“Anyway, he’s cleaning out his house, or his daughter is—he has to move, which is really sad, but he has diabetes, same as Ron Santo, and it’s getting hard for him to walk or climb stairs. He asked if you were still interested in photos of the day your cousin came to Wrigley Field. I said I didn’t know how far along you were with your book, but I’d ask you.”

“Not very far,” I admitted.

My voice came out as a thick croak. I carried the phone with me to the bathroom and tried to gargle in a discreet and soundless way while Natalie went on.

“Well, his daughter came on a box of photos up in the attic, and some of them are from the day your cousin came to the open tryouts. Mr. Villard would love to show them to you.”

I told her I was a little under the weather but would be glad to visit Mr. Villard early next week.

“I’m sorry if you’re not feeling well, but it would be best if you could come today. His daughter is packing up his baseball collection, what the thieves didn’t steal—she’s going to auction it off to give to Cubs Care. He’s afraid if you wait, she’ll get rid of all those photos.”

That threat gave me enough of an adrenaline boost to say I’d be at Villard’s place within the hour. I held an ice cube over my eyes for a few minutes to make my sinuses retreat, washed my face, decided makeup would only make my green-and-purple eye more lurid, and headed north, to the Evanston address Natalie had given me.

Pierre Fouchard called while I was driving. “Bernadine called me. She seems well, but what do you think?”

“She’s very resilient but she’s showing some delayed shock,” I said. “Even though she’s saying she doesn’t want to go home, she’ll probably feel a lot better when she’s back in Quebec.”

“Oui, yes, I mean. But this is the story, Vic: the Canadiens, they are playing the Bruins tomorrow night in Boston. The Canadiens want me to go to the game. I have scouted many of these Bruins, you see, and the management, they think my opinion can help the team. Arlette says no, but—Bernadine will be all right for two more nights, do you think?”

My heart sank: until that moment I hadn’t realized how much I was counting on unshouldering my caretaking burden. “I hope so. I hope so, but maybe I’ll hire some extra protection, just to be on the safe side.”

“Bien. I will be in Chicago for sure by Monday afternoon.”

I pulled over to a side street when Pierre hung up. Between the gang attack, Stella’s message and the threat about my dad, I was unusually nervous about how to look after Bernie. I called Mr. Contreras to double-check on her. To my dismay, she’d gone off to meet with the girls from the peewee league she was coaching.

I bit back a sharp remonstrance: the old man was easily wounded, and I knew how hard Bernie was to keep in check. I hung up and called her cell. She was well, she was impatient with me, yes, her dad had phoned her, she was happy to stay in Chicago as long as possible.

“I’m not the scaredy-cat,” she said.

“Yep, that’s me, meow, meow. Don’t leave the rink alone, okay? Seriously, Bernie, word of honor or I’m driving straight there to collect you.”

“Oh, very well. Word of honor.” She cut the connection.

I didn’t have the time or energy to bird-dog her. I needed backup. The Streeter brothers, whom I’d called on to help get access to Stella’s bank account, do body-guarding, furniture hauling, anything that takes a lot of muscle. They are quiet, they are smart, and fortunately Tim, whom I most often work with, was free. He’d go to the rink where Bernie was working, he’d make sure she got back safely to Mr. Contreras’s apartment. He’d keep an eye on the street until midnight; his brother Tom would cover the midnight to eight A.M. shift.

Mr. Contreras was huffy when I phoned with the details—maybe he was ninety-something, but he didn’t need some kid showing him how to look after Bernie. Bernie herself was even huffier: I was une lâche, beu platte, it was surprising I didn’t have spiders weaving webs in my hair I was so old.

“Yep, my precious one, and those spiders are attached to you until your dad gets here, so you’ll have to put up with the sticky webs for the duration.”

I texted Tim’s picture to her, texted hers to Tim. He’d let me know when he’d connected with her. I looked up beu platte and lâche in my online dictionary. I was not only an antique fuddy-duddy, but a coward. As I turned back onto Sheridan Road, I realized I was hurt by the accusation. I was the risk-taker, the person who skated close to the edge—how could she possibly think—until I had to laugh at my own absurdity. The next time Lotty got on my case, I’d put her in touch with Bernie Fouchard.

HIGH SPIRITS

When I saw Villard’s house—mansion—on a cul-de-sac overlooking Lake Michigan, I realized why a man having trouble walking needed to move. An old stone building with graceful lines, on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, it was three stories tall, with a high staircase to the front door. Even with the ramp he’d installed over the marble steps, just getting into the house would be a challenge.

Villard’s daughter, a brisk woman of sixty or so, let me into the house. “I hope you’re going to take some of Daddy’s memorabilia with you—he’s an impossible packrat—he still has all of Mother’s clothes in their bedroom closet and she’s been gone over twenty years now! When he had the break-in, he finally realized how vulnerable he is out here. I don’t even know how the thieves had the patience to dig through his baseball memorabilia to steal anything of value!”

She flung these remarks over her shoulder as she led me to a sitting room on the Lake Michigan side of the building. Villard was in an easy chair facing the lake, but he struggled to his feet when he heard his daughter and limped over to greet me. Although he had bedroom slippers on his swollen feet, he was dressed as he must have been all the years he went to work, in trousers, a white shirt and a sports jacket with a large Cubs logo pin in the lapel.

He politely didn’t look at my face while shaking my hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Warshawski. Like everyone else in this city, I was a big fan of your cousin’s.”

His daughter turned the chair around to face me and bundled him back into it. “Daddy, I’ll get Adelaide to bring you and your guest something to drink, but I have to get back to the papers in your den. I’ve left all the photographs you were interested in on the table here, and Adelaide will find me if you need anything else.”

“It’s a pity my daughter didn’t want to go into baseball,” Villard said. “She’s such a brilliant organizer, she’d have whipped the Cubs into a World Series or two by now.”

His daughter kissed his cheek. “Daddy, it’s enough I take flak for wearing my Cubs gear in Diamondback country. Anyway, someone has to stay on top of getting you packed and moved.” She looked at me. “I live in Tucson and I can’t stay away too long; I’m the associate dean of the nursing school down there. My sister’s flying in from Seattle next week to finish up.”

She was off, her jeans making a rustling sound that conjured an old-fashioned starched white uniform. A few minutes later another woman came in—Adelaide, who was Mr. Villard’s attendant, not, as I’d supposed, another daughter. She was as unhurried in her movements as the daughter had been brisk, but she managed to make Mr. Villard comfortable without taking anything from his dignity.

Besides his diabetes, Villard’s fingers were swollen and distorted by arthritis. Adelaide brought over a table that fitted onto the front of the easy chair and opened the box of photos for him. I pulled up a chair next to him and helped him start turning over pictures.