“You said Mess took an umbrella with him when he left, but it hasn’t rained here in Ficland Heights in weeks.”

Marli nodded, comprehension sliding across her face like a ray of golden sun through a cloudy sky. “The radio people track the weather, right?”

“Exactly, sweetcakes. If we can track down the storms two nights ago we might get a clue to where he was headed.”

We pulled into the lot behind WFCY and made our way to the front. An ambulance was parked nearby, lights flashing.

There were cops inside, a chalk silhouette on the tile floor in the entrance. Apparently, someone had murdered Norman Reilly, the host of WFCY’s nighttime broadcasts. What a tragedy. He was a riot most nights.

One of the bystanders was nice enough to fill us in on the local weather for the past couple days, said he’d been traveling to Point Blanche around the same time Mess had gone, and had hit some rain on the way.

As we headed out to the car, I lit another cigarette. “Point Blanche,” I muttered. “This could be a long night.”