NORA SQUIRMED TO be set down the minute she saw Mrs. Dodd behind her desk. Keegan set her on the desk blotter and headed to his inner office. Mrs. Dodd didn’t say a word. She seemed to intuit that something was up. Had Lieutenant Moore talked to her as well? “Hold my calls,” Keegan told her. “I’m going to put my head down for a while.”

“Hungover?”

“I wish,” he said and closed the inner office door behind him.

He sat down behind his desk and put his feet up. He felt his body slacken in the cool office air. He could sleep awhile, just like this, and that would be good for him—but first there was something he needed to do.

The name Eve had said had been nagging at him. Hesse. He knew there was a story there—one he had typed up himself. The pieces he filed had been strictly for laughs. Dimwit GIs—wasn’t their ringleader a woman?—miscasting themselves as jewel thieves. Dumbasses miscast as badasses. Sure, he remembered it, now that he put his mind to it. Or was his overheated brain just grasping at straws? Was this some desperate attempt to find Eve innocent? Hell, he could barely remember his own middle name in this heat.

He dropped his feet back to the floor and reached for his Rolodex. He flipped through the cards until he found the number he wanted. When the newspaper archive room picked up, he asked for Judy. He waited on the line, basking in the air conditioning, and tried to collect his thoughts—about Eve and Merrill and the story she’d spun for him. If she’d made the whole thing up as she went along, she was a natural. It read like a B-movie script—something with low-key lighting and venetian-blind shadows, something Uncle Nigel might have acted in, as a cut-rate Sydney Greenstreet.

Judy, when her voice came over the phone, seemed happy to hear from him. “Just glad to hear you’re still alive,” she said. “It’s been a while, and you still owe me some drinks.”

“I’m good for them,” Keegan said. “I’m just hoping I can add a couple to my tab.” He listened for any sigh or groan or hint of grievance, but none came. This was Judy—long-suffering, chain-smoking Judy. She’d always had a thing for Keegan, and she’d made no effort to hide the fact. Keegan moved the phone to his other ear and propped his elbows on his desk. “Look, I need another favor,” he said. “How busy are things today?”

“City room’s kinda quiet,” Judy said. “Now that John and Jackie left town, everyone’s stopped falling all over themselves trying to get assignments.” A phone rang somewhere in the archives room, but she seemed to ignore it. “Big earthquake in Italy,” she said. “But that’s going to be wire service.”