Smokin' Seventeen

  “Okay, but if it doesn’t work you’re just going to have to deal with the screaming.”

  “Deal,” Lula said, “but I’m not watching him shrivel up and turn into a cat turd. Soon as he starts to smoke I’m outta there.”

  We dropped Ziggy into the casket, and I closed and locked the lid. I rolled the gurney over, we hefted the casket onto it, and we rolled the whole deal to the front of the garage.

  “I’ll wait here,” Lula said. “You back the Jeep up to the door.”

  I ran to the Jeep and collapsed the backseat so there was more room for the casket. I backed the SUV up to the door, Lula powered the door up, and we loaded the casket in.

  “It don’t fit,” Lula said.

  The rear end of the casket was hanging a couple feet over the bumper, but I didn’t care. I’d come this far. I was taking Ziggy in. I’d leave the cargo door open and drive slow.

  I took Liberty to Broad and drove toward the center of the city. The car behind me was keeping his distance.

  “Maybe you should have hung a red flag on Ziggy’s doom box,” Lula said.

  “Maybe I should have blindfolded him, so he couldn’t tell it was day or night and chucked him into the backseat.”

  I cruised through Hamilton and stopped for a light, focusing on the traffic ahead. I heard some scraping sounds and then a shriek. I turned and saw Ziggy jump out of the Jeep and run down a side street, waving his arms and screaming.

  “What the hell?” Lula said. “I saw you lock the lid.”

  “It must have had a release on the inside.”

  I took a right and drove toward the screams. We had our windows down, listening, and the screams stopped.

  “Uh oh,” Lula said. “Cat turd.”

  “He probably went inside a building.”

  “Sure,” Lula said. “That’s probably it. Do you want to get out and search for him?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “No.” She swiveled and looked behind her. “What are we gonna do with his casket?”

  “I guess I’ll return it to the funeral home.”

  “You notice how people are staring at us? It’s like they never seen a casket hanging out of a Jeep before.”

  I retraced my route down Broad to Liberty. I drove past the funeral home and backed into the driveway leading to the garage. The casket carrier was missing and the garage doors were closed.

  “Now what?” Lula asked.

  “Now we remove the casket from Ranger’s Jeep with as much dignity as we can manage, and then we get the heck out of here.”

  “What if someone sees us and wants to know what we’re doing?”

  “We’ll say Ziggy wanted to go for a ride, but decided to walk home.”

  “That’s good,” Lula said. “That sounds like it’s true.”

  “It’s sort of true.”

  “Fuckin’ A.”

  We hauled the casket out of the Jeep, set it down in front of a garage door, scurried back into the SUV, and took off.

  TWENTY-NINE

  I WAS TRYING to get Lula back to the bonds office, but I was inching along Hamilton, caught in the traffic jam created by the bad boys bus. I dropped her a block early, and I cut into the Burg, circled around, and came back to Hamilton on the other side of the gridlock. This had the additional benefit of saving me another pass by the seven-foot, double D cup Stephanie.

  Ten minutes later I stepped out of the elevator in my apartment building and spotted Dave sitting in front of my door. There were two grocery bags on the floor next to him, and he was holding flowers.

  He stood when he saw me. “I brought you flowers.”

  I looked down at the bags. “And groceries?”

  “Yeah. I thought I’d take a chance on you coming home hungry. I got off work, and I drove past the supermarket and felt inspired.”

  I took the flowers and unlocked my door. “What’s on the menu?”

  “Salad, scalloped potatoes, and lamb chops. You’re going to be in charge of the scalloped potatoes.”

  “I’m not wearing the apron.”

  “Too bad.” He unpacked the bags and set everything out on the counter. “You’re not living up to the fantasy.”

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “Twirlers had reputations,” Dave said.

  “What kind of reputations?”

  “Good with a baton.”

  Oh God, I could just feel the rhino hanging over me.

  “Here’s the deal,” I told him. “I have two men in my life who carry guns. You don’t want to make them angry. You can cook but you can’t flirt. No double entendres. No more staring at my chest. No twirler fantasies.”

  “I’m not giving up the twirler fantasies,” Dave said, “but I’ll substitute Alberta Zaremba for you.” He searched around and came up with the cutting board. “I’m going to fix the lamb chops. You can peel the potatoes and cut them into slices about an eighth of an inch thick.”

  When I was almost done cutting, and he looked over my shoulder to check my progress.

  “Perfect,” he said. “It’s too bad we didn’t know each other better when we were in high school.”

  He was way too close. I could feel his breath on my neck, and the brush of his chest against my back when he leaned in.

  “You’re too close,” I said. “Remember the men with the guns?”

  He took a step back, and I cut the last slice. “Now what? Do I put them in the casserole dish?”

  “Yes, but you need to butter it first.”

  He took a stick of butter from the fridge and put it on the counter. He added butter, milk, and already-shredded Swiss cheese.

  “Butter the dish, layer the potatoes, dot with small chunks of butter, sprinkle with the shredded cheese, and add another layer,” he said.

  “Okeydokey.”

  I sprinkled the last of the cheese on the potatoes and stood back to admire my work, thinking it looked pretty darn good.

  “What’s next?” I asked him.

  He took a beat to answer. “Milk.”

  Thank goodness. For a single irrational moment I was afraid he was going to tear my clothes off. And I might have a hard time defending myself. He had height and weight on me, and he wasn’t in great shape, but he wasn’t in terrible shape either.

  He added milk to the potatoes and slid the dish into the oven. “I have the salad and lamb chops ready to go. The only thing left is the wine.”

  “What do we do with the wine?”

  “We drink it until the potatoes are done.”

  I accepted a glass of wine, and the lock tumbled on the front door. There were only two people besides me who could unlock my door. Morelli had a key. And Ranger had skills normal law-abiding citizens didn’t usually possess. I knew it was Morelli because I could hear Bob panting on the other side of the door.

  The door opened, and Bob rushed in, stopped short of Dave, and did his happy dance. Bob loved everyone. Especially people with food in their hand.

  “Hope I’m not interrupting something,” Morelli said, pulling a dog biscuit out of his pocket, tossing it into the living room to distract Bob.

  “Nope,” I told him. “Dave stopped by to make dinner. And I’m sure we have enough for you and Bob. I made scalloped potatoes almost all by myself.” I went to the oven and opened the door. “Look!”

  Morelli looked into the oven and grinned. “I love scalloped potatoes.” He wrapped an arm around me and kissed me on the temple. A big smackeroo kiss Dave couldn’t ignore. “Nice of you to help Steph with the cooking,” he said to Dave.

  This was the equivalent to Bob lifting his leg on his favorite bush, marking his territory. Morelli had me firmly plastered to his side. He took my wine for a test drive, found it lacking, and got a beer from the fridge.

  “How’s it going?” Morelli said to Dave. “I hear you’re working for your uncle.”

  “It fills in the empty spaces,” Dave said. “What’s new in your life?”

  “Murder,” Morelli
said. “Someone is giving Trenton bad statistics. If this keeps up we’ll be the new murder capital.” He took a pull on his beer. “There was a home invasion and double murder in the projects last night.”

  “Robbery? Domestic violence?” I asked.

  “Don’t know. I’m not the primary.”

  Dave took his lamb chops out of the refrigerator and put them on the counter. “How were they killed?”

  “Shot.”

  “Messy,” Dave said.

  THIRTY

  MORELLI WAS KICKED BACK on the couch, shoes off, working the channel changer. Bob was squished onto the couch on one side of Morelli, and I was on the other. The dirty dishes were in the dishwasher. The few leftovers were in the refrigerator. Dave had declined an invitation to watch a rerun of Bowling for Dollars and had gone his way.

  “This is the life,” Morelli said. “A fantastic home-cooked meal, and now relaxing in front of the television. And later, some romance.”

  Oh boy. More romance. And the bladder infection was back. “What do you think of Dave?”

  “He makes a mean lamb chop.”

  “Besides that.”

  “He has superior social skills. Probably was on the fast track professionally before he got caught up in someone’s get-rich-quick scheme.”

  Bob got up, turned around twice, and squeezed himself back into the space between Morelli and the end of the couch.

  The doorbell rang, and I went to answer, half afraid it was Dave returning. I peeked out the security peephole and saw that it was Regina Bugle. Obviously she’d gotten bonded out a second time.

  “What?” I called through the door.

  “I want to talk.”

  “Can you phone it in?”

  “No.”

  I didn’t see a gun in her hand, so I opened the door. Regina bent down, picked up a pie, and smushed it into my face.

  “Bitch,” she said. “The next thing to hit your face will be my bumper.” And she flounced off, down the hall, into the elevator.

  Morelli strolled up behind me. “Yum, dessert.” He swiped some pie off me. “Lemon meringue!”

  “I need to take a shower.”

  “How’s the bladder infection?”

  “It’s back,” I told him. Along with a huge load of guilt. The vordo was taking its toll. And Lula’s plan wasn’t working. I was more conflicted than ever.

  Bob trotted in and ate the pie off the floor.

  “Bob and I are going to split,” Morelli said. “There’s a poker game at Mooch’s house tonight.”

  • • •

  Saturday morning Morelli called to say he was spending the day helping his brother Anthony move from one side of the Burg to the other, into a larger house. Anthony and his wife were a baby factory.

  Before the office burned down Connie usually worked a half-day on Saturday, but Saturdays were now hit or miss. And since the bus was being renovated I suspected Connie would be at Point Pleasant playing SKILLO today.

  When Vinnie has bad guys out there in the wind I work seven days a week. The only bad guy in the wind right now was Ziggy, and I was thinking the money I’d make from bringing him in wasn’t worth any more attempts at running down a screaming vampire.

  It was almost nine o’clock and I was slumping around in a ratty T-shirt that used to be Morelli’s, navy sweats, and fuzzy pink slippers. I’d cleaned Rex’s cage and given him fresh food and water. I was on my second cup of coffee. I’d eaten the left-over lamb chop. I was debating between scrubbing the toilet or going back to bed. And my phone rang.

  “I just got a call from Emma Brewer,” my mother said. “She’s so excited about you and Dave.”

  “Emma?”

  “His mother. She said you’ve been seeing each other.”

  “I let him use my kitchen.”

  “Two days in a row! Did he make you lamb chops? Emma said his specialty is lamb chops.”

  “Yeah, he makes great lamb chops. Morelli was here, and he loved them.”

  “You let Joseph Morelli interfere with your date?”

  “It wasn’t a date.”

  “Stephanie, you have a chance with this nice young man. You should get your hair done. Get a manicure. I think he’s interested. It’s going nowhere with Morelli. You’ll never get him to marry you. I thought it would be nice if I invited the Brewers to dinner,” my mother said. “You and Dave, and Emma and Herb, and …”

  “No! Do not do that. Dave and I are just friends. In fact we’re barely friends.”

  “That’s not what I hear from Emma. I think he’s taken with you.”

  “Gosh, I’d really like to talk more, but I was in the middle of scrubbing my toilet. I’ve got to go. Things to do.”

  And I hung up. And then as penance for all the lusting I’d been doing, and for hanging up on my mother, and for not liking Dave more, I scrubbed the entire bathroom.

  An hour later I was showered and dressed in my usual jeans, sneakers, and T-shirt, and I was standing just outside my apartment building’s back door. I did a quick scan for Regina Bugle’s Lexus, and when I didn’t see it I crossed to my borrowed Jeep.

  I got within a couple feet of the Jeep and realized someone was behind the wheel. My first reaction was confusion. My second was that this was not good. The man behind the wheel was in his early sixties. He was wearing a collared knit shirt, his eyes were open and fixed, his head was twisted at an odd angle, and there were rope burns on his neck. The note pinned to his shirt read FOR STEPHANIE.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I PUT MY HAND OUT to steady myself and immediately pulled it back, not wanting to touch the Jeep. I stumbled back, my heart knocking around in my chest, and I walked on unsteady legs to the security of the lobby. I called Morelli and Ranger, and I stayed in the lobby until a Rangeman security car arrived three minutes later. A Trenton police car arrived two minutes after that.

  Ranger and Morelli rolled in a couple minutes after the squad car. They parked, glanced over at me, and went directly to the car with the murder victim. They stood hands on hips, talking to the two men who were the first on the scene.

  Ranger and Morelli were professionals and they had a professional relationship. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they liked each other, but they’d worked together before and almost always managed to be civil. Morelli thought Ranger was a wild card. And he was right. Ranger thought Morelli was a good cop. And he was right.

  A uniform cordoned off the area with crime scene tape. The M.E. pulled in and parked. There were two EMT trucks idling at the edge of the lot. I’d stayed close to the back door, and one of the Rangeman guys had taken a position two feet from me, standing at parade rest. No doubt in my mind he’d take a bullet for me rather than face Ranger over a dead Stephanie. I waited at the door until Ranger and Morelli walked back to me. My teeth had stopped chattering, and I was moving from scared to angry. I had enough going on in my life without this.

  “It’s Gordon Kulicki,” Morelli said to me. “By our best guess this happened somewhere around two in the morning. You’ve seen the note. Did you know Kulicki?”

  “No. Did he have ties to Dugan?”

  “He was Dugan’s banker. And they played poker together every Thursday night. Dugan, Lucarelli, Kulicki, Sam Grip, and a couple floaters.”

  I watched the forensic photographer work around the Jeep. “Sam Grip should take a vacation far, far away.”

  “Sam Grip hasn’t been seen in weeks,” Morelli said.

  “Strangling someone and then breaking their neck seems like a lot of work,” I said. “Why doesn’t this guy just shoot his victims?”

  “He could be leaving a calling card,” Morelli said. “Or Dave could have the answer. Shooting is messy. If your victim doesn’t bleed there’s not as much cleanup. Either way, these aren’t crimes of passion. These are planned executions.”

  “And I’m involved.”

  The line of Morelli’s mouth was tight. “Yeah.”

  I looked over at Ranger. “Sorry about
your Jeep. Who won the pool?”

  “Technically you didn’t destroy it,” Ranger said. “One of my men will bring you a replacement.”

  Ranger left to go back to Rangeman, and Morelli was silent until Ranger was in his car.

  “Before Nick Alpha got sent to prison he was in business with Lou Dugan,” Morelli finally said. “Mostly prostitution and running numbers. Nick was paroled the week before Dugan disappeared. I spoke to someone who knows Nick, and he said Nick never got over his brother’s death. He said Nick came out of prison a wack job.”

  “So now what?”

  “I’m going to do my cop thing, and I’m going to talk to Nick, but I have no reason to take any action. I don’t suppose you’d consider going on that vacation far far away?”

  “I’ll think about it. Why did you wait for Ranger to leave before talking to me about Nick Alpha?”

  “I was afraid Ranger would make Nick Alpha disappear and never be seen again.”

  “Good thinking.”

  A shiny black Shelby GT350 slid to a stop beside us, and a Rangeman guy got out, handed me the keys, and was picked up by another Rangeman vehicle.

  Morelli shook his head. “I don’t believe he’s giving you a Shelby. Do you have any idea what this car costs?”

  “It’s just a loaner,” I said.

  “Someday I’m going to find out where all his cars come from. It has to be illegal.”

  The M.E. whistled and waved at Morelli.

  “I have to go,” Morelli said. “I’ll get back to you later. Try to stay safe.”

  I got behind the wheel of the Shelby and cruised out of the lot. The car was sweet, and I was tempted to keep driving until I got to the Pacific Ocean, but I restrained myself and headed for Rangeman instead. I swung into the Burg to avoid bus traffic, exited onto Broad, and called Ranger to tell him I was on my way.

  “I want to take another look at the video of the guy dumping the body,” I told him.

  “Use your key fob to get into my apartment,” he said. “I’ll be away from Rangeman for most of the day. The video is on a disk in my right top drawer.”

  I made my way through the center of town, turned right onto a side street, and fobbed my way into the Rangeman garage. I took the elevator to the seventh floor and let myself into Ranger’s lair. Entering his apartment is always a sensual experience. His masculine energy dominates the space. Ella maintains order and civility. Ranger regulates air pressure.