“What’s never again?” Nora asked. Cyrus pursed his lips at her. “I’m standing right here. Of course, I heard you.”

“Never again am I doing a favor for the police department.” Cyrus stashed his phone in his pocket. “Ready?”

Nora popped the trunk of the Sentra again and went back to it. Cyrus was staring hard at her house or something on it.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“That is a lot of damn beads,” he said, raising his hand to a clump of red and silver beads on a low-hanging branch. “You may be a little into Mardi Gras, lady.”

“I didn’t put them up here, I promise.”

“Who did?”

She shrugged. “No idea. They weren’t on the tree when I saw the house the first time. By the time I moved in a month later, there were a handful. Every few days, more show up.”

“You never catch anyone doing it?”

“Søren thinks I have an ‘admirer.’ Maybe some teenage boy who lives on the street and is trying to be cute. I’d think Gmork would growl though if a boy were out here in the middle of the night beading my tree.”

“So, a woman?”

“Who knows?” Nora asked. “They’re pretty though. They don’t seem to hurt the tree.”

“It would freak me out if someone was beading my trees at night. Or Paulina’s. I’d stand guard.”

“Nico kind of felt the same way. He came to visit for a couple days and swore he felt like he was being watched while he was in my house. That’s why he got me Gmork.” She glanced up at her tree. She rarely gave it much thought, but Cyrus’s questions had gotten her wondering about it again.

“He got you that dog because it’s a man-eater, and if you’ll tell me where he got him, I’ll get one for Paulina.”

“I’ll tell you where we got him, if you invite me to the wedding.”

“Just check Satan’s duffel bag, please.”

“It’s just handcuffs and rope and blindfolds.”

Cyrus gave her that look again.

“It’s kink,” Nora said. “These are toys.” She pointed at the bag. “You are telling me you never tied a girlfriend to the bed or blindfolded her or anything?”

“I’m not telling you nothing, lady.”

Nora drew on the latex gloves again. Seemed like overkill, “but better safe than accidentally exposed to Hep C,” as her fellow dominatrixes say. She dug through the bag, finding nothing she hadn’t found before.

“Maybe this is a dumb question, but if Ike had a, well, a you, wouldn’t his lady keep all this stuff herself?” Cyrus waved his hand at the toy bag in the trunk.

“Depends.” Nora shrugged. “Some people are germaphobes and keep their own private set of gear. Maybe he fetishized the stuff and wanted to keep it around. Maybe he was a switch, like me.”

“Switch?”

“I do the beating, and also get beat. By different people, of course. I beat clients, but they don’t beat me—only Søren does.”