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Chapter

1

Sitting in a parked work van on Fifth Street on a beautiful April h-definition Leica binoculars tothat the great detective was sure to make an appearance sometime in the next half hour or so

After all, it was a Thursday and seven thirty in theCross had to work So did his wife And his children had school to attend

Sunday had no sooner had that thought than Regina Cross Hope, Cross’s ninety-one-year-old grandmother, came up the sidewalk from the direction of St Anthony’s Catholic Church The old bird was tough and ht by his van, barely gave it a glance

Then again, ould she?

Sunday had attached ns to the van that advertised OVER THE MOON VACUUM CLEANER COMPANY And behind the tinted glass he earing the uniform of said company, a real find at the Salvation Army Fit perfectly

The used vacuums in the back of the van had been purchased at a secondhand store out in Potons had been ordered online through FedEx Office So had the phony badge on his left shirt pocket It read: THIERRY MULCH

A lithe, fit man in his late thirties with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and slate-gray eyes, Sunday checked his watch as Cross’s grandmother disappeared inside the house Then he took up a black binder stowed between the driver’s seat and the center console

Flipping it open, he noted the tabs on the first five section dividers, each marked with a naina Cross Hope, otherwise known as Nana Mama

Sunday went straight to the Regina Cross Hope/Nana Mama section and filled in the exact time the old woman had entered the house and fros, he flipped to the back of the binder and found a four-page copy of the floor plan of the house, which had conveniently been filed with the city planning board last month as part of Cross’s application for permits to redo his kitchen and bathrooms