I tried the Olsens first since they lived directly behind Mrs. Frizell and might have noticed someone going in her back door. Unfortunately they’d been watching TV in their living room in the morning. I could see the disappointment in their faces—they’d missed a ringside seat on a real drama, maybe burglars going after a neighbor they didn’t much care for—but they couldn’t tell me anything.

I went to the Tertzes next. Their frame house on the east side of Racine, facing Mrs. Frizell, was sandwiched between the Picheas’ and another rehab job. The carefully painted scrollwork on either side made the Tertz house look a trifle shabby, but the lawn was carefully tended, with a few early roses in bud.

Mrs. Tertz must have been about seventy. We carried on the conversation in a shout through her locked front door until she was satisfied that I didn’t have assault on my mind. “Oh, yes, I’ve seen you on the street. You have that big red dog, don’t you? I just never saw you close up before, so I didn’t recognize your face. You’ve been helping Marjorie look after Harriet Frizell’s dogs for her, haven’t you?”

I hadn’t heard Mrs. Hellstrom’s first name before. I boiled her ten-minute dither down to a few sentences. “So I wondered if you saw anyone go into the house while she was away.”

“Yes, yes, I did, but they weren’t burglars. What does Marjorie take me for, that I’d let someone break in, even on Hattie Frizell, without calling the police? No, no, they were with the county—I saw it on the side of their van—Cook County Animal Control. I was sure Marjorie knew all about it. They came around eleven o’clock, and that girl next door”—she jerked her head in the direction of the Picheas—“Chrissie, her name is, Chrissie Pichea, was there to let them in.”

“Chrissie Pichea?” I echoed stupidly.

“Why, yes. She often comes around to visit.” Mrs. Tertz smiled a little. “I think she’s doing good works for the elderly. But I don’t resent it—it’s kindly meant, even if my husband and I are perfectly able to manage our own affairs. It gets him angry, you see, the idea that just because the clock’s ticked a little longer for us we’ve suddenly become incompetent in some people’s eyes. So I usually don’t let him know if she’s stopped by. But I knew she wouldn’t have gone into Hattie’s without the intention to help, so I just went back to my own work.”