After a minute, I rang the bell again. The lock would have been easy to undo with a credit card, but I leaned against the door and watched the street while I waited. Someone had opened a hydrant on the far corner, and kids, mostly boys, were racing in and out of the jet of water. Couples embraced, at bus stops or in alcoves. A woman whose matchstick legs stuck out in front of her like Raggedy Ann’s was sitting on the bus stop bench beating her thigh with a shaky fist, muttering, “You can’t tell me that, you can’t tell me that.” In the alley, kids were lighting firecrackers: the Fourth was only a week away.

It had been a full day, and if I hadn’t been so impatient to hear what Sister Frances could remember of her day in Marquette Park forty years ago I would have gone home for an early supper and bed.

Karen Lennon had called around noon to thank me for visiting Miss Claudia. “Miss Ella is angry, but I’m glad you didn’t wait for me to give the green light. Miss Claudia feels much more at peace now. I think she’s ready to die, knowing that you are committed to finding her nephew.”

That statement had alarmed me: I realized Miss Claudia was frail when I saw her, but I hadn’t been imagining her as close to death.

Lennon tried to reassure me. “The doctor says she’s stable, but, with strokes, that can change rapidly, too. But after meeting you, and feeling reassured that you’re taking her seriously, that could make her feel less stress, so it could help her get stronger.”

When we hung up, I felt a renewed stab of urgency in the search for Lamont, but I didn’t know what I could be doing. With a sort of helplessness, I put in a second request to see Johnny Merton out in Stateville. Perhaps by the time the visit came through, I could think of some quid pro quo that would make the head snake speak to me. “Parseltongue, that’s what I need,” I murmured out loud as I brushed my teeth. A language for communicating with snakes.

The door suddenly opened behind me. “Detective? I’m Frankie Kerrigan. Sorry to keep you waiting. We were having a short meeting on our Iowa refugees.”

Frankie Kerrigan was a thin, wiry woman, around seventy, with curly gray hair that had once been red. Her face and arms were freckled and sunburned. She wore a T-shirt and jeans. Her only badge of office was a plain wooden cross on a thin chain.

She seemed to realize I was searching her for signs of nun-ness, because she flashed a smile, and said, “When I have to talk to a judge, I put on a veil and a skirt, but, here at home, I get to wear jeans. Come on up, Detective.”