“Yes,” I said quietly. “I’ll feel better, too.”
We talked through the various issues the Freedom Center worked on that might have brought someone to the boiling point. We talked about people who might have harbored a personal resentment against Sister Frances. Even saints make enemies. It’s how they become martyrs.
At the end, I said, “The best thing you can do is get back into that sealed apartment and bring me some bottle fragments.”
“You suggested bolt cutters,” she said doubtfully.
“Or a hammer. That door isn’t too sturdy. A few good whacks on the panel would take care of it. I’d do it myself, but I’m a bit out of action right now.” My padded hands would be unwrapped in two more days. If they’d healed sufficiently, Lotty would let me go home.
Sister Carolyn got up to leave, but she took the tea things to the kitchen and washed them for me first. In the hall, as she waited for the elevator, she said, “You know, taking a hammer to that door would cheer me up. Some kind of fierce action, for a change. If we find any bits of bottle, one of us will bring them over tomorrow.”
Later that evening, Petra arrived, bubbling with so much energetic goodwill that I felt exhausted almost from the moment she got off the elevator. When Lotty let her in, Petra danced down the hall to the guest room, where I was dictating notes to send to Marilyn.
Petra had remembered the charger to my phone, amazingly enough, and also brought my mail, which she dumped on the bureau before settling in a wing chair by the window. “Shall I open it and read it to you? There must be a hundred letters here!”
“No, most of them are bills. They’ll keep another day. How are the dogs? What’s happening with the campaign? You still the golden-haired girl?”
She laughed. “I don’t take any of it too seriously. I think that’s why I’m so popular. Everyone else is, like, totally ambitious, you know, hoping for big jobs when Brian gets to the Senate so that they can have really big jobs when he’s president.”
“And what are you hoping for?” I asked idly.
“Just to get through the summer without making a mistake that’ll get everyone else in trouble.”
She spoke with such unexpected seriousness that I took off my heavy dark glasses to look at her. “What’s going on, Petra? Is someone suggesting you’ve done something wrong?”
“No, no. I don’t want to think about it tonight. You know that baseball you said you found in Uncle Tony’s trunk, the one signed by someone in the White Sox?”
“Nellie Fox, you mean? Yeah, what about it?”
“I mentioned it to Daddy, and he’d love to have it. Did you keep it? I mean, you said it would be worth something if you auctioned it on eBay.”
She was floundering, and I stared at her with even more surprise. “Petra, what is the matter with you tonight? I kept the baseball, but I don’t know what I want to do with it. It meant something to my dad or he wouldn’t have kept it with his Good Conduct citation. I’ll think about it.”
“Where is it?” she persisted. “Could I take a picture and send it to Daddy?”
“Petra, you are up to something. I don’t know what, but . . .”
She flushed, and played with her array of rubber bracelets. “Oh, he’s turning seventy next year, and Mom and I were trying to think of something really special to do. I thought of the baseball, and—”
“I thought you just said you’d talked to him about it and that he’d love to have it.”
“Why are you biting on me like I was some steak bone? I’m just making conversation!” She nearly tilted the wing chair over in her agitation.
“Then let’s make some more conversation. What really brought you to Sister Frances’s apartment the other night? And who came with you?”
“I told you—”
“Baby, I’ve been listening to line spinners since I was six, and you are not in the majors. Not even double A.”
She scowled at me. “If I tell you now, you’ll make even more fun of me.”
“Try me.”
“I thought, it’s not like you have an assistant or anything. And when we went to South Chicago, I loved how you dealt with those gangbangers. I thought if I went in and found something—a clue or something—maybe you’d take me on as an apprentice when the campaign winds down. But if you’re just going to laugh at me . . .”
Her face was so red that it almost glowed in the soft light of the guest room. I slid off the bed and knelt next to her, patting her shoulder.
“You want to be a detective? You know the ‘fun stuff ’ you said I got to do, after I tangled with that gangbanger on Houston Street? Your folks would eat me for lunch if you were working for me and got your eyes burned. Not to mention that you could have gone through the floor in that apartment.”