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Bang! Clank!Both side mirrors got ripped off the Camry. Bob gave a single woof, but my mom never blinked. She wrenched the wheel around and made a sharp right turn.
“Do you see him?” she asked Grandma. “Is he still in front of us?”
“He’s two cars ahead,” Grandma said.
My mom switched her lights on. “Let me know if he turns.”
“I think that’s him taking a left at the next intersection,” Grandma said.
My mom turned but kept her distance. After a quarter mile the 400’s lights blinked off.
“What the heck?” Grandma said.
I lowered my window and stuck my head out. “I can hear him,” I said. “He’s off to the right. I think he cut across an empty lot just ahead and came out on the next street.”
My mom stopped at the empty lot. A small ranch house was onthe other side of the block. Lights were on in the back windows. A dog was barking.
“He must have driven between houses,” she said.
She turned at the corner and drove past the houses. There was no sign of Nutsy. I thought I might have heard the 400 in the distance, but it was very faint.
“This is disappointing,” my mom said.
“I thought for sure you were going to jump the curb and cut through the field,” Grandma said. “You were really into it. You were kicking ass.”
“I think I might have gotten a little carried away,” my mom said.
“I liked the part where you barreled through the alley,” Grandma said.
My mom looked out her window at the spot where the side mirror used to be attached. “We should go back to get the mirrors and leave a note in case the U-Haul truck got damaged.”
“And then we’re going to go home, and we’ll all have a whiskeytini,” Grandma said. “A big one.”
I skipped the whiskeytini, and Bob and I motored home in the Buick. Bob loved the car with the spacious bench seat in the front. I was less enamored. It drove like a refrigerator on wheels and got about three miles to the gallon. Jay Leno might have been able to look sexy in it. When I got behind the wheel, I looked like the sort of woman who would wear cotton granny panties and a hairnet.
I was in my apartment for less than three minutes when Morelli called.
“This is crap,” he said. “The trial is going nowhere. I’m in a cheesy green hotel with water savers in everything that has water. There’s no room service. And I’m running out of clean clothes.” There was a beat of silence. “How’s Bob? How are you doing?”
“Bob is great. I’m in a slump. I can’t catch anyone. I find them. I chase them down. I lose them.”
“If you’re referring to Nutsy and Duncan Dugan, I heard someone blew up the Manleys’ car.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“No,” Morelli said. “Do you?”
“No. Nutsy dropped in on his parents earlier tonight. I think he picked up dinner. I tailed him across town but lost him on King Street. He cut across an open lot, and I wasn’t able to follow him.”
“He still riding the 400?”
“Yep.”
“He’s had that since high school.”
“He’s staying in the area, but he’s hiding. I’d like to know why.”
“Do you think he stole the tray of diamonds?”
