“Oh, keep your shirt on, Vicki,” Bobby said. He blushed suddenly as the image hit home with him. “And clean up your kitchen more than once a year. Place looks like the projects.”

When he had stomped away with McGonnigal I went to my bedroom to change. As I scrambled back into the black dress I looked out the window—the water was forming little rivers on the walk below. I put on running shoes and carried a pair of black pumps in my bag.

Even with an extra-wide umbrella my legs and feet got soaked on my dash to the car. Most Februaries, though, this would be snow a foot or two deep, so I tried not to complain too bitterly.

The little Chevy’s defroster couldn’t make much headway on the fogged windshield, but at least the car hadn’t died, the fate of a number of others I passed. The storm and the stalls made for a slow trek south; it was close to ten by the time I turned from Route 41 onto Ninety-second Street. By the time I found a parking space near the corner of Commercial, the rain was finally lifting—it was clear enough for me to change into my pumps.

SCRAP’S offices were in the second story of a block of little shops. I trotted around the corner to the business entrance—my dentist used to have his office here and the opening on Commercial remained an indelible memory.

I stopped at the top of the uncarpeted stairs, reading the wall directory while combing my hair and straightening my skirt. Dr. Zdunek wasn’t there anymore. Neither were a lot of the other tenants; I passed half a dozen or so empty offices on my way down the hall.

At the far end I walked into a room that had the unmistakable air of a poor not-for-profit agency. The scarred metal furniture and newspaper articles taped to the walls wavered under a badly winking fluorescent bulb. Papers and phone books were stacked on the floor and the electric typewriters were models IBM had abandoned when I was still in college.

A young black woman was typing while talking on the phone. She smiled at me, but held up a finger to ask me to wait. I could hear voices from an open conference room; ignoring the receptionist’s urgent hissing, I went to the door to look in.

A group of five, four women and a man, sat at a rickety deal table. Caroline was in the middle, talking heatedly. When she saw me at the door she broke off and flushed to the roots of her coppery hair.

“Vic! I’m in a meeting. Can’t you wait?”

“All day, if it’s for you, my sweet. We need a tête-à-tête about John McGonnigal—he visited me first thing this morning.”

“John McGonnigal?” Her little nose wrinkled questioningly.

“Sergeant McGonnigal. Chicago Police,” I said helpfully.

She turned even redder. “Oh. Him. Maybe we’d better talk now. Will you all excuse me?”

She got up and took me to a cubbyhole next to the conference room. The chaos there, compounded of books, papers, graphs, old newspapers, and candy wrappers, made my office look like a convent cell. Caroline dumped a phone directory from a folding chair for me and seated herself in the rickety swivel chair behind her desk. She gripped her hands together in front of her, but stared at me defiantly.