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do to find her.”
    “You know where she is then?” Kathy asked, hope-fully.
    “Melissa? Gosh, no. Do you?”
    “How did she disappear?” I asked.
    “I took Angel to the park last Sunday afternoon. When we got home, she was gone.”
    “Just like that?”
    “Yeah. It was kind of funny. You know. Odd?”
    “No warning? You hadn’t been quarreling? Was she worried about something?” In their financial straits it was difficult to imagine her not worrying.
    “No. Nothing like that.”
    “She leave a note?”
    Digging into his jeans pocket, Burton pulled out a partially shredded scrap of paper and handed it to me. He was reminiscent of a kid caught with his fingers in mama’s undies drawer, as if the note were something he shouldn’t have and was ashamed of being caught with. He’d obviously had it in his pocket all week. Perusing the wrinkled note over my arm, Kathy leaned in until I could smell her greasepaint.
    Burty, I have to go away. Things haven’t been working out and I know they won’t get better unless leave. I am no good for you so please don’t worry. Love, Melissa.
    Where she wrote “I am no good for you” there was a natural break in the continuity of the writing so that “I am no good” was almost a separate entity and not connected with “for you.” As if she unconsciously wanted to make a point of the words: “I am no good.” The script was less businesslike and precise than her handwriting in the checkbook.
    Melissa Crowell Nadisky was a woman in trouble. ?

Chapter Four
    “SHE HAVE ANY MONEY WITH HER WHEN SHE LEFT?” I asked.
    “Cripes,” said Burton. “I never thought about that.” I wondered what he did think about. Money was the first thing most people would have considered. “No, she didn’t. A couple of bucks, maybe. And we only have the one checkbook. She left that.” I knew why. “She didn’t take hardly any of her clothes.”
    “Where do you think she went?”
    Burton shrugged. “I really couldn’t say.”
    “We’re going to find her,” said Kathy. “If she doesn’t want to come back, fine. But we’re going to locate her and talk with her.”
    “Sure,” said Burton. We probably could have said “let’s go get your balls amputated” and he would have said “sure.” I bet the Fuller Brush men and the Avon ladies and the pixie girls selling Scout cookies loved him. For that matter, I bet his little girl loved him.
    “You must have a theory,” I said.
    “I really don’t. I just believed she would be back. And now it’s been over a week. Mid they took Angel. I don’t know what’s happening. Angus said I was a Jew. Why would he say that?” His voice began to grow strangled.
    “I’m Lutheran, just like he is.”
    “Would she go to her folks’ house?”
    “No!” said Burton emphatically. It was the largest bullet of emotion he had fired all morning. Then, in a more controlled tone, he added, “They don’t get along real well. They’ve had a few tiffs. She’s okay with her mom. But her dad and her…”
    “Any other relatives? Or friends I might try?”
    “We don’t have a whole lot of close friends. I’ve phoned everyone here in town.”
    “Maybe somebody’s hiding her.”
    “Melissa doesn’t know anyone that well.” “Where else might she go?”
    “There’s an aunt, maybe. I understand Melissa stayed with her one summer during high school. They used to be close.”
    Burton staggered into the other room and returned with a Christmas card and its torn envelope which he handed over timidly. The aunt’s name was Mary Dawn Crowell. The address was in Bellingham.
    “She ever run away before, Burton?”
    He hesitated, but not for long. I had the feeling he would tell me anything I wanted, if I asked—even how and where they had sex, as if the rest of us had more rights to his life than he did. “She’s been gone before. Never this long.”
    “Where did she go?”
    “I never found out.”
    “Weren’t you mildly curious?”
    “I