I gave her another lemon swab. “Detective. Two weeks ago you went out to the silo, to the place where Matt is buried. Doris McKinnon was there. You ran to her when you saw her. What happened next? Did she take you home with her?”

“Doris.” Sonia frowned. “You right. Doris, black people, digging Matt grave. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Black man grabbed arms, dragged me. Like soldiers drag Jenny.”

“Drag Jenny?” I asked.

“Dragged me to truck. Truck, fuck, suck, luck.” She giggled disconcertingly and passed into sleep again. This time she was breathing heavily and didn’t seem likely to waken soon.

I released her hand and got up, wishing there were some way to unscramble Sonia’s confused neurons. Soldiers had dragged Jenny? Maybe during the 1983 protest they’d dragged Jenny away from the silo gates. August had dragged Sonia out of harm’s way, into Doris’s truck—that was my guess anyway. And taken her . . . back to town? To the farmhouse?

“She will be stronger tomorrow.” Heinz had appeared next to the bed. “You can come back then to talk to her again.”

I nodded, thanked her for letting me come in at all. Don’t whine about how little Sonia said. Be grateful she’s regained consciousness and can speak, I lectured myself as I followed the nurse out of the room.

When we passed through the soundproofed ICU doors, we heard sharp shouts coming from the nurses’ station. Heinz hurried over, me on her heels.

“You let a detective in to talk to her before her own father saw her? How dare you? How dare you!” The telltale vein was throbbing over Dr. Kiel’s right eye, and he was pounding on the countertop.

A man of about seventy, in a white shirt and tie, was standing next to him. “Calm down, Nate. I can handle this.”

“Dr. Kiel,” I said loudly. “I’m V.I. Warshawski. The detective. Who has been to see your daughter while you and Shirley sulked at home.”

“And you, young lady, don’t get insolent with me.”

Young lady? “Or what? You’ll cut off my allowance and shoot me full of lithium?”

“Stop this now! This is a hospital, not a football stadium. If either of you starts up again, I will call security and have you both escorted from the building.” Heinz’s voice was full of authority; Kiel and I both shut up.

“Dr. Kiel is raising a legitimate question,” the white shirt said. “Sonia Kiel is his daughter and my patient. Letting a detective question her without notifying us or allowing us to be present raises questions of malpractice.”

“You must be Dr. Chesnitz,” I said. “I’ve been hearing about you. Ms. Kiel is forty-seven, and unless you have a legal mandate as guardian ad litem—”