“Why should they?” Iris looked at her oddly. “Sometimes they can reopen the case when new evidence comes to light, or do DNA testing, but after thirty-two years most of the witnesses will have moved away or died. The police officers who first looked into it will have retired. Probably nothing happens unless a new lead comes up. Say, they find another body or someone confesses years later. It’s just one of those terrible things that sometimes happen to people. The only unusual thing about it was you.” She looked at Miriam fondly.

“Why they let two radicals, one of them a resident alien and both of them into antiwar protests and stuff like that, adopt a baby—” Miriam shook her head. Then she grinned. “Did they think I would slow you down or something?”

“Possibly, possibly. But I don’t remember being asked any questions about our politics when we went to the adoption agency—it was much easier to adopt in those days. They didn’t ask much about our background except whether we were married. We didn’t save the newspapers at the time, by the way. Morris bought them as morgue copies later.”

“Well.” Miriam replaced the news clipping, put the lid back on the box, and contemplated it. “Ancient history.”

“You know, if you wanted to investigate it—” Iris was using that look on her, the penetrating diamond-tipped stare of inquisition, the one Miriam tried to think herself into when interviewing difficult customers—“I bet a journalist of your experience would do better than some doughnut stuffed policeman on a routine job. Don’t you think?”

“I think I really ought to help my real mother figure out what she’s going to do about not going stir-crazy while she gets better,” Miriam replied lightly. “There are more immediate things to investigate, like whether your tea is cold and if there are any cookies in the kitchen. Why don’t we leave digging up the dead past for some other time?”

Pink Slippers

Pink Slippers

Miriam drove away slowly, distractedly, nodding in time to the beat of the wind-shield wipers. Traffic was as bad as usual, but nothing untoward penetrated her thoughts.