Saturday Night Cleaver (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #4) by Karen Cantwell

around. Or married couples with grown kids. Uh huh, uh huh.”
    “Thank you,” he said with a very officious tip of the head. I think he was quietly savoring the moment. “We appreciate your help. If you do see anyone getting in or leaving in the car, would you call us?”
    “Sure, Uh huh, uh huh. Sure!”
    We made a quick getaway from the Fetty house, but she waved as we headed back to our own car. “I hope your friend is okay!”
    “Maybe Colt broke into their house and the dogs ate him,” Howard grumbled.
    “They’re not vicious,” I laughed. “Just curious.”

    We hadn’t learned much except that Colt was unlikely to have spent the night at one of the other houses on Sassafras Lane. In my mind, this was more reason to accept the fact that his text was a call for help. When I expressed this worry to Howard, he didn’t disagree. Next stop was Colt’s condo. We had decided to hold off calling Clarence until we had better information—so far we didn’t have much except the location of the car and the alarming text.
    On the drive over, Howard tried Colt’s cell phone again to no avail. Still straight to voicemail.
    Inside, the condo was on the cool side. I looked at the thermostat—off. Howard threw the untouched newspaper we’d found on the doormat onto a small table next to the front door. “I’ll check bedroom and bathroom,” he said. “You look around out here.”
    I sniffed around the tiny kitchen. A bowl with some dried chunks of cereal around the sides rested in the sink. By the looks of it, I was guessing it had been there since the morning before. The counters were clean, the coffee pot had a smidgen of coffee left in the carafe, and a cutting board lay to one side with a knife and one dehydrated piece of apple on top. The refrigerator was what I expected for a single man: nearly empty. A carton of milk less than half full, three Coronas, a chunk of cheddar cheese, and an orange. No taco fixings except for the cheese, but that didn’t really mean anything. He’d probably planned on stopping at the store for those items on his way to our house. The freezer was filled to the brim with frozen pizzas and microwaveable dinners. Now I knew how he ate when he wasn’t at our place whipping up yummy meals.
    Howard came out of the bathroom. “Find anything?” I asked.
    “Not out of the ordinary. The sink and his toothbrush are bone dry, though. That tells me he hasn’t been here since yesterday.”
    I closed the freezer door as Howard scooted around me. He headed into the living area, which contained a sofa, a TV, and a desk with a hutch. Howard went straight to the closed laptop on the desk. He picked up a business card that had been placed on top. I followed him into the living area and looked over his shoulder at the card. It featured a logo with red, sexy kissing lips. Swirling underneath then upward in a black cursive font were the words, Saturday Night Fever . Howard flipped the card over to reveal an address scrawled in blue ink: 233 Dusty Pines Place. I knew that road. It was in Rustic Woods not far from Lake Muir. Under the address was scribbled what must have been a date and a time: Nov 6 9:30 p.
    “November 6th,” I said. “That’s today’s date. Do you think the p mean’s pm?”
    Howard nodded and looked around the room. Then he smiled and looked right at me and grinned. “Uh huh, uh huh. Yup, yup,” he said, bobbing his head up and down.
    My husband made a funny. He had a sense of humor after all. I chuckled. “What do you think Saturday Night Fever is?”
    “Saw that name on a discussion board last night. It’s a club for swingers.”
    “In Rustic Woods?”
    He nodded again.
    “Get out! Seriously?” I let the oddity of that idea sink in for a minute then voiced some hypotheses. “So either Colt is delving into some...interesting hobbies...or maybe this club has something to do with the job he’s working on.”
    Howard’s eyebrows lifted slightly in response as he