To The Nines

'You're going to have dessert at the Blue Bird luncheonette,' Ranger said. 'I bet they have good pie. And while you're eating the pie you can talk to the waitress. Maybe she knew Paressi.'

Halfway across town I rechecked the reflection in my side mirror for the fourth time. 'I'm pretty sure we're being followed by a black SUV,' I said.

'Tank.'

'Tank's following us?'

'Tank's following you.'

Ordinarily I'd be annoyed at the invasion of privacy, but right now I was thinking privacy was overrated and it wasn't a bad idea to have a bodyguard.

The Blue Bird sat cheek to jowl with several small businesses on Second Avenue. This wasn't the most prosperous part of town, but it wasn't the worst, either. Most of the businesses were family owned and operated. The yellow brick storefronts were free of graffiti and bullet holes. Rents were reasonable and encouraged low-profit businesses: a shoe repair shop, a small hardware store, a vintage clothing store, a used book store. And the Blue Bird luncheonette.

The Blue Bird was approximately the size of a double-wide railroad car. There was a short counter with eight stools, a pastry display case and cash register. Booths stretched along the far wall. The linoleum was black-and- white checkerboard and the walls were bluebird blue.

We took a booth and looked at the menu. There was the usual fare of burgers and tuna melts and pie. I ordered lemon meringue and Ranger ordered coffee, black.

'Excuse me?' I said, palms down on the Formica tabletop. 'Coffee? I thought we came here for pie.'

'I don't eat the kind of pie they serve here.'

I felt a flash of heat go through my stomach. I knew firsthand the kind of pie Ranger liked.

The waitress stood with pencil poised over her pad. She was late fifties with bleached blond hair piled high on her head, heavily mascaraed eyes, perfectly arched crayoned-on eyebrows, and iridescent white lipstick. She had big boobs barely contained in a white T-shirt, her hips were slim in a black spandex miniskirt, and she was wearing black orthopedic shoes.

'Honey, we got all kinds of pie,' she said to Ranger.

Ranger cut his eyes to her and she took a step backward. 'But then maybe not,' she said.

'I'm not usually in this neighborhood,' I told the waitress, 'but my little sister knew a girl who used to work here. And she always said the food was real good. Maybe you knew my sister's friend. Lillian Paressi.'

'Oh honey, I sure did. She was a sweetheart. Didn't have an enemy. Everyone loved Lillian. That was a terrible thing that happened to her. She was killed on her day off. I couldn't believe it when I heard. And they never caught the guy who did it. They had a suspect for a while, but it didn't turn out. I tell you, if I knew who killed Lillian he'd never come to trial.'

'Actually, I lied about my sister,' I said. 'We're investigating Lillian's murder. There've been some new developments.'

'I figured,' the waitress said. 'You get to be a good judge of people with a job like this and Rambo's got FED written all over him. A local cop would have ordered pie.'

Ranger looked at me and winked and I almost fell off my seat. It was the first time he'd ever winked at me. Somehow Ranger and winking didn't go together.

'Did Lillian have a boyfriend?' I asked.

'Nothing serious. She was going out with this one guy, but they broke up. She hadn't seen him for a couple months. His name was Bailey Scrugs. You don't forget a name like Bailey Scrugs. The cops talked to him early on. So far as I know she wasn't dating anyone when she was killed. She was real depressed after breaking up with Scrugs and she spent a lot of time on her computer. Chat rooms and stuff.

'Do you want to know what I think? I think it was one of them random killings. Some nut saw her out walking in the woods. The world's full of nuts.'

'I know this all happened a while ago,' I said. 'But try to think back. Was Lillian ever worried? Scared? Upset? Anything unusual happen to her?' Like was she ever shot with a tranquilizer dart?

'The police asked me all those same questions. At the time I couldn't think of anything to tell them. But there was something that popped into my head months later. I couldn't decide if I should go tell someone. It was sort of an odd thing and all that time had passed, so I ended up keeping it to myself.'

'What was it?' I asked.

'This is probably stupid, but a couple days before she was killed someone left a red rose and a white carnation on her car. Stuck them under her windshield wiper with a card. And the card said have a nice day. Lillian was kind of upset about it. She brought them in here and threw them away. I guess that's why it bothered me when I remembered. She didn't say anything more about them, like who they were from or anything. Do you think the flowers might have been important?'

'Hard to say,' Ranger told her.

'You should talk to her neighbor,' the waitress said to us. 'Carl. I don't remember his last name. They were real good friends. Nothing romantic. Just good friends.'

I ate my pie and Ranger drank his coffee. Neither of us said anything until we were out of the cafe and into his truck.

'Shit,' I said. 'Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.'

'I have a house in Maine,' Ranger said. 'It's nice there at this time of year.'

It was a tempting offer. 'Is there an outlet mall nearby? Is it close to a Cheesecake Factory? A Chili's?'