I walked slowly back to my car. One thing I had to do without delay was to call Conrad Rawlings at the Fourth District and report Freddy’s role in the fire at Fly the Flag. I’d been keeping my cell phone off today. I’d checked in with Amy a couple of times, but I’d used the phone in the faculty lounge at Bertha Palmer when I’d had to call my clients. But now it didn’t matter if someone was tracking me, and saw I was in South Chicago. In fact, if they were paying enough attention to me to listen in on my cell phone calls, me reporting what I knew to the police would keep them from bothering me further.

To my surprise, it was only seven-thirty. The emotions and exertions I’d just gone through made me think a whole evening had passed. I called down to the Fourth District, determined to hand Freddy over to the cops—Conrad would see what a good, cooperative PI I was. When I found I’d just missed him, I felt deflated.

The operator at the Fourth District didn’t seem excited by my report of news about the arson at Fly the Flag. I finally got her to transfer me to a detective, a junior officer who went through the motions of taking my name and Freddy’s name, but his assurance that they’d look into it sounded like one of those three common lies in the English language—he didn’t even ask how to spell my name, which he couldn’t pronounce, and he only took my phone number because I insisted on giving it to him.

When we’d finished, I hesitated a moment, then hit Conrad’s home number—through all my changes and upgrades in mobile phones, I’d kept it on my speed dial, position four, following my office, my answering service, and Lotty. He wasn’t in, but I left a detailed message on his machine. He might be annoyed with me for jumping ahead of him on the investigation, but I was sure he’d act on the information.

I flexed my shoulders, sore from the tensions of the afternoon. I was still tired, too, from Monday night’s jaunt. So many of my brother and sister PIs seem to get beaten up, thrown in the slammer, or hungover, without needing to rest afterward. I looked at my face in the rearview mirror; true, the light was bad, but I looked pale.

I called Mary Ann, to tell her I would be there in about an hour if that wasn’t too late for her. Someone answered the phone but didn’t speak, which alarmed me, but eventually her deep, gruff voice came over the ether to me.

“It’s all right, Victoria, I’m fine, just a little tired. Maybe you don’t need to stop here tonight.”