I ignored the coldness in his voice. “You know Eleanor Baladine is a mad swimmer? She missed a chance to swim in the Olympics and is determined her children will do it for her. I went out there this afternoon and watched her lashing kids around the pool. Besides her own they included Edmund Trant’s daughter and Jean–Claude Poilevy’s sons. By the way, if you heard the names Utah and Madison, would you imagine you were being given street directions or hearing about two little girls?”

“If you’re trying to imply that Edmund Trant and Jean–Claude Poilevy got together with Robert Baladine to kill Baladine’s ex–nanny, you’re so far over the edge that no one can pull you back, Warshawski. I have to run—I’m going to be late for dinner.”

“Sandy Fishbein or Alexandra Fisher or whoever it is can wait five minutes without hurting your television prospects. The Rogers Park police lost the incident report and now they’re saying I was driving drunk and refused a blood test. They want me to take a fall on a hit–and–run in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Don’t you think that’s queer?”

He was silent for a long moment. “It’s unusual. But it doesn’t make me think Baladine is in a conspiracy with Trant and Poilevy to get you.”

I fidgeted with the phone cord. “I don’t think anyone’s out to get me—I mean, not because I’m me. But I do think someone with a heavy hand is leaning on Rogers Park and the State’s Attorney to make a tidy end to the case. Because I happened along and called an ambulance I was nominated for the tidy ending—they couldn’t know housekeeping has always been my weakest point. Poilevy could be leaning on the State’s Attorney as a favor to Baladine, you know, to keep anyone from asking questions about his relations with his kids’ ex–nanny. Stranger things have happened in this town. They might have rushed in to charge me, except I’m a detective, my passenger was an ex–cop, and I sent my car to a private lab for forensic work. Along with the clothes Aguinaldo was wearing when she died.”

“Vic, it’s not that I don’t love you, but I’m late, and I don’t have a clue why you’re telling me all this.”

I suppressed a sigh of impatience. “What do you know about Trant and Poilevy’s working together, or Poilevy and Baladine, that would tell me whether it’s Poilevy pulling this particular lever?”

“Nothing. And I’m not stirring up water around Edmund Trant. For any consideration you can think of. Not even the chance to watch Eleanor Baladine chase him around the pool with a whip.”