Hard Eight

“As social as I get. I’m on my way home from a job.”

“Home to the Bat Cave.” No one knew where Ranger lived. The address on his driver’s license was a vacant lot.

“Yeah. The Bat Cave,” Ranger said.

“I’d like to see the Bat Cave sometime.”

Our eyes held.

“Maybe someday,” he said. “Looks like you could use some bodywork on your car.”

I told him about the spiders and about Abruzzi suggesting to me that at some point in time he’d rip my heart out.

“Let me get this straight,” Ranger said. “You were driving along after being attacked by a flock of geese, and a spider jumped at you and caused you to smash into a parked car.”

“Stop smiling,” I said. “It isn’t funny. I hate spiders.”

He slung an arm around my shoulders. “I know you do, babe. And you’re worried Abruzzi will make good on his threat.”

“Yes.”

“You have too many dangerous men in your life.”

I looked at him sideways. “Do you have any suggestions on how I can cut the list down?”

“You could kill Abruzzi.” I raised my eyebrows. “No one would mind,” Ranger said.

“He’s not a popular guy.”

“And the other dangerous men in my life?”

“Not life threatening. You might get your heart broken, but you won’t get it ripped out of your body.”

Oh boy. That’s supposed to make me feel relaxed?

“Aside from your suggestion of killing Abruzzi, I don’t know how to get him to stop,” I said to Ranger. “Soder might want his daughter back, but Abruzzi is after something else. And whatever it is that Abruzzi is after, he thinks I’m after it, too.” I looked up at my window. I wasn’t real crazy about entering my apartment alone. The heart-ripping-out thing still had me feeling spooked. And every now and then I felt nonexistent spiders crawling on me. “So,” I said, “as long as you’re here, I don’t suppose you’d want to come up and have a glass of wine?”

“Are you inviting me for more than wine?”

“Sort of.”

“Let me take a guess. You want me to make sure your apartment is secure.”

“Yes.”

He beeped his car locked, and when we got to the second floor, he took my key and he opened my apartment door. He flipped the lights on and looked around. Rex was running on his wheel.

“Maybe you should teach him to bark,” Ranger said.

He prowled through my living room, into my bedroom. He flipped the light on and looked around. He raised the dust ruffle and looked under the bed. “You need to get a mop under there, babe,” he said. He moved to the dresser and opened each drawer. Nothing jumped out. He stuck his head into the bathroom. All clear.

“No snakes, no spiders, no bad guys,” Ranger said. He reached out, grasped the collar on my denim jacket with both hands, and pulled me to him, his fingers lightly brushing my neck. “You’re running up a bill. I assume you’ll tell me when you’re ready to settle your account.”

“Sure. Absolutely. You’ll be the first to know.” God, I was being such a dork!

Ranger grinned down at me. “You have cuffs, right?”

Ulk. “Actually, no. I’m currently cuffless.”

“How are you going to catch the bad guys if you haven’t got cuffs?”

“It’s a problem.”

“I have cuffs,” Ranger said, touching his knee to mine.

My heart was up to about two hundred beats per minute. I wasn’t exactly a handcuff-meto-the-bed kind of person. I was more a turn-out-all-the-lights-and-hope-for-the-best kind of person. “I think I’m hyperventilating,” I said. “If I pass out just hold a paper bag over my nose and mouth.”

“Babe,” Ranger said, “it’s not the end of the world to sleep with me.”

“There are issues.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Issues?”

“Well, actually, relationships.”

“Are you in a relationship?” Ranger asked.

“No. Are you?”

“My lifestyle doesn’t lend itself to relationships.”

“Do you know what we need? Wine.”

He released my jacket collar and followed me into the kitchen. He lounged against the counter while I took two wineglasses from the cupboard and grabbed the bottle of merlot that I’d just bought. I poured out two glasses, gave one to Ranger, and kept one for myself.

“Cheers,” I said. And I chugged the wine.

Ranger took a sip. “Feel better?”

“I’m getting there. I hardly feel like fainting anymore. And most of the nausea is gone.” I refilled my glass and carted the bottle into the living room. “So,” I said, “would you like to watch television?”

He picked the remote off the coffee table and relaxed into the couch. “Let me know when you’re nausea-free.”

“I think it was the handcuff thing that pushed me over the edge.”

“I’m disappointed. I thought it was the idea of me naked.” He searched through the sports and settled on basketball. “Are you okay with basketball? Or would you rather I search for a violent movie?”

“Basketball is good.”

Okay, I know I was the one who suggested television, but now that I had Ranger on my couch it felt too weird. He had his dark hair slicked back into a ponytail. He was dressed in SWAT blacks, fully loaded gun belt removed but a nine-millimeter at the small of his back, Navy SEAL watch on his wrist. And he was slouched on my couch, watching basketball.

I noticed my wineglass was empty, and I poured myself a third glass.

“This feels odd,” I said. “Do you watch basketball in the Bat Cave?”

“I don’t have a lot of free time for television.”

“But the Bat Cave has a television?”

“Yeah, the Bat Cave has a television.”

“Just curious,” I said.

He drank some wine, and he watched me. He was different from Morelli. Morelli was a tightly coiled spring. I was always aware of contained energy with Morelli. Ranger was a cat. Quiet. Every muscle relaxed on command. Probably did yoga. Might not be human.

“Now what are you thinking?” he asked.

“I was wondering if you were human.”

“What are the other choices?”

I knocked back my glass of wine. “I didn’t have anything else specifically in mind.”

**********************

I WOKE UP with a headache and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I was on my couch, tucked under the quilt from my bed. The television was silent, and Ranger was gone. From what I could remember, I’d seen about five minutes of basketball before falling asleep. I’m a cheap drunk. Two and a half glasses of wine and I’m comatose. I stood under a hot shower until I was pruney and the throbbing behind my eyes had partially subsided. I got dressed and made tracks to McDonald’s. I got a large fries and a Coke at the drive-thru and ate in the parking lot. This is the Stephanie Plum cure for a hangover. My cell phone rang when I was halfway through with the fries.

“Did you hear about the fire?” Grandma asked. “Do you know anything about it?”

“What fire?”

“Steven Soder’s bar burned to the ground last night. Technically, I guess it burned this morning, since it was after closing when it caught fire. Lorraine Zupek just called. Her grandson is a firefighter, you know. He told her they had every truck in the city there but there wasn’t anything they could do. I guess they’re thinking it might have been arson.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“Lorraine didn’t say.”

I shoved a handful of fries into my mouth and cranked the engine over. I wanted to see the fire scene. I’m not sure why. Ghoulish curiosity, I guess. If Soder had partners, then this wasn’t entirely unexpected. Partners were known to come into a business sometimes, drain it of all profits, and then destroy it.

It took me twenty minutes to get through town. The street in front of The Foxhole was closed to traffic, so I parked two blocks away and walked. A fire truck was still on the scene, and a couple cop cars were angled into the curb. A photographer from the Trenton Times was taking pictures. Crime-scene tape hadn’t been stretched, but sightseers were kept at a distance by the police.

The brick face was blackened. Windows were gone. There were two levels of apartments above the bar. They looked totally destroyed. Sooty water pooled on the street and sidewalk. A hose snaked into the building from the one remaining truck but it wasn’t in use.

“Was anyone hurt?” I asked one of the bystanders.

“Doesn’t look like it,” he said. “It was after-hours for the bar. And the apartments were empty. There were some code violations, so they were being renovated.”

“Do they know how the fire got started?”

“Nobody’s said.”

I didn’t recognize any of the cops or firefighters. I didn’t see Soder anywhere. I took one last look, and I left. A quick stop at the office was next on my list. Connie should have the more complete background check on Evelyn by now.

“Jeez,” Lula said when I walked in, “you don’t look so good.”

“Hangover,” I said. “I ran into Ranger after I dropped Kloughn off, and we had a couple glasses of wine.”

Connie and Lula stopped what they were doing and stared at me.

“Well?” Lula said. “You’re not going to stop there, are you? What happened?”

“Nothing happened. I was sort of creeped out about the spiders and stuff, so Ranger came in with me to make sure everything was okay. We had a couple glasses of wine. And he left.”

“Yeah, but what about the part between the drinking and the leaving? What happened there?”

“Nothing happened.”

“Hold on here,” Lula said. “You’re telling me you had Ranger in your apartment, the two of you are drinking wine, and nothing happened. No fooling around at all.”

“That makes no sense,” Connie said. “Anytime the two of you are in this office, he’s looking at you like you’re lunch. There has to be some explanation. Your grandma was there, right?”

“It was just the two of us. Just Ranger and me.”

“Did you put him off? You smack him, or something?” Lula asked.

“It wasn’t like that. It was friendly.” In an uncomfortably tense sort of way.

“Friendly,” Lula said. “Hunh.”

“So how do you feel about that?” Connie asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess friendly is good.”

“Yeah, except naked and sweaty would be better,” Lula said.

We all thought about that for a moment.

Connie fanned herself with a steno pad. “Whew,” she said. “Hot flash.”

I resisted looking down to see if my nipples were hard. “Did Evelyn’s report come in?”

Connie leafed through a stack of folders on her desk and pulled one out. “Just got it this morning.”

I took the folder and read down the first page. I turned to the second page.“

“Not a lot there,” Connie said. “Evelyn stuck pretty close to home. Even as a kid.”

I stuffed the folder into my bag and looked up at the video camera. “Is Vinnie here?”

“He hasn’t come in yet. Probably got Candy inflating his ego,” Lula said. 9

I READ THROUGH Evelyn’s file one more time when I got to my car. Some of the information seemed invasive, but this is the age of data for anyone interested. I had a credit report and some medical history. Nothing struck me as incredibly helpful. A rap on my passenger-side window pulled me away from the file. It was Morelli. I unlocked the door, and he slid in next to me.

“Hung over?” he asked, but it was more of a statement than a question.

“How’d you know?”

He poked at the fast-food carton. “McDonald’s french fries and Coke for breakfast. Dark circles under your eyes. Hair from hell.”

I checked out my hair in the rearview mirror. Yow. “I overdid the wine last night.”

He took that in. Nothing was said for a long moment. I didn’t volunteer more. He didn’t ask.

He looked at the file in my hand. “Are you getting any closer to Evelyn?”

“I’ve made some progress.”

“You heard about Soder’s bar.”

“I just came from there,” I said. “It looked bad. Lucky no one was in the building.”

“Yeah, except so far we haven’t been able to locate Soder. His girlfriend said he never came home.”

“Do you think he could have been in the bar when the fire broke out?”

“The guys are in there checking. They had to wait for the building to cool. No sign of him so far. I thought you’d want to know.” Morelli had his hand on the door handle.

“I’ll let you know if we find him.”

“Wait a minute. I have a theoretical question. Suppose you were watching television with me. And we were alone in my apartment. And I had a couple glasses of wine, and I sort of passed out. Would you try to make love to me, anyway? Would you do a little exploring while I was asleep?”

“What are we watching? Is it the play-offs?”

“You can leave now,” I said.

Morelli grinned and got out of the car.

I dialed Dotty’s number on my cell phone. I was anxious to tell her the news about the bar and about Soder going missing. The phone rang a bunch of times and the machine picked it up. I left a message for a callback and tried her work number. I got her voice mail at work. Dotty was on vacation, scheduled to return in two weeks. The voice mail message sent a strange emotion curling through my stomach. I searched for a name for the emotion. Unease was the closest I could come.

In less than an hour, I was parked in front of Dotty’s house. No sign of Jeanne Ellen. And no sign of life in Dotty’s house. No car in the driveway. No doors or windows opened. Nothing wrong with that, I told myself. The kids would be in school and day care at this time of day. And Dotty was probably out shopping.

I walked to the door and rang the bell. No one answered. I looked in the front window. The house looked at rest. No lights on. No television blaring. No kids running around. The bad feeling crept into my stomach again. Something was wrong. I walked around and looked in the back window. The kitchen was tidy. No signs of breakfast. No bowls in the sink. No cereal boxes left out. I tried the doorknob. Locked. I knocked on the door. No response. That’s when it hit me. No dog. The dog should be running around, barking at the door. It was a one-story ranch. I circled the house and looked in every window. No dog.

Okay, so she’s walking the dog. Or maybe she took the dog to the vet. I tried Dotty’s two closest neighbors. Neither knew what had happened to Dotty and the dog. Both had noticed they were missing this morning. The consensus was that Dotty and her family vacated the house sometime during the night.

No Dotty. No dog. No Jeanne Ellen. I had other names for the thing in my stomach now. Panic. Fear. With a touch of nausea from the hangover.

I went back to my car and sat in front of the house for a while, taking it all in. At some point I looked down at my watch and realized an hour had passed. I suppose I was hoping Dotty would return. And I suppose I knew it wasn’t going to happen. When I was nine years old I persuaded my mom to let me get a parakeet. On the way home from the pet store the door to the cage came open somehow, and the bird flew away. That’s what this felt like. It felt like I left the door open. I put the car in gear and drove back to the Burg. I went straight to Dotty’s parents’

house. Mrs. Palowski answered my knock, and Dotty’s dog came running from the kitchen, yapping the whole way.

I dredged up my biggest and best phony smile for Mrs. Palowski. “Hi,” I said, “I’m looking for Dotty.”

“You just missed her,” Mrs. Palowski said. “She dropped Scotty off early this morning. We’re baby-sitting him while Dotty and the children are on vacation.”

“I really need to talk to her,” I said. “Do you have a phone number where she can be reached?”

“I don’t. She said she was going camping with a friend. A cabin in the woods somewhere. She said she’d be in touch, though. I could give her a message.”

I gave Mrs. Palowski my card. “Tell Dotty I have very important information for her. And ask her to call me.”

“Dotty isn’t in any kind of trouble, is she?” Mrs. Palowski asked.

“No. This is information about one of Dotty’s friends.”

“It’s Evelyn, isn’t it? I heard Evelyn and Annie were missing. That’s such a shame. Evelyn and Dotty used to be such good friends.”

“Do they still get together?”

“Not for years, now. Evelyn kept to herself after she married. I think Steven made it difficult for her to have friends.”

I thanked Mrs. Palowski for her time and returned to my car. I reread the report on Evelyn. No mention of a secret cabin in the woods.

My phone chirped, and I wasn’t sure what I hoped for… a date was high on the list. Next might be news about Soder or a friendly call from Evelyn.

Close to last on the list was a call from my mother. “Help,” she said. Then my grandmother got on the phone. “You gotta come over and see this,” she said.

“See what?”

“You gotta see for yourself.”

My parents’ house was less than five minutes away. My mother and grandmother were at the door, waiting for me. They stepped aside and motioned me into the living room. My sister was there, slouched in my father’s favorite chair. She was dressed in a rumpled long flannel nightgown and furry bedroom slippers. Yesterday’s mascara hadn’t been removed but had been smudged by sleep. Her hair was snarled and untamed. Meg Ryan meets Beetlejuice. California girl goes to Transylvania. She had the television remote in her hand, her attention glued to a game show. The floor around her was littered with candy bar wrappers and empty soda cans. She didn’t acknowledge our presence. She burped and scratched her boob and changed the channel.

This was my perfect sister. Saint Valerie.

“I see that smile,” my mother said to me. “It’s not funny. She’s been like that ever since she lost her job.”

“Yeah, we had to vacuum around her this morning,” Grandma said. “I came too close and almost sucked up one of those bunny slippers.”

“She’s depressed,” my mother said.

No shit.

“We thought maybe you could help get her a job,” Grandma said. “Something that would get her out of the house, on account of now we’re getting depressed looking at her. Bad enough we got to look at your father.”

“You’re always the one with the jobs,” I said to my mother. “You always know when they’re hiring at the button factory.”

“She ran through all my contacts,” my mother said. “I’m left with nothing. And unemployment is up. I can’t get her a job boxing tampons.”

“Maybe you could take her along with you on a bust,” Grandma said. “Maybe that’d perk her spirits up.”

“No way,” I said. “She already tried being a bounty hunter, and she fainted the first time someone held a gun to her head.”

My mother made the sign of the cross. “Dear God,” she said.

“Well, you gotta do something,” Grandma said. “I’m missing all my TV shows. I tried to change the channel, and she growled at me.”

“She growled at you?”

“It was scary.”

“Hey, Valerie,” I said. “Is there a problem?”

No response.

“I got an idea,” Grandma said. “Why don’t we give her a zap with your stun gun? Then when she’s out cold we can get the remote.”

I thought about the stun gun in my bag. I wouldn’t mind testing it. I wouldn’t even mind zapping Valerie. Truth is, I’ve secretly wanted to zap Valerie for years. I slid a look at my mother and was instantly discouraged.

“Maybe I can get you a job,” I said to Valerie. “Would you be willing to work for a lawyer?”

She kept focused on the television. “Is he married?”

“No.”

“Gay?”

“I don’t think so.”

“How old is he?”

“I’m not sure. Sixteen, maybe.” I hauled my cell phone out of my bag and called Kloughn.

“Wow, that would be great if your sister would work for me,” Kloughn said. “She could have all the time she wants for lunch. And she could do her laundry while she works.”

I severed the connection and turned to Valerie. “You have a job.”

“Bummer,” Valerie said. “I was just starting to get the hang of this depression thing. Do you think this guy will marry me?”

I did some internal eye rolling, wrote Kloughn’s name and address on a piece of paper, and gave it to Valerie. “You can start tomorrow at nine. If he’s late, you can wait for him in the Laundromat. You won’t have any trouble recognizing him. He’s the guy with the two black eyes.”

My mother did another sign of the cross.

I swiped a couple slices of baloney and a slice of cheese from the fridge and headed for the door. I wanted to get out of the house before I had to answer any more questions about Albert Kloughn.

The phone rang as I was leaving.

“Hold up,” Grandma said to me. “This here’s Florence Szuch, and she says she’s at the mall, and she says Evelyn Soder is eating lunch in the food court.”

I took off running, and Grandma was right behind me.

“I’m going, too,” Grandma said. “I got a right, on account of how it was my snitch that called.”

We jumped into the car, and I rocketed away. The mall was twenty minutes on a good day. I hoped Evelyn was a slow eater.

“Was she sure it was Evelyn?”

“Yep. Evelyn and Annie, and another woman and her two children.”

Dotty and her kids.

“I didn’t have time to get my purse,” Grandma said. “So I haven’t got a gun. I’m going to be real disappointed if there’s shooting, and I’m the only one without a gun.”

If my mother knew my grandmother was carrying a gun around in her purse she’d have a cow. “First off, I haven’t got a gun,” I said. “And second thing, there won’t be any shooting.”

I hit Route 1 and put my foot to the floor. This brought me into the flow of traffic. In Jersey we think the speed limit is merely a suggestion. No one in Jersey would actually do the speed limit.

“You should be a race car driver,” Grandma said. “You’d be good at it. You could drive in them NASCAR races. I’d do it, but probably you need a driver’s license, and I don’t have one of those.”

I saw the sign for the shopping center and took the off-ramp with my fingers crossed. What had started as a courtesy to Mabel had become a crusade. I really wanted to talk to Evelyn. Evelyn was critical to ending the crazy war game. And ending the war game was critical to not getting my heart ripped out.

I knew every square inch of the mall, and I parked at the entrance to the food court. I wanted to tell Grandma to wait in the car, but that would have been wasted energy.

“If Evelyn is still there, I need to talk to her alone,” I said to Grandma. You’re going to have to stay out of sight.“

“Sure,” Grandma said. “I can do that.”

We entered the mall together and quickly walked to the food court. I watched the people while I walked, looking for Evelyn or Dotty. The mall was moderately full. Not jammed like on weekends. Just enough people to give me cover. My breath caught when I recognized Dotty and her kids. I’d memorized the photo of Evelyn and Annie, and they were there, too.

“Now that I’m here, I wouldn’t mind having a big pretzel,” Grandma said.

“You get a pretzel, and I’ll talk to Evelyn. Just don’t leave the food court.”

I stepped away from Grandma and the light suddenly dimmed in front of me. I was in the shadow of Martin Paulson. He didn’t look much different than he had in the police station parking lot, rolling around on the ground, trussed up in shackles and handcuffs. I imagine fashion choices are limited when you’re shaped like Paulson.

“Well, lookey here,” Paulson said. “It’s Little Miss Asshole.”

“Not now,” I said, moving around him.

He moved with me, blocking my way. “I have a score to settle with you.”

What are the chances? I finally find Evelyn, and I run into Martin Paulson, itching for a fight. “Forget it,” I said. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“I work here. I work at the drugstore, and I’m on my lunch break. I was falsely accused, you know.”

Yeah, right. “Get out of my way.”

“Make me.”

I pulled the stun gun out of my bag, rammed it into Paulson’s big belly, and hit the button. Nothing happened.

Paulson looked down at the stun gun. “What is that, a toy?”

“It’s a stun gun.” A worthless piece of crap stun gun.

Paulson took it from me and looked at it. “Cool,” he said. He turned it off, and then he turned it on. And then he touched it to my arm. There was a flash of light in my head, and everything went black.

Before the blackness turned back to light, I could hear voices, far away. I struggled to get to the voices and they became louder, more distinct. I managed to get my eyes open, and faces swam into view. I tried to blink away the buzzing, and I took an assessment of the situation. Flat on my back on the floor. Paramedics hovering over me. Oxygen mask over my nose. Blood pressure cuff on my arm. Grandma beyond the paramedics, looking worried. Paulson beyond Grandma, peeking at me over her shoulder. Paulson. Now I remember. The son of a bitch knocked me out with my own stun gun!

I jumped up and lunged at Paulson. My legs gave out and I went down to my knees.

“Paulson, you pig!” I yelled.

Paulson ducked back and disappeared.

I was trying to get the oxygen mask off, and the paramedics were trying to keep it on. It was the attack of the geese all over again.

“I thought you were dead,” Grandma said.

“Not nearly. I accidentally came into contact with my stun gun when it was live.”

“Now I recognize you,” one of the paramedics said to me. “You’re the bounty hunter who burned the funeral home down.”

“I burned it down, too,” Grandma said. “You should have been there. It was like fireworks.”

I stood and tested my ability to walk. I was a little creaky, but I didn’t fall down. That was a good sign, right?

Grandma handed me, my shoulder bag. “That nice round man gave me your stun gun. I guess it got dropped in all the excitement. I put it in your bag,” she said. First chance I got I was going to pitch the damn stun gun into the Delaware River. I looked around, but Evelyn was long gone. “I don’t suppose you saw Evelyn or Annie?” I asked Grandma.

“No. I got myself one of those big soft pretzels, and I had them dip it in chocolate.”

**********************

I DROPPED GRANDMA off at my parents’ house, and I went home to my apartment. I stood in the hall at the door for a moment before inserting the key in the lock. I took a deep breath, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. I stepped into the small foyer area, and I very softly sang, who’s afraid of the big bad wolf… I peeked into my kitchen and felt a sense of relief. Everything was okay in the kitchen. I moved into the living room and stopped singing. Steven Soder was sitting on my couch. He was listing slightly to one side, holding the remote in his right hand, but he wasn’t watching television. He was dead, dead, dead. His eyes were milky and unseeing, his lips were parted, as if he’d been surprised, his skin was ghoulishly bloodless, and he had a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. He was wearing a baggy sweater and khaki slacks. And he was barefoot. Criminey, isn’t it bad enough I have a dead guy sitting on my couch? Does he have to be freaking barefoot?

I silently backed out of the room, and out of my apartment. I stood in the hall and tried to dial 911 on my cell phone, but my hands were shaking, and I had to try several times before I got it right.

I stayed in the hall until the police arrived. When my apartment was swarming with cops, I crept back into my kitchen, wrapped my arms around Rex’s cage, and took Rex out of the apartment into the hall with me.

I was still in the hall, holding the hamster cage, when Morelli arrived. Mrs. Karwatt from next door and Irma Brown from upstairs were with me. Beyond Mr. Wolesky’s door I could hear Regis. Not even for a homicide would Mr. Wolesky miss Regis. No matter it was a rerun.

I was sitting on the floor, back to the wall, hamster cage on my lap. Morelli squatted next to me and looked in at Rex. “Is he okay?”

I nodded yes.

“How about you?” Morelli asked. “Are you okay?”

My eyes filled with tears. I wasn’t okay.

“He was sitting on the couch,” Irma said to Morelli. “Can you imagine? Just sitting there with the remote in his hand.” She shook her head. “That couch has death cooties now. I’d cry, too, if my couch had death cooties.”

“There’s no such thing as death cooties,” Mrs. Karwatt said.

Irma looked over at her. “Would you sit on that couch, now?”

Mrs. Karwatt pressed her lips together.

“Well?” Irma asked.

“Maybe if it was washed real good.”

“You can’t wash away death cooties,” Irma said. End of discussion. Voice of authority. Morelli sat next to me, his back to the wall, too. Mrs. Karwatt left. And Irma left. And it was just Morelli and me and Rex.

“So what do you think about death cooties?” Morelli asked me.

“I don’t know what the hell death cooties are, but I’m creeped out enough to want to get rid of the couch. And I’m going to boil the remote and dip it in bleach.”

“This is bad,” Morelli said. “This isn’t fun and games anymore. Did Mrs. Karwatt hear or see anything unusual?”

I shook my head no. “Home is supposed to be the safe place,” I said to Morelli. “Where do you go when your home doesn’t feel safe anymore?”

“I don’t know,” Morelli said. “I’ve never had to face that.”

It was hours before the body was removed, and the apartment was sealed.

“Now what?” Morelli asked. “You can’t stay here tonight.”

Our eyes locked, and we were both thinking the same thing. A couple months ago Morelli wouldn’t have asked that question. I would have stayed with Morelli. Things were different now. “I’ll stay with my parents,” I said. “Just overnight, until I figure things out.”

Morelli went in and grabbed some clothes for me and shoved the essentials in a gym bag. He loaded Rex and me into his truck and drove us to the Burg.

**********************

VALERIE AND THE kids were sleeping in my old bedroom, so I slept on the couch with Rex on the floor beside me. I have friends who take Xanax to help them sleep. I take macaroni and cheese. And if my mom is making it for me, so much the better. I had macaroni and cheese at 11:00 and fell into a fitful sleep. I had more macaroni at 2:00 and more at 4:30. A microwave is a wonderful invention.

At 7:30 I woke up to a lot of yelling going on upstairs. My father was causing the usual morning bottleneck in the bathroom.

“I have to brush my teeth,” Angie said. “I’m going to be late for school.”

“What about me?” Grandma wanted to know. “I’m old. I can’t hold it forever.” She hammered on the bathroom door. “What are you doing in there anyway?”

Mary Alice was making snorting horse sounds, galloping in place and pawing the floor.

“Stop that galloping,” Grandma shouted to Mary Alice. “You’re giving me a headache. Go downstairs to the kitchen and get some pancakes.”

“Hay!” Mary Alice said. “Horses eat hay. And I already ate. I have to brush my teeth. It’s real bad when horses get cavities.”

The toilet flushed, and the bathroom door opened. There was a brief scuffle, and the door slammed shut. Valerie and the two girls groaned. Grandma beat them to the bathroom.

An hour later, my father was out to work. The girls were off to school. And Valerie was in a state.

“Is this too flirty?” she asked, standing in front of me in a gauzy little flowered dress and strappy heels. “Would a suit be better?”

I was scanning the paper, looking for mention of Soder. “It doesn’t matter,” I said.

“Wear what you want.”

“I need help,” Valerie said, arms flapping. “I can’t make these decisions all by myself. And what about the shoes? Should I wear these pink heels? Or should I wear the retro Weitzmans?”

I found a dead man sitting on my couch last night. I have couch cooties, and Valerie needs me to make a shoe decision.

“Wear the pink things,” I said. “And take extra quarters, if you have any. Kloughn can always use extra quarters.”

The phone rang, and Grandma ran to answer it. The calls would start now and would go on all day. The Burg loved a good murder.

“I have a daughter who finds men dead on her couch,” my mother said. “Why me? Lois Seltzman’s daughter never finds dead men on her couch.”

“Isn’t this something,” Grandma said. “Three calls already, and it’s not even nine. This could be bigger than the time your car got crushed by the garbage truck.”

**********************

I HAD VALERIE drive me to my apartment building on her way to work. I needed my car, and my car was parked in the lot. Upstairs, my apartment was sealed. Fine by me. I was in no great rush to move back in.

I got into the CR-V and sat there a moment, listening to the quiet. Quiet was in short supply at my parents’ house.

Mr. Kleinschmidt passed me on his way to his car. “Nice going, chicky,” he said. “We can always count on you to keep things interesting. Did you really find a dead guy on your couch?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Boy, that must have been something. I wish I could have seen him.”

Mr. Kleinschmidt’s enthusiasm dragged a smile out of me. “Maybe next time.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Kleinschmidt said, happily. “Call me first thing next time.” He gave me a wave and went off to his car.

Okay, so here we have a new point of view when it comes to dead people. Dead people can be fun. I thought about it for a couple minutes but had a hard time buying into the concept. The best I could do was an admission that Soder’s death made my job easier. Evelyn had no reason to flee with Annie now that Soder was out of the picture. Mabel could stay in her house. Annie could return to school. Evelyn could get her life together. Unless Eddie Abruzzi was part of the reason Evelyn had to hide. If Evelyn left because she had something Abruzzi wanted, nothing would change.

I looked at the blue-and-white and the crime-scene truck in my parking lot. The bright spot in all this was that unlike snakes in the hall and spiders in my car, this was a major crime and the police would work hard to solve it. And how hard could it be to solve?

Someone had dragged a dead man into the foyer, up a flight of stairs, down the hall, and into my apartment… during daylight hours.

I dialed Morelli on my cell phone.

“I have some questions,” I said. “How did they get Soder into my apartment?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I do!”

“I’ll meet you for coffee,” Morelli said. “There’s a new coffee shop across from the hospital.”

**********************

I GOT A coffee and a croissant, and I sat across from Morelli. “Tell me,” I said.

“Soder was sawed in half.”

“What?”

“Someone used a power saw to cut Soder in half. And then they reassembled him on your couch. The baggy sweater was hiding the fact that they duct-taped Soder back together.”

My lips went numb, and I could feel the coffee cup sliding from my grasp. Morelli reached forward and pushed my head down, between my legs. “Breathe,” he said. The bells stopped clanging in my brain, and the dots went away. I sat up and took a sip of coffee. “I’m better now,” I said.

Morelli did a sigh. “If only I could believe that.”

“Alright, so they cut him in half. Then what?”

“We think they used a couple big duffel bags to bring him in. Hockey bags, maybe. Now that you’ve gotten over the gruesome part, the rest of the story is actually ingenious. Two guys, dressed in costume, carrying duffel bags and balloons, were seen entering the lobby and using the elevator. There were two tenants in the lobby at the tune. They said they assumed someone was getting one of those singing birthday presents. Mr. Kleinschmidt had turned eighty the week before, and someone sent him two strippers.”

“What sort of costume were these guys wearing?”

“One was a bear, and the other was a rabbit. No faces showing. About six foot tall, but hard to tell with the costume. We found the balloons in your closet. They took the bags back with them.”

“Did anyone see them leave?”

“No one in your building. We’re still canvassing the neighborhood. We’re checking on costume rentals, too. So far we haven’t come up with anything.”

“It was Abruzzi. He was the one who left the snakes and the spiders. He was the one who put the cardboard cutout on my fire escape.”

“Can you prove it?”

“No.”

“That’s the problem,” Morelli said. “And probably Abruzzi didn’t personally dirty his hands.”

“There’s a connection between Abruzzi and Soder. Abruzzi was the partner who took over the bar, right?”

“Soder lost his bar to Abruzzi because of a card game. Soder was playing some high stakes guys, and he needed money. He borrowed the money from Ziggy Zimmerli. And Zimmerli is owned by Abruzzi. Soder lost big time at the card game, couldn’t repay the money he borrowed from Zimmerli, and Abruzzi took the bar.”

“So what’s the deal with the bar burning down, and Soder getting shot?”

“I’m not sure. Probably the bar and Soder moved from the asset column to the liability column and were liquidated.”

“Did you pick up any prints in my apartment?”

“None that didn’t belong there. With the exception of Ranger.”

“I work with him.”

“Yeah,” Morelli said. “I know.”

“I’m assuming Evelyn isn’t a suspect,” I said.

“Anyone can hire a rabbit and a bear to chop a guy up,” Morelli said. “We aren’t ruling anyone out yet.”

I picked at my croissant. Morelli had his cop face on, and it didn’t give much away. Still, I had a feeling there was more. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“There was a detail we’re not releasing to the press,” Morelli said.

“A gruesome detail?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me make a guess. Soder’s heart was ripped out.”

Morelli looked at me for a couple beats. “This guy is about as crazy as they come,” he finally said. “I’d like to protect you, but I don’t know how. I could chain you to my wrist. Or I could lock you up in a closet in my house. Or you could pack off for an extended vacation. Unfortunately, I don’t think you’re going to agree to any of those things.”

Actually, I thought all of those options sounded kind of appealing. But Morelli was right, I couldn’t agree to any of them.

10

I TOOK ANOTHER sip of coffee and looked around the cafe. It had been nicely decorated with new black-and-white tile on the floor and round, wrought-iron soda fountain-style tables and chairs. Morelli and I were the only ones there. It took the Burg a while to warm up to new things.

“Thanks for being so nice to me last night,” I said to Morelli.

He slouched back in his seat. “Against my better judgment, I love you.”

I paused with the coffee cup midway to my mouth, and my heart did a flip-flop.

“Don’t get all excited,” Morelli said. “That doesn’t mean I want a relationship.”

“You could do worse,” I said.

“With who? Lizzy Borden?”

“You‘ re not perfect, either!”

“I don’t find dead guys sitting on my couch.”

“Well, I don’t have a knife scar slicing through my eyebrow from a barroom brawl.”

“That happened years ago.”

“So? The dead guy was on my couch yesterday. It’s been twenty-four hours since anything bad has happened.”

Morelli pushed back from the table. “I have to get back to work. Try to stay out of trouble.”

And he was gone, off to fight crime. I, on the other hand, had no crime to fight. Bender was my only open case, and I was willing to pretend he didn’t exist. I was thinking about a second croissant when Les Sebring called on my cell phone.

“Could you stop by the office?” Sebring asked. “I’d like to talk to you.”

I cut across town and got another call just as I was cruising the street in front of Sebring’s office, looking for parking.

“He’s a nerd,” Valerie said. “You didn’t tell me he was a nerd.”

“Who?”

“Albert Kloughn. And what’s with the hovering? Sometimes I can actually feel him breathing down my neck.”

“He’s insecure. Try thinking of him as a pet.”

“A golden retriever.”

“More like a giant hamster.”

“I was sort of hoping he’d marry me,” Valerie said. “I was hoping he’d be taller.”

“Valerie, this isn’t a date. This is a job. Where is he now?”

“He went next door. There’s something wrong with the vending machine that dispenses detergent.”

“He’s a nice guy. A little annoying, maybe. But he won’t fire you for spilling chicken soup. In fact, he’ll buy you a replacement lunch. Think about it.”

“And I shouldn’t have worn these shoes,” Valerie said. “I’m dressed all wrong.”

I disconnected and found a place to park on the street across from Sebring. I put a quarter in the meter and made sure it registered.. I didn’t need another parking ticket. I still hadn’t paid the last one.

Sebring’s secretary walked me upstairs and led me into Sebring’s private office. Sebring was waiting for me. And so was Jeanne Ellen Burrows.

I extended my hand to Sebring. “Nice to see you again,” I said. I nodded to Jeanne Ellen. She smiled in return.

“I guess you’re out of a job,” I said to Jeanne Ellen.

“Yes. And I’ll be flying to Puerto Rico later today to pick up an FTA for Les. I wanted to tell you about Soder before I left. For what it’s worth, Soder claimed Annie was in danger. He never articulated that danger, but he felt Evelyn was incapable of protecting his daughter. I wasn’t successful at locating Annie, but I realized Dotty was the conduit… the weak link. So I guarded Dotty.”

“What about the back door? That was left unguarded.”

“I had the house wired,” Jeanne Ellen said. “I knew you were in there.”

“The house was wired, but you still couldn’t find Evelyn?”

“Evelyn’s location was never mentioned. You blew the whistle on me before I had a chance to follow Dotty to Evelyn.”

“And what about Soder? The scene in the bookstore and at Dotty’s house?”

“Soder was a fool. He thought he could bully Dotty into talking.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

Jeanne Ellen shrugged. “Professional courtesy.”

I looked beyond her to Sebring. “Do you have an ongoing interest in this?”

“Not unless Soder comes back from the dead.”

“What’s your opinion? Do you think Annie’s in danger?”

“Someone killed her father,” Sebring said. “That’s not a good sign. Unless, of course, it was Annie’s mom who hired the hit. Then everything works out roses.”

“Do either of you know how Eddie Abruzzi fits into this puzzle?”

“He owned Soder’s bar,” Jeanne Ellen said. “And Soder was afraid of him. If Annie actually was in danger, I thought the threat might be tied to Abruzzi. Nothing concrete, just a feeling I had.”

“I hear you found Soder sitting on your couch,” Sebring said to me. “Do you know what that means?”

“My couch has death cooties?”

Sebring smiled and his teeth almost blinded me. “You can’t wash away death cooties,” he said. “Once they’re on your couch, they’re there to stay.”

I left the office on that cheery note. I got into my car, and I took a moment to process the new information. What did it mean? It didn’t mean much. It reinforced my fear that Evelyn and Annie were running, not just from Soder, but from Abruzzi, as well. Valerie called again. “If I go out to lunch with Albert, would it be a date?”

“Only if he rips your clothes off.”

I hung up and put the car in gear. I was going back to the Burg, and I was going to talk to Dotty’s mom. She was the only connection I had to Evelyn. If Dotty’s mom said Dotty and Evelyn were peachy fine and coming home, I’d feel like I was off the hook. I’d go to the mall and get a manicure.

**********************

MRS. PALOWSKI OPENED her front door and gasped at seeing me on her porch. “Oh dear,” she said. As if the death couch cooties were contagious.

I sent her a reassuring smile and a little finger wave. “Hi. I hope I’m not imposing.”

“Not at all, dear. I heard about Steven Soder. I don’t know what to think.”

“Me, either,” I said. “I don’t know why he was put on my couch.” I did a grimace. “Go figure. At least he wasn’t killed there. They packed him in.” Even as I said it, I knew it was lame. Leaving a sawed-in-half corpse on a girl’s couch is rarely a random act. “The thing is, Mrs. Palowski, I really do need to talk to Dotty. I was hoping she might have heard about Soder and gotten in touch with you.”

“As a matter of fact, she did. She called this morning, and I told her you were asking after her.”

“Did she say when she’d be home?”

“She said she might be gone a while. That was all she said.”

There goes the manicure.

Mrs. Palowski wrapped her arms tight around herself. “Evelyn dragged Dotty into this, didn’t she? It’s not like Dotty to take off from work and pull Amanda out of school to go on a camping trip. I think something bad is going on. I heard about Steven Soder, and I went straight to mass. I didn’t pray for Soder, either. He can go to hell for all I care.” She crossed herself. “I prayed for Dotty,” she said.

“Do you have any idea where Dotty might be? If she was trying to help Evelyn, where would she take her?”

“I don’t know. I’ve tried to think, but I can’t figure it out. I doubt Evelyn has much money. And Dotty is on a tight budget. So I can’t see them flying off to someplace. Dotty said she had to stop at the mall yesterday to get some last-minute camping things, so maybe she really is camping. Sometimes, before the divorce, Dotty and her husband would go to a campground by Washington’s Crossing. I can’t think of the name, but it was right on the river, and you could rent a little trailer.”

I knew the campground. I’d passed it a million times on the way to New Hope.

**********************

OKAY, NOW I was cooking. I had a lead. I could check out the campground. Only thing, I didn’t want to check it out alone. It was too isolated at this time of year. Too easy for Abruzzi to ambush me. So I took a deep breath and called Ranger.

“Yo,” Ranger said.

“I have a lead on Evelyn, and I could use some backup.”

Twenty minutes later, I was parked in the Washington’s Crossing parking lot, and Ranger pulled in beside me. He was driving a shiny black 4 X 4 pickup with oversize tires and bug lights on the cab. I locked my car and hoisted myself into his passenger seat. The interior of the truck looked like Ranger regularly communicated with Mars.

“How’s your mental health?” he asked. “I heard about Soder.”

“I’m rattled.”

“I have a cure.”

Oh, boy.

He put the truck in gear and headed for the exit. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said.

“And that wasn’t where I was going. I was going to suggest work.”

“I knew that.”

He looked over at me and grinned. “You want me bad.”

I did. God help me. “We’re going north,” I said. “There’s a chance that Evelyn and Dotty are at the campground with the little trailers.”

“I know the campground.”

The road was empty at this time of day. Two lanes winding along the Delaware River and through the Pennsylvania countryside. Patches of woods and clusters of pretty houses bordered the road. Ranger was silent while he drove. He was paged twice and both times he read the message and didn’t respond. Both times he kept the message to himself. Normal behavior for Ranger. Ranger led a secret life.

The pager buzzed a third time. Ranger unclipped it from his belt and looked at the readout. He cleared the screen, reclipped the pager, and continued to watch the road.

“Hell o,” I said.

He cut his eyes to me.

Ranger and I were oil and water. He was the Man of Mystery, and I was Ms. Curiosity. We both knew this. Ranger tolerated it with mild amusement. I tolerated it with teeth clenched.

I dropped my eyes to his pager. “Jeanne Ellen?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself.

“Jeanne Ellen is on her way to Puerto Rico,” Ranger said.

Our eyes held for a moment, and he turned his attention back to the road. End of conversation.

“It’s a good thing you have a nice ass,” I said to him. Because you sure as hell can be annoying.

“My ass isn’t my best part, babe,” Ranger said, smiling at me.

And that truly did end the conversation. I had no follow-up.

Ten minutes later we approached the campground. It sat between the road and the river and could easily go unnoticed. It didn’t have a sign. And for all I knew, it didn’t have a name. A dirt road slanted down to a couple acres of grass. Small ramshackle cabins and trailers were scattered along the river’s edge, each with a picnic table and grill. It had an air of abandonment at this time of year. And it felt slightly disreputable, and intriguing, like a gypsy encampment.

Ranger idled at the entrance, and we scanned the surroundings.

“No cars,” Ranger said. He eased the truck down the drive and parked. He reached under the dash, removed a Glock, and we got out of the truck.

We systematically went down the row of cabins and trailers, trying doors, looking in windows, checking the grills for recent use. The lock was broken on the front door to the fourth cabin. Ranger rapped once and opened the door.

The front room had a small kitchen area at one end. Not high-tech. Sink, stove, fridge circa 1950. The floor was covered with scuffed linoleum. There was a full-size couch at the far end of the room, a square wood table, and four chairs. The only other room to the cabin was a bedroom with two sets of bunks. The bunks had mattresses but no sheets or blankets. The bathroom was minuscule. A sink and a toilet. No shower or tub. The toothpaste in the sink looked fresh.

Ranger picked a pink plastic little girl’s barrette off the floor. “They’ve moved on,” he said.

We checked the refrigerator. It was empty. We went outside and investigated the remaining cabins and trailers. All the others were locked. We checked the Dumpster and found a single small bag of garbage.

“Do you have any other leads?” Ranger asked me.

“No.”

“Let’s walk through their houses.”

**********************

I PICKED MY car up at Washington’s Crossing and drove it across the river. I parked in front of my parents’ house and got back into Ranger’s truck. We went to Dotty’s house first. Ranger parked in the driveway, removed the Glock from under the dash again, and we went to the front door.

Ranger had his hand on the doorknob and his handydandy lockpicking tool in his hand. And the door swung open. No lock picking necessary. It would appear we were coming in second in the breaking-and-entering race.

“Stay here,” Ranger said. He stepped into the living room and did a quick survey. He walked through the rest of the house with his gun drawn. He returned to the living room and motioned me in.

I closed and locked the door behind me. “Nobody home?”

“No. There are drawers pulled out and papers scattered on the kitchen counter. Either someone’s been through the house, or else Dotty left in a hurry.”

“I was here after Dotty left. I didn’t go into the house, but I looked in the windows and the house seemed neat. Do you think the house could have been burgled?” I knew in my heart it wasn’t burglary, but one can hope.

“Don’t think the motive was burglary. There’s a computer in the kid’s room and a diamond engagement ring in the jewelry box in the mother’s room. The television is still here. My guess is, we’re not the only ones looking for Evelyn and Annie.”

“Maybe it was Jeanne Ellen. She had a bug planted here. Maybe she came back to get her bug before she left for Puerto Rico.”

“Jeanne Ellen isn’t sloppy. She wouldn’t leave the front door open, and she wouldn’t leave evidence of a break-in.”

My voice inadvertently rose an octave. “Maybe she was having a bad day? Cripes, doesn’t she ever have a bad day?”

Ranger looked at me and smiled.

“Okay, so I’m getting a little tired of the perfect Jeanne Ellen,” I said.

“Jeanne Ellen isn’t perfect,” Ranger said. “She’s just very good.” He slung an arm around my shoulders and kissed me below my ear. “Maybe we can find an area where your skills exceed Jeanne Ellen’s.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did you have something in mind?”

“Nothing I’d want to get into right now.” He pulled a pair of disposable gloves out of his pocket. “I want to do a more thorough search. She didn’t take a lot with her. Most of their clothes are still here.” He moved into the bedroom and turned the computer on. He opened files that looked promising. “Nothing to help us,” he finally said, shutting the computer off.

She didn’t have caller ID, and there were no messages on her machine. Bills and shopping lists were scattered across the kitchen counter. We rifled through them, knowing it was probably wasted effort. If there had been anything good, the intruder would have taken it.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now we look at Evelyn’s house.”

Uh-oh. “There’s a problem with Evelyn’s house. Abruzzi has someone watching it. Every time I stop by, Abruzzi shows up ten minutes later.”

“Why would Abruzzi care that you’re in Evelyn’s house?”

“Last time I ran into him he said he knew I was in it for the money, that I knew what the stakes were. And that I knew what he was trying to recover. I think Abruzzi’s after something, and it’s tied to Evelyn somehow. I think it’s possible that Abruzzi thinks this thing is hidden in the house, and he doesn’t want me snooping around.”

“Any ideas on what it is that he’s trying to recover?”

“None. Not a clue. I’ve been through the house, and I didn’t find anything unusual. Of course, I wasn’t looking for secret hiding places. I was looking for something to direct me to Evelyn.”

Ranger closed the front door behind us and made sure it was locked. The sun was low in the sky when we got to Evelyn’s house. Ranger did a drive-by. “Do you know the people on this street?”

“Almost everyone. Some I know better than others. I know the woman next door to Dotty. Linda Clark lives two houses down. The Rojacks live in the corner house. Betty and Arnold Lando live across the street. The Landos are in a rental, and I don’t know the family next to them. If I was looking for a snitch, my money would be on someone in the family next to the Landos. There’s an old man who always seems to be home. Sits out on the porch a lot. Looks like he used to break kneecaps for a living, about a hundred years ago.”

Ranger parked in front of Carol Nadich’s half of the house. Then we walked around the house and entered Evelyn’s half through the back door. Ranger didn’t have to break a window to get in. Ranger inserted a small slender tool into the lock, and ten seconds later the door was open.

The house seemed just as I remembered. Dishes in the drain. Mail neatly stacked. Drawers closed. None of the signs of search that we’d seen in Dotty’s house. Ranger did his usual walk-through, starting in the kitchen, eventually moving upstairs into Evelyn’s room. I was following behind him when I had a sudden flashback. Kloughn telling me about Annie’s drawings. Scary drawings, Kloughn had said. Bloody. I wandered into Annie’s room and flipped pages on the pad on her desk. The first page contained a house drawing similar to the one downstairs. After that came a page of scribbles and doodles. And then the childish drawing of a man. He was laying on the ground. The ground was red. Red spurted from the man’s body.

“Hey,” I called to Ranger. “Come look at this.”

Ranger stood beside me and stared at the drawing. He turned the page and found a second drawing with red on the ground. Two men were laying in the red. Another man pointed a gun at them. There were a lot of erasure marks around the gun. I guess guns are hard to draw.

Ranger and I exchanged glances.

“It could just be television,” I said.

“It wouldn’t hurt to take the pad with us, in case it isn’t.”

Ranger finished his search of Evelyn’s room, moved to Annie’s, and then to the bathroom. He stood hands on hips when he’d completed the search of the bathroom.

“If there’s something here, it’s well hidden,” he said. “It would be easier if I knew what we were looking for.”

We left the house the same way we came. Abruzzi wasn’t waiting for us on the back porch. And Abruzzi wasn’t waiting for us by Ranger’s truck. I sat next to Ranger and I looked up and down the street. No sign of Abruzzi. I was almost disappointed. Ranger rolled the engine over, drove to my parents’ house, and parked behind my car. The sun had set and the street was dark. Ranger cut his lights and turned to see me better.

“Are you spending the night here again?”

“Yes. My apartment’s still sealed. I imagine I’ll get it back tomorrow.” Then what? An involuntary shiver sent my lower back into spasm. My couch had death cooties.

“I see you’re excited about returning,” Ranger said.

“I’ll figure it out. Thanks for helping me today.”

“I feel cheated,” Ranger said. “Usually when I’m with you a car explodes or a building burns down.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“Life is a bitch,” Ranger said. He reached out and grabbed me by my jacket sleeves, hauled me across the console, and kissed me.

“Now you kiss me?” I said. “What was the deal when we were alone in my apartment?”

“You had three glasses of wine, and you fell asleep.”

“Oh yeah. Now I remember.”

“And you went into a panic attack at the thought of sleeping with me.”

I was sprawled across the console, wedged behind the wheel, half sitting on Ranger’s lap. His lips brushed against mine when he spoke and his hands were warm against my Tshirt.

“You weren’t entirely responsible for the panic,” I told him. “It was a sort of disastrous day.”

“Babe, you have a lot of disastrous days.”

“You sound like Morelli.”

“Morelli is a good guy. And he loves you.”

“And you?”

Ranger smiled.

I was racked with another spine shiver.

The porch light went on, and Grandma peered out at us from the living room window.

“Saved by the grandma,” Ranger said, releasing me. “I’m going to wait for you to get in the house. I don’t want anyone kidnapping you on my watch.”

I opened the door and I jumped out. And I did a mental grimace because getting kidnapped and/or shot wasn’t entirely off the radar screen.

Grandma was waiting for me when I walked through the door. “Who’s the guy in the cool truck?”

“Ranger.”

“That man is so hot,” Grandma said. “If I was twenty years younger…”

“If you were twenty years younger you’d still be twenty years too old,” my father said. Valerie was in the kitchen, helping my mother frost cupcakes. I got a glass of milk and a cupcake, and I sat at the table. “How’d work go today?” I asked Valerie.

“I didn’t get fired.”

“That’s great. Before you know it, he’ll be proposing marriage.”

“Do you think so?”

I slid her a sideways look. “I was joking.”

“It could happen,” Valerie said, dropping colored sprinkles on the cupcake.

“Valerie, you don’t want to marry the first guy who comes along.”

“Yes, I do. As long as he has a house with two bathrooms. I swear to God, I don’t care if he’s Jack the Ripper.”

“I’m thinking about getting a computer so I can have cybersex,” Grandma said.

“Anybody know how that works?”

“You go into a chat room,” Valerie said. “And you meet someone. And then you type dirty suggestions to each other.”

“That sounds like fun,” Grandma said. “How does the sex part happen?”

“You sort of have to do the sex part yourself.”

“I knew it was too good to be true,” Grandma said. “There’s always a catch to everything.”

**********************

IT WAS MORNING, I was last in line for the bathroom, and I was beginning to appreciate Valerie’s point of view. When faced with the choices of forever living with my parents, marrying Jack the Ripper, or going home to the cootie couch, I had to admit Jack the Ripper was looking pretty good. Okay, maybe not Jack the Ripper, but certainly Doug the Dullard could be tolerated.

I was dressed in my usual outfit of jeans and boots and a stretchy shirt. I had my hair brushed out in curls and my mascara on heavy. All my adult life I’ve hidden behind mascara. And if I’m really feeling insecure, I add eyeliner. Today was an eyeliner day. Plus, I painted my toenails. Bring out the heavy artillery, right? Morelli had called earlier and told me the crime scene tape was down. He’d made arrangements for a professional cleaning crew to go through the apartment, using full-strength Clorox wherever needed. He thought they’d be done around noon. For all I cared, they could be done around November.

I was in the kitchen, having a final cup of coffee before starting my day, and Mabel appeared at the back door.

“I just heard from Evelyn,” she said. “She called me, and she said everyone was fine. She’s staying with a friend, and she said not to worry.” She put her hand to her heart. “I feel so much better. And I felt better knowing you were looking for Evelyn. It gave me peace of mind. Thank you.”

“Did Evelyn say when she was coming home?”

“No. She said she wouldn’t be back for Steven’s funeral, though. I guess there are hard feelings.”

“Did she say where she was? Did she mention the friend’s name?”

“No. She was rushed. It sounded like she was calling from a store or a restaurant. There was a lot of noise in the background.”

“If she calls again, tell her I’d like to talk to her.”

“There isn’t anything wrong, is there? Now that Steven’s gone it seems like everything should be okay.”

“I’d like to talk to her about her landlord.”

“Are you interested in renting a house?”

“I might be.” And that was the truth.

The phone rang, and Grandma ran for it. “It’s for you,” she said, holding the phone out to me. “It’s Valerie.”

“I need help,” Valerie said. “You have to get over here in a hurry.” And she hung up.

“Gotta go,” I said. “Valerie’s got a problem.”

“She used to be so smart,” Grandma said. “And then she moved to California. Think all that California sun dried her brain up like a raisin.”

How bad could the problem be? I thought. More chicken soup in the computer? What would Kloughn care? He had no files to lose because he had no clients. I pulled into the lot and parked nose first in front of Kloughn’s office. I looked into the big plate glass windows but didn’t see Valerie. I got out of the car, and Valerie came running from the Laundromat side.

“Over here,” she said. “He’s in the Laundromat.”

“Who?”

“Albert!”

A row of turquoise plastic chairs lined the wall facing the dryers. Two old women sat side-by-side in the chairs, smoking, looking at Valerie. Taking it all in. No one else was in the room.

“Where?” I said. “I don’t see him.”

Valerie sucked in a sob and pointed to one of the large commercial dryers. “He’s in there.”

I looked more closely. She was right. Albert Kloughn was in the dryer. He was all scrunched up with his ass to the round porthole glass door, looking like Pooh stuck in the rabbit hole.

“Is he alive?” I asked.

“Yes! Of course he’s alive.” Valerie crept closer and knocked on the door. “At least, I think he’s alive.”

“What’s he doing in there?”

“The lady in the blue sweater thought she lost her wedding ring in the dryer. She said it was wedged into the back of the drum. So Albert went in to get it. But then somehow the door slammed shut, and we can’t get it to open.”

“Jeez. Why didn’t you call the fire department or the police?”

There was movement in the drum and a lot of muffled noise coming from Kloughn. The noise sounded like no, no, no.

“I think he’s embarrassed,” Valerie said. “I mean, how would it look? Suppose somebody took a picture, and it got in the paper? No one would ever hire him, and I’d be out of a job.”

“No one hires him now,” I said. I tried the door. I tried pushing buttons. I looked for a safety latch. “I’m scoring a big zero here,” I said.

“There’s something wrong with that dryer,” the lady in the blue sweater said. “It’s always getting stuck like that. There’s something wrong with the lock. I wrote out a complaint about it last week, but nobody ever does nothing around here. The vending machine with the soap doesn’t work, either.”

“I really think we need help,” I said to Valerie. “I think we should call the police.”

There was more frantic movement and more of the no, no, no. And then there was something that sounded like a fart coming from inside the dryer.

Valerie and I took a step back.

“I think he’s nervous,” Valerie said.

Probably there was some sort of door release on the inside, but Kloughn was wedged in and couldn’t turn to face the latch.

I fished around in the bottom of my bag and found some change. I dropped a quarter into the slot, turned the heat down to low, and started the dryer tumbling. Kloughn’s mumbling turned to shrieking, and Kloughn bounced around some, but for the most part he seemed fairly stable. After five minutes the dryer stopped tumbling. You don’t get a heck of a lot for a quarter these days.

The door opened easy as anything, and Valerie and I pulled Kloughn out and stood him up. His hair was all fluffy. The kind of fluff you see on a baby robin. He was warm and smelled nice, like fresh ironing. His face was red, and his eyes were glassy.

“I think I farted,” he said.

“You know what?” the lady in the blue sweater said. “I found my ring. It wasn’t in the dryer after all. I put it in my pocket and forgot.”

“That’s nice,” Kloughn said, his eyes unfocused, a little drool at the corner of his mouth. Valerie and I had him propped up by his armpits.

“We’re going to the office now,” I said to Kloughn. “Try walking.”

“Everything’s still spinning. I’m out of the machine, right? I’m just dizzy, right? I can still hear the motor. I’ve got the motor in my head.” Kloughn moved his legs like Frankenstein’s monster. “I can’t feel my feet,” he said. “My feet fell asleep.”

We half dragged, half pushed him back to the office and sat him in a chair.

“That was just like a ride,” he said. “Did you see me going around in there? Like a fun house, right? Like an amusement park. I ride all those rides. I’m used to that sort of thing. I sit right up front.”

“Really?”

“Well, no. But I think about it.”

“Isn’t he cute,” Valerie said. And she kissed him on top of his fluffy head.

“Gosh,” Kloughn said, smiling wide. “Gee.”

11

I DECLINED ON an offer of lunch from Kloughn, choosing instead to go to the bonds office.

“Anything new?” I asked Connie. “I’m all out of FTAs.”

“What about Bender?”

“I wouldn’t want to cut in on Vinnie.”

“Vinnie doesn’t want him, either,” Connie said.

“It isn’t that,” Vinnie yelled from his inner office. “I’ve got things to do. Important things.”

“Yeah,” Lula said, “he’s gotta slap his johnson around.”

“You better get that guy,” Vinnie yelled at me. “I’m not going to be happy if I’m out Bender’s bond.”

“I think there’s something going on with Bender,” Lula said. “He’s one of them lucky drunks. It’s like he’s got a direct line to God. God protects the weak and the helpless, you know.”

“God isn’t protecting Bender,” Vinnie yelled. “Bender is still out there because I have a couple of useless boobs on my payroll.”

“Okay, fine,” I said. “We’ll go get Bender.”

“We?” Lula asked.

“Yeah, you and me.”

“Been there, done that,” Lula said. “I’m telling you, he’s under God’s protection. And I’m not sticking my nose into God’s business.”

“I’ll buy you lunch.”

“I’ll get my bag,” Lula said.

“One thing,” I said to Connie. “I need some cuffs.”

“No more cuffs,” Vinnie yelled. “What do you think, cuffs grow on trees?”

“I can’t bring him in without cuffs.”

“Improvise.”

“Hey,” Lula said, looking out the big plate glass front window, “check out the car that just stopped by Stephanie’s car. It’s got a big rabbit and a big bear in it. And the bear is driving.”

We all stared out the window.

“Uh-oh,” Lula said, “did that rabbit just throw something at Stephanie’s car?”

There was a loud barooooorn, the CR-V jumped several feet into the air and burst into flames.

“Guess it was a bomb,” Lula said.

Vinnie came running out of his office. “Holy shit,” he said. “What was that?” He stopped and gaped at the fireball in front of his office.

“It’s just another one of Stephanie’s cars got blown up,” Lula said. “It got bombed by a big rabbit.”

“Don’t you hate when that happens,” Vinnie said. And he went back into his office. Lula and Connie and I migrated out to the sidewalk and watched the car burn. A couple blue-and-whites screamed onto the scene, followed by the EMT truck and finally two fire trucks.

Carl Costanza got out of one of the blue-and-whites. “Anyone hurt?”

“No.”

“Good,” he said, his face creasing into a grin. “Then I can enjoy this. I missed the spiders and the guy on the couch.”

Costanza’s partner, Big Dog, ambled over. “Way to go, Steph,” he said. “We were all wondering when you’d trash another car. Can’t hardly remember the last explosion.”

Costanza bobbed his head in agreement. “It’s been months,” he said. I saw Morelli angle in behind a fire truck. He got out of his truck and walked over.

“Christ,” he said, looking at what was fast becoming a charred hunk of scrap metal.

“It was Steph’s car,” Lula told him. “It was firebombed by a big rabbit.”

Morelli set his mouth to grim and glanced over at me. “Is that true?”

“Lula saw it.”

“I don’t suppose you’d reconsider taking a vacation,” Morelli said to me. “Maybe go to Florida for a month or two.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said to Morelli. “As soon as I bring Andy Bender in.”

Morelli was still tuned to grim.

“I could bring him in easier if I had a pair of cuffs,” I said.

Morelli reached under his sweater and pulled out a pair of cuffs. He handed them to me wordlessly, his expression unchanged.

“Kiss those cuffs good-bye,” Lula mumbled behind me.

**********************

GENERALLY SPEAKING, A red Trans Am is not a good choice for a surveillance car. Fortunately, with Lula’s newly bleached canary yellow hair and my extra-heavy-on-themascara eyes we looked like businesswomen who belonged in a red Trans Am, on the street in front of Bender’s house.

“Now what?” Lula asked. “You have any ideas?”

I had binoculars trained on Bender’s front window. “I think someone’s in there, but I can’t see enough to identify anyone.”

“We could call to see who answers,” Lula said. “Except I ran out of money for a cell phone so I haven’t got one no more, and your phone burned up in your car.”

“I guess we could go knock on the door.”

“Yeah, I like that idea. Maybe he’ll shoot at us again. I was hoping someone would shoot at me today. That was the first thing I said when I got up: Boy, I hope I get shot at today.”

“He only shot at me that one time.”

“That makes me feel a lot better,” Lula said.

“Well, what’s your idea?”

“My idea is we go home. I’m telling you, God don’t want us to get this guy. He even sent a rabbit to bomb your car.”

“God didn’t send a rabbit to bomb my car.”

“What’s your explanation? You think it’s every day you see a rabbit driving down the street?”

I shoved the door open and got out of the Trans Am. I had the cuffs in one hand and pepper spray in the other. “I’m in a bad mood,” I told Lula. “I’m up to here with snakes and spiders and dead guys. And now I don’t even have a car. I’m going in, and I’m dragging Bender out. And after I drop his sorry ass off at the police station I’m going to Chevy’s, and I’m going to get one of those margaritas they make in the gallon-size glass.”

“Hunh,” Lula said. “I guess you want me to go with you.”

I was already halfway across the yard. “Whatever,” I said. “Do whatever the hell you want.”

I could hear Lula huffing along behind me. “Don’t you pull no attitude with me,” she was saying. “Don’t you tell me to do whatever the hell I want. I already told you what I want. Did it count for anything? Hell, no.”

I got to Bender’s front door, and I tried the knob. The door was locked. I knocked loud, three times. There was no answer, so I banged three times with my fist.

“Open the door,” I shouted. “Bond enforcement.”

The door opened, and Bender’s wife looked out at me. “This isn’t a good time,” she said. I pushed her aside. “It’s never a good time.”

“Yes, but you don’t understand. Andy is sick.”

“You expect us to believe that?” Lula said. “What do we look, stupid?”

Bender lurched into the room. His hair was a wreck and his eyes were half-closed. He was wearing a pajarna top and stained khaki work pants.

“I’m dying,” he said. “I’m gonna die.”

“It’s just the flu,” his wife said. “You should get back to bed.”

Bender held his hands out. “Cuff me. Take me in. They got a doctor that comes around, right?”

I put the cuffs on Bender and looked over at Lula. “Is there a doctor?”

“They got a ward at St. Francis.”

“I bet I got anthrax,” Bender said. “Or smallpox.”

“Whatever it is, it don’t smell good,” Lula said.

“I got diarrhea. And I’m throwing up,” Bender said. “I got a runny nose and a scratchy throat. And I think I got a fever. Feel my head.”

“Yeah, right,” Lula said. “Looking forward to that opportunity.”

He swiped at his nose with his sleeve and left a smear of snot on his pajama top. He hauled his head back and sneezed and sprayed half the room.

“Hey!” Lula yelled. “Cover up! You never heard of a hankie? And what’s with that sleeve thing?”

“I’m gonna be sick,” Bender said. “I’m gonna puke again.”

“Get to the toilet!” his wife yelled. She grabbed a blue plastic bucket off the floor. “Use the bucket.”

Bender stuck his head in the bucket and threw up.

“Holy crap,” Lula said. “This is the House of Plague. I’m outta here. And you’re not putting him in my car, either,” she said to me. “You want to take him in, you can call a cab.”

Bender pulled his head out of the bucket and held his shackled hands out to me. “Okay, I’m better now. I’m ready to go.”

“Wait for me,” I said to Lula. “You were right about God.”

“IT WAS A drive to get here, but it was worth it,” Lula said, licking salt off the rim of her glass. “This is the mother of all margaritas.”

“It’s therapeutic, too. The alcohol will kill any germs we might have picked up from Bender.”

“Fuckin‘ A,” Lula said.

I sipped my drink and looked around. The bar was filled with the after-work crowd. Most of them were my age. And most of them looked happier than me.

“My life sucks,” I said to Lula.

“You’re just saying that because you had to watch Bender throw up in a bucket.”

This was partially true. Bender throwing up in a bucket did nothing to enhance my mood. “I’m thinking about getting a different job,” I said. “I want to work where these people work. They all look so happy.”

“That’s because they got here ahead of us, and they’re all snockered.”

Or it could be that none of them were being stalked by a maniac.

“I lost another pair of handcuffs,” I said to Lula. “I left them on Bender.”

Lula tipped her head back and burst out laughing. “And you want to change jobs,” she said. “Why would you want to do that when you’re so good at this one?”

IT WAS ELEVEN o’clock and most houses on my parents’ street were dark. The Burg was early to bed and early to rise.

“Sorry about Bender,” Lula said, letting the Trans Am idle at the curb. “Maybe we could tell Vinnie he died. We could say we were all set to bring Bender in, and he died. Bang. Dead as a doorknob.”

“Better yet, why don’t we just go back and kill him,” I said. I opened the door to leave, caught my toe in the floor mat, and fell out of the car, face first. I rolled onto my back and stared up at the stars. “I’m fine,” I said to Lula. “Maybe I’ll sleep here tonight.”

Ranger stepped into my line of sight, grabbed hold of my denim jacket, and pulled me to my feet. “Not a good idea, babe.” He looked over at Lula. “You can go now.”

The Trans Am laid rubber, and disappeared from view.

“I’m not drunk,” I said to Ranger. “I only had one margarita.”

His fingers were still curled into my jacket, but he softened his grip. “I understand you’re having rabbit problems.”

“Fucking rabbit.”

Ranger grinned. “You are definitely drunk.”

“I’m not drunk. I’m on the verge of being happy.” I didn’t exactly have the whirlies, but the world wasn’t totally in focus, either. I leaned against Ranger for support. “What are you doing here?”

He released my jacket and wrapped his arms around me. “I needed to talk to you.”

“You could have called.”

“I tried calling. Your phone isn’t working.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot. It was in the car when the car blew up.”

“I did some investigating on Dotty and came up with some names to check out.”

“Now?”

“Tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

“I can’t get into the bathroom until nine.”

“Okay. I’ll pick you up at nine-thirty.”

“Are you laughing? I can feel you laughing. My life isn’t funny!”

“Babe, your life should be a prime-time sitcom.”

**********************

AT PRECISELY 9:30 I stumbled out the door and stood blinking in the sunlight. I’d managed a shower, and I was fully clothed, but that was where it ended. A half hour isn’t a lot of time for a girl to get beautiful. Especially when the girl has a hangover. My hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and I had my lipstick in my jeans jacket pocket. When my hand stopped shaking, and my eyeballs stopped being burning globes, I’d try putting lipstick on.

Ranger rolled up in a shiny black Mercedes sedan and waited at the curb. Grandma was standing behind me on the other side of the door.

“I wouldn’t mind seeing him naked,” she said.

I slid onto the cream-colored leather seat beside Ranger, closed my eyes, and smiled. The car smelled wonderful, like leather and fries. “God bless you,” I said. He had fries and a Coke waiting for me on the console.

“Tank and Lester are checking campgrounds in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. They’re doing the closest ones first and then moving out. They’re looking for either of the cars, and they’re talking to people when possible. We have your list of Evelyn’s relatives, but I think they’re long shots. Evelyn would worry that they’d get in touch with Mabel. The same goes for Dotty’s relatives.

“There were four women Dotty was friendly with at work. I have their names and addresses. I think we should start with them.”

“It’s nice of you to help me with this. We aren’t really employed by anyone. This is just an issue about Annie’s safety.”

“I’m not doing this for Annie’s safety. This is about your safety. We need to get Abruzzi locked up. He’s playing with you right now. When he stops enjoying the play he’s going to get serious. If the police can’t tie him to Soder, Annie might be able to tie him to something. Multiple murders, maybe, if the drawings are from life.”

“If we bring Annie in, can we keep her safe?”

“I can keep her safe until Abruzzi is sentenced. Keeping you safe is more difficult. As long as Abruzzi is at large, nothing short of locking you in the Bat Cave for the rest of your life will keep you safe.”

Hmm. The Bat Cave for the rest of my life. “You said the Bat Cave has television, right?”

Ranger slid a sideways look my way. “Eat your fries.”

**********************

BARBARA ANN GUZMAN was first on the list. She lived in a tract house in East Brunswick, in a pleasant neighborhood filled with middle-income families. Kathy Snyder, also on the list, lived two doors down. Both houses had attached garages. Neither of the garages had windows.

Ranger parked in front of the Guzman house. “Both women should be at work.”

“Are we breaking in?”

“No, we’re knocking on the door, hoping we hear kids inside.”

We knocked twice, and we didn’t hear kids. I squeezed behind an azalea and peeked in Barbara Ann’s front window. Lights off, television off, no little shoes laying discarded on the floor.

We walked two houses down to Kathy Snyder. We rang the bell, and an older woman answered.

“I’m looking for Kathy,” I said to the woman.

“She’s at work,” the woman said. “I’m her mother. Can I help you?”

Ranger passed the woman a stack of photos. “Have you seen any of these people?”

“This is Dotty,” the woman said. “And her friend. They spent the night with Barbara Ann. Do you know Barbara Ann?”

“Barbara Ann Guzman,” Ranger said.

“Yes. Not last night. They were here the night before. A real full house for Barbara Ann.”

“Do you know where they are now?”

She looked at the photo and shook her head. “No. Kathy might know. I just saw them because I was walking. I walk around the block every night for a little exercise, and I saw them drive up.”

“Do you remember the car?” Ranger asked.

“It was just a regular car. Blue, I think.” She looked from Ranger to me. “Is something wrong?”

“The one woman, Dotty’s friend, has had some bad luck, and we’re trying to help her straighten things out,” I said.

The third woman lived in an apartment building in New Brunswick. We drove through the underground garage, methodically going up and down rows, looking for Dotty’s blue Honda or Evelyn’s gray Sentra. We scored a goose egg on that, so we parked and took the elevator to the sixth floor. We knocked on Pauline Wood’s door and got no answer. We tried neighboring apartments, but no one responded. Ranger knocked one last time on Pauline’s door and then let himself in. I stayed outside doing lookout. Five minutes later, Ranger was back in the hall, Pauline’s door locked behind him.

“The apartment was clean,” he said. “Nothing to indicate Dotty was there. No forwarding address for her displayed in a prominent place.”

We left the parking garage and drove through town on our way to Highland Park. New Brunswick is a college town with Rutgers at the one end and Douglass College at the other. I graduated from Douglass without distinction. I was in the top ninety-eight percent of my class and damn glad to be there. I slept in the library and daydreamed my way through history lecture. I failed math twice, never fully grasping probability theory. I mean, first off, who cares if you pick a black ball or a white ball out of the bag? And second, if you’re bent over about the color, don’t leave it to chance. Look in the damn bag and pick the color you want.

By the time I reached college age, I’d given up all hope of flying like Superman, but I was never able to develop a burning desire for an alternative occupation. When I was a kid I read Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comics. Uncle Scrooge was always going off to exotic places in search of gold. After Scrooge got the gold, he’d take it back to his money bin and push his loose change around with a bulldozer. Now this was my idea of a good job. Go on an adventure. Bring back gold. Push it around with a bulldozer. How fun is this? So you can possibly see the reason for my lack of motivation to get grades. I mean, do you really need good grades to drive a bulldozer?

“I went to college here,” I said to Ranger. “It’s been a bunch of years, but I still feel like a student when I ride through town.”

“Were you a good student?”

“I was a terrible student. Somehow the state managed to educate me in spite of myself. Did you go to college?”

“Rutgers, Newark. Joined the army after two years.”

When I first met Ranger I would have been surprised by this. Now, nothing surprised me about Ranger.

“The last woman on the list should be at work, but her husband should be at home,”

Ranger said. “He works food service for the university and goes in at four. The guy’s name is Harold Bailey. His wife’s name is Louise.”

We wound our way through a neighborhood of older homes. They were mostly twostory clapboards with the front porch stretching the width of the house and a single detached garage to the rear. They weren’t big, and they weren’t small. Many had been badly renovated with fake brick front or add-on front rooms made by enclosing the porch.

We parked and approached the Bailey house. Ranger rang the bell and, just as expected, a man answered the door. Ranger introduced himself and handed the man the photographs.

“We’re looking for Evelyn Soder,” Ranger said. “We were hoping you might be able to help. Have you seen any of these people in the last couple days?”

“Why are you looking for this Soder woman?”

“Her ex-husband has been killed. Evelyn has been moving around lately, and her grandmother has lost touch with her. She’d like to make sure Evelyn knows about the death.”

“She was here with Dotty last night. They came just as I was leaving. They stayed overnight and left in the morning. I didn’t see much of them. And I don’t know where they were off to today. They were taking the little girls on some sort of field trip. Historical places. That sort of thing. Louise might know more. You could try reaching her at work.”

We returned to the car, and Ranger took us out of the neighborhood.

“We’re always one step behind,” I said.

“That’s the way it is with missing children. I’ve worked a lot of parental abduction cases, and they move around. Usually they go farther from home. And usually they stay in one place longer than a night. But the pattern is the same. By the time information on them comes in, they’re usually gone.”

“How do you catch them?”

“Persistence and patience. If you stick with it long enough, eventually you win. Sometimes it takes years.”

“Omigod, I haven’t got years. I’ll have to hide in the Bat Cave.”

“Once you go into the Bat Cave it’s forever, babe.”

Eeek.

“Try calling the women,” Ranger said. “The work number is in the file.”

Barbara Ann and Kathy were cautious. Both admitted that they’d seen Dotty and Evelyn and knew they were also visiting Louise. Both insisted they didn’t know where the women were going next. I suspected they were telling the truth. I thought it was possible Evelyn and Dotty were only thinking a day ahead. My best guess was that they’d intended to camp and for some reason that hadn’t worked out. Now they were scrambling to stay hidden.

Pauline had been entirely out of the loop.

Louise was the most talkative, probably because she was also the most worried.

“They would only stay the one night,” she said. “I know what you’re telling me about Evelyn’s husband is true, but I know there’s more. The kids were exhausted and wanted to go home. Evelyn and Dotty looked exhausted, too. They wouldn’t talk about it, but I know they were running away from something. I was thinking it was Evelyn’s husband, but I guess that’s not it. Holy Mother of God,” she said. “You don’t suppose they killed him!”

“No,” I said, “he was killed by a rabbit. One more thing, did you see the car they were driving? Were they all in one car?”

“It was Dotty’s car. The blue Honda. Apparently, Evelyn had a car but it was stolen when they left it at a campground. She said they went out grocery shopping and when they came back the car and everything they owned was gone. Can you imagine?”

I gave her my home phone number and asked her to call if she thought of anything that might be helpful.

“Dead end,” I said to Ranger. “But I know why they vacated the campground.” I told him about the stolen car.

“The more likely scenario is that Dotty and Evelyn came back after shopping, saw a strange car parked next to Evelyn’s, and they abandoned everything,” Ranger said.

“And when they didn’t return, Abruzzi cleaned them out.”

“It’s what I’d do,” Ranger said. “Anything to slow them down and make things difficult.”

We were driving through Highland Park, approaching the bridge over the Raritan River. We were out of leads again, but at least we’d gotten some information. We didn’t know where Evelyn was now, but we knew where she’d been. And we knew she no longer had the Sentra.

Ranger stopped for a light and turned to me. “When was the last time you shot a gun?”

he asked.

“A couple days ago. I shot a snake. Is this a trick question?”

“This is a serious question. You should be carrying a gun. And you should feel comfortable shooting it.”

“Okay, I promise, next time I go out, I’ll take my gun with me.”

“You’ll put bullets in it?”

I hesitated.

Ranger glanced over at me. “You will put bullets in it.”

“Sure,” I said.

He reached out, opened the glove compartment, and took out a gun. It was a Smith & Wesson .38 five-shot special. It looked a lot like my gun.

“I stopped by your apartment this morning and picked this up for you,” Ranger said. “I found it in the cookie jar.”

“Tough guys always keep their gun in the cookie jar.”

“Name one.”

“Rockford.”

Ranger grinned. “I stand corrected.” He took a road that ran along the river, and after a half mile he turned into a parking area that led to a large warehouse-type building.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Shooting gallery. You’re going to practice using your gun.”

I knew this was necessary, but I hated the noise, and I hated the mechanics of the gun. I didn’t like the idea that I was holding a device that essentially created small explosions. I was always sure something would go wrong, and I’d blow my thumb clear off my hand. Ranger got me outfitted with ear protectors and goggles. He laid out the rounds and set the gun on the shelf in my assigned space. He brought the paper target in to twenty feet. If I was ever going to shoot someone, chances were good they’d be close to me.

“Okay, Tex,” he said, “let’s see what you’ve got.”

I loaded and fired.

“Good,” Ranger said. “Let’s try it with your eyes open this time.”

He adjusted my grip and my stance. I tried again.

“Better,” Ranger said.

I practiced until my arm ached, and I couldn’t pull the trigger anymore.

“How do you feel about the gun now?” Ranger asked.

“I feel more comfortable. But I still don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it.”

It was late afternoon when we left the gallery, and we ran into rush hour traffic going back through town. I have no patience for traffic. If I was driving I’d be cussing and banging my head against the steering wheel. Ranger was unfazed, in his zone. Zen calm. Several times I could swear he stopped breathing.

When we hit gridlock approaching Trenton, Ranger took an exit, cut down a side street, and parked in a small lot set between brick storefront businesses and three-story row houses. The street was narrow and felt dark, even during daylight hours. Storefront windows were dirty with faded displays. Black spray-painted graffiti covered the firstfloor fronts of the row houses. If at that very moment someone staggered out of a row house, blood gushing from bullet holes in multiple places on his body, it wouldn’t take me by surprise. I peered out the windshield and bit into my lower lip. “We aren’t going to the Bat Cave, are we?”

“No, babe. We’re going to Shorty’s for pizza.”

A small neon sign hung over the door of the building adjoining the lot. Sure enough, the sign said Shorty’s. The two small windows in the front of the building had been blacked out with paint. The door was heavy wood and windowless.

I looked over my shoulder at Ranger. “The pizza is good here?” I tried not to let my voice waver, but it sounded squeezed and far away in my head. It was the voice of fear. Maybe fear is too strong a word. After the past week maybe fear should be reserved for lifethreatening situations. But then again, maybe fear was appropriate.

“The pizza is good here,” Ranger said, and he pushed the door open for me. The sudden wash of noise and pizza fumes almost knocked me to my knees. It was dark inside Shorty’s, and it was packed. Booths lined the walls and tables cluttered the middle of the room. An old-fashioned jukebox blasted out music from a far corner. Mostly there were men in Shorty’s. The women who were there looked like they could hold their own. The men were in work boots and jeans. They were old and young, their faces lined from years of sun and cigarettes. They looked like they didn’t need gun instruction. We got a booth in a corner that was dark enough not to be able to see bloodstains or roaches. Ranger looked comfortable, his back to the wall, black shirt blending into the shadows.

The waitress was dressed in a white Shorty’s T-shirt and a short black skirt. She had big hooters, a lot of brown curly hair, and more mascara than I’d ever managed, even on my most insecure day. She smiled at Ranger like she knew him better than I did. “What’ll it be?” she asked.

“Pizza and beer,” Ranger said.

“Do you come here a lot?” I asked him.

“Often enough. We keep a safe house in the neighborhood. Half the people in here are local. Half come from a truck stop on the next block.”

The waitress dropped cardboard coasters on the scarred wood table and put a frosted glass of beer on each.

“I thought you didn’t drink,” I said to Ranger. “You know, the-body-is-a-temple thing?

And now wine at my apartment and beer at Shorty’s.”

“I don’t drink when I’m working. And I don’t get drunk. And the body is only a temple four days a week.”

“Wow,” I said, “you’re going to hell in a handbasket, eating pizza and boozing it up three days a week. I thought I noticed a little extra fat around the middle.”

Ranger raised an eyebrow. “A little extra fat around the middle. Anything else?”

“Maybe the beginnings of a double chin.”

Truth is, Ranger didn’t have fat anywhere. Ranger was perfect. And we both knew it. He drank some beer and studied me. “Don’t you think you’re taking a chance, baiting me, when I’m the only thing standing between you and the guy at the bar with the snake tattooed on his forehead?”

I looked at the guy with the snake. “He seems like a nice guy.” Nice for a homicidal maniac.

Ranger smiled. “He works for me.”

12

THE SUN WAS setting when we got back to the car.

“That was possibly the best pizza I’ve ever had,” I said to Ranger. “Overall, it was a frightening experience, but the pizza was great.”

“Shorty makes it himself.”

“Does Shorty work for you, too?”

“Yeah. He caters all my cocktail parties.”

More Ranger humor. At least, I was pretty sure it was humor.

**********************

RANGER REACHED HAMILTON Avenue and glanced over at me. “Where are you staying tonight?”

“My parents’ house.”

He turned into the Burg. “I’ll have Tank drop a car off for you. You can use it until you replace the CR-V. Or until you destroy it.”

“Where do you get all these cars from?”

“You don’t actually want to know, do you?”

I took a beat to think about it. “No,” I said. “I don’t suppose I do. If I knew, you’d have to kill me, right?”

“Something like that.”

He stopped in front of my parents’ house, and we both looked to the door. My mother and my grandmother were standing there, watching us.

“I’m not sure I feel comfortable about the way your grandma looks at me,” Ranger said.

“She wants to see you naked.”

“I wish you hadn’t told me that, babe.”

“Everyone I know wants to see you naked.”

“And you?”

“Never crossed my mind.” I held my breath when I said it, and I hoped God didn’t strike me down dead for lying. I hopped out of the car and ran inside.

Grandma Mazur was waiting for me in the foyer. “The darnedest thing happened this afternoon,” she said. “I was walking home from the bakery, and a car pulled up alongside me. And there was a rabbit in it. He was driving. And he handed me one of them post office mailing envelopes, and he said I should give the envelope to you. It all happened so fast. And as soon as he drove away I remembered that it was a rabbit that set fire to your car. Do you think it could be the same rabbit?”

Ordinarily I would have asked questions. What kind of car and did you get the plate? In this case the questions were useless. The cars were always different. And they were always stolen.

I took the sealed envelope from her, carefully opened it, and looked inside. Photos. Snapshots of me, sleeping on my parents’ couch. They were taken last night. Someone had let themselves into the house and stood there, watching me sleep. And then photographed me. All without my knowledge. Whoever it was had picked a good night. I’d slept like the dead thanks to the giant margarita and the sleepless night before.

“What’s in the envelope?” Grandma wanted to know. “Looks like photographs.”

“Nothing very interesting,” I said. “I think it was a prank rabbit.”

My mother looked like she knew better, but she didn’t say anything. By the end of the night we’ll have a fresh batch of cookies, and she’ll have done all the ironing. That’s my mother’s form of stress management.

I borrowed the Buick, and I drove to Morelli’s house. He lived just outside the Burg, in a neighborhood closely resembling the Burg, less than a quarter mile from my parents‘. He’d inherited the house from his aunt, and it turned out to be a good fit. Life is surprising. Joe Morelli, the scourge of Trenton High, biker, babe magnet, barroom brawler, now a semirespectable property owner. Somehow, over the years, Morelli had grown up. No small feat for a male member of that family.

Bob rushed at me when he saw me at the door. His eyes were happy, and he pranced around and wagged his tail. Morelli was more contained.

“What’s up?” Morelli said, checking out my T-shirt.

“Something very creepy just happened to me.”

“Boy, that’s a surprise.”

“Creepier than normal.”

“Do I need a drink before you tell me this?”

I handed him the photos.

“Nice,” he said, “but I’ve seen you sleep on several occasions.”

“These were taken last night without my knowledge. A big rabbit stopped Grandma on the street today and told her to give these to me.”

He raised his eyes to look at me. “Are you telling me someone let themselves into your parents’ house and took these pictures while you were asleep?”

“Yes.” I’d been trying to stay calm, but deep inside I was ruined. The idea that someone, Abruzzi himself, or one of his men, had stood over me and watched me sleep had me completely unnerved. I felt violated and vulnerable.

“This guy has a lot of balls,” Morelli said. His voice was calm enough when he said it, but the line of his mouth tightened, and I knew he was struggling to control his anger. A younger Morelli would have thrown a chair through a window.

“I don’t mean to be critical of the Trenton police,” I said, “but wouldn’t you think someone could catch this goddamn rabbit? He’s riding around, handing out photos.”

“Were the doors locked last night?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of lock?”

“A dead bolt.”

“It doesn’t take an expert long to open a dead bolt. Can you get your parents to put a security chain on?”

“I can try. I don’t want to scare them with these photos. They love their house, and they feel safe there. I don’t want to take that away from them.”

“Yes, but you’re being stalked by a crazy person.”

We were standing in the small front hall, and Bob was pressing against me, snuffling into my leg. I looked down, and there was a big wet spot of Bob drool just above my knee. I scratched the top of his head and ruffled his ears. “I need to get out of my parents’ house. Take the action away from them.”

“You know you can stay here.”

“And endanger you?”

“I’m used to being endangered.”

This was true. But this was also the basis for almost every argument we had. And it was the primary reason for our breakup. That and my inability to commit. Morelli didn’t want a bounty hunter wife. He didn’t want the mother of his children regularly dodging bullets. I guess I can’t blame him.

“Thanks,” I said. “I might take you up on it. I can also ask Ranger to put me in one of his safe houses. Or I can return to my apartment. If I go back to my apartment I need to have a security system installed. I don’t want to come home to any more surprises.”

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the money for a security system. As it was, it didn’t matter because I couldn’t bring myself to come within fifty feet of the cootie couch.

“What are you going to do tonight?”

“I need to stay in my parents’ house and make sure no one breaks in again. Tomorrow I’ll move out. I think they’ll be safe once I’m gone.”

“You’re going to stay up all night?”

“Yep. You could come over later if you want, and we could play Monopoly.”

Morelli grinned. “Monopoly, hunh? How could I pass that one up? What time does your grandmother go to bed?”

“After the eleven o’clock news.”

“I’ll be over around twelve.”

I fiddled with Bob’s ear.

“What?” Morelli asked.

“It’s about us.”

“There’s no us.”

“It feels like there’s some us.”

“This is what I think. I think there’s you and me, and sometimes we’re together. But there’s no us.”

“That feels a little lonely,” I said.

“Don’t make this more difficult than it already is,” Morelli said. I packed myself off in the Buick and went in search of a toy store. An hour later, I was done with my shopping, back in the car, heading for home. I stopped for a light on Hamilton, and a split second later, I was rear-ended. Not a big crash. More like a bump. Enough to make the Buick sway, but not enough to push me. My first reaction was my mother’s standard reply to anything that was going to make her life more complicated: Why me? I doubted there was much damage, but it was going to be a pain in the ass all the same. I yanked the emergency brake on and put the Buick in park. Probably I needed to go out and do the examine-for-dents bullshit. I blew out a sigh and looked in my rearview mirror.

I couldn’t see much in the dark, but what I could see wasn’t good. I saw ears. Big rabbit ears on the guy in the driver’s seat. I swiveled in my seat and squinted out the rear window. The rabbit backed his car up about ten feet and rammed me again. Harder this time. Enough to make the Buick jump forward.