They watched the tape of Hank's appearance that night, and Logan almost hurt himself laughing. "I swear, Hank, when they integrate that footage of you and Chill in Las Vegas..." He shook his head. "Wilson is going to come back to a bigger audience share."

He had left the next day free. Hank had talked to the officer who picked up the apples at the studio, but it went against Hank's grain not to make a statement as soon as possible. He'd called the precinct, and spoken to one of the detectives, giving him a brief account of what had gone on at the station, and what Tina had told him. Both men climbed into Logan's truck. Logan said, "Chase can manage getting in here all right--he's like a monkey, he just swarms right up. But Tina almost needs a stepladder."

Hank grinned. "Gives you a perfectly good reason to pick her up, doesn't it?"

There were several people out working in their yards, trying to get some work done before it got too hot. Logan's truck attracted some attention. Hank noticed that people in casual clothes (who were apparently home owners) gave them a suspicious or irritated looks, and those in uniforms (obviously professional gardeners) gave them admiring glances. He mentioned it to Logan, and he chuckled. "You know, there's a man who manages a BMW outlet living two blocks over, and he offered me an obscenely good deal on the model of my choice--on the condition that I get rid of the truck. He didn't say it, but he thinks it lowers the tone of the neighborhood."

Hank gave him a disbelieving look. "With the price tag on this vehicle? No," Hank corrected himself, "I'm doing something I should be ashamed of. Class is not judged by price."

"Don't say that too loud, Hank. It will ruin the careers of half of my clients."

At the police station, they were shown back to speak to Detective Dustin Hoffman. "Not the Dustin Hoffman," he said.

Hank shook hands "Excuse me?"

Logan sighed. "I can't take you anywhere. Hank--the actor?"

Hank looked at the detective, who was almost as tall as he was, and very blond. "Do you get mistaken for him often?"

The detective shrugged, smiling a little. "I guess it must be because this is California. I suppose most people out here are movie obsessed. Have a seat." As they sat, he said, "You're the one who noticed the tampering, correct?"

"I only looked at one, but it was pretty clear. Was I wrong?"

"You were not. We found a double-edged razor blade. There were three more doctored apples, all the same. There were tons of prints on the wrappers, but it's by no means sure if we'll get anything positive from them. Lord knows how many people handled them. Anyway, we don't know for sure if those were the original wrappers. With the new handicraft tools available it wouldn't have been too difficult to replace them. We may have better luck with the caramel itself." He grinned "You know, that stuff is almost as good at holding prints as putty. Anyway, someone put some real effort into this."

Hank winced. "Oh, that is just evil."

"I have to agree." He was watching Hank. "Who can understand why someone would perform such a vicious random act?" Hank had removed his hat upon sitting down, and now he looked down at it, turning it in his hands. "You don't agree?"

"Well, I agree that there's no understandable explanation for such an act--if it's random."

The detective nodded. "You think that this was not an undirected incident."

"If that was the only thing that had happened recently, I'd have no real problem believing that. But I've heard a little bit about what's been going on down at that station. I'd have to say that it looks like it's just one in a series of events."

"Aimed at--what?"

"Again, I haven't heard enough to come up with a truly informed theory, but since it hasn't been targeting any one person or production, I'd say either the station itself, or the owners."

"That's what I thought. It's nice to hear someone else shares my views. I have a captain that practically wants a written guaranty of what we're going to find before he budgets more time and resources." He shuffled a few papers. "I dropped by the studio yesterday evening and had a look around. I wish I'd known about that incident with Good Morning, Glendale earlier. By the time I got there, they'd switched the desks out, so the scene was compromised. I located the desk, though."

Logan sat forward. "What did you find?"

Hank made a clucking sound. "I should have looked at that, but in the rush to get Devin taken care of I clean forgot. What was in the drawer?"

"When I got there--nothing. But..." he held up a finger, as if making a point. "There was a nail hole in the drawer. It was fresh, and the direction of the splintering indicated that the nail had been driven up from the bottom at a sharp angle. If you just shoved your hand in without looking, you'd have better odds of catching your hand than not. There was also blood, from Tarnower's injury. I spoke with Mrs. Bergeron, and she's contacting the cat and snake owners to forward copies of the emails they received. I have a feeling that when we check the header information, we're going to find that they didn't originate from her computer. That should go a long way toward helping us figure out who's behind all this. I'm not sure how much headway we'll make with the earlier incidents. They weren't considered all that serious, and no evidence was preserved." He eyed Hank. "Are you investigating this?"

"Oh, no... no," Hank demurred. The detective gave him a skeptical look. "Not formally. I'm not a licensed private detective." He paused. "Of course, that wouldn't be a problem as long as I wasn't taking a fee, and there's no way I'd charge these people just for keeping my eyes open and my ear to the ground."

"Thought so." Dustin grinned. "Retired my ass."

Hank and Logan spent the rest of the morning just relaxing. Hank picked up a few souvenirs to bring home. They might not be in Los Angeles proper, but there were plenty of Los Angeles and Hollywood items available. Hank observed that there were probably a few states where it was much easier to find touristy knick-knacks. "Texas, California, all the states that were in the original thirteen colonies... But how big is the tourist products industry in, oh, South Dakota?" When Logan made a teasing grimace, Hank smiled and shrugged. "Okay, so I'm a state chauvinist. Hell, Logan, we're from Texas--if it isn't genetic, it's written into the state constitution somewhere."

He showed off his purchases to Tina and Chase when they dropped by the station to take them to lunch. They went by Chuy's--a popular Baja-style Mexican restaurant. Hank heartily approved of Chase's choice of crispy tacos, but he shook his head over Logan's ceviche and Tina's vegetarian enchiladas. "I don't consider seafood that's been marinated in citrus juice to be 'cooked', and before you ask, I don't eat sushi, either. I've been known to eat and enjoy broiled fish, but I still believe its proper form is deep-fried--with hushpuppies. And enchiladas with zucchini, carrots, and spinach..." He shuddered. "I'm sorry, but that's just wrong."

Hank himself had chosen Birria de Chivo, and dismissed Tina and Chase's shudders and grimaces when they found out that it was goat. "But how can you do it?" asked Tina. "Goats are so cute!"

Chase was nodding, eyeing Hank's plate with wide eyes. Hank figured he'd better not say anything about cabrito. "I suppose you folks don't eat rabbit, squirrel, or venison, either." More faces. "And you don't consider calves cute?"

Tina's voice was just a touch arch. "We don't eat veal."

"How about pigs?"

"Well, pork is..."

"Mama!" Chase tugged at her sleeve, and his expression was almost horrified, as if he'd realized something. "Babe! We might eat Babe! Or Arnold Ziffle..."

She sighed. "Thank you, Hank."

He smiled sweetly. "My pleasure, ma'am."

"And your sister is allowing you around your niece?"

"I don't have to try to put Eloise off food--she already refuses to eat anything she might want as a pet. Other than that, if she doesn't know what it is, she'll eat anything that doesn't eat her first. Chase, buddy, you're still making faces."

Tina looked at him. "Chase, stop sticking your tongue out."

"I can't help it," said Chase. "It tastes funny when I think about goat."

"Hm." Hank looked thoughtful. "Do you suppose that some of that deep fried ice cream might take the taste away?"

Tina laughed. "Okay, I take it back. You're excellent uncle material."

"We get the fun parts," Hank agreed. "It's almost as good a job as being a granddaddy. Tina, did those guests from yesterday send you the suspicious emails?"

"They did, but I haven't had a chance to look at them yet."

"If you don't mind, I'll drop by after lunch and have a look."

"Mind? Thank you for not making me drag you down there by your collar. I'd have to stand on a stepladder to reach." They finished off the meal with Hank and Chase sharing a portion of the fried ice cream, while Tina and Logan shared the more sedate flan--though somehow Chase managed to get a taste of that, too. Hank again declared that he was obviously fated to end up with Eloise, since she was adept at sampling every available dessert when they ate out.

Beau greeted Hank with a much more relaxed attitude. "Hey. How's the mini-dinosaur?"

"Oh, he's fine," said Hank genially. "He found an empty flower bed at Logan's place, and he's already set himself up a nice little burrow there."

"I can just imagine what Harato, my gardener, is going to say about that." Logan laughed. "He only swears in Japanese. He doesn't know that Hank's grandfather spent some time in Tokyo after the war. He taught us most of the choice cuss words."

"And he slept in the living room for a solid month when my grandma found out," said Hank.

"I'm waiting for the perfect time to let him know that I understand what he's saying," added Logan.

"Be careful about that," said Tina. "Harato is seventy if he's a day. We don't want him having a heart attack."

They dropped Chase off at his daycare, and he hurried to regale his classmates with tales about goat-eating, snake wrangling Texans. "I'm going to be Pecos Bill before I get home," remarked Hank as they took the elevator upstairs.

Logan remained in the hallway, looking through the door, when they got to Tina's office, "Because if I crammed myself in there, too, it would be like that phone booth stuffing they did in the fifties."

Hank squeezed back behind the desk, barely managing to get his knees under the desk. "You all may have to pull this thing out for me to be able to stand up, Tina," he warned.

She leaned around to operate the computer. "Okay, here's the last email I know I sent to Rose, and the one to the snake guy."

Hank pulled out a small notebook and carefully copied down some information. "Now let's see the ones they received yesterday telling them the visits had been rescheduled."

Tina used the mouse, saying, "That's right! You can tell who sent those, then we'll have them."

Hank had continued to copy. Now he studied the four sets of numbers and symbols, and frowned. "It may not be that simple, Tina."

"Why not? Unless they got really fancy and, like, routed things through Outer Mongolia, or used a public Internet hookup, it should tell us exactly who sent those."

"So it should. But according to this..." he glanced at her, "you sent them."