Seven Up - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,16

and drawers, thumbing through the papers on the counter. I was doing the Hansel and Gretel thing, looking for a bread crumb that would start me on a trail. I was hoping for a phone number scribbled on a napkin, or maybe a map with a big orange arrow pointing to a local motel. What I found was the usual flotsam that collects in all kitchens. Eddie had knives and forks and dishes and soup bowls that had been bought by Mrs. DeChooch and used for the life of her marriage. There were no dirty dishes left on the counter. Everything was neatly stacked in the cupboards. Not a lot of food in the refrigerator, but it was better stocked than mine. A small carton of milk, some sliced turkey breast from Giovichinni's Meat Market, eggs, a stick of butter, condiments.

I prowled through a small downstairs powder room, the dining room, and living room. I peered into the coat closet and searched coat pockets while Lula watched the street through a break in the living room drape.

I climbed the stairs and searched the bedrooms, still hoping to find a bread crumb. The beds were all neatly made. There was a crossword book on the nightstand in the master bedroom. No bread crumbs. I moved on to the bathroom. Clean sink. Clean tub. Medicine chest filled to bursting with Darvon, aspirin, seventeen different kinds of antacids, sleeping pills, a jar of Vicks, denture cleaner, hemorrhoid cream.

The window over the tub was unlocked. I climbed into the tub and looked out. DeChooch's escape seemed possible. I got out of the tub and out of the bathroom. I stood in the hall and thought about Loretta Ricci. There was no sign of her in this house. No bloodstains. No indication of struggle. The house was unusually clean and tidy. I'd noticed this yesterday, too, when I'd gone through looking for DeChooch.

No notes scribbled on the pad by the phone. No matchbooks from restaurants tossed on the kitchen counter. No socks on the floor. No laundry in the bathroom hamper. Hey, what do I know? Maybe depressed old men get obsessively neat. Or maybe DeChooch spent the entire night scrubbing the blood from his floors and then did the laundry. Bottom line is no bread crumbs.

I returned to the living room and made an effort not to grimace. There was one place left to look. The cellar. Yuck. Cellars in houses like this were always dark and creepy, with rumbly oil burners and cobwebby rafters.

"Well, I suppose I should look in the cellar now," I said to Lula.

"Okay," Lula said. "The coast is still clear."

I opened the cellar door and flipped the light switch. Scarred wood stairs, gray cement floor, cobwebby rafters, and creepy rumbly cellar sounds. No disappointment here.

"Something wrong?" Lula asked.

"It's creepy."

"Uh-huh."

"I don't want to go down there."

"It's just a cellar," Lula said.

"How about if you go down."

"Not me. I hate cellars. They're creepy."

"Do you have a gun?"

"Do bears shit in the woods?"

I borrowed Lula's gun and crept down the cellar stairs. I don't know what I was going to do with the gun. Shoot a spider, maybe.

There was a washer and dryer in the cellar. A pegboard with tools . . . screwdrivers, wrenches, hammers. A workbench with a vise attached. None of the tools looked recently used. Some cardboard cartons were stacked in a corner. The boxes were closed but not sealed. The tape that had sealed them was left on the floor. I snooped in a couple of the boxes. Christmas decorations, some books, a box of pie plates and casserole dishes. No bread crumbs.

I climbed the stairs and closed the cellar door. Lula was still looking out the window.

"Uh-oh," Lula said.

"What uh-oh?" I hate uh-oh!

"Cop car just pulled up."

"Shit!"

I grabbed Bob's leash, and Lula and I ran for the back door. We exited the house and scooted over to the stoop that served as back porch to Angela's house. Lula wrenched Angela's door open and we all jumped inside.

Angela and her mother were sitting at the small kitchen table, having coffee and cake.

"Help! Police!" Angela's mother yelled when we burst through the door.

"This is Stephanie," Angela shouted to her mother. "You remember Stephanie?"

"Who?"

"Stephanie!"

"What's she want?"

"We changed our mind about the cake," I said, pulling a chair out, sitting down.

"What?" Angela's mother yelled. "What?"

"Cake," Angela yelled back at her mother. "They want some cake."

"Well for God's sake give it to them before they shoot us."

Lula and I looked at