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Connie shrugged. “Don’t know, but it’s gotten weird. Frank Korda, the store owner who pressed charges, is missing.”
“When did he go missing?” I asked.
“Later that same day. The nail salon across the street remembers the closed sign in the front door around four in the afternoon. His wife said he never came home.”
“And Joyce?”
“Vinnie bonded Joyce out right after she was arrested. She was scheduled for court three days later, and she never showed.”
“I bet Joyce snatched him,” Lula said. “She’d do something like that. I bet she got him in chains in her cellar.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time Joyce put a man in chains,” Connie said, “but I don’t think she’s got him in her cellar. She isn’t answering her phone. And I drove past her house last night. It was dark.”
“Holy cow,” Lula said, staring at my left hand. “You got a white ring on your finger where you didn’t get a tan. I didn’t notice that last night on the way home from the airport. What the heck did you do in Hawaii? And where’s the ring now?”
I made an effort not to grimace. “It’s complicated.”
“Yeah,” Lula said. “That’s what you said last night. You just kept saying it was complicated.”
Connie examined my left hand. “Did you get married while you were in Hawaii?”
“Not exactly.”
“How could you not exactly get married?” Lula wanted to know. “Either you get married or you don’t get married.”
I flapped my arms around and squinched my eyes shut. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay? It’s complicated!”
“S’cuse me,” Lula said. “I was just sayin’. You don’t want to talk about it? Fine. Don’t talk about it. Just ’cause we’re best friends don’t mean nothin’. We’re like sisters, but hey, don’t bother me if you don’t want to tell me something.”
“Good,” I said, “because I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Hunh,” Lula said.
Vinnie yelled at Connie from inside the bus. “The phone’s ringing. Get the friggin’ phone!”
“You get the phone,” Connie yelled back.
“I don’t do phones,” Vinnie said.
Connie made an Italian hand gesture at the bus. “Idiot.”
“I suppose we should do something,” Lula said after Connie left to get the phone. “What else have you got there?”
I shuffled through my stack of skips. “Two armed robberies.”
“Pass on them. They always shoot at us.”
“Domestic violence.”
“Too depressing,” Lula said. “What else you got?”
“A purse snatcher and credit card fraud.”
“I’m liking credit card fraud. They never have a lot of fight in them. They’re always just sneaky little weasels. They just sit in the house all day shopping on the Internet. What’s this moron’s name?”
“Lahonka Goudge.”
“Lahonka Goudge? What kind of name is that? That gotta be wrong. That’s a terrible name.”
