“Just who are you?” I demanded.

“Who am IF’ he yelled. “Who the hell are you, barging in here?”

He strode over to me, grabbing my arm in an effort to propel me out. I leaned against him, a dead weight that made him stagger.

“We met in Olin Taverner’s apartment Thursday night,” I said. “Now, tell me who you are, and why you’re in this hospital room.”

He let go of me so fast that the rest of the water sloshed out of the vase. “I wasn’t-who are-” he stammered.

“You may not have seen my face, but I saw yours,” I said, my voice a nasty whisper. “My next call is to the cops. Your prints must be all over that desk drawer you jimmied. What was in it?”

“Father,” Catherine Bayard said from the bed in the thread of a voice. “It’s my father.”

We both turned toward her, guilty that we’d forgotten her lying there. I should have realized he was Catherine’s father from the snatch of diatribe I’d overheard, but I’d been too amazed at seeing Thursday’s head-butter to think clearly.

I went over to her side. “How are you feeling?” “Shitty. Like I fell off my horse and he danced on me.”

I smiled. “That’s a rich girl’s image-when I’m injured, I feel like I’ve been hit by a dump truck. I’m sorry you got caught in the fire from those souped-up cowboys Friday night. I was in Larchmont Hall when they shot you.”

Behind the morphine, her eyes flickered from me to her father. I smiled reassuringly. “The deputies were pretty pumped; I thought they’d been shooting at a raccoon or deer and when they went out to look, I hightailed it back to Chicago. I hope you weren’t lying out in the grass too long before they got you to an ambulance.”

Her father burst out, “You were in Larchmont? With that Arab terrorist? Are you responsible for-“

“No, Mr. Bayard, I’m not responsible for your daughter being shot, and I didn’t see any terrorists Friday night. I was in New Solway on Friday for the same reason I was there on Thursday.”

“And that was?”

“Investigating a homicide.” I let the words die away.

“Homicide?” Edwards Bayard looked at me uncertainly. “Are you with the police?”

“I’m a detective. You may not have heard about the death of a journalist on the Larchmont grounds last week.”

“Oh, that. When I heard about it, of course I was worried about whether it was safe for my daughter to be out in New Solway, but Rick Salvi says they think this Arab kid did it. The Arab can’t have gone far, unless the gal who was in the house when they surrounded it-that was you, wasn’t it? Did you help him escape?”

Catherine’s eyes grew larger in her white face; I took her uninjured hand in a light clasp. “The sheriff and the Feds and even the Chicago police figure they can wrap Marcus Whitby’s death up in a nice tidy package with Benjamin Sadawi’s name on the gift card. But they’re overlooking a lot of evidence in that convenient wrap-up, evidence that makes it clear that Sadawi had nothing to do with Whitby’s death.”