there has to be a record of it somewhere. Doesn’t the historical society keep a history of neighborhoods?”
“Probably. Or what about city tax rolls?” she suggested. “Problem is, we’ve got possible names of businesses across the street from the one we’re interested in.” The letters of the neon sign reflected in the window had to have come from that direction. “So first we have to match the name to that business. Once we find it, we have to see if someone remembers the surrounding area well enough to identify the place across from it.”
“You make it sound like a piece of cake.”
She decided sarcasm wasn’t a good tone for him. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the place is still in business. Or that it’s a settled neighborhood with people who like to talk about the good ol’ days. Hey, maybe we can track down a beat cop that used to work the area.” Traffic was a logjam. Risa had the thought that she could probably jump out of the car, jog back to Starbucks, order, and catch up to the vehicle before it had progressed more than a few blocks. Problem was, she needed the energy a good jolt of caffeine would provide before she could summon the energy.
“Better chance of finding a longtime resident of the neighborhood than tracking down the officer walking a particular neighborhood beat twenty years ago,” he muttered. At the first opportunity, he turned off onto a side street, saying by way of explanation, “It’s longer this way in miles, but we’ll get there quicker by avoiding the traffic.”
“A long shortcut.” She gave a nod. “Makes perfect sense to me.” As it would to any Philly native who’d spent an alarming fraction of their life in commute.
Settling more comfortably into the seat, she closed her eyes. The day promised to be a long one, and it would seem even longer with no sleep.
She’d already resigned herself to one with no coffee.
Chapter 11
The sudden deafening lyrics of Lady Gaga had Risa jolting up and forward, smartly rapping her knee against the underside of the dash. Rubbing the injured area, she sent Nate a glower. “A simple ‘we’re here’ wouldn’t suffice?”
He grinned, turned down the radio. “I thought you’d like to wake up with a song in your heart.”
“If I did, I’d pick an artist I actually like.” She gathered up the notes she’d taken while on the phone with Shroot as Nate jockeyed for a parking place.
“What’s not to like?” To her shock, he sang the refrain from “Poker Face” in an amazingly bad baritone.
His clowning was disarming. It was a completely different side of the taciturn detective. “I can’t believe you even know that song.”
“Why? I like poker.” Slinging an arm over the seat, he performed a parallel parking job that would have dazzled a seasoned driving instructor.
“You mean you like twentysomething artists singing about poker while half naked and hanging upside down from a trapeze.” The musician’s antics and costumes were a source of bemusement to Risa.
“Hey, musicians suffer for their art. I’m there to suffer with them.”
Because it would only encourage him, she hid her smile by starting to open the door. Then pulled it shut again when the blare of a taxi’s horn and a shouted curse warned her that the door was in danger of being taken off.
The vehicle whizzed by them, Jiffy Kab’s finest offering her a one-fingered salute. “Maybe you should get out on my side,” Nate suggested.
There was no dignified way to scramble across the vehicle’s front seat, so Risa opted for speed over grace. And wanted to smack the man holding the door for his undivided attention to her progress.
Once she hit the sidewalk, she contented herself with an accidentally on-purpose elbow jab to the gut. “Oh, sorry,” she lied.
“Uh-huh.” He slammed the door and locked it with the remote access fob. “Just for that I’m going to have to tell you that you snore.”
She studied the address on the notepad, looked up to compare it to the street they were on. “No. I don’t.”
“Why do women all say that?” he asked reasonably as they fell into step together. Almost immediately he had to step aside to allow an elderly lady and her two yapping Pekinese to go by. Catching up with Risa again, he continued seamlessly, “It’s not like you’d know you were snoring if you’re sleeping.”
“Without casting aspersions on your vast experience with unconscious women . . . I wasn’t asleep.”