'That's a lot of flamingo feathers,' Connie said. 'They aren't real, are they?'

'It says here they're genuine farm-raised dyed fowl. You want me to try it on?'

'No!' Connie and I said in unison.

Lula looked a little put off, so I told her it was just that we were starving, and maybe she'd show us after lunch.

'I'm hungry, too,' Lula said. 'I'm feeling like spaghetti and meatballs.'

'I could go for some spaghetti,' Connie said. 'I'll get Pino's to deliver.'

'I want a meatball sub,' I told her.

'And a side of potato salad,' Lula said. 'And a piece of their chocolate cake. Now that I'm doing all this entertaining I gotta keep my strength up.'

'Melvin?' Connie yelled out. 'We're ordering from Pino's. Do you want something?'

'No,' Melvin said from behind the first bank of file cabinets. 'I brought my lunch. I have to save my money in case I go to jail. I hear if you can't afford to buy cigarettes for everyone you have to be someone's bitch.'

'Is that why you didn't show up for your trial?' Lula asked. 'On account of you didn't want to be someone's bitch?'

'Yeah. I know I'm a pervert and all, but I'm not that kind of a pervert. I'm sort of a specialist. I'm like a do-it-yourself pervert.'

'I hear you,' Lula said. I've shopped in that aisle.'

Connie put the order in and shoved a stack of files to the middle of her desk. 'We have to pick one of these… for lack of a better word, people.'

'These people all gonna lower the quality of our work,' Lula said. 'And God knows it's already pretty low.'

'How are we doing?' I asked Connie. 'Are we catching up enough to do without a third person?'

'The problem is, you catch up but then we get a couple new FTAs in, and we're behind the curve again. I'm going to divide these files between us and everyone has to pick the best person in their stack. Then we'll choose one of those three people.'

We were still reading through the files when the Pino's guy arrived. We set the files aside, spread the food out on Connie's desk, and pulled up more of the funeral home folding chairs. I had my sub in my hand when Joyce Barnhardt stormed in and threw a file on the table, splattering Lula's spaghetti sauce.

'What the fuck's the matter with you?' Lula said. 'You got a problem?'

'Yeah, I got a problem, fatso. I don't like getting sent off on a goddamn wild goose chase with those LC files. I bet you all thought it was funny. See if Joyce can find Willie Reese, right?'

'What's wrong with finding Willie Reese?' Connie asked. 'Those were legitimate files I gave you.'

'He's friggin' dead. He's been friggin' dead for almost a year. What do you want me to do, dig him up and cart him in here?'

'No,' Connie said. 'I want you to bring me a copy of his death certificate, so we can close the case and get our money back.'

'Oh,' Joyce said. 'I didn't know I could do that.'

'I don't like being called a fatso,' Lula said. 'I think you should apologize.'

'If the shoe fits,' Joyce said. 'Or in your case, if nothing but a tent fits…'

'I'm not that fat,' Lula said. 'I'm just a big woman. I'm Rubenesque. You wouldn't know that because you're ignorant. I know all about it because I took an art course at the community college last semester.'

'I know fat,' Joyce said. 'And you're fat.'

I didn't like Joyce frightening Melvin Pickle. And I didn't like Joyce calling Lula fat. And I really hated that Joyce was able to find stupid dead Willie Reese when I hadn't been able to find him.

'Hey Joyce,' I said.

Joyce turned to look at me, and I threw one of my meatballs at her. It hit her square in the forehead and left a big splotch of marinara sauce.

'Bitch,' Joyce said, narrowing her eyes at me.

I narrowed my eyes back. 'Slut.'

'Skank'

'Hag.'

Joyce grabbed Lula's spaghetti and dumped it on my head. 'I am not a hag,' she said.

'That was my lunch!' Lula said to Joyce. And she dumped Connie's chocolate milkshake down Joyce's cleavage.

Joyce pulled a gun on Lula, and Lula pulled a gun on Joyce, and they stood there pointing guns at each other.

I'm going to fucking kill you,' Joyce said.

'Yeah, maybe, but I got a better gun than you,' Lula said.

'Your gun's a piece of shit compared to my gun,' Joyce said.

'I got a big whup-ass gun,' Lula said.

'Puleeze,' Joyce said. 'I've got dildos bigger than that gun.'

'Oh yeah? Well I bet Stephanie could out-dildo you any day of the week. She's got a Herbert Horsecock.'

'Are you shitting me?'

'No, honest to God. Tell her, Stephanie. You got a genuine Herbert Horsecock, right?'

'It was a two-for-one sale,' I said.

Melvin had managed to crawl under Connie's desk while all this was going on. I looked down and saw him reach out and tag Joyce in the leg with a stun gun. Joyce gave a squeak, went limp, and crumpled to the floor.

'I hope it was okay that I did that,' Melvin said. 'I was afraid she was going to shoot someone. I've never used one of those before. Will she be all right?'

'You did good,' Lula said. 'And don't worry about Joyce. We zap her all the time. When she opens her eyes we'll tell her she slipped in the marinara sauce and knocked herself out hitting her head on the desk.'

I had noodles in my hair and noodles hanging off my ears and noodles sliding down my face.

'You're a magnet for mess,' Lula said to me. 'I've never seen anything like it.'

I picked some noodles off my shirt and dropped them on Joyce. 'I have to go home to change. I'll be back later to go through my stack of losers.'

It was hard to go out through the bonds office front door and not look across the street. Even if I didn't look, if I kept my head down and my eyes diverted, I felt the eerie sadness that always lingers on a murder scene.

I drove back to my apartment, checking periodically for a tail, but so far as I could see, no one was following. I parked and trudged up to my apartment. I opened the door and ran into Ranger in my kitchen.

He looked me over and gave his head an almost imperceptible shake. 'Babe.'

'Food fight with Joyce Barnhardt.' I noticed Ranger had changed clothes and was looking comfy in washed-out jeans and T-shirt. 'I'm surprised to still find you here,' I said to him.

'Tank had to put a threatened witness in the safe house, so I'm going to need to stay here. We've got federal surveillance on the office.'

'I thought you were working with them.'

'I'm working with one man, and he's not sharing that information with anyone.'

'Morelli isn't going to understand this arrangement.'

'You can't tell Morelli I'm here. He's a cop. He's supposed to arrest me if he finds me.'

Ranger opened the refrigerator and took out a plastic-wrapped sandwich.

'Where'd that come from?' I asked him.

'Hal brought me some food and clothes and equipment.'

'Equipment?'

He unwrapped his sandwich and ate it standing. 'In the dining room.'

I looked in at the dining room and had to do deep breathing to keep from screaming. There were two computers, a printer and fax machine, four cell phones with chargers, two cases that I knew contained guns, four boxes of ammo, a large Maglite and a small Maglite, the scrapbook, a stack of folders that I knew were case files, and three sets of car keys.

'Two computers?' I asked.

'One's mine, and the other we took from the apartment in Virginia.'

'Anything interesting on it?'

'His surfing history is what you'd expect. Fascination with martial arts, guns, law enforcement, some porn. He has one basic search program. No information stored that would be of any use. He's done some blogging. Talking about wanting to be a cop. Then wanting to be a bounty hunter. Then he starts mixing fantasy and reality. He talks about working with a superstar bounty hunter. How he's learning a lot but has no respect for his mentor. There's a brief mention of a manhunt where he tracks his quarry to Florida. And the blog stops at that point.'