“Why not?” She really didn’t want her case to be part of the witness protection program.

“Because if so, you’d have federal marshals already crawling all over your ass. It’s been forty-eight hours, and the wife’s disappearance is public info. No way they wouldn’t have found you.”

That made her feel better. Except: “What’s left?”

“He did it. Or she did it. But one of them has a new identity. Figure out which one.”

Coming from Bobby, D.D. took news of a probable alias as expert advice. After all, he’d married a woman who’d had at least twelve names, possibly more. Then it hit her. “Mr. Smith. Fuck. Mr. Smith!”

“Lucky Mr. Smith,” Bobby drawled.

“He’s a cat. Their cat. I never connected the dots. But think about it. The family is Mr. and Mrs. Jones, with their cat, Mr. Smith. It’s an inside joke, dammit! You’re right, they’re mocking us.”

“I vote for Mr. Arctic.”

“Ah shit,” D.D. moaned. “Just my luck. I got a prime suspect who by all appearances is a mild-mannered reporter, with a secret identity. You know who that sounds like, right?”

“I don’t know. Who?”

“Fucking Superman.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

When Jason was fourteen years old, his family had gone to the zoo. He’d been too old and cynical for these kinds of outings, but his little sister, Janie, had been madly in love with anything furry, so for Janie’s sake, he’d agreed to the zoo.

He’d do most things for Janie’s sake, a fact his mother exploited zealously.

They’d made the rounds. Eyed sleeping lions, sleeping polar bears, sleeping elephants. Really, Jason thought, how many sleeping animals did one guy need to see? They bypassed the insect exhibit without a word, but ducked into Reptile World. At ten years of age, Janie didn’t really like snakes, but still liked to squeal while looking at snakes, so it made a crazy kind of sense.

Unfortunately, the key exhibit item—the albino Burmese python—was covered up, with a sign saying, Out to Lunch. Deepest Apologies, Polly the Python.

Janie had giggled, thinking that was pretty funny. Jason had shrugged, because it seemed to him that a python would be yet one more sleeping creature, so he fell into step behind his sister as their father led them toward the door. At the last moment, however, Jason had glanced over and realized the cardboard wasn’t fully covering the glass. From this angle, he could peer right in, and Polly wasn’t out to lunch, Polly was eating lunch, a very cute-looking lunch, too, quivering on the floor while the giant snake unhinged her jaws and began the slow, laborious process of drawing the jackrabbit into her massive yellow coils.