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Morelli checked his watch. “Agreed. You seem to have everything under control here, so I’m going to take Bob for a short walk, and then I’ll go back to the Mole Hole and have a talk with the Boys. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
I moved into Grandma’s room. She had everything put back together and was making her bed.
“I guess this is my fault,” she said. “I got mixed up with the wrong man.”
I picked her pillow up off the floor and placed it on her bed. “Jimmy might have been the wrong man, but this isn’t your fault.”
“I wish I had the keys so I could give them up and have it be over and done.”
“Yeah, that would be good, but you don’t have the keys, so we’ll have to be careful until the keys are found.”
“I don’t know how we could be more careful,” Grandma said. “The doors were locked and the windows were closed, and someone broke in anyway. I don’t know what more we could do.”
For starters, I was going to have Ranger install a home security system. It wouldn’t stop someone from throwing a firebomb through the window, but it would give warning that someone had broken in.
“What’s Mom doing?” I asked Grandma.
“She was working in the kitchen, putting stuff away and cleaning. They emptied a sack of flour and some cereal boxes. That must be where people hide keys if they’ve got them.”
I went downstairs and found my father in his chair in front of the television. He was staring at the television, but the television wasn’t on.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
“No,” he said. “I’m not okay. I’m mad. I’d like to punch someone. I’d like to find the guy who broke into my home and did this. It’s not right that this happened.”
“I’m going to have Ranger install a security system.”
“I don’t want a security system. This is a nice neighborhood. I shouldn’t need a security system.”
I left my dad and went into the kitchen. My mom was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea.
“I thought you’d be ironing by now,” I said, sitting across from her.
“Ironing is like meditation for me,” she said. “It’s calming. It’s soothing. I like the way a warm shirt smells. It’s clean. It’s like spring grass growing. It helps me clear my head. And I guess it lets me feel like I have some control over things when I can iron away a wrinkle.” She looked around the kitchen. “I had no control over this, and I don’t like it. This started with your grandmother, and now we’re all involved. Ironing isn’t going to make this go away.”
“I’d like Ranger to install a home security system here, but Dad is against it.”
“Have it installed,” my mother said. “We need help.”
* * *
—
It was almost four o’clock when I left my parents’ house. The Rangeman car that had been absent all day was back on my rear bumper. I circled the block, returned to my parents’ house, and parked in their driveway. I went in through the front door and out the back door. I cut through the alley behind the house and old Mr. Sanderson’s backyard. I looked around. No Rangeman. They were sticking with my car. Good deal. Now they were guarding Grandma. I walked the short distance to Morelli’s house and got a call from Ranger just as I reached Morelli’s front door.
“Babe,” he said. “Your car is at your parents’ house but your phone is approaching Morelli’s.”
“You pinged my phone?”
“Is there a problem with that?”
I did a mental head slap. “Some people would think that was an invasion of privacy. Not me, but some people.”
“As long as it’s not you,” Ranger said.
“Are you laughing at me?”
“I don’t laugh.”
