The hush in the place felt thick as a quilt. A few people mumbled condolences toward Dolly as she knocked her way through the tables. Nobody dared to stop her. She slid in across from me, took off her hat and settled it on the seat beside her. She plumped up her striped hair and fixed me with a sour look.

“They know about Chet, don’t they?”

“How long did you think it would stay a secret?”

She made a derisive noise. “What’re they saying? They think I deserve it, you know, because of all the tickets I give out.”

I shook my head and sipped at my tea which had finally cooled below a hundred and fifty degrees. “Everybody’s sorry. Every one of them. You’ll have to talk to people sooner or later. If nothing else, you should let them get it off their chest or they’ll burst wide open.”

“Yes,” she said, and grunted “coffee” from the side of her mouth when Gloria sidled up to our table. “Talked to his sister. She’s coming up when Lansing’s through with ’im. Gonna stay with me. We’ll plan a funeral.”

“Dolly, I’ve got to warn you …” I took a deep breath and halfway covered my mouth. “A man from the Odawa came to my house.”

She grimaced. “Same one from out to the lake?”

I shook my head. “Different. Older. But he’s determined.” I swallowed hard. “And Dolly, he said they know you took something from the crime scene. He’s going to Chief Barnard about it, and maybe even the state police.”

“Damn,” Dolly swore.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Looks bad for me. Actually, the chief could relieve me of duty. Put me on administrative leave until it’s all cleared up.”

“That’s not going to help anybody.”

“I know, I know …” Dolly rubbed at her chin with the back of her right hand, then bit at her lip a few times. “Only thing is for me to tell the chief myself.”

“That’s what I was thinking. If you need me, I’ll go with you. You know, back up what you did and why you did it …”

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

“You did when we went out to Sandy Lake.”

All I got was a nasty look. I felt in the pocket of my denim jacket and handed her the folded paper the man had left with me.

“What’s this?”

“That’s the Indian’s number,” I said. “He didn’t give me a name.”

Dolly thought a minute. “I’d better get over to the Council. See if I can talk to them. Explain what I took and why. Can’t hurt.”

I shook my head. “The chief first. You owe him. If he hears from somebody else, it will only be worse for you.”

At first she protested, then settled down and sat thinking, her watery eyes on me. “OK. So, what’d you find on missing girls or women?”

“Four that year.”

She nodded. “Anybody a possible?”

“Only one sounds Indian.”

Gloria came to take our order. She mumbled a few words of condolence toward Dolly. Dolly took it pretty well. She even reached out to touch one of Gloria’s hands and thank her. The special was liver and onions. I ordered a cheeseburger. Dolly had the salad bar and a bowl of leek soup.

“One from Traverse City.” I read from my notes after our food came. “Lisa Valient, age sixteen, five foot two, blond—short hair, blue eyes. Last seen on Front Street in Traverse City talking to an unidentified male. The report came from her mother, Fern Valient, of Washington Street.”

Dolly made her own notes in a tiny notebook.

“There was a Tricia Robbins of Kalkaska,” I went on. “Eighteen. Five-seven. Brown hair and eyes. She went missing in April 1994. Her father said she’d run off before but never for this long.”

“Un-huh.”

“Bambi Lincoln of Mancelona. Seventeen. Five-six. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Last seen on her way to school. Reported missing after a week by her sister, Tanya Lincoln, of Elk Rapids.

“Then there’s this next one: June 1994: Mary Naquma. Nineteen. Five foot two. Long, dark hair. Dark eyes. Reported missing by a friend: Lena Smith, of Peshawbestown. Last seen at the Tracy Beauty School in Traverse City, where both girls studied. Mary never came back to school. Never called anybody. Her friend said it was not like her. All Lena Smith knew about Mary was that she’d once said she lived out on a lake beyond Leetsville.”

Dolly’s eyes popped open. “She’s the only one sounds Native American. Naquma—got to be an Indian name.”

“So? Who do we contact? This Lena Smith?”

“Think so. We gotta get out there. I’m talking to the chief tonight. Could be a private citizen tomorrow.”

“Well, maybe I could go in the morning …”

“Can’t. I’m talking to the kindergarten about stranger safety. Have to go in the afternoon.”

We settled into our food just as Eugenia came bearing down on us.

“Dolly.” Eugenia pushed Dolly over with her ample behind and sat next to her. “Everybody in this whole darn place wants to tell you how sorry they are for your loss, and you’re blowing everybody off.”

“Nobody said nothing and all I did was come in and sit down,” Dolly said through a mouthful of cheese ball and crackers.

“You know how you are. What they all want to say …,” Eugenia swept one arm wide, taking in all those staring at us, “… is that if you need anything at all, why, we’re all here for you.”

Dolly lowered her head and kept chewing hard at those crackers. I smiled and made a face at Eugenia, who got it right away. She changed the subject.

“And you know what else, Dolly?”

Curious this time, Dolly looked up and kind of sideways at Eugenia.

“I know how important family is to you and now you’ve gone and lost Chet.”

Dolly nodded and added pickled beets to the cheese in her mouth.

“I think I’ve reached the end of my own family, with that poor soul hanging out in my foyer, so I thought I’d start looking up some of your people.”

Dolly’s face remained still. She chewed, then stared off beyond me. It seemed there was a tug of war going on in her head. Maybe it was just the word “family” that got to her.

“I got family still,” she said, talking down to her plate. “My sister-in-law’s coming up soon. We got to plan Chet’s funeral.”

“I’m talking about your own people, Dolly. You must’ve had a mother and a father. Who knows who else is out there? People find relatives all the time on the Internet. What you got to do is know how to look. Well, I know how to look.”

Dolly frowned over at me. I couldn’t tell if she needed my help getting rid of Eugenia or if she was thinking over the idea.

“Not much to go on.”

“As I was saying to Emily, you didn’t pop out of a pumpkin.”

Dolly considered the possibility.

“Want to give me your birth name?”

“All I know is Delores Flynn. Not even sure that’s real or something one of those foster mothers stuck on me.”

“I can start with that. You know your mother’s name?”

Dolly made a noise. “I don’t know a thing about that woman. Nobody ever could tell me who she was, why she left me, nothing.”

Eugenia nodded. “There’s a lot in that boat with you. What about your father?”

“You kidding?” Dolly looked at Eugenia as if she suspected madness. “Well, maybe he was called Harold. Seems somebody at one of the homes told me that much. She had papers on me, or something from social services.”

“Brothers? Sisters? Aunts? Uncles?”

Dolly’s face got red. She had had about enough of Eugenia’s prying. “Nobody, I told you. And, you know what, Eugenia? I like it that way. I wish you wouldn’t go rooting around looking for people who never gave a damn about me and who I don’t care about either. Got enough family with Chet, now his sister, maybe someday I’ll meet his mother.”

“Don’t go getting overexcited. I said I’d try. If I find anything, I’ll hang it right up out there with my folks. If I don’t find anything you won’t see nothing of yours there.”

Dolly gave Eugenia a slight push, to prod her up and out. “Go ahead. If I see anything hanging I don’t like I’ll take it right back down. If that’s all right with you, well, OK.”

Eugenia shrugged. “Ya never know, Dolly. Look at the long line of fine people I come from.”

Dolly gave Eugenia a harder shove, forcing her to the end of the seat and then up to stand beside our booth.

“Yours were all hung, Eugenia. Is that what you’re going to come up with for me?”

Eugenia smiled and waved a hand at Dolly. “Not all of ’em. A couple were just tarred and feathered. I think that’s kind of interesting, don’t you?”

Dolly felt in her pants pocket, drew out a ten dollar bill, and headed for the cash register.

I hurried after her. I thought she needed somebody with her for a while. And I sure wasn’t going to leave her swinging in the wind at this point.