To The Nines

saw you go into the ground.'

My jaw went slack and the world lost focus for a moment.

'Don't pay attention to her,' Joe's mother said. 'She has these visions all the time.' Mrs. Morelli gave me a loaf of bread in its white paper bakery bag. 'I came over to give Joe this bread. Its fresh baked from Italian Peoples. Joe likes it in the morning with his coffee.'

'I saw you in the box,' Grandma Bella said. 'I saw them close the lid and put you in the ground.' Bella was doing a bang-up job of creeping me out. This wasn't a good time to tell me I was going to die. I was working hard not to get overwhelmed by the shooting, the photos, and flowers.

'Stop that,' Joe's mother said to Bella. 'You're scaring her.'

'Mark my words,' Bella said, shaking her finger at me. The two women got back into the car and drove off. I took Bob and the bread into the house. I gave Bob fresh water and a bowl filled with dog crunchies. I sliced the end off the bread and ate it with strawberry jam.

A tear slid out of my eye and rolled down my cheek. I didn't want to give in to the tear, so I wiped it away and looked in at Rex. Rex was sleeping, of course. 'Hey!' I said real loud into the cage. Still no movement. I dropped a chunk of the bread and jam a couple inches away from the soup can. The soup can vibrated a little and Rex backed out. He stood blinking in the light for a moment, whiskers whirring, nose twitching. He scurried over to the bread, ate all the jam, shoved the remaining bread into his cheek pouch, and scuttled back into his soup can.

I checked the phone machine. No messages. I opened my iBook, went online, and my screen filled with more of the penis enlargement, hot chicks with horses, get out of debt ads.

'We can send a man to the moon, but we can't find a way to stop junk mail!' I yelled at the computer.

I calmed myself and deleted the garbage. I was left with one piece of mail. No subject in the subject line. The body of the letter was short: Did you like my flowers? Were you impressed with my marksmanship this afternoon?

My stomach went hot and sick and my vision got cobwebby. I put my head between my legs until the ringing stopped in my ears and I was able to breathe again.

This was from Howie's killer. He knew my email address. Not that my email address was a secret. It was printed on my business cards. Still, the message was chilling and eerily invasive. It tied the flowers and the photos to the shooting. It was a message from a madman.

I typed back to him. Who are you?

Seconds later, my message was returned as undeliverable.

I saved the email to show to Morelli and I shut down.

'My day is in the toilet,' I told Bob. 'I'm taking a shower. Don't let any maniacs in the house.' I stood up as tall as I could and I made sure my voice was steady. The bravado was partly for Bob and partly for me. Sometimes if I acted brave, I almost became a little brave. And just in case Bob fell asleep on the job, I went to the closet in Morelli's room, helped myself to his spare gun, and took it into the bathroom with me.

GRANDMA MAZUR WAS waiting at the door when I pulled up. 'What do you think of my new hair?' she asked.

It was punk rock star red and stuck out in little spikes. 'I think it's fun,' I told Grandma.

'It brings out the color of my eyes.'

'And it's flattering to your skin tone.' Definitely drags attention away from the liver spots.

'It's a wig,' she said. 'I got it at the mall today. Me and Mabel Burlew went shopping. I just got home. I missed all the excitement when everybody thought you shot someone again.'

Albert Kloughn came in behind me. 'What about shooting someone? Do you need a lawyer? I'd give you a real good rate. Business has been a little slow. I don't know why. It's not like I'm not a good lawyer. I went to school and everything.'

'I don't need a lawyer,' I told him.

'Too bad. I could use a high-profile case. That's what really helps your practice to take off. You gotta win something big.'

'What do you think of my hair?' Grandma asked Kloughn.

'It's nice,' he said. 'I like it. It's real natural looking.'

'It's a wig,' Grandma said. 'I got it at the mall.'

'Maybe that's what I should get,' Kloughn said. 'Maybe I'd get more cases if I had more hair. A lot of people don't like bald men. Not that I'm bald, but it's starting to get thin.' He smoothed his hand over his few remaining strands of hair. 'You probably didn't notice that it was thin, but I can tell when the light hits it just right.'

'You should try that chemical stuff you pour on your head,' Grandma said. 'My friend Lois Grizen uses it and she grew some hair. Only problem was she used it at night and it rubbed off on her pillow and got on her face and now she has to shave twice a day.'

My father looked up from his paper. 'I always wondered what was wrong with her. I saw her in the deli last week and she looked like Wolf man. I thought she had a sex change.'

'I have everything on the table,' my mother said. 'Come now before it gets cold. The bread will go stale.'

Valerie was already at the table with her plate filled. My mother had put out an antipasto platter, fresh bread from Peoples, and a pan of sausage-and-cheese lasagna. Nine-year-old Angie, the perfect child and an exact replica of Valerie at that age, sat hands folded, patiently waiting for food to be passed. Her seven-year-old sister, Mary Alice, thundered down the stairs and galloped into the room. Mary Alice has for some time now been convinced she's a horse. Outwardly she has all the characteristics of a little girl, but I'm beginning to wonder if there's more to the horse thing than meets the eye.

'Blackie tinkled in my bedroom,' Mary Alice said. 'And I had to clean it up. That's why I'm late. Blackie couldn't