I doubled over, gasping and gagging, and tripped in the drapes. I fought free of the heavy fabric and staggered after the intruder across the patio, through a small garden. I could hear his feet pounding away from me, but I was too winded to move fast. I lost him on the winding paths.

Damn and double damn. I hadn’t gotten a good look at him, just a confused impression of a youngish white man with dark thick hair, in jeans and running shoes. A burglar who knew the place was standing empty, or someone after Taverner’s secret papers?

I found my way back to the assisted nursing compound and returned to Taverner’s apartment. It wasn’t so hard to find the locked drawer. Except the lock was broken and the drawer was empty.

Like Domingo Rivas, I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time with the police, especially not the suburban forces. I thought of driving back to Chicago and leaving this mess for the Anodyne Park management to sort out when they got the apartment ready to sell. I thought of the hollow in the pillow disarranged on the bed, the glass rinsed out. What if Taverner’s visitor Monday night had put something in his bourbon to make him drowsy, and then taken the pillow from the bed and held it against his face until-well, until, yes.

I couldn’t think of one thing about Olin Taverner that I didn’t despise. The careers he’d ruined through the blacklist, the homosexuals he’d hounded

in public life while remaining deeply closeted himself, the list could go on for days. Did it really matter if someone had hastened the end of an old HUAC hatchet man?

On the other hand, he’d died soon after showing Marc Whitby some secret papers. And Marc Whitby had died soon after seeing them. Who had Whitby discussed those papers with? His young assistant? But then, why hadn’t she mentioned them to me? Maybe she’d been more forthcoming with Harriet and Amy.

I rubbed my sore diaphragm. The man who’d butted me was either lucky or well trained. Maybe he’d murdered Whitby and Taverner and come back to search the premises. But that made no sense-he’d have had plenty of time to search when Taverner died. Unless he hadn’t known until later that Whitby had seen the documents?

I pulled out my cell phone and called Stephanie Protheroe, the sheriff’s deputy I’d been dealing with.

“Warshawski, isn’t your boyfriend jealous of the amount of time you’re spending with me? I’ve lent you clothes, I’ve lost and found documents for you. Now what?”

“You’re right,” I said. “I’ve been imposing. Maybe I should take this to the New Solway cops.”

She sighed. “Okay, I’ll bite. What is it?”

“I was visiting Geraldine Graham this afternoon. She lives in the same complex as Olin Taverner-the guy who died on Monday or Tuesday. As I was leaving her place, I discovered that someone had broken into Taverner’s apartment.”

“That someone wasn’t you, was it, Ms. Warshawski?”