* * *

Nonnie and Mama Apusenja lived a quarter mile from my parent's house, in a neighborhood that was very similar to the Burg. Houses were narrow, two stories, set on narrow lots. The Apusenja house was a two toned clapboard, painted a bilious green on the top and chocolate brown on the bottom. A ten year old burgundy Ford Escort was parked curbside. The small back yard was fenced. I couldn't see all the yard but what I could see didn't contain a dog. I cruised four blocks without a Boo sighting. Also, no Ranger sighting. I turned a corner and my cell phone chirped.

"Yo," Ranger said.

"Yo, yourself," I told him. "Do you have Singh in leg irons?"

"Singh is no where to be found."

"And the dog?"

A couple beats of silence. "What's with you and the dog?"

"I don't know. I just have these dog feelings."

"Not a good sign, babe. Next thing you'll be adopting cats. And then one day you'll get all choked up when you walk down the baby food aisle in the super market. And you know what happens after that..."

"What?"

"You'll be punching holes in Morelli's condoms."

I would like to think the scenario was funny but I was afraid it might be true. "I visited with the people at TriBro," I told Ranger. "I didn't come away with anything useful."

I caught a familiar reflection in my rear view mirror. Ranger in his truck. How he always managed to find me was part of the mystery.

Ranger flashed his lights to make sure I saw him. "Let's talk to the Apusenjas," he said.

We drove around the block to Sully Street, parked behind the burgundy Escort and walked to the door together.

Mama Apusenja answered. She was still in the sari and her fat rolls made me think of the Michelin tire guy.

"Well," she said to me, with a head wag. "I see you've cleaned yourself up. You must be a terrible burden to your mother. I am feeling so sorry for her not to have a proper daughter."

I narrowed my eyes and opened my mouth to speak and Ranger leaned into me and rested a hand on my shoulder. Probably he thought I was going to do something rash, like call Mrs. Apusenja a fat cow. And in fact he was right. Fat cow was on the tip of my tongue.

"I thought it might be helpful to see Singh's room," Ranger said to Mrs. Apusenja.

"Will you be bringing this one in with you?"

Ranger's grip on me tightened. "This one's name is Stephanie," Ranger said pleasantly. "And yes, she'll be coming with me.

"I suppose it will be all right," Mrs. Apusenja said grudgingly. "I will expect you to be careful. I keep a very nice house." She stepped back from the door and motioned us in to the living room. "This is the formal parlor," she said proudly. "And beyond that is the dining room. And then the kitchen."

Ranger and I stood speechless for a moment, taking it all in. The house was filled to the bursting with overstuffed furniture, end tables, lamps, trinkets, dried flowers, faded photos, stacks of magazines and bowls of fake fruit. And elephants. There were ceramic elephants, elaborate elephant couch pillows, elephant clocks, foot stools and planters. Elephants aside, there was no dominant style or color. It was a garage sale waiting to happen.

I watched Ranger scan the room and I suspected he was doing a mental grimace. It would be easy to miss a note in the mess. For that matter, it would be easy to miss Singh. He could be slouched in a chair somewhere and never be noticed.

Mrs. Apusenja led the way upstairs, across the short hallway to a small bedroom. She was wearing pink rubber flip-flops that slapped against her heels and hit the floor at an angle so her heel was always half off the shoe. Her toenails were massive, painted a virulent shimmering purple. I was directly behind her and from my angle her ass looked to be about three feet across.

"This is Samuel's room," she said, gesturing to the open door. "It's so sad that it's empty. He was such a nice young man. So polite. Very respectful." She said this cutting a look back at me, sending the message that she knew I had none of those wonderful qualities.

Ranger and I stepped inside the room and I was hit with a wave of claustrophobia. The double bed was neatly made, covered with a green and yellow and purple flowered quilted bedspread that shouted yikes. The curtains matched the bedspread and hung over seasick green shears. The walls were plastered with outdated calendars and thumbtacked posters, subjects ranging from Winnie the Pooh to Springsteen, the Starship Enterprise and Albert Einstein. There was a nightstand beside the bed and a small desk and rickety chair wedged between the bed and the wall.

"You see, it's such a nice room," Mrs. Apusenja said. "He was lucky to have this room. We have a room in the basement that we also rent out on occasion but we gave Samuel this room because I knew he would be a suitor for Nonnie."

Ranger rifled through the nightstand and desk drawers. "Was Samuel unhappy about anything?"

"No. He was very happy. Why would he be unhappy? He had everything. We even allowed him kitchen privileges."

"Have you notified his family of his disappearance?"

"I have. I thought perhaps he was suddenly called home, but they have heard nothing from him."

Ranger moved on to the desk. He opened the middle drawer and extracted Singh's passport. "New York is his only entry."

"This was his first time away from home," Mrs. Apusenja said. "He was a good boy. He was not one of those good-for-nothing wanderers. He came here to make money for his family in India."

Ranger returned the passport to the drawer and continued his search. He abandoned the desk and went to the closet. "What's missing from the room?" Ranger asked Mrs. Apusenja. "What did Singh take with him?"

"So far as I know, just the clothes he was wearing. And his backpack, of course."

Ranger turned to look at her. "Do you know what he carried in his backpack?"

"His computer. He was never without his computer. It was a laptop. It always went to work with him. Samuel was very smart. That's how he got such a good job. He said he got his job over the Internet."

"Do you know his email address?" I asked.

"No. I don't know anything about that. We don't own a computer. We have no need for such a thing."

"How did Samuel get to work?" Ranger asked.

"He drove himself."

"Has his car been found?"

"No. He just drove away in the car and that was the last we saw of him and the car. It was a gray Nissan Sentra... an older model."

Ranger did a quick search of the bathroom and Nonnie's room and we all moved downstairs to search the kitchen.

We were still in the kitchen when Nonnie came home.

"Have you found Boo?" Nonnie asked.

"Not yet," I said. "Sorry."

"It's difficult to concentrate on my work with him missing like this," Nonnie said.

"Nonnie is a manicurist at Classy Nails in the mall," Mrs. Apusenja said. "She is one of their most popular girls."

"I never skimp on the top coat," Nonnie said. "That's the secret to a superior manicure."

It was a few minutes after six when Ranger and I left the Apusenjas. There was still time to make dinner at my parent's house, but I was losing enthusiasm for the experience. I was thinking I'd had enough chaos for one day. I was thinking maybe what I wanted to do was get take-out pizza and go home and watch a bad movie.

Ranger lounged against my car, arms crossed over his chest. "What do you think?"

"Nonnie never asked about Singh. She only asked about Boo."

"Not exactly the distraught fiance," Ranger said.

"If we believe everything we hear, we've got a nice geeky guy who got himself engaged and disappeared along with the dog."

"The dog could be a coincidence."

"I don't think so. My Spidey Sense tells me the disappearances are related."

Ranger grinned at me. "Your Spidey Sense tell you anything else?"

"Is that a mocking grin?"

"It's the grin of a man who loves you, babe."

My heart skipped around a little and I got warm in places only Morelli should be warming.

"Love?"

"There's all kinds of love," Ranger said. "This kind doesn't come with a ring attached."

"Nice, but you avoided answering my question about the grin."

He gave my ponytail a playful tug.

"I'm going back to TriBro tomorrow," I said. "I'll make a pest of myself. Find out about the internet job search. Talk to co-workers. If it's anything other than a random murder I should be able to get a lead."

* * *

I decided against the family dinner and instead I stopped at Pino's on the way home. I slid the Pino's pizza box onto my kitchen counter, kicked my shoes off and got a beer out of the fridge. I punched the message button on my machine and listened to my messages while I ate.

"Stephanie? It's your mother. Hello? Are you there?" Disconnect.

Second message. "Bad news. I'm gonna punk out on lunch tomorrow. The kids are sick." It was my best friend, Mary Lou. Mary Lou and I grew up together. We went to school together and we were married within months of each other. Mary Lou's marriage stuck and she had a pack of kids. My marriage lasted about twenty minutes and ended in a screaming divorce.

The third message was from Vinnie. "What are you doing at home listening to this dumb machine? Why aren't you out looking for Singh? I'm dying here for crissake. Do something!"

And my mother again. "I didn't want anything the first time. You don't have to call me back."

I erased the messages and dropped a tiny piece of pizza into Rex's cage. Rex is my hamster roommate. He lives in a glass aquarium in my kitchen and sleeps in a Campbell's Tomato Soup can. Rex rushed out of his soup can, shoved the pizza into his cheek pouch and scurried back to the can. Quality pet time.

I carted the pizza box, the beer and my purse into the living room, flopped onto the couch, powered up the television and found a Seinfeld rerun. I couple months ago I entered the computer age and bought myself an Apple iBook. I keep the iBook on my coffee table so I can check my mail and watch television at the same time. Am I a multi-tasker, or what?

I opened the iBook and signed on. I deleted the junk mail advertising Viagra, mortgage rates and porn sites. A single message was left. It was from Andrew Cone. If I can be of any further help don't hesitate to call.

* * *

The phone jarred me awake at 7:00 A.M.

"Something just came across my desk that I thought you might want to see," Morelli said. "I'm at the station and I have a few things to do and then I'll come over."

I dragged myself out of bed and into the bathroom. I did the shower thing and the hair thing and a half-assed job at the make-up thing. I got dressed in my usual uniform of t-shirt and jeans and felt ready to face the day. I made coffee and treated myself to a strawberry Pop Tart, feeling righteous because I'd resisted the S'mores Pop Tart. Best to have fruit for breakfast, right? I gave a corner of the Pop Tart to Rex and sipped my coffee.

I was pouring myself a second cup of coffee when Morelli arrived. He backed me against a wall, made certain there were no spaces between us and he kissed me. His pager buzzed and he did some inventive cussing.

"Trouble?" I asked.

He looked at the display. "The usual crap." He stepped back and pulled a folded piece of paper out of his jacket pocket. "I knew there was some sort of mess associated with TriBro so I ran a search for you. It turned up this newspaper article from two years ago.

I took the paper from Morelli and read the headline. "Bart Cone Charged in Paressi Slaying." The article went on to say that hikers had stumbled over the body of Lillian Paressi just hours after Paressi had been killed with a single shot to the head at close range. The murder had occurred in a wooded area just north of Washington's Crossing State Park. Cone had been spotted leaving the scene and police claimed to have physical evidence linking Cone to the murder.

"What happened?" I asked Morelli.

"He was released. The witness who reported Cone fleeing from the scene recanted part of his story. And the physical evidence tested out negative. Cone had been carrying a .22 when the police picked him up for questioning. Paressi had been shot with a .22 but ballistics ruled out Cone's gun as the murder weapon. And there wasn't a DNA match-up. Paressi had been sexually assaulted after her death and the DNA didn't match to Cone.

"As I remember, the guys assigned to the case still thought Cone killed Paressi. They just couldn't get anything to stick on him. And the case has never been solved."

"Was there a motive?"

"No motive. They were never able to develop a connection between Paressi and Cone."

"Bart Cone isn't exactly Mr. Nice Guy but it's hard to see him as a killer."

"Killers come in all sizes," Morelli said.

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