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“Unfortunately, there was a mishap.” 
    What? 
    “Professor Maxwell was involved in a skiing accident.” Magary flicked an imaginary speck of dust from his lapel, as the Provost addressed me again, “So, Professor King, we’re in a tight spot and we were wondering if we might prevail on you …” 
    ****
    Storming into my apartment, I slammed the door and dumped my satchel and jacket unceremoniously on the sofa.  Forcing myself to take a deep breath, I snapped on the kitchen light and made a beeline for the bottle of bourbon Pete kept in my pantry.  I poured myself several fingers in a chipped coffee mug and was about to gulp it down when I noticed the light blinking on my answering machine.  Hoping for an update from Pete—who obviously wasn’t back yet—I pressed the message button.
    “Evie?  Are you there?  Pick up if you are.”  It was Melissa’s voice and she was speaking unusually fast.  After a brief pause, the message continued.  “Okay, if you’re really not there, check your email when you get this.”  There was another pause, followed by the sound of a deep breath, then the message went on more slowly.  Her tone sounded strained, with a kind of forced lightness.  “I guess it’s not really important.  Don’t interrupt anything you might be doing with — loverboy —but when you have a moment …”
    I deleted the message, glancing from the mug in my hand to the computer screen.  What the heck?  Pete was on a plane.  My career was a joke.  Why not indulge Melissa?  Things had been better between us since that night at the bar, even though  we’d avoided talking about Pete and the dean search since then. 
    Turning on my desk lamp, I leaned forward to flick the computer monitor on and called up my email.  I was confronted with a bunch of administrative announcements and a few student queries, with Melissa’s message sandwiched in between.  The subject line was empty but there was a paperclip beside it signaling an attachment.  When I clicked on the message it was also blank.  I wondered if I had a computer virus.  Even if I did, the attachment was a .pdf so it was probably safe.  Taking a sip of bourbon, I clicked on the attachment.  
    It took several seconds for the file to load.  It appeared to be a scanned clipping from some newspaper in New Mexico .  I couldn’t quite make out the date, but the headline read: “Suspect Taken for Questioning in College Murder  Drama.”  The story was about the murder of a young research assistant in a science department at a small state college.  Police were unsure as to motive and it was apparently unclear that there had been a murder at all until a trace of an unusual chemical compound showed up  in the autopsy.  The compound should have dissolved well before the body was examined, but by a stroke of luck, the victim had been taking medication that slowed the rate of dissolution.  Weird . 
    Then I saw the photograph.  The image was grainy and the suspect’s face was turned sideways to the camera, but there was something unsettling about it.  He had spiky dark hair and solid angular cheekbones.  The caption identified him as Marc Daly, a graduate student.  I didn’t think I had ever met anyone by that name, but he did  look vaguely familiar.  Taking another sip of my drink, I scrolled  farther down.  There was a second clipping from the same newspaper that must have run sometime after the first.  It was a minor story — only a few paragraphs —noting that the suspect who had been held for questioning, had been released from custody.  The reporter  sought him out for comment, but he had disappeared with no trace.  At the very bottom of the page was a message scrawled in Melissa’s untidy handwriting.  “Pete??”
    Oh my God.   Melissa hadn’t let it go.  She’d been doing amateur sleuthing all this time to go with her pop psychology.  I grabbed hold of my cell phone to call her, but as I was