He garbled the name so badly I had to ask him to spell it. Once he’d done that he came to a complete halt again.

“I see,” I prodded. “Is she so famous I should recognize the name?”

“Oh, I thought maybe that was why you were so anxious—escaped prisoner and all.”

I sucked in an exasperated breath. “I know it’s hard, having to work for a living, but could you pretty please with sugar on it tell me what came in with the print check?”

“No need to get your undies in a bundle,” he grumbled. “I only got four people waiting to look at their loved ones.”

“As soon as you tell me how long Aguinaldo’s been running, you can turn your charm on the public.”

He read out the notes in a fast monotone and hung up. Nicola Aguinaldo had slipped out of a hospital in Coolis, Illinois, on Sunday morning, when the shift changed. The women’s correctional facility there had taken her in to treat what they thought might be an ovarian abscess, and Aguinaldo had left with the laundry truck. In the next forty–eight hours she’d made it back to the North Side of Chicago, run into some villain, and gotten herself murdered.

Chapter 6: Sigñor Ferragamo, I Presume

6 Sigñor Ferragamo, I Presume

The attendant hadn’t included Aguinaldo’s last known address in his summary, but that might not have been in the report, anyway. I looked in the phone book, but no one with that name lived anywhere near where Mary Louise and I had found her. Not that that meant anything—if she’d fallen afoul of some pimp or dealer, she might be far from home. It’s just that someone escaping from jail usually heads for relatives.

I sucked on a pencil while I thought it over and went back to my computer. None of the usual software turned up an Aguinaldo. I’d have to find her through the arrest–and–trial report, and they’re not easy to locate. Since I don’t have access to the AFIS system, it would mean searching trial records one at a time, without even a clue on an arrest date to guide me. Even with a Pentium chip that could take me a few weeks. I called Mary Louise again.

“Vic! I was going to get back to you after dinner, when I can hear myself think, but hold on while I get the boys their pizza.”

I heard Josh and Nathan in the background shouting over whose turn it was to choose a video, and then Emily, with adolescent disdain, telling them they were both stupid if they wanted to see that bore–rine Space Berets tape one more time. “And I don’t want any pizza, Mary Louise, it’s too fattening.”

“I suppose Lacey Dowell never eats pizza,” Josh yelled.

“No, she eats the blood of obnoxious little boys.”