?Do you hear from anyone from Northwestern??

We?d met as graduate students in the seventies. I?d been married. Katy was a preschooler. I envied Gabby and the others their freedom back then. I?d missed the bonding experience of all-night parties and early morning philosophy sessions. I was their age but lived in a different world. Gabby was the only one with whom I?d grown close. I?ve never really known why. We look as different as two women can. We did back then. Perhaps it was because Gabby liked Pete, or, at least, pretended to. Flashback: Pete, military-crisp, surrounded by flower children high on grass and cheap beer. He hated my grad school parties, masked his discomfort behind cocky disdain. Only Gabby had made the effort to break through.

I?d lost contact with all but a few of our classmates. They were scattered across the States now, most at universities and museums. Over the years Gabby had been better at maintaining ties. Or perhaps they sought her out more.

?I hear from Joe now and then. He?s teaching at some podunk place in Iowa, I think. Or Idaho.? American geography had never been Gabby?s strong suit.

?Oh yeah?? I encouraged.

?And Vern?s selling real estate in Las Vegas. He came through here for some sort of conference a few months ago. He?s out of anthropology and happy as a clam.?

She sipped.

?Same hair, though.?

This time the laugh sounded genuine. Either the wine or my personal charm was relaxing her.

?Oh, and I got an e-mail message from Jenny. She?s thinking of getting back into research. You know she married some yo-yo and gave up a tenured position at Rutgers to follow him to the Keys??

Gabby didn?t usually mince words.

?Well, she?s gotten some sort of adjunct affiliation and is busting her butt on a grant proposal.?

Another sip.

?When he lets her. What gives with Pete??

The question hit me broadside. Up to this point I?d been very cautious in talking about my failed marriage. It was as if the gears of my speech were jammed on the subject, and releasing them would somehow verify the truth. As if the act of arranging words in rows, of forming sentences, would validate a reality I wasn?t quite ready to face. I avoided the topic. Gabby was one of the few I?d told.

?He?s fine. We talk.?

?People change.?

?Yes.?

The salads arrived and for a few minutes we concentrated on dressings and pepper grinding. When I looked up she was sitting very still, a forkful of lettuce suspended over her plate. She?d withdrawn from me once again, though this time she seemed to be examining an inner world, rather than the one around her.

I tried another tack.

?Tell me how your project is going.? I speared a black olive.

?Huh? Oh, the project. Good. It?s going good. I?ve finally gotten their confidence and some of them are really starting to open up to me.?

She took a bite of salad.

?Gabby, I know you?ve explained this, but tell me again. I?m just a physical sciences type. What exactly is the goal of the research??

She laughed at the familiar demarcation between the physical and cultural anthropology students. Our class had been small but diverse: some studying ethnology, others taking linguistics, archaeology, and biological anthropology. I knew as little about deconstructionism as she did about mitochondrial DNA.

?Remember the ethnographies Ray made us read? The Yanomamo, and the Semai, and the Nuer? Well, it?s the same idea. We?re trying to describe the world of the prostitute through close observation and interviews with informants. Field work. Up close and personal.? She took another bite of salad. ?Who are they? Where do they come from? How do they get into hooking? What do they do on a daily basis? What support networks do they have? How do they fit into the legitimate economy? How do they view themselves? Where-?

?I get it.?

Perhaps the wine was having its effect, or perhaps I?d tapped into the one passion in her life. She was becoming more animated. Though it had grown dark I could see that her face was flushed. Her eyes glistened with the light of the streetlamp. Or maybe the alcohol.

?Society has just written these women off. No one?s really interested in them, except those who are somehow threatened by them and want them gone.?

I nodded as we each took a bite of salad.

?Most people think girls hook because they?ve been abused, or because they?re forced into it, or whatever. Actually, a lot of them do it simply for the money. With limited skills for the legitimate job market, they?re never going to make a decent living and they know that. They make a decision to hook for a few years because it?s the most profitable thing they can do. Peddling ass pays better than slinging burgers.?

More salad.

?And, like any other group, they?ve got their own subculture. I?m interested in the networks they construct, the mental mapping they do, the support systems they rely on, that sort of thing.?

The waiter returned with our entr #233;es.

?What about the men who hire them??

?What?? The question seemed to unnerve her.

?What about the guys who go down there? They must be an important element in the whole thing. Are you also talking to them?? I rolled a forkful of spaghetti.

?I- Yeah, some,? she stammered, clearly flustered. After a pause: ?Enough about me, Temp. Tell me what you?re working on. Any interesting cases?? Her eyes were focused on her plate.

The shift was so abrupt it caught me off-guard. I answered without thinking.

?These murders have me pretty uptight.? I regretted saying it immediately.

?What murders?? Her voice was becoming thick, the words rounded and soft on the edges.

?A pretty nasty one came in last Thursday.? I didn?t go on. Gabby has never wanted to hear about my work.

?Oh?? She helped herself to more bread. She was being polite. She?d told me about her work, now she?d listen to me talk about mine.

?Yeah. Surprisingly there hasn?t been much press. Her body was found off Sherbrooke last week. Came in as an unknown. Turns out she was killed last April.?

?That sounds like a lot of your cases. So what?s rattling ya??

I sat back and looked at her, wondering if I really wanted to go into this. Maybe it would be better to talk about it. Better for whom? For me? There was no one else with whom I could do that. Did she really want to hear it?

?The victim was mutilated. Then the body was butchered and thrown into a ravine.?

She looked at me without commenting.

?I think the MO is similar to another one I worked on.?

?Meaning??

?I see the same?-I groped for the right word-?elements in both.?

?Such as?? She reached for her glass.

?Savage battering, disfiguring the body.?

?But that?s pretty common, isn?t it? When women are the victims? Bash our heads in, choke us, then slash us up? Male Violence 101.?

?Yes,? I admitted. ?And I don?t really know the cause of death in this last one since she was so badly decomposed.?

Gabby looked ill at ease. Maybe this was a mistake.

?What else?? She held her wine but didn?t drink.

?The mutilation. Cutting up the body. Or removing parts of it. Or . . .? I trailed off, thinking of the plunger. I still wasn?t sure what it meant.

?So ya think the same bastard did them both??

?Yes. I do. But I can?t convince the idiot who?s working the case. He won?t even look into the other one.?

?The murders could be the work of one of these dirtbags who gets his rocks off butchering women??

I answered without looking up. ?Yes.?

?And ya think he?ll do it again??

Her voice was sharp once more, the velvety edges gone. I put my fork down and looked at her. She was peering at me intently, her head thrust slightly forward, her fingers wrapped tightly around the stem of her wineglass. The glass was trembling, its contents rippling gently.