Melody lived in a small, lopsided, worn-out house in north Salem. The house didn't have a historic plaque tacked to the front and the windows were circa 1970 aluminum, so probably the condition of the house couldn't be explained away by age. We rang the bell and a frazzled woman in her late thirties answered the door. She had short, curly brown hair that had gone to frizz. She was medium height, plump but not obese, dressed in jeans and a too-big shirt. She had a baby in one of those baby slings attached to the front of her, a toddler hanging on to her pants leg, and two more kids who looked to be in the seven-to-eight-year range. It was hard to tell who was a girl and who was a boy. From the toddler on up, they all had pretty much the same chopped-off haircut and were wearing jeans and sneakers and Tshirts, none of which were pink. "Melody More?" Diesel asked. "Yuh. " "Mommy, " the toddler said. "I gotta poop. " "Not now, " Melody said. "Mommy's busy. " "But I gotta!" "Stu, " Melody yelled. "Stu!" A pleasant-looking thirty-something guy ambled into the living room. "Yuh?" "Kenny has to poop. " "Again?" Melody turned back to us. "We're not buying anything, and we already found Jesus. " "We're looking for Lenny, " Diesel said. "We were told he moved here after the fire. " "I don't let perverts into the house, " Melody said. "Are you a couple of perverts?" "No, " I told her. "I'm a pastry chef. " "How about him?" she asked, eyeing Diesel. "I'm not sure about him, " I said. "And the monkey?" Diesel and I had forgotten about Carl. He was standing behind us on the front porch. He did his best to smile and do a finger wave. "Goggy!" the toddler said. He clapped his hands and ran at Carl. "Goggy, goggy!" Carl stumbled back, but the kid tackled him and hugged him. "Eep!" Carl said, arms pinned to his sides, nose-to-nose with Melody's toddler. "Maybe he shouldn't be hugging him like that, " I said to Melody. "He could have fleas or something. " Melody snatched the kid up, and Carl gave me the finger. Something crashed in another room, and Melody took stock of the kids next to her. "Who's missing?" "Mary Susan, " one of the older kids said. "And Kevin is getting a time-out in the attic. " "Mary Susan?" Melody hollered. "What was that noise I heard?" No answer. "Remember when she broke the fish tank?" the older kid said. "And all the fishes were swimming on the rug and then they got dead. " "I have to see what Mary Susan is up to, " Melody said to us. "I guess you can come in. Just don't try anything funny with my kids, or I'll cut your hearts out. " She turned to her oldest. "Get Uncle Lenny. Tell him he has company. " So far as I could see, there were six kids and three adults living in a cracker box. Melody was like the woman who lived in a shoe and had so many kids she didn't know what to do. Everywhere I looked, there were toys, kids' books, stacks of baby clothes, sippy cups, and chocolate smudges. Carl picked a Barbie doll off the floor and studied it. He touched the pointy breast with his finger. "Eep?" he asked, looking up at Diesel. "It's a doll, " Diesel said. Carl poked the breast again. "Give it a rest, " Diesel said to Carl. Carl dropped the doll on the floor and flipped it the finger. "I think he has repressed anger, " I said to Diesel. "I'd like to see it even more repressed. " Lenny came into the room and pulled up short when he saw us. "You two!" Diesel was hands in pockets, back on his heels and smiling. Friendly. "How's it goin'?" "It's goin' okay. No thanks to you. You blew up my house. " "It was an accident, " I told him. "My whole life was in that house. " "Including your paddle collection, " Diesel said. Lenny grinned. "Okay, so I owe you for that. Good to get that monkey off my back. " "Eep?" Carl said. "Nothing personal, " Lenny said to him. "Figure of speech. " Two dogs ran through the room and out the front door. "There's a lot going on in this house, " I said to Lenny. "Tell me about it, " Lenny said. "It needs rubber walls. " "Have you heard from Mark?" Diesel asked him. "Not in a couple days. " "If he wasn't in his apartment, and he wasn't at work, where would he be?" "Here, maybe. I don't know where else. I guess he has friends, but I don't know them. We all got kind of weird after Uncle Phil died. Kind of pulled into our own obsessive worlds. Is there a problem with Mark?" "It's possible he's with Wulf. " "It turns out Wulf is scarier than Uncle Phil, " Lenny said. "I was a glutton for punishment, and I gave it up pretty fast. " "Where did he take you?" "I don't know. He did one of those pressure point things, and I "I don't know. He did one of those pressure point things, and I was out like a light. When I came around, I was in a big empty room. All it had was a folding chair, and Wulf sat in it most of the time while his crazy servant guy described his favorite tortures to me. When he got his tool kit out, I told him what he wanted to hear, and next thing, I was wandering around Pickering Wharf Marina. " "What did the room look like?" Diesel asked him. "High ceiling? Paint color? Cement floor? Traffic noise? Windows?" Lenny closed his eyes and thought about it. "High ceiling with exposed air-conditioning ducts. So it might have been in an industrial area. Walls were white. Ceiling was black, including all the ductwork. Floor was . . . I'm not sure. Maybe cement or tile. Not wood or carpet. I didn't hear anything. No traffic. A phone rang once, but it was far away in another room. No windows. " He opened his eyes and looked down at Carl. "What's with the monkey?" "He adopted us, " I said.