I wanted to kick Diesel in the back of his leg to see if I could knock his eyes loose, but I’d kicked him yesterday and didn’t want it to become habit-forming. So I stepped around him and extended my hand.
“I’m Lizzy Tucker,” I said. “The stupid drooling guy is Diesel. We’d like to talk to you about Gilbert Reedy.”
“Are you cops?” she asked. “I heard Gilbert tried to fly off his balcony and it didn’t turn out so good.”
“Were you dating him?” I asked her.
“Gilbert and I met for coffee, but that was all. I don’t know if you saw Gilbert before he turned himself into a pancake on the sidewalk, but he wasn’t exactly hot.” She did another full body scan of Diesel. “And I like hot men.”
“Gee, too bad I don’t know any or I’d bring them around,” I said to McGinty. “Diesel here looks good, but he bats for the other team, if you know what I mean.”
“Lucky them,” McGinty said.
“We’re looking for a book of sonnets. It was missing from Reedy’s apartment.”
“He had a book with him when we had coffee. It was real old looking, and he read this lame poem to me from it. Something about a hot eye.”
“Do you remember anything else about the poem?”
“Yeah. I remember wanting it to end. Gilbert Reedy was the king of geeks.”
“He was looking for his true love,” I told her.
“Me, too,” McGinty said. “But I want one with a big package.”
We thanked McGinty for her help, trucked down the stairs, and got back into Diesel’s SUV.
“I might have been her true love if you hadn’t ruined it with that fib,” Diesel said. “I have all the requirements.”
“You were looking at her like she was a free pass to the Super Bowl. I was afraid you were going to step on your tongue.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Gail Danko was second on the list. She lived in a small, bedraggled bungalow a half mile from Cassandra McGinty. A black Sentra was parked in the driveway. It was showing some rust and a few good-size dents. A gray cat sat on the roof, enjoying the afternoon sun.
“Danko is a nurse, but she’s off on sick leave,” Diesel said. “Divorced. No kids.”
He knocked on the door, the door opened, and a short, round woman with a big fluffy white cat under her arm and her foot in a cast looked out at us. “What?”
“I’m looking for Gail Danko,” Diesel said.
The woman’s eyes glazed over for a moment while she took Diesel in. “Mmmmm,” she said.
Diesel smiled at her. “Why is your cat wearing pants?”
“She’s a national champion, and she’s in heat. We’re going to breed her tomorrow.”
The cat on the car gave a loud YOWL and the national champion jumped out of Danko’s arms and shot out the door.
“Miss Snowball!” Danko shouted. “Help! Catch her! She can’t get pregnant from that alley cat!”
In a flash, Snowball was out of sight, running as fast as she could in her cat diaper, the gray cat close on her tail. Gail Danko stomped onto her little porch with her plaster-coated foot and single crutch, but she clearly wasn’t going to catch Snowball.
“Don’t worry,” I said to Danko. “Diesel will track Miss Snowball down. He’s good at this. He has special tracking skills.”
“I don’t track cats,” Diesel said.
“Of course you do,” I told him. “You have that whole energy sensitivity thing. That’s why you’re the bounty hunter.”
“I can find people.”
“Are you sure you can’t find cats? Have you ever tried to sniff one out?”
“No,” Diesel said, “but Miss Whatever shouldn’t be hard to find. Speaking from the male perspective, they’re probably just around the corner in the bushes, trying to get her pants off.”
He disappeared around the side of the building, and Danko and I stood waiting.
“What happened to your foot?” I asked her.
“Bunion surgery,” she said. “I’ve been sitting with the stupid thing elevated for two weeks, doing nothing but eating. I was struggling with my weight before the surgery, and now I’m totally fat. And if that isn’t bad enough, Miss Snowball’s going to get pregnant with that trailer-trash tomcat.” There was some god-awful screeching and howling, and Danko stumbled back and put her hand to her heart. “My baby!”
“It might not be so bad,” I said. “She could be faking it. I mean, who hasn’t faked it once or twice, right?”
A moment later, Diesel emerged from behind the house with Miss Snowball. The diaper was shredded but still attached, her fur was standing straight out, and her eyes were almost popped out of their sockets.
“Was that you screeching and howling?” I asked Diesel.
“Princess wasn’t happy with hotshot’s foreplay technique.” He handed Snowball over to Danko. “I hope the cat you’ve got coming tomorrow knows what he’s doing.”
“We wanted to ask you about Gilbert Reedy,” I said to Danko. “I believe you dated.”
“We met for coffee, but he started wheezing after five minutes. Turns out he’s allergic to cats.”