The dog kept whining and growling, pulling on its leash while the squirrel made that chuck-chuck-chuck sound: I’m up a tree and you’re stuck. My sympathies were completely with the dog.

I shook my head. “I can’t tell you more than I have already: I’ve been hired to find him, and I can’t find anyone who knows him. Speaking to Ms. Ferring is my last hope. Is she ill or out of town that she isn’t answering her phone herself?”

“Don’t we all deserve some privacy, away from prying questions?” the woman burst out.

“Is that what this sounds like? I’m not trying to pry into Ms. Ferring’s life and business, but young August Veriden may well get framed for a crime I don’t think he committed. The police have issued a bulletin asking for anyone who spots him to turn him in. I’d like to find him first. If you can’t help me, I’ll ring every bell on the street. Someone will tell me something.”

The woman looked down at her dog, yanked at its leash, snapped at “Poppy” to be quiet. Poppy grinned up at her and resumed barking.

“You’d better talk to Troy,” she said to me, her lips tight with bitterness at having given in to me. “Troy Hempel.”

She pointed at the house just south of Ferring’s. “He ran errands for Ms. Emerald when he was a boy, and he’s the person she trusts with her power of attorney and what-have-you. He’s at work now—his mother’s the only person home. He’s at a downtown bank, technology director.”

5
Designer Beer

Troy Hempel arrived at the Golden Glow about half an hour late, but I didn’t mind. It had been a long day; I was glad of the chance to unwind, sip a little whisky, chat with Sal. She nudged me when Hempel came into the room—good bar owner that she was, even though she was in the middle of an amusing story about her grandmother’s 103rd birthday, she could track the whole room.

My own computer consultant has the soft face and body of a cherub, or at least someone whose only workout involves moving from the desk to the coffee machine and back. Troy Hempel looked as though he could break Ukrainian hackers into his soup, like crackers: his navy superfine pullover stretched across traps that made Sal cock a wicked eye at me.

“Is this Jake’s competition? Boy never got those muscles playing a bass.”

Jake Thibaut, my lover. I think. At any rate he’s a bass player, currently in Switzerland with his early-music group.

I shadowboxed Sal and got up to greet Hempel. I’d tracked him down while I was waiting in the hall at the Daley Center for my testimony to be called.