An Atlanta Police cruiser was parked at the curb, across the street from my house. A silhouetted figure waved at us. Bucky waved back.

"He's gonna stay till he gets off shift at seven," Bucky said, nodding at the car. "Best I could do."

"I appreciate it," I said, touching him on the shoulder. I've never minded depending on the kindness of friends. Especially when the friend is a cop and the boogeyman has been sniffing around my windows.

"What happens with the Jackson Poole investigation now that Wuvvy's dead?" I asked.

"Mackey wants it finished up," Bucky said. "We talked about it before he left tonight. I've got a couple more interviews, some loose ends to tie up, but as soon as that's taken care of, he thinks, and I agree, that Wuvvy killed Poole. She's dead now, the coroner's gonna call it suicide. By the end of the week, the case is closed."

He braced both hands on the steering wheel. "You're not gonna dog me about this, are you? I mean, it's not like you had a client. You said yourself you weren't working for Wuvvy. Even if you were, she's dead now."

"What's your hurry?" I asked. "It's not like this is a cold case. Jackson Poole's only been dead three days. There are still tons of leads that could be followed up. Like that business at the Blind Possum tonight, for instance. Aren't you the least bit curious about Anna Frisch's reluctance to cooperate with a homicide investigation?"

He sighed. "I knew you were gonna get jammed up in this."

"I found Jackson Poole's body, remember?"

Bucky leaned over and unlocked my door. "Mackey wants this case cleared. I've got four other active cases going right now and two trials coming up. We've got a new a.s.sistant chief, Marge Fitzgerald. Heard of her?"

"I thought she was in charge of public relations," I said.

"She's in charge of everything as of this week," Bucky said ruefully. "And Fitzgerald is a number cruncher. She wants weekly case-clearance reports. Homicide reports are due Friday."

"So this is about numbers?"

"It's about keeping my job," Bucky said, refusing to get riled. "Under the old system, a murder was a murder, even if the perp killed somebody in front of a whole streetful of witnesses. We had a ninety-three percent clearance rate when you counted it that way. But now Fitzgerald, she separates out the whodunits from the Sat.u.r.day-night knife and gun stuff, and we've only got a forty-three percent clearance rate on whodunits. Mackey wants that rate up-yesterday."

"I see," I said. "Thanks for an interesting evening."

"You're welcome," he told me. "You're gonna see about getting a security system installed first thing-right?"

"Yeah," I said earnestly. "First thing."

A note dangled from the hall light, right inside the front door, just at eye level. It was from Edna.

Callaban: Gone to spend the night at Maureen's. Took my gun with me, so don't bother to look. Don't forget to lock the doors.

Love, Mom Just like my sister. Once she heard that we'd had a Peeping Tom, she'd insist it wasn't safe for Edna to stay in the house. Of course, she didn't give a tinker's d.a.m.n about me staying there alone.

"Fine," I muttered to myself. I locked the dead-bolt and peered out the window to see that my guardian cop was still in place. Which he was.

I walked through the house checking on all the windows and snapping off lights. Jittery? Oh yeah.

My bedroom was the last stop. I took my gun out of my purse and put it on the nightstand, for once not bothering to unload it. Then I got undressed in the closet, draping myself in my longest, thickest flannel nightgown.

It wasn't until I'd gotten into bed that I noticed the red flashing light on my answering machine.

I punched the play b.u.t.ton and sank back into my pillows.

"Callahan?"

I sat upright, reaching unthinkingly for my pistol.

The voice wasn't Maureen's. It wasn't even anybody who was alive. It was the voice of Wuvvy. I still couldn't visualize her as a Virginia Lee. I gripped the gun with both hands, a talisman to ward off whatever demons haunted that voice on the other end of the line.

I could hear faint background music. Very faint. But it sounded like "Keep on Trucking," the Deadhead national anthem.

"It's me," the voice said. "Wuvvy. I guess you saw me on the six o'clock news. Everybody in Atlanta has seen it by now."

There was a long pause. "Don't hang up," I said aloud. "Tell me why you did it."

"I don't know why I'm calling you," Wuvvy continued. "h.e.l.l, I can't think of anybody I should call, so you'll have to do."

Wuvvy's words came tumbling out in a torrent. "It's like I'm an outlaw or something. They've already got me tried and convicted." Her voice cracked, trailed off into nowhere. "Channel 10 even had a picture of me, me and Broward and Jackson. Back before. They used my old name," Wuvvy said bitterly. "Dug up all that old stuff. You wonder why I was hiding? That's why. Once a killer, always a killer, that's how people think. It's a police state, Callahan. I spent ten years in prison. I did everything I was supposed to do, but people still wouldn't leave me alone.

"You know when the last time was I saw Jackson Poole? Before Friday night? Twenty years ago. He was a nine-year-old kid. I never saw him again until Friday night. Not in all those years. I helped raise him. Broward didn't care anything about that boy. n.o.body did. So what happens? I finally get my act together, he hunts me down and ruins my life all over again. He's dead and I might as well be. So f.u.c.k it. n.o.body cares about the truth. n.o.body ever did."

The tape kept running, but Wuvvy had said what she had to say. She didn't even bother to hang up, just kept on truckin'.

14.

"Smell this."

Before I could protest, Cheezer was spritzing the back of my hand with a plastic pump-action spray bottle.

I sniffed my hand, rubbing at the wet spot. "Peppermint? What's it for?"

"Spearmint," Cheezer said. "It's an all-purpose spray cleaner. My theory is that America is tired of lemon-and pine-scented cleaners. Whaddya think?"

"I think you better not be spraying me with any more chemicals," I said, getting up from the kitchen table and rinsing my hand under the tap.

"Yeah," Edna chimed in. "You could put somebody's eye out with that stuff."

Cheezer held the bottle up to his face and misted his face with the cleanser. "Not really," he said, wiping the liquid from his eyes. "See? The ingredients are totally nontoxic. Earth-friendly."

"Yeah, but does it work?" Edna demanded.

He sprayed the kitchen countertop and swiped at it with a paper towel. Edna and I bent close to inspect the results.

"Not bad," I had to admit. The forty-year-old scratched and stained Formica gleamed in the late afternoon sun.

"Pretty decent," Edna agreed. "What else does it do?"

Cheezer beamed. "It really is all-purpose. Gla.s.s, metal, plastic, tile, laminate, even painted surfaces." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I'm still not happy with the results on wood, though. It's leaving a slightly dull film. I've got to do some more tinkering on my formula."

"That's real good, sweetie," Edna said, patting his shoulder. She put on a sweater and picked up her purse, hooking the strap over her shoulders. "You run along home now," she said. "All the other House Mice are long gone."

She was right. It was Thursday, after six P.M. We'd been running ourselves ragged trying to get a handle on all the new business the storm had generated. Cheezer and I had cleaned four houses that day, Neva Jean had done three, Ruby two, and Baby and Sister had pitched in with Edna to clean two condos.

"We've still got the Stoutamires to go," I said wearily. The Stoutamires owned a huge three-story Victorian heap over on Spruce Street in Inman Park. They were some of Neva Jean's original clients.

"That's an all-day job," Edna said. "Call them up and tell them we'll have to cancel today. See if they want to rebook for Friday."

"I could do it," Cheezer volunteered. "I went with Neva Jean last time."

"You've done enough today," I said.

He sprayed some more of the cleaner and dabbed at a perfectly clean spot on the counter. "I could use the money," he said quietly.

"You do what you want," Edna said, b.u.t.toning her sweater. "I'm tired of working for a living. I've got to pick up Baby and Sister, and then I'm fixing to go win me ten thousand dollars."

"Wow," Cheezer said. "How?"

"Rollover jackpot at the Knights of Columbus bingo," Edna said smugly. "It's early bird night tonight, and I'm on a streak. I won twenty-five dollars on a Lotto scratch-off ticket yesterday, and last week I won a hundred dollars on a four-corners game at the Piedmont Park American Legion."

"I'm surprised you're letting Baby and Sister horn in on the action," I said teasingly.

"They mostly just go for all-you-can-eat spaghetti for a dollar," Edna said. "And they don't play their own cards. They just help me with mine."

"How many cards do you play?" Cheezer asked.

"Depends," Edna said. "I gotta be going now." She headed for the door.

"Well, how many, approximately?" I asked.

She had her hand on the doork.n.o.b. "Anywhere from four to forty-eight, Miss Snoop," she said.

"Geez," I said. When my mother started going to bingo a year ago, I'd encouraged her new interest as a way to keep her mind off smoking. Who knew she'd found a new addiction?

She read my mind, as usual. "I can stop any time I want to," she said stubbornly. "And it's my money, and how I spend it is none of your beeswax." With that, she flounced out the door.

Even with both of us working like whirling dervishes, using what seemed like ten gallons of Cheezer's miracle mint spray, we didn't get done with the Stoutamires' house until past eleven o'clock.

"You hungry?" I asked as we were leaving the house. "We could stop and get a bite. My treat," I added hastily.

"Whatever," Cheezer said.

I turned the Lincoln up Moreland Avenue out of habit. As always, I was amazed by the number of kids hanging around Little Five Points at that hour of the night. There were dozens and dozens of them; teenagers mostly, some who looked like they'd barely reached p.u.b.erty. They lolled against the street lamps, perched on the curb, dirty bare feet sticking out into the street, puffing on cigarettes, some taking furtive sips from brown paper bags. As usual, a big circle of kids stood on the sidewalk in front of The Point, playing Hacky Sack. As usual, there were four or five older men, street types, asleep or pa.s.sed out, slumped in the doorways of storefronts that had closed for the night.

"Doesn't anybody have parents anymore?" I sounded like a forty-year-old fuddy-duddy. "How do they survive?" I asked. "Where do they sleep? Get money for food? h.e.l.l, where do they use the bathroom?"

He laughed. "Take a look around, Callahan. This is where they sleep and s.h.i.t. Right here. Although usually Hap and some of the other store owners let 'em use their bathrooms. Anyway, you don't really want to know how they live."

"Why not?" I asked, bristling a little. "I'm not all that old. Believe it or not, Cheezer, I wasn't born middle-aged."

"I didn't say that," Cheezer protested. "Okay. They live off the streets. Day to day. The girls, some of 'em, turn tricks, not for money so much, but for food or dope, or maybe a place to stay when the weather's bad. A lot of them do a little dealing. Nothing major. Some of the guys hustle, but not that much. There's still kinda a stigma to being a queer."

Queer. One of those words that makes us tolerant types shudder in the nineties. Cheezer said the nasty word matter-of-factly.

"Depressing," I said, looking up and down the street for a parking spot. "It's like it was back in the seventies when I was a teenager. The only difference is, back then, kids ran away to the strip."

"The strip?" Cheezer raised an eyebrow. "Like Sunset Strip? Hollywood?"

I spotted a parking s.p.a.ce in front of the Baker's Cafe, pulled the Lincoln abreast of the car in front of the slot, and started trying to remember how to parallel park. I spun the Lincoln's steering wheel all the way clockwise, edged the gas pedal a little, and inched forward and backwards, spinning the wheel and craning my neck to check how I was doing.

After five minutes of craning and cursing, the Lincoln's rear was still sticking four inches out into the street. I realized what Cheezer had asked me. About the strip. Obviously it was a generational thing.

"The strip was right here in midtown Atlanta," I told him. "Peachtree and Tenth Street. Ground zero for the age of Aquarius. Peace, love and drugs."

"Your rear end is sticking out," Cheezer said, looking over his shoulder.

"For a long time," I agreed. "Let's eat."

I ordered the gumbo and Cheezer ordered the shrimp etouffee. We ate a whole loaf of french bread while we were waiting for the food. I knocked back two Dixie beers, and Cheezer sipped on a big gla.s.s of iced tea.

"This is great," he said when our food came. He plowed into the etouffee with no pretense at manners. "Kinda like a place in the Garden District, only they put okra in their etouffee, and I'd always pick it out. Okra sucks."

"You lived in New Orleans?" I asked.

"For a couple years," Cheezer said, dipping a piece of bread in my bowl of gumbo. The waitress had seated us at a table in front of the window. He pointed across the street. "Isn't that your cop friend?"

I looked. It was Bucky Deavers. He was crossing Euclid Avenue, walking toward us but not looking at the Baker's Cafe, not seeing us in the nearly empty restaurant.

Bucky was dressed in a suit, and he was unfastening his tie as he walked, stopping to take it off and stuff it in the breast pocket of his jacket.

"Must be just getting off work," I said. "Headed for the Yacht Club. All that number crunching makes for a big thirst."

I thought about Wuvvy for the first time that day, thought about her last phone call to me, the music in the background, the finality of what she'd decided to do.

They'd taught us about carbon-monoxide poisoning at the Police Academy. What happens is, carbon-monoxide atoms attach themselves onto a red blood cell, displace the oxygen needed for normal circulation, and keep the red blood cells from being able to carry oxygen to the tissues. It's a slow suffocation, really. The thing I remembered most succinctly was the cherry-red color of the blood of people poisoned by carbon monoxide, and the fact that the victim's face is flushed, as though sunburned.

Wuvvy always had a George Hamilton tan, summer and winter, from playing Frisbee outdoors year-round. Had the poison flush shown under her tan? I tried to push the thought from my mind, finished my beer in one gulp, and pushed the empty bottle away, my mouth puckered from the sour taste.

"You want the rest of this?" I asked, gesturing toward my nearly full bowl of gumbo.

He nodded. I pushed the bowl toward his side of the table, took a twenty-dollar bill out of my purse, and placed it under the edge of the bowl. "You stay and eat," I said. "Come over to the Yacht Club and get me when you're done."

Cheezer kept chewing but nodded his head.

The sidewalk in front of the Yacht Club and YoYos was littered with construction debris. Light and plaster dust flooded out the open door of Wuvvy's old storefront. The high drone of a power saw was punctuated by the banging of hammers. Somebody had draped a canvas banner across the dust-streaked window.