“It’s a loaner.”

Lula selected another piece. “Do you know what I think? I think that man is all bad and scary silent on the outside and soft and mushy on the inside.”

I knew Ranger pretty well and I wasn’t sure what was on the inside, but I knew it wasn’t soft and mushy.

“Have you heard any more from Mickey Gritch?” I asked Connie.

“No. I got a phone call first thing this morning and nothing since. I guess Mickey called Lucille last night. Lucille called Harry, and Harry made a few inquiries and found out about the hooker. And by the time I talked to Lucille, she was having the locks changed on the house, and Harry was on a rant. I got the clear impression no one on that side of the family cares if Mickey Gritch offs Vinnie.”

“That’s a shame,” I said. “I know Vinnie brought all this on himself, but it’s still sad.”

I ate two pieces of pizza, chugged a bottle of water, and hiked my bag onto my shoulder.

“Where you going?” Lula wanted to know.

“I have Ranger tracking Mickey Gritch, so I thought I’d take the afternoon to try to find Dirk McCurdle. He’s still in violation of his bond.”

“I thought his name was McCuddle,” Lula said.

“Nickname,” I told her.

The papers branded him McCuddle because he married four women before the state of New Jersey wised up and arrested him. Besides being tagged for bigamy, McCurdle got caught shoplifting some very expensive lingerie. He said social security didn’t give him enough money for him to keep up with the anniversary presents.

“He looks like a nice little old man in his newspaper pictures,” Lula said.

Dirk McCurdle was seventy-two years old, 5′9″ tall, pleasantly plump and pink-cheeked, had wispy white hair and a face like a cherub.

“I have a feeling McCurdle is with one of his wives,” I said. “One is in the Burg, one’s on Cherry Street, and two are in Hamilton Township.”

“Hold on,” Lula said. “I’ll go with you in case one of those wives gets out of hand and you need backup.”

I glanced at the file Connie had given me. McCurdle’s first wife was his age. All the other wives were in their late seventies. Probably, I could handle them.

“Anyway, I never saw any bigamist wives,” Lula said. “I want to see what they look like.”

I THOUGHT I’D start with the most recent wife and work my way back. Margaret McCurdle lived in a garden apartment in Hamilton Township. The buildings in the complex were two-story redbrick with white doors and white shutters at the windows. There were ten apartments in each building. Five up and five down. Margaret lived in an end unit on the ground floor.

“This looks real normal,” Lula said, swinging out of my Jeep, taking in the faux colonial columns in the front of the building. “This don’t look like a bigamist hide out. I hope I’m not gonna be disappointed. I hate when that happens.”