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children of the people who belonged here. "All I want," I said carefully, "is to find him. Send him home. That's all."
    Her eyes searched my face as though it were new to her. I wondered, suddenly, how much there was left in me of the brother she'd grown up with. I wondered, too, if that's what she was looking for.
    She spoke suddenly, quickly, as though she wanted to get the words said before she could stop herself.
    "It's mostly Scott. Because you were in jail. Because of what you do. Because…" She trailed off.
    "It doesn't matter," I said. "That's not what this is about." It wasn't; this was about Gary. But I would have stopped her anyway. I didn't want to hear any more, didn't want to listen to her lying to me.
    I pulled out my cigarettes, shook one from the pack.
    "You're still smoking," she said.
    I lit up, shook the match, dropped it on the walk. "If Scott doesn't know why Gary went," I said, "he won't have much luck. I can do better. I know how to do this, Helen. Give me pictures of Gary, tell me who his friends are."
    "The police talked to his friends already."
    "I can ask different questions. Please," I said, and thought how much I sounded like Gary, asking me for help.
    We stood on the sidewalk in front of the school and she looked at me for a long time. I turned away, watched the kids streaming up the walkway between the maples. The last of the stragglers was inside, the doors had closed, and the first bell had rung when Helen's eyes, without warning, filled with tears. She wiped them away and said, "Oh, God, yes. God, please. Can you really find him?"
    Yellow leaves drifted at our feet as Helen and I walked beyond the school, down to where tall oaks shaded a street of shops. Most of the shops had GO WARRIORS! posters in their windows, in school colors, maroon and white like Gary's jacket.
    We slipped the dog's leash over a parking meter, went into the bakery, sat over coffee while I asked Helen the questions I'd ask any client. Had Gary been depressed lately, distracted, different from usual? No, she said. He liked this new school, was excited to have made the varsity, looked forward to the school year, to the football games. His grades were good, and he'd played well when he'd gotten in, which wasn't often, of course. He was only a sophomore, and he was new.
    Nothing he wouldn't talk about, nothing she or Scott had sensed? No, nothing. Was he involved with drugs, I asked casually, either that she knew about, or even just suspected? No, of course not, she answered firmly but without heat, making me think that though Gary might be hiding something from her, she was not hiding it from me.
    I asked, how long had they lived in Warrenstown? Since June; they'd left Sarasota right after the school year ended. Scott had grown up here, she told me, though he left after high school and never came back. At "never came back" a pink flush crept onto her cheeks, and she looked at the table, out the window, anywhere but at me. She and I both knew about people who left and never came back, though we saw that picture from opposite sides.
    I said nothing, drank my coffee. It was rich and fragrant, hometown coffee served with hometown smiles by women who knew most of their customers and called them by name.
    Helen picked at the cinnamon bun in front of her and went on with her story. When the firm Scott worked for was bought by a bigger one, he was offered a promotion, given a choice of three branch offices to relocate to. He'd chosen Newark. He'd always talked about Warrenstown, what a great place it was to grow up, and he'd been saying it was time to come back. They'd packed up the family and moved.
    Did she like it here? I asked, wondering why I was asking. It didn't matter to the job I was doing. But she answered just as she had everything else I'd asked. I was the expert she'd decided she needed, and my role seemed to give me rights she didn't question. She wouldn't argue with the plumber over which valve to repair, with the