I woke to pounding on my office door. The pervasive smell of smoke yanked me out of my dream by the nose. I sat upright on the recently cleared couch, panting as I got my bearings.

The person at the door pounded again. A dark splotch of shadows refracted through the pebbled glass of the window. I had a lot of guesses who it could be—someone from Big Ed, someone from the police department, someone from my mortgage lender, or Sidewalk Wally coming back for the stolen salvage he left in Dolores’s trunk. None of them were good news.

I tried sitting still, hoping they had as hard a time seeing into the room as I had seeing out. The thrum of the ClearLife factory down the street masked my breathing, but the midmorning light that snuck through the loose blinds painted the room with golden strokes that were visible even through the obfuscating glass and pounds of loose dust floating in the air.

“Detective O’Howell? I know you’re in there.”

I cocked my head, lifting an ear to the door. It was a woman’s voice, urgent but not aggressive. Virginia? No, she would be more fired-up if she had found out who I’d been talking to.

“Yes you, Howl. I see you moving. Let me in. We need to talk.”

Marcella Furone. Of course, she’d come nosing around. I didn’t want to see her, but after I got my hackles up, ready to fight some thug, she didn’t seem so bad.

“Door’s open,” I grunted. My creaky bones needed a minute of stretching before I started moving around.

I didn’t subscribe to the old school of thought that required a man stand to greet a lady when she entered. Besides, I had yet to see anything from Marcella to indicate she was a lady. She had a nice face, but so far my impression of her had been all pant suit and coarse language. Not that I minded. At least she didn’t try to be something she wasn’t. Cynthia Sanders had twice as much vinegar inside her, but she tried to mask it behind dainty jewelry, a practiced smile, and an affected high-society accent.

Marcella had no problem letting herself in and didn’t mind seeing me lounging back on the couch instead of getting up to greet her.

“You’ve been busy,” she said, leaning on the edge of my desk to face me. “I heard you were sniffing around Club Callout last night. You dog.”

“I was talking to Heifer.” I rubbed my face, trying to banish the sleep from my eyes. All I did was smudge the soot and grime around and reflect some of my bad breath back toward me. I caught a wisp of that fine whiskey Heifer had tried to ply me with. No lives had been lost, but thinking of all the bottles crushed under the wreckage nearly brought a tear to my eye.

“Sure. Just chatting with Heifer. I bet you read Barnyard for the articles too,” she said. “Honestly, I don’t care what you were doing there. All I want to know is what you saw. What you heard. I have half the story already, but I need something to bring it to life—that boots-on-the-ground element.”

I let out a long sigh, summoning strength to push up to my feet. My muscles groaned and my bones cracked, but I covered the sound with a throaty, pre-coffee grumble and hobbled to the seat behind my desk.

“What was that?” Marcella asked as she slid to the client chair so we could talk face-to-face.

“I don’t work for you,” I said. “And I couldn’t tell you anything you can’t find from stirring up the ashes.”

“All I need is a quote. It’ll be good for you, too.” She swiped her hand in front of her, tracking a headline only she could see printed in the air. “Delinquency Dog Smells Foul Play at Hot Type City’s Most— Hold on. What’s this?”

Marcella’s eye was drawn to the fax I’d thrown down in my hurry to visit the Sanders. The lone piece of paper stood out on the unusually clear desk.

“Junk mail.” I tried to sweep it up, but Marcella was faster. She snatched it and held it close to her eyes, reading it quick.

“Oh. This is good. This is real good.”

Through a great feat of willpower and physical strength, I overcame my lethargy and leaned forward to rip the paper out of her hand.

“It’s bullshit,” I said as I crumpled it up. “A fake.”

“No question. I got a tip just like it.”

I stopped balling the paper and looked straight at her for the first time.

“Not exactly like it, of course, but same story. Lady Demoiselle wanted me to expose the shipping company for lying about her precious cargo. Same carrot water mark, too.”

“How did you know it was fake?”

“Please, Detective O’Howell. I may look like I’m fresh out of high school, but I’ve been in the game long enough to know the story of the year isn’t just going to fall out of the sky and land in my fax machine’s printer tray. I’d have to work for it.”

“Or hold on to my shirt tails while I worked?” I tried to sound angry, but a lot of the effect was lost with the pique of my curiosity. Did Tabitha, the principal of the Sam Marlowe Academy, tip the Sanders off that Marcella had been digging, too? Or did she find something on her own? Or, more disconcertingly, was I off the mark about the message coming from them?

“Brings me back to us working together. You still think it’s a bad idea?”

“Maybe it’s what they want,” I said. “To get us both tied up, tripping over ourselves trying to figure it out.”

“I’m sure we’d realize we had been taken for a ride sooner rather than later.”

“Don’t think it matters. Whoever’s pulling the strings around here doesn’t need long. They’re in such a hurry they built in a definite date for us to find out it’s a sham. Their plot will be tied up by next Saturday.”

“What happens Saturday?”

“Nothing. That’s what I’m trying to say. They want us out of the way for something that’ll happen before that.”

We wracked our brains for half a minute, racing to the answer. “You aren’t covering the election, are you? Could be this letter has nothing to do with Ethan? It might strictly be about Douglas and keeping all the elites out of hot water until after the election.”

Marcella shook her head without unknitting her brow. “Not my bailiwick. Wait. Douglas? Douglas Sanders? What’s he got to do with it?”

“Forget I said anything. What were you working on when you got the message?”

“Same as you, I imagine: banging my head against the Ethan Calhoun case. Sounds like you had better luck than me. You said the Sanders kid was involved?”

“I said drop it. If you didn’t know already, it’s not relevant. Someone else sent the message.”

“You think they noticed we didn’t take the bait?” Marcella spun up from her chair and paced across the postage stamp of my office’s floor, avoiding the garbage bags, one of which had fallen and upchucked a delta of empty bottles. She tapped her chin, then stopped and turned on her heel.

“The fire! You think they started the fire at Club Callout to throw us off the case?”

“A bit too pat to be part of our— Shit! I mean my case.”

Marcella gave me a sly smile and shrugged with one shoulder as she tossed her hand. Her body language said, “It was worth a shot.”

“What specifically were you looking into when you got the message? We must have been close to something.”

“Let’s see… After you left me high and dry outside the school, I struck out on my own. Went to check up on Virginia. I thought I might learn something from the way she reacted to the conversation.”

“And? Did you?”

“Ha!” Marcella said, seeing how I leaned forward to hear every word. “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.”

I had started flipping open my notepad but stopped so I could skewer Marcella with my best glare.

“Come on,” she said. “Maybe them trying to get us tangled up was a blunder on their part. We can choose to help each other.”

I didn’t like the idea of working with a partner, but if she had something, I needed it. After a bit more grumbling and beating around the bush, I told her a bit, boiled it down and distilled the facts: Ethan had a pot growing operation, and Douglas Sanders was involved; Virginia’s old contemporaries think she’s a slut and an attention whore; Heifer’s finances were in the shitter so he couldn’t help when Virginia came begging him for money.

“What did Virginia need money for?” Marcella asked. “She want to reclaim the glory days?”

“I think it was more than that,” I said. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind the attention, but from what Heifer implied, she was willing to grossly debase herself if the price was right. Don’t think giving private dances to whoever showed up with a roll of ones would win her any invites to the kinds of parties Cynthia Sanders hosts.”

“She worried about making ends meet after the divorce?”

I shook my head again. “As far as I can work out, this all happened before she and Peter split. Her trying could have played into the breakup, though.”

Marcella stroked her chin with her thumb as she thought it over, then spun around and started pacing again. “So. How’s this all tie back to Ethan? You think the other women set something up when they found Virginia sniffing around their game? Are they cruel enough to hit her when she’s down and make sure she never sees the same success they have?”

“Cruel enough? Sure. Don’t think they did it, though. Virginia was never going to be a threat to them. It’s more likely Heifer set something up—with or without Virginia’s help—to get attention, build up Virginia as a public figure so when she stooped to working for him she’d be worth something.”

“But then things went wrong. Al got shot, and it got too real,” Marcella said, filling in the blanks. “Before, they could’ve found the kid safe and sound. No harm done. Everyone wins. Now the face of the story is an old bear, weeping under her veil as they lowered her late husband into the ground. Not a good look. Did Heifer seem evasive when you talked to him?”

“Sure. But it could have been unrelated.”

“You think he had something to do with the fire.” It wasn’t quite a question. Marcella wanted to think it through herself. She came to the same conclusion I had, unraveling it as she wore a rut in the hardwood floor with her pacing. “When things fell through with Ethan, he needed another way to get money quick. He started the fire himself for the insurance settlement.”

“Probably. Think he could have been in debt to Big Ed.” Images flashed through my mind—Lawrence’s claws, slow moving black Cadillacs, an imperious wildebeest making muscles at me from the dark recesses of Heifer’s club—but I kept them to myself. “Virginia might be able to stretch out Ethan’s kidnapping story until it’s more palpable, but if the mob was expecting a payment, Heifer couldn’t wait to see how things shook out.”

“If Virginia knows where Ethan is, why wait for the big reveal?” Marcella stopped mid-stride with her foot hovering, then answered her own question. “The election! She wants all the coverage to herself. After the election is through, the papers are going to be itching for new stories. A politically agnostic feel-good story would be the perfect thing to get the bad taste of the election out of people’s mouths.”

“Plenty of time between then and when Lady Demoiselle is supposed to show up. If we were busy chasing our own tails, whoever has Ethan would have space to maneuver things for maximum impact.”

Marcella stopped in front of my desk again and tapped her chin. “Makes as much sense as anything else.”

“It’s sick, but it’s the best I’ve got. Now it’s your turn.”

Marcella cocked her head.

“What did you find out?”

“Oh. Nothing. I watched her most of the day and all I saw was her going to work, then back home.”

“You— But I thought—”

She laughed brightly, a devious spark in her eye. “Maybe now you believe I’m not some dumb ambulance-chasing hack. Aw, don’t give me that look; I’m a better journalist than you give me credit for. I know how to get people talking.”

I let a low growl escape my throat. “You must have learned something. How long was she there? Who did she talk to?”

“I didn’t notice anything off from the parking lot. She worked a full shift, took the bus home. I didn’t have enough reason to go in and risk making a scene.”

“How about now?” I stood up and looked for my coat and hat, which I found on hooks by the door, next to the red baseball cap I tried not to look directly at. “She works at Sal’s diner, right? On Brecker?”

“Yes…” Marcella said.

“Come on. I usually like to get dinner before I get fucked like that, but you can make it up to me by buying breakfa—” I looked at the clock. I’d slept the morning away, and it was now almost eleven. “Er… Lunch.”