To the Nines

  And just like that, as of that instant, I wanted a baby. I didn't care if it had to come out of my vagina.

  “I'll tell your father about the apartment,” Kloughn said. “I don't think he really wanted to move in with Harry Farnsworth.”

  “I'll go over and box my stuff so you have room in the closet. You can move in anytime. Only thing, if there are any flower deliveries you should be sure to call me right away.”

  “Thanks,” Valerie said. “You're a good sister. I'll make it up to you. And we'll start looking for a place of our own right away.”

  I yelled good-​bye to my mom and I went out to Lula.

  Lula was in the car, looking antsy. “I don't know what's wrong with me,” Lula said. “I just feel all jumpy. I'm just not myself.”

  “You're not still worried about your teeth, are you?”

  “I know they're growing. I can feel it. It's unnatural. And I got these cravings. I want to bite down on something. I want to feel it crunch in my mouth.”

  “Jeez. You mean like a bone?”

  “Like an apple. Or a Cheez Doodle. Nothing crunches on this diet. Meat doesn't crunch. I'm crunch deprived.”

  I was a baton twirler when I was in high school. And that's how I felt now . . . like I was leading a parade. I pulled away from the curb and Cal pulled away from the curb. I drove to my apartment building. Cal followed me to my apartment building. We all parked in the lot. We all got out of our cars. We all took the elevator to the second floor. Then everyone followed me down the hall to my apartment. First Lula, then Cal, and then Junior. Junior was a clone of Cal, except for the tattoo. Junior was tattoo free. At least what I could see of him was tattoo free, and that was more than enough for me.

  Cal opened the door to my apartment and took a look inside. Nothing out of the ordinary popped up, so we all trooped in. I filled a laundry basket with clothes and personal stuff and moved some things around to free up space for Valerie. While I was freeing space I could hear Lula trying to make conversation with Cal.

  “Hey,” Lula said, “what's going on?”

  “What do you mean?” Cal asked.

  “I don't mean anything,” Lula said. “That's one of those things you say when you're trying to be friendly. That's an opening line.”

  “Oh.”

  “I heard you hit your head when you fainted in the hospital,” Lula said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you okay now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I could be wrong here,” Lula said, “but I think you're dumb as a box of rocks.”

  “Sticks and stones,” Cal said.

  There was a moment of silence where I figured Lula was regrouping.

  “So,” Lula finally said to Cal. “Are you married?”

  The whole packing process took less than ten minutes. I'd been moving clothes piece by piece to Morelli's house over the last couple days and there wasn't a lot left. I handed the laundry basket over to Junior and everyone marched out to the hall and waited while I locked up. I took a last look at the closed door and had to choke back a panic attack. I was turning my apartment over to my sister. I was homeless. What if I had a fight with Morelli? What then?

  Junior put the laundry basket in the back of the Escape and we all got into our cars.

  “Where are we going?” Lula wanted to know.

  “We're going to TriBro. I'm not sure what I'm going to do once I get there. I guess I'll figure it out then.”

  I cut across town and picked up Route 1. It was the middle of the day and traffic was light. Cal had no problem following me. I took the off-​ramp that led to the industrial park and wound through the park to TriBro. I parked toward the back of the lot and I sat there, watching.

  “The killer s in that building,” I said to Lula.

  “You think it’s Bart?”

  “I don't know. I just know it has to be someone at TriBro.”

  After a half hour Lula was restless. “I gotta get something to eat,” she said. “I gotta stretch my legs. I'm all cramped up in this car.”

  I was hungry, too. I didn't know what I was doing in the lot anyway. Waiting for divine intervention, I supposed. A message from God. A sign. A clue!

  I put the car in gear and left the lot with the Steroidapods following close behind. I drove down Route 1 for a couple miles, took the turnoff to the mall, and parked at the Macy's entrance. This is always a good place to park because you hit the shoe department first thing while you still have lots of energy.

  Lula pushed through the double glass doors and stood in the middle of the aisle. “They're having a sale!” she said. “Look at all those racks of shoes on sale.”

  I looked at the racks and for the first time in Plum history, I didn't want to shop. My mind wouldn't move off the carnation killer. I was thinking of Lillian Paressi and Fisher Cat and Singh and Howie. And probably there were a lot others. I knew of two games, but there might have been more. I was thinking of my sister's baby and the fact that I didn't have one. And maybe never would.

  “Look at those sandals with the four-​inch heels and rhinestones,” Lula said. “You can't go wrong with rhinestones. And heels always make your legs look real shapely. I read that in a magazine.”

  Lula had her shoes off, looking for a pair of the sandals in her size. She was wearing a poison green spandex tube top and yellow stretch pants that matched my car and came to mid-​calf. She found the sandals, slipped them on and paraded in front of the mirror.

  Cal and Junior were at the edge of the aisle, looking uncomfortable. They probably had expected to follow me around and catch some scofflaws when they got their marching orders from Ranger. And here they were in the Macy's shoe department, gaping at Lula, who was all boobs and booty in the rhinestone shoes.

  “What do you think?” Lula wanted to know. “Should I get these shoes?”

  “Sure,” I said. “They'll go with the pink outfit you got in Vegas.”

  What if Ranger's wrong, I thought. What if the carnation killer is tired of the game and doesn't want to play with me? What if he just wants to kill me? He could be watching me now. Lining me up in his sights.

  Lula paid for the shoes and we hit the food court next. Lula got a chicken. I got a cheeseburger. Cal and Junior got nothing. Guess they didn't eat while working. Didn't want to have a burger in their hand if they had to go for their guns. That was fine by me. I was scanning the mall and my eyes were rolling around in my head so fast I was getting a headache.

  I watched Lula tear into her food and I had a creepy thought that she might be right about her teeth. She could really rip apart a chicken.

  “What are you staring at?” Lula wanted to know. “Are you staring at my teeth?”

  “No! Swear to God. I was just. . . daydreaming.”

  After we ate we went back to the cars. I drove about a half mile down Route 1 and Lula and I turned our attention to the motel coming up on the right. It was the Morelli and Gilman motel.

  “Probably I didn't see what I thought I saw that day,” Lula said. “Probably I was just imagining ...”

  Lula stopped talking because Morelli’s truck was parked in front of one of the units.

  “Uh-​oh,” Lula said.

  I'd been doing eighty and I was a quarter mile past the hotel by the time I screeched to a stop. Cal and Junior went flying past me, utter surprise and horror on their faces. I put the Escape into reverse, backed up on the shoulder at a modest fifty miles per hour, and turned into the motel parking lot. No sign of Cal and Junior.

  “Suppose it's police business?” Lula wanted to know. “Like maybe it's a sting.”

  “He's not working vice anymore. And this isn't even in Trenton.”

  “You aren't going to do something stupid like beat down the door, are you?”

  I parked at the far end of the lot, behind a tan van. “Do you have a better idea?”

  “We could sneak around back and listen in. Then if we hear them doing the deed we can beat down the door.”


  I'd rather knock and have Morelli answer the door half-​dressed than catch Morelli and Gilman in the act. I couldn't think of too many things that would be more depressing than hearing or seeing Morelli playing hide the salami with someone other than me. On the other hand, I didn't want to make a false accusation. “Okay,” I said, “we'll go around back.”

  We walked around the side of the motel and began counting off units. Each unit had two windows on the back side. I was guessing one window was in the bathroom and one in the bedroom. There were twelve units in the first building. All were at ground level. A strip of grass hugged the back of the building. Beyond the grass was a chunk of overgrown woods filled with refuse. A plastic milk crate. Soda cans. A torn mattress. I had no idea what was on the other side of the wooded area.

  Curtains were drawn on all the units. We listened briefly at each window, hearing nothing. We got to the seventh unit and heard voices. Lula and I pressed closer to the window. The voices were muted, difficult to hear. The back window was closed. The air-​conditioner was running in the front window. There was a slight break in the curtain halfway up the back window. Lula tippy toed to the woods and got the milk crate. She put the milk crate under the window and motioned that I should get on the crate and look in the window.

  No way was I going to look in the window. I didn't want to see what was going on inside. I whispered to Lula that she should look.

  Lula got up on the milk crate, pressed her nose to the window . . . and her phone rang. Lula grabbed at the phone hooked onto her stretch pants and stopped the ringing, but it was too late. Everyone heard the phone.

  Shouting erupted from inside the motel room. A gunshot rang out. And a large man in a tan suit crashed through the window and knocked Lula off the milk crate.

  “What the hell?” Lula said, sprawled on the ground in a tangle of curtain, sprinkled with window glass.

  I wasn't sure what any of this was about, but I'd heard the shot and the guy who came through the window wasn't Joe, so I roundhoused him with my purse and sent him to his knees. I had him at gunpoint when Morelli stuck his head out the broken window.

  “Oh Christ,” Morelli said when he saw me. And he ducked back inside.

  Guys came running from either side of the building. Obviously cops, but I didn't know any of them. Two were in FBI T-​shirts. Morelli joined them. I didn't see anything of Terry Gilman.

  Morelli grabbed me by the arm and pulled me aside. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I saw your truck.”

  “And?”

  “I thought I'd stop by to say hello.”

  “I'm working!”

  I was getting annoyed. He was just a notch below yelling at me. “How was I to know? This isn't Trenton. You're not driving your crappy cop car. And a couple weeks ago Lula saw you coming out of this motel with Terry Gilman.”

  Morelli's eyes narrowed. “You went around back to spy on me and Gilman?”

  “Actually, Lula was going to do the spying. I didn't want to look.”

  The guy in the suit was getting dragged away in bracelets.

  “Isn't that Tommy Galucci?” I asked Morelli.

  Tommy Galucci was famous in the Burg. Everyone knew he was a Mob boss, but the police had never been able to get anything to stick on him. Maybe because in the past the police never really cared all that much. Being a Mob boss in Trenton didn't get you on America's Most Wanted. Trenton was just a midsize pothole in the organized crime highway. And Galucci was a good citizen. He gave to the church. He kept his yard nice. He went out of town to cheat on his wife. But lately it was rumored Galucci was having a midlife crisis, wanting to make more of a name for himself, pushing his associates around.

  “Yes, it's Tommy Galucci. Some of his business partners aren't happy with him and want to see him removed some way other than a one-​way ticket to the landfill. They decided it would be a good thing for everyone if Tommy got to spend a couple years relaxing on a farm.”

  “Like a federal-​run farm surrounded by razor wire?”

  “Yeah, something like that. The business partners decided they wanted me to run the operation. Probably that was Uncle Spud's suggestion. And Gilman was acting as the go-​between. People see me and Gilman together and the first thought isn't sting.”

  “It wasn't my first thought. Why this motel?”

  “It's owned by Galucci's brother-​in-​law. Galucci did a lot of business here. Felt safe to him.”

  “Guess I screwed things up.”

  “I don't know what it is with you. You fall into a hole filled with shit and you come up smelling like a rose. Galucci wasn't cooperating. I wasn't getting anywhere with him. When he heard the phone he freaked, thinking he was set up. He shot the fed who was in the room with me and then he tried to escape by going out the window. The fed in the room with me just got a superficial flesh wound, but now we have Galucci on assault with a deadly weapon.”

  I looked beyond Morelli and saw two suits grilling Lula.

  “You better rescue Lula,” I said. “Probably it's not a good idea to let those guys look in her purse.”

  Morelli did some negotiating with the feds involved in the bust and it was suggested that Lula and I should leave the scene immediately and never return. Lula and I were happy to comply with the suggestion.

  Cal and Junior had backtracked and found me and were parked two cars down in the motel lot. Their faces were red and they had deodorant failure. Ranger wouldn't have been happy if they'd lost me.

  “See that,” Lula said when we were all heading south on Route 1. “I told you Morelli was there on account of work. You should be more trusting of Morelli.”

  “If you'd been in my shoes, would you have trusted him?”

  “Hell no,” Lula said.

  Truth is, I did trust Morelli. But there's a limit to trust. Even the most trusting woman who saw her boyfriend's truck at a motel in the middle of the day, twice, would have doubts. There's a difference between being trusting and being stupid.

  Traffic was heavy and slow going in and out of Trenton. It was coming up on rush hour. Drivers looked sweaty and impatient. Men drummed their fingers. Women chewed on their cheeks.

  I was still feeling the pull from TriBro. I turned off Route 1 and found my place in the TriBro lot.

  “I don't get it,” Lula said. “What's with this parking thing? What are you waiting for?”

  I didn't know. Instinct kept dragging me here today. I half expected to see ominous dark clouds boiling over the building. Ghostbuster clouds. Portents of danger.

  We sat there for a while and employees started to leave. The lot was almost empty and my phone rang.

  It was Clyde. “Hey, Stephanie Plum,” he said. “Is that you out in the lot? I see a yellow car and it looks like you inside. I'm watching you with binoculars. Wave to me.”

  I waved to Clyde.

  “What are you doing in the lot?” he wanted to know.

  “Just sitting,” I said. “Watching."

  “Is that your partner with you?”

  “Yeah. That's Lula.”