Takedown Twenty

  I pulled a folder with all my paperwork out of my messenger bag and handed it to Connie. “These are all the open cases.”

  “What are you gonna do?” Lula asked. “You got another job?”

  “Maybe.”

  Randy Berger’s deli was on the edge of the Burg. It had formerly been known as Schmidt’s Meats, and Randy had changed the name to Berger’s Bits. The place was primarily a butcher shop, but there were a few staples on shelves in the front of the store, plus there were racks of condiments. It was next to a store that sold cupcakes, and beyond the cupcake store was a dry cleaner and a pet groomer.

  I parked in the small lot next to Berger’s Bits and worked on my enthusiasm. This could be great, I told myself. It would be safe. I’d keep regular hours. And I’d learn something about meat. Morelli would like that. Meat was one of his favorite things.

  I’d been in the store a couple times when I’d run errands for my mom, but not recently. Mostly she shopped at Giovichinni’s, because it was closer. If Randy Berger gave her a discount she’d be shopping there. There were two large plate glass windows on either side of the door in the front of the store. They were papered with handwritten specials and ads for lottery tickets. The register was just inside the door. One register. One plump lady working the register. She was wearing a bright blue smock with “Berger’s Bits” embroidered over her left breast. “Janice” was embroidered under “Berger’s Bits.”

  I walked to the back of the store, where Randy Berger was waiting on an elderly woman. A second woman patiently stood in line. Randy saw me, and his face flushed even more scarlet than usual, but it was no match for my green and black bruising.

  “I’ll be with you in a minute,” he said.

  I attempted a smile. “No problem.”

  Immaculate glass cases lined three sides of the store. The poultry, lamb, beef, pork, and sausages were nicely displayed, considering it was all dead flesh. Cook it up and put some gravy on it and I’m happy. Anything precooking and I’m one step from gag. With the possible exception of bacon. Bacon comes shrink-wrapped in strips and has no relationship to anything other than bacon. I know there are rumors that bacon originates with Porky Pig, but I find that incomprehensible. If Randy gave me a job I hoped I’d get put in charge of the bacon. Sausage would be okay too.

  The second woman whisked past me with her packet of meat wrapped in butcher paper, and I returned to the back of the store, where Randy was wiping down a counter.

  “What would you like?” he asked. “The lamb racks are nice today.” He looked up from his cleaning, and his eyes glazed over as he took in my face.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” I told him. “I had a gun kick back and smack me in the nose.”

  “Does that happen a lot?”

  “No. It was partly because my broken finger made it hard to hold the gun.” I held my finger up for him to see. “Anyway, I came in to see if the job was still open. I think I’m ready for a change.”

  “I thought you didn’t like meat and poultry.”

  “That was yesterday. And I’ve always liked bacon.”

  “I could really use some help,” Randy said. “When can you start?”

  “Now.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay with the broken nose and all?”

  “Yep. I’m good. I can almost breathe through one side.”

  “I guess I could use you in the back room today if you don’t mind doing mostly cleanup. It would help me out a lot. I have a big barbecue order to fill, I got a truck coming in with a side of beef, and I got a pig in the smoker out back.”

  “Gee, that sure sounds exciting.”

  “It’s just the beginning. You’re going to love this job. I’m going to start you off letting you watch the smoker for me. The pig’s already in it and cooking. You just have to make sure the smoker stays on the right temperature.”

  I nodded. I thought I could manage that.

  A woman stepped up to the counter and Randy sliced off a half pound of Virginia baked ham for her. The woman went to the register, and Randy turned back to me.

  “For most of the day, there’s a steady stream of customers coming in, and I can’t wait on the customers and get anything else done, so I’m staying here until all hours doing butchering. With you here we should be able to split up the customers and the butchering and be home by nine.”

  “Nine at night?”

  “Is that a problem? We stay open until seven and then it takes time to shut down and clean.”

  “No problem.”

  I hoped, while I was looking after the smoker, I didn’t have access to sharp knives, because I was contemplating sticking one in my jugular.

  “This is going to be great,” Randy said. “Let me show you the back, we’ll get you an apron, and we can peek in at the pig.”

  The back room reminded me of the embalming room at a funeral home. Stainless steel worktable, large stainless sink, buckets for blood and guts, big bottle of bleach. Randy had a walk-in refrigerator and freezer, a shrink-wrapping machine, a commercial stove, a massive chopping block, various slicers, a couple power saws, and some stainless steel rolling racks.

  “Here’s an apron for you,” he said, handing me a black rubberized apron that would fit Sasquatch. “It’s going to be a little big, but it’s all I’ve got right now.”

  I put the apron on, and we went out to the parking lot behind the store to look at the pig. The smoker was a huge barrel on wheels with a wood-burning oven attached. Randy rolled the side door up on the smoker, and the whole pig was inside, head and tail and everything in between. Its mouth was open, it had aluminum foil wrapped around its ears, and its skin was singed black and crispy. I looked in at it, and it was goodnight Stephanie.

  Bells were clanging in my head, the world was whirling around, and my fingers were numb. I looked up, and Randy Berger swam into focus.

  “What?” I said.

  “You fainted. Lucky I caught you, or you would have cracked your head open like a muskmelon.”

  “The pig.”

  “I know just how you feel. I almost fainted the first time I cooked one, too. It’s the smell of the gutted, fresh-killed pig roasting over the fire, dripping all its succulent oozy juices, its crispy skin charred mahogany and black.” He smiled wide. “Life doesn’t get much better than a roasted pig.”

  I heard someone whimper. I think it was me.

  “It’s overwhelming, right?” Randy said. “Like a religious experience. Sometimes I have dreams about pigs getting roasted.”

  I was on my back on the paved parking lot, staring up at Randy, who was at that moment looking very piglike, with his round little pig eyes glittering in his pink, sweaty face.

  “The snout. The tail. The hooves,” I said. “All there. Why?”

  “Because it’s all delicious,” Randy said. “I have all I can do to keep from tearing into it.”

  My God, I was in the throes of a pig-corpse-induced nightmare. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t happening.

  “I like my pigs big, too,” Randy said. “If you’re gonna roast a pig, I say get a big one.”

  He yanked me to my feet. “Up you go! Feeling better?”

  I nodded. Get it together, I told myself. Don’t show fear in front of the crazy pig man.

  “Okay then, let me get you started,” Randy said. “You see this gauge on the cooker?”

  I did another nod.

  “Just keep it right where it is.” He stuffed some chunks of wood into the oven. “You got to keep feeding the fire to keep the temperature up.”

  “Feed the fire,” I said.

  “You got it. Follow me.”

  We went back into the workroom and he pointed to a stack of boxes.

  “We just got these in,” Randy said. “We need to check them off against the bill to make sure we got the right thing, and then they need to get put in the walk-in fridge. Some of the boxes are wings for the barbecue. They got to get put in the marinade. Set them aside and
come get me when you’re done, and I’ll show you how to marinade.”

  More nodding on my part.

  Randy went back to waiting on customers, and I thought if anyone was capable of killing old ladies and throwing them in a Dumpster it had to be Randy Berger. They were probably lucky not to get roasted in the pig cooker. I carted the boxes into the fridge and looked around to make sure there were no pickled human body parts stacked up for late-night snacking.

  I set the boxes of wings on the stainless table and went out to get Randy. I watched him slice roast beef, ham, and Swiss cheese, and weigh out a pound of ground round.

  “Ready for the marinade,” I said.

  Randy got a large plastic container from a top shelf and poured a big jar of brown glop into it. “Put the wings in this and make sure they all get covered. There’s another jar of sauce on the shelf if you need it. Cover the container and put it in the fridge. We’ll cook them up in a couple hours. There’s a box of disposable gloves by the sink.”

  I looked at the gloves, and I looked at my finger in the big metal splint. This was going to be like trying to get a condom on King Kong.

  It was almost nine-thirty when I staggered into my apartment, got a cold beer from the fridge, and held it against my eyes.

  “Have a tough day?” Morelli asked, strolling into the kitchen, followed by Bob.

  “Unh.”

  I’d seen his car parked in the lot when I pulled in, so I wasn’t surprised to find him in my apartment. He had a key. And even without the key he could get past a lock.

  Bob sniffed me up and down and licked my shoe.

  “You smell like bacon,” Morelli said to me. “I think I’m getting turned on.”

  “It’s roast pig. It’s in my hair. I can’t get away from it.”

  “What’s Bob eating on your shoe?”

  “Barbecue sauce.”

  “Did you just capture a cook?”

  “No. I quit my job at the bonds office, and I took a job at Berger’s Bits.”

  “The butcher shop?”

  “You know how some men have wet dreams? Randy Berger has pig dreams.”

  Morelli burst out laughing. “What are you doing there?”

  “I’m a butcher.”

  “Cupcake, you go green walking past the chicken parts in the supermarket.”

  “This is right up there for the worst day of my life.”

  “You’ve had some pretty bad days. Remember when you fell off the fire escape into the dog diarrhea?”

  “This was worse.”

  “Wow.”

  I took the beer bottle off my eye and drank the beer. “I need a shower.”

  “Do you need help?”

  “No. I need food. Something vegetarian.”

  “A salad?”

  “A pizza. Hold the pepperoni and sausage.”

  I was working my way through my second beer and third piece of pizza, and I was beginning to feel human.

  “How’s your nose?” Morelli asked.

  “It’s good. I can breathe through it, and it doesn’t hurt if I don’t touch it.”

  “Are you going to keep the butcher job?”

  “At least for a couple more days. Randy Berger has moved to the top of my list for murder suspects. He knew all the women. He’s big enough and strong enough to pitch someone into a Dumpster. And he’s scary.”

  “How is he scary?”

  “He worships meat. His eyes get glittery and crazy when he talks about it.”

  “All meat?”

  “Mostly pork.”

  “It’s a guy thing,” Morelli said. “Any normal, red-blooded guy is going to go a little gonzo talking about pig products. All the best food in the world comes from a pig. Hot dogs, bacon, ribs, pulled pork, pork roast, pork chops, ham, Taylor pork roll.”

  “He was roasting a whole pig. It was massive. And he had its ears wrapped in aluminum foil.”

  “That’s so they don’t burn.”

  “You know about this?”

  “I can find my way around a smoker.”

  “So you don’t think Randy Berger killed the women.”

  “I didn’t say that. I said he’s not crazy just because he gets a little sloppy over pork.”

  “What’s your best guess for the killer?”

  “I don’t have a best guess,” Morelli said. “What we believe is that he’s local. And the women knew him. He’s neat. Doesn’t like a messy crime scene. Has some ego. Likes to leave a calling card. Feels safe. Maybe feels like he’s above the law. Beyond that we don’t know much.”

  “What about the bank accounts?”

  “The bank accounts have for the most part been explained away. One account was moved to another bank. One account was cleaned out to buy a cruise ticket that was never used.”

  “Your profile doesn’t entirely fit Randy Berger. He probably wouldn’t choose a Venetian blind cord as his instrument of death. He wouldn’t care about neat. He’d be more comfortable with a cleaver.”

  “And what about motive?” Morelli asked. “What’s his motive?”

  “Fun?”

  “It sounds to me like you quit working for Vinnie but you’re still working for Ranger,” Morelli said.

  “I can’t bring myself to walk away from those women. And I think it’s odd that four women have been killed and left in a Dumpster and no one saw anything. It’s like the giraffe. There’s a giraffe hanging out on Fifteenth Street and no one’s reported it. What’s with that?”

  “It’s a mystery,” Morelli said, sliding his arm around me and leaning close. “You don’t smell like barbecue anymore, but I like you anyway. Maybe we should take some of those items I bought at the drugstore for a test drive.”

  “If you touch my nose I’ll make you incapable of fathering a child.”

  “Touching your nose wasn’t in my game plan.”

  “Are you willing to chance it?”

  “No,” Morelli said.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I GOT TO the hardware store at seven-thirty in the morning and bought rubber boots. My credit card was declined, so I gave Victor my last five dollars and the promise of pork chops. I went from there to the butcher shop, where I pulled on my new boots and wrapped the Sasquatch-size apron around myself as best I could.

  “This is a big day,” Randy said, taking the first hit of the day from the peach schnapps bottle. “We just got blood sausage and tongue from a farm in Wisconsin, and we have to start butchering the side of beef. I thought after we fill the display cases, you could take care of the customers, so I can tackle the side of beef. You know how to work the slicer and the scale, and you can come get me if there’s a problem. Just remember, the customer is always right.”

  I added rubber gloves to my ensemble and helped Randy set up the trays of sausages and steaks. He brought out the tongue, and I felt my gag reflex kick in. The tongue was big. In fact it was bigger than just big. It was monstrous. It was the biggest freaking tongue I’d ever seen. Good thing Morelli’d stayed over last night, because there wasn’t going to be anything happening tonight after my seeing a tray full of cow tongue.

  At eleven o’clock I was feeling pretty good about how things were going. I’d weighed out deli meats, steaks, and a roasting chicken, and I hadn’t fainted or thrown up. I’d gagged a little when Mrs. Carlson came in and asked for chicken livers, but I don’t think she noticed. Not that this was a career position for me. I thought I’d stick with it long enough to be sure Randy Berger wasn’t the old lady killer, and then I’d try to get a job stuffing sanitary napkins into a box at the personal products plant.

  The front door opened and I caught a glimpse of Joe’s Grandma Bella scuttling past the register and heading for the meat counter. I ducked behind the display case and told myself not to panic.

  “Who’s here?” Bella shouted. “Who’s working here?”

  Randy stuck his head around the corner from the back room and looked down at me cringing behind the case.

  “Dro
pped my pen,” I said.

  “Who’s that?” Bella asked. “Who do I hear?”

  I popped up. “Me. Can I help you?”

  “You! What you doing here?”

  “I’m working here,” I said.

  “Then I never shop here.”

  Randy rushed to the counter. “I have your special order,” he said to Bella. “It just came in. I sliced into the blood sausage this morning, and it’s the best I’ve ever seen. And the tongue is nice and fat.”

  “I like fat tongue,” Bella said. “You give me good price?”

  “Of course,” Randy said. He reached into the case and pushed the tongues around until he found one he liked. He held it out for Bella to see. “It’s a beauty,” he said. “What do you think?”

  “I’ve seen better tongue,” Bella said. “But I guess this will have to do.”

  “You’re a hard negotiator,” Randy said to Bella.

  “You give me good price or I give you the eye,” Bella said. “And that one behind you I already give the eye. She going to hell.”

  Randy weighed and wrapped the tongue and weighed and wrapped Bella’s sausage. “Anything else?”

  “I get my discount?”

  “It’ll show up at the register,” Randy said.

  Bella left and I turned to Randy. “What discount?”

  “The senior discount.”

  “Bella is in the wellness program?”

  “She’s a certified card-carrying participant. She comes in every other week for blood sausage and tongue.”

  I did an inadvertent shiver. God knows what she did with the sausage and tongue. Probably ate it raw. Probably tossed it into her stewpot with beetle legs and rat tails and brewed up some evil concoction. Or she could be feeding it to Sunny.

  “I thought you were almost engaged to her grandson,” Randy said. “Why did she give you the eye?”

  “Uncle Sunny failed to appear for his court date, and I was given the unpopular job of capturing him and bringing him in.”

  Randy nodded. “The Sunucchis and Morellis are a tight family.”