It took a second phone call later that day to get all the details. Alice had gone out in the afternoon to do errands. She’d stopped by the store to see Bill, and he’d told her that he planned on going for a walk before it got dark and that he’d be home for dinner. She’d told him to be careful, as she always did, and that she was making shepherd’s pie for dinner, the way he liked it, with the cubed lamb instead of ground hamburger. The food was ready by six, the time they normally ate dinner, but there was no sign of Bill. And he wasn’t answering his phone. She called John, the only other employee at the bookstore, and he said that all he knew was what Alice knew. Bill had left a little before five to go for a walk. It was dark now, and Alice called the police station, where she was patched through to an Officer Wheatley. Just as he was explaining to Alice that there was nothing they could do if he’d only been missing a little over an hour, she heard another voice interrupt him in the background. The officer told Alice to hang on for a moment, and that was when she knew. When he came back on the line, his voice had altered, and he told her he’d be transferring her to a Detective Dixon. A body had just been found near Kennewick Harbor, and would Alice be available to make an identification.

“How did he die?” Harry asked.

“They won’t rule anything out, but they seemed to think he slipped and fell and hit his head.”

“He did that walk every day.”

“I know. I told them that. We’ll find out more, Harry.”

“I just don’t understand.” He felt as though he’d thought those words a hundred times that day. It was Thursday, and his graduation ceremony was scheduled for Sunday afternoon. His father and Alice had been planning on coming down to New Chester in Connecticut on Saturday night, staying through till Monday, and helping Harry pack up his things for his temporary return to Maine.

Instead, Harry packed everything himself, staying up half the night. Among his textbooks and notebooks, Harry found the paperback edition of Hillary Waugh’s Last Seen Wearing . . . that his father had given him at the beginning of the school year.

“It’s a crime novel set at a university,” his father had said. “I know you like Ed McBain, so I thought you might like this one, as well. It’s a very early procedural. If you find time to read it, of course.”

Harry hadn’t, but he opened the book now. Inside was a slip of paper in his father’s handwriting. One of his father’s favorite activities had been making lists, almost always related to books. This one read: