Two for the Dough (23 page)

As opposed to downright illegal for me.

Morelli glanced at the heavy-duty flashlight I held in my hand. “Of course a bounty hunter would have the authority to go in after her man.”

“Only if she was convinced her man was in there.”

Morelli looked at me expectantly.

I peeked out at the fire escape. “It’s really rickety,” I told him.

“Yeah,” he said. “I noticed that. It might not hold me.” He put a finger under my chin and gazed into my eyes. “I bet it would hold a dainty little thing like you.”

I am many things. Dainty isn’t one of them. I took a deep breath and angled myself out onto the fire escape. Iron joints groaned, and rusted metal shards flaked off underfoot and fell to the ground. I whispered an oath and inched toward Sandeman’s window.

I cupped my hands to the glass and looked inside. The interior was blacker than black. I tried the window. It was unlocked. I gave the bottom window a shove, and it rose halfway and stuck.

“Can you get in?” Morelli whispered.

“No. The window’s stuck.” I squatted down, peered through the opening and worked the flashlight around the room. So far as I could see, nothing had changed. There was the same clutter, the same squalor, the stink of unwashed clothes and overflow ashtrays. I saw no signs of struggle, flight, or affluence.

I thought I’d give one more try with the window. I braced my feet and pushed hard against the old wood frame. Masonry bolts tore loose from crumbling brick, and the slatted floor of the fire escape tipped to a 45-degree angle. Stairs slid out of place, railings ripped from their moorings, angle irons wrenched free, and I skidded feet first, ass second off into space. My hand connected with a crossbar, and in an act of blind panic and reflexive action, I held fast … for ten seconds. At the end of those ten seconds, the entire third-floor gridwork crashed onto the second-floor fire escape. There was a momentary pause. Long enough for me to whisper, oh shit.

Above me, Morelli leaned out the window. “Don’t move!”

CHAAANG!
The second-floor fire escape separated from the building and crumbled to the ground, carrying me with it. I landed flat on my back with a solid
whump
that knocked the air out of my lungs.

I lay there stunned until Morelli’s face once again loomed over me, just inches away.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “Jesus, Stephanie, say something!”

I stared straight ahead, unable to talk, not yet able to breathe.

He felt for the pulse in my neck. Then his hands were on my feet, moving up my legs. “Can you move your toes?”

Not when his hand was feeling up the inside of my thigh like this. My skin felt scorched under his palm, and my toes were curled into a cramp. I heard myself make a sucking sound. “Your fingers go any higher up my leg, and I’m filing for sexual harassment.”

Morelli rocked back on his heels and passed a hand over his eyes. “You just scared the hell out of me.”

“What’s going on out there?” A loud voice from one of the windows. “I’m calling the police. I’m not putting up with this shit. We got noise ordinances in this neighborhood.”

I propped myself up on my elbow. “Get me out of here.”

Morelli gently hoisted me to my feet. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Nothing seems broken.” I wrinkled my nose. “What is that smell? Oh God, I didn’t mess myself, did I?”

Morelli turned me around. “Whoa!” he said. “Someone in this building has a big dog. A big,
sick
dog. And it looks like you hit ground zero.”

I shrugged out of the jacket, and held it at arm’s length. “Am I okay now?”

“Some of it’s splattered down the back of your jeans.”

“Anyplace else?”

“Your hair.”

This sent me into instant hysteria. “GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT!”

Morelli clapped a hand over my mouth. “Quiet!”

“Get it out of my hair!”

“I can’t get it out of your hair. You’re going to have to wash it out.” He pulled me toward the street. “Can you walk?”

I staggered forward.

“That’s good,” Morelli said. “Keep doing that. Before you know it you’ll be to the van. And then we’ll get you to a shower. After an hour or two of scrubbing you’ll be good as new.”

“Good as new.” My ears were ringing, and my voice sounded far away … like a voice in a jar. “Good as new,” I repeated.

When we got to the van Morelli opened the rear door. “You don’t mind riding in back, do you?”

I stared at him blank-minded.

Morelli shone my flashlight in my eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”

“What kind of dog do you think it was?”

“A big dog.”

“What kind?”

“Rottweiler. Male. Old and overweight. Bad teeth. Ate a lot of tuna fish.”

I started to cry.

“Oh jeez,” Morelli said. “Don’t cry. I hate when you cry.”

“I’ve got rottweiler shit in my hair.”

He used his thumb to wipe the tears from my cheeks. “It’s okay, honey. It’s really not so bad. I was kidding about the tuna.” He gave me a boost into the van. “Hold tight back here. I’ll have you home before you know it.”

He brought me to my apartment.

“I thought this was best,” he said. “Didn’t think you’d want your mother to see you in this condition.” He searched through my pocketbook for the key and opened the door.

The apartment felt cool and neglected. Too quiet. No Rex spinning in his wheel. No light left burning to welcome me home.

The kitchen beckoned to my left. “I need a beer,” I said to Morelli. I was in no rush for the shower. I’d lost my ability to smell. I’d accepted the condition of my hair.

I shuffled into the kitchen and tugged at the refrigerator door. The door swung wide, the fridge light went on, and I stared in dumb silence at a foot … a large, filthy, bloody foot, separated from the leg just above the ankle, placed next to a tub of margarine and a three-quarters-filled bottle of cranberry cocktail.

“There’s a foot in my refrigerator,” I said to Morelli. Bells clanged, lights flashed, my mouth went numb, and I crashed to the floor.

I struggled up from unconscious muck and opened my eyes. “Mom?”

“Not exactly,” Morelli said.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You fainted.”

“It was just too much,” I said to Morelli. “The dog shit, the foot …”

“I understand,” Morelli said.

I pushed myself up onto shaky legs.

“Why don’t you go stand in the shower while I take care of things here?” Morelli said. He handed me a beer. “You can take your beer with you.”

I looked at the beer. “Did this come from my refrigerator?”

“No,” Morelli said. “It came from someplace else.”

“Good. I couldn’t drink it if it came from the refrigerator.”

“I know,” Morelli said, maneuvering me toward the bathroom. “Just go take a shower and drink your beer.”

Two uniforms, a crime lab guy, and two guys in suits were in my kitchen when I got out of the shower.

“I’ve got an idea on the identity of that foot,” I said to Morelli.

He was writing on a clipboard. “I’ve got the same idea.” He turned the clipboard over to me. “Sign at the dotted line.”

“What am I signing?”

“Preliminary report.”

“How did Kenny get the foot into my refrigerator?”

“Broken bedroom window. You need an alarm system.”

One of the uniforms left, carrying a large Styrofoam cooler.

I swallowed down a wave of revulsion. “Is that it?” I asked.

Morelli nodded. “I did a fast cleanup of your refrigerator. You’ll probably want to do a more thorough job when you have time.”

“Thanks. I appreciate the help.”

“We went through the rest of the apartment,” he said. “Didn’t find anything.”

The second uniform left, followed by the suits and the crime scene men.

“Now what?” I asked Morelli. “Not much point in staking out Sandeman’s place.”

“Now we watch Spiro.”

“What about Roche?”

“Roche will stay with the funeral home. We’ll tag after Spiro.”

We taped a big plastic garbage bag over the broken window, shut the lights off, and locked the apartment. There was a small crowd in the hall.

“Well?” Mr. Wolesky asked. “What was this about? Nobody’ll tell us nothing.”

“It was just a broken window,” I said. “I thought it might have been something more serious, so I called the police.”

“Were you robbed?”

I shook my head no. “Nothing was taken.” So far as I knew, that was the truth.

Mrs. Boyd didn’t look like she was buying any of it. “What about the ice chest? I saw a policeman carry an ice chest out to his car.”

“Beer,” Morelli said. “They were friends of mine. We’re going to a party later.”

We ducked down the stairs and trotted to the van. Morelli opened the driver’s side door, and sick-dog odor poured out, forcing us to retreat.

“Should have left the windows open,” I said to Morelli.

“We’ll let it sit for a minute,” he said. “It’ll be fine.”

After a few minutes we crept closer.

“It still smells bad,” I said.

Morelli stood fists on hips. “I don’t have time to scrub it down. We’ll try riding around with the windows open. Maybe we can blow it out.”

Five minutes later, the smell hadn’t faded.

“That’s it for me,” Morelli said. “I can’t take this smell anymore. I’m trading up.”

“You going home for your truck?”

He made a left onto Skinner Street. “Can’t. The guy I borrowed the van from has my truck.”

“The undercover pig car?”

“Being fixed.” He hooked onto Greenwood. “We’ll use the Buick.”

Suddenly I had a new appreciation for the Buick.

Morelli pulled up behind Big Blue, and I had the door open and my foot to the pavement while the van was still rolling. I stood outside in the crisp air, breathing deep, flapping my arms and shaking my head to rid myself of any residual stench.

We got into the Buick together and sat there for a moment appreciating the lack of odor.

I rolled the engine over. “It’s eleven o’clock. You want to go straight to Spiro’s apartment, or do you want to try the funeral home?”

“Funeral home. I spoke to Roche just before you got out of the shower, and Spiro was still in his office.”

The lot was empty when I got to Stiva’s. There were several cars on the street. None looked occupied. “Where’s Roche?”

“Apartment across the street. Over the deli.”

“He can’t see the back entrance from there.”

“True, but the exterior lights work on motion sensors. If someone approaches the back door the lights will go on.”

“I imagine Spiro can disengage that.”

Morelli slouched in his seat. “There’s no good vantage point for watching the back door. If Roche was sitting in the parking lot, he still couldn’t see the back door.”

Spiro’s Lincoln was parked in the drive-through. The light was on in Spiro’s office.

I eased the Buick to the curb and cut the engine. “He’s working late. Usually he’s out of here by now.”

“You have your cell phone with you?”

I gave him the phone, and he tapped in a number.

Someone responded on the other end, and Morelli asked if anyone was home. I didn’t hear the response. Morelli ended the call and returned the phone.

“Spiro’s still there. Roche hasn’t seen anyone go in since the doors closed at ten.”

We were parked on a side street, beyond the reach of the streetlight. The side street was lined with modest row houses. Most were dark. The burg was an early-to-bed, early-to-rise community.

Morelli and I sat there in comfortable silence for half an hour, watching the funeral home. Just a couple of old law enforcement partners doing their job.

Twelve o’clock rolled around. Nothing had changed, and I was feeling antsy. “There’s something wrong with this,” I said. “Spiro never stays this late. He likes money when it comes easy. He’s not the conscientious type.”

“Maybe he’s waiting for someone.”

I had my hand on the door handle. “I’m going to snoop around.”

“NO!”

“I want to see if the back sensors are working.”

“You’ll screw everything up. You’ll spook Kenny if he’s out there.”

“Maybe Spiro shut the sensors off, and Kenny’s already in the house.”

“He’s not.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Morelli shrugged. “Gut instinct.”

I cracked my knuckles.

“You’re lacking some critical attributes of a good bounty hunter,” Morelli said.

“Like what?”

“Patience. Look at you. You’re all tied up in knots.”

He applied pressure at the base of my neck with his thumb and inched his way up to my hairline. My eyes drooped closed, and my breathing slowed.

“Feel good?” Morelli asked.

“Mmmmm.”

He worked my shoulders with both hands. “You need to relax.”

“If I relax any more I’ll melt and slide off the seat.”

His hands stilled. “I like the melting part.”

I turned my face toward him, and our eyes held.

“No,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve already seen the movie, and I hate the ending.”

“Maybe it’ll have a different ending this time.”

“Maybe it won’t.”

His thumb traced over the pulse in my neck, and when he spoke his voice was low and cat’s-tongue rough. “How about the middle of the movie? Did you like the middle?”

The middle of the movie had smoked. “I’ve seen better middles.”

Morelli’s face creased into a wide grin. “Liar.”

“Besides, we’re supposed to be watching for Spiro and Kenny.”

“Don’t worry about it. Roche is watching. If he sees anything he’ll call my pager.”

Was this what I wanted? Sex in a Buick with Joe Morelli? No! Maybe.

“I think I might be getting a cold,” I said. “This might not be a good time.”

Morelli made chicken sounds.

My eyes rolled to the top of my head. “That is so juvenile. That is just the response I’d expect from you.”

“No it’s not,” Morelli said. “You expected action.” He leaned forward and kissed me. “How’s this? Is this a better response?”

“Umm …”

He kissed me again, and I thought, well, what the hell—if he wants to get a cold, that’s his problem, right? And maybe I wasn’t getting a cold, anyway. Maybe I had been mistaken.