“People of the Divine Path.”

“They really like the word divine.”

“Yeah, they think they are.” She leveled a serious stare on me. “Divine. Anointed. Godly.”

“Don’t we all?” I asked with my best self-deprecating smile.

I gave Marley one last scrub, then left.

I had Cookie on the phone before I even got to Misery. “Cookie, I need you to find out who’s on trial for murdering her baby twenty-five years ago. They just found the —”

“Veronica Isom.”

I stopped. “Wow, that was fast.”

“It’s been all over the news.”

I really needed to jump on that whole evening news movement. “Thanks, Cook. Can you find out where she’s being held?”

“Sure, hon. Give me five.”

“You got it.”

I climbed into Misery but didn’t start her up. Instead, I waited for the little beastie in the passenger seat to announce her intentions.

I knew the kid. She was a blond-haired, blue-eyed beauty who’d drowned when she was nine years old. She lived with my friend Rocket and the gang at an abandoned mental asylum, so I really didn’t see her much. She had her friends and no time for boring old me.

Strawberry, a.k.a. Strawberry Shortcake based off the pajamas she wore, sat pretending to eat ice cream from a bowl. She would take a bite, then give a bite to her doll. The bald one.

Strawberry had a thing for dolls’ hair. Well, hair in general. She was always wanting to brush mine or braid it or give me a quick trim. After seeing her doll collection, I decided to go to a professional.

“Do you like dolls?” she asked out of the blue.

“I like blow-up dolls. Does that count?”

“Oh, I do, too. My friend Alex had one, and we would punch it in the face, and then it would bounce back up again.”

We were so not on the same page. “Hey, sweetness, what are you doing here?”

“I saw you driving and came over.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Have you seen Angel?” She’d developed a bit of a crush on my thirteen-year-old investigator.

“Not for a while.”

“Oh. I need you to talk to my brother.”

Her brother, David Taft, was an APD officer I liked to occasionally harass. “Yeah? Dating skanks again?”

She shook her head. “He fell, and now I can’t see him anymore.”

I froze. “Strawberry, what do you mean, he fell?”

“I don’t know. I just saw him fall, and now I can’t find him. I need you to look.”

Okay, if there was one thing the departed excelled at, it was the cryptic message. Strawberry was no different, but if she couldn’t see him…

Alarm slipped up my spine. Had he really fallen? Had he died? Had he crossed?

“Okay. I’ll look into it, hon.”

She nodded and force-fed her doll another bite. “You’ve been gone forever. I was looking for you, too. I thought you left.”

I reached over and smoothed her hair over her shoulder. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her she’d just seen me a few days prior. The departed didn’t always have the best sense of time. Maybe it was the same with her brother.

She lifted a tiny shoulder. “It’s okay.”

“Want to ride with me a while? I’m going to visit a woman accused of murder.”

After a yawn, she shrugged again. “I guess.”

Kids these days. So hard to keep entertained.

I started Misery, dragged my phone out of my pocket, and called Uncle Bob.

“What are you doing?” he said in lieu of a greeting.

“I’m not driving, if that’s what you mean. I was calling about Officer Taft. Is he okay?”

After a moment of silence, he asked, “David Taft?”

“That’s the one. His sister can’t find him.”

“He has a sister?”

“Departed.”

“Oh. Oh, right. I guess I didn’t realize you knew him that well. David Taft is on leave.”

“On leave? Since when?”

“Since about four months ago. It was really strange, though. He came in one day, talked to the captain, then cleaned out his desk and left. We haven’t seen him since.”

“Are you sure he didn’t get transferred?”

“Not according to our records.”

If Taft had just left his job, taken some time off, why couldn’t Strawberry see him? Not that she was the more reliable source, but still…

“Okay what’s your theory?” I asked.

“Theory?”

“Come on, Ubie. What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know, pumpkin. He got burned out. It happens all the time.”

Not to the David Taft I knew and almost respected. He loved his job and he’d only been on the force a year or two. And, last I’d checked, he was training to be a sniper. He’d had hopes. Aspirations. And probably an STD from all the skanks he’d dated, according to Strawberry.

“That just doesn’t sound like something he’d do.”

“I don’t know, pumpkin. This life isn’t for everyone.”

I heard that. “Okay, thanks, Uncle Bob. Can you keep me updated on this?”

“Absolutely. Are you at home?”

I blinked. “Yes.”