In deference to Lotty’s tidy spirit, I took the sheets from the guest bed and bundled them up with the towels I’d used. I wrote a note telling her I’d taken them home with me to launder. I straightened up the other signs of my presence as best I could and headed over to Racine.

Mr. Contreras’s delight at seeing me was equaled only by the dog’s. Peppy jumped up to lick my face, her golden tail thumping the door hard enough to swing it shut. My neighbor took the laundry from me.

“These Dr. Lotty’s things? I’ll wash ‘em for you, doll. After breakfast you’ll want to unwind, look at your mail, do whatever. So the case is over? Everything locked up with those two villains in the hospital? I mighta known you’d take care of those guys, doll. I shouldn’t of worried so much about you. No wonder you got teed off.”

I put an arm around him. “Yeah, it all looks swell now that the battle’s nearly over. But shooting someone in that kind of situation is just luck—you can’t aim. I could be in intensive care instead of Dresberg if the luck had gone the other way.”

“Nearly over?” His faded brown eyes showed concern. “You mean those guys still have someone gunning for you?”

“Other way around. There’s a big old white shark thrashing around in the water. Dresberg and Jurshak were his allies. Who knows what else he’s got stashed in his cove.” I tried to keep my tone light. “Anyway, I came back here for French toast. Got any?”

“Sure, doll, sure. Everything’s ready—just waiting for you before I turn on the griddle.” He rubbed his hands together and bustled me inside.

Somewhere from the recesses of his life he’d dug up a white linen tablecloth. He’d cleared the dining-room table of the magazines and bric-a-brac that usually cluttered it and covered it with the cloth. A vase in the middle held red carnations. I was touched.

He swelled with pride at my compliments. “These were Clara’s things. They never meant so much to me but I couldn’t bring myself to give them to Ruthie when she died; Clara kind of treasured them and I just couldn’t quite see Ruthie prizing them like she should.”

He hurried off to the kitchen and came back with a glass of fresh orange juice. “Now, you sit here, doll, and I’ll have breakfast out to you in two shakes.”

He fried up tall mounds of bacon and gargantuan stacks of French toast. I ate what I could and repaid him by telling the tale of my midnight trip up the Calumet. He was caught between awe at the exploit and jealousy that I hadn’t picked him to go with me, pipe wrench and all.

I gallantly suppressed a shudder at the idea. “I didn’t think it would be fair to Peppy,” I explained. “If we both got killed or laid up, who would look after her?”