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to Cambridge.
    “You look like you know where you’re going,” I said to Diesel.
    “I spent some time here two years ago, looking for someone.”
    “Did you find him?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And?”
    Diesel stopped for a light. “It’s complicated.”
    “You didn’t kill him, did you?”
    “I don’t kill people.”
    “Did you turn him into a toad?”
    Diesel glanced over at me and smiled.
    I wasn’t sure what the smile meant, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, so I stared out the window at the passing buildings and sidewalks filled with college students. “Did we just pass Harvard?” I asked him.
    “No,” Diesel said. “That was MIT. Harvard is a couple miles up Massachusetts Avenue .”
    Mass Ave was four-lanes wide, and traffic was heavy but moving. Buildings were a mix of more high-rise offices and condos, plus lower-profile furniture stores, ethnic restaurants, bakeries, bike stores, car dealerships, churches, bookshops, and hotels.
    Diesel’s phone rang and a woman’s voice came up. “Julie Brodsky will meet you in the front lobby of the Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street. Follow Mass Ave to Harvard Yard and bear right after you pass the Inn. The building is on the corner of Quincy and Harvard streets. I told her you were Daniel Crowley, Reedy’s cousin from Chicago.”
    “Nice,” Diesel said. “Thanks.” And he hung up.
    “Where does your assistant live?” I asked him.
    “Don’t know.”
    “Have you seen this one?”
    “Nope.”
    “You go through a lot of assistants.”
    “So I’ve been told.”
    “Why do you suppose that is?” I asked him.
    “I’ve heard rumors that I’m considered high maintenance with low reward.”
    “Imagine that.”
    “Listen, when I’m hunting someone down in the Thar Desert in India, I’ve got dysentery, and my camel runs away, I expect a new camel to show up fast .”
    “Seems like a reasonable request. How often does that happen?”
    “More often than I’d care to remember.”

CHAPTER SIX
    Diesel drove past the Inn, turned right, and cruised around until he found on-street parking. Sidewalks and buildings were redbrick, there were a lot of grassy spaces, and I had the feeling I was in a small town inside a city. It was sunny, but there was a chill to the air, and people were wearing sweatshirts and sweaters and had long knit scarves wrapped around their necks.
    We entered the courtyard to Barker Center from Quincy Street and had no trouble locating Reedy’s grad student. She was wearing jeans and a bulky, tweedy sweater, and she was hugging a copy of The History of English Sixteenth-Century Verse . She had brown, super-curly hair pulled back into a ponytail that was a big round puffball. No makeup.Large, round, red-framed glasses. Five feet, two inches tall. First impression was that she was twelve years old. On closer inspection, there were a few faint laugh lines around her eyes.
    Diesel introduced himself as Daniel Crowley, and Julie’s eyes filled with tears.
    “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said. “Dr. Reedy was a wonderful man.”
    “I was hoping to see his office,” Diesel said. “I gave him a book several years ago that has sentimental value. I’d like it back, and it wasn’t in his condo.”
    “Of course. I can take you to his office. The police have already been here, but they didn’t take anything. They looked around, rolled their eyes, and left. We’ve been waiting for his family to clean things out, but so far you’re the only one who’s come forward.”
    We followed her one flight up, down the hall, and stopped at the doorway to Reedy’s office. It was instantly clear why the police rolled their eyes and left. The office was clogged with assorted professorial flotsam. Books overflowed the bookshelves and were stacked everywhere. Artifacts were stuck away in nooks and crannies. Rolled-up maps were scattered on the floor and desktop.
    “Wow,” I said. “There’s a lot of stuff here. His condo was so neat. It’s