"He's better now," I said. "He's very responsible. He's got his own house, and a toaster."

And he eats tongue casserole, I thought. And he hoses down his nephew, and has a grandmother that makes mine look like chopped liver. True, he's still friggin' sexy. And I enjoy being with him. And I like his dog. But the whole big-Italian-family-cooking-tongue thing was giving me stomach cramps.

I went to the kitchen drawer where the extra keys were kept but couldn't find the key to the Buick.

"That's what I'm telling you," my mother said. "Your grandmother has the Buick."

"She doesn't have a license."

"She's a lunatic. She's going to get arrested and sent to jail. I'll have to visit her in prison. Do you have any idea what the neighbors will say? I won't be able to shop at Giovichinni's."

"Where did she go?"

"I don't know. She had a date. Big secret."

"With Gordon?"

"I don't think so. She said Gordon was a dud, and she had someone new on the hook. This morning there was a single sunflower on the doorstep, and it had your grandmother's name on it. You mark my words, she's fooling around with a married man. It's that Internet. She's on it all the time. I went upstairs and looked, and her laptop is missing from her room."

My heart did a painful contraction and a chill ripped through me.

"I'm sure she's fine," I said to my mom. "I'm going to use the bathroom, and I'll call someone for a ride."

I didn't need to use the bathroom. I needed to see my grandmother's room, and I didn't want to alarm my mother. She was already ironing. More bad news and she'd be chugging whiskey.

I went upstairs and looked through Grandma's bedroom. My mother was right about the computer. It was missing. Grandma had a small desk in her room. I rifled the drawers but found nothing. No names or addresses scribbled anywhere. She didn't have a cellphone. The single sunflower was in a bud vase on the desk. I looked through her dresser and under the bed. Nothing. I called Ranger and asked him to pick me up and track down the Buick.

"Who's picking you up?" my mother asked when I came back to the kitchen.

"Ranger."

My mother's eyes flicked to the cabinet where she kept the whiskey.

"What?" I asked. "Now what?"

"Morelli has turned into a nice boy, but now you have this Ranger. What kind of a person only wears black?"

"It's easy for him. Everything matches."

"I hear things about him. It's like he's Batman."

"He's not Batman. He's just a guy who owns a security agency."

"Why don't you call Joseph for a ride?"

"He's working."

I gave my mom a kiss on the cheek and promised I'd call if I heard from Grandma. I grabbed my messenger bag and went outside to wait for Ranger.

Five minutes later he rolled to a stop in his Porsche 911 Turbo. I slid in and thought there was some truth to what my mother had said. He was Batman without the rubber suit.

"What's up?" he asked.

"I'm worried about Grandma. I think she might be with the Dumpster killer."

The Buick had been left in a small parking lot attached to a 7-Eleven on Broad Street. Ranger and I got out of the Porsche and went to the car. It was unlocked. Empty inside. No bodies. No blood. No Venetian blind cord or cryptic messages.

"Where do we go from here?" I asked Ranger.

"Do you have suspects?"

"Randy Berger just got out of jail, and I helped burn down his apartment, so I think he's off the list. Hard to believe it could be Victor, but he did say he might have a lady friend in for pork chops."

"Then let's visit Victor."

"He owns Victory Hardware, but I have no idea where he lives."

Ranger made a phone call, and moments later he had an address.

"He lives over the store," he said. "He owns the building."

We were there in a matter of minutes. The store was still open, so we stopped in there first.

"Howdy," Snoot said to me, looking Ranger over. "I see you brought Batman with you."

"I'm looking for Victor."

"He's upstairs. He's got a big night planned."

"How do I get upstairs?" I asked Snoot.

"There's a door on the street, next to the store. There's a buzzer, but it don't always work."

We went outside and rang the buzzer. No response.

"Okay, Batman," I said to Ranger. "Do your thing."

Ranger took a slim jim from a pocket in his cargo pants and opened the door. We stepped inside and I yelled for Victor.

Victor appeared at the top of the stairs. "Did you come for pork chops?"

"No. I came to ask a question."

"Well, come on up. The missus and me are having a cocktail."

"You have a missus?"

"Don't everybody got a missus?"

We climbed the stairs and stepped into Victor's living room.

"This here's the missus," Victor said, arm around a woman who looked like Victor with a tan. She had a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and a martini in her hand.

"Was real nice of you to give Victor those chops," she said to me. "We got plenty if you want to join us with your fella."

"Thanks," I said, "but we have plans. I just wanted to stop by and say hello."

"Okay, then," Victor said. "Stop around anytime."

Ranger was smiling when we got to the sidewalk.

"What's with the smile?" I asked him. "I don't see you smile a lot."

"I liked them."

Here's the thing about the men in my life. They're smarter than I am, and they have a profound sense of humanity that I can only see from a distance. They work in the gutter, exposed to all the insanity and violence that human beings are capable of exhibiting, but they aren't destroyed or overwhelmed by it. They hunt down men who have done terrible things, but they see this as an aberration and not as the norm. And they recognize good people when they see them.

"Any more suspects?" Ranger asked. "Do we need to look at the man who took your grandmother to the viewing?"

"Gordon Krutch. My mom didn't think Grandma was with him, and I think he would need an accomplice, but he's definitely on the suspects list."

Ranger got the address and we drove across town to an apartment building by the DMV offices. We parked and took the elevator to the third floor. The building was very Practical Pig. Sturdy construction. Neatly maintained. Nothing fancy. We rang the bell to Krutch's apartment, and Krutch answered with his left arm in a plaster cast.

"What happened?" I asked him.

"I was picking Myra Flekman up to take her to her doctor's visit this morning, and I tripped over the curb and broke my arm." He stared at my nose and grimaced. "What happened to you?"

"I fell down the stairs." It was easier than explaining how I'd hit myself in the nose with a gun barrel. "I was looking for Grandma, but I guess you haven't seen her today."

"No. I spent most of the day in the emergency room."

We returned to Ranger's car, and Ranger called his monitoring station.

"The Buick hasn't been moved," he told me. "It's still parked in the lot."

"Grandma left in the middle of the afternoon, so she's not going to Bingo, and she's not going to a funeral home viewing."

"What about her female friends? Have you called any of them?"

"My mom might have tried some close friends. I'll go back to the house and make some calls. I don't think there's any more you can do. Thanks for driving me around."

Ranger put the Porsche in gear and pulled into traffic. "I'll continue to monitor the Buick, and I'll have my men watch for your grandmother when they're on patrol. And I'll have your SUV dropped off at your parents' house."

TWENTY-SIX.

MY FATHER WAS in his chair watching television when I walked in. My mother was setting the table for dinner. She set a place for Grandma even though Grandma wasn't there. And she set a place for me.

"Did you call any of Grandma's women friends?" I asked my mother.

"I called Betty Farnsworth and Loretta Best. She's been friendly with them lately. I didn't want to make a big deal of this and call half the Burg when for all I know your grandmother could be shopping at the mall."

I helped my mom get the food to the table, all of us trying to maintain some normalcy, trying to push aside the feeling that something was very wrong. My mom was aided in this effort by a large tumbler of whiskey. My dad took solace in gravy. I had nothing. On the outside I think I looked pretty good, but on the inside I was panicked.

I put my napkin on my lap and went through the motions of putting food on my plate. She's probably fine, I told myself, but in my gut I didn't believe it. My gut told me she was in danger, and it was partially my fault. I should have caught this guy by now. I should have been smarter and worked harder.

I was staring at my food, pushing it around, when my phone rang. I didn't recognize the number, but I recognized the voice. It was Grandma.

"Where are you?" Grandma asked. "Can you talk? I don't want your mother to know I'm talking to you."

"I'm at the dinner table."

"Well, I'm in a pickle. I need a ride."

I excused myself from the table and went to the kitchen.

"Are you okay?" I asked Grandma.

"Sure I'm okay. Why wouldn't I be okay?"

"There's a lunatic out there who's killing women and throwing them in Dumpsters. We were worried about you. We didn't know where you were."

"I'm at Sixteenth Street. I don't know the number, but there's a wine shop on the ground floor and I'm on the second floor."

"Are you alone?"

"I'm with Uncle Sunny. Only he's dead. Don't tell your mother. One minute he was singing 'My Way' and the next thing he was dead."

"Omigod, did someone kill him?"

"I guess you might say I killed him. He was sort of in the throes of passion when he keeled over."

I gave a gurgle of laughter, more out of horror than humor. "Did you dial 911?"

"Not yet. I was waiting for him to get normal, but I don't think it's going to happen."

"Normal?"

"Yeah, let's just say he was stiff way before rigor mortis set in."

"Are you sure he's... you know?"