Chapter 2
Let me tell you something about sprinting: it gets old really quickly.
Plus, wigs or no wigs, that lady was fast.
I lost her after a couple of blocks, and I blame the fortysomething dad who was trying to load his family of five onto a rented golf cart.
I’m sure they were lovely people, but they’d blocked off the sidewalk with their shopping bags and their luggage, and by the time I got around them, the thief had disappeared into the throng of tourists.
Panting for breath, I came to a stop at the next intersection. I looked one way. I looked the other.
Lots of people.
No wigs.
Well, it had been a good life while it lasted. I could go on the run. I could try to hide. But I was fairly sure that at some point, Mr. Cheek and/or Fox would track me down.
I took out my phone and called Bobby.
“Hey,” he said. “How’s your day going?”
“Would you avenge my death?”
“Yes.” (This is why I love Bobby.) And then, without missing a beat, he asked, “What happened?”
As I got in line at Crepe You Very Much (the best crepes in the solar system), I told Bobby what had happened. And then I asked, “Also, do you think Mr. Cheek might have been planning on biting me?”
Bobby’s hesitation was answer enough.
“Oh my God,” I said.
“I’m not saying he was going to do it,” Bobby said. “But there is a precedent.”
“That’s it,” I said. “I’m done. I’m moving to Canada. No, too cold. Venezuela. Nope, too hot. Where do fugitives who want to be comfortable go?”
“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Bobby said.
Sure enough, he rolled up in his sheriff’s office cruiser exactly five minutes later. (Tourists or no tourists, Bobby believed that punctuality was next to, um, cleanliness? I don’t know—it’s pretty high up there, anyway.) He opened the door for me, and I slid into the seat next to him.
He was giving me that pragmatic, assessing cop look, so I said, “I’m fine.”
“You’re flushed.”
“I was running.”
Bobby literally perked up. (He loves running.)
“It was awful,” I said. “And I hated it.”
For some reason, that threw a hint of a smile across his mouth, but all he said was “Why don’t we drive around? See if we can find your wigs.”
“They’re not my wigs.”
“Right.”
“They’re Fox’s. Or Mr. Cheek’s. I’m not really sure where the question of ownership falls—it’s in transition.”
Bobby’s “Uh-huh” sounded like he might not really be listening.
“I don’t even like wigs.”
“Hmm.”
“But they were a sacred trust, and my honor is my life.”
He cocked his head as though seeing me again. “You know what? I think it’s time you return all those dragon books to the library.”
“Bobby!”
He has the absolute goofiest grin, by the way.
We drove slowly around town, and Bobby did what any good law enforcement officer would do: he conducted a grid search, dividing the town into sections and working his way methodically through them.
It wasn’t fast, but it was thorough. We moved outward from downtown, driving more quickly as the crowds of tourists thinned and the streets emptied.
“Since I so rudely forgot to ask earlier,” I said as we reached the end of another block and Bobby turned, “what were you doing before I called?”
“Waiting to give someone a parking ticket.”
“Bobby, that’s predatory.”
He shrugged and gave me a pointed look. “The no-parking zones are clearly indicated.”
Since I had accumulated my own fair share of parking tickets—the majority of them written by a certain deputy—I chose to say, “No comment.” But then I immediately asked, “What do you do while you’re waiting for someone to make an honest mistake?”
Bobby’s look was slightly more pointed this time. “Patrol. Talk to people in the community. I was reading an APB when you called.”
“Is it something exciting? Is there a serial killer on the run? Oh, no, even better: please tell me there’s a wolf-man situation.”
“Jewelry robbery,” he said. “They hit several Portland jewelers this morning, and the state police think they might be trying to run.
“They? Oh my God, like a gang of international jewel thieves? Wait, did I already tell you about my Pink Panther reference?”
“Yes, you did, and no, not a gang of international jewel thieves. A man and a woman working together. They’re Portland locals.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s kind of a letdown.”
“I’m sorry. Do you want me to make up a more interesting version?”
And here’s the thing—that wasn’t sarcasm; he was being a hundred percent serious.
“Yes,” I said, “and let’s loop in the wolf-man situation you hinted at earlier and—oh my God, that’s her!”
I hadn’t gotten a good look at the wig thief earlier, but it wasn’t hard to identify her: she was elbows-deep in a box of wigs set on the back of an ancient Buick Cutlass.
She wore dirty sneakers, ripped jeans, and a spangly top cut very low, and she had a lumpy shag of red hair.
Commercial buildings lined this street—storage units, warehouses, a transfer yard with mounds of gravel and mulch and soil.
Someone was working somewhere on this stretch of road, but it was about as close to abandoned as you could get mid-afternoon on a summer day.
Bobby slowed the cruiser. He had the windows down to take advantage of the nice weather, and the woman’s voice floated in to us.
“I didn’t abandon you,” she said. “The car died, and I’m stuck.”
A buzzy little voice answered, the words indistinct. A phone lay on the trunk next to the box of wigs.
“No, no, no,” the woman said. “Don’t do that! Stay where you are—I’ll call you when I figure this out.”
The voice buzzed again, but the woman reached over and tapped the phone, and it went silent.
Bobby stopped the cruiser and reached for his seatbelt. “I want you to stay in the car—”
Before he could finish, the woman glanced over her shoulder. Her whole body seemed to lock up when she saw the cruiser. Then she grabbed the box of wigs and broke into a run.