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      In order to stall Seth’s curiosity, I dropped him off at the shop to finish the car he was working on and drove the truck back myself. With the pressure off, I could take my time and the traffic didn’t pose as much of a problem.

      The guy was pleased to see me return with it in one piece, and before I left I gave him some bull about Salvatore’s having a disgruntled employee and got him to agree to call back and check any unusual instructions directly with Gigi until further notice.

      Matilda was no worse for wear, and all’s well that ends well, I guess. Since I was already in that part of town, I thought I’d make a run past the construction company where Frank worked. I checked my notes against a city map and headed north. JH Construction was owned and run by John Holcomb. Hence the clever name. What little information I’d dug up on them was pretty run-of-the-mill. Small time operation, a few complaints and disputes from unhappy customers, and a pretty steady rate of turnover in employees. I was willing to bet the books were a testament to creative financing.

      I pulled into the parking lot of a florist across the street and parked facing JH. From the outside, it looked pretty shoddy, but most of these places do. A painted sign propped up on the roof advertised: Kitchen Remodel; Bathroom Remodel; Interior Construction; Concrete, Fence & Yard Construction. Behind the main office stood a larger building for tools and supplies, the garage door open. In the parking lot there was a motley assortment of vans and trucks.

      I didn’t see anything matching the description of Frank’s truck, so I got out of my car and trotted across the street. I wasn’t exactly sure what I planned to do, but sometimes you just have to dive in and get a feel for a situation.

      Inside, the place was a little nicer. The walls were all brown paneling with carpet to match, and the furniture had obviously been around a long time. None of it matched anything, but it was clean. A window air conditioning unit cranked away feebly next to the desk of a woman in her late fifties, who appeared to be serving as both bookkeeper and receptionist.

      “Can I help you?” she asked. Polite, but not what I would call friendly.

      “Ah, yeah.” I stalled for a minute to assemble a game plan. More often than not, the truth works just fine. “I’m in the middle of remodeling my office, and I’m not getting very far with it. I’m thinking it’s time to throw in the towel and see about having it done. You guys handle something like that?”

      “We could probably help you.” The voice was not the lady at the desk, but a large, bear-shaped man who’d appeared from out of the tiny hallway. The offices must have been close enough for him to keep tabs on anything going on. “How big a job is it?”

      “Not too big. Just a few walls, really. I’m creating an office out of an old store front. Two rooms and an entryway, nothing fancy.”

      “Yeah, that sounds fine. We’ll need to have someone come over and take a look to give you a proper quote.” He held a hand out to me. “I’m John Holcomb.”

      I shook it and said, “That’ll be great.”

      “What’s your schedule look like?” He moved over near the desk and waved hastily to the receptionist, who turned and flipped open a large calendar book.

      “I’m pretty flexible. Say, I know a guy who works here, Frank Novak.”

      He glanced up at me. “You’re friends with Frank?”

      “More like friend of a friend. I like to try and help out people I know.”

      John scoffed. “He needs all the help he can get.”

      “Ah. Like that, huh? Can’t say I’m all that surprised.”

      “I do most of the quotes myself, but if you want Frank, I’ll see to it he’s assigned to the job. How big a hurry are you in?”

      “I suppose sooner rather than later,” I told him, “but I don’t have any particular deadline.”

      “That’s good,” John said flatly. He didn’t elaborate.

      We scheduled an appointment for the following week and I left, not much more enlightened than I was before. It didn’t take any leaps of imagination to guess that Frank had a pretty spotty record on the job, or that he wasn’t especially well liked by his boss. The prospect of Frank working on my office didn’t bother me. Honestly, I didn’t think it was going to happen, but if it did, I couldn’t see a problem there. He already knew who I was, so it made sense that I would choose his company for a remodeling job, and it might offer me another angle to work on Seth’s case.

      I drove home and put in a little time on a standard info search I was doing for a law office, and then stretched out on the couch for a while, just to rest. Seth showed up at ten and joined me, flopping onto my chest and falling into a light snooze.

      At eleven o’clock, Gigi called to say she was on her way. I woke Seth and we both started moving so we’d be alert when she got there. I put a pot of coffee on, and was pouring it when she knocked on the door. I let her in, and she set two plastic bags full of takeout containers on the counter. Seth raised an eyebrow and took an immediate interest.

      “You want a cup of coffee?” I asked her. I unpacked the food and took out some plates.

      “Yes, please,” she said, watching me quizzically. “This was all about bringing you a free dinner?”

      “No, this is about your case. I just asked you to bring the food because Seth did most of the driving today and had to work late because of it.”

      “Oh,” she said. “Well, thank you, Seth.”

      “Sure, no problem.” He loaded a plate with a slab of lasagna, three kinds of pasta, a piece of fish, and two hunks of garlic bread, which he took to the table. “I would have helped unload it too, but Dino wouldn’t let me.”

      “There’s a reason for that,” I said. I picked up a carton with the remains of some glorious smelling puttanesca and grabbed a fork. I pulled out a chair for Gigi and we joined Seth.

      “Dino, what is going on?” she asked. “You’re being very cagey.”

      I took a deep breath, because I had a great plan, but I knew it wasn’t going to be well received by at least one, if not both of them.

      “All right,” I said, “today’s little incident makes it pretty clear that whatever’s going on, they have someone on the inside.”

      “They?” Gigi asked, eyes wide.

      “Well, it still could be one person,

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