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suppose it does.”
    Jimmy got up and went to the window and I sat down at my desk. We stayed like that for a long time. Finally, I said, “Thing I’m looking into at work, it sort of crosses with your life.”
    He turned from the window, leaned against the wall. “How’s that?”
    â€œA missing-person story. Probably a murder.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œCaroline Allison. She was a history major.”
    Jimmy moved away from the wall and went to his old desk and sat down in his chair and picked up a pencil and used it to poke at his stuffed frogs and mice.
    â€œWhat brought that up?” he said.
    â€œThe job,” I said. “Looking for a place to get started. Columns to write. The lady who was there before me picked it out. I looked it over, liked the idea of it. All she had were some notes. I’ve been looking up a few things. You must have known her, right?”
    â€œEveryone in the department was very aware of her. She was quite beautiful.”
    â€œI’ve seen her photographs. She was more than beautiful. She looks, or should I say looked, sort of otherworldly.”
    â€œShe did. Yes.” He pushed at the frog with the pencil until it fell over. I didn’t feel quite as bad for messing with his keepsakes.
    â€œMaybe you know something I could put in the article. Something about her.”
    â€œAll I can tell you was she was gorgeous. Everyone in the department liked her. The guys anyway. I mean, you know how it is, good-looking girl and all. She was smart, and she was going to be a crack historian.”
    â€œYou said everyone in the department, the guys anyway, liked her. What about outside the department?”
    â€œHer personal life?”
    â€œWhat do you know of it?”
    â€œNothing really. She didn’t talk much about her life.”
    â€œIf the guys liked her, how did the women feel?”
    â€œJealous. They knew she was a force of nature though. If you’re getting at someone in the history department hating her enough to kidnap or kill her because she was a fox, I don’t think so.”
    â€œA woman looked that way could drive someone crazy, even if she didn’t know them. Might make them do things they might not normally do.”
    â€œSo it’s her fault?” Jimmy said.
    â€œI don’t mean it that way. Of course, whoever did what they did to her, they made the choice. Just saying, if there was someone out there two ounces short a pound, a woman like that, it could be the thing to set them off…Is this bothering you, Jimmy?”
    He nodded. “She was a good kid. Just disappearing like that, it was painful. She’d been in a couple classes I taught. She had a great future. I was quite sick about it.”
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œNo biggie. It’s what it is. No point in wishing things were different. She’s gone…You know what? I think I’d like a cup of coffee. How about you?”
    It wasn’t a clever change of subject, but it was successful enough. Jimmy was already up and moving out of the room when I said, “Dying for one.”
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    When we passed through the living room on the way to the kitchen, we saw that Jazzy was asleep on the couch. Someone, Mom probably, had covered her with a blanket.
    Coming into the kitchen, Jimmy said, “Jazzy is out for the count.”
    Mom and Dad and Trixie were sitting at the table, already enjoying coffee. Mom said, “Keep it down. She’s exhausted. I bet she slept in that tree last night. Sometimes they lock her out.”
    â€œWhy won’t someone do something?” Jimmy asked.
    â€œThat’s what we’d like to know,” Dad said. “We haven’t even seen her mother or her latest shitass come out of the house in a couple days.”
    â€œPete, don’t talk like that,” Mom said.
    Dad ignored her as usual. “Her mother stays inside most of the time,