In the back of the room Father Lou sat with a couple of squarely built men whom the priest identified only as being from his parish council, there to help out if the need arose. Also in the back were Mr. Contreras with Mitch and Peppy, Lotty and Max, and Sal. Neither Mr. Contreras nor Mitch seemed any worse for their night in the church, although Mitch had a large bandage wrapped around his belly and shoulder. He was sitting up, grinning crazily at anyone who wanted to pet him. Morrell was off to one side, operating the projector.

It was a week after Baladine’s assault on the church. We had decided to go ahead with the show, because there were too many open–ended issues. Baladine was going to recover, and he was already trying to make a case that he had used some fancy equipment to scale the side of the church school, break in through the fourth–floor windows, and attack the priest simply in order to get his son back. I wanted my version in as many hands as possible.

“I’m starting with this picture because in a curious way it’s the crux of a difficult case involving Global Entertainment, Carnifice Security, and that perennial chestnut, Illinois politics. I’m alive, talking to you, but another young woman, who received what I believe are identical injuries, was not so fortunate. Nicola Aguinaldo died in the early hours of June seventeenth from a perforated intestine. Her body disappeared from the medical examiner’s office before an autopsy could be performed.”

We had made a still of Nicola smiling, from a frame of the home video where she’d been talking to Robbie. I explained who she was, using a slide with bullet points, how she’d landed in prison, and how I’d inadvertently found her.

“I don’t think we’ll ever know what became of her body: her grief–stricken mother was denied the chance to bury it. But my guess is that a political appointee of Jean–Claude Poilevy at the county morgue removed the body on Poilevy’s orders so that no one would be able to see what kind of boot kicked in Nicola Aguinaldo’s abdomen.”

I nodded at Morrell, who clicked up the slide of Hartigan standing over me with the stun gun. The audience gasped with shock.