He has a bare mattress tossed down in the middle of the third floor, a couple of cartons of Jack Daniels, and a stereo that plays nothing but his collection of Aerosmith recordings. The second floor is where he keeps his arsenal and two pit bulls named Belker and Sergeant Esterhaus. A Rottweiler named Steve prowls the front yard. If all this and Bubba isn’t enough to deter trespassers or government officials, almost every other floorboard in the place is booby-trapped. Only Bubba knows the right ones to step on. Some walking suicide once tried to get to Bubba’s stash by forcing him to lead him there at gunpoint. Every other month or so, for about a year after that, pieces of the guy were popping up all over the city.

Angie said, “If Bubba could have been born in another time, like say the Bronze Age, he would have been all set.”

I looked at the lonely hole in the fence. “Least he would have had someone who shares his sensibilities.”

We drove back to the office, and inside, began kicking around Jenna’s possible hiding places.

“The room above the bar?”

I shook my head. “If she had, she’d have never left them behind when we came and got her. Place didn’t look very burglar proof to me.”

She nodded. “OK. Where else?”

“Not the safety-deposit box. Devin wouldn’t He about that. Simone’s?”

She shook her head. “You’re the first person she showed anything to, right?”

“I think we’re working under that assumption, yeah.”

“So, that means you’re the first person she trusted. She probably figured Simone’s view of Socia was too naive. And she was right, I’d say.”

I said, “If they were in her apartment in Mattapan, someone would have them by now and there’d be no reason for any of this.”

“So, what’s that leave?”

We spent a good ten minutes not coming up with an answer to that one.

“Shit!” Angie said at the end of those ten minutes.

“Apt,” I said. “Not too helpful though.”

She lit a cigarette, placed her feet up on the desk, and stared at the ceiling. More Sam Spade than I’d ever be. She said, “What do we know about Jenna?”

“She’s dead.”

She nodded. Softly she said, “Besides that.”

“We know she was married to Socia. Common-law or legal, I don’t know, but married.”

“And had his child. Roland.”

“And has three sisters from Alabama.”

She sat up in her chair, her feet banging off the floor. “Alabama,” she said. “She sent it down to Alabama.”

I thought about it. How well did Jenna know these sisters anymore? How much could she trust them? Hell, how much could she trust the mail? This was her chance to be needed, to get a little “justice.” To do a little of what people had been doing to her all her life. Would she risk that by putting the major proponent of her vengeance in transit?

“I don’t think so,” I said.