“Enough!” Buffalo Bill roared. “I remember you, young woman, you tried to make some insane argument about fifty thousand dollars meaning nothing to the company, and now you think a quarter of a million means nothing to us. I worked for every dime I ever made, and this Czernin woman can do the same.”

“Yes, Bill, of course,” his wife said. “All of us getting angry about that tonight isn’t going to help find Billy. Was there anything else, Ms. Warshawski?”

I swallowed some of the coffee, which was now cold as well as thin. I’m not a billionaire, but I would never serve a visitor such poor stuff.

“Thanks, Mrs. Bysen. Marcena Love, who was found with Bron Czernin yesterday morning, visited your husband several times. She was doing a series of reports on South Chicago for an English newspaper. I want to know what she and your husband discussed to see if she revealed anything unusual, even illegal, that she’d seen on the South Side. It might explain why she was attacked.”

“What does that have to do with Billy?” Mrs. Bysen said.

“I don’t know. But she was in his car when it was driven off the road under the Skyway. They’re connected in some way.”

Mrs. Bysen turned to her husband and demanded that he recount his meetings with Marcena. Even with Mildred’s prodding, though, he seemed to think they had discussed only the Second World War and his illustrious career in the Army Air Forces.

I was tired, tired of the discussion, the Bysens, the heavy furniture, and when Mrs. Bysen announced that we had talked long enough I was as glad as her son to bring the evening to a close. William went over to collect his wife, announcing gruffly to his mother that it was time Annie Lisa was in bed. Jacqui followed them. While Mildred and Linus Rankin conferred with Buffalo Bill, I asked Mrs. Bysen if their detectives had searched Billy’s room.

“His room, his computer, his books. Poor boy, he tries so hard to live a Christian life, and it’s not always easy to do that, even in a Christian family. I am proud of him, but I have to confess it hurts me that he wouldn’t turn to me. He must know I would help him.”

“He’s confused right now,” I said. “Confused and angry. He feels betrayed in some fundamental way. He didn’t say anything to me about this, but I wonder if he thinks you would tell Mr. Bysen anything he confided in you.”

She started to protest, but then gave a watery smile. “Maybe I would, Ms. Warshawski, maybe I would at that. Bill and I have been married sixty years now—you don’t turn off a lifetime of confiding. But Bill, for all his tough talk and tough business measures, is a fair and good man. I hope Billy hasn’t forgotten that.”