“How about doughnuts?”

“Doughnuts are gonna be a problem. Don’t think there’s anything I can eat on a doughnut.”

“So what’s in the cooler?”

“Meat. I got ribs and rotisserie chicken and a pound of crispy bacon. I can eat meat until I grow a tail and moo. This is the best diet. I can eat things on this diet that I haven’t been able to eat in years.”

“Like what?”

“Like bacon.”

“You always eat bacon.”

“Yeah, but I feel guilty. It’s the guilt that puts the weight on.”

Lula turned into the industrial park and wound around some until she came to TriBro.

“Now what?” she asked. “You want me to go on in with you? Or you want me to stay here and guard the chicken?”

“Guard the chicken?”

“Okay, so I’m gonna eat the chicken. That’s the good part of this diet. You eat all the time. You could shove pork roast and leg of lamb down your throat all day long and it’s okay. Long as you don’t have biscuits with it. I had a steak for breakfast. A whole steak. And then I had a couple eggs. Is that a diet, or what?”

“Sounds a little screwy.”

“That’s what I thought at first, but I bought a book that explains it all and now I can see where it makes sense.”

“Keep your eyes open while you’re guarding the chicken. I shouldn’t be more than a half hour. Call me on my cell if you see anyone suspicious in the lot.”

“You mean like someone setting up a dart gun?”

“Yeah. That would be worth a phone call.”

I’d gotten in touch with Andrew first thing this morning, before leaving the house. I told him I needed some information and he said he’d be happy to help. Andrew, the people person. Hopefully I could get to him without crossing paths with Bart. I hated to admit it, but I was afraid of Bart.

I did a brisk walk across the lot to the building entrance and hurried through the large glass door. The woman at the desk smiled and waved me through to Andrew’s office. I thanked her on a whoosh of expelled air. I’d just had two bad parking lot experiences and many of my body functions, like breathing, now stopped when I set foot on parking lot pavement.

Andrew stood and smiled when I entered his office. “You didn’t say much on the phone. How’s the Singh search going?”

“We’re making progress. I’m looking for a woman named Susan. I was hoping you could check through your employee list and pull out the Susans.”

“Susan is a pretty common name. What’s the connection to Singh?”

“It’s vague. She’s just a name that turned up and I thought I should check it through.”

Andrew turned to his computer, typed in a series of commands, and the screen filled with the employee database. Then it executed a search for all Susans.

“We employ eight Susans,” he finally said. “When I set the age at forty or below, I’m left with five Susans. I’ll give you a printout and you can talk to them if you want. All are married. None work in Singh’s department, but he would have had a chance to mingle with the general population during breaks and at lunch. We’re a relatively small company. Everyone knows everyone else.”