Macey started with the Saturday of the fire at the Church of the Good Shepherd, her fire. But if there was any mention of the church fire, she did not find it. Hadn’t the fireman said it was part of a string of arsons? Shouldn’t there be a big article? “Another church arson” type article? But there wasn’t. Not that day, and not any day afterward that Macey could find.

Venita’s murder was covered in the second section, on the second page, the day after she was shot. The report was brief. There were no witnesses. There were no suspects. Classmates were sad. Teachers grieved for lost potential.

How could there be no witnesses and no suspects? Reverend Warren had said that Venita waded right out into a gang.

Awkwardly, Macey carried the large, flapping page to the photocopier and copied Venita’s paragraphs. Then she borrowed the librarian’s scissors to cut it out. Venita, her life and death, took five inches.

Macey checked newsprint for the following week, but she did not find another mention of Venita. Had the police given up so quickly? Or was it too boring for the newspaper to mention again? She thrust her hand up to run her fingers through the dark silk of her hair and was startled to find so little. Phantom hair, she thought. I wonder how long before I remember that I have no hair.

Once, somebody who admired him had commissioned that statue in the square across from Good Shepherd. A man on a horse. Like the city, the statue had once been proud and strong, but it was ruined now. Still, he had had a memorial.

Macey put the five inches of photocopy that were Venita’s memorial into the envelope with Mrs. Loomis’s letter. Then she went back to the librarian. “I need to look up December fourth, 1959, but this time in the local paper, please.”

The librarian led her to stacked narrow drawers of microfilm, plucked out the film for the fourth quarter of 1959, and showed her how to spool the film in the machine. It was much harder to find a paragraph on the screen than when the paper was flat on the table. But eventually she turned it up.

Twenty-seven volunteer firemen rushed to Shell Road to fight a garage fire. The garage, formerly a barn, was a total loss. One car was destroyed. Chief Raspardo said, “Buildings as old as that barn are so dry, they’re impossible to save once the fire gets started. We didn’t want anybody to get hurt, so we concentrated on not letting the fire spread.”

Amount of damage has not yet been assessed by the owners.

No mention of an apartment. No mention of Mr. Sibley. No mention of how the fire started.

At least nobody had been hurt. But Mr. Sibley’s car had burned. Or somebody’s car.