But almost immediately, the business landline had started ringing, and she’d turned away to answer it. The caller had been her sister, which meant a long conversation. Twenty minutes later, when Fiji had looked out the window again, the strangers’ truck was gone, so their business at Midnight Pawn had been brief. She’d headed over.

She’d found Bobo sitting in the store alone, not having gone up to his apartment yet, though it was time for the store to be shut prior to Lemuel’s shift. Bobo had not greeted her in his usual relaxed way. He’d glanced down at the floor a few times, as if he’d seen something there he needed to take care of. And he’d been upset. Though Bobo was seldom anything less than warm and charming to Fiji, that night he’d been brief to the point of rudeness.

He hadn’t even invited her to sit down with him for a spell. She hadn’t had the nerve to mention going out to dinner.

She’d felt so unsettled she hadn’t been able to concentrate on her garden the next day. Instead, she went to Davy to get her car’s oil changed, to shop at Kroger for a week’s worth of groceries, and to take her laundry to the Suds O Matic on the Davy highway. (Fiji’s favorite fantasy, besides the ones featuring Bobo, was that a sweet motherly woman would reopen the defunct washateria in Midnight. This sweet woman would not only put customers’ clothes through the washer and dryer, she would iron them and fold them.)

Fiji hadn’t returned from her errands refreshed, though she had felt a mildly pleasant sense of accomplishment. But then, on her return, Shoshanna Whatever had come by. As she trudged along by herself, Fiji’s face flushed with mixed pride and embarrassment. She’d showed off in public, but apparently she hadn’t been observed. She almost wished someone would tell her they’d seen the detective standing there, because Fiji was really curious about how long the spell had lasted.

She raised her eyes from her plodding feet to look ahead. There was Bobo, striding out, with the smaller form of Manfred right beside him. Maybe Manfred? He was almost directly across the road from her.

She decided Bobo seemed lighter of heart today, though she hadn’t approached him for any private conversation.

Maybe she could find out from Olivia what had made Bobo so odd and downcast. Olivia must know what had happened.

Olivia always knew.