“At first, it seemed like a game, going around to all those places where Daddy and his folks used to live, and then it turned scary. When that nun got killed and you were in the hospital, they told me there would be something in her apartment, and they sent this horrible, horrible man to take me there. That was when I started to get really afraid and I almost told you, but then I thought of what they said about you being, like, an old lover of Johnny Merton’s and—”

“What!” I was jolted into sitting up. “Petra! Jesus, no! I represented him when I was a public defender, but he was one of the scariest people I ever met, at least until I got to know Les Strangwell. And you don’t sleep with your clients even if you want to. Please, tell me you believe me on this!”

“Don’t get mad at me, Vic, I can’t take it!” Her voice held an undercurrent of hysteria. She’d been alone with her fears too long.

“No, baby, I’m not mad at you. But it upsets me that they would tell such a big lie about me. I like you enough that I don’t want you to believe it, that’s all.”

“Okay,” she muttered.

I waited a tick, hoping for more, something like “Of course I don’t believe it,” but when she said nothing I pushed her to finish her story. “So you came along to Sister Frankie’s apartment with the horrible man … Was that Larry Alito? … And when you found me there, you signaled to him to leave. And then you texted him and told him to come get the bag of evidence.”

“It sounds awful,” she whispered, “hearing you say it out loud, but it got worse. They told me you had these old pictures, that was what they wanted to find, but they wanted the baseball, too. See, every morning Mr. Strangwell would ask for a report from me on what you were doing and what you were looking for, and when I told him you wanted me to do a little work for you, then he was really excited and said to do everything you asked and report back to him. But when I looked up those contractors, I saw their address was the same as Uncle Harvey’s Chicago apartment, and that was weird. So I asked Mr. Strangwell, and then he said … he said …” For a moment, she couldn’t go on, but then she managed to pull herself together. “That was when the Strangler said if I didn’t do exactly what he said, Mom and the girls would die and Daddy would go to prison.”