Nancy was the environmental affairs director for Caroline’s community development group. I looked up SCRAP, which was a waste of time, since of course it was under South Chicago Reawakening Project. And that was a waste of time because Nancy wasn’t in, she hadn’t been in all day, and they didn’t know when to expect her. And no, they wouldn’t give me her home phone number, especially if I said I was her sister, because everyone knew she had four brothers, and if I didn’t stop harassing them, they’d get the police.

“Can you at least take a message? Without bringing the police into it, I mean?” I spelled my name slowly, twice, not that it would make any difference—it would still probably come out as Watchski or some other hideous mutation. The secretary said she’d see Nancy got the message in that tone that tells you they’re trashing the paper as soon as you hang up.

I turned back to the directory. Nancy wasn’t listed, but Ellen Cleghorn was still living on Muskegon. Talking to Nancy’s mother made a welcome change to the way I’d been greeted today. She remembered me perfectly, loved reading about me when my cases made the papers, wished I’d come down and have dinner with them sometime when I was in the neighborhood.

“Nancy bought herself a place in South Shore. One of those huge old mansions that’s falling to bits. She’s fixing it up on her own. Kind of a big place for a single woman, but she likes it.” She gave me the number and hung up with repeated dinner invitations.

Nancy wasn’t home. I gave it up. If she wanted me that badly, she’d call again.

I looked at the dirt on the front of my dress. My suit was still in the car. If I drove home now, I could change into jeans, dump the lot at the cleaners, and spend the rest of the afternoon on myself.

It was close to five—as I was happily working my way through the syncope of “In dem Schatten meiner Locken,” without Kathleen Battle’s voice—when the phone rang. I left the piano unwillingly, and was even sorrier as soon as I picked up the receiver: it was Caroline.

“Vic, I need to talk to you.”

“Talk away,” I said resignedly.

“In person, I mean.” Her husky voice was urgent, but it always was.

“You want to drive up to Lake View, be my guest. But I ain’t trekking down to South Chicago this afternoon.”

“Oh, fuck you, Vic. Can you ever talk to me without being a total snot?”

“Can it, Caroline. You want to talk to me, speak. Otherwise I’m going back to what I was doing when you interrupted.”

There was a pause during which I could picture her gentian eyes smoldering. Then she said, so quickly I almost didn’t understand, “I want you to stop.”

I was confused for a minute. “Caroline, if you ever realized how upsetting I find it to have you spin me around in circles, you might understand why I sound like a snot to you.”