Free The Rabbit Factory by Marshall Karp Page B

talk for you."
    She had suddenly thought of Joanie, who would never see menopause or wrinkles or experience the joy of growing old with grace. "No, please, it's fine." I said.
    Angel's eyes welled up, and a tear trickled slowly down her cheek, leaving a visible streak across her perfect makeup. "It's my bedtime," she said, quickly blotting her face with a dinner napkin and standing up. "You two macho men can stay up and yell at each other all night. It won't keep me awake."
    I stood up, and she hugged me. Not a perfunctory goodnight squeeze, but the compassionate, consoling embrace reserved for loved ones in pain. "I miss her too," she whispered.
    Then she put her arms around Jim's neck and kissed him gently, and I could see him melt. I wondered what my mother would think about Jim and Angel. Was she joking when she used to say "next time we go up to The Hillview we should bring her back home with us," or did she have a vision?
    Angel left the room. Skunkie curled up at the foot of Jim's chair. I tuned in to the rhythm of his breathing as he drifted into Happy Doggie Slumberland.
    I
    88 --
    "Can we drop the Diana thing?" I said. "I'm working on a homicide, and I need your help."
    He bowed his head. "I live to serve."
    I took him through the Elkins murder. The jump rope, the flipbook, the missing ear, every detail. He didn't utter a single word until I got to the part about Rambunctious Rabbit being a convicted pedophile. "When you find the killer," he said, "somebody should pin a medal on him." When I finished, he simply said, "How can I help?"
    "All my cop training tells me to follow the pedophile path. Somewhere in Elkins's past is a person whom he hurt so bad that they had to kill him." "That's what your cop training tells you. What do your instincts say?"
    "Something is rotten at Lamaar. Terry was there ahead of me," I said, giving credit where credit was due. "He says if you want to kill the guy who molested your child, why not go to his house? But whoever killed Elkins took the trouble to get through Lamaar's security and killed him on Lamaar property while Elkins was dressed up as Lamaar's signature character." "Sounds like Terry's right. The killer's got a grudge against Lamaar."
    "It feels like a real possibility, and if that's the case, then the bodies will start piling up. Victim Number Two, Number Three, Number Four," I said, counting them off on my fingers. "I've seen it before. Then it won't stop." "Did you see what you just did?" Jim asked.
    "No, what'd I do?"
    "You counted the victims off on your fingers," he said.
    "So?"
    I
    "Show me Victim Number Four again."
    I held up four fingers.
    "Now show me Victim Number One."
    I held up my index finger.
    "Now show me Victim Number One, but use a different finger."
    It took a few seconds for me to process what he was getting at. Then I slowly closed my index finger and held up a different finger. The middle one. "Damn," I said. "The finger in the flipbook. It doesn't mean 'fuck you.'" "Sure it does," he said. "But I think it also means 'Victim Number One.'" "Big Jim Lomax, you're a fucking genius," I said. "I guess the three years I spent working on the set of Murder She Wrote finally paid off." "So Terry nailed it from the get-go," I said. "Somebody is out to kill off the Lamaar characters, one at a time." ' "That would be my take on it." "Terry and I are going to have to learn a lot more about this company if we're ever going to figure this out." "There's a couple of real good books on Lamaar," Jim said. "You could just turn to the last chapter and find out who the killer is." He sipped his coffee. "Or you could just ask your dear old Dad to help." "I already asked for your help," I said. "What do want me to do, beg?" "Hell, no." He grinned, and I knew what was coming next. "I just want you to go out with Diana." "You realize you're blackmailing an officer of the law," I said.
    "Arrest me," he said.
    If there's one thing I learned growing up, it's that Teamsters know