Correlation does not mean causation, I know that in my head, but in my gut, that famous residence of detective intuition, I couldn’t help wondering if all these things were tied together.

While I tried to find Sea-2-Sea’s experimental farm, the helpful librarian printed out the most current map for McKinnon’s holdings. I would start my search at the fields near the silo and hope I didn’t have to go riding all over Douglas County looking at her other land.

Sea-2-Sea’s farms weren’t listed under their name, but Emigrant Bank and Savings was the trustee for 160 acres along McKinnon’s southern border, at the edge of the Kanwaka silo. Good bet that they were acting for Sea-2-Sea. The reference librarian printed out that map for me as well.

She was gathering them all into a folder when we were joined by a third woman, an African-American whose name badge identified her as phyllis barrier, head librarian.

“What are we working on here, Agnes?” Barrier asked the reference librarian.

Her tone was genial, but the look she gave me was searching—not unfriendly exactly, but the kind of expression my mother took on when she was sure I’d been doing something dangerous with my cousin.

“I’m V.I. Warshawski,” I said. “Ms. Chercavi has been helping me understand some property documents out near the Kanwaka silo.”

“May I?” Barrier held out her hand; the reference librarian perforce gave her the folder.

Barrier thumbed through the pages, then smiled at me. “We love to have people use our library, and we consider our patrons’ needs private, but I confess I’m curious. You’re visiting from Chicago, as I understand. Why are you interested in these property maps?”

The smile signaled that we weren’t in a hostile encounter, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“If you know I’m from Chicago, then you know I’m the person who found Doris McKinnon’s body yesterday. Before she died, she was worried about activity on the land that abuts the silo, and I wanted to see where her property ended, whether the piece she was concerned about was actually hers. The Kanwaka silo sits on land that McKinnon used to own, but the rest of it now seems to belong either to Sea-2-Sea or to the air force.”

Barrier studied me again, flipped through the pages again, before handing them to me and telling me to enjoy my time in Lawrence. As I walked away, I wondered if I’d seen her before. Her face seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Maybe she’d been at the hospital yesterday when I went there with Nell Albritten.

Lawrence was getting to be full of specters for me—first Marlon Pinsen and now the head librarian. I didn’t have any familiar faces around me—maybe my unconscious was creating phantom friends.