“Yes, that’s Officer Neely,” Finchley said. “She’ll check on your wounded man. So what’s the point, Warshawski? You’re trying to build a case against Diamond Head, but it’s not holding water—forgive the expression. A drunken old man hits his head and dies and falls or is rolled into the canal. It’s too bad, but it doesn’t mean every corporation in Chicago has to roll over and do tricks because you’re steamed about it.”

The edge to his words whipped blood to my cheeks and momentarily cleared my brain. “Right, Finchley. I tried calling you tonight because you—no, it was Rawlings here, but I expect you knew about it—called Dr. Herschel to complain I was holding out. You get my message?”

He nodded frantically.

“What I wanted to tell you, someone came around the boardinghouse where the old guy was living and scooped up all his papers. Guy claiming to be his son. Why’d he do that? The papers a derelict carries around are useless. Then when I come back to the boardinghouse the landlady calls the Diamond Head plant manager to tell him I’m back in the neighborhood. I heard the guys at the plant say that when I was there tonight. I know that a big steel company is funneling cash their way and I see copper spools disappearing in the middle of the night with this steel company’s name printed on the side.”

I shoved the blanket out of my eyes and turned to Rawlings. “And meanwhile, Eddie Mohr, the old local president, his car is stolen by creeps who bash Lotty Herschel three ways from Sunday. That was on your turf, Rawlings, remember? So you guys tell me what the point is!”

“How do you know it wasn’t his son?” Rawlings skipped all the stuff about Paragon Steel and went for the inessential.

“I don’t. But the son grew up in Arizona. He hadn’t heard from his old man for thirty-five years. Finchley here didn’t try to get in touch with him. How’d he know to show up out of the blue? And on top of that, how’d he find the flophouse Kruger’d picked to crash in only eight days earlier?”

I stopped for a minute, fishing in the depths of my weary mind for an essential piece of information. It surfaced just as Officer Neely came back into the room to lean over Finchley’s shoulder.

I turned to Rawlings. “We ID’d Mitch Kruger on Monday. The so-called son came to Mrs. Polter’s on Tuesday. Even if someone called the son in Arizona, how’d he get here so fast?” Unless, of course, he’d been here all along after murdering his father.

“Take it easy, Ms. W., take it easy.” Rawlings went over to join Finchley and Neely in the huddle.