Malcolm Ranier’s office overlooked the Chicago River and all the new glass and marble flanking it. It was a spectacular view-if you squinted to shut out the burnt-out waste of Chicago ’s west side that lay beyond. I arrived just at twelve-thirty, dressed in my one good suit, black, with a white crepe-de-chine blouse. I looked feminine, but austere-or at least that was my intention.

Ranier’s assistant-cum-receptionist was buried in Danielle Steel. When I handed her my card, she marked her page without haste and took the card into an inner office. After a ten-minute wait to let me understand his importance, Ranier came out to greet me in person. He was a soft round man of about sixty, with gray eyes that lay like pebbles above an apparently jovial smile.

“Ms. Warshawski. Good of you to stop by. I understand you can help us with our inquiry into Mrs. Sestieri.” He gave my mother’s name a genuine Italian lilt, but his voice was as hard as his eyes.

“Hold my calls, Cindy.” He put a hand on the nape of my neck to steer me into his office.

Before we’d shut the door Cindy was reabsorbed into Danielle. I moved away from the hand-I didn’t want grease on my five-hundred-dollar jacket-and went to admire a bronze nymph on a shelf at the window.

“Beautiful, isn’t it.” Ranier might have been commenting on the weather. “One of my clients brought it from France.”

“It looks as though it should be in a museum.”

A call to the bar association before I left my apartment told me he was an import-export lawyer. Various imports seemed to have attached themselves to him on their way into the country. The room was dominated by a slab of rose marble, presumably a work table, but several antique chairs were also worth a second glance. A marquetry credenza stood against the far wall. The Modigliani above it was probably an original.