22 Tricky Twenty-Two (5 page)

I STEPPED OUT
of my apartment at eight
A.M.
and found a Rangeman guy waiting for me in the hall.

“This is for you,” he said, handing me a Mercedes key. “The paperwork is in the glove box. Ranger said you would understand.”

I took the key and thanked him. Ranger was efficient, as always. We exited the building together, and the Rangeman guy waited for me to find my new car and get behind the wheel before he left.

Ranger had given me a little SUV. I suspected it had originally been a fleet car because it had the ankle restraint loops welded onto the floor of the backseat. It smelled like a new car, and it was immaculately clean.

I drove to the bonds office, parked at the curb, and Lula opened the office door before I got to it.

“Looks to me like Ranger gave you another car,” Lula said. “And this one’s a Mercedes. You must have done somethin’ good to that man.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but no. It was a business deal.”

“I do business all the time, and I don’t get no Mercedes,” Lula said.

Connie looked over at me. “I hear Doug Linken was shot. Was that on your watch?”

“No. They were home. He went outside to smoke and someone shot him.”

I saw their eyes shift from me to the front door, and I turned to look. It was Morelli.

“Here comes Officer Hottie,” Lula said. “I tell you, I wouldn’t mind him putting me in cuffs.”

Morelli hung at the door and crooked his finger at me. “I want to talk to you,” he said. “Outside.”

Crap. Talking to Morelli right now wasn’t high on my list of favorite activities. It came right between stick a fork in my eye and drink Drano. I mean, I really like Morelli. Actually, I
love
Morelli, but I had no clue what to say or think at this point beyond wanting to punch him in the face.

“Sorry I didn’t call last night,” he said. “It was a busy night. Gangbanger drive-by, and then I pulled the Linken shooting.”

“Lucky you.”

“I had a brief conversation with Mrs. Linken last night just before she passed out. She said you and Ranger were supposed to be protecting them.”

“We escorted them to the Getz viewing, but then we were off duty. When word went out that Doug Linken was shot, Ranger wanted me at the hospital to babysit Monica.”

“Did she need babysitting?”

“Mostly she needed vodka.”

“Did you get anything useful out of her?”

“Her big news was that she didn’t have the perfect marriage, and Doug had a lot of enemies. Do you think she could have shot him?”

“It’s doubtful. It looks like the shooter was twenty to thirty feet away, shooting toward the house.”

“Monica said she didn’t pay attention to the gunshots because she was watching
CSI
and there was a lot of shooting. I find that hard to believe, but maybe it’s possible. She went to the kitchen during a commercial and noticed the door was open.”

“The first responders said it looked like Doug Linken went out to smoke.”

“Monica said the same thing. They were trying to quit, but Doug wasn’t having total luck with it.”

“So that problem’s solved for him,” Morelli said. “It’s too early for me to disturb the widow with questions. Would you like to go for coffee?”

“No! I think you’re a jerk.”

“I come by it honestly. It runs in my family.”

This is true. All the men in Morelli’s family have been losers. All except Morelli. Somewhere in his twenties he’d managed to grow up. He was a really good cop, and until two days ago he’d been an okay boyfriend.

“I can’t believe you’re thinking about a job change. I thought you loved being a cop.”

“I’ve got acid reflux.”

“I thought that was from
me.
”

“Yeah, you too.” His cellphone buzzed and he checked the text message. “I have to go. They’re doing the autopsy on Linken first thing this morning, and I want to attend.”

“Maybe
that’s
why you have acid reflux.”

“Dead people don’t bother me. I worry about the living. Lately I’m thinking this planet is just a videogame designed to amuse an alien race with a sick sense of humor.”

“Jeez.”

Morelli pulled me close and kissed me with a lot of tongue. “Stay safe,” he said, releasing me, heading for his green SUV.

He’d gotten the car so he could haul his big orange dog Bob around. It wasn’t brand-new, but it ran okay, and it looked pretty good except where Bob had gnawed a hole in the backseat. Bob had an eating disorder. Bob ate
everything.

“Looks like a good day in Plumville,” Lula said when I went back inside. “You got a Mercedes from one hot guy and a smokin’ hot kiss from another, and it’s not even nine o’clock yet. What’s Morelli up to this morning that he had to rush off?”

“Doug Linken’s autopsy is scheduled,” I said. “Morelli’s attending.”

“That’s a fast-track autopsy,” Connie said. “Business must be slow at the morgue.”

“I spotted Ken Globovic last night, but he got away,” I said to Connie. “He was at the corner of M Street and Hawthorne. I was hoping you could run his fraternity brothers through the system and see if anyone is living there.”

“There’s a bar on that corner that got excellent onion rings,” Lula said. “I wouldn’t mind taking a personal look around that neighborhood at lunchtime.”

“Works for me,” I said. “We can do a fast tour through Billy Bacon’s hood, hunt down Julie Ruley for a chat, and hopefully by that time Connie will have an address for me that’s close to the bar.”

Connie pulled a padded envelope off the corner of her desk and handed it to me. “This came in for you yesterday. No return address. Maybe you want to open it outside, just in case.”

“That’s not funny,” Lula said to Connie. “There’s crazy people out there that Stephanie put in jail, and now some of them are getting out on parole. Fortunately most of them aren’t smart enough to get hold of anthrax or build a bomb. Still, you never know, right?”

I opened the envelope and pulled out a picture of a naked guy. He was in a bathtub and his Mr. Happy was floating peacefully in the water.

Lula looked over my shoulder at the picture. “That’s a real nice bath caddy he got,” she said. “I bet he got that at Pottery Barn.”

Connie came around and looked at it. “That’s Daniel Craig. I’ve seen that picture before. It’s all over YouTube.”

“Get out,” Lula said. “Daniel Craig is James Bond. He wouldn’t have a limp little wiener floating around like that.”

“Is there a note?” Connie asked.

I checked the envelope. “No note. Just the picture signed by someone named Scooter.”

I gave the picture back to Connie. “Toss it. I don’t know anyone named Scooter.”

“I’ll take it,” Lula said. “I keep a file of future household improvements.”

I currently was using a canvas green and tan camouflage messenger bag as a purse. I thought it complemented my jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers, and it was able to hold all the tools of my trade. Files of felons, cuffs, hairspray, lip gloss, stun gun, hair brush, pepper spray, cellphone, pimple concealer, Kleenex, hand sanitizer, car keys, etc. I hiked the bag higher onto my shoulder and turned to leave.

“Text me if you have any luck with the fraternity brothers,” I said to Connie.

“I’m on it.”

“This here’s gonna be good,” Lula said. “We get to ride around in your fancy new car.”

I drove to Billy Bacon’s apartment building, and Lula and I climbed the stairs to the third floor. We knocked twice and no one answered. Lula tried the door. Locked.

“I got drugs,” Lula yelled.

Billy Bacon’s mother opened the door and looked out at us, and the door across the hall opened and a young guy looked out.

“How much?” he asked.

“I lied,” Lula said. “And anyways I wasn’t yelling at your door.”

Billy Bacon’s mother gave a disgusted grunt and slammed the door shut.

“Hey,” Lula said, pounding on the door. “Open up. It’s Lula, and I need to talk to you.”

The door opened and Bacon’s mother squinted at us. “I don’t know no Lula.”

“I was friends with Charlene. You and her used to tag team back when you were a working ’ho.”

“Do you got any liquor?”

“Nope,” Lula said. “We didn’t think to bring any.”

“Well, I might talk to you if you had liquor.”

I pulled a ten-dollar bill out of my bag and waved it at Bacon’s mother. She snatched at it, and I jerked it away.

“Is Billy here?” I asked her.

“Billy who?”

“Your
son.
”

“Haven’t seen him. He was gone when I got up.”

“When did you get up?” Lula asked.

“Just now.”

“Would you mind if we look in your apartment?” I asked her.

“Are you gonna give me that ten?”

I gave her the ten, and she stepped aside. The apartment consisted of two rooms. Small bedroom, bathroom, small living room with a refrigerator, two-burner stove, and a sink. There was a tattered couch, a Formica-topped table with two chairs, a television, and a twin-sized mattress with rumpled bedding on the floor in the living room. No Billy Bacon.

I left my card on the table, and Lula and I trudged down the stairs.

“I hate to see how she’s fallen on hard times,” Lula said. “She used to make good money. She had one of the best corners on Stark Street. She didn’t even used to work in the rain. She was a nice-weather ’ho. And now look at her. She got something growing on her lip that you only see in a horror movie.”

We sat in the Mercedes and watched the street for a while. No one went in or out of the apartment building. Billy Bacon didn’t magically appear.

“Maybe we should check out his former place of employment,” Lula said. “He might have gone back to cooking burgers.”

I drove to Mike’s Burgers and idled at the curb while Lula went in to ask about Billy. She returned with a giant soda and a bucket of fries. No Billy.

“They don’t know where he is,” Lula said. “They said they think he’s hiding on account of some crazy-ass bounty hunter almost got him killed.”

“That would be you,” I said to Lula.

“I was an innocent bystander. I was minding my own business and I got carjacked. You want some fries?”

“They’re green.”

“They said it was some special potatoes, and they didn’t even charge me extra for it.”

“I’ll pass.”

IT WAS MIDMORNING
when I got to Kiltman. I parked in a lot behind the administration building and we cut across campus to the Zeta house.

Three women were marching back and forth across the front lawn. They were holding signs that called for the annihilation of the Zetas.

“What’s the deal?” Lula asked one of the women. “What’s wrong with the Zetas?”

“Everything. They’re all pigs. It’s a totally sexist fraternity.”

“I’m pretty sure fraternities are supposed to be sexist,” Lula said to her. “Now, if people started vomiting up cockroaches when they were in there, that would be something. You ever see anything like that?”

“Not cockroaches,” one of the women said. “Just normal vomit.”

“That makes me feel a lot better,” Lula said. “I was worried about the cockroaches.”

The front door was open so we walked in. All was quiet. No pigs milling around. No cockroaches that we could see.

“It’s a big house,” Lula said. “Gobbles could be hiding somewhere here. Are you going to go door to door?”

“No. I don’t want to see what’s behind some of these doors.”

“Evil?”

“Naked men.”

“Do you want me to look?” Lula asked.

“Not without cause.”

“I think he’d be in the cellar,” Lula said. “They’re always hiding either in the cellar or the attic. ’Course sometimes they’re in a closet or under the bed. And remember that time that little person was in the clothes dryer? Although I don’t think he got in there voluntarily since he was getting tumbled and someone had to have pushed the button.”

“My experience is that fraternities usually have bars in the cellar. Or at least a cold room for storing kegs of beer.”

“Hey,” Lula called to a guy who was heading for the front door. “How do we get into the cellar?”

“Cellar’s locked. Stuff gets stored there.”

“Who has a key to the cellar?” I asked him.

“I don’t know. A bunch of people. Gobbles had a key. Professor Pooka has a key.”

“Why Professor Pooka?”

“He’s our faculty advisor. Some of the fraternities have house mothers, but we got a house dude.”

“I guess that’s on account of you’re sexist,” Lula said.

“It’s on account of the last house mother enjoyed the parties too much and got pregnant, so we got assigned Pooka.”

“Does he live here?” I asked.

“No, but he stops in every day to check on things. What’s your deal with the cellar?”

“We’re meter readers,” Lula said. “We gotta check on the gas and water shit.”

“I think the meters are outside. Just walk around the house. I think they’re in the back.”

“I told her they’d be in the back,” Lula said, “but Stephanie here thought they were in the cellar.”

Lula and I exited the house and walked around outside.

“There’s no windows or doors in the cellar,” Lula said. “We’ve been all around the house and there’s no cellar windows.”

“I want to check in with Julie Ruley but according to the schedule I have she’s in class until eleven.”

“That’s good because it gives us time to go see Pooka and get the key to the cellar.”

“What’s with this cellar obsession? It makes no sense that Gobbles would be hiding in the cellar. He doesn’t even have a second exit.”

“He could have a secret exit. There could be a secret tunnel that goes to the restaurant on M and Hawthorne.”

“That’s a long tunnel.”

“Well, I got a feeling. I’m extra perceptionary that way. I just know things. Sometimes I wake up at night and I think it’s gonna rain, and it almost always does.”

“Amazing.”

“Yeah, not everyone’s got a talent like that. I could be a weathergirl on television. The hell with Doppler and all that shit. If I say it’s gonna rain you could go to the bank with it.”

“Okay, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to talk to Pooka again. At the very least he should be able to tell us who Gobbles hung with.”

We hiked to the science building and took the elevator to the third floor. We shared the elevator with six other women who looked like students. The elevator doors opened at the third floor and the women rushed out and down the hall to the biology lab.

“Guess the wonder kid is at work,” Lula said. “I think the
wonder
part is how he gets anything done what with all the women ogling him.”

Pooka’s office door was closed. I rapped on it and someone yelled,
“Go away!”

“That sounds like Pooka,” Lula said. “Hey, baggy pants,” she yelled back. “Open the door.”

The door was wrenched open and Pooka glared out at us. “I’m busy.”

“How busy could you be in those pajamas?” Lula asked him.

Pooka looked down at his pants. “These aren’t pajamas. These are dhoti.”

“Doody?”

“
Dhoti.
They’re Indian.”

“Did the necklace tell you to wear them?” Lula asked.

“The amulet is more effective when my boys can breathe.”

“That makes sense,” Lula said. “I bet there’d be a lot less aggression in the world if everybody’s boys had some breathing room. I mean, how can you be happy when your nuts are all cramped together? One of the Zeta people told us you were the house dude. You ever see anyone vomiting up cockroaches there?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I would have remembered.”

“I’m still looking for Ken Globovic,” I said to Pooka. “Who were his close friends?”

“I don’t know. I have more important things to do than keep track of Globovic’s friends.”

“Like what?” Lula asked.

“Like
anything.
Anything
would be more important than paying attention to Ken Globovic’s every move.”

“Not to us,” Lula said. “We gotta find him or we don’t get paid.”

“Not my problem,” Pooka said. “Get out of my office.”

“Nuh-unh,” Lula said. “I’m not leaving until you help us find Gobbles.”

“I’m calling security,” Pooka said.

Lula leaned forward. “You make one move to that phone, and I’m gonna sit on you until you’re a grease spot on the floor.”

“I have research to do,” Pooka said. “You’re wasting my valuable time.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Lula said. “What kind of research? Are you working on global warming?”

“No.”

“Then your research isn’t so important, is it?”

“Global warming is a hoax. It’s an example of one more fraud fed to the American people by its corrupt government,” Pooka said.

“You shouldn’t be talking about the government like that,” Lula said. “It’s disrespectful. And they might come get you and lock you up.”

Pooka stared at Lula. “Have you heard something?”

“Not exactly,” Lula said. “It’s more I get these premonitions on account of you sound like a nut.”

“Brian Karwatt,” Pooka said.

“What about him?” I asked.

“Globovic hung out with Brian Karwatt. Now get out of my office.”

“Yeah, but I got a premonition about the cellar at the Zeta house,” Lula said. “I think Gobbles might be hiding out there.”

“He’s not,” Pooka said. “I was at the house last night and Gobbles wasn’t in the cellar.”

“He might have slipped in this morning,” Lula said. “I’ve got one of those feelings.”

“I told you he’s not in the cellar,” Pooka said. “End of discussion. Go bother someone else.”

“Thank you for your time,” I said to Pooka. “We appreciate your help.”

He did a stiff-armed gesture at the door.
“Go!”

“One last thing,” Lula said. “Could I touch your power amulet?”

“No!”

I tugged Lula out of the office, into the hall, and Pooka slammed his door shut and locked it.

“He’s got issues,” Lula said. “I don’t think those loose pants are doing anything for him.”

“I want to go back to Zeta. I’d like to talk to Brian Karwatt.”

“What about Julie Ruley?”

“I know where she lives. I can catch her later.”

We crossed the field back to the Zeta house. No one was picketing anymore. A couple guys were lounging on the small second-floor balcony over the front door. There was movement inside on the first floor. We set foot on the stairs leading up to the front porch and Lula stopped and sniffed. The smell of fried onions and burgers was being sucked out of the kitchen and hung in the air surrounding Zeta house. The cook was at work getting lunch ready.

“That smells good,” Lula said, “but I got my mind set on crispy onion rings and that smells like plain old fried onions.”

Splosh!
Lula got water ballooned. Direct hit. I immediately jumped aside.

“What the Sam Hill?” Lula yelled. “Son of a peach basket.” She looked at me. “What was that?”

“Water balloon, but it smells like it was filled with beer. I think it was a beer balloon.”

Lula pulled her gun out of her purse, fired off a fast four rounds at the balcony, and everyone scattered.

“Good thing I remembered to bring my gun today,” she said, squinting up at the balcony. “Did I hit anyone?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I had beer in my eyes.”

Not that it mattered. Lula was a terrible shot. She had a six-inch lavender afro going today. She shook her head, beer sprayed out, and she looked like nothing had happened to her hair. She stripped off her orange tank top, wrung it out, and put it back on.

“Just like new,” Lula said. “Lucky I don’t mind the smell of beer.”

We went inside and the room cleared.

“I want to talk to Brian Karwatt,” I yelled. “Is Brian here?”

Silence.

“This don’t seem like such a party house to me,” Lula said. “All they got is one beer balloon. What’s with that? Where’d everybody go?”

“I imagine they aren’t used to being shot at.”

“See, that’s what’s so good about living in my ethnic neighborhood. You get used to stuff like that. I live in a melting pot. We got illegal felons, legal felons, moron gangbangers, and some dopers. They’re shooting at each other all the time.”

“Maybe you should move.”

“I suppose, but I can afford the rent, and I got a big closet. I figure I just have to sit tight and wait for it to get gentrified around me.”

Lula lived in a small two-story Victorian-style house with gingerbread trim. The house was currently painted pink and yellow and lavender. It was the only house in the neighborhood with not a smidgeon of graffiti because if some idiot came near the house with a can of spray paint the lesbian owner would beat the crap out of him. The owner lived on the ground floor. Lula was one of two people who lived on the second floor. And a seventy-five-year-old woman lived in the attic. Apparently she thought she was Katharine Hepburn, but aside from that she managed very nicely, according to Lula.

We left the Zeta house and went to the student center. Julie Ruley wasn’t in the newspaper office, wasn’t in the food court, wasn’t in sight.

“This beer smell coming out of my clothes is making me hungry,” Lula said. “I need onion rings to go with the beer. I’m voting to move on to Billy Bacon.”

Sounded like a good idea to me. We weren’t getting anywhere with the Gobbles search, and I wasn’t feeling a lot of love for Kiltman College. We heard a car alarm wailing when we got to the administration building. We rounded the corner and saw that the noise was coming from the Mercedes. I used my key fob to shut the alarm off, and Lula and I approached the car.

“There’s a goose in your car,” Lula said. She looked more closely. “There’s a whole bunch of gooses. And they pooped on everything.”

A small crowd had gathered on the fringe of the lot. Mintner was one of them.

“This has all the earmarks of a Zeta stunt,” Mintner said.

“Somebody should let those gooses out,” Lula said. “I don’t think they’re happy about being locked up in there.”

Not happy was a vast understatement. The geese were in a blind rage, viciously pecking at the windows, shredding the leather seats, crapping their brains out.

The crowd took a step back. No one wanted to get in the way of the freaked-out geese.

“Maybe you should be the one to open the door,” Mintner said to Lula.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Lula said. “They just want to get out and go about their business.”

Lula opened the door, and the geese rushed out at her. There was a lot of wing flapping and Lula shrieking. It was like she was caught in a goose blizzard, and then they moved on, hurling themselves at whoever got in their way. Everyone but Lula and I fled to the safety of the building.

Lula stood dazed for a couple beats. The geese had pecked at her lavender afro and torn holes in her clothes. There were fresh globs of goose poop dotted across the pavement and a lot of honking in the distance.

“That’s the gratitude I get for setting those stupid things free,” Lula said. “Those geese are freakin’ rude.”

Ranger’s black Porsche 911 cruised into the lot. Ranger got out, looked at the Mercedes, and smiled.

“Do not smile,”
I said to him. “This is all your fault for giving me a Mercedes. I was perfectly happy with my junky old car, but you had to come along and set me up for disaster. You
knew
this was going to happen. You’ve probably been sitting around all morning, counting down the minutes until I destroyed the car. It’s a record breaker, right? Headline: ‘Stephanie Plum Destroys a Car in Less than Four Hours.’ ”

Okay, so I knew I was out of control, but I couldn’t seem to reel it in. I was doing a goose imitation, flapping my arms and yelling, pacing around.

“I am just
so aggravated,
” I said. “Why me? Why do these things happen to me?”

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Lula said. “You didn’t get no beer dumped on you. And you didn’t get yourself pecked apart by a herd of pissed-off honkers.”

Ranger slung an arm around me and hugged me into him, and I could feel him laughing.

“It’s not funny,” I said.

“Babe, I haven’t got a lot of funny in my life. Let me enjoy the moment.”

“You have a strange sense of humor.”

“Most people think I have
no
sense of humor.”

I pushed away and looked at him. “How did you happen along just now?”

“The control room picked up the break-in and reported it to me. I was in the area so I thought I’d come take a look. I got here just in time to see Lula open the car door.” The smile returned. “I almost ran up on the curb when the geese flew out.”