I warped out of the memory without missing a beat in the conversation with Tucker, but it left me a little dizzy.

“No,” I said stiffly. “I have not been playing the slot machines. And even if I had, it’s not illegal.”

Tucker sighed. “No, babe, it’s not illegal. And I didn’t call to talk about your gambling habit.”

“I don’t have a gambling habit.”

“I’ll concede that, too,” he said quietly. “Did you pick up Bert’s dog?”

“Yes,” I said, with relief. “Better still, I didn’t run into Allison.”

“She’s got a parent-teacher meeting today,” Tucker said.

“And you weren’t invited?”

“I could go, but Allison would make me out to be some kind of renegade, super-psycho robo-cop. I don’t need that, and the kids don’t, either. Besides, I’m on a case.”

“What kind of case?”

“An undercover case, Moje. That means it’s a secret.”

“I just thought you might be able to fill me in a little,” I said. “You know, one professional to another.”

“Right. One professional to another. What’s with you, anyway? Is there a coupon in the back of one of those books you read? Send this in and you get a free decoder badge?”

“I could do without your sarcasm. And if you didn’t call me to talk about slot machines, what was your purpose?”

Tucker sighed again. “Sorry,” he said. “You get into enough trouble as it is without putting your name, address and phone number in the yellow pages for every nut in Maricopa County to see, but right now, that’s beside the point. The tox report came back on the chow mein, Moje. Rat poison. You would have tasted it with the first bite, which means the perp is either an amateur, or somebody who wants to be perceived as one.”

“Well, that doesn’t exactly narrow the field, does it? Heather Dillard might have done it. She’d definitely qualify as an amateur. Then there’s Geoff.”

“Your whacko brother may not have been involved.”

“How do you know that?”

“Fingerprints, Sherlock. On the delivery box. They ruled him out first thing—he’s been in the system, so he’s on file. No matches on the others, except, of course, for mine.”

“Fast work,” I said. “I thought it took longer to run prints.”

“It’s all in who you know,” Tucker replied. “Of course, psycho-sib could have done the original doctoring. He just didn’t handle the box.”

I put Geoff on a mental shelf and glanced at Russell, who was snoozing as close to my feet as he could get. “What’s the official word on Bert’s condition? I’ve called the hospital a couple of times, and they claimed they didn’t have a patient by that name.”

“They’re telling the truth. He’s been moved.”

“Where?”