It was a lovely moment, and I am quite sure that somewhere music was playing.

And that really should have been how this day of turmoil and hardship ended. Really and truly, if there were any justice at all in this wide wicked world, we would have frolicked happily in the evening's heat, bonding and learning wonderful secrets, and then ambling in to a delicious meal of French food and American pizza.

But of course, there is no such thing as justice, and most of the time I find myself pausing to reflect that it must be true that life does not really like us very much, after all. And I should not have been surprised when, just as I reached out a hand to each of them, my cell phone began to warble.

“Get your ass down here,” Deborah barked, without even a hello.

“Of course,” I said. “As long as the rest of me can stay here for dinner.”

“That's funny,” she said, although she didn't sound very amused.

“But I don't need another laugh right now, because I am looking at another one of those hilarious dead bodies.” I felt a small inquisitive purr from the Passenger, and several hairs on the back of my neck stood up for a closer look. “Another?” I said. “You mean like the three posed bodies this morning?”

“That's exactly what I mean,” she said, and hung up.

“Har-de-har-har,” I said, and put my phone away.

Cody and Astor were looking at me with identical expressions of disappointment. “That was Sergeant Debbie, wasn't it?” Astor said. “She wants you to go to work.”

“That's right,” I admitted.

“Mom is going to be really mad,” she said, and it hit me that she was probably right —I could still hear Rita making furious cooking noises in the kitchen, punctuated with the occasional “damn it'. I was hardly an expert on the subject of human expectations, but I was pretty sure she would be upset that I was going to leave without tasting this special and painfully prepared meal.

“Now I really am on the poop van,” I said, and I went inside, wondering what I could possibly say and hoping some inspiration might hit me before Rita did.

Sin determinar

SIX

I WAS NOT AT ALL CERTAIN I WAS GOING TO THE RIGHT PLACE until I got there and pulled up in front —it had seemed like such an unlikely destination before I got to where I could see the yellow crime-scene tape, the lights of the patrol cars flashing in the dusk, and the growing crowd of gawkers hoping to see something unforgettable. It was almost always crowded at Joe's Stone Crab, but not in July. The restaurant would not open again until October, which seemed like a long wait even for Joe's.

But this was a different crowd tonight, and they weren't here for stone crabs. They were hungry for something else tonight, something Joe would most likely prefer to take off his menu.