The corners of his mouth softened into the smallest of smiles. “I’m feeling friendly.” He closed the distance between us, lifted my bag off my shoulder, and his focus moved from me to the bag.

“Are you carrying?” he asked. “This bag is heavy.”

“It’s the bottle.”

I took Uncle Pip’s bottle out of my bag and set it on the kitchen counter. Rex came out of his soup can house and looked through the glass aquarium at the bottle. His beady black eyes glistened, his whiskers whirred, and he put two little pink feet on the side of his cage. He blinked once and turned and scurried back into his soup can.

“Why are you carrying this bottle?” Ranger asked.

“This is the bottle I inherited from my Uncle Pip. It’s supposed to be lucky, and Lula decided we needed to carry it with us… just in case.”

Ranger’s smile widened. “Can’t hurt,” he said.

“Well, it didn’t do me any good tonight.”

“The night isn’t over,” Ranger said. “You could still get lucky.”

BEING A BOND enforcement agent almost never requires me to set my alarm clock. Felons are in the wind twenty-four hours a day, so I can pretty much pick which of those hours I want to go hunting. Lula usually rolls into the office around nine, and I’m usually right behind her. This morning was no different.

I’d sent Ranger home early the night before, deciding I wasn’t ready to get that lucky. A night with Ranger was tempting, but the cost would be high. My relationship with Morelli was currently on hold. A morning argument in Morelli’s kitchen a couple weeks ago had ended with the notion it might not be a bad idea if we saw other people, but the reality was that we weren’t. I felt comfortable with flirting and maybe a kiss, but I wasn’t comfortable going beyond that with another man right now.

“Hey, girl,” Lula said from the bonds office couch, “what’s up for today?”

“Dirk McCurdle and a drug guy named Chopper.”

“And Vinnie,” Connie said.

“Yeah,” I said. “And Vinnie.”

“Do you have any leads?” Connie asked.

“I know where he isn’t,” I told her. “I’d like an address for Dirk’s best friend, Ernie Wilkes. I’ve got one Mrs. McCurdle left. If she isn’t helpful, I’ll talk to Ernie.”

Connie punched a few keys on her computer, and it spit out Ernie’s address. She wrote the address on a slip of paper and handed it to me. “He’s retired from the button factory, so he should be at home.”

The phone rang and Connie picked it up. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll be right there.” She disconnected and grabbed her purse. “I have to bond out Jimmie Leonard. That means I have to lock the office up for an hour until I get back.”

“We could stay here and babysit phones,” Lula said.

“No way,” Connie said. “I want you out there looking for Vinnie. I can’t be office manager and bond out people at the same time. I know Vinnie’s slime, but he pulls his weight here… at least some of the time.”

Connie and Vinnie were the only ones authorized to write the bonds that released people from jail while they waited for their day in court. I worked as the office bounty hunter, and I signed individual contracts that gave me permission to root out felons who were FTA for their court date. Lula wasn’t authorized to do anything, so she just did whatever the heck she wanted.

Connie took off for the courthouse, and Lula and I piled into the Jeep. Stella McCurdle lived in north Trenton. Ernie Wilkes and his wife lived a couple blocks from Stella. Good deal for me. I was short of gas money and not excited about the idea of driving all over creation to find McCuddle. I took Olden to Bright Street and turned onto Cherry. I parked in front of Stella’s house, and Lula and I got out and went to the door.

“Now this here’s more what I’m talking about,” Lula said. “This looks like a bigamist house.”

It was a narrow, two-story single-family house. And it was painted lavender with pink trim. Why Lula imagined a bigamist should live in a lavender house was anyone’s guess.

“Yep,” I said. “This looks like a bigamist house for sure.”

“I got high hopes for this wife,” Lula said.

Stella McCurdle answered the door in tight lavender stretch pants, little sling-back heels, and a stretchy flower-print wrap shirt that displayed a decent amount of over-tanned, crepe paper-skinned boob. She had big chunky rings on her fingers and big chunky earrings, lots of make up, and her hair was a shade short of canary yellow, done up in a seventies bouffant.

“Whoa,” Lula said. “It’s like Soul Train for seniors.” Stella leaned forward. “What was that, dear? My hearing’s on the blink. I’m all clogged up with wax. I was just on my way to the doctor.”

“I’m looking for your husband,” I said to Stella.

“What?”

“Your husband.”

“No, thank you,” she said. “I don’t need any.”

“Must be a lot of wax,” Lula said.

“Dirk!” I yelled. “Where’s Dirk?”

“Dirk! Don’t know. Don’t care,” she said. “I’m moving on. I’m gonna find myself a new boy toy. Dirk was too old for me anyway.”

“That’s the spirit,” Lula said.

“What?” Stella yelled. “What did you say?”

Lula and I screamed good-bye to Stella, we got back into the car, and I drove to Ernie’s house. I didn’t think Dirk was living with Ernie, but I thought Ernie might be talking to him.

“What time is it?” Lula asked. “I might need a doughnut. Is it doughnut time?”

“I’m thinking about eating healthier,” I said. “More vegetables and fewer doughnuts.”

“What’s that about?”

“I don’t know. It just came over me.”

“It’s a bad idea. What do I look like, Mr. Green Jeans? How would it sound if I said it’s vegetable time? People would think I was a nut. Nobody gets a craving for a vegetable. And I’m on the one diet. What am I gonna do with one carrot or one asparagus? They’re not mood enhancers, if you see what I’m saying.”

“I see what you’re saying, but there aren’t any doughnuts between here and Ernie’s house.”

“I guess I could wait. And maybe you’re right about the healthy eating. I’m gonna get a carrot cake doughnut.”

I drove a block, pulled over, and called Ernie. I had a feeling he’d be more helpful if I got him away from his wife. My guess was his wife wouldn’t be happy to learn he was still palling around with Dirk the bigamist.

Ernie answered and I introduced myself.

“Is your wife home?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said.

“Would she be upset if she knew you were still friends with Dirk McCurdle?”

“What’s this about?”

“I can knock on your door and talk to you in front of your wife, or we can meet somewhere for just a couple minutes. I need to find Dirk.”

“Okay.”

“Just go out in your car or go for a walk, and I’ll follow you.”

“Okay.”

And he hung up.

Five minutes later, a car pulled out of the Wilkeses’ driveway and headed for Olden. The car pulled to the curb after three blocks and Ernie Wilkes got out.

“I don’t know anything about Dirk McCurdle,” Ernie said to Lula and me. “We used to be friends, but I don’t see him anymore.”

“When was the last time you talked to him?” I asked.

Ernie hesitated a beat. “A long time ago.”

“Try again,” I told him.

Ernie blew out a sigh. “A couple days ago. He’s got a new wife. At least, he says she’s a wife.”

“Do you know her name? Do you know where she lives?”

“Her name’s Dolly. I don’t know her last name. He said they met at the Senior Center on Greenwood. And he said she has a house close by there.”

“Does Dirk have his own place?”

Ernie shook his head. “Not that I know about. He’s always lived in his wives’ houses. I tell you, he’s a real character.”

I thanked Ernie, gave him my card, and Lula and I took Olden to Greenwood.

“Hold up here,” Lula said. “There’s a bakery on the right, and I bet they’ve got healthy doughnuts. Like maybe they got a whole wheat and green bean cruller.”