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death, so I tried to sort out my feelings in private, without her help. I was a bit more upset by Ray’s death than I ever could have imagined. I had thought about killing Ray a hundred times, but never did I think he would meet such an untimely and gruesome demise. I found myself welling up at odd moments and realized that if I was going to move past everything—the marriage, our divorce, and his murder—I was going to have to deal with this. It occurred to me that I may not be equipped to deal with it on my own, but the thought of visiting the campus psychologist, Nancy Martin, was not an option. She wore too much patchouli and that made me suspect anything she had to say. I think if I dug deeply enough in her overflowing desk drawers, I would be sure to come up with a picture of her mud covered and half naked at Woodstock. And that was just not something I was prepared to see.
    Dealing with the state of my house was much easier than dealing with the state of my emotions: Crawford had called some company that, interestingly enough, specialized in cleaning up crime scenes. I wondered what you had to have on your résumé in order to get a job there (“1989–1991: Responsible for all cleaning and disinfecting of Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment”). Their specialty was getting blood out of carpeting, and although I didn’t have any carpeting in my kitchen, Crawford assured me that they would be equally effective on ceramic tile. As a fallback, I always had Magda’s grout-cleaning wizardry. I took his word for it. I didn’t know if I would ever go back into the kitchen, which wasn’t a terrible loss; I don’t cook and I mainly use it as a cut-through to the backyard and driveway.
    The days after Ray’s death were a blur. The murder spun the campus into turmoil again, just like Kathy Miceli’s murder had a few short months before. And I was in the eye of the storm, the murder victim being my ex-husband and all. I tried to keep a low profile, going to school, teaching my classes, and returning home at the end of the day. Kevin’s and my usual socializing was canceled for the time being. I felt like I was becoming a pariah, having been peripherally involved in two heinous crimes, and really didn’t want to spend too much time in public. I knew that public stonings had been outlawed, but didn’t want to take any chances.
    I took in the tabloid headlines every time I passed the faculty receptionist, Dottie’s, desk; they screamed of the blood and gore of Ray’s murder. “Out of a Limb!” “Dismember of the Faculty!” And a picture of me, snapped when I had gone out to get my mail: “Dr. Doom!” Seems I was getting a bad reputation what with my close proximity to dead bodies becoming common.
    My phone rang as I was finishing up at school. I had just returned to the safety of my office fresh from syllabi reconnaissance. Sister Calista and her wicked coven of English instructors were freezing me out now; when I knocked on their office doors, they pretended that they weren’t at their desks, even though I could see the outline of their bonnet-shaped wimples through the glass. Neither Sister Mary nor President Etheridge was any help on that front, either.
    When I picked up the phone, it was Max. As usual, she was mid-conversation with me even though I had just joined in. “You have to get a dress.” We had talked about this topic ad nauseam while I had been living with her, yet she was smart enough to sense that I wasn’t really going to take an active role in dress shopping unless she held a proverbial gun to my head. I hate shopping.
    â€œOkay.” I picked my briefcase up and put it on top of my desk, balancing the phone in the crook of my neck. “When?”
    â€œWhen’s the first day you can go?” she asked, screaming to someone to get her a latte. “No sugar!”
    I reached into my briefcase and