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“Are you going to take that helmet off, or are you wearing it all day?” Connie asked.
“I guess I could take it off in here.”
“I’m looking for Ernie Dell today,” I said to Lula. “Do you want to ride shotgun?”
“Is he the firebug?”
“Yep.”
“I’m in.”
“I don’t mind if you wear the flak vest,” I told her, “but I’m not riding around with you in the helmet. You look like Darth Vader.”
“Okay, but I’m gonna hold you responsible if I get killed.”
Ernie lived alone in a large house on State Street. No one knew how he got the house, since no one could ever remember Ernie having a job. Ernie alternately claimed to be a movie producer, a stockbroker, a racecar driver, and an alien. I thought alien was a good possibility.
I idled in front of his house, and Lula and I craned our necks and gaped up at it. It was on about a half acre, on a hill high above the street. Shingles had blown off the roof and lay sprinkled across the yard. Window frames were down to bare wood and were splintered and split. The clapboard siding was charcoal gray. I wasn’t sure if it was water stain, battleship paint, or mold.
“Holy crap,” Lula said. “Are you shitting me? Someone lives in that? It’s falling apart. And there must be a hundred steps to get up the hill. I’ll get shin splints climbing those steps.”
“There’s an alley behind the house. And there’s a back driveway and a two-car garage.”
I drove around the block, took the alley, and parked in Ernie’s driveway.
“What’s the deal with this guy?” Lula asked. “Has he always set fires?”
I thought back to Ernie as a kid. “I can’t remember him setting fires, but he did a lot of weird things. One time, he entered a talent show and tried to burp “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but he was hauled off the stage halfway through. And then he went through a period where he was sure he could make it rain, and he’d start chanting strange things in the middle of arithmetic. Oowah doowah moo moo hooha.”
“Did it rain?”
“Sometimes.”
“What else did he do? I’m starting to like this guy.”
“He took a goat to the prom. Dressed it up in a pink ballerina outfit. And he went through a fireworks stage. You’d wake up at two in the morning and fireworks would be going off in your front yard.”
We got out of
the Escort, and I transferred cuffs from my purse to my back pocket for easier access.
“We don’t want to spook him if he’s home,” I said to Lula. “We’re just going to walk to the back door and be calm and friendly. Let me do the talking.”
“Why do you get to do the talking?”
“I’m the apprehension agent.”
“What am I then?”
“You’re my assistant.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be the assistant. Maybe I want to be the apprehension agent.”
“You have to talk to Vinnie about that. Your name has to be on the documentation.”
“We could write me in. I got a pen.”
“Good grief.”
