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So the killers were in custody and unlikely to get out until after a lengthy and messy trial—or, if we were lucky, a plea-bargain that sent them to prison. Elliot had decided he was going to try to move his business back to Shawano, although he said he was going to try to keep his Madison clients and do a bit more driving. He’d asked if I knew anyone who could set up a website for him.

I’d asked Ward ifheknew anyone, since my boss was a former IT guy, and he’d negotiated it into his contract with Elliot for the table that was coming out in March. Elliot got a website design, and Ward got a slightly cheaper (but really not cheap) table.

On top of that, Taavi had started college yesterday, and he’d come home more excited than I think I’d ever seen him. I certainly couldn’t remember ever having been that excited about getting a syllabus in a college class. But I was happy for him—really, genuinely happy. He deserved it.

My stitches were even out.

So I had no reason to be experiencing nearly constant existential dread.

And yet, here we were.

30

I finishedup a file on yet another extremely predictable missing jewelry case—shocker, the alcoholic younger sister who lived with the parents had pawned it in order to fund her loser boyfriend’s gambling isn’t-an-addiction—and I had been a good little elf and filed my paperwork. I had a clear case slate, which meant I was just about to start rooting through missing persons posts on social media, which is beyond depressing, but was how I brought in some of my less boring cases these days. Then my phone buzzed.

I looked down at it.

Tony the Tiger looked back at me with a thumb’s up over crossed stripey arms.

I picked up the phone. “Hey, Tony. Who died now?”

“Nobody, actually,” came the response.

“Nobody’s dead, and yet you’re callingme?” I’d certainly been known to call Raj from time to time to try to get information I probably wasn’t supposed to have, but most of the time when Raj called me was when somebody was dead and he needed Doc or Ward. Or because he wanted beer and pizza or burgers, but we’d just done that last week, so I wasn’t due for more another month or two, not that I’d have refused.

“I’m sure someone will obligingly die soon,” he replied dryly. “But no. I… have a proposal for you.”

“For me?” Now I was really suspicious.

“Yes, Keebler. If I had one for someone else, I’d have called them.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “Fine. What is it?”

“You know Kurtz is retiring, right?”

“What day is he on now?”

“Three.”

“Shit. You having a party?”

“Damn right we are. Friday—thelast day—at Hardywood in the back room. You’re coming.”

“Am I?” At least now I knew why he called me.

“You and that adorable little dog of yours.”

I rolled my eyes. Raj can say shit like that because he’s also a shifter. “Just for that, I’m calling you Kitty all night.”

“I’ll claw your eyes out,” he replied without missing a beat. “Although that’s not actually why I called you, but I’m glad I mentioned it, since clearly the postal service has failed us all miserably.”

I snorted. “You sure he wanted to invite me?”

“I had to give him your address, so yeah.” That made me feel a little warm and fuzzy.

“So whydidyou call me, then?”

“Well, Iwantedto make the offer earlier, but federal bureaucratic red tape is an enormous pain in the ass. You don’t have a federal record, so there was a lot of screaming and yelling, but you got a glowing recommendation from a Melanie Olsen in Green Bay and some guy named Levi Eichman out of Milwaukee.”