Smokin' Seventeen

  Lula and I walked around the side of the building and found Melanie sitting on a beer keg, smoking. The first delicious rush of nicotine was behind her, and she was mechanically working her way through the remainder of her cigarette.

  I introduced myself and asked if she had witnessed the shooting.

  “I was there,” she said, “but I didn’t see how it happened. I was waiting on a couple in a booth, and I heard the gun go off. And then I heard Jeff yelling how he was shot. And at first I was panicked, you know? I mean it could have been some loon looking to wipe out a room.”

  “Did you see anyone holding a gun?”

  “No. By the time I looked around Jeff had fainted and was laid out behind the bar. And there was this guy in a red shirt looking shell-shocked, standing in front of the bar.”

  “Anyone else around?”

  “No. It was closing time, and the place was just about empty. The people in the booth called 911, and I went to see if I could help Jeff.”

  “And the guy in the red shirt?”

  “It was like he was glued to the floor. His eyes were big, and his mouth was open, and he was hanging onto a barstool.”

  “Was he drunk?”

  “Let’s just say if he was the one who got shot he wouldn’t be feeling any pain. When Jeff came around, he said the guy in the red shirt shot him.” Melanie took one last drag on her cigarette, dropped it onto the blacktop, and ground it out with her shoe. “I gotta get back to work.”

  “One last thing,” I said to her. “While all this is going down, where’s the gun if it’s not in anyone’s hand?”

  “It was on the floor by Jeff.”

  Lula and I walked back to my Escort, and I called Morelli.

  “Do you know who has the Boris Belmen case?” I asked him. “Belmen is accused of shooting a bartender.”

  “Jerry caught that one. Belmen put his bear up as a guarantee against his bond, right?”

  “Right. I just spoke to the waitress on duty when the bartender got shot, and it doesn’t add up to me. The gun was found behind the bar, next to Belmen.”

  “I’ll pass it on to Jerry.”

  “Did you get a chance to look at the Beck video?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I’ve got it up on my computer.”

  “Anything jump out at you? Do you recognize the killer?”

  “No and no, but I think the Frankenstein mask is a nice touch.”

  “Does the guy in the video remind you of Ronald Buzick?” I asked Morelli.

  There was total silence, and I imagined Morelli as looking incredulous in a horrified kind of way.

  “He’s a butcher,” I told Morelli. “He’s strong. He could choke someone. And he’s used to being around dead meat.”

  “The killer moved like a younger guy. Maybe an athlete. Ronald moves like an overweight guy with hemorrhoids. And Ronald’s got his arm in a cast. He fell off a hydraulic lift and broke his arm in two places.”

  “Bummer. One other thing. I could have sworn I saw Jimmy Alpha just now.”

  “Alpha is dead.”

  “I know, but this man looked like him. And he made a sign that he saw me. Honest to goodness, I don’t think he liked me. He looked angry.”

  “If someone else said that to me after the morning you’ve just had, I’d pass it off as hysteria, but you’re not prone to hysteria. Except maybe when you see a spider.”

  “Do we have plans for tonight?”

  “I’m meeting with Terry tonight. I want her to look at the video, and she’s not available until six o’clock.”

  I disconnected and blew out a sigh. Terry. Probably nothing. Business.

  “Well?” Lula asked.

  “It’s not Ronald Buzick.”

  “Too bad. I was listening, and I thought you had sound reasoning. I especially was impressed with the part about the dead meat.”

  I took Stark to Olden and cut across town to Hamilton. “I’m going back to my apartment to check in with Connie,” I said to Lula. “She sent me a text message that we got a new FTA.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  CONNIE WAS WORKING at my dining room table and Dave Brewer was cooking in my kitchen.

  “How? What?” I said to Connie, pointing at Dave.

  “He called to see if you were home, and we got to talking, and one thing led to another, and we decided to surprise you with dinner.”

  “Guess Connie didn’t get the stalker memo,” Lula whispered to me.

  “I’m running late,” Dave said. “I had an estimate in Ewing Township that took longer than planned. I have corn muffins baking in the oven, and I’m almost ready to put my stew together.”

  “Well hell-O,” Lula said. “I smell bacon.”

  “It’s my special recipe,” Brewer said. “I put jalapeños, bacon, and a smidgeon of cheddar in my corn muffins.”

  Lula sniffed in the direction of the oven. “Yum. That’s three of my favorite food groups.”

  Dave was wearing jeans and a khaki T-shirt. He had a red chef’s apron tied at the waist, and he was artfully dusted with flour. He didn’t measure up to Ranger or Morelli, but he was a decent-looking guy. Fortunately, I was wearing the granny panties. It would be bad if Bella’s spell encouraged me to get it on with Dave Brewer.

  “I’m making enough for everyone,” Dave said. “It’ll be ready at six, but I can’t stay to eat. I have to get to another estimate tonight.” He glanced over to me. “But I’ll try to get back for late dessert.”

  There was going to be no late dessert. The door would be locked and bolted. Still, I had to admit whatever he was cooking smelled pretty darn good. I watched him take chopped onion, red peppers, and mushrooms to a skillet heating on the stove. “What are you making?”

  “Tex-Mex Turkey Fiesta. Plus there’s a salad in the refrigerator. This is a celebration for me. I signed a lease to rent an apartment today. This time next week I’ll have my own kitchen.”

  Lula looked over his shoulder. “You know how to cook onions and everything.”

  He stirred the onions in the hot oil. “It’s my hobby. It keeps me calm. When I get too crazy I cook something.”

  “It’s a good hobby,” Lula said. “You got any others?”

  “I like football. And I used to play golf, but my ex-wife threw my clubs away when I was in jail.”

  “I would never have done that,” Lula said. “I would have sold them.”

  Connie came into the kitchen and handed me a folder. “Regina Bugle. Original charge was domestic violence. She ran her husband down with her Lexus and then backed over him.”

  “See, now there’s a take-charge woman. I bet he deserved it,” Lula said.

  We all considered that for a moment.

  “Anyway, she didn’t show up for court yesterday,” Connie said. “She was a first-time offender, so she shouldn’t be difficult. Just don’t try to apprehend her when she’s in her car.”

  I took the folder and thumbed through the information. She was thirty-two years old. Caucasian. Her photo showed a pretty blond wearing lots of makeup. She’d run over her fifty-nine-year-old husband and left him with two broken legs, a couple cracked ribs, and a bunch of bruises. My guess was she’d signed an unfavorable pre-nup.

  “She has a Lawrenceville address,” I said to Connie. “Is she still there?”

  “Yes. I spoke to her this morning. She said she forgot the court date, and she’d stop around to sign new papers when her schedule opened up. I interpreted that to mean never.”

  “Where’s the husband?”

  “He’s at some fancy rehab facility in Princeton.”

  “Let’s roll,” I said to Lula.

  “Only if you promise we’ll be back here by six. I don’t want to miss the bacon muffins.”

  • • •

  The Bugles lived in a large brick colonial on a sizable landscaped lot, in a neighborhood filled with expensive homes. A black Lexus was parked in the driveway.

  “Looks like she’s home,” Lula said. “And good
news. She’s not in her car.”

  I rang the bell. A blond woman opened the door and looked out at us.

  “Regina Bugle?” I asked.

  “Yes. What’s it to you?”

  “Rent money,” Lula said. And she zapped her with her stun gun.

  Regina crumpled into a heap on the floor, eyes open, fingers twitching.

  “Jeez,” I said to Lula, “you ever hear of unnecessary force?”

  “Yeah, but I barely used any force. I just touched her with the prongs.”

  I pulled cuffs out of my back pocket and clapped them onto Regina. “Watch her while I check the house,” I said to Lula. “Do not zap her again.”

  I walked through the downstairs checking to make sure doors were locked and appliances were off. I returned to Lula, and we got Regina to her feet. Her knees were wobbly, and her feet weren’t connected to her brain, so we pretty much dragged her to my Escort.

  “This is gonna change our luck,” Lula said. “We were in a slump, but now we snagged someone, so we’ll get all the others. That’s the way it goes. When it rains it pours.”

  Ten minutes from the police station Regina regained control of her mouth muscles.

  “Don’t think you won’t pay for this,” she yelled from the backseat. “I ran my asshole husband down, and I’ll run you down, too. Both of you. The first one’s going to be the bitch who rang my doorbell.”

  Lula looked over at me. “That’s you. You’re in trouble.”

  “I’m going to find out where you live, and I’m coming after you,” Regina said. “I’m going to run you down, back over you, and then I’m going to get out and shock you with my stun gun until your hair catches fire.”

  “You got a lot of anger,” Lula said to Regina. “You need to take up yoga or learn some of that tai chi shit I see old Chinese ladies doing in the park.”

  We unloaded Regina, I got my body receipt from the docket lieutenant, and we headed back to my apartment.

  “We should stop and get a bottle of wine to go with dinner,” Lula said. “There’s a wine store on the next block. I shopped there before, and they got a good selection of cheap wines.”

  I parked in the small lot attached to the store, and Lula and I walked up and down the aisles until Lula found one she liked.

  “I buy wine according to the bottle design,” Lula said. “After I get down the first glass it all tastes okay to me, so I figure you go for something classy to look at on the table.”

  In this case it was a bottle of cabernet with a picture of a guy in a black cape on it. The guy was either Zorro or Dracula.

  We were at the register about to pay when the door opened, a big guy rushed in and pulled out a Glock.

  “This is a holdup,” he said. “Nobody move.”

  He was about six feet tall, built chunky, was wearing a black ski mask, and he had a big bandage on his foot.

  Lula leaned forward and squinted at him. “Merlin?”

  “Yuh.”

  “What the heck are you doing?”

  “I’m robbing the store.”

  “Good Lord, man, don’t you have anything better to do?”

  “I already did that. Now I feel like having a bottle of wine.”

  “So why don’t you buy one. They got wine here for three dollars.”

  “I don’t have no money. I don’t have a job.”

  “What about unemployment?”

  “I already spent my unemployment check. I had to make a car payment. And my television got busted, so I had to buy a new one. Those flat screens don’t come cheap, you know. And now that I’m home all the time, being I don’t have a job, I gotta have a decent television to watch.”

  “I see what you’re saying.”

  “Anyways I figure’d I’d rob a store. This way I get a bottle of wine and some money to tide me over for the week.”

  “Yes, but we know who you are now,” I said to him.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s a bummer. ’Course I’m already wanted for armed robbery, so maybe it’s no big deal.”

  “What kind of wine do you like?” Lula asked him.

  “Red. I already stole a steak from Shop and Bag. I’m gonna have a real nice dinner tonight.” He looked at the bottle of wine in Lula’s hand. “That looks good. Hand it over.”

  “No way,” Lula said. “I got the last bottle of this wine. Go find your own damn wine.”

  Merlin pointed the gun at her. “Give me the wine, or I’ll shoot you.”

  Lula narrowed her eyes and stomped on his bandaged foot with one of her Louboutins.

  “Yow!” Merlin said, doubling over. “Fuck!”

  Lula cracked him on the head with her bottle of wine, and Merlin went down like a sack of sand.

  “This is my day,” Lula said. “Not only did I find this fine bottle of wine, but I just foiled a robbery.”

  Merlin was out cold. Probably a kindness considering the way his foot must be feeling. I kicked his gun away and cuffed him. Lula paid for her wine, and the clerk helped us drag Merlin out to my car. We got a guy on the street to give us a hand, and we managed to shove Merlin into my backseat.

  “I told you it was gonna be like this,” Lula said. “When it rains it pours.”

  By the time we got to the station Merlin’s eyes were open, and he was moaning.

  “How’d he get this big lump on his head?” the docket lieutenant wanted to know.

  “He hit himself on the head with a bottle of wine,” I said. “It was one of those freak accidents.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  LULA AND I went back to Connie at my place. We pushed Connie’s computer and stacks of files to the side and took the food and bottle of wine to the dining room table.

  Lula poured wine for everyone and raised her glass. “Here’s a toast. When it rains it pours.”

  We drank to that, and we dug in.

  “This is delicious,” Connie said. “He’s a really good cook.”

  Lula spooned out more casserole and looked over at me. “You should marry him. You could have perfectly good sex all by yourself, but you’ll never be able to cook this good.”

  Connie agreed. “She has a point. If you don’t want to marry him, maybe I’ll marry him.”

  “If I married Ranger I could have good sex and good food,” I said. “Ranger has Ella.”

  Connie paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. “Does Ranger want to marry you?”

  “No.”

  “So that would be a problem,” Connie said.

  I made a conscious effort not to sigh. I’d been doing a lot of sighing lately. “Sometimes Joe wants to marry me.”

  Connie and Lula looked at me. Hopeful.

  “Can he cook?” Connie asked.

  “No,” I said. “Mostly he dials food. But he dials really good pizza and meatball subs.”

  “I might go with Dave,” Lula said. “Someday you’ll be old, and you won’t want sex anymore, but you’ll always want food.”

  “This is true,” Connie said. “I vote for Dave.”

  “I love these little corn muffins,” Lula said. “These are outstanding muffins.”

  By the time we were done we’d eaten the entire batch of muffins, and there wasn’t a lot of Tex-Mex Fiesta left either.

  “What about dessert?” Lula wanted to know.

  “That last muffin was my dessert,” Connie said. “I’m packing up and going home.”

  Lula carted her plate to the kitchen. “I’m thinking I need ice cream.”

  I looked in my freezer to see if ice cream had magically been deposited. Nope. No ice cream.

  “I have to drive you back to your car,” I told Lula. “We can stop on the way for ice cream.”

  “If we go to Cluck-in-a-Bucket I can get soft-serve. I like when they mix the vanilla and chocolate and put them chocolate sprinkles on top.”

  We stacked everything in the sink, I gave Rex a chunk of muffin I’d set aside for him, and Lula and I locked up and headed out. I’m pretty good at wa
lking in heels, but Lula is the champion. Lula can go all day in five-inch spikes. I think she must have no nerve endings in her feet.

  “How do you walk in those shoes for hours on end?” I asked her.

  “I can do it on account of I’m a balanced body type,” she said, hustling across the lot to my Escort. “I got perfect weight distribution between my boobs and my booty.”

  I drove down Hamilton, past the construction site with Mooner’s bus parked curbside, and pulled into the Cluck-in-a-Bucket parking lot. Lula went inside to get her ice cream, and I stayed behind to take a call from Morelli.

  “I just got rid of Terry,” he said. “I have some paperwork to clear out, and then I’m done. I thought I’d stop by.”

  “How did it go with Terry?”

  “It was a big zero,” Morelli said. “She didn’t recognize the killer. And she couldn’t find a connection between Juki Beck and Lou Dugan. But just so it wasn’t a complete waste of my time she wore a little skirt that had Roger Jackson falling out of his seat across the room.”

  “And you?”

  “I couldn’t get a really good look from where I was sitting. Not to change the subject, but I spoke to Jerry about Belmen. Jerry picked up on the gun, too. And turns out the gun belonged to the bartender. Jerry went out to talk to him, and the charges have been dropped. Connie should be getting the paperwork tomorrow.”

  “Let me take a guess. The bartender shot himself.”

  “Yeah, it was an accident, but he thought it wouldn’t play well with the ladies, so he pinned it on Belmen. He figured Belmen was so drunk he wouldn’t know what the hell happened.”

  “So I’m off the hook with the bear.”

  “Looks that way. Maybe you want to think about getting a different job. Something with better work conditions … like roach extermination or hazardous waste collection.”

  “You sound like my mother.”

  “After I talked to you earlier I did some checking, and found out that Jimmy Alpha’s brother just got out of prison on an early parole. Until last month he’d been locked away on racketeering charges. I’m told there’s a strong resemblance.”

  “Do you think he’d have ties to Lou Dugan?”