"What the hell, they were both nice Jewish boys."

"Graduating senior?"

"Graduating with honors and aiming for Yale."

I said, "It's the toughest year ever, huge upsurge of applications, lots of honor students are going to be disappointed. A couple of patients I saw as little kids have come back for moral support and they say the most trivial factor can nudge the scales. A big-time scandal would energize the Rejection Gods."

He bowed. "O Great Swami of the East, your wisdom has pierced the miasma." He began circling the room. "Ol' Stanley was wrong. Why I rely upon you has nothing to do with personality."

Creighton might've been off about that but to my eye he was right about the house yielding nothing of value.

The miserly space had already taken on an abandoned feel. The front room, carelessly and cheaply furnished, sported a U-build bookshelf full of high school texts, SAT and ACT practice manuals, a few photography volumes featuring pretty shots of faraway places, paperbacks by Jane Austen, Aphra Behn, and George Eliot.

The plywood-and-Formica kitchenette was a sixties bootleg. Wilting fruit and vegetables moldered in the mini-fridge; a couple of Lean Cuisine boxes sat in the freezer compartment. A kitchen cabinet was crammed full of liquor mini-bottles and some full-sized quarts. Budget gin but Grey Goose vodka, no mixers prettying up intentions.

The sole bedroom was a nine-by-nine cave set up with a twin bed and IKEA trimmings.

Gloomy because a single window looked out to a wall of creeping ivy. Hillside close enough to touch but the frame was painted shut. A cheap fan in the corner pretended to circulate air. No match for faint overtones of decomposition.

Faint because dry ice had slowed down the inevitable. But we all rot, it's just a matter of time.

I said, "Any maggots?"

"A sprinkle in her nose and ears, mommy flies probably got in under the door. Little bastards were frozen stiff, dumb vermin."

He searched the room. A limited, drab wardrobe filled a makeshift closet. Oppressively sensible down to white cotton, full-cut underwear.

Crowding the bed was a space-saving, nearly wood desk. Vase of dry flowers on top, next to a pale rectangle where the computer had sat. A photo in a white wood frame showed Elise Freeman and a red-bearded bald man around her age standing near a bank of slot machines in an excruciatingly bright, garish room. Both of them in T-shirts and shorts, glazed around the eyes, beaming. The man held up a sheaf of paper money. Elise Freeman snaked an arm around his waist and flashed a victory sign.

On the bottom frame panel, cursive in red marker read: Sal strikes it big in Reno! Adorning the boast were hand-drawn pink hearts and green daisies.

Milo said, "Nice to be lucky once in a while," and continued to have his way with drawers and shelves.

The final stop was the bathroom. Modular fiberglass prefab unit; another aftermarket.