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introduce myself. “Tell me, does
anybody
ever actually use that pay phone?” I pause as if my next question just occurs to me. “Like when was the last time somebody came in here and used that phone?”
    “During my shift? Yesterday morning…” She looks at the ceiling and says, “Around nine.” Inwardly I perk up. That’s the time and date of one of the hang-ups on the list from Laura. Mary sits down at the table across from my booth. “I remember because he needed a lot of change, I guess for a long-distance call.”
    “You’re kidding,” I say. “Who makes a long-distance call these days on a pay phone? That’s nuts.” I steeple my hands and discreetly rub one of my palms with the thumb of my other hand to erase the phone number I’d written on it.
    “I’ll tell you who makes a call,” Mary answers. “Bobby Taylor, that loser.”
    Bobby Taylor. I remember the
BT
scribbled on Juliana’s pad—could he be the right guy? “God, Mary, you don’t have an opinion about the man, do you?” I chuckle. “Why’s this Bobby Taylor a loser? Tell me all about it,” I say like a co-conspirator. “Did it start in high school?” I cringe inwardly, flashing back on some of my own not-so-proud moments of bad high school behavior…and then quickly take another bite of wheat toast.
    “High school? That guy and his big brother been getting into trouble since the first grade,” she says. “And then their cousin Teresa moved here, and things got even worse.”
    Teresa? Like the name on the scrap stuffed in the dead pigeon’s beak? I try to disguise my extreme excitement. Wahoo, I’m getting somewhere, the first time out. “Worse?” I say casually. “How so?”
    “Oh, a lot of stealing, car chases,” Mary says. “It was in all the papers. Called them the Scranton Gang, a teenage Bonnie and Clyde… Must have been, let’s see, twenty-five years ago.”
    I finish my omelet. “Sounds like somebody could’ve made a movie about Bobby Taylor, his big brother, and Teresa.”
    “Yeah, what a show that would have been. Even heard something was going on between Bobby and Teresa. Like maybe he was after her.” Mary hands me the check. “Anyway, first time I seen Bobby in years when he showed up here about a week ago.”
    “Where’s he been?” I laugh. “Prison?”
    She doesn’t find the suggestion funny. “Probably. That’s what I heard.” Mary turns her head and coughs into the inside of her elbow—a deep, gravelly, smoker’s cough. “Anyway, he’s been having breakfast here every morning since. Funny, he didn’t come in today. Maybe he took off again.”
    I settle up, leaving a quite generous tip. “What ever happened to Teresa Taylor and Bobby’s big brother?”
    “Joe Taylor? Who knows. The papers stopped printing the stories, and people lost interest,” Mary says. “And her name was Gonzalez, by the way, not Taylor.”
    I get up from the table. “Mary, this has been the most entertaining breakfast I’ve had in a long time.” I head for the door. “Great talking to you.”
    “Likewise, Ronnie.” She glances at the tip and smiles.
    Outside, I walk toward my car, and before I’m there, my dog pops up from his morning snooze in the back seat. I let him out on the sidewalk with his traveling water bowl, and he takes a big drink. “See, Warrior? How hard can this detective thing be?” As I empty the left over water in the gutter, Warrior takes a quick pee on the curb, looking at me as if I’m a fool.

Chapter Seven
    Next stop—the Moosic Motel, the source of the second phone number on my list of mystery hang-ups at Meadow Farm. From my research, I know it’s a fifty-five-dollar-a-night establishment about ten minutes from the airport. This part of town is dicey, or “sketchy,” as my kids now say. Feeling a little ridiculous, I find myself automatically clicking the locks of my car.
    When I reach the address, I park in front and sit a moment to take in the ambience. Maybe if they