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“Maybe you should stay with him,” I said.
“Hell no. I’m not gonna miss this. From what Ranger told you, these people are softballers. They got matchy-matchy cars. I mean, this is good stuff. This is like walking into a fifties sitcom. This isLeave It to Beavershit. And on top of that I can’t wait to see Nutsy. It’s not every day you get to see someone called Nutsy. And I got a lot of clown questions.”
“Okay,” I said, “but let me do the talking. I don’t want to freak anyone out as soon as we walk in the door.”
“When did I ever freak anyone out?” Lula said. “I’m a perfect example of decorum. I got a innate sense of saying the right thing. Are we going in guns blazing?”
“No guns. No pepper spray. No stun guns. No punching people out. Are you sure you don’t want to stay with Bob?”
“Don’t worry about me. Like I said, I’m full of decorum.”
I rang the bell and a woman answered. Blond hair in a ponytail. Fortyish. Tasteful makeup. Wearing pink scrubs suitable for a dental hygienist.
“Adele Dugan?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
I introduced myself, showed her my credentials, and told her I would like to talk to Duncan.
“Duncan isn’t here right now,” she said. “William took him to our doctor.”
“Is Andrew Manley here?” I asked her.
“No. He went with Duncan and William.”
“You know that Duncan is in trouble,” I said to her.
“Yes. I don’t know all the details, but apparently, he couldn’t get good medical care in Trenton. We were surprised when they arrived. I guess they thought I could provide care, but Duncan’s injuries were beyond my abilities. For goodness’ sakes, I’m a dental hygienist. I clean teeth. Fortunately, we have a wonderful family doctor.” She looked down at her watch. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m a little late this morning. I need to get to work.”
“Of course,” I said. “Thank you for your time.”
“Did you know Nutsy was a clown?” Lula asked her.
“Nutsy? That’s Andrew, right?” she said. “He was a clown?”
“We don’t want you to be late for work,” I said to Adele. “Thank you again.”
I stepped back and Adele closed and locked the door.
The upholstery seemed intact when I got back to the car. There were tooth marks on the gearshift, but they were minor.
“I thought we’d go into town and look for either the white van or the gray Civic,” I said to Lula. “Go online and see where doctor’s offices are located.”
I retraced my route into town and Lula searched for doctors.
“It looks like there are three doctors here,” she said. “One of them is an ob-gyn, so we can forget about her. One of the family doctors is on Chestnut Street and the other is in a medicalbuilding on Hoover Street. Both streets go off the main drag that we came in on.”
I drove past the hotel and the little park. The Champion Bar and Grill was on the left side of the street and Chestnut Street was at the next corner. I drove one block down Chestnut and the doctor’s office was on the right. It was a small gray and white house with a small parking lot on one side. There was a Toyota Corolla in the lot. No white van or gray Honda Civic.
I went back to Main Street and turned onto Hoover Street, and the medical building was one block in. The white van was parked in the lot next to it.
“Are we good, or what?” Lula said.
It seemed to me that I should have been happier. I’d found Duncan Dugan and Nutsy. Finding was huge, right? So why did I have this hollow feeling in my stomach? It was like I was facing impending doom. Or maybe I was on the verge of doing something stupid that I would regret. Doing something stupid happened to me a lot, but I didn’t usually get an early warning.
I parked on the far side of the lot, away from the van.
An hour later, Nutsy appeared, pushing Duncan in a wheelchair. He was accompanied by a woman in lavender scrubs and a man I assumed was the brother. They loaded Duncan into the van, the woman returned to the building with the wheelchair, and Nutsy and the brother got into the van and drove off.
