HAL WALKED ME to my parents’ front door, and in the absence of Morelli, turned me over to Grandma Mazur. Morelli arrived twenty minutes later.

“Am I late?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I was early. Is there any new information on the shoe snatcher?”

“We have a medical report on Vinnie that suggests he was shot in the back with a dart gun. That’s probably how he was taken down.”

“Would a drug work that fast?”

“It could, depending on the drug used and the amount administered.”

“Anything else?”

“No. He doesn’t remember anything. We’ve canvassed both neighborhoods multiple times and haven’t found any witnesses. No one’s heard screaming or shots fired. If the bad guys are driving the victims away, they must be using a commonly seen car that’s completely unmemorable.”

“Vinnie is the odd man,” I said. “He’s the only one who was taken from a different location, and he’s the only one who was returned.”

“Maybe he wasn’t up to standards, and the aliens pressed the reject button.”

I could easily see this happening.

My parents’ dining room table normally seated six. Tonight, it had been expanded to seat nine plus a high chair. It was a small house with a small dining room that now had wall-to-wall table.

“It’s six o’clock,” my father said. “They’re late. They’re always late.”

The front door crashed open, and the girls rushed in. Angie the grade A student, Mary Alice who thought she was a horse, and two-year-old Lisa. Baby Bert was in a sling contraption that draped around Valerie’s shoulder.

“Lisa made poo-poo in her pants,” Mary Alice said. “She’s stinky.”

“That’s not an acceptable thing to say,” Valerie said. “ ‘Stinky’ is a hurtful adjective.”

“Well, she don’t smell like roses,” Grandma said. “I’m pretty sure she’s stinky.”

My father was already at his seat at the head of the table. “Where’s my ham? It’s after six.”

Albert Kloughn, Valerie’s husband and the father of two of her four kids, came in last with his arms filled with presents and the diaper bag slung over his shoulder. Kloughn is my height, has thinning sandy-colored hair, a face like a cherub, and a body like the Pillsbury Doughboy. He’s sweet but clueless. This is an especially bad combination for him, since he’s a lawyer.

My sister Valerie was the perfect child all through school. Her long hair was sleek and blond. Her grades were excellent. She was never caught smoking or sneaking out her bedroom window. And she actually liked to attend mass. I was the problem child. I broke my arm trying to fly off the garage roof, smoked my first and last joint at Girl Scout camp, and I could see no point in learning to multiply and divide when I had a calculator that did it for me.

Valerie’s hair is still sleek and blond, and so far, no one’s caught her smoking. Her perfection was slightly marred when she divorced her philandering first husband, but she’s still one up on me because she’s remarried now, and has given my mother grandchildren. The closest I come to grandchildren for my mother is a hamster.

Grandma took Lisa to the bathroom for cleanup, and everyone else worked at squeezing themselves around the table. I helped my mother bring the food out. Virginia-baked ham, red gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, applesauce, and macaroni salad.

Angie took a small portion of everything, and Mary Alice sat with her arms crossed over her chest. “There’s no hay,” she said. “What am I supposed to eat? Horses eat hay.”

“You’re not a horse,” Grandma said, sitting Lisa in the high chair. “Have some ham.”

“I don’t like ham,” Mary Alice said. “I like hay.”

Grandma looked at Valerie. “Are you feeding this child hay?”

“Of course not,” Valerie said. “She has a wonderful imagination.”

“Well, she better imagine she likes ham or she’s not getting birthday cake,” Grandma said.

“Albert and I don’t threaten the children with punishment when they’re simply expressing their preferences,” Valerie said. “We try to show them alternative solutions.” Valerie turned to Mary Alice. “You could pretend that the ham is hay. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Mary Alice kept her arms crossed and looked at Valerie like she had corn growing out of her ears.

My father had ham and potatoes and macaroni piled on his plate. “Gravy!” he said.

Morelli passed the gravy, and my mother joined us at the table. She had a tumbler of dark amber liquid that she passed off as iced tea, but we all knew was whiskey. She was in survival mode.

Lisa had been given mashed potatoes, small pieces of ham, and applesauce. She dumped it all onto her high chair tray and smeared it around. She threw her spoon across the table, and mashed a handful of glop into her hair.

Valerie smiled serenely at Lisa, and it occurred to me that Valerie’s mood might be helped along by some form of controlled substance now that she was no longer breastfeeding.

Morelli had his arm draped across the back of my chair. He was calmly sipping wine and smiling. This was low stress for him. His family was even crazier than mine. His brother has been divorced twice and married three times. All to the same woman. They have so many kids I lost count. And that’s just the tip of the Morelli family iceberg. His Grandma Bella dresses in black like she’s an extra in a Sicilian mob movie, and she gives people the eye. If you annoy her you run the risk of getting boils and having your hair fall out. Stan Malinowski said Bella gave him the eye, and he had penis shrinkage.

Kloughn was wearing his lawyer uniform of chinos, a wrinkled white dress shirt, and a red and blue striped tie. He poured red gravy over his ham and potatoes, leaned across the table to get the salt, and the tip of his tie dragged across the gravy. He dabbed at his tie with his napkin.

“No problem,” Kloughn said. “Valerie buys my ties on the cheap off the Internet, don’t you, cuddleumpkins? They look just like real ties except they’re made in China and you don’t want to get too close to a flame.”

My mother slurped down iced tea, and Valerie poured herself a glass of wine. My father had his head down, shoveling in ham.

“What’s going on with the shoe snatcher?” Grandma asked Morelli. “Any new developments?”

“No new developments,” Morelli said.

“Are you talking about the deli manager disappearances?” Kloughn asked. “Do you know what people are saying? They’re saying it’s aliens.”

“That’s what I figured!” Grandma said. “They’re beaming up managers. Probably need them for some intergalactic resort.”

“I never met the man who owns the deli,” Kloughn said, “but I represented his Aunt Sissy in a lawsuit. If you ask me the whole family is screwy.”

“Did you win the case?” Grandma asked.

“Not exactly,” Kloughn said. “Sissy drove off a bridge on her way to my office one day and killed herself. I think it was accidental, but I guess there’s no way to know for sure. She might have had a few drinky-poos before getting behind the wheel.” Kloughn tucked his tie into his shirt and carefully cut his ham. “She was ninety-three when she died.”

“Imagine that,” Grandma said. “Only ninety-three.”

The ham was dripping with gravy, and Kloughn leaned close to his plate to eat. “She had a lot of things to say about her nephew, Ernie. She said he was a weird kid, like he wanted to be emperor of the universe. Personally, I don’t think that’s so weird. I mean, lots of people want to be emperor of the universe, right? Anyway, I guess he always had a lot of schemes going while he was on his path to world domination. Sissy said he would always do anything to make money. When he was in seventh grade he sold his little sister to one of his classmates.”

“How did that work out?” Morelli asked.

“Sissy didn’t say,” Kloughn said, “but I know they aren’t on good terms. He might have tried to sell her a second time in high school. And he had aspirations of being a movie star. He has a bunch of movies he made on YouTube.”

“Real movies?” Grandma asked.

“They’re like homemade movies,” Kloughn said. “Some of them are a little s-e-x-y.”

“Daddy watches sexy movies,” Angie said to her mother. “Is he a perv?”

“No,” Valerie said. “He’s a Taurus.”

When we were done eating, I helped my mom clear the dishes. We brought the cake to the table, sang “Happy Birthday” to Valerie, and she opened her presents. I was the only one to give her a BeDazzler kit.

I ate two pieces of cake and pushed back from the table, debating whether I should return to the Snake Pit to take another shot at capturing Waggle. If I didn’t get him tonight it would be a week before I’d get another chance. Truth is, a lot could happen in a week. Waggle could get beamed up by the shoe aliens. He could choke on a chicken bone. He could become a Buddhist monk and move to Nepal. All these possibilities sounded good to me.

The party was over at eight o’clock. Valerie rounded up her kids and went home, and Morelli drove me back to the deli.

“What’s the plan for the rest of the night?” Morelli asked. “Do you want me to hang around while you lock up?”

“No. Not necessary. You can go home, and I’ll have Hal drive me to your house when I’m done here.”

He kissed me, told me to be careful, and waited until I was inside the deli before he pulled away.

Only two customers were still lingering in a booth when I walked in. Stretch was busy cleaning his station, and Lula was taking inventory for the purveyor orders. Raymond was squatting down behind the counter, sneaking a smoke. I didn’t see Hal.

“Where’s Hal?” I asked.

“He took out the trash,” Lula said.

“How long ago?”

“Not that long. Maybe ten minutes.”

“Have you checked on him?”

“No one’s gonna beam up Hal. He’s the size of a rhino.”

I went to the register, looked at the monitor, and went breathless.

“There’s something on the ground by the dumpster,” I said. “Tell me it’s not a shoe.”

Lula looked at the monitor. “It could just be a piece of garbage,” she said. “Sometimes garbage could look like a shoe.”

Lula, Dalia, and I went to the back door and stared out into the parking area. No Hal. A large black running shoe was beside the dumpster.

“Hal,” Lula yelled. “Come on out and quit joking on us. This isn’t funny.”

Silence.

“This is freaky,” Lula said. “Hal isn’t even the manager.”

I went to the monitor and used the rewind function to scroll back. I stopped the rewind when I saw Hal walk out the back door with a bag of garbage. He went to the dumpster, tossed the bag in, and turned toward the back door. He paused and looked left. Something obviously had captured his attention. He crossed the lot to investigate and moved off the screen. Time passed. Hard to say if it was a single heartbeat or ten minutes. I couldn’t drag my eyes away, and I couldn’t breathe. And then suddenly a shoe sailed into view from the left side of the lot and landed by the dumpster.

“Holy crap,” Lula said. “Holy hell. Holy moly.”

I saw car lights flash in front of the deli. I hit the real-time button on the remote and saw two Rangeman cars pull up and park in the back alley.

Ranger was the first one through the front door. He was followed by two more Rangeman patrolmen.

“Is anyone missing other than Hal?” Ranger asked. “We saw him go off the screen and he’s not responding.”

“No,” I said. “Just Hal. No one was watching the monitor when it happened. We realized he was missing, and I hit rewind. We saw the shoe come over, and then you arrived.”

I followed Ranger to the back lot. Kan Kleen Dry Cleaners was next door to the deli. It was a storefront operation that sent clothes off-site for cleaning. Doors were shuttered at seven o’clock. The lot was used for pickup and delivery and employee parking. It was currently empty of vehicles. A small dumpster sat to one side. A private home was next in the lineup. It had a high brick wall enclosing its small backyard. Narrow alleys ran between all the buildings on the street.

Ranger’s men were setting up extra lights and crime scene tape.

“Did you call the police?” I asked Ranger.

“No. I want to comb the scene before they contaminate it. I’ll bring them in when we’re done here. Keep everyone inside until I talk to them, and put the closed sign on the door.”

“This is getting old,” Dalia said. “Bad enough all the managers disappeared, now it’s anyone who goes out the back door. And every time someone goes missing we have to hang around until the police dismiss us. I’m done. I’m out of here. I quit.”

“I would quit as well,” Raymond said, “but I am unfortunately needing my paycheck. I have debts that will be painful to my person if I fall behind.”

I looked over at Stretch. He was slumped in a corner booth, nodding off.

“He will stay,” Raymond said. “He gets nicky-nacky from the lady who works in the cleaning establishment next door. It’s not so easy to get good nicky-nacky on a regular basis.”

I was afraid to ask what constituted good nicky-nacky, so I just nodded my head in agreement. At least neither of them were quitting.

“I’m feeling stressed,” Lula said. “I’m worried about Hal. I’m beginning to doubt my theory about space aliens. It’s one thing to beam people up for experimental probing and then return them to earth. This feels different. This feels more like there’s a maniac out there. And I’m not in favor of maniacs.”

I wasn’t in favor of maniacs either, and I had a sick stomach. Three people associated with me were missing. I felt like two were directly my bad. Wayne Kulicki and Hal wouldn’t have been in harm’s way if it wasn’t for me. I felt especially sick over Hal. He was a good person, and he’d been abducted while trying to protect me.

“The worst part is now that it might not be aliens, we don’t know what’s happening to these people,” Lula said. “I don’t even want to think about it. They could be . . . you know.”

“Dead,” Raymond said. “I fear someone is doing a very bad thing.”

I went to the back door and stood next to Ranger. His men were systematically inching along the blacktopped parking area next to the deli, looking for clues.

“Did you find anything?” I asked him.

“No. The cameras scan to the dry cleaner’s dumpster. Hal walked past the dumpster and out of camera range. He obviously thought the situation was benign. He didn’t have his gun drawn. He didn’t look concerned. We haven’t found any signs of struggle. No blood. No torn clothing.”

“Have you seen the latest medical report on Vinnie?”

“The one that suggested he might have been shot with a tranq dart? Yes, I have that report. It would explain the lack of evidence showing there was a struggle.”

“What about Hal’s shoe?”

“We haven’t touched the shoe. CSI will test the shoe, but I’d be surprised if they find anything. Shoes from previous victims haven’t been helpful.”

I told him about my conversation with Wulf.

“I heard he was in town,” Ranger said. “Hard to believe he’s investigating the disappearances. I’d be more inclined to believe he’s responsible for them.”

“Where do you go from here?”

“I use my resources to find the missing people. And I go proactive.”

“What does that mean?” I asked him. “How can you go proactive?”

“I can take Hal’s place.”

“Omigod. You’re going to work here, making sandwiches?” Ranger backed me into the wall and leaned into me. “You think I can’t make sandwiches?”

“I’ve never seen you make a sandwich.”

“You’ve seen me do other things. Have you ever seen me do anything badly?”

He had the hint of a smile curling at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were dark. This wasn’t a display of ego. This was foreplay, and it went straight to my doodah. I had a rush of heat erupt in my chest and head south. I’d been intimate  with Ranger, and it wasn’t an experience easily forgotten. It wasn’t an experience any woman would want to forget.

“Who’s going to run Rangeman if you’re in the deli full-time?”

“I can run Rangeman off-site.”

“Hal had other responsibilities besides making sandwiches.”

“Hal was here to keep you safe,” Ranger said.

“And now you’re going to keep me safe?”

“Full-time.”

“Morelli isn’t going to like this.”

“I’ll hand you over to him when we close at night, and I’ll expect you back in the morning. If you aren’t with Morelli, you’re with me.”

Truth is, I didn’t mind the arrangement. I wasn’t exactly Rambo. And I didn’t want to be the next victim with one shoe on and one shoe off.

Two Trenton PD patrol cars arrived five minutes after Ranger made the phone call to report Hal missing. Jimmy Krut showed up ten minutes later. Morelli was a couple minutes behind Krut. I’d made the call to Morelli.

I stayed close to the building, in front of the open back door. Morelli and Ranger were standing toe to toe beyond the dumpster. Morelli was hands on hips, his cop face firmly in place. Focused. Alpha dog posture. Ranger had his back to me. His arms were relaxed at his side, but his stance was solid, shoulders back from years in the military. Ranger was alpha dog times two. There was professional respect on both sides. And there was personal distrust simmering below the surface.

Morelli cut his eyes to me, his gaze held for a couple beats, and his attention returned to Ranger. They were talking about me. Their intentions were probably good, but I felt like I was being auctioned off on eBay.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Do you want to include me in this conversation?”

“No,” Morelli said.

I couldn’t see Ranger’s face, but I knew that got a smile from him. I did a massive eye roll, called them idiots, and retreated into the deli, slamming the door behind me.

“You look like you need pie,” Lula said.

I looked around the room. It was empty.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Dalia quit. She said if anyone wants to talk to her they can kiss her ass and good luck finding her. She said she was going to get into her car and start driving west and not stop until she hit the Pacific Ocean. Raymond and Stretch went home. They said unless you were gonna start paying overtime they weren’t staying late no more.”

“What kind of pie do we have?”

“Apple, coconut custard, lemon meringue but I wouldn’t recommend it, and chocolate pudding pie.”

“What’s wrong with the lemon meringue?”

“It smells like cat pee,” Lula said.

I went to the fridge and pulled out a chocolate pudding pie and extra whipped cream.

“Bring two forks,” Lula said.

We dug into the pie, and I looked over at Lula.

“What’s going on here? What’s the motive? What’s with the shoe?”

“Maniacs don’t always have motives,” Lula said. “At least none that make sense. Like maybe the devil told someone to snatch people and leave a shoe behind.”

“Suppose it wasn’t the devil. Suppose it was someone more normal. Why would someone want to take people associated with the management of the deli?”

“That’s a tough one,” Lula said. “And why did they snatch Hal? He wasn’t a manager.”

“Maybe Hal was a mistake.”

“Okay, so who would benefit from having bad things happening at the deli?” Lula asked. “There’s Ernie Sitz, but he’s supposed to be on the moon or something. I don’t see how this would do him any good. Except maybe he would be looking for revenge. Like if he couldn’t have the deli then no one could have it.”

“If that was the motive he could just torch it.”

“Yeah, but that wouldn’t be as much fun,” Lula said.

I hadn’t thought of this in terms of fun, but I suppose it was as good a motive as any.

“What about the bodies?” I asked. “Where are they?”

“That’s got about a million answers,” Lula said. “They could be on a hook in the deep freeze of a butcher shop. Or they could be in a shallow grave in the Pine Barrens. Or they could be still alive and chained up in someone’s cellar. I don’t think they got thrown in the Delaware, because one of them would have floated up by now.”

I didn’t like any of those answers. I put my head down and forked into the pie.

One of the Rangeman guys took Lula home. I went home with Morelli. Bob danced around us when we entered. Morelli ruffled Bob’s ears and locked the door.

“Now what?” he asked. “Television? Glass of wine? Frozen waffle? Bed?”

“Bed. I just worked my way through half a pudding pie, and I’m done.”

“Only half a pie?”

“Lula ate the other half.”

“Works for me. Bed was my choice too.”

“What do you think happened to Hal?”

“I don’t know. He’s a big guy. He’s strong. He was wearing a sidearm. Whatever happened to him was unexpected. He didn’t feel threatened when he walked out of camera range. It was as if he was going to see someone he knew or someone who couldn’t possibly harm him. The shoe was thrown in three minutes later. It was a fast takedown.”

“Tranquilizer dart?”

“It’s a possibility,” Morelli said.

“Do you think I’m going to be the next one to disappear?”

“No. I’m more worried about Ranger than I am about the manager snatcher.”

With good reason, I thought.