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He gets it under control. “I’m fine. Well, not fine but no worse than I was when I got up this morning. Holly, your mother just died!”

Yes, and left me quite the fortune, Holly thinks. A new millionaire walks into a bar and… something funny happens.

“Working is good for me. And I’m going up to Meadowbrook Estates tomorrow. It seems I inherited a house I don’t want.”

“Your mother’s, right? Well, good for you. It’s a seller’s market. Assuming you want to get rid of it.”

“I do. Are you in the market?”

“Dream on, Gibney.”

“How did you know I took the case?”

“Tall, dark, and handsome has already been on the phone to me.” Pete means Jerome. “He wanted me to look up an address he was too lazy to look up himself.”

Holly finds this a trifle irritating. “We have an address-finder app, and since we pay for it, we should use it once in awhile. Besides, you need something to do as well, Pete. Besides coughing and wheezing.” Holly’s latest turn around the parking lot has brought her back to her Prius. She thinks of her cigarettes in the center console, thinks of coughing and wheezing, and walks on. “What address did he want?”

“A Vera Steinman. She lives in one of those tract houses near Cedar Rest Cemetery. What do you want?”

“I have Bonnie Dahl’s Visa and Verizon information. I need to know if there’s been any activity on either account.”

“I can get that, I have a source, but it’s not strictly legal. In fact—” There’s a honk as Pete blows his nose. “—it’s not legal at all. Which means it will cost, and itemizing it on the Dahl woman’s expense account could be risky.”

“I don’t think you need to use your source,” Holly says. “I bet Izzy will check for you.”

There’s a pause, except for the rasp of Pete’s breathing. To Holly it doesn’t sound good. “Really?”

“She practically gave me the case, and I wasn’t all that surprised. You know how it is in the PD now?”

“FUBAR. Which means—”

“I know what it means.”

“Tell you something, Gibney, when I see what’s going on with the cops now I’m so friggin glad I pulled the pin.”

“Tell Izzy that if we find out something substantive, we’ll loop her in.”

“Yeah? Will we?”

“I haven’t decided,” Holly says primly.

“What’s this Vera Steinman got to do with the Dahl girl?”

“Probably nothing.” Holly could tell Pete that at twenty-four, Bonnie Rae is hardly a girl, but it would do no good. Pete is old-school. She once heard him complaining to Jerome about the Miss America Pageant dropping the swimsuit competition, and his go-to word for breasts is either bazams or jahoobies. “Pete, I have to go.”

“If you catch the Corona running around, Holly, we’ll be shut down a lot longer.”

“I hear you, Pete. Will you call Izzy?”

“Yeah. Good luck, Hols. Really sorry about your mom.”

She walks slowly to her Prius, thinking. Suppose someone was waiting who knew Bonnie’s routine. Did the old boyfriend know it? Maybe. Probably. And the bike. She keeps coming back to the bike, out front and just begging to be stolen. If it had been, would the missing helmet bother her so much?

“No,” she says. “It would not.”

She gets in the car, re-starts the engine, then smiles. She’s thought of a punchline for her joke.

December 4–19, 2020