She shook her head, trying to shake tears away. “She wouldn’t have talked to me about the murder at the time because I was a child. And by the time I went through my novitiate, and ended up back in Chicago with her, it was twelve years later. So many other things started happening that we needed to tackle—the School of the Americas and the Guatemalan asylum seekers, and then the loss of jobs and health care—that we didn’t dwell much on that past. Did she think this Steve Sawyer was wrongly convicted?”

“He may have been. All I can say, with any certainty, is that he was very badly represented in a trial that was a travesty, at least as far as I can tell from the transcript. Sister Frances said she wanted to testify at the trial but the defense wouldn’t call her.”

I stopped, my throat was so dry I could hardly get the next words out. “A reporter suggested I was the real target, but he wouldn’t tell me who he’d heard that from.”

“Killing a nun to keep her from talking to you or you from talking to her, these things have happened in Nicaragua or Liberia, but here? We think we’re so safe here, and yet my own government is spying on me. The government are the people who would have known she was talking to you.” Her eyes widened in horror, and she choked out, “You don’t think they … that they …”

I grimaced. “What? That the Contras might kill a nun but not Homeland Security? I don’t think they did. But I can’t swear to anything right now, except that I feel pretty vulnerable.”

Zabinska pleated Lotty’s linen tea napkin over and over in her fingers. “The work that you’re doing for Karen, for these two old women in Lionsgate Manor, how much are you charging them?”

“My standard fee is a hundred fifty an hour plus expenses.”

“We can’t afford that. Is there any chance you could work out an arrangement with us? I want you to find out why Frankie died. We’ll all feel better if we know why.”

I could feel the request coming before she said it, but I didn’t try to fight it. I owed Sister Frances the effort of an investigation.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “I’ll feel better, too.”

We talked through the various issues the Freedom Center worked on that might have brought someone to the boiling point. We talked about people who might have harbored a personal resentment against Sister Frances. Even saints make enemies. It’s how they become martyrs.

At the end, I said, “The best thing you can do is get back into that sealed apartment and bring me some bottle fragments.”

“You suggested bolt cutters,” she said doubtfully.