Hate and fear. Always wrong, will destroy you. Ella knew she was saying that because she’d said it so many times in the eighty-five years of their life together. Pastor Karen thought some special gift of empathy lay between Ella and Claudia that helped Ella understand her sister, but it was only habit. She cranked Claudia up in bed and helped her eat a little meatloaf, a few spoonfuls of mashed potatoes, a bite of garish Jell-O.

“ ’ Ank ’ou, Ellie.” Claudia lay down, and Ella sat with her until her sister slid away from her into sleep.

5 - IT’S A BIRD . . . IT’S A PLANE ... NO! IT’S SUPERCOUSIN!

5

IT’S A BIRD … IT’S A PLANE … NO! IT’S SUPERCOUSIN!

TRAFFIC’S BECOME LIKE MARK TWAIN’S OLD BROMIDE: WE all whine about it, but no one tries to fix it. Even me: I complain about the congestion and then keep driving myself everywhere. Trouble is, Chicago’s public transportation is so abysmal, I’d never have time to sleep if I tried to cover my client base by bus and El. As it was, my trip home took over forty minutes, not counting a stop for groceries, and I only had to go seven miles.

When I’d squeezed my car in between a shiny Nissan Pathfinder and a boxy Toyota Scion, I couldn’t summon the energy to get out. As soon as I went inside, my downstairs neighbor and the two dogs would leap on me, all eager for company and two of them eager for exercise.

“A run will do me good.” I repeated the mantra, but couldn’t persuade myself to move. Instead, I stared at the trees through the Mustang’s open sunroof.

In June, summer comes even to the heart of a great city. Even to the world of the steel mills, where I grew up. The light and warmth of spring always fill me with nostalgia, perhaps more this year because I’d been immersed so recently in my mother’s childhood.

After seeing the rich green hills in Umbria, I understood why my mother kept trying to create a Mediterranean garden under the grit of the mills. By July, the leaves, including her camellia, would be dead-looking, coated with sulfur and smoke, but each spring the trees put out hopeful tendrils. This year, it will be different. Maybe the same would be true of my forebodings about my new client. This time, events would prove my pessimism false.

When I’d left Miss Ella’s apartment, I stopped at Karen Lennon’s office. Miss Ella had signed a contract agreeing to a thousand dollars’ worth of investigation—essentially, two full days at half price—to be paid in installments, with seventy-five dollars in cash in advance as a retainer.