Court cases never work to a reliable timetable, which is fine with lawyers and judges who get paid for being there, but not so much fun for witnesses like me. At least during the hour I swung my heels, I managed to dig up Hempel’s phone numbers, both his cell and his office at the Fort Dearborn Trust.

Instead of trying to explain myself over the phone, I sent him a text. I composed it carefully, writing it out beforehand: I wanted to give him enough information to persuade him to meet me, without trying to second-guess why Ferring’s neighbor had been so cagey or why Hempel himself had hung up on me—assuming it was he who’d answered my call to Ferring this morning. My formal, stilted approach proved effective: Hempel’s response wasn’t enthusiastic, but he agreed to meet me at the Glow at six.

After setting that up, I found the court still arguing over whether my evidence was admissible. I also found three new incoming messages from Bernie. no news, I wrote back. i’ll let you know when i’ve learned anything, so please stop slapping your stick at my knees.

Netflix had all three feature films that Jarvis Nilsson had made with Emerald Ferring. I streamed Pride of Place. Ferring made an ardent activist, but the dialogue was heavy-handed.

The bailiff finally called me at four, just as Ferring was sitting by the sharecropper’s grave with her baby boy. She was making a stirring speech to her parents about how one day a boy like him would be president, but until then, “We have work to do here, Mother. I can’t leave Elton’s side in death any more than I would in life.”

Yes! Cue “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Court adjourned half an hour later, with my testimony still incomplete. I took the L north, changed out of court clothes to give the dogs a quick run, then put on clean jeans and a bronze wool jacket and hiked back to the Glow. I was starting to feel like Peter Sellers, playing six characters in the same movie, racing from one costume to the next. I was late getting to the Glow, but still twenty minutes ahead of Hempel.

When I explained to Sal who I was meeting and why, she gripped my shoulder in an iron hand and pushed me onto a barstool.

“Emerald Ferring?” she said. “You’ve arranged a meeting with Emerald Ferring?”

“You know her?” I asked, prying her fingers out of my shoulder.

“I watched everything she was in when I was growing up, even that lame rip-off of The Jeffersons. She was such a model for me—if you meet her, you do it here.”

“It all depends on this minder of hers,” I said, “assuming he shows up. You’ll be glad to know that her neighbors protect her privacy as if she were the head of the CIA.”