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voice. “The goats would like me.”
    I rolled my eyes and climbed into the Subaru, barely waiting for Gigi to swing her door shut before reversing with unnecessary force.

     
    Back at the office, I put mental blinders on to escape the new decor and retrieved phone messages. Two potential clients. I called them back and set up appointments, well aware of Gigi following the conversations from her desk. A third call was from a client who owned a string of fast food restaurants; he kept Swift Investigations on retainer to run background checks on potential employees. This time, he needed some undercover work done at his Buff Burgers restaurant on the northeast side of town. Buff Burgers was a newish franchise that sold buffalo patties with organic produce and whole wheat buns. I groaned at the prospect of doing fast food work to figure out which employee was skimming money from the cash drawer, and my eyes lighted on Gigi. The menial nature of the job should be just the thing to convince her that investigative work was not glamorous and exciting. “I’ll have an operative there in the morning,” I told Brian.
    I put on a serious face as I hung up the phone. “Gigi, I think I’ve got a case you can handle.”
    She all but clapped her hands and scurried over to plop down in the chair facing my desk.
    “It’s undercover work.” That set the hook. “It might be dangerous.” Yeah, grease splatters might burn her arms. “It’ll be hard, nasty work.” She couldn’t say I hadn’t warned her.
    Her eyes widened. “What do I have to do?”
    I wrote down the Buff Burgers address and handed it to her. “Report to this address at eight tomorrow morning. A worker quit today, and Brian Yukawa, the owner, is holding a job open for you. You’ll fill out an application like anyone would, but you’ll get the job. The manager’ll train you for your duties. Brian thinks someone—maybe the manager—is skimming from the cash register or selling inventory out the back door or something. Your job is to figure out who and how.”
    “How do I do that?”
    Good question. “Keep your eyes open, get to know your co-workers. See if anyone looks like they’re hanging out where they shouldn’t be or has more money than they ought to. This kind of undercover investigation isn’t a science—you just wing it.”
    “Gotcha.” She had the ubiquitous steno pad out, and I’d swear she wrote down “Wing it!”
    “We’ll get together in the afternoons when you’re off shift to discuss the case. Save any questions for me till then; you don’t want to make anyone suspect you’re not just a run-of-the-mill Buff Burgers employee. You’ll do just fine,” I added with an encouraging smile.
    “But what will I wear?” Gigi asked, looking down at her sunny silk ensemble.
    “Not to worry,” I said, waving a dismissive hand. “Brian said something about a uniform.”

3

     
    (Wednesday)
     
    The next morning, after filling out her application and doing a pro forma interview with the Buff Burgers manager, a kid who looked barely older than her seventeen-year-old son, Dexter, Georgia Goldman stared in dismay at the “uniform” he presented.
    “But that’s a buffalo costume,” she protested, eyeing the heavy-looking horned head with distrust.
    “It’s a bison, actually,” the young manager, Dylan, confided. He had a nerdy air about him that convinced Georgia he’d be able to differentiate between weasels and martens or sine and cosine with the same ease he talked about bison versus buffaloes. The Daniel Boone–ish Western look of the Buff Burgers uniform merely emphasized his gawkiness. “But I guess ‘Bison Burgers’ didn’t have the same ring as ‘Buff Burgers,’ so we just go with it.”
    “And I’m supposed to put that on?” She’d spent an hour styling her hair, and it would be crushed.
    “Well, yeah. You’re Bernie the Buffalo, right? Isn’t that the job you applied for? When Brian called last night, he said