“Michelle Pfeiffer was Catwoman,” Jeanne Ellen said. She looked down at Oliver. He was on his back again, kicking and screaming. “Stop,” Jeanne Ellen said to Oliver.
Oliver blinked twice and stuck his thumb in his mouth.
Jeanne Ellen smiled at me. “Baby-sitting?”
“Yep.”
“Nice.”
“Your client is being intrusive,” I said.
“My apologies,” Jeanne Ellen said. “We're leaving now.”
Amanda, Oliver, Lula, and I all stood like statues until the front door closed behind Jeanne Ellen and Soder. Then Oliver went back to his screaming.
Lula tried the stop thing but Oliver only screamed louder. So we made him another grilled cheese.
Oliver was finishing his sandwich when Dotty returned.
“How'd it go?” Dotty asked.
Amanda looked at her mother. Then she took a long look at Lula and me. “Fine,” Amanda said. “I'm going to watch television now.”
“Steven Soder stopped by,” I said.
Dotty's face went ashen. “He was here? Soder came here?”
“He said he wanted to talk to you.”
Color flamed on her cheekbones. She put a hand to Oliver. A mother's protective gesture. She smoothed the baby-fine hair back from Oliver's forehead. “I hope Oliver wasn't too much trouble.”
“Oliver was terrific,” I said. “It took us a while to figure out he wanted a grilled cheese sandwich, but after that he was terrific.”
“Sometimes being a single mom gets a little overwhelming,” Dotty said. “The responsibility of it. And the alone part. It's okay when everything's going normal, but sometimes you wish there was another adult in the house.”
“You're afraid of Soder,” I said.
“He's a terrible person.”
“You should tell me what's going on. I could help.” At least I hoped I could help.
“I need to think,” Dotty said. “I appreciate your offer, but I need to think.”
“I'll stop around tomorrow morning to make sure you're okay,” I said. “Maybe we can straighten this out tomorrow.”
LULA AND I were halfway to Trenton before either of us spoke.
“Life just gets weirder and weirder,” Lula finally said.
That pretty much summed it up as far as I was concerned. I suppose I'd made progress. I'd spoken to Evelyn. I knew she was safe for now. And I knew she wasn't all that far away. Dotty had been gone less than an hour.
Soder was bothersome, but I could understand his actions. He was a jerk, but he was also a distraught dad. Most likely Dotty was negotiating some sort of truce between Soder and Evelyn.
What I couldn't understand was Jeanne Ellen. The fact that Jeanne Ellen was still doing surveillance bothered me. The surveillance seemed pointless now that Dotty knew about Jeanne Ellen. So why was Jeanne Ellen sitting across from Dotty's house when we left? It was possible that Jeanne Ellen was exerting pressure in the form of harassment. Make Dotty's life unpleasant and try to get her to cave. There was another possibility that felt pretty far out but had to be considered. Protection. Jeanne Ellen was sitting out there like the Queen's Guard. Maybe Jeanne Ellen was guarding the link to Evelyn and Annie. This led to a bunch of questions I couldn't answer. Such as, who was Jeanne Ellen guarding Dotty from? Abruzzi?
“You gonna show up at nine?” Lula asked when I pulled to a stop in front of the bonds office.
“I guess so. How about you?”