“Who are you really?” the secretary said.

“Really, I am V.I. Warshawski, a private investigator.” I repeated my message.

“I . . . I can’t talk to you.”

“What, did someone from the army tell you not to? Just put me through to Professor Hitchcock and you can safely say we never spoke.”

“It’s . . . that’s not possible, I’m sorry.” It sounded as though she was starting to cry.

“Ma’am, please tell me what the problem is.”

She hung up. I stared baffled at my phone.

“How’d you get hold of that name, Warshawski?”

I looked up, startled: Sergeant Everard had come in without my noticing.

“I’ll tell you if you’ll explain why there’s a lockdown on anyone letting me talk to him.”

Everard eyed me measuringly, looked around to see who was in earshot. “Outside.”

No one had seemed to be paying attention, but I suppose that’s how the local network got its feed: people texted or worked the crossword while their ears pointed toward the most interesting conversation in the room.

Peppy followed us. We moved away from the smokers in the outdoor seats and leaned against an iron railing in front of the neighboring building.

“Dr. Hitchcock was hospitalized over the weekend, with acute pneumonia,” Everard said. “They medevacked him to Cleveland last night, to the Cleveland Clinic, which apparently can do a better job than anything we have in Kansas.”

“Pneumonia? Not flu?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Dr. Roque died of flu. He and Hitchcock were close friends, and . . . I don’t know. It seems weird, too much of a coincidence, both men being so sick. Does flu cause pneumonia?”

“I don’t know about that.” Everard was impatient. “All I know is the army shut down Hitchcock’s lab last night as a hazardous site that needs professional cleaning. His students, his staff, anyone who’s been near him—they’re all in quarantine.”

“His secretary just answered the phone,” I objected.

“I don’t know about that,” he repeated. “I’m giving you the scuttlebutt, and I only know that much because I have a cousin who works for the university’s public-safety department. Now it’s your turn. How do you know Hitchcock, or know enough to call him?”

“Doris McKinnon sent Dr. Roque some soil samples that she wanted tested.”

“And you know this because . . . ?”

“Because I talked to Dr. Roque’s chief tech, whom you are not to bother or harass. She told me about Dr. Roque and the black mold—remember that?”

“Oh, yes. It turned him into a local hero. I think Dr. Kiel’s nose was out of joint because Roque got so much publicity from it. Kiel’s usually the go-to guy around here for odd deaths.” Everard flashed a brief grin. “Black mold. Then what?”

“The tech thinks maybe Doris sent Dr. Roque dirt samples to be tested because of the mold story.”