“Not a one,” I said.

I stepped into his Spanish-style bungalow, a half block from campus. The homes circling the perimeter of Martin were an eclectic bunch, constructed by turn-of-the-century Martin faculty. Bobby told everyone his home had been designed by a Spanish professor in 1910. He had yet to produce the documentation required to support his claim. He bought the house last year and coddled it like an infant.

Bobby perched on the sofa to tie his shoes. Tall, well built with black Irish coloring, he was a handsome lad of the Emerald Isle with a colorless Midwestern accent. He was also annoyingly persistent when he was scheming his way out of work. “Not even a science one? You always give me the science ones. If I knew anything about science, I wouldn’t be working at that miserable excuse for academia.”

“Wow,” I commented. “You should work for the admissions office.” I headed for a chair, caught my flip-flop under a sixty-four by forty-eight, stunningly beautiful, and perpetually wrinkled Navajo rug Bobby had found at a Columbus bazaar, and my knees hit the floor. Fickle inertia. “Ow.”

“Pick up your feet when you walk,” Bobby advised.

I rolled to my seat on the offensive rug and examined the strawberry on my knee. The lute-playing characters on the rug mocked me. “This is a hazard.”

Bobby picked up the black-and-white photograph of his father in his police sergeant dress uniform that I had knocked off an end table and shook his head. “Not if you know how to walk. If I got a dime every time you hit the skids, I’d be a rich man living in the Virgin Islands with a model on one side and a waitress on the other.”

“Bobby.” I growled.

He gave me a hand up. “Hey sweetheart, I’m doing you a favor. Let’s go.”

We climbed into my ancient made-in-America sedan. The car was a hodge-podge of parts of several automobile manufacturers. The late great-uncle who’d willed it to me had loved to tinker. Unfortunately, his favorite tinker toy was his car. Most of the car’s body is powder blue, but a smattering of rust red and olive green decorated the front and rear fenders.