“Now, don’t get me wrong,” she said. “Joey is hardly a regular guy. He’s sort of, I don’t know, quirky sometimes.”

Lou perked up at the word.

“Quirky?” he asked.

“You know, odd, strange. He’s not exactly obsessive, but he gets onto a hobby and goes overboard with it. It’s sort of like he gets fixated on things.”

Like that piece of carrot?

Lou began ticking off what he knew about conditions that featured fixations without dominating obsessive compulsive behavior. His list, as might be expected from an ER doc, was a short one—variants of autism such as Asperger’s syndrome, and …

“Can you give me some examples of things that Joey’s gotten locked in on?” he asked, wondering about Carolyn Meacham and her nearly deadly fixation on a busted taillight.

“The last thing Joey really got into,” Millie said, “was learning how to tie knots. I once bought him a book of over a hundred different knots, thinking he probably wouldn’t have enough of an attention span to do much with it. It took him two or three months, but he learned to tie every one of them. Eventually he could even do a bunch of them blindfolded. It was amazing to watch.

“How long ago was that?” asked Lou.

“Maybe two Christmases. And before that, it was puzzles. And before that, radio-controlled cars. Using a kit, the boy built one that went faster than I’m comfortable driving. Then he just lost interest and went on to something else.”

“So he’s been like that for a long time?”

Lou tried to keep the disappointment from his voice. If Joey’s behavior had been a recent development, it might have been an interesting avenue to explore. Instead, it appeared to be just another in a string of dead ends.

“Oh, he’s been that way ever since I’ve known him,” Millie said. “Now, I can’t be certain I’ve touched on all his hobbies. Joey’s a very private person, and not a boy anymore. I make it my business to keep out of his world. He has a driver’s license and an old Ford pickup, and pretty much comes and goes as he pleases. I don’t go traipsing about his apartment at the Dorm, and he doesn’t invite me over for dinner.” Millie said that with a laugh, and then added, “’Cause everybody eats at Millie’s.”

“And to your knowledge, he’s never behaved irrationally? Done anything dangerous?”

“No. Oh, no. Joey’s a stickler for the rules. My only demands of him beside honoring the Ten Commandments are that he’s on time for work and polite to everybody. He’s never let me down on either regard.”

Their conversation drifted off, and for a time, Millie dozed and Lou read some articles in an emergency medicine journal.