“Every family has one of those,” I said.
“Babe,” Ranger said. And he disconnected.
Lula returned with a bunch of pastries, a sausage and egg sandwich in a paper wrapper that was soaked in grease, a bagel, and more coffee.
“I got the bagel for Bob,” Lula said.
Bob’s ears perked up at the mention of his name and his eyes got bright. Lula handed him the bagel and he gulped it down.
By eight o’clock we were on the road. William Dugan lived in a tidy neighborhood a couple miles out of town. The houses were modest and a mixture of ranches and small two-stories. Yards were large enough for swing sets and an occasional aboveground pool. The Dugan house was a Cape Cod with a red door and a gray Honda Civic in the driveway.
I parked in front of the house and explained to Bob that he was going to have to stay in the car, and he needed to be good because the car belonged to Ranger.
“You think he got all that?” Lula asked. “It’s not like you were talking dog to him. There’s a good chance he don’t know what you said past Bob.”
“Maybe you should stay with him,” I said.
“Hell no. I’m not gonna miss this. From what Ranger told you, these people are softballers. They got matchy-matchy cars. I mean, this is good stuff. This is like walking into a fifties sitcom. This is Leave It to Beaver shit. And on top of that I can’t wait to see Nutsy. It’s not every day you get to see someone called Nutsy. And I got a lot of clown questions.”
“Okay,” I said, “but let me do the talking. I don’t want to freak anyone out as soon as we walk in the door.”
“When did I ever freak anyone out?” Lula said. “I’m a perfect example of decorum. I got a innate sense of saying the right thing. Are we going in guns blazing?”
“No guns. No pepper spray. No stun guns. No punching people out. Are you sure you don’t want to stay with Bob?”
“Don’t worry about me. Like I said, I’m full of decorum.”
I rang the bell and a woman answered. Blond hair in a ponytail. Fortyish. Tasteful makeup. Wearing pink scrubs suitable for a dental hygienist.
“Adele Dugan?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
I introduced myself, showed her my credentials, and told her I would like to talk to Duncan.
“Duncan isn’t here right now,” she said. “William took him to our doctor.”
“Is Andrew Manley here?” I asked her.
“No. He went with Duncan and William.”
“You know that Duncan is in trouble,” I said to her.
“Yes. I don’t know all the details, but apparently, he couldn’t get good medical care in Trenton. We were surprised when they arrived. I guess they thought I could provide care, but Duncan’s injuries were beyond my abilities. For goodness’ sakes, I’m a dental hygienist. I clean teeth. Fortunately, we have a wonderful family doctor.” She looked down at her watch. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m a little late this morning. I need to get to work.”
“Of course,” I said. “Thank you for your time.”
“Did you know Nutsy was a clown?” Lula asked her.
“Nutsy? That’s Andrew, right?” she said. “He was a clown?”
“We don’t want you to be late for work,” I said to Adele. “Thank you again.”
I stepped back and Adele closed and locked the door.
The upholstery seemed intact when I got back to the car. There were tooth marks on the gearshift, but they were minor.
“I thought we’d go into town and look for either the white van or the gray Civic,” I said to Lula. “Go online and see where doctor’s offices are located.”
I retraced my route into town and Lula searched for doctors.
“It looks like there are three doctors here,” she said. “One of them is an ob-gyn, so we can forget about her. One of the family doctors is on Chestnut Street and the other is in a medical building on Hoover Street. Both streets go off the main drag that we came in on.”
I drove past the hotel and the little park. The Champion Bar and Grill was on the left side of the street and Chestnut Street was at the next corner. I drove one block down Chestnut and the doctor’s office was on the right. It was a small gray and white house with a small parking lot on one side. There was a Toyota Corolla in the lot. No white van or gray Honda Civic.
I went back to Main Street and turned onto Hoover Street, and the medical building was one block in. The white van was parked in the lot next to it.
“Are we good, or what?” Lula said.
It seemed to me that I should have been happier. I’d found Duncan Dugan and Nutsy. Finding was huge, right? So why did I have this hollow feeling in my stomach? It was like I was facing impending doom. Or maybe I was on the verge of doing something stupid that I would regret. Doing something stupid happened to me a lot, but I didn’t usually get an early warning.
I parked on the far side of the lot, away from the van.
An hour later, Nutsy appeared, pushing Duncan in a wheelchair. He was accompanied by a woman in lavender scrubs and a man I assumed was the brother. They loaded Duncan into the van, the woman returned to the building with the wheelchair, and Nutsy and the brother got into the van and drove off.
“We need one of those Kojak flashy red lights to put on the top of this car,” Lula said. “Then you could pull the van over and commandeer it and drive everyone to Jersey while I followed in this SUV. Easy peasy.”
“I’m going to wait until Duncan is settled in his brother’s house before I approach him,” I said. “He didn’t look all that great in the wheelchair. This travel has to be hard for him.”
“Yeah, but it would be fun to pull someone over with our light flashing. I always wanted to do that. I even thought about being a cop, but I got discouraged with the uniform and the cop shoes. All my voluptuous beautifulness would be wasted in a cop uniform.”
I gave them lots of distance on the way home. I knew where they were going. No need to spook them by riding on their bumper. They parked the van in the driveway, and Nutsy and the brother helped Duncan get into the house. After a half hour the brother left.
“All your moons are still in a row,” Lula said to me. “Now there’s no brother to complicate the process.”
“Exactly. I was hoping he would leave to go to work or something.”
I drove up to the house and parked behind the van.
“I counted the tooth marks on the gearshift,” I said to Bob. “If there are any new ones when I get back there will be no treats for the rest of the day.”
“You’d be a good mama,” Lula said. “You’re excellent at making a threat. That’s one of the essential skills you need as a mother. Have you ever thought about having kids?”
“I can barely take care of a hamster.”
“That’s not true. I see the way you take care of Rex. He’s got the good life. You keep his cage clean, and he always has fresh water and food. You don’t even yell at him for running on that squeaky wheel all night. And you share all the best food with him. Pop-Tarts and such.”
“Probably I should get a husband before I have a kid.”