She hadn’t gone out with Howard that day—she was pregnant and she got tired so easily. She didn’t know if he’d been sailing or not—he certainly hadn’t said anything about it. Yes, she’d tell Howard to call me. She hung up without asking why I wanted to know.

Lotty came home for lunch. I fixed sardines on toast with cucumber and tomato and Lotty made a pot of the thick Viennese coffee she survives on. If I drank as much of it as she does they’d have to pull me off the chandeliers. I had orange juice and half a sandwich. My head still bothered me and I didn’t have much appetite.

Janet called from Eudora Grain after lunch. She’d pilfered the personal files while everyone was eating and gotten Phillips’s address: on Harbor Road in Lake Bluff. I thanked her absently—a lot seemed to go on in Lake Bluff. Grafalk. Paige had grown up there. Phillips lived there. And Paige and Boom Boom had gone sailing there on the twenty-third of April. I realized Janet had hung up and that I was still holding the receiver.

I put it down and went into the guest room to dress for a trip to the northern suburbs. We were in the second week in May and the air was still cold. My dad used to say Chicago had two seasons: winter and August. It was still winter.

I put on the blue Chanel jacket with a white shirt and white wool slacks. The effect was elegant and professional. Lotty had given me a canvas sling to keep as much pressure off the shoulder as possible—I’d wear it up in the car and take it off when I got to Phillips’s house.

Lotty’s spare room doubles as her study and I rummaged in the desk for a pad of paper and some pens. I also found a small leather briefcase. I put the Smith & Wesson in there along with the writing equipment. Ready for any occurrence.

Until they processed my claim check, the Ajax Insurance Company provided me a Chevette with the stiffest steering I’ve ever encountered. I’d considered using Boom Boom’s Jaguar but didn’t think I could operate a stick shift one-handed. I was trying to get Ajax to exchange the Chevette for something easier to handle. In the meantime it was going to make getting around difficult.

Driving up the Edens to Lake Bluff was a major undertaking. Every turn of the wheel wrenched my healing shoulder and strained the muscles in my neck, also weak from the accident. By the time I pulled off the Tri-State Tollway onto Route 137, my entire upper back was aching and my professionally crisp white blouse was wet under the armpits.