The candidate let Strangwell lead him away, but Harvey Krumas and Dornick demanded to know why Peter wasn’t back at the Drake lying down. “You look like crap, Pete. What’s going on here?”

“Brian wanted to talk to me,” I said. “Peter wanted to stay close to me. We were talking about what Petra might have been looking for in my childhood home. Any hunches?”

Dornick said, “I don’t know Petra, so I don’t know what might have struck her fancy. Girls her age get romantic ideas about family history sometimes. Maybe she thought there were Warshawski heirlooms.”

“Mr. Krumas? You know her better than I do. You’re her ‘Uncle Harvey,’ after all. Peter says she wasn’t looking for a baseball.”

“This is outrageous,” Harvey fumed. “Pete’s sick with worry—we all are—and you’re treating this like some video game.”

I tossed the baseball in the air, caught it, and put it into my briefcase. “You’re right. I’ll get this to a lab, see what they can tell me about it, and start searching for Petra.”

“No!” Peter said. “How many times do I have to repeat it? Stay the fuck out of this!”

Dornick said, “Out of curiosity, Vicki—Vic—if you were going to look for her, where would you start?”

“I started at her apartment, but someone had been there ahead of me. Since Peter doesn’t want me looking, I’m not going to hunt elsewhere. But I would probably talk to Larry Alito.”

“Alito?” Krumas and Dornick spoke his name in unison. Then Dornick said, “I wouldn’t trust much that an alkie like Larry would have to say.”

“He met with Les Strangwell a couple of days ago. I’d like to know what Strang—”

“How do you know that?” Krumas demanded.

“I’m an investigator, Mr. Krumas. It’s my job to find out stuff. I’m not sure what it would take to get Alito to tell me about that conversation, or some of the other things he knows, but—”

“Guy would sell his wife for a six-pack, probably turn in his own kid for a keg. Stay away from him, Vic, he’s bad news.” Dornick was giving me an indulgent smile, as if I were a toddler who needed extra coaching.

“He’s short-tempered and he drinks, but he’s an experienced cop. And Strangwell wanted him for an urgent, confidential assignment the day before Petra disappeared.”

Dornick laughed. “You think Larry has something to do with Petra’s disappearance? I’m surprised you’ve made it in this field as long as you have, Vic. An imagination like yours belongs on TV. Speaking of which, what are you imagining about that Nellie Fox baseball?”

“And you know it’s a Nellie Fox baseball because …”