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campus cop, look as if he were going to vomit. She thought more about Noah Smith. He seemed dependable and smart. He was getting good grades. A nice guy. Good-looking with an easy smile—too young and too skinny for her tastes—but he seemed popular with the women in class. He made them laugh. But she didn’t know him. Did you really know anyone? She couldn’t say she really knew her own mother. The blackness of her drink stared back at her. She pushed it aside and stood to go.
    The Oxford Police Department was a short walk, sitting beside the quaint city hall at High and Poplar streets with its pitched roof, small tower, and white columns in front. The flowerbeds were blooming violet and white. The station itself was simpler, a squat addition with two windows and a door facing the street. She walked through the door and asked for Detective Brooks. She started to sit, studying the department’s shoulder patch with its American flag and eagle, “Police, City of Oxford, State of Ohio, Est. 1810.”
    “Ms. Wilson?”
    A man stuck his head out of a doorway and beckoned her inside. He was short and solid, somewhere around forty, with wavy brown hair and a bushy moustache. His handgun stuck out from his sport coat when he shook her hand. Hank Brooks mostly looked her in the eye, but also he gave her an appraising once-over. Up close, she realized he was only a little taller than her five-feet-five-inches. He moved with nervous energy barely contained.
    “Come back, please. Thanks for coming in so soon.”
    She said something polite. Then, “Is Noah here? Is he all right?”
    “He’s fine,” Brooks said, walking ahead of her down a hallway. “They’ve taken him to the Butler County jail.”
    He led her into a room with a table and modern wheeled office chairs, upholstered in black. Bulletin boards and white boards lined the walls. She didn’t take the time to study their contents. He invited her to sit and left the door open.
    “Did you know Noah Smith well?” Brooks asked. “How long did you know him?”
    She told him all she knew. Noah was a third-year student, in her NSG 362 class, Nursing Care for Adults with Health Alterations. She typically team-taught with a woman with more academic experience. They made a good pair, Cheryl Beth bringing the real-world experience, leading the clinical part of the course that took place in the hospital. Noah was in his second semester with her.
    “Was he moody? Did he have a temper?”
    “Never that I saw.”
    “Ever seem to be on drugs?”
    Cheryl Beth shook her head. As a pain-management nurse, she was very good at spotting that kind of behavior, and Noah had never displayed it.
    “What about with women? Was he hostile?”
    “Not at all,” she said. “He got along well with the women students.”
    “I guess that’s one reason to become a male nurse.” Brooks leaned back, stretched, and cradled the back of his head into his outstretched hands.
    “We call them all nurses,” Cheryl Beth said. “It’s like not calling out gender differences between police officers.” That was the stress in her stomach talking. She tamped it down and smiled. “But, sure, men are still outnumbered by women in the program, and Noah is a good-looking guy.”
    “Think that’s why he did it? To meet women?”
    She couldn’t stop herself from making a face. “How about a personals ad in CityBeat ? These students who have reached this level have worked very hard and they want to make nursing their career.”
    He nodded, leaned forward, and opened a beaten-up brown portfolio. A yellow legal pad was filled with handwriting in blue ink. He flipped the page and began making new notes. Outside the door, she saw police officers walk past but the station seemed oddly quiet.
    “What about you?”
    She felt the sudden defensiveness of a driver going the speed limit who sees a patrol car behind her. “What about me?”
    “You’re new to Miami.”
    So he had checked on her. She wondered