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“Yes.”
“Call me if you need to see Evelyn. I'll help you get past Jeanne Ellen.”
I disconnected and did a palms-up in the car, all by myself. What more could I do?
I jumped when my phone rang. It was Dotty calling back. “Okay, I need help. I'm not saying I know where Evelyn is staying. I'm just saying I need to go somewhere, and I can't be followed.”
“Understood. I'm about forty minutes away.”
“Come in through the back again.”
So maybe Jeanne Ellen was doing me a favor. She'd put Dotty into a situation where she needed me. How bizarre is that?
First thing I did was stop by the office and get Lula.
“Let's rock and roll,” Lula said. “I'll distract the heck out of Jeanne Ellen. I'm the queen of distraction.”
“Great. Just remember, no shooting.”
“Maybe a tire,” Lula said.
“Not a tire. Nothing. No shooting.”
“I hope you realize this puts a big crimp in my distracting.”
Lula was wearing the new boots with a lemon yellow spandex miniskirt. I didn't think she'd have a distraction problem.
“This is the plan,” I said when we got to South River. “I'm going to park one street over from Dotty, and we'll go in through the back. Then you can keep Jeanne Ellen busy while I take Dotty to Evelyn.”
I took the shortest path through the yards and knocked once on Dotty's back door.
Dotty opened the door and stifled a scream. “Holy Jesus,” she said. “
I wasn't expecting . . . two people.”
What she wasn't expecting was a plus-size black woman bulging out of a tiny yellow skirt.
“This is my partner, Lula,” I said. “She's good at creating a distraction.”
“No kidding.” Dotty was dressed in jeans and sneakers. She had a bag of groceries on the kitchen table and a two-year-old under her arm.
“This is my problem,” Dotty said. “I have a friend who has no food in the house and can't go out to get any. I want to take these groceries to her.”
“Is Jeanne Ellen out front?”
“She left about ten minutes ago. She does that. She'll sit there for hours, and then she'll go away for a while, but she always comes back.”
“Why don't you take the groceries to your friend when Jeanne Ellen leaves?”
“You said not to do that. You said even if I didn't see her she'd follow me.”
“Good point. Okay, here's the plan. You and I will cut through the back and take my car. And Lula will drive your car. Lula will make sure we're not followed, and she'll decoy Jeanne Ellen off, if Jeanne Ellen appears.”
“No good,” Dotty said. “I have to go alone. And I need someone to sit with the kids. My sitter just punked out on me. It's going to have to be that I cut through the yard and use your car, and you take care of the kids. I won't be long.”
Lula and I shouted no simultaneously.
“Not a great idea,” I said. “We don't baby-sit. We don't actually know anything about kids.” I looked over at Lula. “Do you know anything about kids?”
