“Twenty years in the Chicago PD got me my law enforcement know-how, and then it was a matter of scrabbling and scrambling. Some of my childhood buddies pitched in their nickels. I had a lucky break early on, busted a Hamas training camp on the Peru-Colombia border. It was a fluke, the way things often are in police work: we were only looking for drugs, and we found armaments that made our eyes pop.” He laughed. “You’d think after being on Chicago’s streets, nothing could surprise you, but that’s until you get into those Latin American jungle outposts.”

Nina brought in coffee—lovely, smooth coffee—probably hand-knitted in one of those jungle outposts.

“Nina tells me you’re in private security yourself, that you have a one-gal shop. You interested in moving up to the majors? I’d be pleased—privileged, really—to bring Tony’s daughter into my organization. I learned more from him in two years on the streets than I ever did anytime after.”

“Yeah, my dad was a great guy. I still miss him. But I’m better on my own. I’ve been my own boss too long to be happy in a big organization. Besides, you probably know that I started in a big outfit, the county Public Defender’s Office.”

Dornick nodded. “I saw your old boss at the Krumas event. You were right to chafe against an SOB like Arnie Coleman, and you were young at the time. A big organization can be a chance to spread your wings rather than have them clipped. You keep Mountain Hawk in the back of your mind the next time you’re out doing surveillance in the rain and know you have to race back to your office to file a missing persons report.”

I was startled: it was as if he had spent a week watching my workload. No doubt about it, he was as smooth as his coffee. I thanked him awkwardly.

Dornick ducked a discreet look at his watch. “So what is it you need today, Vic?”

“I’m following an old cold trail,” I said. “A person who’s been missing for forty-plus years. My closest lead to him is also hard to track down. You were the detective who handled the interrogation when he was arrested for murder: Steve Sawyer, the Harmony Newsome trial.”

Dornick put his coffee cup down and whistled silently. “That is an old cold trail. My God, I do remember the case, though: it was the first murder investigation I’d caught on my own. I was working with Larry Alito. You talk to him? I think he’s up in Wisconsin now.”

“I saw him yesterday. He’s on Lake Catherine, in the Chain of Lakes. He said he didn’t remember any of the details, although I got the feeling that he was hiding a lot behind a can of beer.”