Officer Terrance looked at me. I shrugged and said, “All I know is that I heard a scream about five minutes ago. I called the emergency number, then came over here to”-I saw no reason to indict Caron-”find out what happened. I didn’t see anybody in the yard or running down the sidewalk. No cars in the street.”

Terrance scratched his chin while he tried to grasp what he must have felt were the unspoken complexities in my story. He apparently had no success, in that he said, “You’d better wait here until we’ve questioned the

I considered my chances and realized they were naught. “Okay, but be quick about it, please. All I did was my civic duty, and I’d like to go back to bed before dawn.”

‘Wouldn’t we all?” he said as he left the room. Officer Michaels reluctantly followed him.

The three girls on the sofa were regarding me with dark suspicion, if not outright alarm. After a muted conference, the two in gowns left through a doorway and the third stood up and approached me with an outstretched hand. She had dark hair cut in a short wedge, flawless if uninspired features, a trim body marred only by overly broad shoulders, and the bright appraisal of a lioness contemplating a crippled eland. Her pale pink sweat-suit had not come from a discount house; her expensive athletic shoes had never so much as walked through the doorway of one.

On her chest was a glittery pin adorned with tiny chains that led to smaller glittery pins. For a brief, stunned moment, I thought it was meant to be symbolic of a skull and crossbones, but as she came nearer, I realized it was nothing more sinister than her sorority pin. I also realized it was much too late to be gadding about the neighborhood.

“I’m Jean Hall, Ms. Malloy,” she said as she shook my hand with the precise degree of firmness for the occasion. “I was the house committee president last year, and I’d like to welcome you to Kappa Theta Eta, even though this is not how we prefer to have an open house.” She gave me a pearly smile that went no deeper than the sheen of makeup on her face. “It seems as though we’ll be up for a while. Please sit down and make yourself at home. May we offer you coffee or tea?”

“No, thank you.” I sat down on the nearest chair and willed myself not to be intimidated by her aura of determined congeniality. “What exactly happened to Debbie Anne?”

Jean’s smile tightened. “It’s impossible to say. Debbie Anne’s a nice enough girl, considering her background, but she’s a teensy bit unreliable. We’ve had a problem or two with her during the year, and I’ve made a point of doing everything I can to help her adjust to the Kappa Theta Eta way of doing things. I hate to say it, but this may be nothing more than another manifestation of her… insecurities.”

“Insecurities?” I echoed.

“I don’t quite know how to phrase this tactfully. She’s hardly the shining beacon of scholarship in the house. In fact, she’s the only one in her pledge class that we didn’t initiate during the year Even though she took intellectually demanding courses like bulletin board design and kiddy lit, she was put on academic probation second semester I personally made sure she attended study hall every night, and even excused her from pledge duties so she could spend extra time at the library on weekends. I finally had to tell her that if she can’t get her grade point average up this summer, she ought to consider switching to history in the fall-because as far as the Kappas are concerned, that’s what she’ll be.”

I was a little disconcerted at the lack of compassion between sisters. “But what about tonight?”

Jean sat down across from me, folded her hands in her lap, and crossed her ankles. “She was incoherent, which is nothing novel, but her story was that she came up the side yard just as a man stepped out of the shadows. She screamed, and he knocked her down as he fled.” She paused as if hesitant to further malign Debbie Anne, and made a pretense of choosing her words ever so carefully before going in for the verbal kill. “She attended some little country school where she actually was a majorette. And there was something about being secretary of the Future Farmwives of America, but I don’t recall the details. She’s had a great deal of difficulty fitting in with the others. Her clothes aren’t quite right, so all year long I’ve lent her mine and done what I could to instill a sense of fashion. Somehow, she always looks as if she’s stepped off the pages of a Sears catalog. Andrew, bless his heart, was in tears after he’d worked on her hair. I’ve tried and tried with her, but I simply cannot get through to her that Kappa Theta Etas are a special breed. Several times last year, she pulled pathetic stunts for the attention.”

“Like screaming bloody murder at midnight?”

“Not exactly,” Jean said with a bloodless little chuckle. “Once she claimed someone had stolen her mother’s diamond earrings. Her roommates finally got tired of listening to her whine and searched her things while she was in study hall. The earrings were at the bottom of her laundry bag-and they were rhinestone. Another time she was accidentally locked in the chapter room after a meeting. She was in absolute hysterics by the time I found her all of five minutes later You’d have thought the room was haunted by hundred-year-old alumnae staggering around like mummies. It was too funny.”

“And you think this alleged encounter tonight is another stunt to get attention?”

“Well, we all dashed out to the yard and carried her into the house. Winkle was fluttering about like a dazed moth, alternately suggesting cold compresses and hot tea. Now you’re here, along with the police. I’d have to say she certainly is getting attention, although, of course, it’s not exactly the kind to which Kappas aspire.”

The housemother came into the lounge. “Jean, the officers think we should have a locksmith come by tomorrow and check the security system. I have something on my calendar Will you take care of it?”

“Of course, Winkle. What about Debbie Anne? Are they done with her?”

“I’ve sent her to bed. There was so little she could tell them that it was hardly worth their coming.” She looked at me as if I’d just popped up from the upholstery. “They’re waiting for you in the foyer. I do hope you’ll avoid causing any more disruptions, at least for tonight. Katie and I would like to get some sleep.”

“Katie?” I said despite myself.

“Katie is the house cat,” Winkie said. “It’s traditional for all Kappa houses to have cats named Katie. Please lock up, Jean, and turn off the porch lights. Good night, girls.” She veered around the sofa, barely avoiding an end table, and weaved out of the room.

I glanced at Jean, who was watching the housemother’s retreat with a faint sneer She appeared to be enjoying whatever condemnatory thoughts she entertained, so I did not wish her sweet dreams on my way to the foyer and the local version of the Spanish Inquisition.

I repeated my succinct story, and after a few avowals that I’d seen no one in the vicinity, I was escorted to my door and thanked for my overly zealous call. The adjective was mine, but the snickers were all theirs. This may have resulted in my unnecessarily elaborate expression of gratitude for their prompt arrival and subsequently thorough and piercing investigation, but in the midst of it, I realized I hadn’t seen Caron in over an hour and went upstairs.

The child was nestled and snug in her bed, snoring gently while visions of convertibles danced in her head. I thought about waking her long enough to tell her she was grounded in perpetuity, but finally went on to bed, where I devised even more intricate forms of torture. In the middle of scheming to adopt Rhonda Maguire and make Caron share her bedroom, I fell asleep.

The next morning she was gone. The fact that her bed was made and her room marginally tidy, coupled with the neatness of the kitchen and lack of toothpaste smears in the bathroom sink, led me to believe she knew what lay in store for her Smart kid, although we both knew she couldn’t dodge me indefinitely.