“I don’t think legal protections are a waste of time, Rawlings. But I won’t ask you to go to a judge if you’ll come with me yourself, and go through Marcena’s computer with me file by file. If she has personal material on it, we’ll leave it lay. If she has notes that may suggest a perpetrator, you’ll copy them and take them with you.”

Conrad didn’t like it. He is a cop, after all, and cops don’t like civilian oversight of their work. But he’s a fundamentally decent guy who doesn’t want to harass citizens for the pleasure of it.

“I’m a watch commander. I can’t take that kind of time, but I can give you a good detective and a uniformed officer. With orders not to take anything you haven’t seen.”

“With orders to take copies, not originals,” Morrell said.

“With orders to take anything that looks relevant to the work the Love woman was doing in South Chicago.”

“As long as it’s a copy, and her machine isn’t impounded.”

“This is like watching Lee Van Cleef and Clint Eastwood,” I complained. “The standoff could go on all afternoon. I’ve got to get to my office, so I’m going to leave you two to sort it out; Mr. Contreras will be Eli Wallach. He’ll let me know which one of you gets the gold.”

Conrad gave a grunting little laugh. “Okay, Ms. W., okay. I’ll let your boyfriend monitor the files, but I get to choose what I copy. Or my detective does. Her name is Kathryn Lyndes; she’ll be at your home in ninety minutes.”

The mayor was riding hard on this case, if Conrad could guarantee a detective running all the way from South Chicago to Evanston at a moment’s notice.

“Marcena’s father must be something pretty important if the consul is making the mayor care about a South Chicago mugging. Do you think you could spare a resource for someone who isn’t connected? I told you I was looking for Josie Dorrado when I found Marcena and Bron. She still hasn’t turned up, and I’m out of ideas.”

“Tell the mother to go down to the precinct and file a missing persons report.”

“And someone will jump right on it and start scouring the abandoned buildings and vacant lots?” I was scornful.

“Don’t ride me, Ms. W. You know what resources I have, and how tight I’m stretched.”

“Last week, you told me to butt out of South Chicago. This week, you don’t have the resources to look after the neighborhood.”

“Whenever you and I start to get along, you decide to open a machine gun on me,” Conrad said. “If I put you down last week over that fire, can you blame me?”