He thought it over. He didn’t react quickly, but he was thorough, asking a series of questions designed to make sure Frenada’s sister wouldn’t be in any danger if she tried to get the money.

“Okay. I won’t say yes or no tonight, but I’ll talk to Celia in the morning. I want you to promise me you won’t bother her. Are you a Catholic? Do you have a pledge that you honor?”

I shifted uncomfortably on the hard chair; my mother, fleeing Fascist Italy because of religion, didn’t want that to define her daughter’s life in the New World. “I’ll pledge you my word. When I give it I do my utmost to keep it.”

He grunted. “I guess that’ll have to do. And the other thing you wanted from me?”

I took a breath and said in a rush, “Lacey Dowell. She knows something about Frenada, about his shirts, why he made those Mad Virgin T–shirts and then pretended he hadn’t. She won’t talk to me.”

“Magdalena. I never can think of her by that silly stage name. You think I can make her give up her story?” His full mouth twisted, whether in amusement or scorn I couldn’t tell. “Maybe. Maybe. You being a detective and all, I suppose you know what fancy hotel she’s staying in while she’s in town. She sure avoids the old neighborhood, unless she’s got a team of cameras following after her.”

Chapter 30: The Mad Virgin’s Story

30 The Mad Virgin’s Story

Father Lou was gone about twenty minutes. When he came back he said if I could wait he was pretty sure Magdalena would be along to the church sometime this evening.

I suddenly remembered Morrell, waiting for me at a restaurant on Damen, and asked for a phone. Father Lou took me into his study, a shabby but far more comfortable room than the parlor we’d been using. Boxing trophies were scattered about shelves stuffed with old papers. The desk, with a simple wood crucifix over it, was stacked with financial reports and old sermons. He didn’t have many books; I noticed a collection of Frank O’Connor short stories and, to my surprise, one by Sandra Cisneros—trying to keep up with parishioners, he explained when he saw me looking at it.

He had an old black rotary phone, heavy and clunky to hands used to plastic Touch–Tones. He listened in unashamedly as I made my call—I suppose to make sure I wasn’t going to set a mob heavy on Frenada’s sister—but when he heard me ask the maître d’ for Morrell he brightened.

“So you know Morrell,” he said when I hung up. “You should have told me that sooner. I didn’t know he was back in town.”