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to new business, Ms. Tree. What was it about the Richard Addwatter killing that touched a nerve?”
    “The other victim,” I said.
    “The woman with Addwatter at the motel?”
    “No. The other other victim—Mrs. Addwatter. ”
    “All right. What about her case touched a nerve, then?”
    I glanced over at him. Reflections obscured the eyes behind the lenses and his solemn visage with the spade-shaped beard made him a figure in the kind of dream he might be asked to interpret.
    “I’ll ask you one, Doc. How often does a homicide lieutenant encourage a P.I. to get involved in a murder case?”
    Cook County Memorial Hospital, on West Harrison, takes up roughly fifteen city blocks and works at keeping the citizens of Chicago alive and well. When that doesn’t pan out, the Cook County Morgue, located at the hospital for 130 years or so, takes over.
    The female Chicagoan on the metal tray—pale gray in her dead nakedness—was getting the kind of exam that doesn’t do the patient much good, no matter how thorough Dr. Pravene might be.
    In his late thirties, a bland, blandly handsome East Indian in white, from lab coat to pants and even shoes, Dr. Pravene was just about to begin his autopsy, which seemed overkill, considering the cause of death just might be the three bullet wounds, one in the throat, another in the chest, last in the stomach.
    Rafe and I were keeping a respectful distance. Autopsies don’t make me sick but they aren’t my idea of a good time. And if it had been any more unpleasantly cold in that cement-block chamber, our breaths would’ve been showing. Everybody’s but the corpse’s, anyway.
    Rafe was saying, “Dr. Pravene found something interesting in the vic’s tox screen.”
    Pravene, a scalpel in hand, paused, as if he’d been about to slice a birthday cake but somebody at the party reminded him that first the candles needed blowing out.
    “Rohypnol, Ms. Tree,” Pravene said.
    “Roofies?” I squinted at the doctor, as if trying to bring him into focus, then looked at Rafe the same way. “No offense to the deceased, gentlemen, but why would Richard Addwatter need a date rape drug to ply his charms on this debutante?”
    Pravene placed the scalpel in a small tray and came over to give me his full attention; his patient didn’t seem to mind, even though the physician gestured at her in a dismissive manner.
    “The drug wasn’t in the female victim’s blood,” Pravene said.
    Then he moved over to another metal slab, where his next patient awaited: Richard Addwatter, who had taken bullets in the forehead, center chest and lower belly. The doctor gestured to my client’s late husband.
    I said, “The male vic?”
    Pravene nodded. “Female’s screen did show heroin, among other things—plus she was HIV positive.”
    Rafe was at my side. “Hooker,” he said.
    I gave him a frown. “You think?”
    He ignored that, adding, “Rap sheet thicker than a Stephen King.”
    “And probably at least as frightening.” I drew in a breath, regretting it instantly as a chemical taste invaded. “So...what’s a high-end john like Richard Addwatter doing with such a low-rent date?”
    Rafe’s face was placid but his eyes weren’t. He answered my question with one of his own: “What do we get if somebody drugs the husband, hires a hooker who won’t be missed, and sets the psychotic wife in motion?”
    I shrugged. “I dunno—instant dead Dick, maybe? ...But who wanted Dick dead?”
    Rafe didn’t respond, not right away. Instead he nodded a thank you to Dr. Pravene, who nodded back and returned to his work as the homicide cop led me gently by the arm out into the hallway.
    “Want to know who wanted Addwatter dead?” Rafe asked. “How about somebody whose books he’d cooked? Or maybe whose books he wouldn’t cook?”
    I was shaking my head. “Addwatter Accounting? With their spotless rep?”
    “Michael, since when do you buy P.R. bullshit?” His grunt was almost a laugh. “Anyway, a term