Lean Mean Thirteen

  Binkie was silent behind me. I turned and looked at him, and he had his hand on his gun. I wasn't sure what he thought he might have to shoot.

  “Simon Diggery isn't usually armed with anything other than a shovel,” I told Binkie. “Lula and I have done this before. We'll get to the grave site and find a place to hide. Then we'll let Simon dig himself into a hole. It makes the apprehension easier.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” Binkie said.

  “I hate being ma'am,” I told him. “Call me Stephanie.”

  “Yes, ma'am, Stephanie.”

  “I'm at the top of the hill, and I don't see no fresh-dug grave,” Lula said.

  “Are you sure you turned at Kellner?”

  “I turned at the angel. I don't know about Kellner.”

  I squinted into the darkness. Nothing looked familiar.

  “Is that rain I feel?” Lula asked. “It wasn't supposed to rain, was it?”

  “Chance of showers,” I told her.

  “That's it,” she said. “I'm going home. I'm not being out here in the rain. I'm wearing suede.” Lula looked around. “Which way's home?”

  I didn't know. It was pitch black, and I was all turned around.

  “We can't go wrong if we go downhill,” Lula said, taking off. “Oops, excuse me. So sorry. Excuse me.”

  It was raining harder and the ground was getting slick underfoot.

  “Slow down,” I said to Lula. “You can't see where you're going.”

  “I got X-ray vision. I'm like a cat. Don't worry about me. I just gotta get this coat out of the rain. I can see there's a tent ahead.”

  A tent? And then I saw it. The grounds crew had erected a tarp over a hole dug for a morning burial.

  “I'm just waiting under this tent until the rain lets up,” Lula said, rushing forward.

  “No!”

  Too late.

  “Whoops,” Lula said, disappearing from view, landing with a loud whump.

  “Help!” she yelled. “The mummy got me.”

  I looked down at her. “Are you okay?”

  “I think I broke my ass.”

  She was about six feet down in a coffin-sized hole. The sides were steep and the surrounding dirt was fast turning into mud.

  “We have to get her out of here,” I said to Binkie.

  “Yes, ma'am. How?”

  “Do you have anything in the car? Rope?”

  Binkie looked around. “Where's the car?”

  I had no idea.

  I flipped my cell phone open and called Ranger.

  “We're in the cemetery and we're lost,” I said to him. “Its raining and its dark and I'm cramping. I've got the transmitter thingy in my pocket. Can you get a bead on us?” There were a couple beats of silence. “Are you laughing?” I asked him. “You'd better not be laughing.”

  “I'll be right there,” Ranger said.

  “Bring a ladder.”

  We were a ragtag group, standing in the rain at the cemetery gates. Ranger and two of his men fading into the night in their black rain gear, Lula head-to-toe mud, and Binkie and me soaked to the skin.

  “I feel funky,” Lula said. “I got graveyard mud on me.” She had her car keys in her hand. “Do you need a ride somewhere?” she asked me.

  “I'm good,” I said to her.

  Lula got into her car and drove off. Binkie left and Rangers men got into their SUV and left.

  “Just you and me,” Ranger said. “What's the plan?”

  “I want to go to Morelli s house. I want to be there when Dickie starts talking.”

  Thirty minutes later, Ranger walked me to Morelli s back door and handed me over.

  “Good luck,” Ranger said to Morelli. “You might want to hide your gun.”

  And Ranger left.

  Morelli brought me into the kitchen. “Diggery?” he asked.

  “Never saw him. We got lost in the cemetery and had to get Ranger to track us down. I need a shower.”

  I slogged upstairs to the bathroom, locked myself in, and stripped. I stood in the shower until I was all warmed up and squeaky clean. I ran a comb through my hair, wrapped a towel around myself, and shuffled into Morelli s bedroom.

  Morelli was in the middle of the room looking like he wanted to do something but wasn't sure where to begin. Bed linens and clothes were in a crumpled mess on the floor, and there were empty beer bottles, plates, and silverware on all surfaces.

  “This isn't good,” I said to him.

  “You have no idea what this has been like. I hate this guy. I hide in my room. I'd like to hit him, but it isn't allowed. He eats all my food. He controls the television. And he's always talking, talking, talking. He's everywhere. If I don't lock my door, he just walks in.”

  “Is he still drugged?”

  “Yeah. I'd like to keep him that way.”

  “Do I have any clothes here?”

  “Some underwear. I think it's mixed in with mine.”

  I found the underwear and borrowed a T-shirt. I located some clean sheets and made the bed.

  “This is nice,” Morelli said. “I knew the room needed something, but I couldn't figure out what. It was sheets.”

  “Stick a fork in me,” I said, crawling into bed.

  Seventeen

  I woke up to someone banging on the bedroom door and Morelli in bed next to me with the pillow over his face. I took the pillow off Morelli. 'What's going on?"

  “If I go out there, I'll kill him,” Morelli said.

  I crawled out of bed, toed through the clothes on the floor, and located a pair of sweatpants that looked fairly clean. I stepped into the sweats and rolled them at the waist. I was still in Morelli s T-shirt. Didn't bother to brush my hair. I opened the door and looked out at Dickie. He had two black eyes and a Band-Aid on his nose.

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “Jesus,” he said. '“What are you doing here? The nightmare never ends.”

  Good thing for him I didn't have a staple gun.

  'How did I get here? Last thing I remember I was kidnapped," Dickie said.

  “Go downstairs and look for breakfast. We'll be right down.”

  I turned and bumped into Morelli, who was standing behind me, naked. What is it with men that they can walk around like that? I could barely get naked to take a shower.

  “No clothes?” I asked him.

  “You're wearing my last almost-clean sweats.”

  “Underwear?”

  “None. I need to do laundry. Dickie's been wearing my clothes.”

  “I'm not going downstairs with you naked.”

  Morelli kicked through the clothes and came up with a pair of jeans. I watched him put the jeans on commando, and my nipples got hard.

  “I could have these pants off in record time,” Morelli said, eyes on my T-shirt.

  “No way. Dickie might hear.”

  “We could be quiet.”

  “I couldn't concentrate. I'd be imagining Dickie with his ear to the door.”

  “You have to concentrate?” Morelli asked.

  “Hey!” Dickie yelled from the foot of the stairs. “There's no milk.”

  I followed Morelli down the stairs to the kitchen, where Dickie was eating cereal out of the box.

  “There's no milk,” Dickie said. “And there's no more orange juice.”

  “There was orange juice last night,” Morelli said.

  “Yeah, but I drank it.”

  Morelli fed Bob and got the coffee going. I looked for something to eat that might not be contaminated with Dickie cooties. I didn't mind sharing a cereal box with Morelli, but I wasn't going to eat from something Dickie had just stuck his hand in. God knows where that hand was last.

  “Tell me about the key,” I said to Dickie.

  “What key?”

  I glanced at Morelli. “I'm going to hit him.”

  “I'll close my eyes,” Morelli said. “Tell me when it's over.”

  “You can't do that,” Dickie said. "You're supposed to protect me. Especially from
her. You do one little thing wrong with her and the Italian temper comes out. And God forbid you come home late for dinner/'

  “Four hours!” I said. “You'd come home four hours late for dinner, and you'd have grass stains on your knees and your shirt caught in your zipper.”

  “I don't remember that part,” Dickie said. “Did I used to do that?”

  “Yes.”

  Dickie started laughing. “I wasn't making a lot of money back then. I couldn't afford a hotel room.”

  “It's not funny!” I said.

  “Sure it is. Grass stains and rug burns are always funny.” He looked over at Morelli. “She didn't like to do doggy.”

  Morelli slid a look at me and smiled. There wasn't much I didn't like to do with Morelli. Okay, a few things, but they involved animals and other women and body parts that weren't designed for fun.

  “What?” Dickie said. “What's that smile? Oh man, are you telling me she does doggy with you?”

  “Leave it alone,” Morelli said.

  “Is it good? Does she bark? Do you make her bark like a dog?”

  “You need to stop,” Morelli said. “If you don't stop, I'm going to make you stop.”

  “Arf, arf, arf!” Dickie said.

  Morelli gave his head a small shake, like he didn't fucking believe he had Dickie in his kitchen. And then he grabbed Dickie by his T-shirt and threw him halfway across the room. Dickie hit the wall spread-eagle like Wile E. Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon, and the cereal flew out of the box. Bob came running from the living room and snarfed up the cereal.

  “What's that about?” Dickie asked, struggling to get to his feet.

  “Trying to get your attention.”

  I handed Morelli a cup of coffee. “Ask him about the key.”

  “I'm telling you I don't know anything about a key,” Dickie said.

  “Let me refresh your memory,” I said to him. “You left the safety of this house and went straight to my apartment, where you were caught on camera breaking in and searching for something. Later that day, I got a call from a guy who wanted the key.”

  “So?”

  “So I know there's forty million dollars out there. I know everyone wants it. And I know someone thinks I have the key. And unless I can figure this out, I'm going to get barbecued like Smullen and Gorvich.”

  “Let's start from the beginning and build up to the key,” Morelli said. “How did you meet Smullen and Gorvich and Petiak?”

  “I met Petiak at a financial-planning conference. We got to be friends, and he introduced me to Smullen and Gorvich. I'd just been passed over for partnership, and I could see the handwriting on the wall. Office politics weren't in my favor. So I was looking at options. Petiak had money and clients but no ability to litigate if the need should arise. He suggested we go into business together, and I agreed. I knew his client list was questionable, but I thought I could live with it.”

  “Smullen and Gorvich?”

  “We needed more money to buy the building, and Petiak knew Smullen and Gorvich from a previous life, and he knew they were looking for a place to practice. It was all a con, of course. They were always the unholy triad. At some level, I suspected this, but I had no idea how unholy they actually were. I was desperate to be a partner somewhere and get my own business established, so I didn't look at anything too closely.”

  Dickie shook the cereal box and turned it upside down. Empty. “I'm hungry,” he said. “This was the last of the cereal. And I want coffee.”

  “Help yourself to the coffee,” Morelli said.

  “I need cream. I can't drink black coffee.”

  Morelli looked like he was going to throw him against the wall again.

  “I'll go to the store,” I said.

  Not so much as a favor to Dickie. More because I needed cream for my coffee too.

  “I want to go with you,” Dickie said. “I'm tired of being cooped up in this house.”

  “I can't take a chance on having you recognized,” Morelli said. “If Petiak or one of his idiots spots you in my car, we'll blow our cover.”

  “I can wear a hat,” Dickie said.

  “Put him in a hooded sweatshirt,” I told Morelli. “He can put the hood up and slouch down. I need food.”

  Morelli got a hooded sweatshirt off the living room floor and tossed it to Dickie. “I'm going with you,” Morelli said. “Give me a minute to find clothes.”

  My socks had dried, but my shoes were still wet. I grabbed a jacket from Morelli's hall closet and put a ball cap on my head.

  We all skulked out to the SUV parked in the back of the house. Dickie rode shotgun, and I got in behind him. Morelli walked Bob down the alley until Bob did everything he had to do, and then Morelli ran Bob back and put him in the cargo area.

  and then Morelli ran Bob back and put him in the cargo area.

  Eleven. I took everyone's order, Morelli gave me a wad of cash, and I went shopping. I was on my way out with a bag of food when I spotted Diggery at the other end of the mall, doing taxes out of the back of a beat-up Pontiac Bonneville. He had the trunk lid up, and he had a little folding table and two stools set out. There were seven people in line. I handed the bag over to Morelli and walked down to Diggery.

  “Oh jeez,” he said when he saw me.

  “You're up early,” I said to him, checking out his fingernails for signs of fresh dirt.

  “This here's convenience taxes,” Diggery said. “You can pull your pickup in and get your fresh coffee and then come get your taxes done and go off to work.”

  “I was next,” a woman said to me. “You gotta get to the rear of the line.”

  “Chill,” I told her. “I'm wanted for murder, and I'm not in a good mood.”

  “Here's the thing,” Diggery said to me. “I know it's not a big deal to go get bonded out again, but it's gonna cost me more money, and I don't have it. I had to buy winter coats for the kids and rats for the snake. If you let me finish my tax business, I'll come with you. I'll have money from the taxes. Tell you what, you cut me some slack here, and I'll do your taxes. No charge.”

  “How much longer do you need?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “I really could use some help with my taxes.”

  “Just put your pertinent information in a shoe box and bring it all to me. I'll be able to fit you in next Monday. I'll be at Cluck-in-a-Bucket on Hamilton Avenue between ten and twelve at night.”

  “What was that about?” Morelli asked when I got back to the SUV.

  “Simon Diggery doing taxes. He said he needed the money to buy rats for the snake, so I let him go.”

  “That's my girl,” Morelli said. He flipped a bagel back to Bob and took us home.

  I'd gotten bagels, doughnuts, cream cheese, milk, orange juice, bread, and a jar of peanut butter. Dickie chose a bagel and loaded it up with cream cheese. Morelli and I ate doughnuts.

  “Talk while you eat,” Morelli said to Dickie. “You went into business with Smullen, Gorvich, and Petiak. Then what?”

  “It was all looking good. We bought the building, and then we were doing well, so we made some other real estate investments. Petiak and Gorvich both had home offices and I only saw them at the off-site Monday meetings. Fine by me. I always thought Petiak was a little creepy. He has this quiet way of talking, choosing his words as if English is his second language. And there's something about his eyes. Like light goes in but doesn't come out. And Smullen had ties to South America, so I saw him sporadically. It was a little like having my own firm. I had my own clients and my own staff. There were four names on the stationery, but I was usually the only partner in the building.”

  Morelli refilled his coffee and topped off my coffee and Dickie s. “What went wrong?”

  “It was Ziggy Zabar, the accountant. He figured out what was really going on, and he wanted to get paid off.”

  “And what was really going on?” Morelli asked.

  “It s actually very clever,” Dickie said. “They were using the
law firm to launder money. Petiak was a military guy until he got booted out for something… probably insanity. Anyway, he was a supply officer. Worked in a depot and had access to all the munitions. And he saw a way to tap into these depots all across the country and move munitions out of the depots into his private warehouse.”