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his feet off the table, scratched the side of his jaw, and pulled a copy of a police report out of the file.
    “Start with this. I’ll be right back.”
    He left the room, undoubtedly to talk to whoever was watching me on the closed-circuit camera secreted in the wall paneling to my right. I had read about a half page of the report when Masters came back into the room. He wasn’t alone.
    “Hello, Kelly.”
    Vince Rodriguez was wearing a soft brown Italian suit with a striped shirt and olive-green tie. He had a gold watch on one wrist and carried a second file folder under his arm. This one was thick with paper. He dropped it on the table and took a chair to my right.
    “Detective Rodriguez,” I said, and gave him my best profile. “Tell me. Is this really my good side?”
    “Shut up, Kelly.”
    That was Masters. He slumped back in his chair, poured some coffee from a thermos, and offered me nothing. I had tasted cop coffee before so that wasn’t a problem.
    “Taken a look at the autopsy report?” Rodriguez said, and began to unpack the file on the table in front of him.
    “Not yet. Why don’t you give me the highlights?”
    “Water found in the lungs. Appears Bryant might have drowned somehow.”
    “So the sand in his mouth was postmortem?”
    Rodriguez nodded. “Probably staged by the killer. Why, we have no clue. Now, tell me this, Kelly. What do you know about the Chicago Fire?”
    “The Chicago Fire?”
    “That’s right.”
    Rodriguez flipped open a manila folder tabbed history and began to read.
    “Started on the night of October eighth, 1871. Burned for two days. Destroyed most of the city, more than seventeen thousand buildings.”
    I looked over at Masters, who offered the slightest of shrugs. Rodriguez kept talking.
    “The fire started at 137 East DeKoven Street, current home of the Chicago Fire Academy. In 1871, it was the home of one Catherine O’Leary. The fire is believed to have started in her barn. The theory for years was that a cow kicked over a lantern and the whole thing just got out of control. Now, however, people aren’t so sure.”
    “You mean the cow wasn’t good for it?” I said.
    This time it was Rodriguez who looked toward Masters. The veteran cop cracked his knuckles and grunted.
    “Told you,” Masters said. “Guy knows nothing. And if he knows something, it’s still nothing.”
    The detective was right. I didn’t know much about 1871. Still, I could fake it with the best of them.
    “The house on Hudson predates the fire,” I said. “You think there’s a connection.”
    Rodriguez grinned thinly and held out his hand. Masters reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of twenties. Rodriguez pocketed the cash.
    “I told him you’d see it. Straight off.”
    “Doesn’t mean it’s anything,” I said.
    “But you see it,” Rodriguez said. “Just like we did. There were only a dozen or so buildings that survived the fire of 1871. A hundred-plus years later, we have a body turning up in one of them. A guy, by the way, who happened to be an expert on the fire.”
    “Coincidence?” I said.
    Rodriguez shook his head and pulled a single sheet of paper from the murder file.
    “There’s more. Best we can tell, this is the only item missing from the house on Hudson. First edition of a book written by Timothy Sheehan in 1886. Titled Sheehan’s History of the Chicago Fire.”
    Rodriguez pushed the page over so I could take a look.
    “How the book fits in,” Masters said. “Whether it has any connection to any of this. No real idea.”
    “And you guys are sitting on all this because the brass says so?”
    Rodriguez nodded.
    “The press would have a field day with it,” Masters said. “You know that.”
    “Fifth Floor showing any interest?” I said.
    “Why do you ask?” That was Rodriguez again.
    “Just thinking that might be where the heat is coming from. No pun intended.”
    I smiled. Masters leaned forward, letting his bulldog features swell with