"Some people called him Sonny. I called him Junior. Used to annoy the hell out of him. Mom called him Milt. Dad called him Stupid, 'the little jerk,' and 'the gutless wonder.' He had some choice names for me, too."

When Angelo had almost finished the applesauce, a nurse bustled through the door. "Time to take your vitals, John."

Angelo quickly hid the spoon under his leg.

"Look," said John, smiling up at her. "I was a good boy. I ate it."

She beamed. "Just what you need to make you well and strong."

John winked at Angelo.

"Let me push your sleeve up," she said, inserting a thermometer into his mouth. "I'll get your temp first, then your blood pressure."

Angelo's eyes opened in surprise when he saw the tattoo on John's arm. The same one Sophie had seen on Milton's. A snake with a red eye.

The nurse waited, gazing intently at an electronic device attached to her belt. When it gave a beep, she smiled. "Perfect." She removed the thermometer, then pulled the blood pressure cuff away from the wall.

"You've got a tattoo," said Angelo casually.

"Silliness. When we were young, my brother and I got good and drunk one night in downtown Terre Haute. While we were wandering around, looking for a good time, we came across a tattoo parlor. I thought, what the hell? It was the manly thing to do, right? I had some cash burning a hole in my pocket, so I sprang for both of us. You got any tattoos?"

"Me? No."

"Shhh," said the nurse.

Angelo stared at the snake. So much for Sophie's infallible theory.

36.

Three cows in a row meant death. On the way back from town, Cora had seen them, black as southern Minnesota dirt, grim sentinels standing in a gray-brown field. She'd never been a superstitious woman, but it wasn't smart to ignore a clear message from the great beyond. Maybe Kirby was trying to warn her away, or maybe her mother had sent the cows. Cora knew her sight wasn't all that great, but she could swear she'd seen their hollow, penetrating eyes staring at her as she sailed past. And once they were behind her, she could feel their gaze burning a hole in the back of her head. These were no ordinary cows.

But she was home now. Home and safe. Yesterday, a handyman had come out to repair the broken window. At the same time, he'd installed bars on all the basement and first-floor windows. Nobody was going to break into her house again, not if she had anything to say about it.

Cora had spent the better part of the afternoon at Lindstrom Travel, talking to that ninny Vern Lindstrom about Caribbean cruises. Even before the cow sighting, she knew it was time to make a graceful exit. Rose Hill could get along without her for a few weeks. Winthrop could stay with friends. She'd get someone to come in to water her plants. When she returned from her trip, she hoped everything would be back to normal. If she still didn't feel safe, there was always that "Fun-in-the-Sun Jamaica Vacation" package Vern had shown her. Vern, with his usual pitiful lack of good taste, had kidded Cora that she was about to become a Caribbean Mama. Good thing for him he had the only travel agency in town, otherwise she would have taken her business elsewhere.

Dumping the cruise brochures on the kitchen table, Cora poured herself a glass of apple juice and carried it into the living room. Winthrop wasn't asleep on the back of the couch as he usually was, so she called to him. "Here kitty kitty kitty. Winthrop, come here, sweetie. I'm home." He was doggier than most cats, and almost always came when she called him. His other favorite place to relax was the bathtub.

Cora sipped the juice as she walked into the bathroom, but again, Winthrop was nowhere to be found. "Winthrop, honey, where are you? I need to kiss my boy." He was getting to be such an old cat, he rarely went upstairs anymore. Maybe he'd been frightened by a noise outside. He was still recovering from the break-in the other night. Winthrop was a sensitive, shy, gentle cat, with the wide-eyed gaze of an insane prophet, but Cora loved him more than anything on earth.

She didn't feel like playing hide and seek, since he could be anywhere, so she sauntered back to the kitchen and set her empty glass in the sink. When she turned around, she saw that a piece of paper had been taped to the back door. She hadn't noticed it when she first came in because it was almost the same yellow as the paint. Now she pulled it free and gave it a look-see.

Cora gasped, feeling her heart stop.

Cora clutched her throat. Not Winthrop! Anything but him! He was her baby. She could feel herself begin to panic, thinking of her poor sweet kitty in the clutches of that horrible, horrible heathen.

"Snap out of it," she ordered herself.

Winthrop was such an ordinary, unassuming little kitty. His conception of the world was the inside of her house. He was as cherished, as dear and familiar to her as the smell of her own skin. How could something so sweet and innocent be in such danger?

Cora's fear turned instantly to fury. How dare the Washburns threaten her cat! They'd finally gone too far. This was all-out war. Cora wished she knew which one of them was harassing her. Like she told Angelo yesterday, it could be any of them. He seemed to think it had to be Plato or Milton, emissaries of the big bad kahuna, John Washburn himself. But Cora knew Bernice or Mary were equally capable of murder, and probably a lot more clever at it.

Picking up the phone in the kitchen, she took the card Angelo had given her and dialed his cell phone number. It rang three times before he answered.

"Falzone."

"Angelo, it's me. Cora Runbeck. I need to talk to you right away."

"You do? Why?"

"Something's happened."

"What?"

"I can't talk about it on the phone. We have to meet."

"Do you want me to come to your house?"

"No. It has to be someplace neutral-and quiet. How about the Coffee Klatch. You know where it is?"

"Sure, but-"

"Meet me there in half an hour. This is life or death, Angelo. Don't fail me."

Cora entered the coffee house wearing a pastel-blue sleeveless dress and her best straw hat. Before slipping on her white cotton gloves, she'd patted a drop of Evening in Paris behind each ear. The bottle was a relic of her youth. The clothes made her feel put-together. Spiffy. She could hardly do what needed to be done in a housedress.

Angelo was sitting at a table in the back, away from the windows. Cora thought it might be tempting fate to do this deal in full view of everyone in Rose Hill, but sometimes it was best to hide in plain sight. She nodded to him as she sat down.

"What's up?" asked Angelo. A half-drunk cup of coffee rested in front of him. He looked sufficiently solid and menacing in his dark suit and tan silk shirt.

Cora placed her purse on the table and leaned forward. In a low voice, she said, "You don't need an umbrella unless it's raining."

"Huh?"

"I need an umbrella, Angelo."

He stared at her blankly.

"I want to hire you. What's the cost?"

"For what?"

"I want to put out a contract on somebody's life."

"You're kidding. Whose?"

"Whoever broke into my house the other night. I pay you, you find the slime and then rub him out." Cora knew that if the person turned out to be Bernice, they'd have a problem, but she'd deal with it when the time came.

"You want me to make a hit?"

For a gangster, he was pretty slow on the uptake. "Yes. Now, I brought a hundred dollars with me in my purse. That's just a down payment. I can get you more. What's it cost? Five hundred? Six?"

"Wait just a minute," said Angelo, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Are you nuts?"

"I see no reason to call me names. This is a business deal, plain and simple."

"Look, lady, I don't kill people for a living. I own laundromats."

She smiled conspiratorially, then winked. "Right." Opening the clasp on her purse, she removed the ransom note. "Read this."

Angelo took it and scanned it quickly. "When did you get it?"

"Today. Just before I called you. I found it taped to my back door."

He read it over again, shaking his head. "Where's Melvin DuCharme's cabin?"

"By the Cottonwood River, maybe forty miles away. There's nothing around it but woods."

"No other cabins?"

She shook her head.

He considered it a moment. "Did anyone follow you here?"

"Nobody. I'm positive. I went way out of my way, made all kinds of crazy turns, just to make sure."

"Well, Cora, I'd say you've just been checkmated."

"I realize that. That's why I'm hiring you."

He folded the paper and handed it back to her. "You know, babe, I'm gonna make you another offer you can't refuse."

She liked that. She smiled, looking expectant.

"Here's what we're gonna do."

37.

Sophie sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed, scratching off the names of nursing homes as she phoned each one to ask if Viola Newman was a resident. There was no other way to locate her except with a tedious phone search. She'd found a Web site earlier in the day that listed all the nursing home facilities in Minnesota. If she hadn't found that site, she'd be knee-deep in alligators, as her father used to say. At least this way, she had up-to-date information. She'd been working at it since two. It was nearly four now and she still hadn't located the woman. Sophie was beginning to think she was searching for a needle in a haystack, and that just about exhausted her store of folksy sayings for the rest of the millennium.

Picking up the phone again, she punched in the number for Meadow Woods Manor in Windborne, a small town about seventy miles southeast of Rose Hill. A woman answered.

"Meadow Woods. May I help you?"

"Yes, I hope so," said Sophie. "I'm looking for a Viola Newman. Can you tell me if she's a resident at your facility?"

"Just a minute, please."

Sophie could hear a keyboard being tapped.

The woman came back on the line. "Yes, Ms. Newman is with us. She's in a private room on the fifth floor. Room 509."

Yes! mouthed Sophie, thrusting her fist into the air.

"Would you like to leave her a message? She doesn't have a phone in her room."

"Is Ms. Newman . . . I mean, would she be able to talk to me if I came to visit? Do you know what I'm asking?"

The woman laughed at Sophie's discomfort. "Honey, we're all gonna hit eighty one day, if we live long enough. To answer your question, yes, Viola should be perfectly able to talk to you. She's in our minimal care unit."

"Do you have visiting hours at Meadow Woods?"

"We just ask that visitors leave before bedtime."

"What time is that?"

"If you leave before nine, you'll be okay."

Sophie asked for directions. No sooner had she hung up than she got another call, this time on her cell phone. She reached into her purse and pulled it free. It couldn't be Bram, unless he was taking a break from his show. Maybe it was Rudy, calling to tell her he was home early.

"This is Sophie."

"Angelo Falzone."

"Hey, hi! What's up?"

"Something big. I think we're about to catch ourselves a murderer, Sophie. You got a minute?"

"Absolutely." She listened eagerly as he explained about Cora and the note she'd received a few hours ago. He went over the plan he'd formulated, how he intended to catch the bastard, whoever it turned out to be.

"Don't take this the wrong way," said Sophie, "but you don't strike me as the kind of guy who knows his way around the woods, especially at night."

"If I can handle myself on the mean streets of New York, I can handle a few squirrels and jack rabbits."

Sophie wasn't so sure his equation worked. "Have you told Bernice?"

"I'm going to wait on that. I don't want her to worry."