I'd had enough. "Sam," I said sharply into the phone, "Patricia may have been the perfect secretary, but I am the one who's worked for you for ten years. I think you should have a little faith in me." We hung up on each other, equally unhappy. I was cudgeling my brain to think of what could have happened to Patricia and Jerome. It was eerie and frightening to admit that she had evidently packed up her clothes and some small goods, and vanished.

"Come to think of it," I said to Robin, "she's been acting funny for days. Ever since she found out that the movie people attracted the media, and Celia came into the library and actually checked out books, Patricia's been asking questions like crazy about where the filming was going to be every day, whether the movie people would be coming to the library, like that."

"Do you think she's running from something? Maybe she knows someone on the crew," Robin said. "Someone she didn't want to recognize her?"

I considered. "Maybe," I said. "Or maybe she was scared she'd be noticed by one of the media people here to watch the filming and do interviews."

"Did you say anything about the film yesterday?"

"Nope," I said. "But she practically fainted when she saw me repairing a book. As a matter of fact, it was right after that that she left the library in a mighty big hurry."

"What was the book?"

"It was one Celia had checked out. You know, when she came to the library after she first got to Lawrenceton. I think she was looking for me, to have a peek at me. But she thrilled Sam by taking out a library card and checking out some books to do research for her next movie."

"The sixties-radical movie," Robin said.

"Right. Bell-bottoms and Bombs, or something like that."

"Can you find the book again?"

"Sure. Let's go to the library."

I tracked down the book in record time. It had been reshelved. I flipped it open, Robin looking over my shoulder. I turned to the picture section and began to really examine the old pictures. Lots of Afros and jeans, dashikis and beads. Peace signs. And photographs of wires and bits of hardware that were used in the making of bombs. What an incongruous blend, the philosophy of world peace, disarmament, and the construction of bombs to blow a hole in the consciousness of middle America.

The next picture was of a group of radicals at some rally. Right to left, read the caption, suspected bomb makers Joanne Cheney, Ralph "Coco" Defarge, his teenage sister Anita, Maxwell Brand, and Barbara "Africa" Palley.

"Anything ring a bell?" Robin asked in my ear, making me twitch.

"No. Yes," I said suddenly. I put my index finger on the picture of the radicals. "Look at the little sister."

"I never met Patricia Bledsoe," Robin reminded me.

"This is her," I said breathlessly. "Oh my God. Patricia the perfect helped her big brother make bombs in the sixties." I had to put my hands over my mouth to stifle a totally inappropriate laugh. Patricia, the rigorously traditional woman whose middle name was conservative! Patricia, who wouldn't even let her son wear Nike! "This is just going to kill Sam derrick," I said, suppressing a snort with great difficulty.

"This is funny, how?" Robin asked.

I tried to explain.

"Are you going to tell someone?" he asked.

"I have to, don't I?" I asked. "Don't I have to tell someone? She obviously picked up and ran because she thought I'd smoked her out. It couldn't have been further from the truth. If she'd just stayed put, I'd never have known."

"All the way back in the sixties," Robin said gently.

"Yeah, I know," I said, reluctant to debate my duty. "I have a lot of sympathy for her, even if she was the biggest pain in the patootie I've ever encountered. Except maybe Sam himself. But you know—if she did help build that bomb—I'm not trying to be Rhonda Righteous, but a security guard got killed, Robin. Besides, obviously Patricia was panicked by the idea of Celia seeing this picture and noticing the likeness, just like we did. What if Patricia somehow made her way onto the set and killed Celia, thinking Celia had spotted her and was going to tell?"

"Can't take that lightly," he agreed. "Will you tell Sam?"

"Oh, you bet," I said instantly. Then I reconsidered. "At least about our suspecting she's Anita Defarge."

"Not about her connection with Celia?"

"I know the papers this morning said it would have been easy for someone to have sneaked up to her trailer and killed her because there were a lot of people around. I just don't see it happening," I said. "Do you agree? There were a lot of people, but none of them looked or dressed like Patricia. And Celia had never talked to her, that I know of. They'd just glimpsed each other when Sam gave Celia a tour of the library. Wouldn't Celia have raised a fuss if someone she didn't know entered her trailer? She wouldn't have just sat there and waited for something bad to happen."

"I agree, for the most part," Robin said. "Just mention the fact you're most sure of; that the picture looks like his secretary."

"That's what I'll do," I said resolutely. I folded immediately. "In fact, maybe I'll leave calling the police up to him."

Robin waited out in the employee break room while I went in to Sam's office and broke the news. The fluorescent lights glinted off Sam's thick glasses as he looked hopelessly down at the black-and-white picture. "She was so great," he all but whimpered. "She took all my calls. I never had to talk to anybody. She understood the paperwork. She was never late. She was never sick. Her son was respectful and quiet."

"I'm sorry, Sam," I said as gently as I could. "I'll just leave it up to you what to do."

"Oh, there's no doubt about what to do," he said gloomily. "She may have been on the run all these years, always looking over her shoulder. And with the boy, too—I wonder what she told him. But I have to call the FBI. That's the law, and I have to uphold the law."

I felt like a second-class moral citizen compared to Sam's straightforward conviction. It must be wonderful to always know what was right to do.

At the back of my mind, I kept hoping that Patricia would walk in with some explanation of where she'd been and what she'd been doing. It wouldn't take much to satisfy Sam. If she just said, "What coincidence, that girl looks like a young me," that would probably do it. But the combined evidence of the flight and the picture—well, at least that should be investigated.

With a grim face, Sam picked up his phone to call the local police. He said, "I guess they can give me the right number to call." Then he put the phone back on its cradle. "But you know... maybe I don't have to call right now. After all, she still might show up. Maybe there's a sick relative she had to visit."

Maybe there was an elephant in my locker. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Excuse me, Sam," I said. "I'll leave. You do what you think is right."

"Aren't you supposed to come in for the afternoon?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll see you later."

No "thank you," no "I appreciate it." Well, that was Sam. No people skills.

Robin was still waiting for me. He opened his mouth to ask a question, but I lifted a finger to my lips. When we were safely out in the parking lot, I told him what had transpired. He shook his head doubtfully, but agreed that Sam should be the one to make the phone call that would set law enforcement on Patricia's—Anita's—trail.

I had two hours before I was due back at the library, and we trailed over to Mother's office to sign some paperwork.

Mother greeted Robin quite matter-of-factly, but she was not overwhelmingly friendly, even when he asked her to find him a modest rental. She looked relieved, but not enthralled. She'd have to have warm-up time, I guessed. I wasn't going to push it.