I pulled up a straight-backed chair next to Kappelman. He glanced at me, made a bit of a face, then tossed the magazine back to the coffee table.

“I know,” I said sympathetically. “It’s a pain to talk to strangers at an affair like this. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think you could help me.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I doubt it, but you can try me.”

“My name’s V. I. Warshawski. I’m an old friend of Nancy’s. We played basketball together a while back. A long while back.” I can’t get over how fast the years started zipping by after my thirtieth birthday. It just didn’t seem that long since Nancy and I had been in college.

“Sure. I know who you are. Nance talked about you a number of times-said you kept her from going mad when the two of you were in high school. I’m Ron Kappelman, but you seemed to know that when you came in.”

“Nancy tell you I’m a private investigator these days? Well, I hadn’t seen her for quite some time, but we got together for a basketball reunion a week or so ago.”

“Yeah, I know,” he cut in. “We went to a meeting together right after. She talked about it.”

A swarm of people buzzed into the room. Even though they were keeping their voices subdued, there wasn’t enough space to absorb the bodies or the sound. Someone standing over me lighted a cigarette and I felt hot ash land on the round neck of my bolero jacket.

“Could we go somewhere to talk?” I asked. “Nancy’s old bedroom or a bar or something? I’m trying to look into her death, but I can’t seem to get a thread to pull on. I was hoping you could tell me something.”

He shook his head. “Believe me, if I thought I had any hot dope, I’d’ve been to the cops like a rocket. But I’d be glad to get out of here.”

We pushed our way through the crowd, paying affectionate respects to Mrs. Cleghorn as we left. The warmth with which she spoke to Kappelman seemed to indicate that he and Nancy had remained on good terms. I wondered vaguely what had happened to McGonnigal, but he was a big cop, he could look after himself.

Outside, Kappelman said, “Why don’t you follow me down to my place in Pullman? There isn’t any coffee shop nearby that’s clean and quiet. As you surely know.”

I trailed his decrepit Rabbit down side streets to 113th and Langley. He stopped in front of one of the tidy brick row houses that line Pullman’s streets, houses with sheer fronts and stoops that make you think of pictures of Philadelphia when the Constitution was signed.

The neat, well-kept exterior didn’t really prepare me for the meticulous restoration inside. The walls were papered in bright Victorian floral designs, the paneling refinished to a glow of dark walnut, the furniture and rugs beautifully maintained period pieces set on well-finished hardwood floors.

“This is gorgeous,” I said, overwhelmed. “Did you fix it up yourself?”

He nodded. “Carpentry is kind of my hobby-makes a good switch from mucking about with the stunads I spend my days with. The furniture is all stuff I picked up at area flea markets.”

He led me into a little kitchen with Italian tile on the floor and countertops and gleaming copper-bottomed pots on the walls. I perched on a high stool at one side of a tiled island while he made coffee at the burners on the other.

“So who asked you to investigate Nancy’s death? Her mother? Not sure the cops will buck the politicos down here and see that justice runs its inexorable course?” He cocked an eye at me while deftly assembling an infusion pot.

“Nope. If you know Mrs. Cleghorn at all, you must realize her mind doesn’t run to vengeance.”

“So who’s your client?” He turned to the refrigerator and laid out cream and a plate of muffins.

I absentmindedly watched the seat of his trousers tighten across his rear while he bent over. The seam was fraying; a few more deep bends could create an interesting situation. I nobly refrained from dropping a plate at his feet, but waited to answer until he was facing me again.

“Part of what my clients buy when they hire me is confidentiality. If I blabbed their secrets to you, I could hardly expect you to blab yours to me, could I?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t got any secrets. At least not relating to Nancy Cleghorn. I’m the counsel for SCRAP. I work for a number of community groups-public interest law’s my specialty. Nancy was great to work with. She was organized, clearheaded, knew when to fight and when to drop back. Unlike her boss.”

“Caroline?” It was hard to picture Caroline Djiak as any-one’s boss. “So all your dealings with Nancy were purely professional?”

He pointed a coffee spoon at me. “Don’t try to trip me up, Warshawski. I play ball with the big boys. Cream? You ought to, you know-binds with the caffeine and keeps you from getting stomach cancer.”

He set a heavy porcelain mug in front of me and stuck the plate of muffins into the microwave. “No. Nance and I had a brief fling a couple of years back. When I started at SCRAP. She was getting over a heavy thing and I’d been divorced about ten months. We cheered each other up, but we didn’t have anything special to offer each other. Besides friendship, which is special enough that you don’t screw it up. Certainly not by banging your friends on the head and dropping them in a swamp.”

He took the muffins out of the oven and climbed onto a stool at the end of the counter on my left. I drank some of the rich coffee and took a blueberry muffin.

“I’ll let the cops take you through your paces. Where were you Thursday afternoon at two P.M. and so on. What I really want to know, though, is who Nancy thought was following her. Did she think she’d got Dresberg’s back up? Or did it really have anything to do with the recycling plant?”

He grimaced. “Little Caroline’s theory-which makes me want to trash it. Not a good attitude for her outfit’s counsel to take. Truth is, I don’t know. We were both pissed as hell after the hearing two weeks ago. When we talked on Tuesday, Nance said she’d cover the political angle, see if she could find out if and why Jurshak was blocking it. I was working on the legal stuff, wondering if we could finesse the MSD-Metropolitan Sanitary District-to get the permit. Maybe get the state and U.S. EPA departments involved.”

He absentmindedly ate a second muffin and buttered a third. His bulging waistline made me shake my head when he offered me the plate.

“So you don’t know who she talked to in Jurshak’s office?”

He shook his head. “I had the impression, nothing concrete to go on, but I think she had a lover there. Someone she was a little ashamed of seeing and didn’t want her pals to know about, or someone she thought she had to protect.” He stared into the distance, trying to put his feelings into words. “Canceling dinner plans, not wanting to go to the Hawks games, which we shared season tickets to. Stuff like that. So she could’ve been getting information from him and not wanting me to know about it. The last time we spoke-a week ago today it must have been-she said she thought she was onto something but she needed more evidence. I never talked to her again.” He stopped abruptly and busied himself with his coffee.

“Well, what about Dresberg? Based on what you know of the situation down there, would you think he might’ve been against this recycling center?”

“God, I wouldn’t think so. Although with a guy like that you never know. Look.”

He set down his coffee cup and leaned intently across the counter, sketching Dresberg’s operations with sweeping gestures. The garbage empire included hauling, incinerating, storage-container and landfill operations. Within his domain Dresberg was protective of any perceived encroachments-even any questioning. Hence the threats a year before when Caroline and Nancy had tried to oppose a new PCB incinerator that didn’t meet code standards.

“But the recycling center didn’t have anything to do with any of his operations,” he finished. “Xerxes and Glow-Rite are just dumping into their own lagoons right now. All SCRAP would do is take the wastes and recycle them.”