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"For God's sake, man, at least close the door!" Kam insisted. "There may be small, easily impressionable children in the street who will be startled and confused by this unseemly display, as well as people on their way to eat dinner. They have no desire to see you mauling your wife." He closed the door and gave me a prim buss on the cheek, by way of example. He stepped back and eyed me in commiseration. "You look like you could use a drink. Did you stop for bread?"

My smile faded as I remembered why I had been distracted away from the errand. "No, I'm sorry, I, I completely flaked out. I..."

"No need to get broken up about it, I'll just run down to the corner." Kam started, then reached into his trousers pocket for his beeper. He looked a little sheepish, but recovered quickly, and turned to Brian. "I've got an errand. I'll be about an hour and I'll bring the bread on my way back. If you finish up in the kitchen, we can eat when I get back."

Brian did a passable scrape and bow. "Anything else, sir, while I'm at it?" he asked sarcastically.

Kam appeared to consider. "Get Em a drink. Draw her a bath while you're at it."

"Yeah, I like the sound of that," I said. "Two husbands to wait on me!"

"You can get your own bath," Brian said to me. "Kam, you can get stuffed. I bet you arranged to get beeped to get out of cooking dinner."

"Sixty minutes," Kam said, then headed down the street to his Jaguar with uncharacteristic speed.

Brian and I played grab-ass up the stairs and I headed straight for the shower. Turning the water on as hot as I
could stand, I stood, willing my reluctant muscles to unknot. As I toweled off, less icky but no less unruffled, I heard a glassy clink and looked up. Brian set a glass of dark liquor on the wide edge of the sink and settled himself on the toilet to watch me dry off.

"You really look wiped," he said, looking at my reddened face with some anxiety. "How'd it go today?"

I thought about telling him what happened in the storage room. I wanted to say, "Well, the meeting went rather well, all things considered, but I think I just decided that Professor Markham killed Grahame Tichnor."

But the fact that I had only the slimmest of evidence and absolutely no clue as to why the two would even know each other kept me from blurting that out. I knew I was exhausted, I knew that I was desperate to think I was doing something useful in the hunt for the reason for Pauline's murder. But I wasn't ready yet to expose my tender theories to the harsh light of day, and to be honest, I needed a moment or two of my particular brand of reality before I could submerge myself further in my suspicions about Tony.

"Earth to Emma, come in, Emma." Brian was waving his hand in front of my vacantly staring eyes.

I batted his hand away irritatedly and immediately regretted the action and my annoyance. My tolerance levels were hideously low, but Brian, of all people, didn't deserve to suffer because of it.

"Sorry, sweetie, I took a little trip there. I am feeling burned out." I took a sip of the Maker's Mark and sighed as it burned its way down my throat; I was starting feel cleansed inside and out. Start with reality, then work your way into fantasyland, I told myself. "In a nutshell: There was a little noise about the bequest and my alleged connection with Pauline's death. I told Kellerman I would not consider taking a leave. Then I told Dean Belcher the same thing. At the faculty department they tried to saddle me with a bunch more crap, but I told them to take a leap."

"You did?" Brian asked with incredulous glee.

I nodded and took another sip. "I am bloody but unbowed, exhausted but triumphant. Mostly." As I finished dressing, I perfunctorily answered Brian's questions, then we went to the kitchen.

"I really don't want to talk about me anymore," I announced, sucking on an ice cube and spitting it back into my glass. "What are we having, anyway?" I peered under a pot lid and smacked my lips. I was starving. "Oh boy! Dinty Moore!"

"That beef stew has never seen the inside of a can!" Brian said indignantly, flicking me on the tail with a snapped finger.

"Ow!" I protested. "Hey!"

"Those potatoes, carrots, celery, and mushrooms were lovingly handpicked by me at the market not three hours ago! There's a full cup of decent red wine in there and it's been cooking for nearly an hour," he continued. "So Dinty me no Dintys."

I rubbed my backside and frowned; I now had a very good idea of what his students thought of him during his teaching assistant days. "For your information, I like Dinty!"

"Well, you'll like this too," he said huffily, "and this way my intestines won't be ravaged by whatever unnamed bacteria kamikazed into the vats in Detroit, or wherever that stuff is extruded." He stirred the pot briefly and tasted the stew, then re-covered the pot, satisfied. "So, look, tell me--"

"Nope, I said no more about me and I meant it," I interrupted. "I want to hear about your world. What's your schedule for the rest of the month?"

Brian looked a little put off, but pulled up a stool and stole a sip of my drink. "Back out to California Monday, for two more weeks of meetings and presentations. Then that should be it. With any luck, things will quiet down after that. But I mean it, Em, I need to know--"

We both heard a knock on the front door. I jumped down to get it. "It's Kam, time to eat, time to eat--" I chanted, as I went to let him in.

It was Kam all right, but I was a little surprised to see Marty right behind him. "Hey, girl! You two are starting to get pretty cozy, aren't you?" I said, giving her a hug.

"You could say that," Kam said, then all but ran into the kitchen with the bread.

"I'll kill the man," Marty said, staring down the hallway. "I swear, Emma, if he wasn't so damned good-looking--" She reached up to adjust her earring in a rather exaggerated fashion.

Since Marty did everything in a rather exaggerated fashion, it took me a minute to catch on, but when I did, I noticed something truly shocking. "Mariam Asefi, what the hell is that on your hand?"

"You mean Mr. Mole?" she asked blithely, waving her right hand, not the one I was so interested in. "You've seen him a thousand times, dearie. Is there any vino to be had?"

I dragged her down the hall. "Kam, what have you done?" I demanded, excitedly shaking Brian's shoulder and pointing so he could see too; reluctantly he put the bread down.

"Oh, you mean the other hand?" she asked.

I looked her askance, head cocked. Damn the woman, she was every bit as coy as Kam!

"That
is a four-carat, moss-green, emerald engagement ring. Do you like it?" She held up her hand and waggled her fingers briskly, absently, without turning from her search for a glass. "Aha! There you are," she said, filling a glass from the sideboard. "That's more like it. I can't stand those airline snacks, I feel like I'm coated in grease for a week afterward.
Slainte,
everyone!" she toasted us and settled in to eating.

I was speechless. The best I could manage was a wordless whoop as I threw myself on Marty, who finally put down her wineglass to hug me back.

Brian was exuberant. "When did this happen, you smug bastard?" he asked his friend.

"Damned if I know." Kam was playing it cool as well. "She just showed up with the thing one day and started talking about registering at Shreve's--"

Perhaps a little too cool: Kam was halted in his tall tale by a purely poisonous look from Marty, who released me, turned back to the table, and folded her manicured hands expectantly.

"As difficult as it was to get this on my hand, I assure you that it comes off much more easily," she pointed out to her fiance. "Sayonara, you know? Not to be high-maintenance or anything, darling."

Kam gave a small, decorative cough and backpedaled with practiced determination. "I suddenly realized that I couldn't go on any longer without the knowledge that the dawn star in the firmament of my life was truly my own, so I feverishly pressed this insignificant token of my eternal devotion on her before her last trip to New York. Better?" He looked questioningly at Marty, who was now beaming.

She filled in some of the blanks. "He proposed at that long light on Commonwealth Avenue, by the Public Gardens. Two weeks ago now."

"You proposed in the car?" I asked incredulously. "At a red light?"

"Power locks: I was afraid she'd bolt," he explained. "I'll make up the romance to her on the honeymoon. Besides, the inside of the Jag is a lot more romantic than the back of the science building at Coolidge."

He made a disapproving face at Brian, who didn't notice. He was cutting up the loaf of bread, intent on getting dinner under way.

And speaking of romantic, I suddenly recalled the ornate silver cigarette case Kam had been playing with during his visit to the dorm. I made a note to steal it and look for inscriptions at the first possible moment.

"Romance is overrated," Brian said, munching away. "Nothing to it; you ask, she says yes, you get on with your life. But I would have thought that you would have learned something from my example. Wives are a lot of trouble, especially the independent types."

Then Brian suddenly noticed that
he
was on the receiving
end of a couple of very icy stares. "On the other hand, the challenge is half the fun. C'mon," he offered, before he found himself in more trouble, "this calls for a bottle of something with bubbles. Let's run down the street. I'll give you some pointers while GirlNet gets all the details straight."

"I'll be interested to hear what he thinks he knows," I said to Kam. "Scat, you two. Hurry back."

Dinner was fun and full of improbable plan making. Kam was all for a quiet wedding with a larger party for friends, after the New Year; Marty wanted six hundred for a sit-down dinner with wandering minstrels and peacocks in Moorea.

"I don't think peacocks are native to the South Pacific, dearest," Kam interjected.

"You would deny me on my big day?" She pouted.

Things carried on until far later than usual, and it was nearly one
a.m.
before we chased them out and wearily cleaned up. I noticed that Brian was putting on the teakettle.

"Hey, sweetie, I'm just going to crawl into bed--"

I was surprised when he sat down at the kitchen table and pushed a chair out for me too.

"I know you're tired," he said without looking at me. "And I've tried to be patient. But there's some pretty weird stuff going on with you that you're not telling me about, and I need to know. Right now."

I looked at him in amazement; I still hadn't said a word about Tony. "How the hell could you know--?"

"Kam told me everything."

"Kam? How does he know about Tony?"

Now it was Brian's turn to look puzzled. "Tony? Who's talking about Tony? I'm talking about Billy Griggs, that guy Kam found you with in the church parking lot. Wasn't he the one who tried to kill you in high school?"

Light finally dawned, a little late. "Billy--oh hell, I completely forgot about him! I thought I told you about that when you came back ..." I tried to recall just what had taken
place on Brian's return from California. "No, no, I didn't, because by that time you were home and I was having my talk with Sheriff Stannard. Then that trip to Tichnor's house kind of put Billy on the back burner. I'm sorry, hon, what do you want to know?"

Brian stared in disbelief. "You pick a fight with some nut who's ready to beat the stuffing out of you and you're asking what I want to know? You can't believe how worried I've been since Kam mentioned it the other day. He figured that you'd already told me. I didn't know what to think!"

I was startled by his vehemence. It wasn't that Brian was angry; it was just that he doesn't usually get this excited about much besides work... and me, I suppose. So I told him what had happened with Billy, including my discussion about Pauline's death with Kam.

"It was a lot to process," I finished. "I really did forget. I'm sorry you were startled when Kam mentioned it."

Brian gave me a skeptical look. "Startled
wasn't the word that sprang first to my mind, Em. I thought Kam was making it up, for God's sake! He was getting a little weirded out when I kept telling him to knock it off." He set the mugs down in front of me. "Imagine my surprise. Anything else you forgot to tell me about?"

I took a sip of the nasty, unnatural decaf. "No, that's pretty much it. You know everything else. I mean, he swung by the site the day after I found the body, but then I found that he and Augie knew each other. He didn't even recognize me in the parking lot."

"And Tony. What was it about Tony--Markham?--that so suddenly sprang to mind when I asked about Billy?"

"Oh." I looked up guiltily. "Well, now, I was going to tell you about that, but you just kinda drove that out of my mind. It's not like I know anything for sure, I just found something really disturbing before I left school."

Bless Brian; he sat there and listened to every scrap of my supposition, speculation,
and suspicion without interrupt
ing. And he waited until I was done to start shooting down my conclusions as nicely as possible.