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trips. Before I could talk myself out of it, I got up and went to the counter and took the stool next to Coffey. He turned his head just enough to give me a quick glance to reassure himself I wasn’t anybody he knew, and turned back to his paper. He had a smooth rectangular face like a department store mannequin, with a high forehead and long cheeks. His sallow skin was perfect as plaster, and his dark eyes were velvety and dull, like ripe olives that have set out too long and lost their sheen.
    I said, “Dr. Coffey, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I’d like to ask you something.”
    He looked at me again, this time with a furrow of distaste forming on his unlined forehead.
    “I’ll be quick,” I promised him. “My name is Dixie Hemingway, and—”
    Looking flustered and anxious, Judy came trouncing to us bearing his order and her coffeepot. He moved his paper out of the way so she could set his plate down. Scrambled egg whites, dry rye toast, sliced tomatoes. I guess if you’re a heart surgeon, you eat like that.
    Judy topped off his coffee and looked warningly at me. “Something for you?”
    “No thanks, I’m not staying,” I said.
    She gave an emphatic nod of her head and stomped off with her coffeepot held in front of her like a lancet.
    Ignoring me, Dr. Coffey picked up his fork and cut into his egg whites. His fingers were hairy, too, with black hair sprouting between his knuckles. I watched his fork with a kind of repelled fascination. There’s something unnatural about eating just the white of an egg.
    I pushed Ghost’s velvet collar higher on my arm and said, “The thing is, I’m a pet-sitter, and one of my clients left town and didn’t leave a number where she could be reached. There’s been something of an emergency at her house, and I was thinking you might have some idea where she might have gone. Like where her business takes her, or where her family lives.”
    He looked toward me again and then stood up so fast it seemed like his knees had suddenly gone stiff and he couldn’t sit anymore. “I know nothing about this! Do you understand me? Nothing! If you bother me again, I’ll have you arrested. Do you understand?” His voice was venomous, and he was shaking.
    I said, “Well, actually, you can’t have me arrested just for asking you a question. I’m sorry if I bothered you, but don’t you think you’re overreacting?”
    He extended his arm with his skeletal finger pointing at me like Abraham cursing the Philistines. “Stay away from me!”
    Stomping to the front door, he charged out of the diner so fast that several people in the front booths looked around.
    Judy came over and leaned on the counter. “Thanks a lot,” she said. “You just chased off one of my best customers. Not to mention the fact that he stiffed me for his breakfast.”
    “All I did was ask him if he knew where Marilee mighthave gone. He was going to marry her, he must know something about where her job takes her.”
    She groaned. “He hates her. She dumped him practically while the organ was playing the wedding march. I mean, people were in the church and everything. She just up and left him standing there.”
    “Well, that’s sort of brave, don’t you think? It must have been embarrassing, but if she realized she didn’t love him—”
    “No, you don’t understand! She had got him to put a million dollars in her name just before the wedding. Gave him some big song and dance about how she didn’t want to be dependent on him after they were married, and how she didn’t want to live in fear that he would dump her one day and she’d be out on the street without a dime. How she wanted to be able to look him in the eye as an equal so they would both know she was with him because she wanted to be and not because she had to be. You know, like she was a poor little match girl out on the street getting taken in by a prince or something. The poor schmuck fell for it and transferred a million bucks to her