I had the Drinkwaters’ house, and the travel agent’s office, and Dr. Sizemore’s office. I still cleaned Deedra Dean’s apartment, and I was working more hours for Mrs. Rossiter, who had broken her arm while she was walking Durwood, her old cocker spaniel. But it wasn’t enough.

I did get the job of decorating two more office Christmas trees, and I did a good job on one and an outstanding job on the other, which was a very visible advertisement since it stood in the Chamber of Commerce office. I used birds and fruit for that one, and the warm, hushed colors and carefully concealed lights made the tree a little more peaceful than some of the others I saw around town.

I’d quit taking the Little Rock newspaper to cut back on expenses until my client list built up. So I was in Dr. Sizemore’s office, on a Tuesday afternoon, when I saw the creased section from one of the Sunday editions. I scooped it up to dump into the recycle bin, and my gaze happened to land on the headline “Unsolved Crimes Mean No Happy Holiday.” The paper was dated two days after Thanksgiving, which told me that one of the office staff had stuffed it somewhere and then unearthed it in her pre-Christmas cleaning.

I sank down onto the edge of one of the waiting room chairs to read the first three paragraphs.

In the yearly effort to pack as many holiday-related stories as possible into the paper, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette had interviewed the families of people who had been murdered (if the murder was unsolved) or abducted (if the abductee hadn’t been found).

I wouldn’t have continued to read the article, since it’s just the kind of thing that brings back too many bad memories, if it hadn’t been for the picture of the baby.