Germ

"Bobby, who is it?" His mom whisked into the kitchen and held out her hand for the phone.

"Some guy . . ." He placed the handset into her palm, glad to be done with it, and bolted toward the door.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," his mother said. She raised a finger to tell him to hold on. "Who is this, please?" She listened for three seconds, then hung up. "I don't have time for salesmen. Did you sweep the garage like I asked?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You're so good. Come here." She touched his forehead. "Still warm. How do you feel?"

"Stuffy. Tight right here." He patted his chest.

"Worse than this morning?"

"A little."

"That means a lot. Don't stay out too long, and stay out of the brook."

"Aw, Mom."

"Do you want to not go out at all?"

He shook his head.

"Okay, have fun." She slapped his bottom, and he ran out the door. Cole was nowhere in sight.

A kid. What was it Alice said in Wonderland? Curiouser

and curiouser. Jeff Hunter typed a note on the line that contained Robert Waddle's name. He scrolled down a ways and selected another.

"The lobster cakes and Dom Perignon sound lovely,"

Gretchen Gaither told the woman sitting beside her on the couch. Her smile faltered slightly. "But they're out of our price range."

The woman touched Gretchen's hand. "For your fortieth anniversary? Why not splurge?"

She thought about it. It would be nice. Just this once. She knew Jim would go along with it . . . and then quietly work a few weeks of double shifts to pay for it. She couldn't do that to him.

"I'm afraid not," she said. "What else do you have?"

The woman looked disappointed—or disgusted. She leaned over to a large volume of menus and photographs on the coffee table, flipped a few pages, then a few pages more. "Bruschetta and Torciano Fragolino? Fourteen dollars a bottle."

Gretchen nodded. Jim would have hated this meeting with the caterer. It would have reminded him that things hadn't turned out the way they had dreamed. Still, he had always provided for their needs and had found a way to put their two children through college. It had been a little easier when she worked as a substitute teacher. But two years ago, her arthritis had grown too painful to ignore or sufficiently medicate. And an already tight budget became even tighter. She'd told him that their anniversary needed no special commemoration, other than their own remembrances of the happy times they'd shared. But he had insisted: "Ask the kids to come, invite some friends. Let's have a little party—catered, because the guest of honor shouldn't do the work."

"How many people?" the woman asked.

"About thirty, with the kids and their families."

The caterer looked around the small living room. "Have you thought about renting a banquet room? They can be had for a very reasonable price."

"Our backyard has hosted many a birthday party," Gretchen said, smiling at the memories. "I think it'll do for this."

The phone rang and she excused herself.

She found the cordless handset on the dining room table. "Hello?"

"Gretchen Gaither?"

"Yes?"

"Jeff Hunter, with the New York Times. Do you have a few moments?"

After speaking to the Gaither woman, Hunter disconnected

with a mouse click. Retired schoolteacher. No recent problems with financial institutions or anyone else that she could think of. Seemed like a sweet lady. He could tell his call had spooked her. He hoped she didn't follow up with a call to the news desk or, worse, to the police. He wasn't ready to answer questions, and he wasn't ready to let the list go.

Andrew Wallenski looked at the wall of the boys' restroom

and shook his head. Kids these days. To know such words in middle school was bad enough, but to actually spray paint them on a public wall! No respect. Not for property. Not for the people who had to clean up their messes. If they were his kids, they'd show respect, that was for sure.

He opened the can of white latex paint and poured it into a pan. He'd tried scrubbing graffiti off the walls before. The wall paint had come off with the spray paint, and he'd had to recover the entire wall anyway. Waste of time. Waste of paint. Fool kids. He draped a drop cloth over the tops of the urinals and had run the roller up three feet of wall, dulling but not obscuring a big letter S, when the mobile phone in his back pocket jangled.

A dozen calls later, Hunter had nothing. He'd spoken to a mother in Denver whose infant son was on the list; a sixteen-year-old girl in Dallas who was late for her waitressing job and didn't want to talk; a father in Chicago who wanted to know why a stranger was asking about his seven-year-old daughter; and two women and three men, all of whom had no clue why they'd be on a list sent to a news reporter. Of course he'd encountered wrong, unlisted, and disconnected numbers; busy signals; unanswered calls; and answering machines. But none of those counted. No journalist worth his press pass let that stuff deter him from a story. Problem was, he wasn't sure he had a story. Just a list of names.