Seven Up - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,34

weather was limited.

I slipped into a new T-shirt and clean Levi's and blasted my hair with the hair dryer. When I was done I had a lot of volume but not much shape, so I created a distraction by applying bright blue eyeliner.

I was pulling my boots on when the phone rang.

"Your sister's on her way over," my mother said. "She needs someone to talk to."

Valerie must really be desperate to choose me to talk to. We like each other okay, but we've never been close. Too many basic personality differences. And when she moved to California we drifted even further apart.

Funny how things turn out. We all thought Valerie had the perfect marriage.

The phone rang again and it was Morelli.

"He's humming," Morelli said. "When are you going to come get him?"

"Humming?"

"Bob and I are trying to watch the game and this yodel won't stop humming."

"Maybe he's nervous."

"Fuckin' A. He should be nervous. If he doesn't stop humming I'm going to strangle him."

"Try feeding him."

And I hung up.

"I wish I knew what everyone is looking for," I said to Rex. "I know it's tied to Dougie's disappearance."

There was a rap on the door and my sister bounced in, looking Doris Day-Meg Ryan perky. Probably perfect for California, but we don't do perky in Jersey.

"You're awfully perky," I said. "I don't remember you as being this perky."

"I'm not perky . . . I'm cheerful. I am absolutely not crying anymore, ever again. No one likes a Gloomy Gus. I'm going to get on with my life and I'm going to be happy. I'm going to be so goddamn happy Mary Sunshine's going to look like a loser."

Yikes.

"And do you know why I can be happy? I can be happy because I'm well adjusted."

Good thing Valerie moved back to Jersey. We'd fix that.

"So this is your apartment," she said, looking around. "I've never been here."

I looked, too, and I wasn't impressed by what I saw. I have lots of good ideas for my apartment, but somehow I never get around to buying the glass candle holders at Illuminations or the brass fruit bowl at Pottery Barn. My windows have utilitarian shades and drapes. My furniture is relatively new but uninspired. I live in a cookie-cutter, inexpensive seventies apartment that looks exactly like a cookie-cutter, inexpensive seventies apartment. Martha Stewart would have a cow over my apartment.

"Jeez," I said, "I'm really sorry about Steve. I didn't know you two were having problems."

Valerie flopped onto the couch. "I didn't know, either. He broadsided me. I came home from the gym one day and realized Steve's clothes were gone. Then I found a note on the kitchen counter about how he felt trapped and had to get away. And the next day I got a foreclosure notice on the house."

"Wow."

"I'm thinking this could be a good thing. I mean, this could open up all sorts of new experiences for me. For instance, I have to get a job."

"Any ideas?"

"I want to be a bounty hunter."

I was speechless. Valerie. A bounty hunter.

"Did you tell Mom?"

"No. Do you think I should?"

"No!"

"The thing about being a bounty hunter is that you make your own hours, right? So I could be home when the girls get out of school. And bounty hunters are kind of tough, and that's what I want the new Valerie to be . . . cheerful but tough."

Valerie was wearing a red cardigan sweater from Talbots, designer jeans that had been ironed, and snakeskin loafers.

Tough seemed like a stretch.

"I'm not sure you're the bounty hunter type," I told Valerie.

"Of course I'm the bounty hunter type," she said enthusiastically. "I just have to get into the right mind-set." She sat up straighter on my couch and started singing the rubber tree ant song.

"He's got hiiiigh hopes . . . hiiiigh hopes!"

Good thing my gun was in the kitchen, because I had an urge to shoot Valerie. This was taking the cheerful thing way beyond where I wanted to go.

"Grandma said you were working on a big case and I thought maybe I could help," Valerie said.

"I don't know . . . this guy is a killer."

"But he's old, right?"

"Yeah. He's an old killer."

"That sounds like a good place to start," Valerie said, bouncing up off the couch. "Let's go get him."

"I don't exactly know where to find him," I said.

"He's probably feeding ducks at the lake. That's what old men do. At night they watch television and during the day they feed the ducks."

"It's raining. I