As I’d driven across the South Side, I’d kept worrying about the break-in at Morrell’s. I’d tried to imagine what Marcena knew that someone wanted to keep quiet. I had warned Morrell to use caution in case her assailants came after him, but someplace between Torrence, where I’d turned north, and Eighty-ninth, which led me east to the construction area, I’d realized that people might think I knew Marcena’s secrets also. After all, both of us were sleeping at Morrell’s, and I’d introduced her to Bron. I saw again her swollen, bleeding body, and started looking nervously in my rearview mirror every few seconds. My gold Mustang would be very easy to track.

When I got to the jobsite, I drove on without slowing and parked two blocks away. The deserted streets would make tailing hard if someone was tailing me. By the time I got to the little houses, I was confident I was alone.

I put on my hard hat and walked through the red door without knocking. The familiar sounds of saws, hammers, and shouted Spanish echoed around the empty rooms. Drywall was complete in the entryway, but the stairwell was still naked. I asked the first man I saw for Andrés; he jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

I went down a minute hall and found Andrés in what was going to be the kitchen. He was trying to work wires through a large section of flex pipe, shouting in Spanish through an opening in the floor to a man feeding wiring in from below. He didn’t look up when I came into the room.

I waited until he was finished wrestling before I spoke. “Pastor Andrés, we need to talk.”

“You came to Sunday’s service, Miss Detective. Have you come here today to make a commitment to Jesus? I am happy to stop for such an event.”

I squatted next to him on the raw floorboards. “Bron Czernin was killed late Monday night.”

“I am always sad at the needless death of one of God’s children.” Andrés’s voice was calm, but his eyes were wary. “Especially when he has died without turning to Jesus.”

“I don’t think his priest will deny him a Christian burial.”

“A Catholic burial,” Pastor Andrés corrected me. “Not a Christian one: Bron Czernin died in the company of the woman who had been driving a wedge into his marriage.”

“Bron was a passive bystander, by-layer, maybe I should say, while Ms. Love drove her wedge into his marriage?”

He frowned. “He was responsible, too, of course, but a woman has greater—”

“Powerlessness, usually,” I cut in, “although I grant probably not in this particular instance. But speaking of powerless women, let’s talk about Josie Dorrado. She disappeared Monday night, I think with Billy the Kid, Billy Bysen. Where are they?”