“You know, where we do prison work. She was in the sewing shop. My friend Erica, her roommate Monique was working there the day the CO took after Nicola.”

“Maybe I could talk to her roommate.”

“And let her get the reward money when I’ve done all the work? No thanks!”

“You’d get a finder’s fee,” I encouraged her. “The roommate would get an informer’s fee.”

Before I could push any harder, the line went dead. I called the operator to find out if she could reconnect me, but she told me what I already knew: you can call out from jail, but no one can call in.

I sat back in my chair. So the prison had lied about the ovarian cyst. Possibly had lied, if I could believe Veronica’s tale. The idea of Nicola Aguinaldo attacking a guard seemed utterly improbable, but it was obvious when Veronica had started lying—when she blurted out the tale about the guards putting Nicola’s dead body out of the hospital. Of course, she’d had a week to prepare a realistic story. You don’t have to be behind bars to be a con artist, but the odds are more in your favor there. In my days as a public defender I’d encountered every variation of injured innocence known not just to man but to woman as well.

I needed more information on Coolis, on what Nicola had been doing the day before she went into the hospital. I’d have to make another trip out there, in my guise as a lawyer in good standing with the Illinois bar—which I am, but I wouldn’t advise anyone to retain a lawyer who hadn’t practiced in over a decade.

In the meantime I had more obvious tasks right in front of me. The woman from the temporary agency was standing next to me with a heap of computer printouts that needed sorting.

We were halfway through those when Tessa bounced in. She’d wrapped red beads around her locks and pulled them back in a kino cloth.

“What’s going on around here, V. I., that you put up that ridiculous set of … ?” Her voice trailed away as she took in the chaos. “Good grief! I knew you were a bit of a slob, but this is way outside your usual housekeeping. Unkeeping.”

I made sure the woman from the agency was clear enough on her work to leave her alone for a while and took Tessa into her studio to talk. She frowned when I finished.

“I don’t like being so vulnerable here.”

“Me either,” I said with feeling. “If it’s any comfort, I don’t think my marauders would bother you.”