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our international students.”
    I smiled at Christine. “Yes, I’m sure it’s a great
program. Do you know if she was notified?”
    Christine looked down at her papers. “Yes,” she
said, “in two of her four courses last semester.”
    “And did she pull up her grades?”
    “She earned a 1.75 last semester. She was placed
on probation by the university.”
    “And this semester?”
    “It is too early for the Early Warning program
this semester. There is no official record yet.”
    “Do you know if she was a weak student in high
school?”
    Mary Dawson spoke. “No, she had a 4.1 out of 5.
That’s a high B, low A.”
    I paused, then turned to Christine. “How unusual
is it for international students to flunk out here?” I said.
    “Their failure rate is lower than that of the
typical student,” Christine said, her chin up. “Most of them work extremely hard,
and they have parents at home who are keeping close track of them. They usually
do quite well.”
    “Can you give me a list of the courses and her
professors this semester?”
    Christine pointed to the folder and passed it to
Ryan.
    “Okay,” I said, standing. “Thank you both very
much. Again, we’re very sorry about this. Let me give each of you my card.” I
passed the cards. “We’ll get back to you if we need any more information, and
please contact us if you think of anything we should know.”
    I waved thanks to the secretary as Ryan and I headed
out of the suite and into the hall. We walked down the stairs, passing some
students coming up, stomping their feet to get the snow off and shaking it off
their shoulders.
    “I could do without a foot of snow,” I said.
    Ryan nodded. Couple of weeks ago we got hit with
over a foot. We’d just started to see the ground again the end of last week.
    I got in the cruiser and started it up. Ryan grabbed
the brush and cleared the windshield and rear window, then got inside.
    “So what have we got?” I said.
    “I looked up the graduation statistics for the
whole university,” Ryan said. He had a sheet of paper in his hand.
    “Yeah?”
    “Four years, eleven percent. Six years, thirty-two
percent. Eight years, fifty-one percent.”
    “That’s quite shitty, don’t you think?”
    “Yes,” Ryan said, “but typically shitty, not
extraordinarily shitty—I mean, for a low-tuition state university.”
    “Shitty is shitty,” I said.
    “Just out of curiosity, Karen, did you graduate in
four years?”
    I shot him a look. “And you, Mr. Perfect? Four
years?”
    “No,” he said, shaking his head and looking down
at his lap. “Not in four years.”
    “Aha,” I said, beaming. “Feeling a little shitty
about yourself, are you, smarty pants?”
    “Three and a half,” he said softly.
    “What was that?”
    “I graduated in three and a half years.”
    I pulled the cruiser over and looked at him. His
face was expressionless. “What the fuck?”
    “Excuse me, Karen? I’m not sure I understand what
you just said.”
    “I said, ‘What the fuck?’”
    “Advanced Placement courses in high school. The
football coach at BYU bet me I couldn’t do eighteen credits a semester.” Now he
gave me a small smile. “I won.”
    “Get out of my damn car.”
    “It’s a long walk back to headquarters,” he said,
his expression asking me to reconsider. What a flirt this guy must have been.
“In the snow,” Ryan said. Then he turned on the big grin.

 
     
    Chapter 5
    “I reached two of Maricel’s three professors,” Ryan said as
I got back from the ladies’.
    “And?”
    “One looked her up and said she was headed for a
C, maybe a D. The other said, ‘Name doesn’t ring a bell.’”
    “It’s nice to be remembered when you’re gone.”
    “That second one was a lecture class. More than a
hundred students.”
    “Still.” I was silent a moment. “Let’s not tell
Gerson we know Maricel was going down the drain, okay?”
    “Sure,” Ryan said.
    We had finished lunch in the break room and