Little things like that hang with you, he thought, and the big things get forgotten.

The memory was triggered by the old woman at 4255, Miss Fiala Groloch.

Miss Groloch's was the only single-family dwelling on the block, a red-brick Victorian that antedated everything else by at least a generation. He found it odd and attractive. He had been having a love affair with stuffy, ornate old houses since childhood.

Miss Groloch proved more interesting still. Like her house, she was different.

He and Harald grumped up her unshoveled walk, onto a porch in need of paint, and looked for a bell.

"Don't see one," said John.

Cash opened the storm door and knocked. Then he saw the bell, set in the door itself. It was one of those mechanical antiques meant to be twisted. It still worked.

Miss fiala groloch was the name printed in tiny, draftsman-perfect letters on a card in a slot on the face of a mailbox that looked as if it had never been used. Miss Groloch proved to be old, and behind her the interior of her house looked like a hole-up for a covey of old maids.

"May I help you?" Her accent was slight, but the rhythm of her syllables conjured visions of tiny European kingdoms perishing beneath the hooves of the Great War.

"Police officers, ma'am," Cash replied, tipping his hat. That seemed compellingly appropriate. "I'm Detective Sergeant Cash. This's Detective Harald."

"Well. Come in. Is very nasty, yes?"

"Sure is. Who'd have thought it this late?" To John, whispering, "Knock the shit off your shoes, Hoosier."

They followed the woman to her parlor, exchanging frowns. That curious accent. And she talked slowly, as if trying to remember the words.