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When Robert J. Maxwell didn't come home from work at the Pentagon, his wife figured he had gotten stuck in the snarl of traffic after the building was evacuated. Then she waited for the page that wouldn't come.

The Manassas, Va., man had worked as a civilian budget analyst for the U.S. Army for 29 years. He was just a year away from retirement. He planned to play a lot of golf, do the books for wife Karen Greenberg's psychology practice and basically take care of her.

Maxwell, 54, appeared to be conservative but wasn't, his wife said. He enjoyed cooking Southwestern and Creole food, listened to Janis Joplin and Joe Cocker, and joked with a dry wit. "He had a very vast sense of humor," Greenberg said. "There was an absurdity to it."

The former Texan loved to do crossword puzzles and teased his wife of three years about being a native New Yorker.

They were opposites, she said. "But we blended. He gave me grounding, and I gave him creativity."

Profile courtesy of THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.