Truck drivers and cow wranglers stood open-mouthed, frozen in place for a full minute.

“What the bejeezus was that?” someone finally said.

Lula hauled herself to her feet and adjusted her purse on her shoulder. “I’m gonna sue someone,” she said. “I could have been killed. I’m lucky I wasn’t stampeded on. This cow plant is negligent. I’m calling my lawyer.”

“You were the one who opened the gate,” I told her.

“Yeah, but they should have had a lock on it so I couldn’t do that. And what are we doing with cows in Trenton anyway? How many times do I have to ask that question?”

Someone screamed half a block away, and I heard the sound of cow feet clomping down a street somewhere. Men were pouring out of the plant, organizing search teams. A big black cow trotted into the lot, three men took off after it, and the cow ran away, headed for the 7-Eleven on Broad.

“Well, I guess our business is done here,” Lula said. “Now what?”

“Now we ride around and try to spot Butch.”

And we get out of the parking lot before someone remembers Lula was the one who opened the gate.

“I kind of worked up an appetite being around all those cows,” Lula said, climbing into the Jeep. “I wouldn’t mind getting a burger.”

I plugged the key into the ignition. “After we find Butch.”

“What are we gonna do if we find him?” Lula wanted to know. “Are you gonna run him over with the Jeep? Looks to me like that’s the only way you’ll catch him. He’s as big as one of those cows.”

I drove out of the lot, turned at the corner, and stopped to let a cow cross the street in front of me.

“I bet this happens all the time,” Lula said. “These people are probably used to having cows in their yards. It’s probably like living next to the jail. I bet there’s people escaping from the jail all the time, too.”

Anything was possible, but for all the time I’ve lived in Trenton, which was all my life, I’ve never heard of cows making a run for it out of the packing plant.

Two cop cars raced through an intersection one street over. I could hear men shouting to one another, and I heard a cow bellow not far off. A man bolted from between two houses with a cow hot on his heels. The guy scrambled on top of a car, and the cow ran off in another direction.

I doubled back to the plant and spotted Butch getting into his car. The lot was filled with crazed cows and crazed cow catchers, so I decided to follow Butch and attempt a capture somewhere else.

Butch took Broad to Hamilton, found his way to Cluck-in-a-Bucket, and went straight to the drive-through window. He was driving a white Taurus that was a bunch of years old. Easy to follow.

“This is enough to give me religion,” Lula said. “How good is this? We follow some idiot to Cluck-in-a-Bucket. Just when I’m hungry, too. I bet it’s the bottle. You got your bottle, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I knew it,” Lula said. “The bottle’s working for us.”

Butch put his order in, pulled up to the next window, and I hung back.

“I got a order,” Lula said to me. “Pull up to the window.”

“I’m not getting stuck in the drive-through. If he parks, you can go inside and get your order while I make the capture. If he leaves with his food, you’ll have to wait.”

“Okay, I could do that,” Lula said. “That sounds like a plan.”

Butch got his food and parked nose-in, facing the side of the building. Lula jumped out of the Jeep and hustled inside, and I parked directly behind Butch, blocking his exit. My first choice was to talk to him and convince him to come downtown with me. My second choice was to give him a shot with my stun gun and handcuff him to his car. Then I’d pay a tow truck to drag him to the police station. I’d still be way ahead. Ordinarily, I’d stun a guy and Lula and I would wrestle him into my backseat. Since Butch was three hundred pounds soaking wet, wrestling wasn’t practical.

I trotted up to the Taurus and bent to talk to Butch. He jumped at my voice, a piece of burger fell out of his mouth, and he shrieked like a girl.

“I just want to talk to you,” I said.

“I’m not going to jail!” he yelled at me.

He threw the Taurus into reverse, I hit him once with the stun gun, and he twitched and squeaked, but that was it. The Taurus plowed into Ranger’s Jeep and knocked it back about ten feet, totally bashing in the entire left side. Butch slammed the Taurus into drive, jumped the sidewalk, made a sharp turn, and took off out of the lot.

Lula sashayed out with two bags of food and stood looking at the Jeep. “You’re in trouble,” she said. “You wrecked Ranger’s Jeep.” She looked around. “Where’s Butch?”

“Gone.”

“He must be a real fast eater.”

“I walked up to his car, and he panicked. I hit him with the stun gun, and it had no effect.”

“No shit,” Lula said. “You need a cattle prod for him.”

I hauled my cell phone out and dialed Ranger.

“Babe,” he said.

“Bad news,” I told him. “I sort of wrecked your Jeep.”

“It was only a matter of time,” he said. And he disconnected.

Five minutes later, a Rangeman SUV drove into the parking lot. Hal and another guy got out, looked at the Jeep, and smiled.

“No disrespect,” Hal said to me, “but you’ve done better.”

This was true. I was driving Ranger’s Porsche one time, and it got smashed flat as a pancake by a garbage truck. Hard to top that.

“Raphael will take care of the Jeep,” Hal said. “And I’m at your disposal. Where would you ladies like to go?”

“The bonds office,” I told him. “We need to regroup.”

“HOW’D IT GO?” Connie asked. “Did you catch anyone?”

“Nope,” Lula said. “But we trashed Ranger’s Jeep. And we did some other stuff, but I might not want to talk about it.”

Connie gave me raised eyebrows.

“Lula opened a gate at the packing plant and set a whole bunch of cows loose,” I said. “They’re probably in Bordentown by now.”

“They were like Born Free cows,” Lula said.

“We aren’t doing so good in the money-raising department,” Connie said.

I slouched in the orange chair in front of her desk. “Maybe we should call the police.”

“Or we could ship Vinnie off to Brazil,” Lula said. “We could put him in nitwit protection.”

My phone rang, and I groaned when I saw the number. It was my mother.

“When are you picking him up?” my mother wanted to know.

“Who?”

“You know who! He’s in your father’s chair, watching television, drinking coffee.”

“Lucille kicked him out.”

“Good for her,” my mother said. “I’d kick him out, too, but I can’t get him out of the chair. When are you coming to get him?”

“Here’s the thing,” I said to my mother. “He doesn’t have anyplace to stay.”

“He can’t stay here. And I swear I’ll never make you another pineapple upside-down cake if you don’t get him out of here.”

“I’ll be right there.” I grabbed my tote bag and stood. “We have to get Vinnie,” I said to Lula. “My mother’s done with him.”

“You can’t bring him back here,” Connie said.

“Can I put him in your house?”

“Not even for a moment.”

I looked at Lula.

“Nuh-uh,” Lula said. “I don’t even like him. And soon as he’s left alone, he’ll be tryin’ all my special dresses on.” Lula’s attention moved to the plateglass window in the front of the office. “It’s the Moon Man,” she said.

Mooner pushed the door open and gave us the peace sign. “Ladies,” he said. “How goes it?”

“It goes okay,” I said. “How goes it with you?”

“I don’t know. I think they might have put some wacky mushrooms on my pizza last night. I was driving down Broad Street just now, and I swear I thought a cow was walking down the street.”

“Hunh,” Lula said. “That’s crazy, all right.”

“Some cows got loose at the packing plant this morning,” I told Mooner.

Mooner clapped a hand to his heart. “That’s a mega relief. Last time I saw cows walking down the street, I had to go into rehab.”