AN: Happy Halloween a day late! As always, thanks for reading and reviewing. I really appreciate it. Anything familiar belongs to Janet, and the mistakes belong to me. Woohoo!

It turned out that six students from Linton University, a little school just outside of Boston, dressed up as Muppet Babies, to crash the Santa Claus Parade. They said they just wanted to get on television. It couldn't be a coincidence that Dickerson's alma mater was the source of the costumes, so I started to do some more digging.

A quick phone call to the school told me pretty much what I needed to know about it. In 1986, the school was fairly new on the scene. They had only been open for twenty years, and while they had some top-notch professors, and a beautiful, modern facility, they were far from well known, and couldn't really compete with the other schools nearby. So as part of a marketing course, one of the teachers challenged the students to think of how to make the school a household name.

A few of the student decided that they would do it by staging a bunch of stunts in Muppet Baby costumes, and the parade was to be the first of their antics. However, when Piggy and Gonzo got mugged, and the others were arrested without so much as a mention in the paper, they abandoned the plan. The costumes were still occasionally used during pep rallies and Frat House parties.

My conversation with the woman in administration was cut short by the sound of Lula snoring in the seat next to me, and I had to pretend we were going past a construction site. The woman on the phone said she'd email me everything she had about the incident, and I had more police reports to look up.

I swung around to Lula's house dropped her off, and went to Haywood. I went up to the apartment where Julie was chilling on the sofa, watching the Trolls movie with a riveted Lunch Box.

"S'up?" I asked. Not that I minded her hanging in the apartment with me, but I would have thought she'd be all about her own place.

"I was getting bored all by myself. I have two sisters, and it's always loud at home."

"I know that feeling, but when I was a kid, I was the one making the noise," I said.

"Don't suppose you'd mind if I crashed on the sofa?" She asked.

"Not at all," I said. "I'd offer to share the big bed with you, but I have no idea when Ranger is going to get home, and if it's late, he usually just falls into bed."

"It's all good, I like this sofa," she said.

I was planning to go over everything I'd found so far while watching the Mets game, but apparently, that option was out. I took everything into Ranger's den and spread it out on the surface of his desk, and started making a list of everything I knew so far. Which was not much.

We hadn't run proper background checks on Sadie to see if she was the reason this all began. So I started one, and one on her mother. While they were running, I used another search engine of Ranger's that allowed me access to Dickerson's phone records. That was a complete bust. He called his wife, the pharmacy, and the middle school. He didn't text, so that wasn't at all helpful.

I was about to call it quits when I remembered the private investigator's reports. I read through them all, and there was nothing that stood out from the weekend before Dickerson disappeared, so I called the number on one of the invoices, and got a man named, Gavin Archer.

"Archer here, what can I do for you?"

"Hi," I said, "I'm Stephanie Manoso, I'm a private investigator from Rangeman Securities. I'm looking into the disappearance of Waldo Dickerson, and I was wondering if you could help me?"

"Wally's a good man," Archer said, "Before you ask, she knew I was following her around. I wouldn't do it until he told her what I was up to. I didn't want to get busted for stalking her."

"Was it always you on her tail?"

"Sometimes it was my kid, but usually it was me. I'm 62 years old, and I'm not as spry as I used to be, so my kid does all of the tough shit, and I follow Bernadette around, keeping my distance, and answering the phones from my car."

"On the weekend before he disappeared, was there anything strange about her behavior, did she meet up with anyone unexpected?"

"Not that I can remember. Hang on," Archer said. I heard the sound of a turn signal, and then some typing on a keyboard. "On the Saturday she went to the gas station to fill up her car, and to get gas for the lawnmower. She spoke to three men. One was a gas station attendant, one was a guy she seemed to know from somewhere, but I didn't get his name, and the other guy was some idiot waiting in line for the pumps who decided to honk his horn at her to get her to hurry up, before she was finished getting her gas. After that, she went home and mowed the lawn."

"And Sunday?"

"Nothing," he said. "Bernie didn't leave the house that I'm aware of. Says in my notes that she gardened for about two hours at around midday while I was sweating my balls off in my car. Want me to send you everything I have from that weekend?"

"You don't mind?" I asked.

"No skin off my nose. It's not like I'm afraid of you stealing my work. You work for Rangeman; you've got better shit to do than monitor a middle-aged semi-retired housewife while she runs her errands."

A few minutes later I had the file, and I sent the dates and times of the interaction at the gas station to Hector hoping he could get me security footage.

I fell into an uneasy sleep, and the next morning I dragged myself out of bed and found an email from Hector waiting for me.

The footage showed Bernadette getting out of the car. She spoke to the gas station attendant, a young guy about Minnie's age, with long hair, and a pleasant demeanor. Then another guy came out of the store and saw her. He said something to her that caused her to smile politely, and then there was a clear lightbulb moment where she realized who the guy was, and she hugged him.

They chatted for a few minutes and then both of them started and looked towards a minivan parked behind them. Whatever the guy said, was offensive because her friend walked over to the car and there looked like there was going to be an altercation. Then the van pulled away, and the driver flipped them the bird. Her friend helped Bernadette back into her car and loaded the jerry cans into the back. She left, and he paid the kid who pumped the gas.

The minivan was an older model, probably from the 80's or 90's, but what make it was, I had no idea, and he'd pulled up in such a way that you couldn't make out anything more than the fact that there were New Jersey plates on it. I emailed Hector asking him if he knew what make the van was. He replied with one word. "No."

It was a cool looking thing, with a pointed nose on it, all black with red pin striping down the side, and blacked out windows. If I were ever to need a minivan, I'd look for something like it. I mean it was like if Knight Rider were to have to drive a van, it would probably be this one. I started thinking of it as KITT's mom. But it didn't really get me anywhere, so I turned my attention to the guy at the gas station.

If he were the one responsible for the threat Dickerson spoke about, then it wasn't obvious to Bernadette that she was being threatened, and he didn't give a damn about keeping his face from the camera. He'd paid in cash, so there was no way to trace him that way, but maybe the kid who was pumping Bernadette's gas for her, remembered something.

When I went to see if Connie wanted to ride shotgun again, I found her at the front desk teaching Julie some computer program, so I decided to ride solo. I went down to the garage and looked at the giant gas guzzling Mercedes and the pretty little Boxter, and I decided that since it was actually a beautiful day outside, I'd risk driving my car. It took me twenty minutes to get to the gas station, and when I pulled into the lot, I couldn't justify stopping for gas, so I decided that I'd use my sweet tooth as my excuse for being at the store.

When I walked into the gas station, I was surprised to find Bernadette's friend, stocking shelves. He was wearing a name tag that read, Reardon.

"Was there something I could help you with?" Reardon asked. He wasn't wearing a uniform, but instead a pair of khaki shorts and a mint green golf shirt.

"Tasty Cakes?" I said.

"We don't stock them anymore," he said. "It's a major bummer because they're my favorite, but they weren't selling."

"That, really sucks," I said. Reardon nodded his agreement.

"Anything else maybe?" He asked.

"No," I said. "Damn. I'm driving all the way to Mystic today, and I thought I'd stock up on road snacks."

He looked out of the window, at my Boxter, which was the only car in the lot, besides the one that was presumably his. "It's a nice car to have to go on a long road trip by yourself."

"Yep," I said.

"What takes you to Mystic?" He asked me. There wasn't a flicker of recognition from this guy. So if he was one of the Muppets, he definitely wasn't Animal. So I decided to risk it and give him a partial truth.

"Look," I said. "I'm going to level with you. I'm doing some investigative work for a private law firm. This guy Dakota Ackman let his kid go joy riding in his minivan, and he made a game out of making YouTube videos of people's reactions to being hurried at the pumps. I gather he was quite aggressive with these women, and one of them was so upset that she sped away from the gas station in tears, and wrote off her car. I'm driving around Trenton going from gas station to gas station seeing if anyone remembers an incident like this? I'm hoping someone has a surveillance camera that records audio. The stuff I've been told he has said is vile, and more than a little threatening. So far it's just a civil suit, but it looks like there could be criminal charges pending."

"I know exactly what you're talking about. We had an incident like that a couple three weeks ago. Asshole kid pulls up and starts yelling at a customer that she needs to stop gabbing and actually pay attention to the fact that other people need to get gas. Like she is responsible for how fast our attendants pump gas? The poor thing was frightened half to death. I ended up paying for her gas out of my own pocket because she was so scared, and I didn't want her to stop coming here."

"I don't suppose you have the altercation on video, with audio?"

"I don't record audio," he said.

"Can I have your name in case they decide to call you as a witness?" I asked.

"Sure," he said. His name was Reardon Maxwell. I put it down in my notepad, and I picked out some brain food for the car and was paying for it when something caught his attention on his security monitors, and he ran out of the store.

I followed him and found Harvey Leitrim trying to get into my trunk. Leitrim looked up, saw me and decided to take off, but Reardon was too quick for him and snagged him by the shirt.

"Do you know this guy?" Reardon asked.

"I do," I said, and turned to Leitrim, "Dude what the hell?"

"I just wanted to give you a present," he said.

"Like David?" I said.

"Wasn't he great?" Reardon said, "I'm super proud of him."

"He was kind of disgusting, and he half melted all over my mother's driveway."

"I saw that," he said. "And it's a shame about his junk. I thought you could have fun with it, and.."

"Stop," I said. "What the hell do you want?"

"Nothing!" He said, "I just want to pay it forward."

"Pay what forward?" I asked.

"I don't want to say in front of this guy."

"Why?"

"Because he's going to think I'm a wuss," Leitrim said.

"Are you armed?" I asked.

He shook his head vehemently, no. "Fine," I looked at Reardon, and rolled my eyes, "Let him go. He's harmless."

"Are you sure?"

"Mostly sure," I said. Reardon went back into his store, and I motioned for Leitrim to get into my car. I turned on the AC and put the roof up, but I wasn't driving anywhere with him.

"What's the deal?" I asked.

Leitrim was pretty much the most average looking dude to ever be a dude. He was somewhere between twenty-five and forty. He had no serious scars on his face, his hair was mousy brown, and his eyes were brown. His complexion was slightly olive but not, and every time I'd seen him he'd been wearing a pair of Wrangler jeans, some cheap grey sneakers and some kind of t-shirt; today's t-shirt was dark brown with lego men that looked like the Beatles walking across it.

"I used to be a bastard," he said. "Like a grade A Dick Hole."

"Okay," I said. "Just so you know, breaking into my place and stealing my food, doesn't exactly elevate you from Dick Hole status."

"Oh no! He said, "It does. See I was friends with this guy, and he gave me all kinds of advice I thought was terrific, only it turned out that it wasn't. He had me all convinced that I should look at marriage the way it was initially intended in the law. You know, a contract for making kids, but like not something you really need to put your back into. So I married this girl for her money and her body, and whenever I had the chance, I'd pick up someone else. Then I met this woman. She was gorgeous. Like a ten, and she was totally interested in me. She got me, you know? She convinced me to leave my wife, and I did. She waited until the divorce was finalized, and we went to Vegas together to get married. I'm telling you she was the perfect woman. She didn't even look at the better-looking guys, she liked everything I like, and I was stoked. So we got married, and we had this great honeymoon in Vegas, and then I woke up one morning and she'd drained my bank accounts, and she was gone. She conned me out of almost two million dollars.

Now my first wife has custody of kids I never get to see, and I had to sell the house I insisted on getting in the settlement, but I had to practically give it away. Now I live in a shitty little place, I used to work for this big IT company, but it got bought out, and I was made redundant, and now I mop floors and clean toilets for a fast food chain. And seriously people are disgusting in public restrooms." Leitrim shuddered.

I usually think guys need to suck it up when they find a gross bathroom. I mean half of the time they don't have to come into contact with a toilet, so if occasionally they have to hover, it's not a big deal. Women don't really have that option ever. However, the guy who has to clean the disgusting bathrooms had my sympathy. Even if he was a creep, who stole my peanut butter.

"Anyway," Leitrim said. I figured it was Karma, and I was wondering how I could fix it. So then I thought about all of the stuff I read about you in the paper, and the people who come to you and hang around with you, and thought it's probably because helping you is good for their karma. So I did a little research and knew it was fate."

"Why?"

"Because the guy that was my idol was Dicky Orr. I mean he screwed you over big time. I thought that if I could make your life a little easier then, it would go to repairing some of my own bad mojo, you know?"

"Ohmigod," I said. "And you think stealing my peanut butter to make a giant porno statue was a good way to do it?"

"What else was I going to do with all of the peanut butter? It had olive juice in it. Do you know how gross that is?"

"You didn't have to take it!" I said.

"Yes I did! You broke up with Joe because he couldn't handle the olives in the peanut butter. At least this way it wasn't going to be a problem again."

"Yeah, but you gave it back to me in the form of a giant peanut butter monster."

"I thought you would like it," he said.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"Well," he said, "I uhh have something you might find interesting."

"Like the Peanut Butter?"

"Muppets."

He handed me a folder, and I opened it. There were a bunch of telephoto pictures of the night of Dickerson's murder. He had all of them. Rowlf, Kermit, Piggy, Skeeter, Animal. "I was bummed that Gonzo wasn't there."

"Gonzo is probably in an evidence lockup in New York City. Piggy should be too…I wonder if that's a new costume?"

I flipped through about forty pictures, one that showed them piling into a van. "Huh," I said. It looked almost exactly like the van that harassed Bernadette at the pumps a few weeks before.

"What?"

"Nothing," I said. "Do you have anything else from that night, or when I was watching Dickerson?"

He shook his head, "I was out of town for most of that. My kids were at summer camp, and I was able to watch them without my ex-wife knowing about it."

"You're really creepy, you know that?"

"Yeah, but it's a good hobby. I mean I'm getting really good at watching people. They don't even see me anymore."

"Okay first," I said, "Stop following me. I can't help your karma, and stealing my peanut butter and breaking into my car is annoying. Second, maybe just try apologizing to your wife for being a dick hole."

"I've tried that," he said. "She told me to jump up my own ass."

"I don't really blame her," I said.

"So I have to help you," he said.

"Don't," I said, "Ranger has a low tolerance for stalkers right now, and he's probably going to shoot you for violating the restraining order."

"Yeah," he said. "Okay. But I have to help you. I mean think about it? Sally Sweet and Lula are having a baby together, and they are all happy and stuff. Your sister is married to a decent guy, and her kids are starting to be a little better adjusted. Your grandmother is hooked up with the guy who got away, and you're married to Ranger. You're good at fixing things."

"Oy," I said.

"Who is this guy?" He asked and pointed to Reardon, "Why are you bugging him?"

"Because he might be involved in a case I'm working on. I thought maybe he was one of the Muppets, but now I'm not so sure."

"I can follow him. Give me twenty-four hours, and I can tell you more about him than his mother and his doctor combined."

"No," I said. "Go home Leitrim."

"I can't do that," he said. "I told you. I need to fix my karma."

"Fine," I said. "But no doing anything illegal. No breaking and entering, no computer hacking, or anything that I figure you probably already do because… Wait." Maybe I could help Leitrim and get him off of my back.

"What?"

"Dude, you're good at following people?"

"Yeah?"

"You want real work?"

"Yeah?"

"Call this guy here. He's a private investigator who's getting too old for the legwork. He might have something for you."

He looked like he was about to hug me, so I shoved him away.

"Get out of my car and leave me alone."

He nodded excitedly, and climbed out and then dematerialized behind one of the pumps. I got out of the car again and went into the store.

"What was that all about?" Reardon asked.

"He had information about the case I'm working on, and he's a little weird," I said. "The kid who was working here that day? Any chance I can speak to him?"

"I think he's in school right now," he said.

"What's his name?"

"Wesley Riel," he said. "He goes to Lakewood School for Fine Arts."

"Thanks," I said.

I went to my car, and I looked up Lakewood on the GPS and turned on the turn by turn instructions. I was expecting, I dunno, Hogwarts or something cool and funky and modern, and for the second time in two days I was disappointed by boring reality. Lakewood looked like an ordinary high school, with yellow bricks, and boxy construction. The only thing that differentiated it from any other school in Trenton was the fact that the graffiti was genuinely spectacular. It depicted two unicorns fighting with their horns, in a pale blue and lime green cloud of stars and other space junk.

I parked in the lot, and went into the front office, and rang a little metal bell at reception. The man that greeted me was pleasant, and he introduced me to the principal of the school. There are people I can happily lie to without feeling even the tiniest niggle of guilt, and then there are people who I don't even bother with because they'll know I'm fibbing. Then there is a whole other class of people who make me feel like I've done something wrong, and that before I've opened my mouth, I've disappointed them. My dentist fits that category. So do high school principals. All of them.

Noel Lampshire, I'm sure was a lovely man, and when he spoke to me he was entirely reasonable, but that didn't stop me from breaking out into a flop sweat when I told him why I was there. He called Wesley Riel's mother, and she gave him permission to act in Wesley's interests while I asked him questions about a missing person case. Then he paged Wesley to the office.

Wesley walked in and smiled warmly at the principal, and shook my hand heartily when we were introduced. "So this is pretty cool. I get to help with a missing person case?"

"Yes," I said. "You served the man's wife the day before he disappeared. Her name is Bernadette Dickerson. There was an incident involving someone in a van? He honked at her and told her to hurry up…"

"Oh that," he said. "Yeah, Mrs. Dickerson is real jumpy, but a nice lady."

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"Some dude honked on the horn of his car and startled the crap out of her. My boss, Mr. Maxwell, he got all pissed off, and paid for her gas."

"What did the guy in the van say?"

"He was basically catcalling her with a couple of his buddies," he said. "He asked her if she liked adventure or romance. Did she think she could make her dreams come true, at the gas pump."

"Seriously?" I said.

"Yeah," he said. "It was annoying, but it really freaked out Mr. Maxwell. "What about her?"I asked.

"Well she wasn't comfortable with the catcalling, but she was fine. I think Mr. Maxwell overreacted a little. But then again, I think he has a thing for Mrs. Dickerson. He's usually the one who pumps her gas when she comes in."

"And Mrs. Dickerson? Does she have a thing for Mr. Maxwell?"

"No," he said. "It's all one-sided. Usually, the only time I pump her gas is when her husband is there too, then my boss doesn't go out."

"Okay," I said. "Could you describe the guy from the station?"

"Sorry," he said, "Mr. Maxwell was in the way, so I couldn't see his face. I'd recognize the van though."

I pulled out one of the pictures Leitrim had given me and showed it to the kid. He nodded. "That's the van."

"Thanks," I said.

"The plates are different though," he said.

"You remember the plates?" I asked.

"My job is boring as fu-all get out," he glanced at the principal who cocked a warning eyebrow, "I made up a stupid game where I try to think of... rude... pneumonics to memorize plates. I'm getting really good at it."

"Really?"

"Yep," he said. "The plates at the station were 209 GPH. The ones here are YHD 876. But I'm sure it's the same van though."

"How?" I asked.

"Well, it's sort of unusual. I mean you see a lot of minivans at the gas station, but I mean they are all the same right? There are like what, three on the market right now. Sometimes we see the odd, Ford Aerostar, but an Oldsmobile Silhouette? That's weird. You don't see a lot of them, especially not ones with the badging missing off of the front. If the guy wasn't such an asshole, I might have asked him if he was willing to sell it."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because it's the same make and model of a van my dad loaned my sister like ten years ago. She was in a car accident, and it was a right off. Now whenever he sees a car similar to it, he says, 'I used to have a van like that.' It drives her nuts. She said if ever saw one like it she'd get it for him just so he'd stop bothering her about it."

"You're sure it's the same car?"

"Yeah," he said. "Positive. Like I said, there aren't many of them around anymore."

"Thanks," I said and handed him my card, "If you remember anything else, please call."

"No problem," he said.

I said goodbye to both of them and went back out to my car. I was about to get in when Wesley called my name. I closed my door again and waited until he finished jogging to my car.

"I want to tell you something without Mr. Lampshire around. If he knew about this, I'd probably get expelled."

"What's that?" I asked.

"It's about Mr. Dickerson. I don't know if this is… He is a math and science teacher right?"

"Yep," I said.

"Last year a couple of the guys and I started a Fantasy Baseball League. The teachers were okay with it because it meant we'd be using math and everything, but there was money involved, and we kept that from them because we're not supposed to be gambling on school property right?"

"Okay," I said.

"It was just me and like twelve guys. We had a ten dollar a week buy in, and if for whatever reason you couldn't afford it, then it didn't matter. If you accumulated the most points that week, then you got a 70% payout of that week's pot, and the rest was set aside for whoever won the season. I was thinking about dropping out about halfway through the season because I was getting killed. I mean the injuries were getting ridiculous, and my best guys were all on the DL.

Mr. Dickerson overheard me talking to my buddy about it, and the next day he came into the gas station with a list of names. He did all of these calculations using these equations he'd developed when he was in school. He told me that if before the trade deadline I got rid of my three biggest hitters, and exchanged them for some utility players I would start to clean up. These guys weren't going to hit a lot of homers, but they had decent OBPs...On Base Percentages... and he predicted pretty much all of the injuries that were going to happen in the second half of the season. So I figured I had nothing to lose, I made the trades, and I cleaned up.

So this year when it came time to pick my team and make my trades, I asked Mr. Dickerson if he would look over what I was thinking of doing, and he lost his cool. He said he shouldn't have helped me in the first place, and that this was how people got themselves into trouble. He gave me this huge lecture on gambling and said he wouldn't help me anymore. It was bizarre."

"When did that happen?"

"I guess back in March?" He said.

"How are you doing this year?"

"Not bad," he said. "Without his math, I'm just guessing based on players with similar stats to the guys I picked last year. I don't know if that's going to help at all, but I mean it was really out of character for him."

"It sounds like it," I said, "He was my teacher when I was in middle school. If he were ever mad at you, he would call you into his classroom after school, and he'd tell you why he was disappointed and then ask you how we should fix the problem. You always walked away feeling like you'd let Santa down, and you swore you'd do better."

"Exactly. I thought something was wrong then, but I dunno. I know Mrs. Dickerson has been sick, and I thought maybe he was stressed about that."

"Maybe," I said. "I'll look into it. Thanks for your help."

"Yeah," he said.

"I don't suppose you have your stuff from last year's team on you? Or that you could email it to me?"

He shrugged his backpack off of his shoulder and pulled out a binder. "You keep it in a binder? You don't have it online somewhere?"

"Nah," he said, "My friends only think I do. They keep trying to hack my laptop because of how I cleaned up last year. So I just keep track of everything here. You can't hack a notebook you don't know exists."

He opened the binder and pulled out a section marked from the previous year. He wrote his name and cell phone number on the front.

"I don't need this stuff right now, but I'm going to want it back at the end of the season. Just call me when you're done with it. Don't bring it to the gas station, because Mr. Maxwell gets pissy when I do personal stuff on his dime. Even if it's only for a few minutes."

A bell rang, and he glanced back at the school. "I have to go, I can't miss my next class."

"Test?"

"Henley Burbage. She's cute as hell and gets all turned on when I play the piano. I'm hoping to convince her to skip last period," he said and flashed me a grin before he jogged back to the school.

I rolled my eyes. Wesley was a nice guy, but then again, Morelli could turn on the charm and seem like a nice guy at that age too, and we all know what he was really like back then.

I got into the car and decided rather than work in my crowded office, or the apartment that felt weird without Ranger in it, I'd work from a booth in Pino's. I'd ordered some tortellini for lunch, to switch things up, and I was dipping fries into the cream sauce when I saw Morelli get out of his Jeep, he was laughing, and I could make out Molly's silhouette in the passenger's seat. He jogged in and picked up some takeout, and spotted me in the booth. He came over and sat down across from me.

"Dental records matched Dickerson's. They are running a DNA test on some bone marrow to make for damn sure it's him. But we're 90% sure it's him."

"Shit," I said. "Has Bernadette been informed."

"No," he said, "And we're not going public with the murder just yet, so keep your trap shut about it. As far as anyone is concerned this is still a missing person."

"In the interest of full disclosure, I have reason to believe that the Muppets were driving an Oldsmobile Silhouette."

"Do you have a plate number?"

"I have two," I said. "Both New Jersey plates. So probably neither of them are actually registered to the minivan."

"Give them to me, I'll run them."

"Shouldn't I give them to Bucky?"

"Bucky has six active open murders with better leads than this one."

"Really," I said.

"Yep. As soon as I have half a second to…" Joe stopped when Scooby sounded from his pocket. He glanced at the readout and grinned, then flagged my waitress. "I need a Root Beer float done with mint chocolate chip ice cream. To go please."

I made a face at him.

"I don't know what to tell you," he said with a shrug.

The float came to the table, and he stood up. "Text me with the plate numbers."

"Are you going to be around the station later?"

"Nope," he said. "I'm spending the afternoon in front of my TV playing strip baseball."

"Fun," I said. "Look before you go, how good is Bucky?"

"He's a good detective, with a decent closure rate."

"Oh, okay," I said. "I'm just used to you, and your method. I'm guessing everyone is different."

"Yep," he said. "I'll talk to you later."

I nodded and started going over my stuff. Yes, the information about the van's plates sort of fell into my lap, but I'd hardly put my back out getting this information. How hard was Bucky working this case exactly? I didn't think very. I ran across this occasionally. Some Detectives liked the strange cases because it was a break from the monotony. Some didn't. They resented anything that wasn't routine, and couldn't think outside of the box enough to find answers. I suspected Bucky was the latter, and the only way Dickerson was going to get justice was if I was the one who got it for him.