Steve shook his head. “No need. Dirty Dan cleans the studio, and I’ve used him for two years now to clean my house. Bob’s locked out back, so he won’t be any trouble, and the windows are boarded up until the carpenter can get here tomorrow. Everything’s taken care of. When we get home the house will have been aired and scrubbed. Tomorrow the adjuster will check out the damage, and we’ll figure out insurance.”

Elsie shifted her pocketbook to her shoulder. “What do you say we haul it out of here? You don’t get there early, the lines’ll kill you. I got my heart set on that roller coaster where you stand up. I saw it on TV.”

Chapter 8

Daisy wasn’t sure about the roller coaster. It was one of those high-tech things that curved and looped and catapulted screaming people along a gleaming rail high overhead. An amusement park had sounded like a good idea an hour ago, while they were still en route, but now that she was standing in line she wasn’t sure. It had been a long time since she’d ridden a roller coaster. And she’d never ridden anything like this. She held tight to Steve’s hand and gnawed at her lower lip.

“You okay?” Steve asked. “You look a little pale.”

“It’s just that I’m having so much fun.”

“Maybe we should start off with something smaller.”

Schmidt was standing behind them. His face was tanned, but under the tan he was as pale as Daisy. “Yeah, it might not be a bad idea to start off with something smaller. It isn’t that I’m afraid to do this, but—” A string of cars rocketed past them. “Holy cripes,” Schmidt said, “you have to be nuts to do this!”

Steve was having second thoughts, too. Now he remembered why he avoided this for fifteen years. It was because he had no patience with waiting his turn. “It doesn’t seem right that we should force Officer Schmidt to do this in the line of duty,” he said.

Daisy agreed. It didn’t seem right. “And look how he’s sweating in that jacket,” she said. “We should go buy him something cool to drink. We wouldn’t want him to get dehydrated.”

“Bunch of wimps,” Elsie said. “You go ahead, and Kevin and me’ll meet up with you later.”

They got sodas and Schmidt and his partner dropped behind. “Just pretend we aren’t here,” Schmidt said. “And if you don’t go on any more roller coasters, I’ll do you a favor. I’ll see what I can do about having the old lady committed. I’ve got friends in high places.”

“She doesn’t belong to us,” Daisy told him. “We just hired her to be my bodyguard until the Roach is convicted.”

“You mean she was telling the truth? You actually hired her?”