Come to think of it, I’d never checked to see if there were unidentified dead bodies lying around after the big snow. It was close to five now, and the library at my old school wouldn’t open for another three hours. I went back to bed. Peppy followed me and curled her soft gold body against my side. She fell instantly into the sweet dreams of the virtuous, but at six I was still lying there, eyelids scratchy from missing sleep, churning over my past encounters with Johnny Merton.

He had scared me when I was with the Public Defender’s, even though I was supposed to be on his side. It was because of him I’d gotten an unlisted phone number:

“You don’t do your best for me on this rap, bitch, I’ll make sure your mama won’t recognize your face when they pull you out of the water.”

“Is that why you don’t have any LaSalle Street lawyers left, Mr. Merton? Are they all in the Chicago River wearing cement booties?”

I’d been amazed at the time that I could utter those words without my voice quavering, but I’d had to clutch my legal pad to control the trembling in my hands. Even now, the memory of the Hammer’s venom could keep me from sleeping. Maybe he could have intimidated Rivers, at that.

I sat up. If I wasn’t going to sleep, I might as well get going. I let Peppy out the back door and stood on the small porch, stretching my ham-strings and shoulders, while my stovetop espresso maker heated up.

The midsummer sky was already a deep blue. I drank a coffee, collected Mitch from Mr. Contreras’s kitchen—he’d been whining behind the door, indignant at being locked inside while Peppy got to play—and ran the dogs to the lake. The water was still so cold, I gasped when I jumped in, but I swam with them to the first buoy. Maybe if I got my blood flowing fast enough, I’d feel as though I’d spent eight hours asleep.

It didn’t exactly work: I was still gritty-eyed and grumpy as I drove south. But I reached the University of Chicago library just as the doors opened. I’d picked up a cappuccino and a croissant at one of the little neighborhood coffee bars and, against all library etiquette, smuggled them into the microform room.

I pulled reels for all the major Chicago newspapers. In 1967, there had been eight dailies, morning and evening editions of four different papers. I started with the Daily News, my dad’s paper. He liked Royko.