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“I can see it’s all been a traumatic experience for you,” Lula said to Plover, “but you’ve got nothing to worry about. We’re closing in on the suspect. We’ve got him in our crosshairs. It won’t be long now.”
“That’s good to hear,” Plover said. “What do you know? Is he in the area? Do you have an address? Does he have an accomplice? Has he tried to fence my merchandise?”
“That’s all classified information right now,” Lula said. “We’ll give you a full report as soon as our suspicions are verified.”
“Is there anything else?” I asked Plover. “Do you have any new information?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“There’s a show on the animal channel that you should watch,” Lula said to Plover. “It’s about anxiety issues and how to control them. It’s mostly about dogs and cats and it was about a chicken once, but you might find it helpful until we can get your problem resolved.”
Plover was at a loss for words. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t have known how to respond to that either.
“I need to get back to work,” I said to Plover. “I’ll be in touch when I know more.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lula, Bob, and I piled into the Explorer. I pulled into traffic and headed across town.
“Are we doing our ride-around now?” Lula asked.
“Yep,” I said. “We’re on the hunt for the Yamaha.”
“I can understand how Plover has a problem with Nutsy,” Lula said. “He put his trust in him and now he feels betrayed. You don’t suppose what he said about the Manleys being part of the mob is true, do you?”
“No.”
At least I hadn’t until Plover mentioned it. There was a time when everyone knew everyone who was mob in Trenton. Things are different now. The mob has been marginalized by the gangs. The mob still exists but it’s gone low profile. The thing is, even at low profile, Celia Manley, the cat lady, wouldn’t havemade the cut for Mob Housewives of Trenton, New Jersey. For starters, her hair was all wrong. I’d ask Grandma about it. And Connie. Grandma knew everything about everybody, and Connie’s family was connected. Connie’s uncle had done wet work before someone whacked him.
I found the street where my mom lost Nutsy. I stopped at the empty lot, and in the daylight, I could see where he’d crossed the grassy field and driven between two houses one street over. I was a couple blocks from the button factory and about a half mile from Duncan Dugan’s house on Faucet Street.
“I’m going to cruise a grid,” I said to Lula. “Look for Nutsy’s Yamaha.”
It took almost an hour to get to Faucet Street. There was very little traffic at this time of day, so I was able to go slow, checking out the alleys as well as the streets.
“I don’t know about this exercise,” Lula said. “If I was trying to hide, I wouldn’t leave my car or bike out where people could see it.”
“I agree, but not all of these houses have a garage. Some of them have just driveways and some people park cars in spaces that back up to the alley. And some of the garages are filled with junk and don’t have room for a car.”
I drove past Duncan Dugan’s house. There was no activity on the street. A few cars parked at the curb but none in front of number 72 Faucet. I drove down the alley and stopped when I came to Dugan’s backyard. The Kia Rio was missing. I idled there for a while before moving on.
“Your luck is holding,” Lula said. “You got no luck at all.”
“It’s a process,” I said. “If you stick with it long enough, you get lucky.”
“That’s a load of baloney,” Lula said. “If something good happens to you right off the bat, it’s that you got lucky. If something good happens to you after you put in days of not being lucky, it’s hard work rewarded. And then there’s times when you gotta wait for all your stars to get in alignment.”
“That’s today,” I said. “My stars are in alignment.”
“How do you know?” Lula asked. “Did you get your chart done?”
“No. I just know. Like I said before, all the traffic lights were green this morning.”
“I gotta admit, that’s a sign.”
I cruised two more blocks and turned down an alley that had single-car garages that belonged to the houses. Two houses in I saw a green tarp covering something that might have been a bike parked next to the garage. I sucked in some air and my heart skipped a couple beats.
I pulled to the side of the alley one house down and Lula and I walked back to the garage with the tarp. I lifted the tarp and looked at the Yamaha 400. More heart irregularities.
