She looked at me furiously. “I’m not five years old anymore. I don’t have to do what you say.”

I went to the door. “Just do me a favor, Caroline-the next time you’re in trouble, dial 911 like the rest of the citizenry. Or talk to a shrink. Don’t come hounding me.”

I dragged my feet back to the Chevy, feeling as though I were a hundred years old. I was disgusted with Caroline, with myself for being stupid enough to get caught in her net once again, with Gabriella for ever befriending Louisa Djiak. If my mother had known what Louisa’s damned baby would get me into… I could hear Gabriella’s golden voice in response to the same plaint twenty-two years ago. “Of her I expect nothing but trouble, cara. But of you I expect rationality. Not because you are older, but because it is your nature.”

I made a bitter face at the memory and started the car. Sometimes the burden of being rational and responsible while everyone around me was howling was more than I liked. Even so, instead of washing my hands of Caroline’s problems and heading north toward home, I found myself driving west. Toward Nancy’s childhood house on Muskegon.

But it wasn’t to help out Caroline that I was making the trek. I didn’t care that I’d told Nancy to talk to someone at Jurshak’s office, or even that we’d shared the old school towel. I was hoping to assuage my own feeling of guilt for not having been there when Nancy called me.

Of course she might have been phoning to condole about the Lady Tigers-our successors had been eliminated in the state quarterfinals. But I didn’t think so. Despite my bravura performance with Caroline, I sort of thought she was right: Nancy had learned something about the recycling plant that she needed my help to deal with.

I didn’t have any trouble finding Nancy’s mother’s place, which didn’t exactly cheer me up. I thought I’d left the South Side behind, but it seemed my unconscious had perfect recall of every house I used to spend time in down here.

Three cars were crowded into the short driveway. The curb in front was filled, too, and I had to go some way down the street before I found a parking space. I fiddled with my car keys for a moment before starting up the walk-perhaps I should postpone my visit until her mourning callers had gone. But even if it was my nature to be rational, patience isn’t my leading virtue. I stuck the keys into my skirt pocket and headed up the walk.

The door was opened by a strange young woman of thirty or so, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. She looked at me questioningly without saying anything. When a minute had stretched by without her speaking, I finally gave her my name.

“I’m an old friend of Nancy’s. I’d like to talk to Mrs. Cleghorn for a few minutes if she’s up to seeing me.”

“I’ll go ask,” she muttered.

She came back again, hunched a shoulder, told me I could go on in, and returned to whatever she’d been doing when I rang the bell. I was startled by the clamor when I got into the little foyer-it was more like the noisy house of Nancy’s and my childhood than a place of mourning.

As I followed the sound toward the living room, two small boys erupted from it, chasing each other with sweet rolls they were using as guns. The lead one caromed into me and bounced off without apology. I sidestepped the other and looked cautiously around the doorway before entering.

The long, homey room was packed with people. I didn’t recognize any of them, but assumed the men were Nancy’s four brothers grown to adulthood. The three young women were presumably their wives. What looked like a nursery school in full session was crammed around the edges, with children jabbing each other, scuffling, giggling, ignoring adult admonitions for silence.

No one paid any attention to me, but I finally spied Ellen Cleghorn at the far end of the room, holding a howling baby without much enthusiasm. When she saw me she struggled to her feet and gave the baby to one of the young women. She picked her way through her swarming grandchildren to me.

“I’m so sorry about Nancy,” I said, squeezing her hand. “And I’m sorry to bother you at a time like this.”

“I’m glad you came, dear,” she said, giving a warm smile and kissing my cheek. “The boys mean well-they all took the day off and thought it would cheer up Grandma to see the kiddies-but the chaos is too much for me. Let’s go into the dining room. There’s cake in there and one of the girls is making coffee.”

Ellen Cleghorn had aged well. She was a plumper edition of Nancy, with the same frizzy blond hair. It had darkened with time rather than graying and her skin was still soft and clear. She had been divorced for many years, ever since her husband ran off with another woman. She’d never gotten child support or alimony and had raised her large family on her meager earnings as a librarian, always making room for me at the dinner table after basketball practice.

Ellen had been unique on the South Side in her indifference to housekeeping. The disarray in the dining room was much as I remembered it, with dust balls in the comers and books and papers shoved to one side to make room for the food. Even so, the house had always seemed romantic to me when I was young. It was one of a handful of big homes in the neighborhood-Mr. Cleghorn had been a grade school principal before he decamped-and all five children had their own bedrooms. Unheard-of luxury on the South Side. Nancy’s even had a little turreted window where we acted out Bluebeard.

Mrs. Cleghorn sat down behind a stack of newspapers at the head of the table and gestured me to the chair catty-corner to her.

I fiddled with the pages of the book in front of me, then said abruptly, “Nancy was trying to get in touch with me yesterday. I guess I told you that when you gave me her number. Do you know what she wanted?”

She shook her head. “I hadn’t talked to her for several weeks.”

“I know it’s rotten of me to bug you about it today. But-I keep thinking it had something to do with-with what happened to her. I mean, we hadn’t seen each other for so long. And when we did talk it was about my being a detective and what I would do in her situation. So she would have thought of me in that context, you know-something came up that she thought my special experience might help her with.”

“I just don’t know, dear.” Her voice trembled and she struggled to control it. “Don’t let it worry you. You couldn’t have done anything to help her, I’m sure.”

“I wish I could agree with you. Look, I’m not trying to be a ghoul, or pressure you when you’re so upset. But I feel responsible. I’m an experienced investigator. I might have been able to help her if I’d been home when she called. The only thing I can do to assuage my conscience is try to find who killed her.”

“Vic, I know you and Nancy were friends, and I’m sure you think you’re helping by getting involved. But can’t you just leave it to the police? I don’t want to have to talk about it or think about it anymore. It’s bad enough having to get ready for her funeral with all these children screaming through the house. If I have to worry about-about why someone wanted to kill her-I keep thinking of her in that marsh. We used to go bird-watching there when she was in Girl Scouts and she was always so scared of the water. I keep thinking of her in there being alone and afraid-” She broke off and struggled against her tears.

I knew Nancy was afraid of water. She had never joined our surreptitious swims in the Calumet and she had to get a written statement from a doctor to excuse her from the swimming requirement in college. I didn’t want to think of her last minutes in the marsh. Maybe she’d never regained consciousness. It was the best I could hope for.