I walked to the railing and looked around. Lake Catherine was at the end of the road, about thirty yards south of the Alito place. You could just glimpse the gleam of sun on water through the willows and bushes that grew around the shore. The neighbors to the north were grilling; the lots here were so small that the hamburgers and chicken legs were practically under my nose. Despite the chili dog, I was still hungry. I wanted to jump over the fence and grab a drumstick.

A man’s voice came clearly through the open window above me. “You didn’t even get her name? Sheesh, Hazel, don’t you ever think?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Larry, you think every person you meet is going to scam you.”

“And you didn’t find out what she wants?”

“You gotta pay extra if you want me to be your secretary, Mr. Alito.” Hazel’s voice was part sarcasm, part seduction, a disturbing window into their relationship.

Alito grumbled, but the conversation faded, and, a moment or two later, he joined me on the deck. He was fresh from the shower, his thinning hair still dark with water, but his eyes were almost as red as his sunburned nose. He was carrying a can of beer. From the smell of his breath as he came up to me, it was his fifth or sixth of the afternoon.

“Detective Alito, I’m V. I. Warshawski, Tony Warshawski’s daughter.”

“That a fact.” He looked at me without enthusiasm.

“Fact,” I said brightly. “I found a picture of your old slow-pitch team the other night. My dad played first, I think … Is that right?”

“How should I remember? Tony Warshawski on first, what’s on second, that right?”

I laughed dutifully. “You know my dad’s been dead for some years now.”

“Yeah. Sorry I forgot to send flowers, but we didn’t stay in touch.”

“And I became a detective, but private. I’m not with the force.”

“Private dicks, they give me a pain in the whasis.” He swallowed deeply from his beer can and set it on the deck railing.

“I’m looking up an old case that my dad and you both worked.”

He didn’t say anything, but a pulse in his neck started to jump.

“Steve Sawyer.”

“Don’t ring a bell.” The tone was indifferent, but he grabbed the beer can and took another deep swallow. “Hazel! Bring me another!”

His wife had been standing at the grill with her plate of raw meat, waiting for me to finish so she could make dinner. She reached into a cooler by the grill and brought out another can. What a fun evening for her.

“You and Tony had been partners on patrol in ’sixty-six, and then you got moved to the detective branch at—”