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my bourbon. There was a time in my life when measured sips hadn't been called for. That whole
     measurement thing creeps up on us. Start off counting hairs in the bathtub drain, before we know it we're telling people we're
     only allowed a cup and a half of coffee a day, reading labels for saturated-fat content, trying to portion out our losses,
     like a double-entry accountant, to history and failing memory.
    "I'm not sure I know how to respond," I told Tracy.
    "Yeah. Me either. Exactly what I mean. Four hundred killed when the roof of a substandard apartment building collapses in
     Pakistan. A fifteen-year-old goes into his high school with an assault weapon and kills three teachers, the principal, twelve
     fellow students. Half the citizens of some country you never heard of go after the other half, kill or butcher them and bulldoze
     them into mass graves. There's a proper response to something like that? You get to wishing you could go for a swim, wipe
     it all away. But you can't."
    We tossed off the remainder of our drinks in silence and called it a night. Enough of the world's eternal problems and our
     own.
    "Check in tomorrow?" Tracy said.
    "First thing."
    "Where are you staying?"
    Since I was here on my own dime, I'd taken the cheapest room I could find, at Nu-Way Motel on the city's outer rings. Each
     unit was painted a different pastel shade, mine what I could only think of as Pepto-Bismol pink. A stack of fifties magazines
     inside would not have surprised.
    Walking Tracy Caulding to her blue Honda Civic, I gave her my location, room and phone number. "No need to write them down
     for you's my guess," I said, getting another glimpse of the smile that had lit up Sam's office back at the station. From habit
     I looked in to clear the car, saw a ziggurat of textbooks on the back seat.
    "What's this? Not a dedicated law officer?"
    She held up her hands, palm out, in mock surrender. "Got me dead to rights."
    "Graduate school, from the look of it."
    "I confess. M.A. in social work, six credits to go."
    She leaned back against the rear door, tugging at the silver-cuffed ear.
    "Cop was the last thing I thought I'd be. From the time I was eleven, twelve years old, I was going to be a teacher. Nose
     forever in a book and all that. But I grew up in a trailer park, no way my parents could afford even local colleges. I had
     grand ambitions, though, applied all over the mid-South, even places like Tulane and Duke. Memphis State came through with
     a full scholarship. I had a job teaching sixth grade promised before I'd even graduated. Five weeks in, I walked away from
     it."
    She put her hand on my arm.
    "Everything I'd taken for granted all those years was gone. I had no idea who I was, what I could do, and I had to work. Of
     a Sunday morning I was reading want ads when one at the very corner of the page caught my eye. Police badge to the left. Have
     a degree? it said. Want to make a difference?—or something equally lame. Another of the department's periodic thrusts to improve
     its image. Wanted people with degrees, offered an accelerated training program for those who qualified. So here I am. Telling
     you way more than you wanted to know. Sorry."
    "Don't be."
    She was in the car now, looking out.
    "We should talk about counseling and social work sometime," I said.
    "Did a bit of it yourself, from what I hear."
    "More like I muddied the water."
    "So we should. Just don't tell me I'm wrong, okay?" Hauling her seat belt across. "See you tomorrow, Turner." Face in the
     rearview mirror as she drove away. Objects may be closer than they appear.
    Back at the motel I punched my way through a thicket of numbers, 9 for an outside line, 1 for long distance, area code, credit-card
     number, personal code. Quite the modern lawman.
    "Sheriffs office."
    "Who's speaking?"
    "Rob Olson."
    "Trooper?"
    "You bet. Who's this?"
    "Turner, up in Memphis."
    "The deputy, right?"
    "Right. Don't guess Lonnie'd be around this late, would he?"