Unquote At Hillary Johnson’s memorial service. by Jim Hanas Outside Memphis Funeral Home, people filed quietly into the dusk. A solid row of satellite trucks stood in the near distance. Nearer still, three television reporters stood, in perfect formation, in front of three television cameras. I stood alone and a kid, maybe 20, came up and nervously asked if he could maybe ask me a question. He was with The Daily Helmsman, the University of Memphis student newspaper, he said. He was disappointed when he found out he’d wasted his nerve on another member of the press, but he also seemed relieved. I knew what he was going through. It’s not easy getting quotes at a memorial service. The service, just ended, had begun with Al Green and ended with Edith Piaf. In between, there were readings and remembrances, silent tears and muffled sobs from those who knew Hillary Johnson. It was the last of many solemn occasions since the 24-year-old philosophy graduate student, who had only recently moved to Memphis, vanished from her Midtown apartment more than two weeks ago. Shortly after her disappearance, Dan Davis — a private investigator hired by Johnson’s parents, Charlie and Nancy McPike of Chicago — briefed the missing student’s colleagues and the media about the facts of the case, which then were few. Even Davis, a palpably tough ex-Chicago cop, seemed rattled. He’d had four hours sleep since hitting the ground in Memphis two days earlier, and he admitted he didn’t like taking these cases because the outcome was rarely good. The mood that day was solemn but hopeful. There were still things to do. Calls to make. Faxes to send. In the next week and a half, the facts became clearer and the things that could be done became fewer. Even fewer when fugitive Leonard Young was apprehended just four miles from Johnson’s abandoned car. By Monday afternoon — two days after Johnson was discovered, dead from a stab wound, near the Fayette County line — there was nothing left to do but grieve and remember. “I didn’t know what to expect today,” Johnson’s mother confessed at the service. “I was afraid I would not be able to sit here and hold myself together. I thought I would be sad. But I find myself smiling and laughing and glowing with pride for Hillary.” I spent four-and-a-half years as a philosophy graduate student at the University of Memphis. I met Hillary Johnson once earlier this year, at a cocktail party following a friend’s dissertation defense. She was down from Chicago, checking things out and looking for an apartment. She was as her friends describe her: bright, witty, and charming. The next time I saw her, her face was on a poster. It’s an uncanny experience, recognizing the face of a missing person. And when you know many of the people they knew, it’s as if your watches have become synchronized. You start waking up to watch 6 a.m. newscasts. When you drive to work or sit down for Thanksgiving dinner or do anything at all, you wonder: Where is she now? How much worse the uncertainty must have been for those close to her. And how much worse the conclusion. Police advised students that Johnson’s fate — her intersection with the path of desperado Young — had been so completely and terribly random that nothing could’ve been done to prevent it. “It would be wrong for us to engage in what very often happens: trying to take a lesson from something for which there is no lesson, trying to make sense of something that’s senseless,’’ philosophy professor Tom Nenon sagely observed at a Monday morning press conference. Tragic chance, pure and simple. Back inside the funeral home, I eased onto a soft couch in the impromptu press room. Lights, cameras, and microphones were already trained on another couch, where Johnson’s parents were expected to appear. Cameramen and reporters chatted and milled around, waiting for the McPikes to emerge from behind a white curtain. I readied my notebook to take down their quotes. When the couple appeared, they moved slowly and deliberately, taking their places, then looking up into the cameras. I looked around. There was no sign of the kid from the Helmsman. But if his editor is reading: Go easy. There are some stories quotes just can’t tell. (The McPikes have established a foundation in Hillary Johnson’s name to assist families whose loved ones are missing. Contributions can be made to The Hillary Johnson Foundation, C/O Bank of America, Attn: T. Hemingway, IL1-231-02-16, 231 South LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60697.) You can e-mail Jim Hanas at hanas@memphisflyer.com.