“And Donna,” she said. “Whoredom’s answer to Edna St. Vincent Millay. I think the poetry does for her what the grass does for Fran. She’s a good poet, you know.”

I had Donna’s poem with me and showed it to Mary Lou. Vertical frown lines appeared in her forehead as she scanned the lines.

“It’s not finished,” I said. “She still has work to do on it.”

“I don’t know how poets know when they’re finished. Or painters. How do they know when to stop? It baffles me. This is supposed to be about Kim?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know what it means, but there’s something, she’s onto something here.” She thought for a moment, her head cocked like a bird’s. She said, “I guess I thought of Kim as the archetypical whore. A spectacular ice blonde from the northern Midwest, the kind that was just plain born to walk through life on a black pimp’s arm. I’ll tell you something. I wasn’t surprised when she was murdered.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not entirely sure. I was shocked but not surprised. I guess I expected her to come to a bad end. An abrupt end. Not necessarily as a murder victim, but as some sort of victim of the life. Suicide, for instance. Or one of those unholy combinations of pills and liquor. Not that she drank much, or took drugs as far as I know. I suppose I expected suicide, but murder would do as well, wouldn’t it? To get her out of the life. Because I couldn’t see her going on with it forever. Once that corn-fed innocence left her she wouldn’t be able to handle it. And I couldn’t see her finding her way out, either.”

“She was getting out. She told Chance she wanted out.”

“Do you know that for a fact?”

“Yes.”

“And what did he do?”

“He told her it was her decision to make.”

“Just like that?”

“Evidently.”

“And then she got killed. Is there a connection?”

“I think there has to be. I think she had a boyfriend and I think the boyfriend’s the connection. I think he’s why she wanted to get away from Chance and I think he’s also the reason she was killed.”

“But you don’t know who he was.”

“No.”

“Does anybody have a clue?”

“Not so far.”

“Well, I’m not going to be able to change that. I can’t remember the last time I saw her, but I don’t remember her eyes being agleam with true love. It would fit, though. A man got her into this. She’d probably need another man to get her out.”

And then she was telling me how she’d gotten into it. I hadn’t thought to ask but I got to hear it anyway.