They all looked up at us when we got to the dining room table. Everyone had food on their plates but their silverware was still clean.

At the far end of the table sat Mr. Mort. He had just finished saying something to Aunty when he turned and I could see the marks.

“Mr. Mort!” I hollered and ran to him. He spread a huge smile across his face for me and held out his arms. I threw my own arms around his neck and hugged him back.

“Hey, hey,” he said pulling me loose. “Ease up on the neck, will ya? It’s already been through a meat grinder.”

I pulled away and looked. His neck was very much purple and blue and swelled. His face was all blued up too in spots, and his lip was cut.

“It did get you. The tiger. It bit your neck.”

Mr. Mort smiled. “It sure did, kid." He looked over at Chief who still stood in the doorway, and winked. “But your old man took care of him.” He pointed to his cheek. “Shot him right under the eye, he did.”

I looked at Chief. “Did ya get him? Did’ja kill him?”

Chief shook his head. “He got away, pumpkin.”

“It was a tough shot, what with my fat butt in the way,” Mr. Mort said.

“Does it hurt still?”

He grinned out of half his face. “Yeah, Kiddo. It still does, but only when I breathe, eat, or talk. No major inconvenience.”

“Why don’t you sit down by your brother, dear,” Aunty said. I turned to face her. “You’re supper’s getting cold.”

“All right, Aunty,” I told her and went to my seat. Joe was staring at me, his eyes darker than usual. “What?” I asked him as I put my own butt in the chair.

He shook his head and looked back at his plate. Chief took his own seat across from me. I looked up at him and he smiled for me. All around the table I was getting started at. Mike was leaning on the table, his chin resting in his hand. I half expected Aunty to yell at him for having his elbow on the table. His other hand was still dangling in his sling. Maggy had a strange look on her face. It was all puffy too. Like she’d been crying.

I looked once more around the table. Then I picked my fork up real careful-like and planted it into a potato. It made me feel creepy the way they gawked. The hairs on the back of my neck were pulling up like they were pins and my neck a pincushion.

“It’s okay,” I told them all. “You can all eat now.”

That did the trick. They all lightened up on the attention they heaved my way and started throwing talk at each other, instead. They questioned Joe about school. Aunty talked about what all happened to her when she went to Washington DC last month and rallied for what she called Equality. Maggy let everyone in on all the wedding plans. But Chief, Mr. Mort and Mike kept quiet about what was happening with their investigations. I knew they’d all meet later in Chief’s office and go over it in there.

We were most of the way through with supper when the phone rang. Chief excused himself from the table and went into the kitchen to answer it. He came back a second later.

“Mike, it’s for you. A Lieutenant Terry Johnson from Four Oaks.”

Mike's eyes fell on me. He wiped his mouth with his napkin, and then stood. “You’d better listen to this too, Chief."

“What’s this about?” Chief asked, also throwing a concerned look in my general direction.

“I’ll fill you in after a minute.” Mike headed for the phone, motioning Chief to follow.

I knew when they got back I was done for. This was what I had been dreading over since I told Maggy. Now, not only was Chief going to be mad at me, Aunty was going to pitch a big hairy fit!

They were on the phone for over twenty minutes. I could hear Mike talk for a while; then he must have handed the phone to Chief because it was his voice we all heard.

“Stop listening in, child,” Aunty ordered. “Concentrate on your meal.”

“I ain’t so hungry, Aunty.” I had to think of a way to get out of there before Chief came back. I could feel the sweat matting my hair and dripping down my neck. I glanced over at Maggy. She was trying to hear what was going on in the kitchen, too. She looked at me, swallowed and tilted her head. Together we waited for the shoe to drop ... more than likely on my head.

The phone was hung up in the kitchen but Mike and Chief stayed by it for a spell talking too quietly for me to hear. Then Mike came back, bringing Chief with him.

“What’s going on?” Mr. Mort asked, looking up at Chief.

But Chief was staring angrily at me. “In my office, Kelly. Now,” he said through his teeth. He looked at Mr. Mort. “You might want to hear this too, Mort. I may need your help.”

Mr. Mort nodded and stood, telling Aunty to excuse him. Me, I was glued to my seat. The look on Chief’s face stuck me there. I guess I figured I’d sit a little longer while I could still do the trick.

“Now, Kelly,” Chief said from the doorway.

“Yes, sir.” I slid my way around the table and past Chief and Mike.

“What’s this all about, Bob?” I heard Mr. Mort ask behind me. But I didn’t wait for Chief to let him know. I kept moving through the kitchen and down the hall. I pushed open the office door and picked my way through the papers on the floor to the half-sized sofa against the wall.

Chief came into the room first. He pulled up the desk chair in front of me and sat down staring at me. Mr. Mort sat down beside him in a kitchen chair he’d brought in with him. Then Mike  came in and, after closing the door, sat next to me on the couch.

At first Chief just sat there giving me the look. I could see that he was angry. It was there in his eyes. But along with the anger was the worry. I put that there. He started to say something, then stopped before the words made it out of his mouth. Instead he just sat there throwing a heap of anger my way.

“You’re mad."

He looked at me fiercer. I could feel his eyes dig. “Kelly, I’m furious.” He kept his voice low; he held the anger back.

“I’m grounded again, aren’t I?”

Chief drew in a breath of air, slowly. “I haven’t decided yet what to do about that stunt of yours. I don’t want to discuss it right now, we’ll handle that tomorrow.” He looked over at Mr. Mort. “I guess, to start, we should fill you in, Mort.”

“Wish you would.”

“Are you familiar with the Lewis brothers?”

Mr. Mort frowned. “Are you kidding? I was assigned to Doug Lewis’s murder over in Otterville. Why? What’s going on?”

“You were assigned to his murder? How was that Federal?”

“He called us. Said he wanted to come clean. Said he had the works on a few members of the syndicate and wanted to turn it all in for a new ID and Federal protection. But by the time we got there he was dead.”

“You mean the log?”

“Hell it was more than a log, more like a ledger.” Mr. Mort turned to Chief's the desk. “Not as big as that one, mind you, more like 5 by 7. But let me tell you, my friend, in its pages were names, dates and transactions of some pretty heavy hitters, including a few Federal judges, congressmen and senators- or so he claimed.”

“I’ll be,” Chief told himself. “You never found it?”

“Word on the street was, the wife took it. The syndicate has been looking for that little lady for years now. I don’t think Perretti’s slept a night since the bird flew.”

“And you were assigned to find her?”

“I’d met her once. The idea was that I'd be able to recognize her.”

“You met her?”

Mr. Mort squinted. “That’s what I said, Bob. I met the girl– once. At a club in Chicago. I didn’t get a real good look at her then. She looked to be around eighteen, but I’m sure the two pounds of make-up aged her somewhat. She was probably closer to sixteen. Bleached blond about five-five. Light brown eyes. Lewis’s singer. I guess the make-up was for the stage. But it did a good job of concealing her identity.”

“In other words, you never found her.”

Mr. Mort leaned back. He stared sharply at Chief, with an annoyed look on his face. “What are you getting at, Bob? Of course I never found her. I was jerked off the case when Jonas went on a rampage in Arizona.”

It was hard to believe, but Chief was smiling. “She gave you the slip.”

“I’m glad you’re having a fantastic time, Bob. Yes, all right, she gave me the slip. The girl left a paper trail three hundred miles long. It ended at the shipyards in south Miami Beach where she boarded a liner headed to South America. She got on, but she never got off. Maybe Perretti got her, maybe one of his goons. I don’t know.”

“That would seem unlikely considering he’s still being blackmailed.”

After scowling at Chief for a spell, Mr. Mort said, “I don’t think she was the one blackmailing him. It has always been my contention that dear brother Gary, that little twerp, killed his brother and recovered the documents, then set the little girl up. She had no recourse but to run. Or stay in hiding. What with the syndicate turned upside down looking for her and nothing to negotiate with; Gary’s greed cinching the rope tighter around her pretty neck.”

Chief nodded. “That’s what we believe,” he said tossing a glance Mike's way.

“I guess now you’re going to tell me you know where the ledger is,” Mr. Mort went on.

“We don’t know that. We suspected it was with Lewis’s partner, a Snake Cameron. Did you know him?”

Mr. Mort nodded. “Yeah, I know him. He’s a real piece of slime. He was one of Chicago’s snitches for a while. Given name is Lam Bruier. Why?”

“Four Oaks police found him dead in a motel room in Cramer Junction, thirty miles from where he was supposed to be. He’d been dead a while.”

“’Was supposed to be?’ How do you know where he was supposed to be?”

Chief glanced at Mike before telling Mr. Mort, “First of all, we located Lewis’s wife–”

“You found Christine?”

Chief's eyebrows slanted downward.. “Christine?”

“Yeah. Christine Elaine Lewis. I thought you said you found her?”

“I guess I never learned her full name.”

“So where is she?”

“I’m marrying her tomorrow.”

Mr. Mort’s hands slid from his lap and grabbed the seat of his chair as he leaned forward. “What?! Elly? No-no-no ... That can’t be right.”

“Lewis showed up last year. He started blackmailing her for her husband’s murder.”

“That’s ridiculous, he was shot by Lewis. Why would she think she killed him?”

“She was running scared. Doug caught up with her outside of Otterville. They fought. She pulled loose a shower curtain rod and whacked him over the head with it. She thought the blow killed him. She left town before the story ever made it to the papers. She was long gone before they did and never heard about the indictment against Gary. She’s spent her life believing she was guilty of murder.”

“I see,” Mr. Mort said more to himself. “Poor kid. No wonder she didn’t seek out any help from us.”

He looked at me. “So how does this relate to the kid?”

Chief turned his eyes on me and frowned. “I’m getting to that.”

“Well, then, I’m listening.”

“Last year about this time, Lewis showed up. I guess he found Elly–”

“How did that mental ant find her?”

“I don’t know, Mort. Maybe one of his friends pulled into town and recognized her. Anyway he showed up and started demanding payment, while all the time he blackmailed Perretti in her name. I ran a check on him–”

“How?”

“Through one of Sam Crebs’s contacts at the agency. He was in the system, however, he was cleared of the murder of his brother since then. He wasn’t wanted for anything.”

“Insufficient evidence and a pricey lawyer.”

“You got it. Meanwhile, my daughter was conducting an investigation of her own.” 

I could feel the weight of all their eyes. My hands were getting sweaty, and the hairs at the back of my neck pulled up. I wanted to be anywhere else.

“She had inadvertently witnessed Elly making one of her installments. And of course, being my daughter, she decided it was up to her to find out what was going on, isn’t that right?” Chief asked me.

I didn’t say anything, just looked at him and waited for him to get on with it.

“She staked out the drop last summer and when Lewis was busy bleeding Elly dry, Kelly and her friend, TJ, climbed into the man’s trunk.”

At that Mr. Mort shot a look at me that chilled my bones. Chief caught it and told him, “I know. She could have been killed.”

“Killed?” Mr. Mort said. “No. Lewis was bottom-feeder, but a businessman first. There’d by no profit in killing this kid.”

Chief wet his lip. His face lost some of his summer tan. “You mean he’d ransom her?”

“Sorry, my friend.” Mr. Mort shook his head slow from side to side. “But you couldn’t afford the price tag he’d be able to ask on the streets. A cute little girl like this would net Lewis a gold mine.”

“You mean–”

“He’d sell her,” Mr. Mort finished. I wished he’d shut up. “The boy, now, he’d probably have killed.”

Chief heaved a breath. He set his jaw tight then turned to me and let it go. I could feel his eyes dig into me and wanted to cry. “I see...” Chief finally let loose after a heap of staring, his eyes slightly moist. I turned away to the floor and felt myself start to shake. I almost got TJ killed. He didn’t even want to go– I made him. “Let’s just put all that aside for now,” Chief said after a while. “So I can get through this.” I looked up in time to catch him switch to Mr. Mort. “Okay, Mort?”

“Sorry.”

“Anyway, Kelly and her friend got out of the trunk, for that I am truly thankful, she followed Lewis to a pay phone located in a drugstore in Berritts Hills. These are the notes she took of his conversation.”

Chief handed Mr. Mort the note pad. 

“One was to the hospital switchboard, the other was to a motel in the area. The hospital is where Lewis reached Perretti. The motel was where Snake Cameron should have been holed up.”

“I see,” whispered Mr. Mort.

“According to Lieutenant Johnson, Snake checked out of the motel shortly after Lewis was killed.”

Mr. Mort looked up. “Killed? I never heard anything about that.”

Chief's eyes rested on me before he told Mr. Mort. “I killed him in an alley after I found out what was going on. He had a gun on Elly. We kept most of it quiet. Especially Elly’s involvement. I reported it as a robbery, because at the time we thought he was breaking in after the log.”

“I see.” Mr. Mort stared sharply at Chief.

“I notified the FBI, Mort.”

“I wasn’t implying anything, Bob. I’m just a little angry over the raw deal I got that kept me out of the loop. Such news as Lewis’ death would have made my day.” Mr. Mort looked at the notes. “Go on. You said you located Snake?”

“Johnson traced him to Cramer Junction. He’d been dead about eight days when they found him.”

“So Perretti got him.”

“Maybe. However, Perretti is still in the hospital. Mike called him this afternoon. Which means he’s still looking for the blackmailer.”

“So someone else is squeezing the old man.”

“Has to be. But who?”

“Maybe the guy with the scar,” Mike suggested.

“Scar? What scar?”

“The Squirt said some guy with a scar visited Perretti in the hospital.”

Mr. Mort looked at me. “Hospital?”

“That’s how I got a positive ID on Perretti, Mort, Kelly was in the hospital with a broken leg last spring. She met a man by the name of Taylor. That’s the first place she saw Lewis. Lewis asked for Taylor initially, Perretti was who he got. I let Kelly talk to him to make sure it was the same man, and to throw off any suspicions about who’s calling for him when I checked to make sure he was still there.” Mike looked at me. “She did real well. I don’t think he suspects a thing.”

Mr. Mort leaned towards me, his elbow on his knee, his chin resting in his right hand, while the left held the notepad. “What did the man with the scar look like?”

“Big-”

“Tall or wide?”

“Tall...taller than Chief even. He had a long face, it reminded me of Barney–”

“Barney?”

“The Forbes’ mule.”

Mr. Mort laughed. “Go on.”

“He had gray eyes and hair. Dents in his face...” I thought about it real hard. “Big hands... he had real big hands… and that scar.”

Mr. Mort squinted. “Describe the scar.”

I took my finger and pointed to my forehead. “It went from here...” I traced a line across my eye, down my nose and over my right cheek, all the way to my chin. "To here."

“Cardoza.”

“Who?”

“Jesus Christ,” Mr. Mort said quietly as he leaned back. “They don’t get any rougher than Cardoza.” He told Chief, “The scar is compliments of the future Mrs. Broden, by the way. It seems logical that Perretti would let him in on the score.”

“You saying Elly cut him up?”

“Yep,” Mr. Mort said. “Don’t hold it against her, though. He was trying to rape her at the time.”

Chief turned away shaking his head. “Shit,” he whispered, his face getting red. He looked up. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

“They aren’t boy scouts, Bob.”

Chief threw him a hot look. “No kidding, Mort!”

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