They rode for some miles in silence.

“You must be pretty devoted to your grandfather,” Manfred said.

“If I’d been really devoted, it wouldn’t have taken me so long to track him down. Due to my own troubles, I kind of lost track of him. Now that I’ve found him, I don’t know what to do. He’s not in good shape mentally. He’s not a nice old guy. But he’s all I’ve got left.”

“I have a mother. Never knew my dad.”

“My folks were pretty ordinary, but my dad’s mother was something else, according to what I remember and what people have told me.”

“Lawbreaker?”

“Not like Shorty,” Barry said, and laughed. “Shorty was always in and out of jail. He was a thief. Not a violent guy, but he never thought the laws of personal property applied to him. My grandmother Horowitz was wild, and one minister told me he thought she was the spawn of Hell.”

“Wow, pretty drastic.” Manfred thought he would have liked to meet such a woman.

“Yeah, I only spent time with her once or twice. She disappeared after that, when I was in elementary school.”

They’d both had unusual childhoods, Manfred thought. And when he looked over at Barry, Barry nodded.

“You scared Olivia pretty bad,” Manfred said.

“She’s got a lot of secrets.”

And they rode in silence until Olivia called them to say Suzie needed to go to the bathroom.

23

Joe stepped out of the front of the Antique Gallery and Nail Salon and looked up and down the street. Chuy, who was reading a book since there were no customers, didn’t even look up. Joe had been restless all morning, and now his antsiness was reaching a high level. He held open the door a little and said, “The town is empty.”

With a sigh, Chuy closed his book and put it down. He came to the door. “Emptier than usual?”

“Yes. Olivia’s gone. Manfred’s gone. Two of the old people from the hotel. That young guy, the one who’s been visiting his grandfather.”

“You saw them leave?”

“Yeah. But I think I would have known anyway.”

Chuy looked up at Joe, and Joe could tell he was worried. He didn’t try to reassure his partner. He only got this feeling when things were about to go south.

Chuy said uneasily, “Our killers are gone.”

That was true. Lemuel and Olivia were the most ruthless among them, and the quickest to action.

“I’m going to the store, just for a minute,” Joe said. Leaving Chuy standing in the doorway, he went east and passed an empty storefront and then came to the corner gas station/convenience store. The bells over the door chimed as he went inside, and Teacher Reed, who’d been playing solitaire on the old computer, looked up gratefully.