Three to Get Deadly

  “Looks empty.”

  Lula poked her head around the doorjamb. “Too bad. I was looking to do another takedown. I was ready to kick some butt.”

  I approached the closed bathroom door with my pepper spray in hand. I flipped the door open and jumped back. The door crashed against the wall and Lula dove behind the couch.

  I looked into the empty bathroom, and then I looked over at Lula.

  Lula picked herself up. “Just testing my reflexes,” Lula said. “Trying out new techniques.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Wasn't that I was scared,” she said. “Hell, takes more than a man like Leroy to scare a woman like me.”

  “You were scared,” I said.

  “Was not.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Unh-uh, was not. I'll show you who's scared. And it won't t be me. Guess I can open doors too.”

  Lula stomped over to the closet door and wrenched it open. The door swung wide with Lula glaring straight into the jammed-together coats and other clothes.

  The clothes parted and Leroy Watkins, buck naked, sporting a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead, fell out onto Lula.

  Lula lost her footing, and the two of them went down to the floor—Leroy, arms outstretched, stiff as a board, looking like Frankenstein from the 'hood, on top of Lula.

  “Holy cow,” I yelled. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!”

  “Eeeeeeeeee,” Lula screamed, flat on her back, arms and legs flailing, with Leroy deadweight on her chest.

  I was jumping around, hollering, “Get up. Get up.”

  And Lula was rolling around, hollering, “Get him off. Get him off.”

  I grabbed an arm and yanked, and Lula sprang to her feet, shaking herself like a dog in a rainstorm. “Ugh. Gross. Yuk.”

  We squinted down at Leroy.

  “Dead,” I said. “Definitely dead.”

  “You better believe it. Wasn't shot with no BB gun, either. Got a hole in his head about the size of Rhode Island.”

  “Smells bad.”

  “Think he pooped in the closet,” Lula said.

  We both gagged and ran to the window and stuck our heads out for air. When the ringing stopped in my ears I went to the phone and dialed Morelli. “Got a customer for you,” I told him.

  “Another one?”

  He sounded incredulous, and I couldn't blame him. This was my third dead body in the space of a week.

  “Leroy Watkins fell out of a closet on top of Lula,” I said. “All the king's horses and all the king's men aren't going to put Leroy Watkins together again.”

  I gave him the address, hung up and went out to the hall to wait.

  Two uniforms were the first to arrive. Morelli followed them by thirty seconds. I gave Morelli the details and fidgeted while he checked out the crime scene.

  Leroy had been naked and not especially bloody. I thought one possibility was that someone had surprised him in the shower. The bathroom hadn't been covered with gore, but then I hadn't felt inclined to peek behind the drawn shower curtain.

  Morelli returned after walking through the apartment and securing the scene. He ushered us down to the second-floor landing, away from the activity, and we went through our story one more time.

  Two more uniforms trundled up the stairs. I didn't know either of them. They looked to Joe, and he asked them to wait at the door. A television continued to drone on. The muffled sound of young children arguing carried into the hallway. None of the residents opened a door to snoop on the police activity. I suppose curiosity isn't a healthy character trait in this neighborhood.

  Morelli drew the zipper up on my jacket. “I don't need anything else from you . . . for now.”

  Lula was halfway down the stairs before I even turned around.

  “I'm out of here,” Lula said. “I got filing to do.”

  “Cops make her nervous,” I told Morelli.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I know the feeling. They make me nervous too.”

  “Who do you think did Leroy?” I asked Morelli.

  “Anybody could have done Leroy. Leroy's mother could have done Leroy.”

  “Is it unusual for three dealers to get faded in the space of a week?”

  “Not if there's some kind of war going on.”

  “Is there some kind of war going on?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  A couple suits stopped at the landing. Morelli jerked his thumb toward the next flight of stairs; the men grunted acknowledgment and continued on.

  “I need to go,” Morelli said. “See you around.”

  See you around? Just like that? All right, so there was a dead guy upstairs, and the building was crawling with cops. I should be happy Morelli was being so professional. I should be happy I didn't have to fight him off, right? Still, “see you around” felt a little bit like “don't call me, I'll call you.” Not that I wanted Morelli to call me. It was more that I wondered why he didn't want to. What was wrong with me, anyway? Why wasn't he making serious passes?

  “Is something bugging you?” I asked Morelli. But Morelli was already gone, disappeared in the knot of cops on the third-floor landing.

  Maybe I should drop a few pounds, I thought, slumping down the stairs. Maybe I should have some red highlights put in my hair.

  Lula was waiting for me in the car.

  “I guess that wasn't so bad,” Lula said. “We didn't get shot at.”

  “What do you think of my hair?” I asked. “You think I should add some red highlights?”

  Lula hauled back and looked at me. “Red would be bitchin'.”

  I dropped Lula at the office and went home to check my messages and my bank account. There were no messages, and I had a few dollars left in checking. I was almost current on my bills. My rent was paid for the month. If I continued to mooch meals from my mother I could afford highlights. I studied myself in the mirror, fluffing my hair, imagining a radiant new color. “Go for it,” I said to myself. Especially since the alternative was to dwell on Leroy Watkins.

  I locked up and drove to the mall, where I persuaded Mr. Alexander to work me into his schedule. Forty-five minutes later I was under the dryer with my hair soaked in chemical foam, wrapped in fifty-two squares of aluminum foil. Stephanie Plum, space creature. I was trying to read a magazine, but my eyes kept watering from the heat and fumes. I dabbed at my eyes and looked out through the wide-open arch door and plate-glass windows into the mall.

  It was Saturday, and the mall was crowded. Passersby glanced my way. Their stares were emotionless. Empty curiosity. Mothers and children. Kids hanging out. Stuart Baggett. Holy cow! It was that little twerp Stuart Baggett at the mall!

  Our eyes met and held for a moment. Recognition registered. Stuart mouthed my name and took off. I flipped the dryer hood back and came out of the seat like I was shot from a cannon.

  We were on the lower level, sprinting toward Sears. Stuart had a good head start and hit the escalator running. He was pushing people out of his way, apologizing profusely, looking charmingly cute.

  I jumped onto the escalator and elbowed my way forward, closing ground. A woman with shopping bags belligerently stood in front of me.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I need to get through.”

  “I got a right to be on this escalator,” she said. “You think you own this place?”

  “I'm after that kid!”

  “You're a kook, that's what you are. Help!” she yelled. “This woman is crazy! This is a crazy woman.”

  Stuart was off the escalator, moving back down the mall. I held my breath and danced in place, keeping him in view. Twenty seconds later I was off the stairs, running full tilt with the foil flapping against my head, the brown beauty parlor smock still tied at the waist.

  Suddenly Stuart was gone, lost in the crowd. I slowed to a walk, scanning ahead, checking side stores. I jogged through Macy's. Scarves, sportswear, cosmetics, shoes. I reached the exit and peered out into the parking lot. No sign of Stuart.

  I
caught myself in a mirror and stopped dead. I looked like Flypaper Woman meets Alcoa Aluminum. Foilhead does Quaker Bridge Mall. If I saw anyone I knew while I looked like this I'd drop dead on the spot.

  I had to pass back through Macy's to get to the mall, including a foray through cosmetics where I might encounter Joyce Barnhardt, queen of the makeover. And after Macy's I still had to negotiate the escalator and main corridor of the mall. This was not something I wanted to do in my present condition.

  I'd left my shoulder bag at the beauty parlor, so purchasing a scarf was out of the question. I could rip out the little foil squares wrapped around my hair, but I'd paid sixty dollars to have the squares put on.

  I took another look in the mirror. Okay, so I was getting my hair done. What's the big deal? I raised my chin a fraction of an inch. Belligerent. I'd seen my mother and grandmother take this stance a million times. There's no better defense than a steely-eyed offense.

  I briskly walked the length of the store and turned to the escalator. A few people stared, but most kept their eyes firmly averted.

  Mr. Alexander was pacing at the entrance to the salon. He was looking up and down the mall, and he was muttering. He saw me, and he rolled his eyes.

  Mr. Alexander always wore black. His long hair was slicked back in a ducktail. His feet were clad in black patent leather loafers. Gold cross earrings dangled from his earlobes. When he rolled his eyes he pinched his lips together.

  “Where did you go?” he demanded.

  “After a bail jumper,” I said. “Unfortunately, I lost him.”

  Mr. Alexander tugged a foil packet off my head. “Unfortunately, you should have had your head in the rinse bowl ten minutes ago! That's unfortunate.” He waved his hand at one of his underlings. “Miss Plum is done,” he said. “We need to rinse her immediately.” He removed another foil and rolled his eyes. “Unh,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I'm not responsible for this,” Mr. Alexander said.

  “What? What?”

  Mr. Alexander waved his hand again. “It will be fine,” he said. “A little more spectacular than we'd originally imagined.”

  Spectacular was good, right? I held that thought through the rinse and the comb-out.

  “This will be wonderful once you get used to it,” Mr. Alexander said from behind a cloud of hair spray.

  I squinted into the mirror. My hair was orange. Okay, don't panic. It was probably the lights. “It looks orange,” I told Mr. Alexander.

  “California sun-kissed,” Mr. Alexander said.

  I got out of the chair and took a closer look. “My hair is orange!” I shouted. “It's freaking ORANGE!”

  It was five when I left the mall. Today was Saturday, and my mother expected me for pot roast at six. “Pity roast” was a more accurate term. Unwed daughter, too pathetic to have a date on a Saturday night, is sucked in by four pounds of rolled rump.

  I parked the Buick in front of the house and took a quick look at my hair in the rearview mirror. Not much showed in the dark. Mr. Alexander had assured me I looked fine. Everyone in the salon agreed. I looked fine, they all said. Someone suggested I might want to boost my makeup now that my hair had been “lifted.” I took that to mean I was pale in comparison to my neon hair.

  My mother opened the door with a look of silent resignation.

  My grandmother stood on tippytoes behind my mother, trying to get a better look. “Dang!” Grandma said. “You've got orange hair! And it looks like there's more of it. Looks like one of them clown wigs. How'd you grow all that hair?”

  I patted my head. “I meant to have some highlights put in, but the solution got left on too long, so my hair got a little frizzy.” And orange.

  “I've got to try that,” Grandma said. “I wouldn't mind having a big bush of orange hair. Brighten things up around here.” Grandma stuck her head out the front door and scanned the neighborhood. “Anybody with you? Any new boyfriends? I liked that last one. He was a real looker.”

  “Sorry” I said. “I'm alone today.”

  “We could call him,” Grandma said. “We got an extra potato in the pot. It's always nice to have a stud-muffin at the table.”

  My father hunched in the hall, TV Guide dangling from his hand. “That's disgusting,” he said. “Bad enough I have to hear crap like this on television, now I have to listen to some old bag talking about stud-muffins in my own home.”

  Grandma narrowed her eyes and glared at my father. “Who you calling an old bag?”

  “You!” my father said. “I'm calling you an old bag. You wouldn't know what to do with a stud-muffin if you tripped over one.”

  “I'm old, but I'm not dead,” Grandma said. “And I guess I'd know what to do with a stud-muffin. Maybe I need to go out and get one of my own.”

  My father's upper lip curled back. “Jesus,” he said.

  “Maybe I'll join one of those dating services,” Grandma said. “I might even get married again.”

  My father perked up at this. He didn't say anything, but his thoughts were transparent. Grandma Mazur remarried and out of his house. Was it possible? Was it too much to hope for?

  I hung my coat in the hall closet and followed my mother into the kitchen. A bowl of rice pudding sat cooling on the kitchen table. The potatoes had already been mashed and were warming in a covered pot on the stove.

  “I got a tip that Uncle Mo was seen coming out of the apartment building on Montgomery.”

  My mother wiped her hands on her apron. “The one next to that Freedom Church?”

  “Yeah. You know anyone who lives there?”

  “No. Margaret Laskey looked at an apartment there once. She said it had no water pressure.”

  “How about the church? You know anything about the church?”

  “Only what I read in the papers.”

  “I hear that Reverend Bill is a pip,” Grandma said. “They were talking about him in the beauty parlor the other day, and they said he made his church up. And then Louise Buzick said her son, Mickey, knew someone who went to that church once and said Reverend Bill was a real snake charmer.”

  I thought “snake charmer” was a good description for Reverend Bill.

  I felt antsy through dinner, not able to get Mo off my mind. I didn't honestly think Andrew Larkin was the contact, but I did think Mo had been on Montgomery. I'd watched men his age go in and out of the mission and thought Mo would fit right in. Maybe Jackie didn't see Mo coming out of the apartment building. Maybe Jackie saw Mo coming out of the mission. Maybe Mo was grabbing a free meal there once in a while.

  Halfway through the rice pudding my impatience got the better of me, and I excused myself to check my answering machine.

  The first message was from Morelli. He had something interesting to tell me and would stop by to see me later tonight. That was encouraging.

  The second message was more mysterious. “Mo's gonna be at the store tonight,” the message said. A girl's voice. No name given. Didn't sound like Gillian, but it could have been one of her friends. Or it could have been a snitch. I'd put out a lot of cards.

  I called Ranger and left a message for an immediate callback.

  “I have to go,” I told my mother.

  “So soon? You just got here.”

  “I have work to do.”

  “What kind of work? You aren't going out looking for criminals, are you?”

  “I got a tip I need to follow up.”

  “It's nighttime. I don't like you in those bad neighborhoods at night.”

  “I'm not going to a bad neighborhood.”

  My mother turned to my father. “You should go with her.”

  “It's not necessary” I said. “I'll be fine.”

  “You won't be fine,” my mother said. “You get knocked out, and people shoot at you. Look at you! You have orange hair!” She put her hand to her chest and closed her eyes. “You're going to give me a heart attack.” She opened her eyes. “Wait while I fix some leftovers to take home.”


  “Not too much,” I said. “I'm going on a diet.”

  My mother slapped her forehead. “A diet. Unh. You're a rail. You don't need to diet. How will you stay healthy if you diet?”

  I paced behind her in the kitchen, watching the leftovers bag fill with packets of meat and potatoes, a jar of gravy, half a green-bean casserole, a jar of red cabbage, a pound cake. Okay, so I'd start my diet on Monday.