I kept petting her and crooning to her, trying to assure her that we could fix it all so that no one got killed or sent to prison, although I wasn’t sure about either of those things. Finally, when she seemed a bit calmer, I asked how she’d ended up here in Elton’s shack.

“That was after they made me open your office for them.”

“Yeah, babe, I know that much. I saw you on my video camera.”

“They said you had a picture that might send Daddy to jail,” she whispered. “When I told them you and I hadn’t been able to get into your old South Chicago house, they made me go down there with them to show them which house it was. Then when Uncle Sal gave me your apartment keys so I could make up your bed and bring you some yogurt—you know, while you were staying at Dr. Herschel’s—Mr. Strangwell made me give him the keys to make copies.

“I guess then they tore your house apart. I wasn’t there. This one man, the one they called Larry, he found an old picture of Uncle Tony and all of them playing ball together, and the Strangler was just totally pissed, because he said only a drunk idiot would think that proved anything about anyone. So they decided they had to go through your office.

“I had to go with them. They wouldn’t let me just tell them your keypad code because the Strangler said if you were there—like, maybe you didn’t get in to see the snake man—you’d let me in. Then they went just totally crazy inside your office, and I was terrified they would kill me because I’d seen too much. And Mr. Dornick kept phoning the Strangler and saying how could he be so sure a big-mouth like me wouldn’t end up babbling it all to you. So I pretended I was having my period, that I was bleeding and needed the bathroom, and went down the hall.

“This horrible man, the one they called Larry, he was standing there, holding his gun, and I saw the back door and just bolted outside and ran like fury. And Elton was there, out on the street, so I remembered how he talked about his crib. And I begged him to save my life. So the bus was just coming, and we jumped on. And he brought me here. And I’ve been too scared to leave.”

While I cradled her, I tried to think of a safe house, someplace where Petra at least could sleep while I tried to get the police to listen to my side of the story. I was imagining and discarding ideas when Petra suddenly asked about the pictures.

“What are they?”

“It’s an old story and an ugly one. Your father was at a riot in Marquette Park in 1966—”