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snapped, reading a chart through his mother-of-pearl half glasses. “The man couldn’t bother to bathe or shave. And those clothes! Anyone knows you wear something clean and pressed to meet a newborn. Just because a man’s poor doesn’t mean he can’t have pride in himself.”
    â€œPride,” Mrs. Hoffmeyer repeated. “In himself.”
    â€œCorrect. The man also weaved as he walked. It’s shameful, drinking this time of morning. This Thomas fellow gives fatherhood a bad name.”
    Mrs. Hoffmeyer pursed her lips. “Well, I don’t know about all that, Doctor. I didn’t go to Harvard like you. But it might interest you to know, I was in the emergency room at dawn. You weren’t here yet.”
    â€œI know what time I arrived, Nurse,” he said. “Your point?”
    â€œThere was a terrible accident at Chicago Steel and Wire,” she replied, setting aside her paperwork to gaze at him. “A cauldron cracked as it was being pulled from the oven. Two thousand gallons of molten steel spilled onto the work floor. Have you ever worked in a mill, Doctor?”
    Doctor wrinkled his nose.
    â€œDidn’t think so. Well, a spill is the worst thing that can happen to a steel man. That bubbling metal melts his flesh clean off, then roasts his bones for the devil’s soup. Leaves nothing for his widow to bury but his sainted memory.” She noted the doctor’s flinch. “Those steel men ran for their lives when the alarm sounded. All except one—Tommy Lutz, the son of a steel widow I know from the neighborhood. His boot got caught in a floorboard, trapping him. Mr. Thompson heard Tommy screaming and ran back to the cauldron room. He wrapped his legs in asbestos fire blankets and walked into that river to free his friend.” Mrs. Hoffmeyer shook her head. “The inhalator squad brought the casualties to our emergency room, where Tommy Lutz died. In Mr. Thompson’s arms.”
    Doctor remained silent.
    â€œI stayed with Mr. Thompson after the morgue boys wheeled Tommy away,” Mrs. Hoffmeyer continued. “I listened to how they’d fished and hunted the North Woods, up in Wisconsin. Then I escorted him to our maternity waiting room. The shift foreman told him just moments before the accident that his wife was going into labor and he should meet her here.” She fixed doctor a stony glare. “Mr. Thompson didn’t have time to wash his face or put on nice clothes like he would have preferred, Doctor. He had more important things to do.”
    Crying erupted in Room 313. Yowls of a newborn mingled with the baritone gasping of a big male. Mrs. Hoffmeyer smiled.
    â€œDon’t confuse those with tears of sorrow, Doctor,” she said. “Mr. Thompson’s all cried out for Tommy Lutz. Those are tears of joy for his newborn daughter, along with the children Tommy won’t ever have.” Doctor shifted his gaze to the wall clock. “If that man isn’t good enough be a father, Doctor, then God himself wouldn’t have qualified for baby Jesus.”

CHAPTER 5
    Monday, noon.
Sixty-six hours till Emily’s birthday
    Tongue still numb from the third cigar, Emily slipped her key in the front door. The more she thought about Benedetti’s “suggestion” that Lucy’s suicide was some kind of message to her, the funnier it got. The look on his face when he dreamed up the “gotcha” must have been priceless. She wished she’d seen it. She couldn’t put her finger on why she liked Marty Benedetti. She’d spent, what, five hours in his company, and most of that looking for clues. Still, there was an undefined something in how he watched her. That she didn’t mind looking back when his head was turned said something, too.
    She grinned at the bellowed “Arooooooof!” from the end of the driveway. It was Shelby, the yellow Labrador retriever who lived down the street. He had