Tricky Twenty-Two

  I heard someone knocking on my door. I went to the door and looked out the security peephole. It was Morelli. He was holding a package.

  “And?” I said, opening the door.

  “I ran into the UPS guy in the lobby, and I said I’d take this up to you.”

  “The UPS guy knows you?”

  “He’s my cousin.”

  “And you were coming here anyway?”

  “Yeah. I’m on my way home, and I thought I’d stop by and tell you about the forensic report so far on Mintner.”

  “That’s nice of you, but not typical. You don’t usually share information about ongoing investigations with me. Even when I want the information. Even when I beg you for the information.”

  “Don’t push it, okay? I’m trying to be helpful.”

  I raised an eyebrow. Not buying it.

  “I needed an excuse to see you,” Morelli said.

  “Why do you need an excuse?”

  “I dumped you, remember? You haven’t punched me in the face yet. I’m giving you another shot at it.”

  “The moment has passed.”

  “Open the package. It says it’s from someone named Kenny. Is this a new boyfriend?”

  “Are you jealous?”

  He took a beat. His answer was soft. Almost whispered. “Yes.”

  Okay, I was feeling much better now. I was torturing Morelli. I opened the package and took out a golden two-pound box of Godiva chocolates. The card said Sweets to my sweetie. Kenny.

  “I can’t compete with this,” Morelli said. “I can’t afford two pounds of Godiva.”

  I blew out a sigh. I couldn’t do it. “It’s not mine,” I said. “Grandma’s been catfishing with my picture, and I’m getting all these stupid presents.”

  That got a full-on smile from Morelli. “Your grandmother is awesome. Are you going to give this box to her?”

  “No. I’m going to eat them.”

  I picked one out and popped it into my mouth, but Morelli declined.

  “Watching my weight,” he said.

  “You look the same as always.”

  Truth is, he was perfect.

  “Do you want to know about Mintner?” he asked.

  I put the cover back on the box. “Yes. Tell me about Mintner.”

  “He was shot with the same gun that killed Getz and Linken. And he had black gunpowder on the soles of his shoes.”

  “Do you have a connection?”

  “Kiltman. Two alums and a dean. Beyond that, no.”

  “Suspect?”

  “No one who feels just right.”

  “Globovic?”

  “Why?” Morelli asked. “Smart kid. Maybe too smart. A little bored. Uses up excess energy planning toga parties and pranks.”

  “He’s accused of assault.”

  “I’ve read the arrest report, and I’m not convinced. Something happened that night and Mintner ended up with a broken arm. The break wasn’t consistent with someone getting hit with a bat.”

  “Gobbles said Mintner tripped over an ottoman.”

  Morelli took a beat, his expression changed, and he went into cop mode. “Do you talk to Gobbles a lot?”

  “Not a lot.”

  “That was an impressive bust you made this morning.”

  “I didn’t have much to do with it. Ranger went in and did his thing.”

  “They tell me Stanley Stoley checked out the refrigerator and lost his breakfast burrito.”

  “I didn’t look. Ranger did the walk-through. Are you sure you don’t want a chocolate?”

  “Positive. I have to go. Bob is at home, waiting to go for a walk.”

  Morelli left. I closed and locked the door, and had four more pieces of candy. I went back to the bathroom and looked at my hair again. Who was I kidding? I wouldn’t make it as a hairdresser. I had no patience with hair. I didn’t even like fussing with my own hair. I’d make a better auto mechanic than hairdresser.

  I put the lid on the candy and retied the red ribbon. I’d run it over to Grandma when I got the chance. A text message buzzed my phone at five o’clock. Gobbles wanted to meet with me at ten in the Windward Dorm parking lot. I texted back that I would be there with Lula.

  NINETEEN

  I RAN THE candy over to Grandma at five-thirty. This was a shameless ploy to mooch dinner.

  “Look who’s here,” Grandma said, always happy to see me. “And just in time. We’re having meatloaf for dinner and your mother made enough for an army.”

  “Meatloaf sounds great,” I told her. “Who’s Kenny?”

  “He’s one of my catfishing people that I cut loose. He was a real sweetie pie. I hated to let him go, but he was talking about getting married, and I was afraid he was underage.”

  “You mean a minor?”

  “No. I mean too young to keep up with. I’m pretty good, but there’s a lot of maintenance you got to do with a younger man. I cut them off at fifty. You might want to take a look at Kenny. He’s local and he has a good job. He’s a payroll clerk at the button factory.”

  I had the flowers under one arm and the candy under another. “He sent you these. They came to my apartment, of course.”

  “Flowers and candy! Isn’t he the one. And Godiva! That’s a quality gift.”

  “He seemed to think it was our birthday.”

  “I might have told him that.”

  “And your guy from Des Moines came to see me at work today. He said he didn’t mind about the head lice and the toenail fungus.”

  “You didn’t give him my address, did you? I never really was into him.”

  “You have to stop the catfishing.”

  “I see that. It was getting old anyway.”

  “Get in touch with Kenny and tell him you were fibbing and offer to pay for the flowers and candy.”

  “How about if I tell him we died?” Grandma said.

  “No!”

  I helped with the dishes after dinner, watched television with everyone for an hour, and took off for home. Ordinarily I would have driven straight to Hamilton, but tonight I wound through the Burg and ended up in front of Morelli’s house. Lights were on and I could see the flicker of the television. I sat there for a while feeling connected in a sad kind of way. Then I was connected in an angry kind of way. And ultimately I drove away and gave him the finger. Maybe I should check out Kenny. At least he pays attention to birthdays.

  I told Lula I would pick her up at nine-thirty. It was a nice night out, warm for this time of the year, and Lula was sitting on her porch steps when I drove up.

  “What’s the plan?” she wanted to know when she got into the car.

  “He wants to talk. That’s all. I just want you to stand at a distance.”

  “Like I’m backup in case he decides to go maniac or something.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I can do that.”

  “No shooting.”

  “You got a real thing about no shooting. You ever think you might be in the wrong profession?”

  “Every day. Anyway, Ranger took down Blatzo this morning without drawing his gun.”

  “Yeah, but we aren’t Ranger. And what about the first time we went in to get Blatzo, and you were yelling ‘Shoot him, shoot him’?”

  “Exactly, and it turned out we didn’t need to shoot him. You didn’t need a gun.”

  “That’s ’cause I had a dildo. Are you saying I should always carry a dildo?”

  “The truth is, you’re the worst shot on the planet. The chances of you hitting your target are close to zero.”

  “Boy, that’s hurtful. As it happens I have an eyesight problem.”

  “I didn’t know that. What’s wrong with your vision?”

  “I can’t see real good.”

  “What about glasses?”

  “I got them but they ruin my appearance.”

  “Are you supposed to wear them when you drive?”

  “Only if I want to see things like signs. I can see big things like cars.”
r />   “Good grief. Put your glasses on.”

  Lula searched through her purse, found her glasses, and put them on. They were shocking pink and oversized with rhinestones embedded in the frame. She looked like a black Elton John.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Is that a good wow or a bad wow?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s a shocked wow. Where did you get them?”

  “At the mall. They have one of them big eyeglass places there. These are some kind of designer glasses.”

  “Can you see better when you wear them?”

  “Yeah, except for the reflection I get from the rhinestones sometimes.”

  “Maybe you should get a more subtle pair of glasses. Something with less bling.”

  “What’s the point to that?”

  “How about contact lenses?”

  “I tried them but I couldn’t get them in. You gotta stick your finger in your eye. You ever try that? It don’t work. I don’t know how some people can do it.”

  Mental note. Help Lula with vision problem.

  “We’re supposed to meet Gobbles in the Windward Dorm parking lot,” I said. “Windward Dorm is on the same street as Zeta, but it’s a couple buildings away. Leave your glasses on so you can read signs.”

  Windward was easy to find. Lula could have read the sign without her glasses. It might be glorious inside, but no one had wasted time or money designing the exterior. It was a large two-story chunk of brick and mortar. Windows all in a line. A couple doors. That was it. The lot behind it was small and badly lit. Perfect for a rendezvous with a felon.

  I parked at the edge of the lot and killed my lights. My eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I picked out two people standing in the deep shadow thrown by a panel van.

  “I think that’s Gobbles and Julie by the van,” I said to Lula. “Stay here and call for help if it looks like I’m in trouble.”

  “Gotcha.”

  I approached them slowly. I didn’t want them to panic and run. They were holding hands, probably more scared than I was.

  “Where’s Lula?” Julie asked.

  “She’s waiting in the car. I thought you might not want to talk in front of her.”

  “Thank you,” Julie said. “This is difficult.”

  “I get the part about feeling the deck is stacked against you on the assault charge,” I said to Gobbles. “But there’s more, right?”

  “There’s more,” Gobbles said, “but it’s all in bits and missing pieces.”

  “Start with Professor Pooka,” I said. “How long has he been the Zeta advisor?”

  “Not long. No one wanted to be our faculty advisor, and Pooka pulled the short straw. He was appointed by Dean Mintner.”

  “When did this happen?” I asked him.

  “The end of the spring semester. We were on probation and our faculty advisor quit.”

  “And why does Mintner hate Zeta?”

  “Have you seen the movie Animal House?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, we’re pretty much patterned after that. It’s like all the nuts and misfits rolled downhill and ended up in Zeta.”

  “Okay, I have enough background. Tell me about the real problem.”

  “When we came back to school this year we decided to do something cool for homecoming. I had the idea to shoot off fireworks, and someone said they should be special and reflect the unique qualities of Zeta. So we decided to make them smell like a fart. Stink-bomb fireworks.”

  I was starting to understand Mintner’s problem with Zeta.

  “The thing is we couldn’t find the exact fireworks we were looking for, and we didn’t have a lot of money, so we decided to build our own. It’s not like they’re complicated. All fireworks have the same basic components. Aaron Becker and I took the project over and started to built some prototypes. Everything went great in the beginning, but we couldn’t get enough lift when we added the stink bomb. Pooka wasn’t just the Zeta advisor, he was also my faculty advisor, so I asked him for help. His area of expertise is biology, but I knew he built rockets as a hobby. I thought he’d be able to steer us toward a better bursting charge.”

  “Is it legal to build your own fireworks like that?”

  “I don’t know. I never thought about it. Anyway, Pooka saw what we were doing and got really excited. He was all on board. He knew how to make the fireworks a lot bigger. And he found a source for a better stink bomb container. It’s not like you can put a stink bomb in any old thing. Problem was he took over. He had a special lock put on the cellar door, and Becker, Pooka, and I were the only ones with keys. He said he wanted the fireworks to be a surprise. The thing is, it started out as a fun project and before we knew it Becker and I had a top-secret chore on our hands. We had to do test runs in the middle of the night to make sure everything would work right. We couldn’t let any of the other brothers in to take a look. And then Pooka changed out the locks a second time, and Becker and I didn’t get keys.”

  “Why did you let him get away with that?”

  “I didn’t care about locks and fireworks. It was after I got arrested, and I was scared I was going to jail. And that was when Becker disappeared.”

  “Tell her more about Becker,” Julie said.

  “Becker didn’t have the jail problems I had, and he didn’t like that he didn’t have keys to the cellar,” Gobbles said. “He was imagining all sorts of horrible things happening down there. Everything from white slavery to illegal immigrants to radioactive rats.”

  “What did you think was going on?” I asked Gobbles.

  “I wasn’t sure anything was going on. What I saw was that Pooka was losing it. I thought something had happened that sent him over the edge, and he was getting increasingly paranoid. I told Becker to get out of Pooka’s space and let him calm down, but Becker was on a mission to get a key.”

  “Did he get one?”

  “I don’t know. He’s gone. The locks were changed in the morning and Becker disappeared that night. He sent me a text message saying he had to get away for a while, and that was the last I heard. He hasn’t answered any of my texts or calls.”

  “Did you go to the police?”

  “I called Becker at home and talked to his parents. They said I shouldn’t worry, that he’d called them and said he was on a field trip, doing research.”

  “You don’t believe it?”

  “No, I don’t believe it, but I didn’t think the police would pay attention to me when Becker’s parents weren’t worried.”

  “So you’ve been in the wind, trying to find Becker?”

  “Yes, but it turns out we’re not great at playing detective. Mostly we tried to watch Pooka. We broke into his apartment once, but he has an alarm system, and we panicked and ran. He lives in a really crappy apartment. Who would have thought he had an alarm?”

  “He has aquariums all over the place,” Julie said. “We couldn’t figure out what was in them.”

  “We weren’t there long enough to really look,” Gobbles said.

  “Did you notice anything else unusual?” I asked them.

  “His apartment is small,” Julie said. “One bedroom, one bathroom, tiny kitchen, living room that was being used as an office. Papers and books stacked all over. Dirty dishes in the sink. It was like the Unabomber lived there.”

  “We broke in through the back door, and I saw a dead rat in the sink,” Gobbles said. “That’s about it for his apartment. The alarm went off and we ran through really fast because we were looking for Becker. When Becker wasn’t in any of the rooms we left.”

  “Did you follow Pooka around?”

  “As much as was possible,” Gobbles said. “He goes to his office. He goes to class. He goes to Zeta. He goes home.”

  “What does he do when he goes to Zeta?”

  “He goes straight to the cellar door. He opens it and disappears into the cellar. An hour later he reappears. He locks up and leaves without talking to anyone. I was worried he might have Becker locked
up down there so I had a friend bump the lock and break in.”

  “What did he find?”

  “Fireworks. Pooka still has the fireworks there.”

  “Have you tried to make contact?”

  “I called him once, and he kept asking me where I was hiding. And he tried to get me to meet with him. I was afraid he was going to turn me in.”

  “I have a friend who has a class with Pooka,” Julie said. “She says he rambles on about how bad the school is, and how it squashes creative research. And then she says he scribbles some numbers and symbols on the board and leaves.”

  “Isn’t anyone reporting his behavior?”

  “He’s not so far off the bubble,” Gobbles said. “A lot of the teachers come in and rant on social and political issues and then tell you to go home and read chapter ten.”

  “And it’s not as if Dean Mintner was any more sane,” Julie said. “He was obsessed with closing Zeta.”

  “So where do we go from here?” I asked them.

  “I think someone needs to see what’s happening in the Zeta house cellar,” Gobbles said. It has to be more than fireworks. “And I wouldn’t mind knowing what was in those aquariums.”

  “I don’t want to know about the contents of the aquariums,” Julie said. “Don’t anyone tell me.”

  “Right now you’re a felon,” I said to Gobbles. “Would you like me to check you in with the court and get you bailed out again?”

  “No. I’m afraid the judge might not set bail, and I’ll be locked away, and Becker won’t be able to get in touch with me.”

  “Be careful,” I said to Gobbles. “Go hide somewhere and let me figure this out.”

  I couldn’t believe I was saying this. Stephanie Plum, total screwup, worst bounty hunter ever…and I was going to solve the mystery of the cellar and find Becker.

  I walked back to Lula and slid behind the wheel.

  “So how’d that go?” Lula asked.

  “It’s complicated.”

  TWENTY