The Devil's in the Details by Mary Jane Maffini

life would be like with Alvin if I didn’t do photo duty this time. I reached for the camera.
    â€œHappy to do it, Mrs. P. I’ll be there for take-off. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
    â€œAre you certain, Ms. MacPhee? I am concerned aboutyour physical state.”
    â€œNothing wrong with me. I’ll cab it over. It will keep me from being bored.” I managed a martyred smile.
    Back at my apartment, I patted Gussie and let the cat in from the balcony. I hunted for a paper and pen while the cat had a nap on the freshly vacuumed sofa. My sisters, of course, had cleaned up all those unesthetic writing supplies, and it took a while to find them.
    I started a list. It turned into three lists, then four.
    LAURA—SEEN—WHO ELSE?
    FOUL PLAY – Indications
    ONTARIO TOWN?
    ACTION
    LAURA SEEN was the easiest. I racked my brain for who else at Carleton University in 1986 would have remembered her. The eighties tended to be a blur for me. From the moment I met him, life had been about Paul.
    I had few recollections of Laura outside of class. I did remember her in the library and occasionally in the pub. I did remember her walking with another woman near one of the beautiful spots by the Rideau, where you could enjoy sun on a rock in the spring and fall. But I couldn’t remember the other woman’s name. Sophie? Sally? How do you recall the names of the people who were in your classes nearly twenty years after the fact? Wait a minute. Sylvie! But Sylvie who?
    I’m not the kind of person who would have bought a yearbook, even if Carleton had produced one at that time. Of course, the Registrar’s Office was closed for the weekend. I’d tried to phone just in case they would release some information from their old files. After all, I was the next-of-kin.That reminded me of an unpleasant duty. I called the only funeral home I could think of to start the process of getting Laura’s body. Apparently you need an appointment for that. “I’ll get back to you soon.”
    I closed my eyes, ignored my pounding headache and went back to the lists. Think think think. Eventually the thinking paid off. There was Frances Foxall, of course. I didn’t remember ever seeing them together, but they must have known each other. Frances had been tough and hard-nosed. The kind of person who thought everything that happened was her business. She’d been closer to Laura’s age than mine. I figured she’d be a good bet to remember Laura’s hometown and possibly even details about her family. I put Frances Foxall’s name on the list. At the very least, she’d probably remember Sylvie’s last name.
    Like Frances, Sylvie had been about Laura’s age. But that was the only similarity. I remembered Sylvie being quite beautiful in a delicate way, but for all her looks, she had been shy and easily embarrassed. Except for Laura, she’d kept to herself.
    I wrote Sylvie? on my list. These memories weren’t much to go on. I tried calling Elaine Ekstein, but she didn’t answer. Next I made a note to contact Carleton and ask for Laura’s home address. Tuesday would be the earliest. I had visions of administrators screeching about privacy and the rights of students. I shook myself. I wasn’t sure if they’d still have that information. I intended to find Laura’s family well before Tuesday. With luck, Major Crimes would be deep into the investigation by then. For sure, it would be faster if I could find just one person who remembered the name of the damn irritating little town that started with C.
    I began with Frances Foxall.

Thirteen
    Naturally, Frances Foxall wasn’t in the phone book. A lot of people still changed their names when they got married back in the eighties. That didn’t seem like a Frances Foxall thing to do. Come to think of it, getting married didn’t seem like a Frances thing to do. If Mrs. Parnell had been home, I