“He’s over there being something,” I snapped. “You watch your step until he comes home.”

Meaning, don’t sleep around, Penelope, even if Ulysses is lying in the arms of a British journalist. I hung up savagely on that thought.

“You’re not seeing me at my most effective,” I told Amy. “But at least I can find out if the Cook County ME will do the autopsy privately.” I tried Bryant Vishnikov at the morgue, but he had the day off.

When I reached him at home, he snarled, “If I’d wanted live patients paging me day and night, I wouldn’t have gone into pathology. I thought my home phone was unlisted, anyway.”

“Is it? You didn’t tell me that. Marc Whitby’s father wants a second autopsy performed on hi., son. Would you be willing to do that?”

He waited a minute to .. ;swer. “It’s something I do do, and can do, but it’s not something Cook County can pay for, Vic. And you know, if I do a thorough autopsy and simply-find that the guy drowned with alcohol in his system, the family may not accept those results.”

“What would you charge?”

“For the tox screens, and the time and space, it could go as high as three thousand.”

I had no idea what kind of resources the Whitbys had, but I told Vishnikov to proceed and asked how we should get the body to him.

It would help to have a third party, like a funeral director, do it, so I don’t have to step on Jerry Hastings’s toes by going to him direct. So, Vic,” he added, as I was preparing to hang up, “don’t go babbling about this to the press. It could be very hard on me politically to look as though I’m taking a public position against DuPage’s ME.”

“Someone’s going to have to know,” I objected, “unless you’re planning on stealing his body out of their morgue and doing this in your basement.” He burst out laughing. “You’re outrageous, Warshawski, making me sound like Burke and Hare. But I still don’t want this broadcast.”

“Copy that, Houston,” I said. “Your ass will be draped with the same discreet purple our government is using on the statues of justice.”

He laughed again and hung up.

While I’d been on the phone, Amy had been organizing papers. She’d cleared a space on Mary Louise’s desktop and had spread out the contents of my Larchmont file to study.

“You’re good,” she said, looking up at me. “You don’t bully unless it’s the only way, do you? What are you doing next? Want me to hold Mrs. Whitby’s hand while you move Marc’s body?”

“No. I want you to find out everything you can about Kylie Ballantine.” She opened her eyes wide at me. “Whatever for-oh. You think that’s why Marc went out to this mansion? Why?”

I grimaced. “I don’t know, that’s why. But I only have a couple of starting points. He’s been thinking about her day and night for months, he’s writing a book about her-and all his files have disappeared.”