Wednesday Reading

Marc Santora on rape in Iraq.

Corey Kilgannon's Son of Sam Slept Here.

Oliver Mackson on a conviction.

Jonathan Abel with a woman who misses her cat.

And Dave Tarrant watches the circus in Anna Smith's hometown of Mexia, Texas: The convoys of TV trucks, bristling with antennae, started rolling into this small town as soon as the news broke last week. Reporters were desperately seeking someone, anyone, with the slightest connection to Anna Nicole Smith.

The 39-year-old starlet, who collapsed and died suddenly, always claimed that the rural East Texas community, 90 miles southeast of Dallas, had played an essential role in the story of her life.

She fled Mexia in her late teens for a new life as a big-city bad girl. In Houston, she became a topless dancer, a Playboy centerfold, designer jeans model and bride of an oil billionaire more than 60 years her senior.

But many of the 6,700 residents of Mexia (pronounced Muh-HEY-uh) appear to be just as desperate to put a distance between their city and the celebrity. They want no part of this passion play.