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want their relationship to remain solid and close.
    On that Sunday, all four of us attended mass together and then Gene came home with us for Sunday dinner. In the afternoon we all played baseball in the backyard. I’m never very clear on the rules of the game or how many teams we are, so I let Jack take care of that part. Then we drove Gene back to Greenwillow.
    It was a tiring day, and Eddie went to bed early, keeping the baseball mitt on his night table the way I used to keep a favorite doll near me when I slept. Gender really seems to mean something, even early in life.
    “Joe Fox thinks this woman, the victim, might have a record,” I said to Jack when we were alone in the family room.
    “Sounds like you don’t.”
    “I don’t rule it out, but I think she could have been hiding from someone, someone who wanted to kill her.”
    “You could both be right. Someone did kill her, after all.”
    “What I mean is, she may not have been hiding her past, just trying to hide herself from someone who had a grudge or who wanted something from her.”
    “It’s as good a theory as any. Either you or Joe will have to find out more about her so as to trace back to whatever she was hiding from. The fresh manicure was a good lead. It would be nice if you could find a friend.”
    “Or an employer. She might have given her high school or college credentials to get the job, or the names of other companies she worked for.”
    “I hate to tell you that employers don’t do much checking.”
    “There has to be something, Jack. We live in such a technologically sophisticated age that I can’t believe a person can shop and take care of a car and yet live so easily with an assumed identity even if she paid for everything in cash.”
    “Which is a good assumption.”
    “But what about the pharmacy? Even if you’re healthy, as I am, my dentist occasionally prescribes an antibiotic for me.”
    “And a prescription presupposes a dentist or a doctor.”
    “Who will know you by whatever name you give him the first day you go. I’m trying to remember if the dentist required my Social Security number.”
    “Suppose you gave it to him. If this Holly/Rosette woman wrote down nine digits, what are the chances the doctor, the dentist, the pharmacist, or even a surgeon checked them out, especially if she said she had no medical insurance and would pay her bill in cash?”
    “No chance,” I agreed. “So here we are in a society that tracks you in and out of stores, offices, hospitals, and whatever, and we can get away with using a fraudulent name and ID number and no one knows. It seems paradoxical.”
    “It may be, but it works—that is, until a cop hauls you over for speeding and finds a bunch of inconsistencies.”
    “I’m going to have a go at pharmacies tomorrow. Hopefully, someone will recognize Holly/Rosette’s picture and tell me she took an unusual medication for a rare condition.”
    “And everything about her life is documented including the names of her parents, her children, and all her siblings.”
    “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
    “Dream on, honey. And good luck. I’m sure Joe Fox will give you double flowers if you pull that off.”

5
    I daydreamed that Holly/Rosette Whatever might use a different name everywhere she went. After canvassing pharmacies and banks, hair salons and department stores, I might accumulate twenty or thirty names attached to her picture. But I decided not to worry about that unlikely situation. I got Eddie off to school, nearly his last week, and put my notebook in my bag. As I was getting ready to leave, the phone rang.
    “Hope I haven’t bothered you, Mrs. Brooks.” It was Joe Fox.
    “Not at all. Have you something to tell me?”
    “You know they’ve been doing DNA analysis on the blood in the apartment and the tissue of the body.”
    “Yes.”
    “So far we haven’t gotten a match on the body’s prints or on the blood.”
    “Which means no records.”
    “Right. Not so