Police who raided Special–T late Saturday night discovered five kilos of cocaine inside the cardboard rolls used for shipping uncut fabric. While Frenada hotly denied any connection to the Mexican drug cartels, his bank accounts told a different story. Police speculate that he may have committed suicide to avoid arrest. Frenada grew up in the same Humboldt Park building as movie star Lacey Dowell, widely known by her fans as the Mad Virgin for her role in those movies. Dowell couldn’t be reached for a comment on her old playmate’s death, but studio representative Alex Fisher says the star is devastated by the news. (Murray Ryerson and Julia Esteban contributed to this report.)

The story ended with a tearful denial by Frenada’s sister, Celia Caliente, who said her brother had no money and that it was a struggle for him to meet his share of the mortgage on the two–flat they jointly owned. The story ran with a photo of Lacey Dowell as the Mad Virgin next to a picture of her at her First Communion. Their irrelevance to Frenada’s death underscored the titillative purpose of using them. Buy this paper and get an intimate look at Lacey Dowell. I thrust it from me with so much irritation that Peppy backed away in alarm.

“What’s up, doll?” My neighbor had been watching me read.

I showed him the story and tried to explain why it bothered me so much. The one thing Mr. Contreras picked up from my incoherent rant was that Murray was framing Frenada. He didn’t care whether it was because Global was feeding Murray the story or not—Mr. Contreras has always disliked Murray, even more than the men I date. I’ve never been sure why, and now, to my own exasperation, I found myself feebly defending Murray to the old man.

Mr. Contreras was pardonably incensed. “Either he’s acting like a scumbag, no matter what the reason for it, or he’s not. Don’t go being his ma or his scoutmaster, telling me he’s a good boy at heart, because someone with principles don’t carry on this way, and you know that as well as me, cookie. He wants the limelight, he wants that TV show they got him doing, and he’s looking the other way. Period.”

Period indeed. I knew all those things were true, but Murray and I had been friends for so many years it hurt like any other loss to see him move away from me. Away from truth. I made a sour face at my own arrogance: I was hardly the avatar of truth.

Mr. Contreras was still fuming, hands on hips. “So whatcha going to do about it?”

“I’m going to work out and eat breakfast.” I felt too defensive to share the rest of my morning’s agenda.