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married and divorced twice in her twenties and for all I knew, she’d done it again while she was living in England and had simply forgotten to mention it. It was possibly genetic—her parents had, between them, half a dozen or more nuptials. But somehow, Sasha persisted in believing in romance, in the blazing, blinding appearance of Mr. Right, and in an ultimate permanency and bliss even if it had so far eluded her.
    I grit my teeth, willing myself into patience, and concentrated so hard on not getting angry that it took me awhile to register that she was actually talking about something other than my nuptials.
    “—thinking of you even when I’ve found a new, handsome prospect,” she was saying when I tuned in. Sasha’s optimism should be bottled. She is determined to have a good time in this life, and she always succeeds, at least for a while, and when her good time inevitably ends, her heart might need short-term EMT help—or chocolate—but she’s a quick healer, and she’s back in the ring for the next round. A good man might be hard to find, but Sasha wasn’t looking for good—except as in good times, so she found what she called “love” everywhere.
    I waited to hear about this new man, and how This Time It Was for Real.
    “—he’s in the process of separating—”
    Not again. Perhaps I’m a pedant and overly concerned with the meaning of words, but I have tried to explain that a person is either separated, or not, and that a person who is still living with someone to whom they are married is most assuredly not separated. Siamese twins during surgery were in the process of separating. Sasha’s “in process” guys were still married. But you can’t interrupt a phone message.
    “—and something was going on—weird phone calls. He said it like a joke, but he seemed bothered all the same. I mean, why tell me otherwise? So of course, I told him about you guys. That’s okay, isn’t it? I mean talking about you? I mean you’re private eyes, but not so private I can’t recommend you, right? It isn’t a big job, but a job all the same. Help pay for the honeymoon, maybe. The man has bucks. What’s my referral fee? Just joking. But if Tom Severin gets in touch, you’ll know I sent him.”
    For once, one of her men had been as good as his word.
    His last word.

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    Four
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    I sat down heavily on the kitchen chair near the phone and replayed Sasha’s entire message to make sure I’d heard it correctly.
    I had, and the net result was that now even less made sense. First, without a shred of false modesty, I’d have to ask—why me? Sasha had undoubtedly failed to mention my rank amateur PI status but still, she had to know that my work in the office was basically clerical. There were lots of fine, experienced investigators available versus me, an underpaid teacher with a second job, trying to make ends meet.
    So once again, from the top—why me?
    If Severin’s note had read C. K. Mackenzie, then okay. Anybody with half a brain would want Mackenzie on the case. But the note hadn’t said that, and it had specifically named Philly Prep, not Ozzie Bright’s office.
    Things that don’t make sense give me hives. I enjoy the ridiculous, the far-fetched, and the positively insane, but when something is tilted and out of whack, pretending to be straightforward, it drives me to the brink. Almost making sense doesn’t count. It has to go all the way. I want to tidy it, label it, and shelve it, and I worry it over until I find where it belongs.
    And then, somewhat belatedly, I thought about my friend and the fact that she’d been dating Tom Severin. I didn’t know if she knew what had happened to him, and I didn’t know how news of his death would affect her. Sasha was great with blowups, breakups, divorces, and amicable partings, but death was another matter altogether.
    I considered the time and the stack of unmarked essays, checked the pasta supply and then the refrigerator for anything to put