THE STREET SIGN WAS HALF HIDDEN BY AN OVERHANGING tree branch, which doubtless added greatly to the neighborhood’s charm in the daylight but subtracted substantially from the ease of navigation at night. I flipped the headlights to high beam, but all that did was intensify the shadow on the sign.
I had located North Hills Boulevard without any trouble. A large subdivision sign, thoughtfully placed down at headlight level, marked the neighborhood’s entrance off Washington Pike. North Hills was one of three Knoxville “Hills” neighborhoods dating back to the 1920s. Sequoyah Hills, where I had managed to find an affordable ranch house amid million-dollar mansions, sprawled along one bank of the Tennessee River, a few miles west of downtown and UT. Holston Hills, on the city’s east side, flanked the Holston River, just upstream from the field where Miranda and I had burned the cars.
North Hills lacked the river frontage and the country clubs sported by Sequoyah and Holston, but it did not lack for charm. A broad median divided the boulevard winding into the neighborhood, giving the area the feeling of a park. In springtime the emerald grass of the median and the yards that lined it blazed with dogwoods and redbuds and azaleas. But this year’s blossoms had shriveled three months earlier, and the summer’s heat—and the ban on lawn watering that the drought had made necessary for the past two weeks—had scorched the grass to a pale, crumbling tan. The trees still clung to life and greenness, but it was a dry and desperate shade of green.
The houses were smaller here, tending more toward cottages than mansions, so the neighborhood had remained relatively affordable—the biggest house in North Hills would probably sell for half what a similar place in Sequoyah would fetch. Even so, it would have been a huge stretch for Miranda to afford a house in North Hills. I doubted that her assistantship would cover the monthly mortgage, let alone a down payment. But then again, I realized, her family might have helped her buy a house. Or she might be renting. Or she might have roommates. Or a partner. There was a lot about Miranda’s personal life I didn’t know—almost everything about it, in fact. Was that because I respected her privacy, or was it because I was uncaring and selfish, interested only in the forty or fifty or even sixty hours of work she did for me every week? But if I didn’t care, what was I doing here at nine o’clock at night, trying to find her house in the maze of darkened streets?
I was snooping, that’s what I was doing, and the realization shamed me, making me feel like a stalker or a thief.
As I strained to make out the name on the street sign, a car rounded the curve in the boulevard and stopped behind me. Cursing mildly, I rolled forward a few feet and cut the wheel to the right, pulling far enough out of the lane for the car to squeeze past me, and stuck my arm out the window to wave it past. Once the taillights disappeared around the curve, I opened the glove box, took out a flashlight, and aimed it at the green sign. “Kenilworth” was the word I was looking for, but according to the white letters on the sign to my left, Maxwell Street was the name of the cross street, and if I continued straight ahead, I would henceforth be on Fountain Park Boulevard. So what had become of North Hills Boulevard, which had begun with such elegance and promise? Ah, finally, I saw that North Hills took a turn to the right, stealing the thunder of poor little Maxwell Street. I appeared to be at the intersection of North Hills Boulevard and North Hills Boulevard, but how could that be? Confused, I shone the light on the map I’d printed before leaving campus for the day—the very map I’d seen on Miranda’s computer and Garcia’s desk.
Even though I’d worked closely with Miranda for four years now—and even though I’d sometimes wondered whether there might be more between us than academic collegiality—I’d never been to her house. I knew where she lived, since her address was on file in the department and her assistantship checks were mailed to her house. But anytime we went out on a case together—even once when a body was found less than a mile from her neighborhood—she arranged to meet me at UT. Was there something about me that worried her, that made her guard her boundaries against me? Or was she just one of those people who like to keep work and home completely separate from one another? Probably not the sort of thing I could ask her about, at least not without trespassing in the very manner she was trying to discourage.