TWELVE

I drove home, trying to decide what to do first. I decided to do some more snooping on Facebook first, in case I found a good lead on Fortecelli. I fed Rex while I waited for my laptop to boot up, then logged into Facebook. There were posts all over my wall from people wishing me congratulations on my marriage. I sighed and posted a status: Sorry for the confusion, but I am not married! Then I checked to see if any of the friend requests I'd sent had been accepted. Andrea, as I'd expected, had not accepted my request. A few random people had, though, so I scanned their feeds, looking for anything from George. I came up with a big goose egg. I checked Frankie's profile, too, but he had also gone quiet.

I spent the rest of the day doing laundry, with a quick stop at the grocery store for food. On my way home, I checked my mailbox in the apartment's foyer for the first time in over a week. Bills overflowed it. I was tempted to put them back in the box. Maybe if I ignored them they would get returned to sender. Of course, then my electricity would probably also get shut off. I spied an envelope with a return address for Rangeman. Recognizing my check from the New Year's Eve job, I ripped it open. I stared at the amount. Ranger's account manager had messed something up. This added up to a week's worth of work, not just one night. I tucked it into my purse, mentally noting to let Ranger know about the mistake later.

As the sun set, I decided to visit the site of George's crime to see if anyone at the bar had any useful information.

The Union Bar sat squarely in the middle of residential Boulder Street. To its right squatted a low rise apartment building, upkept enough to avoid visits by code enforcement, but certainly not pretty. To its left, an empty lot, formerly occupied by the building burnt down by Fortecelli. The rest of the street contained a jumble of apartment buildings and dumpy row homes. The working poor dominated this area, making it a step above the projects, but growing a little rougher year after year.

The day shifts at most of the factories were over by the time I got to Union Bar, so the place hopped with a steady stream of workers looking to down a few beers before heading home. Sunday didn't mean anything in a neighborhood like this one. Weekends were a luxury only afforded to the middle class and up.

The interior of Union Bar appeared to be a half-hearted attempt at a sports bar, but two out of the three flat screen TV's on the wall were busted. A dozen or so mismatched tables dotted the center, but most folks bellied up to the bar. I found an open bar stool and sat down, well aware of my status as the only woman in the place.

The bartender approached me with an appraising look. He sported short brown hair, grayed around the temples, with a nose that looked like it had been broken a few too many times.

"What can I get you, beautiful?"

I handed him my card. "I'm looking for George Fortecelli. He allegedly burned down the building next door."

"Apprehension agent, eh?" the bartender replied, reading the title off my card. "I'm afraid I can't help you. I haven't seen George since the night he did us all a favor and torched that crack house."

"I thought it was abandoned and condemned?"

"It was. Didn't matter none to the dealers. They'd sell the stuff on the first floor, then send them upstairs to get high. I'd call the cops and they'd all scatter like cockroaches as soon as they heard the first siren and be back the next day. You know how long that place was condemned and slated for demolition? Five years. Five fucking years of the dealers and their druggies. How's a guy supposed to run a reputable bar with a crack house next door?"

"You own the bar?"

He nodded.

"Did you complain to the city council?"

"City council don't care about a crack house in this neighborhood. I'd go to meetings, ask when something would be done, and all I'd get is the same answer. They'd tear it down when there was money to do it. Well, shit, there's money for plenty of things it seems, except tearing down that building. Then it burns down, and don't you know, one of the councilmen shows up two days later, demanding to see video from my surveillance camera. He's ranting about how we need to catch the person responsible. That there is a firebug on the loose. You'd swear George had burnt down a school or something."

"So you gave him the footage? That's how they identified George."

"Yeah, didn't have no choice. He came in with the cop assigned to the case and they had a warrant."

"Do you remember the cop's name?"

"No, but he gave me his business card. Hang on." The bartender dug around by the cash register and came back with the card. It read Gary Lucas. Trenton PD had a small arson division, consisting of only two cops, and Gary wasn't one of them. "You can keep it," the bartender said. "I don't need it."

I pocketed the business card. "What about the councilman, do you remember his name?"

"Yeah, Marcus Greenridge. Slimy as politicians get, if you ask me. He was always the one telling me there was no money to tear the building down. And now he's on the war path over George. It's all PR bullshit. He's announced he's running for mayor and wants to say he stopped a dangerous fire bug."

I lowered my voice, "You didn't put George up to this, did you?"

He narrowed his eyes at me and for a second I thought I was about to get pitched out the door. "All my regulars knew I hated the place next door, and what went on in it. But I never asked any of them to do anything more than complain to city council about it."

His voice held a dangerous tint. I decided that marked my cue to exit.

"Thank you for your time," I said, sliding off the bar stool and sticking a ten into his tip jar.

He reached across the bar to grab my arm and I froze in fear.

"Listen. I didn't ask George to do nothing. But that night, he'd been drinking more than usual. He started raving about how the drug dealers were destroying the neighborhood. How they'd lure kids in with pot, and then get them hooked on the nasty stuff. I had to ask him to leave. Next thing I know, the building next door is on fire."

"You tell this to anyone else?"

"No. The cop and Greenridge didn't ask as nicely as you did."

"I don't suppose there is any chance you know where George lives?"

"Sorry. Has to be somewhere nearby, though, cause he always walked here."

I left the bar with still more questions than answers. It seemed a little odd that George would go off about drug dealers when he was a drug dealer. Unless, of course, it involved a turf war. I thought on that for a few minutes and it seemed to provide some clarity. If George was at odds with the drug dealers next to the bar, burning down their crack house might have been strategic, or maybe even revenge. And perhaps the dealers had gotten revenge back and made George disappear.

Excitedly, I called Ranger, but only got his voicemail. I let him know what I'd discovered and my newest theory, then I headed home.

I woke up at 7:30 on Monday morning, showered, blew dry my hair, and quickly applied some mascara and lipstick. I dressed in jeans and a pink t-shirt, looked outside to see some lazy snowflakes drifting past my window, then added a gray hooded sweatshirt to my ensemble. I stopped at Tasty Pastry, got a dozen donuts, then drove to Mary Lou's house, arriving just as a big yellow bus pulled away.

Mary Lou ushered me inside.

"Sorry for the mess," she said. "The kids go a little nuts in the morning."

Talk about an understatement. The living room looked like an isolated tornado had ripped through it. Couch cushions were strewn across around the room, crayons spread across the floor, and the pages of a coloring book littered the carpet like confetti. At least three dozen stickers were adhered to the inside of the window. A not-quite-empty bowl of Cheerios rested upside down on the coffee table, milk oozing across the surface. A minefield of Legos lay between the couch and the television, which blared an irritating song by Mickey Mouse.

Mary Lou pointed the remote at the TV and Mickey disappeared. She quickly kicked all the Legos into a pile with the side of her foot, then set the cushions back on the sofa. Crumbling up the coloring pages, she threw them away before scooping the crayons back into a box. She retrieved a roll of paper towels from the kitchen and cleaned up the coffee table. She ignored the stickers on the window. Today, I didn't feel envious of Mary Lou at all.

We sat on the sofa, the box of donuts open on the coffee table next to a big urn of coffee and two mugs.

Mary Lou eyed up the rings on my left hand as she poured herself a cup of coffee and selected a powdered donut from the box. "Okay, so what's this complicated situation?"

I grabbed a donut for myself and launched into the full story, starting with the Robinson assignment and ending with Ranger's decision not to bring me on any more jobs. Almost all the donuts were gone by the time I finished.

Mary Lou helped herself to the last pastry. "Okay, so you weren't kidding about it being complicated. Let's see those rings."

I held my hand out for inspection. Mary Lou pulled at the rings. They didn't budge. "What have you tried so far?" she asked.

"Olive oil, dish soap, dental floss and butter."

"What about peanut butter?"

"Peanut butter?"

"It unsticks gum from hair."

"Really?"

"Yeah, trust me on that. Come on."

I followed Mary Lou into the kitchen and she opened the pantry, revealing an entire shelf full of peanut butter.

"Whoa."

"Yeah. I should have bought stock in JIF before having kids."

Mary Lou grabbed an open jar, scooped out a heaping tablespoon of peanut butter and handed it to me. I went to the sink and smeared it over the rings and my finger. I wiggled the rings toward my knuckle, getting excited as they moved, then bitterly disappointed as they hit my knuckle and refused to move any farther.

"No luck," I said, washing the goo off my hand. Even after two rounds with Mary Lou's lemon scented dish soap, my hand still smelled like peanuts.

"Well, maybe Ranger's mother is right, and he's going to decide he's madly in love with you and wants to get married. Saves him the trouble of picking out rings when you've already got a set on your hand."

I had a hard time imagining Ranger ever proposing, and a harder time imagining myself saying yes. Despite all our troubles, Morelli remained the man I could easily see myself returning to every night. Ranger seemed too mysterious and withdrawn, a fact demonstrated by my complete lack of helpfulness to the EMTs treating him on New Year's. Not to mention the idea of sharing his bed every night for the rest of my life gave me heart palpitations.

"Ranger doesn't like the rings. The style, I mean. As far as I can tell, he thinks the situation is amusing."

"What's not to like about the rings? They are perfectly respectable rings. Any Burg woman would be happy to have those rings."

"I suspect that's why he doesn't like them. Ranger's style sits a bit beyond traditional Burg standards. Any jewelry he buys isn't going to be from Walmart." I saw the time on Mary Lou's microwave. "Crap. I need to get to work."

"Going after anyone fun today?" she asked.

I secretly hoped George Fortecelli would simply stroll into the bonds office and turn himself in, but I was ninety-nine percent sure that wouldn't happen. And since all leads on him had run cold, I needed to pick up the rest of the FTAs to make up for it. "I have an FTA who works in the food court at Quaker Bridge Mall, so I think I'll go after him."

"You need any help?"

I raised my eyebrows at her. "You actually want to help or you just want to go shopping?"

Mary Lou grinned. "We can't do both?"