“The reason I didn’t call you to tell you in person was that I was too embarrassed: I got jumped. Went to Forty-first and Kedzie to pick up my car, and the Felitti brothers’ pet thug, Simon, was lying in wait for me.”

Dick looked at me with bright, hard eyes. “Vic, we don’t need to hear that story again. I’m taking my clients home. I can only say I warned you to mind your own business.”

“The thing is,” I continued, speaking to Rawlings, “the boys here are so pumped up, they’ve forgotten about forensic evidence.”

Dick stopped on his way out of the room.

“Fingerprints, Richard. Neither the Hulk—sorry, Simon the Valiant—nor his sidekick wore gloves. They jumped me at the corner of Forty-first and Kedzie when I was picking up the Impala. Even though the car is a mess, it should be possible to find their prints on the inside. The Hulk sat in the backseat with a gun at my head. The sidekick sat in the passenger seat with another gun stuck in my ribs. That’s how we ended up at Diamond Head. They forced me to drive there. Anyway, you should find their prints inside the car.”

“You impound that Impala, Detective?” Conrad demanded.

“It’s been towed, Sergeant,” Willoughby said stiffly.

“You get on your little mike and tell them it’s evidence in a murder case. Not to mention aggravated assault. I want that thing at the lab before the sun comes up, Detective. I’ve been working this case all week now and I’m going to be pretty frustrated if I lose it because we compacted the evidence.”

Her expression would have melted steel, but she spoke into her mike. Dick had turned pale during the discussion and had started talking to his father-in-law in a savage undervoice. I couldn’t hear the conversation, but it was clearly dawning on Dick that his relatives were landing him on a griddle. He gave me a look I couldn’t decipher, so far was it removed from his usual cockiness, and hustled his clients from the room.

While Willoughby busied herself with summoning underlings, Conrad gripped my shoulders and demanded a detailed account of my evening. I’d given him a brief synopsis by the time Willoughby finished issuing orders to get the Impala from the police pound to the lab.

Conrad turned back to her. “You get a doctor to see this suspect, Detective?” Conrad had demanded.

Willoughby lost some of the icy poise that had made her formidable during four hours of questioning. “Her life isn’t in danger. I was trying to make sure we didn’t have serious felony charges to bring against her.”

“Take it from me: we don’t. I’m driving her to a doctor. You got a problem with that, I’ll give you my watch commander’s phone number.”