The room faced west. The setting sun gave a lot more light than the forty-watt bulb in the lone lamp Mrs. Frizell kept there. I opened the curtains and continued the search. So far I’d only looked at the middle section and the glassed-in bookshelves. For my last surge I pried the three bottom drawers open. Squatting on my heels, I started removing envelopes. It must have been close to seven when I found the letter from the Bank of Lake View.

15 March

Dear Mrs. Frizell,

Acting on your instructions we have sold your Certificates of Deposit and closed your account, sending the balance to your new account at the U.S. Metropolitan Bank and Trust. It has been our pleasure to serve your financial needs for the last sixty years and we are sorry you no longer find the relationship desirable. Should you change your mind in the future please do not hesitate to call. We will be happy to re-open your account at no charge to you.

The letter had been personally signed by one of the bank officers.

The Bank of Lake View is a small, neighborhood institution—they handle my mortgage with the concern and attention most banks reserve for big corporate customers. They must be about the only place in the city that still handles small passbook accounts. It was typical of their character to write a personal note to Mrs. Frizell.

What was strange was her transferring her money to U.S. Metropolitan. I hadn’t found a passbook or any other documents from them. Either those had slipped down to the Jurassic stratum or she’d kept them someplace else. But that was a detail compared to the bigger question: Why had she moved accounts to a downtown bank? And not just any old bank, but one that was in the news every other week because of the political ties its directors had in the area. The Du Page County Board was only the most recent group to raise journalistic eyebrows for keeping demand deposits in U.S. Met’s noninterest-bearing accounts.

I was grasping at straws and I knew it. Probably U.S. Met had had some marketing campaign that Mrs. Frizell had found irresistible. I got to my feet, my hamstrings stiff from sitting so long. I didn’t know what to do with the mess I’d created on the floor. The secretary was still overflowing with papers—I couldn’t imagine stuffing all these back inside. At the same time I could scarcely leave them lying around as evidence of my labor. Although maybe Chrissie would assume it had been Mrs. Hellstrom’s work; presumably the Picheas knew she’d done some laundry.