There was no answer when I knocked on the door, but then I hadn't expected an answer. The little Diggeries were in school. The big Diggeries 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 forty-watt 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 beejeezus 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 gob stopping 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 further down its throat.

"Oh fuck," 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 mother fucking 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 two-hand 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 six 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 rear-view 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 garbage scow Crown Vic and into Ranger's 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 where Dickie is."

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

"I don't leave blood stains," Ranger said.

Ranger was dressed in his usual black. Black Vibram soled 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 Petiak, Smullen, Gorvich and Orr hold a partners meeting off-site, and Ziggy Zabar 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 cancelled. 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 Ranger's 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.

Ranger's 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 bug in a bag 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 average looking 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. Forty-six years old. Married with two kids, ages twenty and twenty-two. Both kids and the wife were in Colombia. Smullen kept a bachelor apartment in Hamilton Township. When Smullen was in town, at precisely eight o'clock, he'd roll into a parking garage that was a block from his office at the law firm, and get a triple shot Frappuccinno 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 foot tall in four-inch spike-heeled black boots. She was wearing a black leather duster lined with fake fur, her eyes were enhanced with rhinestone studded fake eyelashes, her red enameled nails were long and frightening. The package was topped with a lot of shoulder length brilliant red hair arranged in curls and waves. Joyce had never moved beyond Farah 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 after the traumatic Joyce experience I needed something to calm myself... like a piece of the raspberry Entennman's. Plus my dad had all kinds 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 took out a stoplight.

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 Entennman'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 Entennman'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 .45 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 tail light 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."

Lean Mean Thirteen on sale now!