To the Nines

  “Let me just shut the television off,” Pitch said. And then he whirled around, slammed the door shut, and threw the lock.

  “Fuck,” Ranger said.

  Ranger didn't often curse and he rarely raised his voice. The fuck had been entirely conversational. Like he was now mildly inconvenienced. He put his Bates boot to the door and the door popped open to reveal Pitch at the end of the hall with a gun in his left hand.

  “You're just a couple amateur pussies,” Pitch yelled.

  Ranger gave me a hard shove to the shoulder that knocked me off the small front stoop into a scraggly hydrangea bush. Then he stepped to the side of the door and drew his gun.

  Pitch squeezed one off, but he was shooting with his left hand and clearly he wasn't ambidextrous because the round hit the hall ceiling. The second round bit into the wall.

  “Goddamn,” Pitch shrieked. “Piece of shit gun!”

  Pitch had destroyed his thumb with a semiautomatic. And I guess one misfire was enough for him because he was now holding a revolver. The revolver held six rounds and Pitch fired them all off at us.

  Ranger and I were counting shots. I was counting while I was trying to disengage from the hydrangea. There was silence after the sixth shot. Ranger stepped into the doorway, gun drawn, and told Pitch to drop his weapon. I climbed onto the porch and saw that Pitch was trying to get another round into the chamber. Problem was, he couldn't do it with the bandaged hand, so he had the gun rammed between his legs and he was fumbling with his left hand.

  Ranger gave his head a small disbelieving shake. Like Pitch was so pathetic he was an embarrassment to felons the world over.

  Pitch gave up on the gun, threw it at Ranger, and ran into the kitchen.

  Ranger turned to me and smiled. “And you said he wasn't going to be fun.”

  “Maybe you should shoot him or something,” I said.

  Ranger ambled into the kitchen where Pitch was rummaging in a junk drawer, presumably looking for a weapon. Pitch came up with a screwdriver and lunged at Ranger. Ranger grabbed Pitch by the front of his shirt and threw him about twelve feet across the room. Pitch hit the wall and slid to the floor like a glob of slime.

  Ranger cuffed Pitch to the refrigerator and called Tank. “Send someone over,” Ranger said. “I have a delivery.”

  We stayed to watch Pitch get taken away by yet another of the Merry Men, we secured the house, and we walked out to the car.

  “You could have told me to move instead of dumping me in the bushes,” I said to Ranger.

  “It was one of those instinct things. Keeping you out of harm's way.”

  “Yeah, right. Maybe more like getting even with me for sending the Apusenjas out to talk to you.”

  Ranger opened the passenger side door for me. “When I get even it's going to be something much more rewarding than dumping you in the bushes.”

  I buckled myself in and looked at my watch. “My sister came home today with the baby. I should stop around and see how she's doing.”

  “Tank's going to be glad he broke his leg when he finds out how I spent my afternoon.”

  “You don't like babies?”

  “I come from a big family. I'm used to babies.”

  “Well then?”

  “My grandmother is a little Cuban woman who cooks all day and speaks Spanish. Your grandmother watches pay-​per-​view porn.”

  “She used to watch the Weather Channel, but she said there wasn't enough action.”

  “Maybe you should check the dose on her hormone replacement. Last time I saw her she was trying to imagine me naked.”

  I burst out laughing. “That's what happens when you're a hottie. Women imagine you naked. Lula imagines you naked. Connie imagines you naked. Two-​hundred-​year-​old Mrs. Bestler imagines you naked.”

  “How about you?”

  “I don't have to imagine. I've seen you naked. Your naked body's burned into my brain.”

  Ranger turned onto my parents' street. “I'm going to wait in the car. And if you send your grandma out to harass me, I swear. . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don't know what I swear. I can't think of anything awful enough to do to you that wouldn't leave you maimed or psychologically scarred.”

  “Nice to know there are boundaries.”

  Ranger parked in front of my parents' house and got out of the car.

  “I thought you weren't coming in,” I said.

  “I'm not. I'm going to stay out here. I can't see the entire street if I sit in the car.”

  Grandma Mazur opened the front door for me. “Is that Ranger with you? Isn't he coming in?”

  “He thinks he's coming down with a cold. Doesn't want to infect everyone.”

  “Isn't that thoughtful! He's such a nice young man. Lots of times men aren't nice like that when they're hot-​looking. Maybe I'll bring him something from the kitchen.”

  “No! He just ate. He's not hungry. And you can't take a chance on getting infected. What if you got sick and gave the cold to the baby?”

  “Oh yeah. Well, you tell him I was asking about him.”

  “You bet.”

  Valerie was on the couch, nursing the baby. The girls were watching Valerie. My father was in his chair, concentrating on CNN.

  My mother came in from the kitchen, took a look at me, and made the sign of the cross. “Your arm is bandaged, you have grass stains on your pants, and pieces of some sort of bush are stuck in your hair. And Ranger is outside, wearing a gun.” She looked more closely. “Is that a wig?”

  “It's my real hair. I got it cut.”

  With the exception of the baby, everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me.

  “Sometimes it's fun to change things,” I said. “Right? What do you think?”

  “It's . . . cute,” Valerie said.

  “I wouldn't mind wearing my hair like that,” Grandma said. “I bet it'd look real good if it was pink.”

  The phone rang.

  “It's Lois Kelner across the street,” Grandma Mazur said. “She wants to know if we're being invaded. She said it looks to her like there's one of them terrorists in our driveway.”

  “It's just Ranger,” I said.

  “I know that,” Grandma said, “but Lois is calling the army.”

  My mother did another sign of the cross.

  “Maybe you should get Ranger out of the driveway,” Valerie said. “Paratroopers landing on the roof would upset the baby.”

  Grandma's eyes lit. “Paratroopers! Wouldn't that be something.”

  “I'll try to get back later,” I told everyone. I stopped in front of the hall mirror to pick the branches out of my hair and to take a close look at the cut. I'd never before thought of myself as cute. Sometimes I felt sexy. And sometimes I felt downright fat and stupid. Cute was a new one.

  I opened the front door and waved at Ranger. “Visit’s over.”

  “That was fast.”

  “The woman who lives across the street thinks you're a terrorist. She said she was calling the army.”

  “You have plenty of time then,” Ranger said. “It'll take the army a while to mobilize.”

  Ranger drove me back to Morelli's house. We clipped Bob to his leash, I stuffed a couple plastic sandwich bags into my jeans pocket, and we ambled down the street after Bob. Me and the terrorist out for a stroll with the dog.

  “I feel like I should be doing something to find the carnation killer,” I said.

  “You have state and local police working on it now. They have a lot of resources and they have some good stuff to trace back. The photos, the emails, the flowers. And now they have interrelated murders. They can reexamine them and look for commonality. And they'll go back through case histories to see if they can find other victims of the game. Your job right now is to stay alive.”

  I glanced over at Ranger. He'd gone through three of the victims' apartments. Plus Bart's townhouse. “Have you been through Klein’s house?”

  “I went throug
h last night while the police were there.”

  “The police allowed you access?”

  “I have friends.”

  “Morelli?”

  “Juniak.”

  Joe Juniak used to be police chief. He was elected mayor of Trenton and now was running for governor.

  “Klein lived with his parents,” Ranger said. “His room was a typical kid's room. Messy, posters of rock bands, small arsenal under his bed, and a personal stash of pot in his underwear drawer.”

  “You think that's a typical kid's room?”

  “It was in my neighborhood.”

  “What about a computer?”

  "Klein had a laptop. His parents said he took it everywhere with him. It wasn't in his room and it wasn't in his truck.

  Probably the webmaster took the computer after he shot Klein. Paressi's computer was missing. Rosen's computer was missing. By the time the police got to Howie's apartment, his computer was missing."

  “Klein slipped up somehow when he took out Singh. He didn't get Singh's computer,” I said.

  “He was probably waiting for Lu to leave, but you and Connie and Lula were in place by then.”

  Bob stopped, hunched in front of old Mr. Galucci's house, and conversation was momentarily suspended while we watched Bob poop. How embarrassing is this? Poop is not something I feel comfortable sharing with Ranger. Actually, I'm not comfortable sharing poop with anyone. I'm not even comfortable with it when I'm alone.

  When Bob was done I scooped the poop up in a sandwich bag. And now the horror continued because I had a bag of poop and no place to put it.

  “Babe,” Ranger said.

  Hard to tell if he was horrified or impressed by my poop scooping. “I don't suppose you have a dog in the Bat Cave?” I asked him.

  “The Bat Cave is dog free.”

  Bob pulled at the leash and we continued walking.

  “Everyone involved had a laptop,” I said. “Did they have anything else in common?”

  “Singh, Howie, Rosen, and Klein were all computer geeks and loners. Paressi doesn't entirely fit the profile, but she became a computer junkie when she broke up with Scrugs. Probably there's a connection between her and Rosen. Maybe Paressi talked to Rosen about the game and Rosen came on board after Paressi was killed. They were all between the ages of nineteen and twenty-​seven. Rosen was the oldest. None were especially successful.”

  “Bart Cone doesn't fit the profile, does he?”

  Ranger was looking ahead at houses and cars. “Not entirely, but he fits better than Andrew.” Ranger turned at the sound of a car a block behind us, traveling in our direction. He had his hand resting on his gun and his eyes stayed steady on the car. The car passed without incident and Ranger dropped his hand off the gun.

  "Andrew lives in a nice midrange house with his wife. It's a stable relationship. They like to cook. They vacation at the Jersey shore. They have two kids.

  “Clyde lives in a rental house on State Street. He shares the house with two other guys. I'm guessing he's known them forever. I found a photo of the three of them when they were in high school. The house is pretty much a wreck inside and out. Thrift shop furniture, broken blinds, refrigerator filled with beer and take-​out boxes.”

  “So Andrew and Clyde aren't loner computer geeks.”

  “They aren't loners. I don't know how much time they spend on the computer.”

  We turned the corner and headed for home. “You've been busy using your breaking and entering skills,” I said.

  “I just enter. I don't usually break.”

  “You broke down Pitch's door.”

  “Lost my temper.”

  Bob hunched again.

  “Oh, for crissake,” I said.

  Morelli was sitting on his front step when we got back with Bob. “Lucky you,” he said. “A two-​bag day.”

  “I think we should stop feeding him.”

  “Yeah,” Morelli said. “That would work.” He stood and took Bob's leash and looked over at Ranger.

  “It's been quiet,” Ranger said. “No shooting. No one tailing us. No death threats or poison darts.”

  Morelli nodded.

  “Your watch,” Ranger said to Morelli. And he left.

  “The bodyguard thing is getting old,” I told Morelli.

  “Did you tell that to Ranger?”

  “Would it do any good?”

  Morelli followed me into the house. “I have some bad news and then I have some bad news,” Morelli said.

  “Let's start with the bad news first.”

  “I checked your email account this afternoon just before I left work. You have another carnation letter. It's on the sideboard. I printed it out for you.”

  I looked at the email.

  It will happen soon. Nothing can stop it. Are you excited?

  “This guy's turning out to be a real pain in the ass,” I said. “Now what's the bad news?”

  “Grandma Bella's on her way over.”

  “What?”

  “She called just as you were coming down the street with Bob. She said she had another vision and she had to tell you.”

  “You're kidding!”

  “I'm not kidding.”

  “Why didn't you tell her not to come? Why didn't you tell her I wasn't home?” All right, maybe I sounded a little whiney, but this was Grandma Bella we were expecting. And whiney was better than flat-​out hysteria, right?

  “She's coming with a dish of my mother's manicotti. Have you ever tasted my mother's manicotti?”

  “You sold me out for manicotti!”

  Morelli grinned and kissed me on the forehead. “You can have some, too. And by the way, your hair is cute.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. I wasn't feeling cute. In fact, I'd decided I didn't like cute. Cute wasn't a word anyone would use to describe Morelli or Ranger. Cute implied a degree of helplessness. Kittens were cute.

  A car stopped in front of the house and I took a deep breath. Calm down, I thought. Don't want to be rude. Don't want to let them sense fear. There was a knock at the door and Joe reached for the handle.

  “Touch that handle and you die,” I said. “She's coming here to see me. I’ll let her in.”

  The grin returned. “Woman in charge,” Morelli said.