He started to stand, but I said, “The bartender took the phone away from her before Sonia said much, but she offered a detail that makes me think she truly did see Ferring and Veriden. Is she friendly with anyone here, any of the other therapists or residents who she might have confided in? I need to find the cemetery where this lover is buried.”

Marx frowned. “First of all, I can’t and won’t violate the privacy of other residents by giving you access to them. And anyway, I thought I’d made it clear that Sonia never had a lover, at least not as a fourteen-year-old.”

I eyed him steadily. “I still want to find the graveyard where she saw Emerald Ferring. Even if the lover is a phantom, I presume the cemetery’s real.”

14
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Scientist

The Kiel house was hidden from the street by a tangle of unkempt shrubs. When I pushed my way up the walk to the front door, I saw cracks in the redwood-shingled siding, while the walk itself could have used some rehab. A VW Passat, crusted in dirt, sat in the drive. Lights were on in the back of the house, but when I rang the doorbell, no one came.

The Kiels had a comfortable retirement income, at least according to LifeStory. Perhaps the bribes they paid St. Rafe’s to keep their daughter made it hard for them to maintain their home.

They lived on Quivira Road, about three miles from the shelter, in a warren of short, curving streets and cul-de-sacs near the north side of campus. I’d gotten lost—humiliating for a Chicagoan supercilious about small-town life—but I kept finding myself at a fountain in the middle of a roundabout on the edge of campus. On my third circuit of the fountain, I finally found the right entrance to the maze.

“If the Kiels have anything helpful to say, let me know,” Marx had said as he left me. “It would be a first, but our motto at St. Rafe’s is ‘Hope.’”

It was the closest he’d come to humor in our hour together, and it wasn’t a comfortable sort of joke.

I checked my messages while I waited on the Kiels’ doorstep. Still no answer from Cady Perec about whether her grandmother knew Dr. Kiel, but I suppose teachers set a bad example if they text while conducting classes.

I pinched my nose, trying to keep from falling asleep. Maybe Sonia had been playing me, hoping for a new audience, as Randy Marx thought. Maybe I was chasing a mirage. I rang the bell again and saw movement at the window next to the door. The watcher dropped the curtain and opened the inner door.

“We don’t talk to Jehovah’s Witnesses.”