I shut off the radio and cranked the window open enough to let in the cold and some outside sound.

The way she slammed the car door, you just knew she was pissed off. Then she tromped up the graduated cement sidewalk with similar irritated determination; up on the little stoop, she opened the storm door and then her tan-gloved right fist hammered the dark wood of the front door like she was driving a nail. There was a brass knocker, but she apparently preferred hammering.

She paused, waited for ten seconds, then hammered some more.

Nothing.

I knew the prof was in there-I’d seen him moving around through the front room windows, whose curtains were open.

Then the girl-and she was a girl, maybe nineteen- noticed those windows herself and came down off the stoop to tippy-toe at the evergreen bushes to peek in. She seemed to see nothing. Then she strode across the front yard, arms pistoning, pretty little jaw firm, stopped to look in a window of the little free-standing cobblestone garage where the prof kept his Volvo, then disappeared around the house.

I heard some more hammering. I took a bite of turkey and Swiss-pretty bad. Thin slices of would-be meat and processed cheese that took more chewing than cheese really should. I swigged at a Coke-I’d brought a few cans along, for the caffeine, and they stayed cold outside of space heater range-and let its sweetness wash away the bad sandwich. Some more hammering.

Then she came marching around the house on the other side, looking like a soldier in a high school operetta with that high furry hat-you could thank Doctor Zhivago for this shit, I supposed-and she made her way up onto the porch.