking about.
    â€œThat’s really stupid, if it’s true. Have you read that new book about the Union Station massacre Jules Perkins wrote? It amazes me the way people keep looking at things that happened years ago. I was working there at the station that morning, but I didn’t see a thing except the commotion afterward. I can’t believe J. Edgar Hoover would just make it up the way Perkins said. But I
do
love Perkins’s novels. Don’t you?”
    Randy nodded his head to acknowledge he had read
Put ’Em Up!
and that he, too, enjoyed Perkins’s other books. Most were high-action crime stories set in Kansas City in the seventies, and Randy had, in fact, read two or three of them.
    â€œWell, if you see Birdie again, tell him ‘Thanks for the Memories,’ ” said Janice Higgins. “That’s Bob Hope’s song. Birdie’ll get it.”
    Randy promised to deliver the message.
    He waited until he had turned the corner at Linwood Boulevard a block away before picking up the radio and checking in. There had been no emergencies, no important calls. Nothing had happened.
    Except that he now had the name of Josh’s doctor—and he had promised to say “Thanks for the Memories” to Birdie Carlucci.

VII
    JOSH AND BIRDIE
    SOMERSET
    1933

    It was ten-thirty in the morning and Sister Hilda Owens was at the library, prepared to read poetry by Vachel Lindsay and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow out loud.
    â€œI could recite something else, of course, if you prefer,” she said to Josh and Birdie, the only two patients who showed up. The reading was part of what the asylum called its Cultural Therapy Program. A bushwhacker had escorted them there and then left, telling Sister Hilda to “give a holler if they act up.”
    â€œHow about this, Sister Hilda?” said Josh, handing her the library’s copy of
John Brown’s Body.
    They were in a quiet corner on the second floor of Old Main. Birdie and Josh, as the only attendees, sat across a long narrow table from Sister Hilda, as if they were in an office conducting some kind of interview. There were several other chairs set up around but nobody was in them.
    â€œCertainly, Josh,” she said, opening the book, while doing her best to avoid looking at Birdie, who, despite Josh’s admonitions, was making a fool of himself.
    He