Diesel was in the kitchen pulling containers out of a grocery tote bag. Green salad, steak fries, cheeseburgers, seven-layer carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. “Ana brought us dinner,” he said. “I told her I was in a burger mood.”
“I’ve never met her, but I love her,” I said.
I went into the dining room to dump my messenger bag by my seat at the table and looked into the living room. My furniture was gone and in its place was a new overstuffed, arctic gray couch in a soft chenille fabric, two matching swivel chairs, a new iron and glass coffee table, and a large flat-screen television.
“Excuse me,” I said to Diesel.
“What?”
“The furniture.”
“Ana got it. I told her I needed a television and she sort of ran with it.”
“What was wrong with my television?”
“It was fuzzy and there’s a game I want to watch tonight.”
“This is why you can’t stay here,” I said. “You have no boundaries. You come in and take over.”
“Do you want your stuff back?”
I gave up a sigh and acknowledged that I was doing way too much sighing. The sighing was getting old. “No,” I said. “I don’t want my stuff back. Thank you.”
“Problem solved,” Diesel said.
How could I possibly want my stuff back? My stuff was old and horrible.
I returned to the kitchen, filled a plate with food, and took it to the table. “Did you have any luck finding Oswald today?”
“No,” Diesel said. “I cruised around for about an hour and gave up. I needed to go back to the apartment to do some computer work.”
“I never pictured you as a computer guy.”
“It’s hard to avoid it. How do you picture me?”
“Beach bum.”
“That’s the guy I want to be. How was your day?”
“After I got my FTA rebonded, Lula and I went into town to look for Oswald. I saw him come out of an office building and I chased him and lost him.”
“I’ve never been instructed to apprehend him before,” Diesel said, “but he’s been a bad actor in other projects where I’ve been involved. He’s unpredictable because everything is a game to him. He doesn’t always do what’s expected or logical. He’s like a cat that enjoys playing with a mouse before eating it. I’m sure he loved having you chase him just like he got off on our car chase three days ago.”
I finished eating and opened my laptop. First up was an email from Grandma.
You made local news, she wrote. There was an article on the viewing last night and the size of the crowd. They had a picture of the mob scene in the lobby and you’re right up front. It’s a real nice picture of you. I read the paper online, and I took a screen shot for you. I attached it to the bottom here.
I looked at the picture, and what caught my attention more than the photo of me was the woman standing a couple people behind me. She was just a face in the crowd, but I was almost certain it was the woman I’d seen at Melvin’s door, Charlotte Huck.
“This is interesting,” I said to Diesel. “Grandma sent me a photo that was taken at Clark Stupin’s viewing. I’m almost positive that this woman in the photo was at Melvin’s door this morning. Lula and I went to Melvin’s loft to get him fresh clothes and we saw her knocking on his door. When he didn’t answer, she left. I took her picture and when I showed it to Melvin, he said that he didn’t recognize her.”
“Maybe she was a hooker and Melvin didn’t want you to know. Maybe she was selling Girl Scout cookies.”
“Maybe she was sent by Oswald,” I said. “He likes pretty women and she’s kind of pretty. They could be a couple.”
“Do you have a name? An address?”
“I have both.”
“Let’s go for a ride,” Diesel said.
Charlotte Huck lived on a quiet side street in downtown Trenton. There were two blocks of narrow two-story attached town homes and they all looked the same. Her house was in the middle of the block.
“This is it,” I said, “108 Spruce Street.”
“I don’t see a Porsche parked anywhere on the street,” Diesel said.
“She drives a Kia, and I don’t see it here, either.”
Diesel drove to the end of the street and turned the corner. A one-lane alley divided the block of town homes. He took the alley and counted off houses. He stopped at the fifth house.
“This is the back of her house,” he said.