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anything?”
    He shrugged and passed a hand over curly black hair.“Don’t know yet, ma’am. We’re still sorting it out. There’s talk of arson, assault, inciting a riot . . . I don’t know what all. The detectives aren’t here yet.”
    “What the hell happened?” I asked Gigi, half thinking the cop would stop me. He didn’t. “And take that goddamned buffa—bison head off so I can talk to you.”
    “I can’t,” she wailed. “It’s stuck.”
    “Here. You push and I’ll pull,” I said. “Bend down.”
    Gigi obeyed, and I grabbed hold of her horns, tugging with all my might as she pushed at the animal’s lower jaw. Officer Venetti motioned to a fellow cop, and they both watched, amused looks on their faces. Just as I was starting to think we’d need a circular saw or a hammer, the head popped off and I fell on my ass, holding one curved horn as the rest of the head rolled a few feet and stopped. Two small children standing nearby burst into tears. “She killed Bernie!”
    Their mother coaxed them away with promises of ice cream, and I figured Buff Burgers had lost their business permanently to some fast food joint that didn’t behead large mammals in its parking lot. The cops doubled over, roaring with laughter as I stood up, holding the plastic horn like a dagger. I wasn’t sure who to plunge it in first. I fought the urge to rub my tailbone, feeling the jolt all the way up my spine and into my head.
    Gigi, plump cheeks flushed red, ash blond hair flattened to her scalp on one side and standing out in a winglike formation on the other, perspiration dripping down her temples, looked at me with trepidation. I closed my eyes and took three slow breaths.
    “What happened?” I forced my hand open and let the horn fall to the ground before I committed a felony.
    “Well, when I got up this morning, I—”
    I held up one hand in a stop signal. “This. Explain this.” I gestured to the burning restaurant, the ambulance, the cops.
    “Um, well, I was getting the hang of being Bernie and really kind of liking it—the children were so sweet—except it was really hot. So I went into the back to get an iced tea and get to know the kids who work here, like you said. I’m the oldest employee by a good thirty-five years, I think. Anyway, while I was chatting, I kept an eye on the business at the counter, you know, the cash registers and stuff. And after a while I realized that Jody”—she pointed to the teen now sitting beneath the aspen tree, a Band-Aid on his forehead—“wasn’t ringing everything up. When a customer would place the order, he’d ring up the burger and fries or whatever, you know, the stuff that one of the kitchen workers got ready, but he didn’t ring up the drinks or cookies or stuff he could get himself. He’d charge the customer the full amount, and I’m sure that at the end of the shift, he’d pocket the difference.”
    “She’s lying!” Jody growled. In his Buff Burgers uniform, he looked like a skinny pioneer who’d gone one too many rounds with the Indians. Two buttons were torn off his shirt, and his coonskin cap hung askew, showing lank brown hair. The EMT was binding a nasty burn on his hand.
    “He must be really good at math to be able to do that,” Gigi added, an admiring note in her voice. “I noticed most of these kids couldn’t give you change for a dollar if you bought a fifty-cent Junior Bernie Moose Froth Non-Dairy Dessert.”
    “I’m not. She’s crazy. She attacked me!”
    “I didn’t!” Gigi’s eyes welled up, but she firmed her mouth into a determined line. “I merely went over to
talk
to him, to tell him what I’d noticed, encourage him to do the honest thing.”
    I rolled my eyes at her naïveté. “What happened then?”
    “He grabbed a basket of fries from the frying well and flung them at me!” Gigi’s voice climbed higher. “He ruined my Bernie costume.” She pointed to the large grease splotches staining the costume. “Some of