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and fixed my sensitive blue eyes on the dread Ms. Merriman. I saw no signs of sexual tension when I did so. Odd.
    "Good afternoon, Ms. Merriman."
    "Mr. Spenser."
    "May I call you by your first name, Ms. Merriman. We are, after all, destined to be working closely on this matter."
    "Are we really," Ms. Merriman said. "My first name is June."
    "June, do you suppose you could get me Dwayne Woodcock's address?"
    June did not ask me my first name; probably too shy.
    "Mr. Spenser," she said, "I serve this President and this university and President Cort has instructed me to help you as necessary. But I also want you to know that I disapprove personally, and very sincerely, of the degree to which you are invading the privacy of one of our students."
    "Ah, June, 'tis a devious job I do. What was that address?"
    "I'll call the housing office," she said. There was a little blush of red along her cheekbones. She spent maybe two minutes on the phone and when she hung up she handed me a piece of notepaper with an address on it.
    "He lives off campus," June said.
    I took the paper. "Thanks, June. You don't have a husband named Ward, do you?"
    "I am not married," June said.
    "Divorced?"
    "Yes."
    "Lot of that going around," I said. "Man's a fool."
    "I don't believe my private life is part of this investigation, is it?"
    "Good point," I said.
    Dwayne Woodcock lived in a condominium complex a five-minute walk from the Taft campus. It was a cluster of pseudo-Cape Cod-looking buildings of two or three stories, asymmetrically jumbled at different heights and angles, sided with weathered shingles, with white trim and brightly colored front doors. Dwayne's was cranberry. I rang the bell and in a minute Dwayne opened the door. He was barefoot and wearing gray sweat pants. His massive upper torso was shirtless.
    "What do you want, man?"
    "Got something to show you, Dwayne. Invite me in."
    "What you got?"
    "Not on the doorstep, Dwayne, for crissake. Show a little class."
    Dwayne jerked his head and stepped away from the door. I went into a small entry hall with a staircase rising right. Straight ahead was the living room. On the coffee table in front of the white couch was a half gallon carton of orange juice. To my right a twenty-five-inch television set was on. Dwayne was watching "Sonya Live in L.A." To my left in an oversized green leather armchair was a black girl with corn rowed hair wearing a large maroon silk man's bathrobe. Her legs were tucked under her. She was drinking coffee from a large mug that had a picture of Opus the penguin on it. She held the mug in both hands and looked at me without expression across the top of it. "Hello," I said.
    She nodded behind the mug.
    Dwayne didn't introduce us. "What you got to show me," he said.
    "My name's Spenser," I said to the black girl.
    "Chantel," she said.
    "Nice to meet you, Chantel."
    "Cut the bullshit, Spenser," Dwayne said. "What you got to show me?"
    I handed him my outline. "What's this?" Dwayne said.
    "Read it," I said. "Then we'll talk."
    Dwayne looked at the paper. I waited. Chantel sipped her coffee. Sonya and her guests chatted on and on. I looked at Dwayne. There was something funny about the way he looked at the paper. Suddenly I realized what it was. He wasn't moving his eyes. There were three sheets stapled together. He was still looking at the top sheet and his eyes weren't moving back and forth across the page as he read.
    Finally Dwayne handed the typescript to Chantel.
    "Here, babe, what you think of this?" he said.
    Chantel took the paper with one hand and looked at it as she continued to sip from her coffee mug.
    "'Bout you, Dwayne," she said, "'bout some games you played this year and what you did in them."
    Dwayne turned his hard look on me again. "How come you writing stuff up about me?"
    I had a suspicion. "You read it, Dwayne, it should be pretty clear."
    "It pretty clear to you, Chantel?" Dwayne said.
    "Dwayne, you know I don't know a lot about basketball."
    Chantel was