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lectures.
    I started to read Sherlock Holmes and
The Saint
series. I loved the Robin Hood of Modern Crime. He always outwitted the bad guys…and the police…and I imagined he was a bad-boy version of Robert Goulet. These books were probably the only evidence in my childhood of any fascination with criminals and criminal behavior, and I don’t think I was interested in that as much as I was in the puzzles the stories presented. I liked the challenge of trying to figure stuff out. Most of the time I did crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, and cryptograms. And I read James Michener novels because I wanted to see the world.
    I always said that as soon as I was old enough, I’d travel overseas. When I was five I refused to go out and play in the snow because I was warm and comfy watching Tarzan swing through the jungle. I wanted to see that jungle. At five, I was already planning my trip to Africa.
    I can’t speak for my sisters, because as the youngest of three girls my parents may have felt they’d seen it all by the time I became a teen, but I was largely considered the wild one. Because the same girl who loved musicals and Robert Goulet also learned Korean karate. I was one of the first students of the Jhoon Rhee Institute of Tae Kwon Do in Washington, D.C., and my first boyfriend, Howard Chung, was the owner’s nephew.
    I learned how to eat with chopsticks and cook some Korean food. I would take a bus into D.C. for lessons and spend all afternoon and evening there. I was invited to be in Jhoon Rhee’s first film—a movie no one remembers—and I was so excited! I would be a karate star and I would get to see Korea! Then some guy, a brown belt who should have known better, kicked me in the ribs, breaking several, and I was forced to take a few months off. When I went back to class, I broke the cardinal rule of sports—I didn’t warm up. I jumped right back in like I hadn’t been slumming for weeks and I threw a roundhouse kick really high, way over my opponent’s head, and that did it—I shredded my back thigh muscle. I lost my first and last movie role and another blonde went to Korea.
    After high school, I attended Northern Virginia Community College and studied cultural anthropology. My professor, Dr. TomLarson, who has written a couple of books on the cultures of Botswana, was taking a group to Togo, Africa, that summer, and I jumped at the chance to join them. I worked at a garden shop and saved all my earnings to pay my way.
    I eventually studied in Denmark, traveled through Europe, lived a bit in London, and then flew off to Jamaica for a little island culture.
    MOST PEOPLE THINK of Jamaica as an idyllic tourist spot with turquoise water and a bit of reggae thrown in. I, however, was staying in Kingston, and that part of Jamaica is, as they say down in “De Yard,” rough.
    I saw my first crime scene in Jamaica. I went out on a date with a businessman, quite well to do. We drove to New Kingston, through all the red lights, without stopping. Stopping, I was told, was foolish, because you never knew what kinds of people were out on the roads at night. It was a bit disconcerting, but my faint nervousness settled as my date escorted me into a posh restaurant.
    Dinner was delicious, dessert was heavenly, and one of the gentleman’s friends stopped by our table and introduced himself. Then he bid us good night, walked out the door, and died. He was shot to death by his secretary’s boyfriend and his wallet was taken.
    I stood outside with my date, and the crowd and I stared at a man who had been alive five minutes earlier, now frozen in a crumpled position, arms outstretched, legs akimbo, eyes staring up. Blood was pooled around his head. Relatives arrived and the screaming began. The screaming is the memory I keep of that day. The screaming and screaming and more screaming.
    My date and I said little as we drove back to my lodging. He escorted me up the stairs with his gun drawn and then, like a gentleman,