Had Nicola preyed on young Robbie’s sympathies? A sensitive overweight boy would be an easy mark in this house of obsessed athletes. Maybe Nicola got tired of Mom—I certainly had after twenty minutes—and decided to steal both her son’s affections and her jewelry. Not that I was investigating this long–gone burglary, but I wondered if Nicola Aguinaldo really had an asthmatic daughter.

And what about Dad? Robbie had been awfully quick to get the implication of Eleanor Baladine making an excuse to fire Nicola. And those friends of the Baladines knew something—there was a whiff of concealed knowledge in the stiffening, the glances. Had Robert started playing with the help on those days off when he drove her to Chicago? When she ran away from prison did she think he would come to her rescue—leave Eleanor for a Filipina immigrant? Could he perhaps have killed her to keep her from messing with his happy home?

The rush hour was building. The drive home took almost twice as long as the one out, and the exhaust got louder in the long backup off the Eisenhower to the northbound Kennedy. By the time I pulled up in front of my apartment, my bones were vibrating from it. Definitely not a car I wanted to spend the rest of my life in.

Mr. Contreras was out back with the dogs, working over his tomatoes. I called from my back porch and Peppy came up to see me. Mitch was gnawing on a tree branch and barely lifted his head.

As I changed into jeans Peppy followed me around the apartment, making it clear she expected to come with me. “I’m going to Uptown, girl. What if someone assaults me and you’re left in the car for days? Not that a car on that block gets left for long. And I’d have to leave the windows open—anyone could come by and steal you or hurt you.” I couldn’t withstand the longing in her amber eyes. After taking my gun from the safe and checking the clip and the safety, I leashed her up and called down to my neighbor that I was taking her with me on an errand.

As I parked between a rusted Chevy and an empty pickle jar, I wondered what went through Nicola Aguinaldo’s mind when she made that long trip home on Sundays. Suburban bus to train, train to Union Station, walk to State Street, L to Bryn Mawr, the six blocks over to her apartment on Wayne. Over two hours, even if all connections went smoothly. And when she got home, instead of a pool and manicured grounds for her children, she’d find a tiny glass–strewn square of hard–packed dirt in front of her building. If she had fallen in with some scheme of Baladine’s, maybe it was in the hopes of buying her children’s way out of Wayne Street.