hate him as much as I used to."
"Bummer."
We crossed the street and stared at my car. It had a parking ticket on the window.
"See this," Lula said. "It's your moons. You made a bad money decision when you picked this busted meter."
I stuffed the ticket into my bag and wrenched the door open.
"You better watch out," Lula said. "The man trouble's gonna come next."
I called Connie and asked for an address for Albert Kloughn. In minutes I had Kloughn's business address and Soder's home address. Both were in Hamilton Township.
We drove past Soder's home first. He lived in a complex of garden apartments. The buildings were two-story brick, decked out to be colonial style with white window shutters and white columns at the front doors. Soder's apartment was on the ground floor.
"Guess he hasn't got the little girl in his cellar," Lula said. "Since he hasn't got a cellar."
We sat and watched the apartment for a few minutes, but nothing happened, so we moved on to Kloughn.
Albert Kloughn had a two-room office, next to a Laundromat, in a strip mall. There was a desk for a secretary but no secretary was in residence. Instead, Kloughn was at the desk, typing at the computer. He was my height and looked like he was approaching puberty. He had sandy-colored hair, a face like a cherub, and the body of the Pillsbury Doughboy.
He looked up and smiled tentatively when we entered. Probably thought we were scrounging quarters to do our laundry. I could feel my feet vibrating from the drums tumbling next door, and there was a distant rumble from the large commercial washers.
"Albert Kloughn?" I asked.
He was wearing a white shirt, red-and-green striped tie, and khakis. He stood and self-consciously smoothed out his tie. "I'm Albert Kloughn," he said.
"Well, this is a big disappointment," Lula said. "Where's the red nose that goes beep beep? And where're your big clown feet?"
"I'm not that kind of clown. Yeesh. Everybody says that. Ever since kindergarten I've been hearing that. It's spelled 'K-1-o-u-g-h-n.' Kloughn!"
"Could be worse," Lula said. "You could be Albert Fuch."
I gave Kloughn my card. "I'm Stephanie Plum and this is my associate, Lula. I understand you represented Evelyn Soder in her divorce case."
"Wow," he said, "are you really a bounty hunter?"
"Bond enforcement," I told him.
"Yeah, that's a bounty hunter, right?"
"About Evelyn Soder . . ."
"Sure. What do you want to know? Is she in trouble?"
"Evelyn and Annie are missing. And it looks like Evelyn took Annie away so she wouldn't have to visit her father. She left a couple notes."
"She must have had a good reason to leave," Kloughn said. "She really didn't want to jeopardize her grandmother's house. She just didn't have any choice. She had no place to turn for the bond money."
"Any ideas where Evelyn and Annie might have gone?"
Kloughn shook his head. "No. Evelyn didn't talk much. From what I could tell, her entire family lived in the Burg. I don't want to be mean or anything, but she didn't impress me as being real bright. I'm not even sure she could drive. She always had someone bring her to the office."
"Where's your secretary?" Lula asked him.
"I don't have a secretary right now. I used to have someone who came in part-time, but she said the lint blowing around from the dryers bothered her sinuses. Probably I should put an ad in the paper, but I'm not real organized. I only opened this office a couple months ago. Evelyn was one of my first clients. That's why I remember her."
Probably Evelyn was his only client. "Did she pay her bill?"
"She's paying it off monthly."
"If she mails in a check, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know where it was postmarked."
"I was just gonna suggest that," Lula said. "I thought of that, too."
"Yeah, me, too," Kloughn said. "I was thinking the same thing."
A woman rapped on Kloughn's open door and stuck her head in. "The dryer at the far end don't work. It took all my quarters, and now it's just doing nothing. And on top of that, I can't get the door open."
"Hey," Lula said, "do we look like we care? This man's an attorney-at-law. He don't give a rat's ass about your quarters."
"This happens all the time," Kloughn said. He pulled a form from his top desk drawer. "Here," he said to the woman. "Fill this out and the management will refund your money."
"They gonna comp your rent for that?" Lula asked Kloughn.
"No. They'll probably evict me."