I went to the phone book and looked up Badijian. Three of them. No Helen. Two were in Hamilton Township. One was in Trenton. I called the Trenton number. A woman answered and told me Helen wasn't home from work yet. Easy. But not the right answer. I wanted Helen to be home.

Okay, I thought, maybe what I needed to do was go see for myself. Take a look in Kuntz's windows and see if he had Helen tied to a kitchen chair. I strapped on my black web utility belt and filled the pockets. Pepper spray, stun gun, handcuffs, flashlight, .38 Special. I thought about loading the .38 and decided against it. Guns creeped me out.

I shrugged into a navy windbreaker and scooped my hair up under my hat.

Mrs. Zuppa was coming in from bingo just as I was leaving the building. "Looks like you're going to work," she said, leaning heavily on her cane. "What are you packin'?"

"A thirty-eight."

"I like a nine-millimeter myself."

"A nine's good."

"Easier to use a semiautomatic after you've had hip replacement and you walk with a cane," she said.

One of those useful pieces of information to file away and resurrect when I turn eighty-three.

Traffic was light at this time of night. A few cars on Olden. No cars on Muffet. I parked around the corner on Cherry Street, a block down from Kuntz, and walked to his house. Downstairs lights were on in both halves. Shades were up. I stood on the sidewalk and snooped. Leo and Betty were feet up in side-by-side recliners watching Bruce Willis bleed on TV.

Next door, Eddie was talking on the phone. It was a portable, and I could see him pacing in his kitchen in the back of the house.

Neighboring houses were dark. Lights were on across the street, but there was no activity. I slipped between the houses, avoiding the squares of light thrown onto the grass from open windows, and crept in shadow to the back of Kuntz's house. Snatches of conversation drifted out to me. Yes, he loved her, Kuntz said. And yes, he thought she was sexy. I stood in deep shade and looked through the window. His back was to me. He was alone, and there were no whacked-off body parts lying on his kitchen table. No Helen chained to the stove. No unearthly screams coming from his cellar. The whole thing was damn disappointing.

Of course, Jeffrey Dahmer kept his trophies in his refrigerator. Maybe what I should do is go around front, knock on the door, tell Kuntz I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop in for that drink. Then I could look in his refrigerator when he went for ice.