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oiling.
    Please, please could I rush up to the Gateswood estate? On her way out to meet me, Julia had seen the door to the guesthouse standing open and found Gail’s body inside. Little sobs joined her words; it was a mess she said, a horrible tragic mess: Julia was inconsolable, Mr. Gateswood was in Washington, Julia didn’t want the police called until I got there, she didn’t know what to do. She’d tried to reach me at home and at the office, when Julia finally told her to try Gail’s. Julia knew I was at Gail’s but she wasn’t thinking too clearly, wasn’t talking at all, had locked herself in her bedroom and Dee was terrified what she might do. I told her I’d be there in twenty minutes or less and too keep her wits about her, all two of them. I was about to hang up when she asked:
    “Do you have a partner?”
    “Rick? Yes, he’s out of town, why?”
    “No, he’s on his way up. I talked to him at your office, a Mister Anthony, is that him?”
    “News to me. I thought he’d be away longer. Don’t touch anything in the guesthouse before either of us get there.”
    She hung up.
***
     
    The Gateswood estate was once a rolling twenty-acre palace in Park Ridge for a now obscure industrialist who had fourteen children. The acreage was sold off after his death and smaller versions of the two-story portico-ed mansion were built on the resulting lots, still pretty large by any standard. Henry Gateswood had once taught a few classes at nearby DePaul University, and upon election to Congress, was able to restore the home to its former opulence. The guesthouse had originally been a playhouse for the magnate’s mob of brats.
    I swung the Buick through the brick and iron-arched entrance and followed the immaculate driveway as it curved up through towering oaks to the house, where Rick’s puke-green Carmen Ghia squatted in the driveway loop. Dee Mathews met me at the door with hollow eyes and a frowsy appearance like she’d floor wrestled a truck driver for a week without sleep. Her face was sickish white, bearing no resemblance to the young woman who’d come to my bungalow a couple of days ago. After dampening my lapel some, she snuffled into a gauzy handkerchief that might have made a good q-tip and led me through the house to the side entrance.
    “Julia will want to know you’re here,” she said. “I’ll go tell her. I apologize for being emotional. Mister Anthony’s in the guesthouse, doing what I don’t know. He said for you to walk over when you arrive.” She looked up into my face like the dogcatcher had just nabbed her beagle pup and gassed the mutt before she could save him. Miss Mathews hadn’t stopped gripping my arm since I’d met her at the door. The look in her eyes was one I’d seen a few times before. Nothing I could say that would make any difference. I said it anyway.
    “Things will sort themselves out. Relax. How long’s Rick been here?”
    “He came just after I called you,” she said. “Should I call the police now?”
    “Do that. It should give us enough time to check out the guesthouse. And tell Mrs. Gateswood it’s very important I speak to her before the cops arrive. You might want to put on some blush and lipstick before they get here. You look ratty.”
      Her dark eyes widened and darted back the way we’d come. “I will. Julia’s a pretty big mess, too,” she whispered. “Please go easy. You’re very blunt, did you know that?”
    I nodded that I knew and made my way down a wide brick walk past a row of garages and a pond with a gurgling waterfall to a white bungalow with green trim. Gurgling water calls my bladder. I told it not to answer and went on. The headline wouldn’t read: “ANGEL PISSES ON MURDER CASE” today.
    The door to the guesthouse stood open.
    I went through a sparsely furnished sitting room to short hallway and a bedroom in the rear. Rick was kneeling at the foot of the bed examining bloodstains that led to an adjoining bathroom. The naked