If I boldly went out the front door, collected my car, and drove to Oak Brook, would I be followed? And more to the point, what would I do when I got there? Climb the security fence on my quivering legs, get arrested for trespassing, try to claim I was responding to an SOS from a twelve–year–old boy whom his successful and beautiful parents would paint as emotionally unstable. Prone to self–dramatization. And maybe they were right. Maybe it was only my animus to Eleanor and BB that made me take their child seriously.

I tried the Baladine mansion one more time, but the phone still rang unanswered. I climbed back into bed, lying rigidly, waiting for the sounds of traffic, of crickets, of drinkers laughing their way up the street, to resolve themselves into menace. There is no worse feeling than not knowing if you are truly alone in your own home. To my surprise, when Peppy pawed at my arm to rouse me, it was eight–thirty.

I rolled over and looked into her amber eyes. “Woof. Sorry, old girl. Bruises and too much of whatever anti–inflammatory Lotty gave me, and I even sleep through fear. Let’s get you out and fetch the paper.”

Ever since Peppy and Mitch learned that bringing in the paper netted a dog biscuit, they like to collect them for the whole building. This morning we were up so late that only my own Herald–Star was still on the sidewalk. Mr. Contreras sent Mitch out to join us, but Peppy drove him off with a serious growl and presented the paper to me, golden plume waving grandly. The encounter made me laugh out loud—a good thing, since the rest of the day was singularly lacking in humor.

I unfolded the paper in the vestibule outside Mr. Contreras’s door. The Herald–Star put Frenada’s death on the front page, under the headline DRUG LORD DROWNS.

Late yesterday, police identified the man pulled out of Belmont Harbor early Sunday morning as Lucian Frenada, owner of Special–T Uniforms in Humboldt Park. Frenada had become the subject of intense investigation by Herald–Star reporter Murray Ryerson, who taped an exposé on the use of Frenada’s small business as a cover for a drug smuggling ring. This story will air tonight at nine on GTV, Channel Thirteen.