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stuck inside, no dog-eared pages, nothing to tell us what he might have been doing with it.”
    “Is it marked at all?”
    “I don’t know. I never thought to look. Why would it be?”
    Alan shrugged. “I’ve no idea. But if it is, it might give us a lead.”
    “I suppose you’re right. No, you are right. It’s just that I’ve read so many papers today, dusty things in bad handwriting and by a bad light, and my eyes positively tear at the thought of reading any more.”
    “Hand it over, then, love. I’ll take it into the study and have a look while you do something about dinner. Unless you’d rather eat out?”
    “I’m too tired to change clothes. I’ll thaw something.” I dragged myself into the kitchen and searched the freezer, thinking as I did so that it was now only a little over two weeks until Christmas, and I had absolutely nothing in the house to cook for a festive dinner.
    There wouldn’t be a festive dinner unless Bill was found.
    I didn’t feel like cooking, and the only ready-cooked food I could find was the remains of a pot of soup I’d made on the first chilly day of fall. It hadn’t been wonderful then, but I’d thought as I’d frozen it that I’d add a few things later, doll it up a bit. I was too tired now, and besides I didn’t care. I knew, rationally, that food mattered, but I couldn’t make myself believe it. When it was hot and I’d dragged out some rather stale crackers to go with it, I called Alan in.
    He made no complaint about the meal. Either he realized I was in no mood for criticism, or he truly didn’t notice. I suppose if a man has spent quite a lot of his life eating quick meals when and where he can find the time, often from the police canteen, he loses his critical palate. At any rate, he spooned up the soup obediently while I toyed with mine, making desultory conversation. When he had put down his spoon, he cleared his throat.
    “I found some markings in the atlas.”
    “Oh? Notes, you mean?”
    “No. They’re rather odd, really. I hadn’t time, of course, to go through the whole book, and the markings are very faint, but all of them—all I could find, at any rate—are on the map of Indiana.”
    “But, Alan, that is odd! Surely Bill’s never been to Indiana in his life.”
    “Not using this atlas, at any rate. It’s the current edition.”
    “So what are they, the marks, I mean?”
    “They’re in blue pencil, very faint, as I said, and they’re underlinings of certain towns. Or villages, I should think, by the size of the type.”
    “Could they be places he wanted to visit? Maybe he was planning—I mean, maybe they’re honeymoon ideas. Jane said they weren’t going on a trip, but Bill might have had plans he hadn’t told her about.”
    “Well, I’d have no idea, of course, knowing next to nothing about the state. Perhaps you should take a look.”
    With relief, I left my soup and went with Alan to his study. The atlas, open to the Indiana pages, was spread out on the desk under a good light. I sat down to take a look.
    After a minute or two I looked up at my husband. “Alan, this makes no sense at all. These are tiny places, all of them. I imagine the biggest attraction in town is the grain elevator. Why would anybody want to visit Donaldson, Indiana? Or Tiosa? Or Spring Grove, or Laketon, or Rolling Prairie, for heaven’s sake? I was a lifelong Hoosier till I moved here, and I’ve never even heard of most of these places. The only one I’ve ever been to is Rolling Prairie, and that was because I got lost one time, wandering around the northern part of the state.”
    “There wouldn’t be an historical thread, perhaps? Bill’s an historian. Let’s see—something to do with Indian wars, perhaps?”
    “I have no idea. To tell the truth, I was never much interested in American history, beyond the high points. I know a little about the Indian tribes that lived in the southern part of the state, near Hillsburg, because I had to teach it in