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I picked up the phone again. “Just maybe he’s got some friends he still talks to in the Chicago Police Department.”

I identified myself to three indifferent people at the Chicago Police Department, in three different departments, including Internal Affairs, and finally ended up in Personnel, where I identified myself to yet another indifferent person. Finally, I got hold of Liz Taylor. She was a real charmer, no sarcasm, she really was.

“Nope,” she said cheerfully, first thing off the bat, “I’m no relation at all, so you don’t have to wonder. Now, you say you want to know about Charlie Duck?”

“Yes, please. I understand he was a detective with the CPD until about fifteen years ago?”

“Yeah, I remember Charlie well. He was a homicide detective, sharp as a tack. It’s funny, you know? Usually, the bosses want the old guys to retire just as soon as they can plunk a gold watch on their wrist and push them out the door. But not Charlie. Everybody wanted him to stay. I bet he could have continued here until he croaked, but he wanted to leave. I’ll never forget on his sixtieth birthday, he gave me a big kiss and said he was out of here, no more dealing with scum bags, no more weeping over plea bargains that let criminals back out on the streets faster than it took the cops to catch them. He didn’t want any more winters in Chicago, either. They aged his skin, he said. He was gone by the following week. Hey, who are you anyway? I know you’re FBI, but why do you want to know about Charlie?”

“Charlie’s dead,” I said. “He was murdered. I’m trying to find out who killed him and why.”

“Oh no,” Liz Taylor said. “Oh no. I got a Christmas card from him just this last December. Sweet, sweet old Charlie.” I heard her sniff.

“Tell me about him,” I said. “I heard he wasn’t exactly the trusting type.”

“That was Charlie,” Liz said, sniffing some more. “Some people didn’t like him, called him a snoop and a son of a bitch, and I guess he was. But he’d never hurt you if you hadn’t done anything wrong. He had the highest homicide clearance rate of any detective in the department. In fact, he still holds the record. Poor Charlie. I’ll tell you, nothing could stop him if he smelled something rotten.”

Not only had he been a detective, he’d been in homicide. He was smart and relentless. It had been a deadly mix for the old man.

“I need the names of friends he’s still close to in Chicago. Some other cops. Can you give me some names?”

“Wait. Is that what happened? He smelled something rotten? And that’s why someone killed him?”

“Probably,” I said. “Do you know of any family or friends he still kept up with? Maybe confided in?”

“No family left,” she said. “His wife died before he left the force. Breast cancer, poor woman. He went out west somewhere when he retired, to live with his parents, somewhere on the West Coast. In Oregon, right?”

“That’s right,” I said, my jaw nearly locked with impatience. “Liz, any friends?”

“Just a couple of older guys still on the force. But I don’t think they’ve spoken to him in years. I can ask around, see if any of the old guys have spoken to him recently.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’d really appreciate that.” I thanked her profusely, gave her my phone number at the cottage, and hung up.

“Interesting,” Laura said. “Too bad she couldn’t give you anything.”

“She’s got to come up with something pretty quick,” Savich said, “or it’ll be too late.”

“Amen to that,” Sherlock said, turning to Savich.

I walked to Laura, lightly lifted her chin in my palm, and said, “Forget Cal Tarcher. Forget all those hundreds of other women.”

She laughed so hard I had to squeeze it out of her. She still thought I was funny.

At two o’clock, Laura and I were seated next to Savich and Sherlock in the League’s Christian Church on Greenwich Street, just off Fifth Avenue. There was a small park opposite the white brick church, and lots of parking space. The building itself looked strangely unchurchlike, I supposed because it was used by so many different religions.