TWO

I ROLLED OUT of bed a little after eight A. M. and went to the window. Not snowing or sleeting, but not great weather either. Gray skies, and it looked cold. Morelli was gone. He'd caught a double homicide at ten last night and never returned. Bob had stayed with me, and Bob was now pacing between my bedroom and the front door.

I pulled on some sweats, stuffed my feet into my boots, grabbed my coat, and hooked Bob up to his leash.

"Okay, big guy," I said to Bob. "Lets make tracks."

We walked around a couple blocks until Bob was empty, and then we went back to my apartment for breakfast. I made coffee, and while the coffee brewed, Bob and I ate the cold spaghetti.

I dropped a couple noodles into Rex's food dish, and gave him fresh water. There was some upheaval in the wood chips in front of the soup can, Rexs nose poked through and did some twitching, and Rex emerged. He scurried to his food dish, packed the noodles into his cheeks, and scurried back to his soup can. This is pretty much the extent of my relationship with Rex. Still, he was a heartbeat in the apartment, and I loved him.

I carried my coffee into the bathroom and took a long, hot shower. I blasted my hair with the hair dryer and swiped some mascara on my lashes. I got dressed in a sweater and jeans and boots, and took the phone and my paperwork into the dining room. I was working my way through Diggery s neighbors and a second cup of coffee when I heard the lock tumble on my front door.

Morelli strolled into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. "I have news."

"Good news or bad news?"

"Hard to tell," Morelli said. "I guess it depends on your point of view. Dickie Orr is missing."

"And?"

"Forced entry on his front door. Blood on the floor. Two bullets extracted from his living room wall. Skid marks on the wood floor in the foyer as if something had been dragged across it."

"Get out!"

"Police responded when his neighbors called saying they heard shots. Chip Burlew and Barrelhead Baker were the first on the scene. They got there a few minutes before midnight. Front door open. No Dickie. And it gets better. Marty Gobel caught the case, and when he talked to Dickie s office first thing this morning everyone fingered you."

"Why would they do that?"

"Possibly because you went gonzo on him yesterday?"

"Oh yeah. I forgot."

"What was that about?"

"Lula and Connie and I wanted to get some legal advice, and I sort of lost it when I saw a picture of Dickie and Joyce Barnhardt. He had it on his desk."

"I thought you were over Dickie."

"Turns out there was some hostility left."

And now Dickie might be dead, and I wasn't sure what I felt. It seemed meanspirited to be happy, but I wasn't experiencing a lot of remorse. The best I could manage on short notice was that there would be a hole in my life where Dickie used to reside. But then, maybe not. Maybe there wasn't even much of a hole.

Morelli sipped his coffee. He was wearing a gray sweatshirt under a navy jacket, and his black hair curled over his ears and fell across his forehead. I had a flashback of him in bed when his hair was damp against the nape of his neck, and his eyes were dilated black and focused on me.

"Good thing I have an alibi," I said.

"And that would be what?"

"You were here."

"I left at ten to take the murders in the Berringer Building."

Uh oh. "Do you think I killed Dickie?" I asked Morelli.

"No. You were naked and satisfied when I left. I can't see you leaving that mellow state and going off to Dickie's house."

"Let me analyze this a little," I said to Morelli. "Your expertise in bed is my alibi."

"Pretty much."

"Do you think that will hold up in a court of law?"

"No, but it'll look good for me in the tabloids."

"And if it wasn't for all that good sex and spaghetti, you'd think I was capable of killing Dickie?"

"Cupcake, I think you're capable of most anything."

Morelli was grinning, and I knew he was playing with me, but there was some truth in what he was saying as well.

"I have limits," I told him.

He slipped an arm around my waist and kissed my neck. "Fortunately, not too many."

Okay, so probably I should tell Morelli about Ranger and the bugging, but things were going so well I hated to put a fly in the ointment. If I tell Morelli about the bugging, he'll do his Italian thing, yelling at me and waving his arms and forbidding me to work with Ranger. Then, since I'm of Hungarian descent on my mother's side, I'll have to do my Hungarian thing and glare at him, hands on hips, and tell him I'll work with whoever I damn well want. Then he'll stomp out of my apartment, and I won't see him for a week, during which time we'll both be upset.

"Are you staying for a while?" I asked Morelli.

"No. I need to talk to someone in Hamilton Township about the Berringer murders. I was passing by and thought you'd want to know about Dickie." Morelli looked over my shoulder at the open file. "Diggery again? What's he done this time?"

"Got drunk and trashed a bar on Ninth Street with his shovel. Smashed about two thousand dollars' worth of booze and glassware, and chased the bartender down the street."

"You aren't spending the night in the cemetery, are you?"

"Wasn't planning on it. The ground is frozen. Diggery will wait until someone new is planted and the digging is easier. I checked the obits. No one was buried yesterday, and there aren't any funerals today. Is there a specific reason you're interested, or are you just making conversation?"

"I was thinking about the leftover spaghetti."

"Bob and I ate it for breakfast."

"In that case, I'll bring dinner," Morelli said. "Do you have a preference? Chinese? Pizza? Fried chicken?"

"Surprise me."

Morelli set his cup on the dining room table and kissed the top of my head. "Gotta go. I'll take Bob with me."

And Morelli and Bob were gone.

I dialed Lula. "I'm not having any luck getting information out of Diggery s relatives. I'm going to take a ride over there and look around for myself. Do you want to ride along?"

"Hell no. Last time we were in his shithole trailer, you opened a closet door and a twentyfoot snake fell out."

"You can stay in the car. That way, if the snake gets me, and you don't see me after an hour's gone by, you can call to have someone haul my cold dead body out of the house."

"As long as I don't have to get out of the car."

"I'll pick you up in a half hour."

I gathered my files together, turned my computer off, and called Ranger.

"Yo," Ranger said.

"Yo yourself. Dickie's disappeared."

"That's what I hear."

"I have a few questions."

"It wouldn't be smart to answer those questions on the phone," Ranger said.

"I'm going out with Lula this morning to look for Diggery, but maybe we can get together this afternoon."

"Keep your eyes open for the snake."

And Ranger disconnected.

I bundled myself up in my big quilted coat, scarf, and gloves, took the elevator to the lobby, and pushed out into the cold. I walked to the burgundy Crown Vic and gave it a kick to the driver's side door with my boot.

"I hate you," I said to the car.

I got in, cranked the engine over, and drove to the office.

Lula came out when I drove up. She wrenched the passenger side door open and looked in at me. "What the heck is this?"

"A Crown Vic."

"I know it's a Crown Vic. Everybody knows a Crown Vic. What are you doing driving one? Three days ago, you were driving an Escape."

"A tree fell on it. It was totaled."

"Must have been a big tree."

"Are you going to get in?"

"I'm weighing the consequences. People see me in this they think I'm arrested again. It's gonna be damaging to my good reputation. Even without that, it'll be humiliating. Hard enough being hot without overcoming a humiliating automotive experience. I got a image to think about."

"We could use your car."

"Yeah, but suppose by some miracle you catch Diggery? I'm not putting his moldy ass in my Firebird."

"Well, I'm not driving to Bordentown in this POS all by myself. I'll buy you lunch if you'll get in the car."

Lula slid onto the passenger seat and buckled up. "I got a craving for a Cluck Burger Deluxe today. And a large fries. And maybe one of them Clucky Apple Pies."

I had sixteen dollars and fiftyseven cents in my purse, and it had to last me until I brought in a skip and got a new infusion of money. Twofifty for a Cluck Burger Deluxe. A dollarfifty for fries. Another dollar for the pie. Then she'd need a drink. And I'd get a bargainmeal cheeseburger for ninetynine cents. That would give me ten dollars left for an emergency. Good thing Morelli was bringing dinner.

I took Hamilton to Broad and headed south. I thought I was hearing a strange grinding sound coming from under the hood, so I turned the radio up.

"You're not gonna guess what Connie picked up on the police band this morning," Lula said. "Dickie's missing, and it don't look good. There was blood and bullets all over the place. Hope you got a alibi."

"I was with Morelli." Earlier in the evening.

"Don't come much better than that Lula said.

"Did you hear if they have any suspects?"

"You mean besides you?"

"Yeah."

"Nope. You're it, so far as I could tell." Lula cut her eyes to me. "I don't suppose it was you."

"No."

"Okay, so it wasn't you directly, but it might have had something to do with the bugs you put on him."

"You didn't just say that. And you're never going to say that again," I said to Lula. "In fact, yesterday you didn't see or hear anything about bugs."

"I must have hallucinated it."

"Exactly."

"My lips are sealed."

I turned off South Broad and took Route to Groveville Road. I crossed the railroad tracks and started looking for the road that led to Diggery's house.

"This don't look familiar," Lula said.

"That's because we were here in the summer last time."

"I think it's 'cause we're in the wrong place. You should have MapQuested this," Lula said. "I always MapQuest."

"We're not in the wrong place. We just missed a road."

"Do you know the name of the road?"

"No."

"See, you needed to MapQuest."

A rustedout pickup blew past us. It had a gun rack across the back window, a Grateful Dead sticker on the bumper, and a rebel flag flying from the antenna. It looked to me like it belonged in Diggery's neighborhood, so I hung a Uturn and kept it in sight, leaving Groveville Road for a winding twolane road strewn with potholes.

"This looks more like it," Lula said, watching the countryside fly by. "I remember some of these pathetic excuses for a house."

We passed a shanty constructed of tar paper and particleboard, eased around a bend in the road, and Diggery's trailer was to the left, set back about fifty feet. I continued driving until I was out of sight of the trailer. I turned around, cruised past Diggery's again, and parked just beyond the bend. If Diggery saw me parking in front of his house, he'd be halfway to Newark by the time I got out of my car.

"I don't think anybody's home," Lula said. "I didn't see any cars in the yard."

"I'm going to snoop around anyway. Are you coming?"

"I suppose, but if I see that snake, I'm outta there. I hate snakes. I don't care if that snake wraps itself around your neck, I'm telling you right now, I'm not staying to help."

Diggery lived on a sad patch of parched and frozen hardscrabble. His doublewide trailer had rust stains running from top to bottom, with cankerous rot eating at the trailer floor. The piece of junk was set a foot off the ground on cinderblocks and was held together with duct tape. Grave robbing obviously didn't pay all that well. There were hardwoods behind the trailer. No leaves at this time of year, just barren, naked stalks of trees. It was late morning, but there was little light filtering through the thick gray cloud cover.

"There's a back door on the other side," I said to Lula. "You take the back door, and I'll take the front door."

"The hell I will," Lula said. "First off, I don't want no Diggery opening that door and knocking me on my ass trying to get to the woods. And second well, that's all there is. There's no second. I'm going in behind you, so I can be first out if the snake s there."

There was no answer when I knocked on the door, but then I hadn't expected an answer. The little Diggery's were in school. The big Diggery's were probably picking through Dumpsters, looking for lunch. I pushed the door open and cautiously looked inside. I flipped a switch by the door and a fortywatt bulb blinked on in what might pass for the living room. I stepped in and listened for rustling, slithering sounds.

Lula stuck her head in and sniffed the air. "I smell snake," she said.

I didn't know what a snake smelled like, but I suspected it was a lot like a Diggery.

"Snoop around and see if you can find something that tells us where Simon is working," I said to Lula. "A pay stub, a matchbook, a map with a big orange X on it."

"We should have brought rubber gloves," Lula said. "I bet this place is covered with snake spit."

"The snake stuff is getting old," I said to her. "Could you back off from the snake stuff?"

"Just trying to be vigilant. If you don't want me reminding you to be careful, hey, okay by me. You're on your own."

Lula opened a closet door and a mop fell out at her.

"Snake!" Lula screamed. "Snake, snake, snake!" And she ran out of the trailer.

I looked out at Lula. "It was a mop."

"Are you sure? It looked like a snake to me."

"It was a mop."

"I think I wet my pants."

"Too much information," I said to her.

Lula crept back into the trailer and looked at the mop lying on the floor. "Scared the bejeezus out of me," she said.

We made our way through the living area and the kitchen. We looked through a tiny bedroom that was stacked with bunks. We opened the door to the master bedroom and there it was the snake. It was curled on the bed, and it was looking at us with lazy snake eyes. It had a lump in its throat that was about the size of the family dog, or maybe a small Diggery.

I was paralyzed with fear and horror and gobstopping fascination. My feet wouldn't move, and I could barely breathe.

'"We're disturbing him," Lula whispered. "We should leave now and let him finish his breakfast."

The snake swallowed and the lump moved six inches farther down its throat.

"Oh crap," Lula whispered.

And next thing I knew, I was in my car.

"How did I get in the car?" I asked Lula.

"You let out a shriek and ran out of the trailer and all the way here. I bet I got footprints on my back where you ran over me."

I slouched in my seat and concentrated on getting my heart to stop racing. "That wasn't a snake. Snakes aren't that big, are they?"

"It was the snake from hell. It was a motherfucking mutant reptile." Lula shook her finger at me. "I told you we didn't want to go in there. You wouldn't listen."

I was still shaky enough that I had to twohand the key to get it in the ignition. "Took me by surprise," I said.

"Yeah, me too," Lula said. "Do I get my lunch now?"

I dropped Lula at the office and looked at my watch. It was a little after one. I had more skips sitting in my bag, waiting to get found, but I was having a hard time working up enthusiasm for the whole bounty hunter thing. I decided procrastination was the way to go, so I called Morelli.

"Is there anything new on Dickie?" I asked him.

"No. As far as I know, he's still missing. Where are you?"

"I'm in my car in front of the office, and I'm trying to calm myself."

I could hear Morelli smile over the phone line. "How's the snake?"

"Big."

"Did you catch a Diggery?"

"No. Didn't even come close."

I disconnected Morelli and called Ranger.

"Can we talk?" I asked him.

"Your place or mine?"

"Yours."

"I'm parked behind you."

I looked in my rearview mirror and locked eyes with him. He was in the Porsche Cayenne.

"Sometimes you freak me out," I said to Ranger.

"Babe."

I got out of my garbagescow Crown Vic and into Rangers shiny, immaculate SUV.

"You involved me in a murder," I said to Ranger.

"And you have no alibi," Ranger said.

"Is there anything you don't know?"

"I don't know what happened to Dickie."

"So I guess that means you didn't snatch him?"

"I don't leave bloodstains," Ranger said.

Ranger was dressed in his usual black. Black Vibramsoled boots, black jeans, black shirt, black wool pea coat, and his black Navy SEAL ball cap. Ranger was a shadow. A mystery man. A man who had no time or desire to mix and match colors.

"Those bugs I planted on Dickie what was that about?" I asked him.

"You don't want to know."

"Yes, I do."

"You don't."

I stared him down. "I do."

Ranger did what for him was a sigh. The barest whisper of expelled breath. I was being a pain in the keester.

"I'm looking for a guy named Ziggy Zabar. His brother, Zip, works for me and came to me for help when Ziggy disappeared last week. Ziggy's a CPA with a firm downtown. They prepare the tax reports for Petiak, Smullen, Gorvich, and Orr. Every Monday, the partners hold a meeting offsite, and Ziggy had the meeting on his calendar. He was seen getting into his car to go to the meeting, and then he disappeared. The four partners swear Zabar never showed up, but I don't believe it. There's something not right about the firm. Dickie has legitimate credentials and has passed the Jersey bar. His partners have law degrees from Panama. Right now, I can't tell if Dickie is dumb or dirty."

"Did the bugs work?"

"The meeting was canceled. We listened until a little after ten and packed up when Dickie went to bed."

"So you weren't listening when shots were fired."

"No, but I was in his house after the police sealed it, and it looks to me like Dickie left the house wearing the same clothes he had on all day. We've tried scanning to pick up a bug, but haven't had any luck. Either he's out of range, or the bugs have been found and destroyed."

"Now what?"

Ranger took a little plastic bag from his pocket. It contained another bug. "Do you think you can plant this on Peter Smullen?"

I felt my jaw drop and my eyebrows shoot up into my forehead. "You're not serious."

Ranger took a file off the dashboard and handed it to me. "Smullen wasn't in the office yesterday. He had a dentist appointment. So he shouldn't recognize you. Here are a couple pictures of Smullen, a short bio, plus our best guess at what his schedule will be like tomorrow. He divides his time between Trenton and Bogota. When he's in town, he's a creature of habit, so running into him won't be a problem. Try to tag him tomorrow morning, so I can listen to him all day."

"And I'm going to do this, why?"

"I'll let you wrestle with that one," Ranger said. He looked through the Cayenne windshield at my car. "Is there a reason you're driving the Vic?"

"It was cheap."

"Babe, free wouldn't be cheap enough."

"You haven't asked me if I killed Dickie," I said to Ranger.

"I know you didn't kill Dickie. You never left your apartment."

There was a time when I considered Rangers surveillance an invasion of privacy, but that time was long gone. There's not much point to worrying about things you can't control, and I had no control over Ranger.

"Where is it? On my car?" I asked him, doing a pretty decent job of not sounding completely pissed off.

Rangers mouth didn't smile, but his eyes crinkled a little at the corners. "GPS unit in your bag. Please don't remove it."

I took the file and the buginabag and got out of the Cayenne. "I imagine you'll be watching my every move."

"Just like always," Ranger said.

I got into the Crown Vic, cranked the engine over, and turned the heat on full blast. I looked in my rearview mirror. No Ranger.

I studied the pictures of Peter Smullen. He was an averagelooking guy with receding brown hair and a beer belly. Heavy five o'clock shadow in all the photos. Lips like a flounder. His file put him at five feet eight inches. Fortysix years old. Married with two kids, ages twenty and twentytwo. Both kids and the wife were in Colombia. Smullen kept a bachelor apartment in Hamilton Township. When Smullen was in town, at precisely eight a.m., he'd roll into a parking garage that was a block from his office at the law firm and get a tripleshot Frappuccino at the Starbucks on the corner.

I'd get him at the Starbucks.

I closed the file, turned to lay it on the seat next to me, and the Vic's driver's side door was suddenly wrenched open. Joyce Barnhardt glared in at me and called me the "c" word.

Joyce was six feet tall in fourinch, spikeheeled black boots. She was wearing a black leather duster lined with fake fur, her eyes were enhanced with rhinestonestudded fake eyelashes, her red enameled nails were long and frightening. The package was topped with a lot of shoulderlength brilliant red hair arranged in curls and waves. Joyce had never moved beyond Farrah Fawcett.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Is there a point to this conversation?"

"You killed him. You found out we were a couple, and you couldn't handle it. So you killed him."

"I didn't kill him."

"I was inches from marrying the little turd, and you ruined it all. Do you have any idea how much he's worth? A fucking fortune. And you killed him, and now I get nothing. I hate you."

I turned the key in the ignition and put the Vic into drive. "I have to go now," I said to Joyce. "Good talk."

"I'm not done," Joyce said. "I'm just beginning. I'm going to get even. I'm going to make your life a misery." Joyce pulled a gun out of her coat pocket and aimed it at me. "I'm going to shoot out your eye. And then I'm going to shoot you in the foot, and the knee, and the ass "

I stomped on the gas pedal and rocketed off with my door still open. Joyce squeezed off two rounds, putting a hole in the rear window. I looked in my mirror and got a glimpse of her standing in the middle of the road, giving me the finger. Joyce Barnhardt was nuts.

I drove one block down Hamilton and turned into the Burg. I was thinking that after the traumatic Joyce experience, I needed something to calm myself like a piece of the raspberry Entenmann's. Plus, my dad had all lands of things stashed in his cellar, like electrician s tape, that I could use to patch my rear window. Wind was whistling through the bullet hole, creating a draft on the back of my neck. It would have been perfectly okay in July, but it was damn cold in February. I wound through the maze of Burg streets to my parents' house and parked in the driveway. I got out and examined the car. Hole in the rear window, and Joyce had taken out a taillight.

I hunched against the sleet and ran to the front door. I let myself in, dropped my bag on the sideboard in the foyer, and went to the kitchen. My mother was at the sink, washing vegetables. Grandma was at the little table with a cup of tea. The Entenmann s box was on the small kitchen table. I held my breath and approached the box. I flipped the lid. Two pieces left. I anxiously looked around. "Anyone want this Entenmann s?" I asked.

"Not me," Grandma said.

"Not me either," my mother said.

I shrugged out of my jacket, hung it on the back of the chair, and sat down.

"Anything new in the world of crime?" Grandma asked.

"Same ol, same ol," I told her. "What's new with you?"

"I'm outta that glue stuff for my dentures. I was hoping you could run me out to the drugstore."

"Sure." I wolfed down the last of the cake and scraped back in my chair. "I can take you now, but then I need to get back to work."

"I'll just go upstairs to get my purse," Grandma said.

I leaned toward her and lowered my voice. "No gun."

Grandma Mazur carried a. long barrel named Elsie. It wasn't registered, and she didn't have a permit to carry concealed. Grandma thought being old gave her license to pack. She called it the equalizer. My mother kept taking the gun away, and the gun kept mysteriously returning.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Grandma said.

"I've got enough problems with the police right now. I can't afford to get pulled over for a broken taillight and have them discover you're armed and dangerous."

"I never go anywhere without Elsie," Grandma said.

"What's all the whispering about?" my mother wanted to know.

"We were trying to decide if I needed to put on some fresh lipstick," Grandma said.

I looked over at her. "You don't need lipstick."

"A woman always needs lipstick."

"Your lipstick is fine."

"You're getting to be just like your mother," Grandma said.

There was a time when that statement would have freaked me out, but now I was thinking maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have some of my mother's qualities. She was a stabilizing influence on the family. She was the representative of accepted social behavior. She was the guardian of our health and security. She was the bran muffin that allowed us to be jelly doughnuts.

Grandma and I were at the front door, and I remembered the hole in the windshield. "Duct tape," I called to my mother. 'Where would I find it, the garage or the cellar?"

My mother came with a roll. "I keep some in the kitchen. Are you fixing something?"

"I have a hole in my back window."

Grandma Mazur squinted at the Vic. "Looks like a bullet hole."

"Dear God," my mother said. "It s not a bullet hole, is it?"

"No," I told her. "Absolutely not."

Grandma Mazur buttoned herself into her long royal blue wool coat. She buckled a little under the weight but managed to right herself and get to the car.

"Isn't this the kind of car the cops use?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Does it have one of them flashing lights?"

"No."

"Bummer," Grandma said.

I followed Grandma up and down the aisles, past personal products to Metamucil, hemorrhoid remedies, hair spray, Harlequin romances, greeting cards. She got her denture glue and moved to lipsticks.

A gaptoothed, redheaded kid rounded a corner and came to a stop in front of us.

"Hi!" he yelled.

He was followed by Cynthia Hawser. Cynthia and I had been classmates. She was married now to a gaptoothed, redheaded guy who'd fathered three gaptoothed, redheaded kids. They lived a block over from Morelli in a little duplex that had more toys than grass in the front yard.

"This is Jeremy/' Cynthia said to Grandma and me.

Jeremy had trouble written all over him. Jeremy just about vibrated with energy.

"What a cute little boy," Grandma said. "I bet you're real smart."

"I'm too smart for my britches," Jeremy said. "That's what most people tell me."

An old man shuffled up and looked us over. He was wearing a wavy jetblack toupee that sat slightly askew on his bald dome. He had bushy, outofcontrol eyebrows, a lot of ear hair, and even more slack skin than Grandma. I thought he looked to be on the far side of eighty.

"What s going on here?" he asked.

"This is Uncle Elmer," Cynthia said. "There was a fire in his apartment at assisted living so he came to live with us."

"It wasn't my fault," Uncle Elmer said.

"You were smoking in bed," Jeremy said. "It's lucky you didn't cream yourself."

Cynthia grimaced. "You mean cremate"

Uncle Elmer grinned at Grandma. "Who's this sexy young thing?"

"Aren't you the one," Grandma said to Elmer.

Elmer winked at her. "The boys at the home would love you. You look hot."

"It's the coat," Grandma said. "It's wool."

Elmer fingered the coat. "Looks like good quality. I was in retail, you know. I can tell quality."

"I've had it for a while," Grandma said. "I was taller when I first bought it. I've shrunk up some."

Elmer gave his head a small shake, and the toupee slid over one ear. He reached up and righted it. "The golden years are a bitch," Elmer said.

"You don't look like you shrunk much," Grandma said. "You're a pretty big guy."

"Well, some of me s shrunk and some of me s swollen up," Elmer said. "When I was young, I got a lot of tattoos, and now they don't look so good. One time, I got drunk and got Eisenhower tattooed on my balls, but now he looks like Orville Redenbacher."

"He makes good popcorn," Grandma said.

"You bet. And don't worry, I still got it where it counts."

"Where s that?" Grandma asked.

"In the sack. Hangs a little lower than it used to, but the equipment still works, if you know what I mean."

"Uncle Elmer poops in a bag," Jeremy said.

"It's temporary," Elmer said. "Jus* ^ the bypass heals up. They put some pig intestine in me on an experimental basis."

"Gee," I said, "look at the time. We have to be running along now."

"Yeah, I can't be late for dinner tonight," Grandma said. "I want to make the early viewing at the funeral parlor. Milton Buzick is laid out, and I hear you wouldn't even recognize him."

"You got a good funeral parlor here?" Elmer asked Grandma.

"I go to the one on Hamilton Avenue. It's run by two real nice young men, and they serve homemade cookies."

"I wouldn't mind some homemade cookies," Elmer said. "I could meet you there tonight. I'm looking for a lady friend, you know. Do you put out?"

Cynthia smacked Uncle Elmer on the head. "Behave yourself."

"I haven't got time/' Elmer said, readjusting his hair. "I gotta know these things."

"Now what?" I asked Grandma Mazur when we'd settled ourselves in the car.

"I gotta go home, so I can get ready for tonight. That Elmer is a frisky one. He'll get snapped up fast. Myra Witkowski would snap him up in an instant if I let her."

"Remember, I'm looking for Simon Diggery. Check out Milton's jewelry for me, and let me know if he's going in the ground with anything pricey enough to get Diggery out to the cemetery on a cold night."

Morelli and Bob strolled in a little after six. Morelli shucked his boots and jacket in the foyer and dumped a grocery bag and a sixpack onto the kitchen counter. He grabbed me, and kissed me, and cracked open a beer from the sixpack.

"I'm starving," he said. "I didn't have time for lunch."

I pulled a bunch of chili dogs and a bucket of cheese fries out of the grocery bag. I put two dogs and some fries in a bowl for Bob and unwrapped a dog for myself.

"This is what I love about you," I said to Morelli. "No vegetables."

Morelli ate some hotdog and drank some more beer. "Is that all you love about me?"

"No, but it's high on the list."

"The Berringer murders are going into the toilet. The security company didn't have film in any of the surveillance cameras. Everyone hated the two people who were killed. It was cold and overcast and there was no exterior lighting in the back of the building. No one saw anything. No one heard anything. Forced entry. Nothing stolen."

"Maybe you should hire a psychic."

"I know you're being a wiseass, but I'm about at that point."

"What's happening with Dickie? Am I still a suspect?"

"Right now, Dickie is just a missing person who disappeared under suspicious circumstances. If his body floats in on the tide, you could be in trouble. Marty Gobel is still the primary investigator, and he wants to talk to you first thing tomorrow. I gave him your cell number."

"Do you think I should use the orgasm defense?"

"Yeah, my reputation could use a boost." Morelli finished off his second hotdog and ate some fries. "I'm not on the case, but I've been poking around on my own, and I don't like Dickie's partners. I'm probably going to regret saying this, but maybe you should bring Ranger in. He can do things I can't. Ranger doesn't mind bending the law to get information. Have him take a look at the partners."

"You're worried about me."

Morelli wiped his hands on his jeans and pulled me to him, wrapping his arms around me. "Dickie was a respected lawyer. And Joyce is making a lot of noise. This is going to go high profile, and the politicians will have to point a finger at someone. When the media gets hold of this case, unless new evidence is found, you're going to be in the spotlight." He rested his cheek on the top of my head. "I can manage the media attention. I couldn't manage having you taken away from me."

I tipped my head back and looked at him. He was serious. "Do you think I might be arrested and convicted?"

"I think the possibility is slim, but I'm not willing to take a chance on it. Ask Ranger for help and keep your head down. Don't do anything to bring more attention to yourself."

I WAS dragged awake by something ringing in the dark room. Morelli swore softly, and his arm reached across me to the nightstand, where he'd left his cell phone.

"What?" Morelli said into the phone.

Someone was talking on the other end, and I could feel Morelli coming awake.

"You're fucking kidding me," he said to the caller. "Why does this shit always happen in the middle of the night?"

I squinted at my bedside clock and grimaced. Three A. M.

Morelli was up and moving around the room, looking for his clothes. He still had the phone to his ear. "Give me an address," he said, and a moment later he snapped his phone closed. He slipped his watch onto his wrist and pulled his jeans on. He sat on the edge of the bed and tugged on socks. He leaned over and kissed me. "I have to go, and I probably won't get back tonight. I'll take Bob with me."

"Is this about the Berringer murders?"

"Someone else was just found dead in the building."He clipped his gun onto his belt and pulled a sweater over a Tshirt. "I'll call when I can."

I had A third of a jar of peanut butter in my pantry, no milk, no bread, no juice. Half a box of Cheerios. I dropped some Cheerios into Rex's food dish and mixed some up with the peanut butter for myself. I washed the Cheerios and peanut butter down with black coffee and grabbed my coat.

Marty Gobel, the cop who was in charge of Dickie's disappearance, was supposed to call to talk. If I wasn't Morelli s girlfriend, I'd probably be getting fingerprinted. Good thing I had something solid in my stomach because otherwise I might be inclined to throw up. I really didn't want to go to jail.

Peter Smullen was first on my list of hideous jobs. According to Ranger's research, Smullen would be rolling into Starbucks a little after eight. I arrived fifteen minutes in front of the hour and tried to look inconspicuous by studying the shelves of coffee mugs for sale. Not that inconspicuous was much of a problem. The place was packed, and anyone under seven feet tall wasn't going to stand out.

I saw Smullen push through the door at five of eight and realized I might have a problem. He was buttoned into a black cashmere overcoat. There was no way to drop a bug into his suit pocket. Fortunately, the store was warm and the line was long. If the line went slowly enough, he'd unbutton his coat. I watched from my spot at the front of the store. I had a plan. I was going to wait until he had his coffee, and then I'd approach him. My coat was open, and I was wearing a lowcut Vneck sweater with a pushup bra. I looked pretty good considering my boobs were real, but it was hard to compete with all the doubleD silicone jobs.

Smullen finally got to the counter and put in his order. He unbuttoned his coat to get his wallet, and I almost collapsed with relief. I had access to his pockets. He shuffled to the pickup counter, got his triple Frappuccino, and when he turned toward the door, he was flat against me. I had my boobs pressed into his chest and my leg between his.

"Whoops," I said, sliding my hand under his coat, dropping the bug into his pocket. "Sorry!"

Smullen didn't blink. He just hung on to his Frappuccino as if this happened every morning. And maybe it did. There were a lot of people in the store. I took one step back and one step to the side to let Smullen get past me, and he inched his way toward the door and disappeared.

I felt someone lean in to me from behind, and a coffee was placed in my hand.

"Nice," Ranger said, guiding me out to the sidewalk. "I couldn't have gotten that close. And he wouldn't have been distracted by my chest."

"I don't think he even noticed."

"A man would have to be dead not to notice," Ranger said.

"Morelli's worried I'll be involved in Dickie's disappearance. He said I should ask you for help."

"He's a good man," Ranger said. "And you?" I'm better."

Lula WAS filing when I walked into the bonds office.

"What s with this?" I asked.

"Hunh," Lula said. "You act like I never do nothing. It's just I'm so efficient I get my work done before anyone notices. My name should be Flash. You ever see any files laying around?"

"I assumed you were throwing them away."

'Tour ass," Lula said.

For a short time, we had a guy named Melvin Pickle doing our filing. Pickle was a filing dynamo. Unfortunately, he was so good he was able to get a better job. Les Sebring hired him to work in his bonds office, and Connie had to coerce Lula to take back filing responsibilities.

Connie was carefully adding a topcoat to her nails. "Having any luck with the new batch of FTAs?"

"No, but Milton Buzick is getting buried today. I'm waiting to get a jewelry report from Grandma."

"If he got a Rolex on, I don't want to know," Lula said. "Two things I'm not doing. I'm not going back to that trailer, and I'm not sitting in no cemetery. Dead people creep me out."

"What about Carl Coglin?" Connie asked. "He looks pretty straightforward. He has a small shop attached to his home."

'Who's Carl Coglin?" Lula wanted to know.

I pulled Carl's file out of my bag and flipped it open. "Sixtyfour years old. Never married. Lives alone. His sister put up the bond. Accused of destruction of personal property. Doesn't go into detail. Lists his occupation as taxidermist."

"Taxidermist," Lula said. "We never busted a taxidermist before. It could be fun."

A half hour later, we were in North Trenton, standing in front of Coglin's house. This was a workingclass neighborhood filled with people stretched too thin to plant flowers in the spring. Houses were neat but shabby. Cars were tired.

Coglin lived in a redbrick singlefamily house with mustard trim. The paint was blistered and the wood around the windows had some rot. The front porch had been enclosed as an afterthought, and a small sign on the door advertised Coglin's taxidermy business.

"Don't look to me like taxidermy pays real well," Lula said.

A scrawny little guy answered my knock, and I knew from the picture on file that it was Coglin. Hair the color and texture of steel wool. Wirerimmed glasses.

"Carl Coglin?" I asked.

"Yes."

"I represent Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. You missed your court date last week, and I'd like to help you reschedule."

"That's nice of you," Coglin said, "but I don't want to inconvenience you."

"Its my job."

"Oh," Coglin said. "Well, what does this rescheduling involve?"

"You need to go to the courthouse and get rebonded."

We were standing in Coglin's frontporch showroom, and it was hard not to notice the animals lining his walls.

"Where's the mooseheads?" Lula asked Coglin. "I thought you taxidermy guys stuffed lions and tigers and shit. All I see is cats and dogs and pigeons."

"This is urban taxidermy," Coglin said. "I restore pets and found objects."

"What's a found object?" Lula wanted to know.

"Treasure found in nature. For instance, if you were walking through the park and you found a deceased pigeon, that would be a found object. And sometimes I make performance pieces. The performance pieces are mechanicals. There's a growing market for the mechanicals."

Lula looked at a woodchuck posed on a piece of Astroturf. Some of its fur had been worn away, and it had what appeared to be part of a tire track imprinted on its back. "You're a sick man," Lula said.

"It's art," Coglin said. "You don't understand art."

"I understand roadkill," Lula said.

"About that rescheduling," I said to Coglin.

"Maybe I could reschedule next week," Coglin said. "I can't leave now. I have to stay at the house. I have a fresh opossum on the table."

"Oh boy," Lula said.

"It's hard to get an opossum at this time of year," Coglin said. "I was lucky to find it. And it won't be good when it defrosts."

"This won't take long," I told him.

"You're not going to leave without me, are you?" he asked.

"No."

Coglin looked at his watch. "I suppose I could go with you if this doesn't take long. Let me get my coat and lock the back door. In the meantime, feel free to browse my showroom. All these items are for sale."

"I'm glad to hear that," Lula said. "I always wanted a stuffed dead dog."

Coglin disappeared into the house, and I tried not to look too hard at the critters. "These animals are creeping me out," I said to Lula. "It's like being in a whackedout pet cemetery."

"Yeah," Lula said. "They've seen better days." She picked up a stuffed squirrel. "This guy's got three eyes. He must have lived next to the nuclear power plant."

I heard the back door slam and then a motor crank over.

"Car!" I said to Lula.

We ran to the back of the house and saw Coglin pull away in a green Isuzu SUV. We turned and sprinted through the house, out the door to the Vic.

"There he goes," Lula said, pointing to the corner. "South on Centerline."

I had the Vic in gear and moving. I took the corner on two wheels and put my foot to the floor. Coglin was a block ahead of me.

"He's turning," Lula said.

"I'm on it."

"He's got a light," Lula said. "He has to stop for the light."

I jumped on the brake, but Coglin ran it. He sailed through the light and was lost in traffic.

"Guess he didn't feel like going to jail," Lula said.

The light changed and I slowly moved forward. I looked over at Lula and saw she still had the squirrel.

"We were in such a rush to get out of the house, I forgot I was holding this here mutant rodent," Lula said.

"It doesn't look like a third eye," I said to her. "It looks like a switch. Maybe this is a mechanical rodent."

Lula pushed the switch and studied it. "It's making a noise. It's sort of ticking. It's "

BANG. The squirrel exploded.

We both shrieked. I jumped the curb and sideswiped a streetlight.

"What the fuck?" Lula said.

"Are you okay?"

"No, I'm not okay. That squirrel just friggin' blew hisself apart on me. I got squirrel guts on me."

"Doesn't look like guts," I said, examining the hair and skin plastered to the dashboard. "Looks like he was stuffed with some kind of foam that melted when it exploded."

"This guy's building rodent bombs," Lula said. "We should report him to someone. You can't just go around building rodent bombs, can you?"

I backed up and tried to open my door, but it wouldn't open. I rolled the window down, climbed out Dukes of Hazzard style, and examined the damage. Some of the door was bashed in where I'd hit the light. I climbed back into the car and drove off the sidewalk.

"I got foam and squirrel hair stuck to me," Lula said. "I probably need a rabies shot or something."

"Yeah," I said. "Problem is, I don't know whether to take you to a veterinarian or an upholsterer."

"Smells funky," Lula said, sniffing her finger. "What's it smell like?"

"Squirrel."

"I didn't know squirrels had a smell."

"This one does," I told her.

"I'm gonna need to take this coat to the dry cleaner, and I'm gonna send the bill to that Coglin freak. He got some nerve exploding a squirrel on me."

"You took the squirrel."

"Yeah, but it was entrapment. I think I got a case."

"Maybe we should go to lunch," I said to Lula. "Take your mind off the squirrel."

"I could use some lunch."

"Do you have any money?"

"No," Lula said. "Do you?"

"No."

"There's only one thing to do then. Senior buffet."

Ten minutes later, I pulled into the Costco parking lot.

"Where we gonna start?" Lula wanted to know, taking a shopping cart.

"I like to start in produce and then go to the deli and then frozen."

Costco is the allAmerican free lunch. If you can't afford to buy food, you can buy a minimum membership at Costco and get freebies from the giveaway ladies. You just have to kick your way through the seniors who stand ten deep around them.

"Look over there," Lula said. "They got a giveaway lady frying up them little bitty sausages. I love those little sausages."

We had some apple slices dipped in caramel, some carrots and raw broccoli dipped in ranch dressing, some goat cheese, some frozen pizza pieces, some tofu stirfry, some brownie pieces from the bakery, and some of the sausages. We did a testdrive on Guatemalan coffee and sparkling apple cider. We used the ladies' room, and we left.

"Whoever invented Costco knew what they were doing," Lula said. "I don't know what I'd do without my Costco membership. Sometimes, I even buy shit there. Costco's got everything. You can buy a casket at Costco."

We got into the Vic, and I drove us back to Coglin's house. I idled at the curb for a couple minutes, watching to see if anything was going on, then I motored around the block and took the alley that led to Coglin's backyard. No car in his parking place, so I parked there.

"Gonna see if he's hiding in a closet?" Lula asked.

"Yep."

I knocked on Coglin s back door and yelled, "Bond enforcement!"

No answer.

I opened the door and yelled again. Still no answer. I stepped into the kitchen and looked around. It was just as we'd left it over an hour ago, except for the opossum on the kitchen table. The opossum looked like a balloon with feet. And it smelled worse than squirrel. A lot worse.

"Whoa," Lula said. "He wasn't kidding about this sucker defrosting."

"Maybe we should put it in the freezer for him."

Lula had her scarf over her nose. "I'm not touching it. Bad enough I got squirrel on me. I don't need no 'possum cooties. Anyways, it's not gonna fit in his freezer with the way it's all swelled up."

"Coglin isn't here," I said to Lula. "He would have done something with this animal if he'd returned."

"Fuckin' A," Lula said. "I'm outta here."

I parked in front of the office, behind Lula's Firebird, and Lula and I got out of the Vic and gaped at the telephone pole at the corner. It was plastered with posters of me. It was a candid photo, and the caption read wanted

FOR MURDER.

"What the heck?" I said. My first reaction was panic deep in my chest. The police were looking for me. That only lasted a moment. This wasn't any sort of official "wanted" poster. This was made on someone's home scanner and printer. I tore the posters off the pole and looked down the street. I could see posters on a pole half a block away.

"There's posters all over the place," Lula said. "They're stuck to store windows, and they're stuck on parked cars." She unlocked her Firebird. "I'm going home. I gotta get this squirrel funk off me."

I went into the office and showed Connie the posters.

"It's Joyce," Connie said. "I saw her putting them up, but I didn't realize what they were."

"They're probably all over town. I should probably ride around and take them down, but I have better things to do with my time like find out who killed Dickie."

"Anything I can do to help?"

"Yes. I need a background search. Joyce says he's worth lots of money."

Connie punched his name into one of the search programs and the screen filled with information. "He leased a $, Audi a year ago. His house is appraised at $,. And it's mortgaged to the rafters. No litigation pending against him. Nothing derogatory in his file. He's part owner of the building housing his law firm. His partners are also listed as owners. Looks like the building was bought outright. No mortgage there."

Connie printed the report and passed it over to me.

"Any calls for me?" I asked her.

"No. Were you expecting calls?"

"I was supposed to talk to Marty Gobel this morning. I expected him to call my cell." Not that I wanted to talk to Marty Gobel, but it was better than having a warrant issued for my arrest.

I dialed Morelli. No answer.

Ranger was next up.

"Babe," Ranger said.

"Anything new on Dickie?"

"No, but the natives are restless. I can feel Smullen sweating on the bug."

I left the bonds office, climbed into the Vic, and drove to Dickie s house. It was easy to find since it was the only house on his block draped in yellow crime scene tape. It was a large cape with black shutters and a red door. Probably thirty years old but recently painted. Twocar garage. Nicely landscaped. Mediumsize lot. Very respectable, if you overlooked the tape. I wasn't sure what I'd expected to find, but I'd felt compelled to do a driveby. Morbid curiosity, I suppose, since Joyce had been impressed with his wealth. As it was, he seemed comfortable but not excessively rich.

I did a mental reenactment of the crime. I imagined the door to Dickie's house open, and Dickie getting dragged out by whoever shot him. There would have been a car in the driveway. Shots were fired a little before midnight, so it was dark. Overcast sky. No moonlight. Still, you'd think someone would have at least seen the car leave. If you hear shots fired, and you care enough to call the police, you care enough to look out the window.

I parked the Vic, crossed the street, and knocked on the door of the house across from Dickie s. The knock was answered by a woman in her fifties. "I'm investigating the Orr incident," I told her. "I'd appreciate it if you could just answer a few questions for me."

"I suppose, but I've already spoken to the police. I don't have much more to say."

"You reported the shots?"

"Yes. I was getting ready for bed. I heard the shots, and I thought it was kids. They ride through and shoot at mailboxes. But then when I looked out the window, I saw the car pull out of the Orr driveway. And I saw that the front door to the house was left open."

"What did the car look like?"

"It looked a little like your police car. It was dark out, so I can't be certain, but I think it was that burgundy color. And the shape was similar. I'm not much of a car person. My husband would have known exactly, but he was already in bed. He didn't get to the window in time."

"Did you see any people in the car? Did you see the license plate?"

"No. I just saw the car. It pulled out of the driveway and went north, toward th Street."

I thanked her and went back to the Vic. I had two means of exit from the Vic. I could crawl across the console and go out the passenger side door, or I could crawl out the driver's side window. It was easier to crawl out the window, but that meant the window stayed open, and it was freezing cold when I returned to the car. Although, since I had half a rotting squirrel stuck to my dashboard, there was some advantage to the open window.

I'd chosen to do the crawl over the console thing this time so as not to tip off the neighbors I wasn't really a cop. I returned to the Vic, got some heat going, and reviewed my choices. I could take a shot at finding one of the remaining skips. I could go on a poster hunt. I could head over to my parents' house and talk to Grandma about Milton Buzick. Or I could go home and take a nap.

I was leaning toward the nap when my phone buzzed.

"I need help," Grandma said. "I got a hot date tonight with Elmer. We're going to the Rozinski viewing, and I'm thinking I might have to show some skin to keep Elmer away from Loretta Flick. I figure I can open a couple buttons on my blue dress, but I can't get my boobs to stay up. I thought you might be able to get me one of them pushup bras."

Fortyfive minutes later, I had Grandma in the Victoria s Secret dressing room, trying on pushup bras.

"Okay," Grandma said from the other side of the door. "I got them all lifted up, and they look pretty good except for the wrinkles."

"I wouldn't worry about the wrinkles," I told her. "It looked to me like Elmer has cataracts."

"Maybe I need one of them thongs to go with this bra," she said.

I didn't want to think about Grandma in a thong. "Some pretty panties might be better."

"As long as they're sexy. I might get lucky tonight."

If she got lucky, Elmer would drop dead before dinner. "I'll pick out something that will match while you're getting dressed," I told Grandma. We were at the register with the bra and panties, and I heard something sizzle in my head, and the next thing I knew I was on the floor and my lips were tingling.

"Wha " I said.

Grandma was bending over me. "You got zapped by Joyce Barnhardt. I heard you go over, and I turned around and saw Joyce standing there with a stun gun. We called the police, but she ran off. Dirty rotten coward."

I looked past Grandma and saw a mall rentacop nervously looking down at me.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "We got a doctor coming."

"Get me up on my feet," I said.

"I don't know if I should," he said. "Maybe you should just lay there until help gets here."

"Get me up!" I yelled at him. "I don't need a doctor. I need a new car and a new job and ten minutes alone with Ranger. This is all his fault."

The rentacop got me under my armpits and hoisted me up. I went down to my knees, grabbed hold of his shirt, and pulled myself up again.

"Jeez, lady," he said.

"Don't worry," I told him. "This happens to me a lot. I'm good at it."

Grandma led me through the mall, and we managed to get to the parking lot and the Vic without the doctor finding me. I was supposed to be keeping a low profile. I didn't want to find myself on the evening news. Local bounty hunter stungunned in mall. Details at eight.

Grandma stood back and looked at my car. "Was your car decorated like this when we left it? I don't remember all this writing on it."

Someone had spraypainted PIG CAR in black and white on the passenger side door and trunk lid.

"Its new," I said.

"I would have used brighter colors," Grandma said. "Gold would have looked good. You can't go wrong with gold."

"The black and white goes better with the squirrel hair stuck to the dash," I told her.

"I was wondering what that was," Grandma said. "I figured it was one of them new animal print decorator schemes."

"Lula helped me with it."

"Isn't she the one," Grandma said.

I got behind the wheel and motored out of the lot and onto the highway.

"Do you hear a grinding sound?" Grandma asked.

"All cars sound like that," I said. "You're just noticing it because I don't have the radio on loud enough. What about Milton? Did you notice if he was wearing jewelry?"

"Nothing worth anything. His lodge lapel pin. That was about it. I know you're looking for Simon Diggery. It'll take something good to get him out in this weather. I'll check out Harry Rozinski, but he probably won't have anything worth taking, and he's not Diggery s size."

"Do you need a ride tonight?"

"No. Elmer has a car. He's picking me up."

It was a little after four when I dropped Grandma off. Lights were on in Burg houses and tables were being set for dinner. This was a community where families still sat together for meals. I turned right onto Hamilton and ten minutes later, I was in my apartment building. I let myself in, and Bob rushed over to me.

"Where's Joe?" I asked him.

Not in the kitchen. Not in the dining room. Not in the living room. I went to the bedroom and found him asleep in my bed.

"Hey Goldilocks," I said.

Morelli came awake and rolled onto his back. "What time is it?"

"Fourthirty. Have you been here long?"

"Couple hours."

"I heard a news report on the Berringer murders while I was in the car. They said the police were baffled."

"Baffled and tired. I need some sleep. I'm too old for this middleofthenight murder shit."

"There was a time when you did all sorts of things in the middle of the night."

"Come here and you can tell me about them."

"I thought you were tired."

"I just want to talk," Morelli said.

"That's a big fib. I know what you want to do."

Morelli smiled. "Hard for a man to keep a secret."