Thirtyfifth and Michigan is the new Chicago police headquarters; I couldn’t begin to guess what they wanted with me there. Whoever had set up the meeting was getting impatient: he-or she-kept calling the Chicago cops to move them along, and they kept complaining that the federal agent was taking his sweet time. When the Fed said he wanted to go through my papers, the Chicago cops dug in all four feet: they had orders to bring me in within the half hour.

“I don’t require her or your presence to examine the documents,” the Fed said in his flat voice.

“I’m not leaving you alone in my apartment,” I said firmly. “You could plant evidence. You could steal something.”

When he started to proclaim his essential honesty, I said brightly, “I know: Mr. Contreras and the dogs can stay with you. Make sure you get a detailed description of any document J. Edgar takes, Mr. Contreras. And for heaven’s sake, don’t let him walk off with the utility bills unless he promises to pay them-1 can’t afford to have my electricity turned off.”

The thought of an evening alone with the dogs and my neighbor made the Fed decide my papers probably weren’t worth going through. Perhaps the array of mail and books in the living and dining rooms also daunted him. At any event, he left my “place of residence” with the other lawmen. I locked up and followed them downstairs with the dogs.

At the front door, Mr. Contreras told me gruffly to keep my chin up; if I wasn’t home by midnight he’d get Freeman to find me. I went out with

the four lawmen, including the deputy from DuPage, who hadn’t spoken since we’d gone inside. He went off to his own car without so much as a good-bye to his partners in crime prevention. At least the U.S. agent thanked the city cops for their “intergovernmental cooperation.”

As I learned in the squad car, the DuPage deputy was sulking because the Chicago cops had overridden his orders. The two men thought this was such a good joke they shared it through the grill with me, but they wouldn’t-or couldn’t-tell me why we were going to Chicago police headquarters.

“You’ll find out soon enough when you get there, ma’am,” the driver said. At least they were calling me “ma’am” instead of “girlie,” and I wasn’t in handcuffs.

The driver covered the ten miles south in twelve minutes, blue lights flashing, occasionally hooting the siren to move cars out of the way. If I’d been president, I’d have felt important, but when we reached the underground garage behind the slick concrete building I only felt motion sick.

Police headquarters had been at Eleventh and State for my whole life. I used to go there with my dad when he had a meeting or needed to turn in special forms of some kind; the chief of the patrol division would ruffle my curls and give me a dime for the vending machine while he and my dad caught up on departmental gossip. I had a kind of nostalgia for the old headquarters’ beat-up linoleum and its rabbit warren of offices. The new building felt cold and unfriendly-too big, too clean, too shiny.