“No. I’m watching her condo. I’m waiting for a sign that he’s in there. As soon as I know for sure, I’m going in like gangbusters.”
“Do you have her condo bugged?”
“No. I bought some stuff, but I don’t know how to use it. It didn’t come with instructions.”
Susan Cubbin was almost as good at snooping as Dottie Luchek was at hooking. Which was to say she was no good at all.
“Lula and I went to see you yesterday,” I said to Susan. “The front door was open and there was a big guy with white hair in your house.”
“A realtor?”
“I don’t think so. He looked more like a maniac.”
“They’re not mutually exclusive,” Susan said. “I put that piece of junk up for sale. I’m sure it was a realtor.”
The cat stood, turned around three times, and settled back down.
“How can you be sure Nurse Norma has your husband on ice here?” I asked her. “Maybe she has him someplace else.”
“She doesn’t go anywhere else. She works all the time. If she’s not here then she’s at the hospital or The Clinic. I followed her there the first day. She’s at The Clinic from four in the afternoon until six o’clock.”
“Is this clinic attached to the hospital?”
“No. She’s moonlighting. It’s a private clinic on Deeley Street, and it’s called The Clinic. At least it says ‘The Clinic’ on the sign, but I didn’t see any patients going in or out. It might be one of those research places. There are a lot of them on that Route 1 corridor going to Princeton.”
I gave her my business card again, and I went back to Lula in the Buick.
“Well?” Lula said.
“It’s Susan Cubbin. She’s hunkered down looking for her husband and the five million dollars. She’s got her cat with her and a sleeping bag in the back.”
“Where’s she going potty?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“That would have been my first question,” Lula said. “I’m interested in stuff like that.”
“Have you ever heard of Deeley Street?”
“No, but I can find it on my cellphone.”
Lula tapped the address in and we watched while the phone searched.
“Here it is,” Lula said. “It’s off Route 1. Looks like it’s just before Quaker Bridge Mall. Are we going there? We could stop at Quaker Bridge and get one of them big salty soft pretzels and a Blizzard.”
“That would be great,” I said. “And we could get a couple cheeseburgers.”
“Don’t forget the fries.”
“Do they still make supersize? I need supersize.”
“Drive faster,” Lula said. “I’m about to have the big O just thinking about the fries.”
I reached the mall in record time, parked, and Lula and I jumped out of the car and ran to the food court.
We hit the burger place first, and Lula pulled a wad of money out of her purse. “I want two of everything on your menu,” she said to the girl behind the counter. “And hurry up because I have to put in my order at Dairy Queen and Dunkin’ Donuts.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said. “I want the same.”
The counter girl stared at us. “Am I getting punked?”
“Say what?” Lula said.
“Omigod,” I said to Lula. “What are we doing?” I grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the counter. “We’re out of control.”
“I don’t feel out of control,” Lula said.
“Have you ever ordered everything on a menu before?”
“Do I have to answer that?”
“I’m going to the sandwich place and I’m getting a turkey club.”
“That don’t sound like a lot of fun.”
“You can eat whatever the heck you want, but I have to get into a bridesmaid dress on Saturday, and I don’t want to look like a whale.”
Lula tagged after me to the sandwich shop. “Who’s getting married?”
“Ranger’s client. The same one we did security for last Friday.”
“So this is a bridesmaid job? You’re like a undercover bridesmaid. Like in Miss Congeniality. Remember that movie? Sandra Bullock was a FBI agent that they made into a beauty queen. I loved that movie.”
I got a turkey club and a bottle of water, and Lula got ham and cheese, a bag of chips, and a soda.
“I think it was Tiki sitting in your backseat that made us crazy for all that food,” Lula said. “You might want to think about giving him back to Logan, on account of he’s going to make us fat.”
Tiki fell into the same category for me as Grandma Bella and Catholicism. I couldn’t bring myself to be a true believer and have complete faith, but I had fear. There was the irrational possibility of the existence of a power beyond my comprehension.