“I don’t know,” I finally said helplessly. “It just has the wrong kind of feel to it.”

I debated with myself a minute, then added, “I think you need to prepare yourself for failure. My failure, I mean. If I can’t learn anything from the doctor or track down this clerk, I’m going to have to throw it in.”

She scowled fiercely. “I’m counting on you, Vic.”

“Let’s not play that record again right now, Caroline. I’m beat. I’ll call you in a day or two and we’ll take it from there.”

It was almost four, time for the evening rush hour to congeal the traffic. It was close to five-thirty before I’d oozed the twenty-some miles home. When I got there Mr. Contreras stopped me to ask about the burrs I’d allowed the sacred dog to collect in her golden tail. The dog herself came out and expressed herself ready for a run. I listened to both with such patience as I could muster, but after five minutes of his nonstop flow I left abruptly in mid-sentence and headed for my place on the third floor.

I took off my suit and left it on the entryway floor where I’d be sure to remember it for the cleaners in the morning. I didn’t know what to do about the shoe, so I left it with the suit—maybe the cleaners would know a place that could resurrect it.

While I ran a bath I pulled my stack of city and suburban directories from the floor under the piano. No Chigwell was listed in the metropolitan area. Naturally. He’d probably died himself. Or retired to Majorca.

I poured an inch of whiskey and stomped into the bathroom. While lying half submerged in the old-fashioned tub, it occurred to me that he might be in the medical directories. I hoisted myself out of the tub and went into the bedroom to call Lotty Herschel. She was just getting ready to leave the clinic she runs near the corner of Irving Park and Damen.

“Can’t it wait until the morning, Victoria?”

“Yeah, it can wait. I just want to get this monster out of my life as fast as possible.” I sketched Caroline and Louisa’s story as quickly as I could. “If I can run this Chigwell down, I only have one other lead I need to look into and then I can get back to the real world.”

“Wherever that is,” she said dryly. “You don’t know this man’s first name or his speciality, do you? Of course not. Industrial medicine probably, hmm?”

I could hear her rustling through the pages of a book. “Chan, Chessick, Childress. No Chigwell. I don’t have a complete directory, though. Max probably does—why don’t you give him a call? And why do you let this Caroline run you through hoops? You are manipulated by people only when you allow yourself to be, my dear.”

On that cheering note she hung up. I tried Max Loewenthal, who was executive director of Beth Israel Hospital, but he had gone home for the day. As any rational person would have. Only Lotty stayed at her clinic until six, and of course a detective’s work is never done. Even if you’re only willingly responding to the manipulations of an old neighbor.