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“We have you in two of our nicest rooms on the second floor,” the desk clerk said.
“What about food?” Lula asked.
“Free breakfast starting at seven o’clock,” he said.
“Yeah, but what about now?” Lula asked.
“You’ll find a list of takeout places in your room. Most are closed at this hour, but Jake’s Bar is open until midnight, and they deliver.”
Twenty minutes later, we were in my room, waiting for pizza and beer to get delivered. I’d already called Morelli and told him I was safely locked away for the night. I didn’t bother calling Ranger. He was able to follow his cars, and he knew my exact location in real time. Plus, he probably had my messenger bag bugged and a GPS tracker sewn into the pocket of my sweatshirt.
“This is a pretty nice hotel,” Lula said. “I tested out the bed and the pillows, and the linens are nice too.”
“I’d like to get an early start tomorrow,” I said. “Breakfast at seven and then we’ll check out the brother’s house.”
“It’s okay with me. I’m an early riser. And I’m going to get a good night’s sleep in my nice hotel room without Grendel.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bob and I got to the breakfast room a couple minutes after seven. I helped myself to coffee, a box of Frosted Flakes, a blueberry Danish, and a banana. Lula shuffled in fifteen minutes later, did a tour of the buffet, and came to my table with coffee.
“I wasn’t ready for seven o’clock,” Lula said. “I was worn out from the ride. How can you get dead tired from sitting all day? I barely dragged myself out of bed. I’m too tired to eat.” She looked at my Danish. “Is that any good?”
“It’s average.”
“Average is okay. Average means good enough. And average is a lot better than lousy. I might need one.”
“What about being too tired to eat?”
“Yeah, but I should force myself to eat something to get my energy up. I need to get my yin and yang balanced out.”
Lula went to take a second look at the pastries and Ranger called.
“Checking in,” Ranger said. “How’s Alberton?”
“I haven’t seen much of it yet, but I suspect there isn’t much to see. Lula is laying waste to the free breakfast bar right now. When we’re done with breakfast we’ll head out to the brother’s house.”
“The brother is William Dugan. Forty years old. Manages an auto parts store. Two kids with wife number one. They’re with the first wife. Wife number two is Adele. She’s a dental assistant. They’ve been married for three years. No kids. Two dogs. They belong to the Methodist church and they’re on the Alberton Knights softball team. It looks like the Alberton Knights haven’t won a game in the last seven years. Adele and William have matching Honda Civics. Gray. They have a mortgage, the cars are leased, they pay their bills on time, no arrest records.”
“Thanks. They sound like good people.”
“There’s a cousin on death row in South Carolina for killing and beheading twelve people, but he’s twice removed.”
“Every family has one of those,” I said.
“Babe,” Ranger said. And he disconnected.
Lula returned with a bunch of pastries, a sausage and egg sandwich in a paper wrapper that was soaked in grease, a bagel, and more coffee.
“I got the bagel for Bob,” Lula said.
Bob’s ears perked up at the mention of his name and his eyes got bright. Lula handed him the bagel and he gulped it down.
By eight o’clock we were on the road. William Dugan lived in a tidy neighborhood a couple miles out of town. The houses were modest and a mixture of ranches and small two-stories. Yardswere large enough for swing sets and an occasional aboveground pool. The Dugan house was a Cape Cod with a red door and a gray Honda Civic in the driveway.
I parked in front of the house and explained to Bob that he was going to have to stay in the car, and he needed to be good because the car belonged to Ranger.
“You think he got all that?” Lula asked. “It’s not like you were talking dog to him. There’s a good chance he don’t know what you said pastBob.”
