“I checked with the SRO where I found a room for your homeless friend. He didn’t show up, and I wondered about that. It wasn’t easy finding a place. Low-income housing is disappearing faster than the rain forests.”

“It was good of you to go out of your way, but he seems to be a guy who’s so allergic to other people that he’d rather take his chances on the street.”

We had reached her car. As she got in, I commented on how packed her life was, her work at Lionsgate, with the homeless, the death penalty. “What do you ever do to relax?”

“What do you do?” she said pertly. “Except for your Italian trip, it sounds like you’re at it morning, noon, and night.”

I laughed it off. But as I walked the two blocks farther to my own car, I had to agree, I wasn’t living much of a life these days.

12 - MEETING THE HAMMER IN THE TANK

12

MEETING THE HAMMER IN THE TANK

THE FIRST THING I DID IN THE MORNING WAS TO CALL THE Mighty Waters Freedom Center and ask for Sister Frances. The woman who answered said Sister wasn’t in the center that day but gave me her cellphone number.

“She’s out of town, trying to find housing for the families of some of the immigrants who were arrested in Iowa last week. They can’t find enough homes for them over there.”

I dialed Sister Frances’s cellphone and wasn’t surprised to get her voice mail. I left as concise a message as I could: Private detective, Steve Sawyer’s trial. If she remembered any details after all these years, would she call me.

Marilyn Klimpton arrived from the temporary agency. I spent most of the rest of the day working with her on my files and creating a list of key clients. If one of them called, Marilyn needed to find me and get me a message at once.

Late in the day, I heard from Sister Frances. She wasn’t sure when she’d be back in Chicago, she said, but she’d arrange to meet me as soon as she returned.

When I pressed her to tell me about Steve Sawyer, she said she wasn’t sure that what she knew would be useful to me. “I didn’t know him, and I was so shocked, so overwhelmed, when Harmony collapsed, I wasn’t thinking at all. It wasn’t until much later that I started to try to remember details about the march, and what I do remember is too … too … insubstantial. If I try to talk about it now, I’m afraid it will all evaporate. Let’s wait until we can meet face-to-face.”