I jumped: an African-American officer, who’d been sitting so quietly in the corner that I hadn’t noticed him, was speaking.

“There’s that little Jewish cemetery out by Eudora and the Catholic cemetery over on Sixth. And don’t forget Maple Grove, Sarge.”

Everard nodded slowly. “Right, Leonard. It’s not used much anymore for new burials,” he added to me, “but it’s in the old part of town, north of the river. A lot of abolitionists and escaped slaves from when the town was first settled are buried there. If Sonia was going to imagine she had a lover who’d been buried, I bet that’s where he’d be.”

13
One Sober Minute

I slept until close to ten the next morning, but my dreams were unquiet, filled with moody, romantic girls wandering through old cemeteries. When I finally got up, I was as stiff and tired as if I’d never lain down.

I let Peppy out into the little patio outside my room. If I were home, I could make myself espresso and do my exercises until I felt human enough to face the day. In a strange place, I made do with a hot shower and a few stretches before driving down to the Decadent Hippo. This was my third morning, and the bartender/barista raised a brow and asked if I wanted my usual. There are compensations to small towns.

The day was overcast and crisply cool. I joined Peppy at the sidewalk tables and did a more strenuous set of stretches and squats. With a second cortado, I felt up to creating a to-do list.

It was hard to know where to start. Try to see Dr. Kiel, go to the cemeteries, find St. Raphael’s group home, visit Riverside Church on the south side of the river and St. Silas AME on the north, drive out to the old missile silo in case Emerald Ferring had decided to revisit it.

At least I could do some basic research on people and places while I finished my coffee. Nathan Kiel, Ph.D., not M.D., had multiple listings, from the Society of American Microbiologists to Wikipedia and a whole bunch in between. He’d taught for decades at the University of Kansas and was considered an authority on infectious diseases. I found 113 articles that he’d co-authored, but the titles might as well have been in Farsi for all the sense they made to me. Phosphorylation-dephosphorylation followed by chemical symbols and ending in Y. enterocolitica.

The Douglas County Herald had written about him several times, most recently over the food-poisoning event that Cady Perec had mentioned last night.

Eighteen people were infected before the Kansas Department of Public Health called in Dr. Kiel. He’s eighty and no longer teaches formally in the classroom, but he can still show younger people a thing or two.