Explosive Eighteen

  “Hell no, I’m not getting stuck in the death trap bus. I’ll go catch bad guys with you.” She looked down at the files in my lap. “Who we gonna do first? Anything fun come in?”

  “Joyce Barnhardt.”

  “Say what?”

  “She shoplifted a necklace and assaulted the store owner.”

  “I hate Joyce Barnhardt,” Lula said. “She’s mean. She told me I was fat. Can you imagine?”

  It wasn’t exactly that Lula was fat. It was more that she was too short for her weight. Or maybe it was that there was an excess of Lula and not ever enough fabric.

  “I thought we’d save Joyce for last,” I told Lula. “I’m not looking forward to knocking on her door.”

  Connie’s Hyundai cruised down the street, made a U-turn, and parked behind the bus. Connie and Vinnie got out and walked over to me.

  “Is DeAngelo here?” Vinnie asked.

  “Yes,” I told him. “He’s inside the building.”

  Vinnie growled, doing his best imitation of a crazed badger backed into a corner, claws out.

  “Cripes,” Lula said.

  “It’s okay to go into the bus,” I said to Vinnie. “DeAngelo only blows things up at night.”

  We all stood looking at the bus for a moment, not sure we believed that to be true.

  “What the hell,” Vinnie finally said. “My life’s in the crapper anyway.”

  And he disappeared inside the bus.

  “What’s with Joyce?” I asked Connie. “Did she really steal a necklace?”

  Connie shrugged. “Don’t know, but it’s gotten weird. Frank Korda, the store owner who pressed charges, is missing.”

  “When did he go missing?” I asked.

  “Later that same day. The nail salon across the street remembers the closed sign in the front door around four in the afternoon. His wife said he never came home.”

  “And Joyce?”

  “Vinnie bonded Joyce out right after she was arrested. She was scheduled for court three days later, and she never showed.”

  “I bet Joyce snatched him,” Lula said. “She’d do something like that. I bet she got him in chains in her cellar.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time Joyce put a man in chains,” Connie said, “but I don’t think she’s got him in her cellar. She isn’t answering her phone. And I drove past her house last night. It was dark.”

  “Holy cow,” Lula said, staring at my left hand. “You got a white ring on your finger where you didn’t get a tan. I didn’t notice that last night on the way home from the airport. What the heck did you do in Hawaii? And where’s the ring now?”

  I made an effort not to grimace. “It’s complicated.”

  “Yeah,” Lula said. “That’s what you said last night. You just kept saying it was complicated.”

  Connie examined my left hand. “Did you get married while you were in Hawaii?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “How could you not exactly get married?” Lula wanted to know. “Either you get married or you don’t get married.”

  I flapped my arms around and squinched my eyes shut. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay? It’s complicated!”

  “S’cuse me,” Lula said. “I was just sayin’. You don’t want to talk about it? Fine. Don’t talk about it. Just ’cause we’re best friends don’t mean nothin’. We’re like sisters, but hey, don’t bother me if you don’t want to tell me something.”

  “Good,” I said, “because I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Hunh,” Lula said.

  Vinnie yelled at Connie from inside the bus. “The phone’s ringing. Get the friggin’ phone!”

  “You get the phone,” Connie yelled back.

  “I don’t do phones,” Vinnie said.

  Connie made an Italian hand gesture at the bus. “Idiot.”

  “I suppose we should do something,” Lula said after Connie left to get the phone. “What else have you got there?”

  I shuffled through my stack of skips. “Two armed robberies.”

  “Pass on them. They always shoot at us.”

  “Domestic violence.”

  “Too depressing,” Lula said. “What else you got?”

  “A purse snatcher and credit card fraud.”

  “I’m liking credit card fraud. They never have a lot of fight in them. They’re always just sneaky little weasels. They just sit in the house all day shopping on the Internet. What’s this moron’s name?”

  “Lahonka Goudge.”

  “Lahonka Goudge? What kind of name is that? That gotta be wrong. That’s a terrible name.”

  “It’s what it says here. She lives in public housing.”

  Forty minutes later, we were in Lula’s car, motoring through the projects and searching for Lahonka’s apartment. It was midmorning and the streets were quiet. Kids were in school and day care, hookers were sleeping, and the drug dealers were congregating in parks and playgrounds.

  “There it is,” I said to Lula. “She’s in 3145A. It’s the ground-floor apartment with the kids’ toys in the yard.”

  Lula parked, and we walked to the door, picking our way around bikes, dolls, soccer balls, and big plastic trucks. I raised my hand to knock, the door opened, and a woman looked out at us. She was my height, shaped like a pear, dressed in tan spandex pants and a poison-green tank top. Her hair was standing straight out from her head like it had been spray-starched and ironed, and she had huge hoop earrings hanging from her earlobes.

  “What do you want?” the woman said. “And I don’t need any. Do I look like I need something? I don’t think so. And don’t touch none of my kids’ shit or I’ll turn the dog out on you.”

  And she slammed the door shut.

  “She got a personality like a Lahonka,” Lula said. “She even looks like a Lahonka.”

  I banged on the door, and the door got yanked open.

  “What?” the woman said. “I already told you I don’t want nothin’. I got a business goin’ here. I’m a workin’ woman, and I’m not buying any cookies, moisturizer, laundry soap, or jewelry. Maybe if you had some quality weed, but you don’t smell like weed pushers.”

  She tried to slam the door shut again, but I had my foot in it. “Lahonka Goudge?” I asked.

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “Bond enforcement. You missed a court date and we need to reschedule you.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “You got the wrong Lahonka. And anyways, even if I was the right Lahonka, I wouldn’t be going with you, on account of I got stuff to do. I got a pack of kids who need new sneakers, and you’re cutting into my prime earning time. I got eBay auctions goin’ on, and I’m making timely purchases elsewhere.”

  Lula put her weight against the door and pushed it open. “We don’t got all day,” she said. “We got a whole batch of idiots to bring in, and I got a lunch date with a Deluxe Mr. Clucky Burger.”

  “Oh yeah?” Lahonka said. “Well, Clucky Burger this.”

  And she gave Lula a two-handed shove that knocked her back two feet into me. I lost my balance, and we both went ass-first to the ground. The front door slammed shut, security bolts slid into place, and Lahonka pulled the shade down on her front window.

  “Probably, she’s not gonna open her door to you again,” Lula said.

  I agreed. It was unlikely.

  Lula hauled herself up and adjusted her girls. “Is it too early for lunch?”

  I looked at my watch. “It’s almost one o’clock in Greenland.”

  • • •

  “That Lahonka took me by surprise,” Lula said, finishing off her second Clucky Burger. “I wasn’t on my game.”

  We were eating in Lula’s car because there was a critical time limit to hanging out in Cluck-in-a-Bucket. Minuscule globules of fry fat floated in the air like fairy dust, and exposure lasting longer than six minutes left you smelling like Clucky Extra Crispy all day. It wasn’t an entirely bad smell, but it tended to attract packs of hungry dogs and big beefy me
n, neither of which I was currently interested in.

  I pulled a file out of my bag. “Maybe we want to try the purse snatcher next.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good plan,” Lula said. “Purse snatchers are runners. That’s what makes them good purse snatchers. And I just had two Clucky Burgers. I’ll get a cramp if I gotta chase after some skinny, baggy-pants idiot now. Don’t we have a bad guy who lives by the mall? Macy’s is having a shoe sale.”

  I checked the addresses. No one lived by the mall.

  “I might need a nap after all that chicken,” Lula said.

  A nap sounded like a good idea. I hadn’t gotten much sleep on the plane ride home. For that matter, I hadn’t gotten much sleep the whole time I was in Hawaii, what with all the nighttime activity. And tonight I was seeing Morelli, and I suspected that wouldn’t lead to a lot of sleep. Morelli and I had things to discuss.

  I have a long history with Morelli. We played choo choo when I was six years old. He relieved me of my virginity when I was sixteen. I ran him down with a Buick when I was nineteen. And now that we’re both adults, more or less, I sort of have a relationship with him … although I’d be hard-pressed to define the relationship at this moment. He’s a Trenton cop working plainclothes, crimes against persons. He’s six foot tall with wavy black hair, a lean, hard-muscled body, and a world-class libido. He’s movie-star handsome in jeans and a T-shirt. If you put him in a suit, he looks like a hit man.

  “Are we talking about a catnap or a full-on afternoon nap?” I asked Lula.

  “It might be a major nap. And then I got a date tonight with a guy who could be Mr. Good Enough. So I’m gonna need some time to make wardrobe decisions.”

  “In other words, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. I’ll be here at eight sharp, and we could get an early start.”

  “You’re never here that early.”

  “Well, I’m gonna be motivated to be a excellent bounty hunter assistant. I can feel it coming on. And I’ll be ready to go first thing in the morning after a satisfying night of doing … you know. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  THREE

  LULA DROPPED ME at my car, and I took a fast assessment of the surroundings. Work was continuing on the new office. The bus wasn’t in flames. DeAngelo’s Mercedes was gone, and Vinnie’s Caddy was still parked. All good things.

  I thought about checking in with Connie, but decided against it. I hadn’t made any captures, and a conversation with Vinnie might include a lot of unpleasant nagging about catching Joyce Barnhardt. I’d get her eventually, but I wasn’t up to it right now, so I jumped into my RAV and took off for my parents’ house.

  An hour later, I was in my apartment building, lugging my basket of clean clothes, plus my hamster cage, down the hall. I unlocked my door, pushed it open with a hip, and staggered into the kitchen, arms full. I set the laundry basket on the floor, and the hamster cage on my kitchen counter.

  “Here you are, back home,” I said to Rex. “Did you have fun with Grandmom?”

  Rex was out of his soup can, looking like he wanted a treat, so I got the box of crackers from the cupboard and shared one with him.

  Someone rapped on my front door, and I opened the door a crack, leaving the security chain attached. Two men dressed in bureaucrat-level gray suits peeked in at me. Their dress shirts were long past crisp. Their striped ties were loosened at the neck. Their hair was receding. They looked to be late forties. One was around five foot ten. The other was in the five-foot-seven range. I suspected they liked their double bacon cheeseburgers.

  “FBI,” the big guy said, flashing me an ID, then returning it to his pocket. “Can we come in?”

  “No,” I told him.

  “But we’re the FBI.”

  “Maybe,” I said to the big guy. “Maybe not. I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Lance Lancer.” He gestured at his partner. “This is agent Sly Slasher.”

  “Lance Lancer and Sly Slasher? Are you kidding me? Those can’t be real names.”

  “It’s right here on our badges,” Lancer said. “We’re looking for an envelope you might have inadvertently picked up.”

  “What kind of envelope?”

  “A large yellow envelope. It contained a photograph of a man we’re looking for in conjunction with a murder.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a job for the local police?”

  “It was an international murder. And there was a kidnapping involved. Do you have the envelope?”

  “No.” And that was the truth. I suspected they were looking for the envelope I’d thrown away at my parents’ house.

  “I think you’re fibbing,” Lancer said. “We have it on good authority you were given the envelope.”

  “If I find it, I’ll give it to the FBI,” I said.

  I closed and locked my door, and put my eye to the peephole. Lancer and Slasher were standing, hands on hips, looking mildly pissed, not sure what to do next.

  I went to the kitchen and dialed Morelli’s cell phone. “Where are you?” I asked him.

  “I’m home. I just got in.”

  “I need to check on two guys who claim they’re FBI. Lance Lancer and Sly Slasher.”

  “I’ll be a laughingstock if I plug those names into the system. This is a joke, right?”

  “Those are the names they gave. They had badges and everything.”

  “How fast do you need this?”

  “How fast can you get it?”

  Morelli grunted and hung up.

  I imagined Morelli staring down at his shoe, shaking his head, wishing he hadn’t answered his phone.

  I dialed my parents’ house, and my mother answered.

  “I need you to do something for me,” I said. “I need the photo and the envelope I threw away when I was in the kitchen this morning. I tossed it in the trash.”

  “Your grandmother emptied the trash right after you left. Today was garbage pickup. I can look out back, but I think it’s gone.”

  So it appeared I was out of the FBI evidence supply business.

  Fine by me. I had better, more important things to do, like taking a nap. I kicked my shoes off and flopped onto my bed. I’d barely closed my eyes and the doorbell bonged. I heaved myself out of bed, padded to my door, and looked out the peephole. Two more men in cheap gray suits.

  I cracked the door, leaving the security chain in place, and looked out. “Now what?” I said.

  The guy standing closest to the door badged me. “FBI. We’d like to talk to you.”

  “Names?”

  “Bill Berger, and my partner, Chuck Gooley.”

  Bill Berger was slim, average height, and in his early fifties. Salt-and-pepper hair cut short. Bloodshot brown eyes. Probably, his contacts were killing him. Chuck was my age. Not fat but a chunky body. An inch or two shorter than Berger. His suit pants had a lot of crotch wrinkles, and he was wearing ratty running shoes.

  “And you’d like to talk to me about what?” I said.

  “Can we come in?”

  “No.”

  Berger went hands to hips, exposing the gun clipped to his belt. Hard to tell if it was an unconscious gesture or if he was trying to intimidate me. Either way, I wasn’t opening my door any wider.

  “We have reason to believe you are in possession of a photograph that’s part of a crime investigation.”

  My phone rang, and I excused myself to answer it.

  “You’ve been home less than twenty-four hours, and you’re already in some kind of a mess,” Morelli said. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “Sure, but I’ve got guests right now. More FBI.”

  “Are they in your apartment?”

  “No. They’re in the hall.”

  “That’s where you want them to stay. As far as I can tell, the first two guys aren’t with the Bureau. There are no Lance Lancers or Sly Slashers on active duty. Big surprise. So who have you got in your hall now?” Morelli asked.

  “Bill Berger and Chu
ck Gooley.”

  Silence for a beat. “Berger’s in his early fifties, black hair going gray, and Gooley looks like he’s had the same suit on for two weeks, right?”

  “Yeah. Should I let them in?”

  “No. Gooley eats out of Dumpsters and fucks feral cats. Let me talk to Berger.”

  I passed my cell phone out to Berger. Two minutes later, Berger gave it back to me.

  “Do you know where the Bureau’s located downtown?” Berger asked me.

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll meet you there tomorrow at ten o’clock. Bring the photo.”

  “I don’t have the photo,” I told him.

  “Then bring your lawyer.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “You need to practice your people skills.”

  Berger pressed his lips tight together. “I hear that a lot. Mostly from my ex-wife.”

  I closed my door and got back to Morelli. “I guess Berger is FBI?”

  “More or less. I need to talk to you.”

  “I figured. I hoped to see you tonight.”

  “I might be late.”

  “How late?” I asked him.

  “Hard to say. Someone just took sixteen rounds to the head in the projects.”

  “Sixteen bullets to the head? That seems excessive.”

  “Murray saw him, and he said he looked like Swiss cheese. Murray said the guy had brains leaking out all over the place.”

  “Too much information.”

  “It’s my life,” Morelli said. And he disconnected.

  I went back to bed, but I kept thinking about brains leaking out from bullet holes. Morelli was the only one I knew who had a worse job than I did. Okay, maybe the guy at the mortuary who drains out body fluids was also in the running. Anyway, against all odds, Morelli liked being in law enforcement. He’d been a wild kid and the product of an abusive father. And now Morelli was a good cop, a responsible home owner, and an excellent pet parent to his dog, Bob. I’d always thought he had superior boyfriend, maybe even husband, potential, but his job was a constant, frequently grim, intrusion, and I couldn’t see that changing anytime soon. Plus, now there was the Hawaiian thing.

  The other guy in my life, Ranger, realistically had no boyfriend or husband potential whatsoever, but he was an addictive guilty pleasure. He had a body like Batman, a dark and mysterious past, a dark and mysterious present, and an animal magnetism that sucked me in the instant I approached his force field. He wore only black. He drove only black cars. And when he made love, his brown eyes dilated totally black.