“Yes,” Verna conceded, “but he could have been wrong. Gerald has been wrong a lot, over the years.” She thought back to their visit to New York, where Gerald had strutted around, the big-city hero lording it over his small-town cousins. “Or maybe he was saying it to make himself look important—the way men do, you know.”

“I’m confused, Verna,” Liz said. “Miss Jamison told you that she isn’t Miss LaMotte, and now you’re saying she might not be Miss Jamison, either.”

“It is confusing,” Verna replied. “But that’s what makes it a mystery—and intriguing. All I’m saying is that we need to know more about her.”

“More what, exactly?” Liz asked, over the roll of thunder.

“Just more,” Verna said. She thought for a moment. “You said that Miss Jamison had some legal business with Mr. Moseley. What was it?”

“You know I can’t talk about specifics,” Liz said patiently. “Attorney-client privilege includes me, too. Mr. Moseley has drummed that into me from the day I went to work in his office.” She hesitated. “But I guess maybe it won’t hurt to tell you that it had to do with a house she’s put up for sale. She’s asked Mr. Moseley to handle it for her.”

“In Chicago?”

“Not exactly, but close.” She sighed. “If you must know, it’s in a suburb on the west side of the city. Cicero.”

Verna stared at her. “Cicero! Don’t you read the newspapers, Liz? Cicero is all over the front pages. That’s where Al Capone hangs out, so he can stay out of the clutches of the Chicago police. Haven’t you heard the saying, ‘If you smell gunpowder, you’re in Cicero’? You don’t suppose—”

“No, I don’t suppose anything of the sort.” Liz pulled down the corners of her mouth. “Verna, you would suspect your own grandmother—if you had one.”

Verna chuckled wryly. “If my grandmother lived on Twenty-second Street in Cicero, I might suspect her. That’s where Capone has his headquarters. In the Western Hotel on Twenty-second, according to The Dime Detective.”