“His wife?”

“I am Eleanor Vanderson,” I said, articulating carefully and wondering what to do if he’d met her in the past.

We seemed to clear that hurdle, but we encountered the next one with dizzying speed. “You got any identification?”

“My dear man,” I said with the imperiousness of a Kappa Theta Eta alumna interviewing a rushee over tea, “I most certainly do have identification, but I have no inclination to show it to you. On the other hand, I will be happy to call the dean and explain that I was delayed because of your petty suspicions. We are due at a faculty engagement at six o’clock sharp. It’s at Thurber Farber Manor home of the president of the college. I have no quarrel with you, but I can only hope the dean doesn’t file a complaint with your supervisor. I should hate for you to lose your job with those three college-bound offspring.”

He continued to entertain his petty suspicions for a long while, but at last he shrugged and said, “I dunno about this, lady. If you’re really the dean’s wife, you would have said so in the beginning, instead of acting like a thief caught in the act. But I got work to do, and I’d like to catch the end of the ball game when I get home.” He picked up the mop and went to the door “I’m gonna lock this office. Next time you come by on an errand for the dean, plan to show proper identification.”

“I shall impress the dean with your cooperation,” I said, still caught up in my role. I swept past him and sailed out the door of the Guzman Center for Law, and only when I was on the far side of the agri building did I sink down on a bench and allow myself to revel in the absurdity of the scene. I had no qualms about awarding myself an Oscar Best actress in an ab libitum role seemed apt.

I took the folded construction-paper cat out of my pocket, smoothed it, and steeled myself for a sugary message. As expected, the photocopied line read: “Katie the Kappa Kitten Says Thanks!” The handwritten addendum was: “For remembering to pay your dues.”

Pay his dues? John Vanderson was not and never would be a Kappa, and his wife was hardly the kind to need cutesy notes to remind her of anything whatsoever I doubted alumnae paid dues, although they were likely to be dunned by National on a regular basis right up until the opening strains of the funerary procession.

The handwriting was feminine in its swirls. I hadn’t saved the two previous cutouts, but as best I remembered, this newest message was not written by the same hand. If I ruled out Jean and Pippa, I was left with Rebecca, Debbie Anne, and the other sixty or so Kappa Theta Etas who had access to what I envisioned as boxes and boxes of pink construction-paper cats. I examined it carefully, but there was no way to determine if it had been sent that day or six months ago.

The cat was in my hand, if not out of the bag, and it proved my theory that Dean Vanderson was in some way involved. Perhaps not to Officers Terrance and Michaels, or even to Officer Pipkin and Lieutenant Rosen, who were having such a grand time on their joint task force that they were willing to work overtime.

I strolled across the lawn, the cat fluttering between my fingers, and paused on the opposite side of the street. Scaffolding had appeared on the front of the Kappa Theta Eta house, indicative of the imminent arrival of painters. If Ed Whitbred and his beetle-headed assistant had won the contract, they might well be there the next day. I had no idea what I needed to ask them, but I was confident questions would spring to my lips as easily as lies had in the law building. I would pin them down with no more mercy than a lepidopterist, wrench answers from their treacherous mouths, and walk away with some semblance of a hypothesis that would lead me to the whereabouts of Debbie Anne Wray, the murderer of Jean Hail, and maybe the definitive solution to global warming.

Much later the latest paper cat was propped against the coffee pot. A rusty key lay on the kitchen counter; I dearly hoped it fit the door of the Book Depot. No one had answered the telephone at the sorority house, so there was nothing I could do about my key ring for the moment. Caron’s cosmetics case and sleeping bag were gone, as was she. I’d called Luanne and related the highlights of the afternoon, eliciting gurgles, snickers, sharp intakes, and a few brays of laughter We’d agreed that my next assignment needed to be an appointment with John Vanderson. A package that had contained a low-fat, low-sodium microwave meal was discarded in the wastebasket, its contents having been made palatable with the addition of salt and butter

I was soaking in the bathtub, occasionally twisting the hot-water tap with my toes, allowing the heat to nurse away the day’s accumulation of bruises, and reading a mystery novel in which the clever amateur sleuth, a woman of moderate years who had the courage to admit she hated cats, was outwitting bumbly, fumbly, grumbly policemen on every page.

I was reaching for my drink when I heard a scream.

11

I gulped down my drink as I dned myself, scrambled into my clothes, and hurried downstairs and across the lawn to the Kappa Theta Eta house. How could these women-and their neighbors-get any sleep, if they insisted on screaming at every opportunity? As much as I loved my duplex with its view of the campus and convenience to the bookstore, it might be time to move farther away.

I was wondering just how cold the winters were in Fairbanks as I pounded on the front door Winkie jerked it open and gaped at me. “Claire?” she said wonderingly, as if I were dressed in a tutu and clutching a glittery wand. She was the one who warranted a second look, dressed as she was in a naughty scarlet peignoir, with enough makeup on her face to intimidate a seasoned hooker, but very little she or any of the Kappas did these days surprised me.

“Who screamed this time?” I asked.

She pulled me inside and locked the door. “Pippa. She and Rebecca are in my suite, both of them so upset that I felt a glass of wine would serve a medicinal purpose. I even splashed a wee bit in Katie’s saucer.”

She’s splashed more than a wee bit in her own saucer, I decided as I followed her unsteady path across the foyer. The two girls sat on the sofa, both wearing robes. Pippa’s face was pale and her hair disheveled, but she managed to convey a glass to her lips with only a minimum of twitches.

If Rebecca had been in need of a medicinal dose, it had worked miracles. She gave me a sharp look over the rim of her glass, then finished off its contents and said, “So we’ve disturbed you once again, Mrs. Malloy. You must think we’re absolutely crazy, but sometimes literally weeks and weeks go by with nothing more exciting than the discovery of a mouse in the pantry.”

“Would you like a glass of wine?” Winkie asked me with a bright smile. “It’s our little secret weapon to fight off overly active imaginations.”

I wasn’t sure whose she had in mind, mine or Pippa’s. “Thank you, but this is not a social call. In truth, my late-night visits are beginning to irritate me as much as they seem to irritate you. Just tell me why Pippa screamed and I’ll run along home.”

In the ensuing silence, Katie stalked into the room and sprang into Rebecca’s lap, evidently no more pleased to see me than I was to see her She seemed fascinated by the bandage on my hand, and no doubt proud of her handiwork. Winkie wandered into her kitchen, returned with a bottle of wine, and settled cozily in the rocking chain Pippa sniffled. Rebecca gathered her long black hair and curled it around her neck like a scarf.

“Why did you scream?” I snapped at the offender “Did our mysterious prowler reappear, or was it a mouse in the pantry?”

“It was weird, Mrs. Malloy. I was so startled that I didn’t even realize I’d screamed until afterward. I think I must have been repressing my anxiety to the point of psychoneurosis, understandably precipitated by depression over Jean’s death. Had I made more of an effort to explore my innermost-”