“We’re not taking the Cowboy down. The authorities are taking the Cowboy down.”

  “Right. Sure. That’s what I meant. But we still need to show the conflict here.”

  “You’re exploiting our friend’s pain.”

  “Exploiting? No way. Herb is going to be a national hero. And by taking the footage off of darknet, we’re preserving the evidence. Now when we—uh, the authorities—arrest the Cowboy, we’ve got an automatic conviction.”

  He had a point.

  “Can you unclench your fists, J-Dawg? You’re scaring Waddlebutt.”

  I was unaware my fists were clenched. And Waddlebutt didn’t look scared. He looked defiant, sitting on his pile of rocks, daring someone to snatch one. Last night, when he’d retreated to his lair in the fridge, Rosalina had eaten Waddlebutt’s second nest, the one made of dog treats. Since then, the penguin had been in a mean mood.

  Harry stood up. Thankfully, he was wearing pants. A poofy white cloud briefly orbited his pelvis, and I caught the scent of baby powder.

  “I’m assuming you have a plan to find the Cowboy,” I said. I didn’t actually assume this, but Harry had to have some sort of plan. Didn’t he?

  “We’re meeting a dude today. Country Sheriff. His sister escaped from the Cowboy. He’s been tracking him for years.”

  “Name?”

  “Wyatt Steinhoffer. Middle name is Earp.”

  “Wyatt Earp?” I got an involuntary, but not unwelcome, image in my head of Kurt Russell.

  “Sister’s name is Annie Oakley. Parents apparently had a wild west fixation.”

  “You research these people?”

  “Nothing beyond Google. I got the twins on it. You guys turn up any nuggets?”

  They both looked up from their laptops in unison, and I got The Shining vibes.

  “Wyatt Earp is a forty-seven-year-old white male, single, born in San Diego. Currently the Sheriff of Pastor County, the least populated county in Nebraska,” said Jeckle.

  “Population three hundred and two,” said Heckle.

  “First elected Sheriff eight years ago,” said Jeckle. “Ran unopposed. Was a deputy under the previous Sheriff, who went missing.”

  “Military record?” I asked.

  “No. Nothing in the NCIC database, either,” said Heckle.

  “Has a balance of $342.31 on his Amex Platinum card,” said Jeckle. “Bill from a local mechanic.”

  “And the sister?”

  “Lives with her brother in Ergo, Nebraska. Homestead on a few hundred acres. Not married, no kids. Can’t find any evidence of a current job, but Google Earth shows horses, cattle. She was some kind of rodeo star when she was a teenager.”

  “Anything about her encounter with the Cowboy?”

  “Nothing,” said Jeckle. “Did a news search, but a lot of smaller papers haven’t gone digital yet.”

  “Did you run the Cowboy through NCIC?”

  A double nod. Heckle said, “No concrete hits.”

  “How about Vicky?” I asked McGlade.

  While the National Criminal Information Center was the federal government’s attempt at a database for criminals and criminal activity, ViCAT, or the Violent Criminal Apprehension Team, focused on multiple murders. Like NCIC, the information uploaded by state and local cops was voluntary rather than mandatory, so a whole lot of bad things went unreported on a national level. That’s why a violent offender could kill someone in Kentucky, and then get picked up in California for assault without there being an automatic link to his out-of-state warrant.

  Welcome to the dysfunctional world of law enforcement.

  Back when I was still working Homicide, the Feebies had a database they called Vicky, short for the ViCAT computer. Vicky also used her awesome computing power to do some rudimentary suspect profiling. Back then, Vicky’s CPU was on par with the chip in my current refrigerator, which sends me a text when we’re low on milk. You’d think an appliance like that would be a lifesaver, but we’ve wound up throwing away four gallons of milk because the fridge is consistently wrong. I’ve actually begun to wonder if the fridge is doing it intentionally. Taking kickbacks from the dairy industry. Or maybe there’s a camera in there, and I’m unwittingly the star of some hilarious Japanese prank show.

  My point being, back in those days, Vicky was an idiot.

  Maybe’s she’d improved since then.

  “Vicky did a profile,” Harry said. He held up a piece of paper and began to read. “Pegged the Cowboy as organized, thirty-five to fifty, wealthy, narcissistic personality disorder, overly competitive and/or a gambling problem, paranoid, delusional, single.”

  That was all perfectly rational, and perfectly obvious.

  “Is there more?” I asked.

  “Suspect is drug addicted, possibly cocaine or meth amphetamine, suffering a chronic health issue possibly related to the addiction, bisexual and possibly incestuous, fixated with childhood things, like toys or television shows, collects stuffed animals, and…” Harry paused.

  “And what?” I asked.

  “And Vicky thinks the Cowboy has a prosthetic limb.”

  “That’s you,” I said. “The Feebies just profiled you as the Cowboy.”

  Harry shook his head and scowled. “That doesn’t match me at all.”

  I began to tick off fingers. “Narcissistic personality disorder.”

  “Knowing I’m better than everyone else doesn’t make me a narcissist.”

  “Competitive.”

  “I’m not competitive.”

  “You are.”

  “I’m not. Bet me.”

  “Collects stuffed animals.”

  “Those were an investment.”

  “Fifty years old, unmarried, bisexual—”

  “I was only bisexual a couple of times. Fifteen at most. And I’m not drug addicted.”

  “I’ve been to your condo. You’ve got a grow room full of marijuana plants.”

  “Cool,” said Heckle and Jeckle.

  “That means I have a green thumb, not a drug problem. And the marijuana is strictly medicinal, to come down after I’ve snorted too much coke.”

  I held up another hand. “Paranoid.”

  “I’m one hundred percent absolutely not paranoid. Wait… does everyone think I’m paranoid?”

  “Prosthetic limb.”

  “That’s only one out of, like eight. And how about incestuous? I grew up an orphan, so it was impossible to have sex with a family member, no matter how much I wanted to.”

  I held up nine.

  “That was a joke!” Harry insisted. Then he tried to look calm. “Seriously,” he said in his serious voice. “I’m not a serial killer.”

  “Delusional,” I said, holding up finger ten. “I’m out of fingers, and you’ve hit almost every single trait. The only thing Vicky missed was morbidly obese.”

  Harry shook his head. “Untrue.”

  “Does the profile say the killer has enough fat to make three more fat people?”

  Heckle and Jeckle chuckled at that. Exactly three chuckles each.

  “I’m a little overweight, not morbidly obese.”

  “You need a bra more than I do.”

  “I can’t be the Cowboy,” Harry insisted. “I was here when Herb was getting his tooth pulled out. That was a live stream. How could I be in two places at once?”

  “Maybe you have a twin,” said Heckle.

  Jeckle nodded.

  McGlade didn’t appear to take the teasing well.

  “I left out the most revealing trait,” He held up the paper. “Vicky predicts the Cowboy is… wait for it… a female.”

  I made an oh really face. “Are you hiding something from us, Harry?”

  “Want me to whip it out right here and prove it?”

  “No, Louis CK, no one wants that.”

  McGlade crumbled up the paper and threw it on the floor, next to Waddlebutt.

  The penguin viciously attacked the paper for getting too close to his pebbles.

  “We need a different focus for our next webisode, because the FBI is full of shit.”

  Heckle raised his hand. “Private Dick McDude, we think that you should use that profile.”

  Jeckle nodded. “The conspiracy geeks will love it. Make yourself a suspect. The Internet will blow up with speculations. Great for pageviews.”

  McGlade mashed his lips together in thought, then reached for the thrown paper ball. Waddlebutt pecked him in the wrist, drawing blood.

  “Do it in a slightly higher pitch,” I suggested. “Give them something to talk about.”

  “You guys are all dicks,” Harry said. But I could see the gears turning in his little Harry brain.

  As much as the whole exchange really elevated my mood, the unhappies returned when I thought of Phin.

  “Harry,” I said, lowering my voice. “I actually need your help on something.”

  “Let me try to guess the fat joke. You took a picture of me but can’t print it because there’s not enough ink in the state.”

  “No.”

  “You’re worried my gravity is affecting the tides.”

  “No.”

  “You killed someone with a hundred pound chocolate bar and want me to eat the evidence before the cops come.”

  “It’s not a joke, Harry. This is something serious.”

  “So you don’t have any chocolate?”

  I hated asking McGlade for anything, but I didn’t see any choice. “Can we talk?”

  “Aren’t we talking right now?”

  I glanced at the twins. “In private?”

  “Sure. I gotta walk Rosa.” Rosalina’s ears perked up. “Let’s go.”

  We’d parked at a gas station; go figure because the Crimebago Deux needed gas every ten miles. When I stepped outside, the first thing I noticed was how empty Nebraska was. The day was clear, the sky was huge, and there were no significant land features on the grassy plains, in any direction, except for the gas station, with attached diner, and mountains so far in the distance they looked like a hanging painting.

  Air was cool, clean, and smelled like country.

  I felt entirely out of my element.

  “What’s up, Jackie? Tell me you were kidding and your pockets are laden with chocolate. Is that chocolate? Or your fupa?”

  “My what?”

  “Fupa. Fat upper pubic area.”

  Normally I ignore Harry’s jokes-slash-insults, but the irony was too rich to pass up.

  “My fupa? Really? You need both hands to lift your stomach so you can piss.”

  “I won’t lie. That stings.”

  “Stings like the rash you got from pissing all over yourself?”

  “Okay, hitting below the belt here.”

  “I heard sobbing this morning. Was that your toilet, screaming in pain when you sat down?”

  “I think we can call you the winner for this round. Now let’s stop the body shaming and pretend we’re adults.”

  I considered giving him a lecture about decency, remembered the dozens of other lectures I’d given him that never stuck, and got back on topic.

  “It’s Phin.”

  “He’s cheating,” McGlade guessed. At least I hope it was a guess.

  “Why do you—”

  “Because he’s a man, and you’ve been treating him like he’s a kid with a peanut allergy who’s running around naked at a peanut farm. Not my best analogy. Hey, do you have any peanuts?”

  “No. How did—”

  “I told you. Phin and I are bros. We talk all the time.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Okay, we don’t. I drunk text him sometimes, and he ignores me. This is all guessing on my part, but you’re confirming it as we speak. You do remember how to be a police officer, don’t you, Jackie?”

  Rosalina found a spot she liked and proceeded to make a Mount Everest sized deposit.

  “We had a fight before I left. I told him he wasn’t well enough to come along, and then lied about the reason I was going. Now he won’t pick up when I call him.”

  “That’s cruel.”

  “I know. He’s not usually like this.”

  “Not him. You. What a shitty thing to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s moving out right now.”

  “That’s the thing. I don’t want to be surprised by something like that.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “How do I track his phone?”

  McGlade raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? Rather than try to work things out like adults, you want to secretly spy on him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No problem. He’s got an iPhone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Got the Find My iPhone app turned on?”

  “I did. He either turned it off, or he’s keeping his phone off.”

  “You could activate Lost Mode. It’ll show you where he is.”

  “Won’t he know I’m doing that?”

  Harry rubbed his chins. “Yeah. Does he use Google?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “You can sign in as him and track his location history.”

  “That’s actually a thing? Google is tracking us?”

  “Stop being naïve. Everyone is tracking us.” McGlade stared into the sky and waved. “Hello, spy satellites. Don’t laser me.”

  “How do I do it?” I asked.

  “Know his password?”

  I nodded. “It’s capital I… l-o-v-e… j-a-c-k.”

  “Ouch,” Harry said. “I bet you feel like the world’s biggest asshole right now.”

  “Can you help me?”

  “Keep an eye on the dog and give me your cell.”

  “What if she wanders off?”

  “Whistle. She’ll come.”

  Harry took my phone in his robotic hand and began to press, pinch, and swipe.

  Rosalina didn’t wander off.

  The enormous blue sky overhead seemed to get bigger. Or maybe I was shrinking.

  “Found him,” he eventually said.

  “At home? In Florida?”

  “Ehhhhh… not quite.”

  “Where is he?”

  McGlade looked at me with pity. Pity from Harry was the worst.

  “He’s in Chicago,” he said.

  That didn’t make any sense.

  “You sure? Right now?”

  “As of forty minutes ago.”

  “Where?”

  “O‘Hare.”

  The airport. Ouch.

  “Any reason he’d be in Chicago?”

  I could think of one. “Can I get a record of his calls?”

  “I can pull up numbers. Not recordings. This is Apple, not the NSA. I can pull up his texts, though, if you back-up to iCloud.”

  I briefly considered the violation of my husband’s privacy, weighed it against my own neuroses, and said, “Do it.”

  McGlade did more phone magic, then winced.

  “Did you know he’s been in touch with Pasha?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer. But I felt like I was falling down a deep, dark hole.

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “You remember her?”

  “From years ago. The clinic in Flutesburg. They used to… date.”

  “Date? They had it hot and heavy for each other. Phin thought she was the one, until—”

  “I know what happened,” I interrupted. “What was the text?”

  “Last message was from three hours ago. She wrote C U soon.”

  Ugh.

  “Want me to read you more?”

  I thought about it. Then shook my head. I had my secrets. Phin had his. If he’d wanted to share this with me, he would have.

  “Maybe they’re just having coffee,” McGlade said.

  I wasn’t good at tuning into my feelings. All of my professional career, I hid them. From my co-workers. From the victims I tried to help, and the suspects I tried to interrogate. Burying my emotions, revealing nothing, gave me an edge.

  The problem was, that feature was also a bug. I’d gotten so good at pretending to be in control that I was able fool myself.

  If Phin was cheating, what did that mean? Did I deserve it? Was I willing to forgive? Did I still want him in my life?

  I didn’t know.

  How pathetic was that? To not even know what you were feeling?

  Rather than tune into it, I excused myself from McGlade and called my mother. My emotional well-being aside, I needed to know if Phin had taken our daughter with him.

  Mom picked up on the second ring.

  “Hi, honey. Bud and I were just thinking about you. She made you a lovely clay bowl. We’re going to put it in the kiln in the activity room after lunch.”

  And there was my answer. “Can’t wait to see it.”

  “It’s so nice that you and Gil are having a romantic getaway. It’s been too long.”

  A romantic getaway. That’s the bullshit he told her when he dumped our kid at her place.

  “Yeah. Gotta rekindle those sparks. You know how it is.”

  “Actually, I don’t. I’ve got more boyfriends here than I know what to do with.”

  “Good for you.”

  “I just went to my first Viagra party.”

  “Viagra party,” I repeated.

  McGlade gave me a thumbs up.

  Mom said, “They’re all the rage at retirement homes.”

  “Is this something I need to know?”

  “We all gather in the party room, and all the men take a pill, then pick their partner’s names out of a hat.”

  “You’re making this up.”

  “I’m not. Then, while we’re all waiting for the pills to kick in, we pass around the bong.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “Have you had sex while high? It’s delightful.”

  “And you’re watching my daughter?”

  “Viagra parties are only on Tuesdays and Fridays, honey. Depending on how long she stays, I suppose I can skip the next one.”

  “Aren’t you being… I dunno… irresponsible?”

  “I’m nearing eighty. What responsibilities do I have, exactly?”

  “Good point.”

  “Can you get any cocaine? Mr. Singh in 302 wanted to score some cocaine.”

  “I’m not entirely comfortable having this conversation.”

  “He said if you put it on your peter, it stays hard longer.”

  “Cocaine on penis,” I said.

  “Makes you stay hard longer,” confirmed McGlade.

  “Is Bud there? Can I talk to her?”