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was in bed with someone. Fetching lass, that Erica Kane. “They were St. Paul police,” Dot continued. “Very pleasant.”
    â€œShort white guy, tall black guy?” I asked as the soap went to commercial.
    â€œYes,” Dot replied, then corrected me. “The tall officer was a person of color. We don’t call ’em blacks no more.”
    â€œMy mistake. What did you tell them?”
    â€œThey asked me if I had seen Joseph Sherman around here and I said I didn’t.”
    â€œSo, you did know Sherman.”
    â€œUh-huh. I didn’t like him, though. He was an alcoholic and I have no time for alcoholics. My cousin Ruth’s boy Jerry was an alcoholic and he was no good, I can tell you. He caused Ruth plenty of heartache and then he killed that politician—Sherman, not Jerry—and the reporters came ’round.” Dot shook her head. “I was all set to testify at his trial. The prosecutor wanted me to tell how he was always drunk and causing trouble with the other tenants, only then there wasn’t a trial. I was kinda disappointed, you know? I had plenty to say.”
    â€œWhat kind of trouble did he cause?”
    â€œThe tenants were always complaining that he had his TV on too loud.”
    â€œWhat else?”
    â€œSome tenants saw him stagger when he walked, needed to hang onto the railing to get upstairs. This is a respectable place. Anyway, the last I heard of Sherman he was doing hard time in the slammer.”
    â€œSlammer?”
    â€œThat’s what you call prison, isn’t it?”
    â€œAmong other things,” I agreed.
    â€œYeah, the heat busted him for whacking the politician with his ride,” she added, showing off her TV vocabulary.
    â€œSure.”
    The woman nodded at me just like one of the actors in “Dragnet.” “He’s out, you say?” she said.
    â€œYes, ma’am,” I replied in the clipped manner of Jack Webb, who knew as much about being a real cop as your average finishing-school debutante.
    â€œThink he’ll be coming back for his stuff?”
    â€œStuff?”
    â€œClothes, furniture; it’s in storage.”
    â€œStorage?”
    â€œIn the basement.”
    â€œShow me.”
    Dot took a large ring of keys from a hook in her kitchen. I followed her out the door and down the steps into a huge basement. She moved quickly, without speaking, as if on a mission. She walked me past a dozen or more room-sized lockers with large wooden doors, finally stopping at one with BUILDING stenciled across the front. She bent to the padlock. She had trouble springing it open.
    â€œAfter he was convicted, we moved Sherman’s belongings into the storage room and waited for someone to claim them. No one did,” she said while she worked the lock. It wouldn’t open. She tried several other keys without success.
    â€œLet it go,” I recommended at last.
    Dot nodded.
    â€œWho were Sherman’s friends in the building?”
    â€œWhat friends?”
    â€œDidn’t he have any friends?”
    â€œNot here.”
    â€œYou sure?”
    â€œAs sure as I can be.”
    â€œWho were his neighbors?”
    â€œThere’s only one tenant left who was living here when Sherman was.”
    â€œWho would that be?”
    â€œMeghan Chakolis.”
    â€œWhich apartment?”
    â€œThree-eleven.”
    â€œWhich was Sherman’s apartment?”
    â€œThree-twelve.”
    â€œMs. Chakolis live alone?”
    Dot nodded again. “Ever since her husband left, about six years ago.”
    â€œWhere can I find Ms. Chakolis during the day?”
    â€œThe State Capitol.”
    â€œThe State Capitol?”
    â€œShe works for the government.”
    â€œWhat does she do?”
    â€œI have no idea.”

    Parking at the State Capitol is a joke, so I pulled into the Sears lot across the street and walked through the store, so the security guards would