She turned her head away from me: she was not going to help me.

“I fell into the pond when I was running after you Sunday night,” I said. “That’s how I caught this cold. But it’s also how I found Marcus Whitby.” “Whoever that is. You made your point, you saw me Sunday. Do you really have something of mine, or was that just blackmail to make me come with you?” She kept her head turned away, so that all I saw of her was her left ear. It exposed her youth, that pale shell, and made her seem vulnerable, breakable.

“I really have something of yours. It’s how I found you so easily. What I don’t understand is why you went back to Larchmont last night.”

That startled her into facing me again. “How did you-I wasn’t-I was here in town last night.”

“Your grandmother will no doubt back you up on that. We’ll ask her when we get to your place.”

After a pause she said, “You can ask the housekeeper. My grandmother is still at the office. I was in bed before she got home last night.”

I nodded. “Is the housekeeper Ms. Lantner? She moves between the New Solway mansion and Banks Street?”

“How do you know all this about my family?” she said. “Where I live and everything? How do I know who you are?”

“You don’t. You haven’t asked. I’m exactly what I said I was on Sunday: a private investigator. I used to be a lawyer, a public defender. I don’t know whose account of me you would trust, but I can refer you to a reporter at the Herald-Star, or someone on the Chicago police force. Or better still, Darraugh Graham. I do a lot of work for him. You do know him, right, hanging around his boyhood home the way you do?”

She bit her lip but didn’t say anything.

“It would be an excellent plan for you to call one of these people and ask if they know me. You shouldn’t trust a stranger who comes up to you on the street. But we’re still going to talk, because if we don’t, I’m giving your name and phone number to the DuPage County sheriff. Right now I’m the only person who knows you were at the crime scene Sunday night, but as soon as the sheriff learns about you, he will be here with as much force as he can use on the granddaughter of a powerful taxpayer.” Of

course he’d also be on my butt like a horsefly for concealing her presence, but I hoped she was too inexperienced to think of that.

“What are you talking about? You think Rick Salvi is going to care that I was trespassing?”

“It’s nice, you knowing the sheriff by his first name and all, but we’re not talking about trespassing here. And even if he dandled you on his knee when you were a baby, he’s going to want to know what you’re up to at Larchmont.”