A couple of women were working over the tomatoes and peppers in one of the window boxes. Another group was clustered around a kitten, each trying to get the animal to come to her. The aide who was escorting me to Miss Claudia explained that they brought in different animals for therapy.

“The kitten will live here, but we have to be careful. These old ladies, they’re all so lonely, they get in terrible fights over whose turn it is to have Kitty in her room at night, so we have to say Kitty lives with Pastor Karen. It’s easier to bring in the therapy dogs, because they understand that the dogs have to live on the outside.”

Miss Claudia was in a shady corner, dozing in a wheelchair, with her sister knitting nearby. Even allowing for Claudia’s poor health, the two women looked as unalike as two sisters could: Miss Ella, tall, narrow, pressed and ironed; the younger sister, rounder, softer. Although she was wasted by illness, Miss Claudia’s face was still plump beneath her gray Afro, and you could see smile creases at her left eye, her good eye.

When the aide bent to gently shake Miss Claudia awake, Miss Ella frowned at me in awful majesty.

“My sister is very poorly today. You should have called before coming along like this to bother her.”

“I know she’s doing poorly,” I said, trying to remember not to give way to my quick temper. “I don’t want to lose the chance to talk to her altogether, that’s all.”

The aide was speaking loudly and brightly to Miss Claudia, as one might offer a treat to a toddler, telling her she had a visitor, let’s wake up from our nice nap. A big Bible, its red leather faded to russet along the edges where she’d held it all these years, dropped from Miss Claudia’s lap to the ground. Cardboard markers, inscribed with verses, scattered around her chair.

“ ’ Ible,” Miss Claudia cried. “Fall … no.”

I bent to pick it all up for her, and I tucked the markers into the front of the Bible. The covers were thick and lumpy, as if the book had suffered from the damp.

“You’re always dropping that big thing,” Miss Ella said roughly. “Why don’t you leave it in the apartment and keep a small one with you that you can hang on to.”

“No.” Tears oozed out of Miss Claudia’s left eye. “Keep with me always.”

I pulled a chair up next to her left side and placed the Bible in her lap, where she could touch it. “Miss Claudia, I’m V. I. Warshawski …Vic. I’m the detective who’s looking for Lamont.”

“ ’ Tive?” she said, turning her head to me and getting the syllable out with difficulty.