Eleven on Top

  Kloughn started to sink to the ground, and Morelli grabbed him by the back of his coat. “What do you want me to do with him?” Morelli asked.

  Here's the thing. I like Albert Kloughn. I wouldn't marry him. And I wouldn't hire him to defend me if I was accused of murder. I might not eventrust him to babysit Rex. Kloughn sort of falls into the Bob Dog category. Kloughn inspires maternal pet instincts in me. “Bring him inside,” I told Morelli. “We'll put him to bed and let him sleep it off.”

  Morelli carted Kloughn into the house and up the stairs with Grandma trotting behind.

  “Put him in the third bedroom,” Grandma said to Morelli. “And then let's get to the table. Dinner's almost ready, and I don't want to get a late start on the meatloaf. I gotta get to the viewing.”

  “Over my dead body,” my mother yelled from the bottom of the stairs.

  My father was already at the table. He had his fork in his hand, and he was watching the kitchen door, as if the food would come marching out to him without my mothers help.

  A car pulled up outside. Car doors opened and slammed shut, and then there was chaos. Valerie, Angie, The Baby, and the horse were in the house, and the house suddenly got very small.

  Grandma bustled down the stairs and took the diaper bag off Valerie's shoulder. “Everybody sit,” Grandma said. “The meatloaf's done. We got meatloaf and gravy and mashed potatoes. And we got pineapple upside-down cake for dessert. And we put lots of whipped cream on the cake.” Grandma eyed Mary Alice. “And only horses who sit at the table and eat their vegetables and meatloaf are gonna get any of the whipped cream and cake.”

  “Where's my oogie woogie bear?” Valerie wanted to know. “I saw his car on the curb.”

  “He's upstairs drunk as a skunk,” Grandma said. “I just hope his liver don't explode before we get you married off. You should make sure he's got life insurance.”

  My mother brought the meatloaf and green beans to the table. Grandma brought the red cabbage and a bowl of mashed potatoes. I pushed my chair back and went to the kitchen to fetch the gravy and get milk for the girls.

  Dinner at my parents' house is survival of the fastest. We all sit down at the table. We all put napkins on our laps. And that's where the civility ends and the action heats up. Food is passed, shoveled onto plates, and consumed at warp speed. To date, no one has been stabbed with a fork for taking the last dinner roll, but that's only because we all understand the rules. Get there first and fast. So we were all a little stunned when Valerie put five green beans on her big empty plate and angrily stabbed them with her fork. Thunk, thunk, thunk.

  “What's with you?” Grandma said to Valerie.

  “I'm on a diet. All I get to eat are these beans. Five boring hideous beans.” The grip on her fork was white-knuckled, her lips were pressed tightly together, and her eyes glittered feverishly as she took in Joe's plate directly across from her. Joe had a mountain of creamy mashed potatoes and four thick slabs of meatloaf, all drenched in gravy.

  “Maybe this isn't a good time to be on a diet, what with all the stress over the wedding and all,” Grandma said.

  “It's because of the wedding that I have to diet,” Valerie said, teeth clenched.

  Mary Alice forked up a piece of meatloaf. “Mommy's a blimp.”

  Valerie made a growling sound that had me worrying her head was going to start doing full rotations on her neck.

  “Maybe I should check on Albert,” Morelli said to me.

  I narrowed my eyes and looked at him sideways. “You're going to sneak out, aren't you?”

  “No way. Honest to God.” He blew out a sigh. “Okay, yeah, I was going to sneak out.”

  “I had a good idea today,” Grandma said, ignoring the possibility that Valerie might be possessed. “I thought it would be special if we could have Stephanie play the cello at Valerie's wedding. She could play it at the church while the people are coming in. Myra Sklar had a guitar player at her wedding, and it worked out real good.”

  My mother's face brightened. “That's a wonderful idea!” Morelli turned to me. “You play the cello?” “You bet she does,” Grandma said. “She's good, too.”

  “No, really, I'm not that good. And I don't think it would work if I played at the church. I'm in the wedding party. I have to be with Valerie.”

  Valerie was momentarily distracted from her green-bean stabbing. “It would just be while the people are walking in,” Valerie said. “And then you can put the cello aside and take your place in line.”

  Morelli was smiling. He knew I didn't play the cello. “I think you should do it,” Morelli said. “You wouldn't want all those years of cello lessons to go to waste, would you?” I shot him a warning look. “You are so toast.”

  Stephanie Plum 11 - Eleven On Top

  EIGHT

  “This is going to be a humdinger of a wedding,” Grandma said, returning her attention to her meatloaf and potatoes. “And it's going to be smooth sailing because we got a wedding planner.”

  Morelli and I exchanged glances. The Kloughn wedding was going to be a disaster of epic proportions.

  We heard some scuffling and mumbling from the second floor. There was a moment of silence. And then Kloughn rolled down the stairs and landed at the bottom with a good solid thud. We all pushed back from the table and went to assess the damage.

  Kloughn was spread-eagled on his back. His face was white and his eyes were wide. “I had the nightmare again,” he said to me. "The one I told you about.

  It was awful. I couldn't breathe. I was suffocating. Every time I go to sleep I get the nightmare."

  “What nightmare is he talking about?” Valerie wanted to know. I didn't want to tell Valerie about the whale. It wasn't the sort of recurring dream a bride could get all gushy about. Especially since Val had almost gone into cardiac arrest when Mary Alice had called her a blimp.

  “It's a nightmare about an elevator,” I said. “He's in this elevator, and all the air gets sucked out, and he can't breathe.”

  “All that white,” Kloughn said, sweat popping out on his forehead. “It was all I could see. I could only see white. And then I couldn't breathe.”

  “It was a white elevator,” I said to Valerie. “You know how dreams can get weird, right?”

  Morelli had Kloughn on his feet, holding him up by the back of his jacket again. “Now what?” Morelli said. “Where do you want him this time?”

  “We should lock him up someplace safe where he can't get away,” Grandma said. “Someplace like jail. Maybe you should bust him.”

  “What's in his jacket pocket?” Valerie asked, patting the pocket. “It's a candy bar!” She ran her fingers over it. “It feels like a Snickers.”

  Some people can read Braille . . . my sister can feel up a candy bar in a pocket and identify it.

  “I need that candy bar,” Valerie said.

  “It wouldn't be good for your diet,” I told her.

  “Yeah,” Grandma said. “Go eat another green bean.”

  “I need that candy bar,” Valerie said, eyes narrowed. “I really need it.”

  Kloughn pulled the candy bar out of his pocket, the candy bar slipped through his fingers, flew through the air, and bounced off Valerie's forehead.

  Valerie blinked twice and burst into tears. “You hit me,” she wailed.

  “You're a nutso bride,” Grandma said, retrieving the candy bar, tucking it into the zippered pocket of her warm-up suit jacket. “You're imagining things. Just look at Snoogie Boogie here. Does he look like he could hit someone? He don't know the time of day.”

  “I don't feel so good,” Kloughn said. “I want to lie down.”

  “Put him on the couch,” my mother said to Morelli. “He'll be safer there. He's lucky he didn't break his neck when he fell down the stairs.”

  We went back to the table and everybody dug in again.

  “Maybe I don't want to get married,” Valerie said.

  “Of course you want to get married,” Grandma told her. “How
could you pass up Snogle Wogle out there? It'll be his job to take the garbage out on garbage day. And he'll get the oil changed in the car. You want to do those things all by yourself? And after we get you married off we gotta work on Stephanie.”

  Grandma fixed an eye on Morelli. “How come you don't marry her?”

  “Not my fault,” Morelli said. “She won't marry me.”

  “Of course it's your fault,” Grandma said. “You must be doing something wrong, if you know what I mean. Maybe you need to buy a book that tells you how to do it. I hear there are books out there with pictures and everything. I saw one in the store the other day. It was called A Sex Guide for Dummies.”

  Morelli paused with a chunk of meatloaf halfway to his mouth. No one had ever questioned his expertise in the sack before. His sexual history was legend in the Burg. My sister gave a bark of laughter and quickly clapped a hand over her mouth. My mother went pale. And my father kept his head down, not wanting to lose the fork-to-mouth rhythm he had going.

  Morelli sat frozen in his seat for a long moment and then obviously decided no answer was the way to go. He gave me a small tight smile and got on with his meal. Things quieted down after that until Grandma started checking her watch halfway through dessert.

  “No,” my mother said to her. “Don't even think it.”

  “Think what?” Grandma asked.

  “You know what. You're not going to the viewing. It would be in terrible taste. The Macaronis have suffered enough without us adding to their grief.”

  “The Macaronis are probably dancing in their socks,” Grandma said. "Susan Mifflin saw them eating at Artie's Seafood House the day after the accident.

  She said they were going at the all-you-can-eat crab legs like it was a party."

  When the only thing left of the pineapple upside-down cake was a smudge of

  whipped cream on the cake plate, I helped my mother clear the table. I promised I'd get the decorations for the cars. And I made a mental note that in the future I would avoid weddings, mine or anyone else's. And while I was making my never-again list, I might add never have another dinner at my parents' house... although it was pretty funny when Grandma suggested Morelli get a Dummies' guide to good sex.

  Ten minutes later, Morelli and I were parked on Hamilton, across from the

  funeral home.

  “Tell me again why we're doing this,” Morelli said.

  “The bad guy always returns to the scene of the crime. Everybody knows that.”

  “This isn't the scene of the crime.”

  “Work with me here, okay? It's close enough. Spiro seems like the kind of guy who would hate to be left out. I think he'd want to watch the spectacle.”

  We sat for a couple minutes in silence and Morelli turned to me. “You're smiling,” Morelli said. “It's making me uneasy. Anyone in their right mind wouldn't be smiling after that dinner.”

  “I thought there were some good moments.”

  Morelli was dividing his attention between the people arriving for the viewing and me. “Like when your grandmother suggested I get a book?”

  “That was the best moment.”

  It was deep twilight. Light pooled on the sidewalk and road from overhead halogens, and Stiva's front porch was glowing. Stiva didn't want the old folks falling down the stairs after visiting with the deceased.

  Morelli reached out to me in the darkened car. His fingertips traced along my hairline. "Do you want to throw out a comment here? Was your grandmother

  right? Is that why we're not married?"

  “You're fishing for compliments.”

  That got Morelli smiling. “Busted.”

  Someone rapped on the drivers-side window, and we both flinched. Morelli rolled the window down a crack, and Grandma squinted in at us.

  “I thought I recognized the car,” Grandma said.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked Grandma. “I thought it was settled that you'd stay away.”

  “I know your mother means well, but sometimes she can be a real pain in the patoot. This viewing will be the talk of the town. How can I go to the beauty parlor tomorrow if I don't know anything about the viewing? What will I say to people? I got a reputation to uphold. People expect me to know the dirt. So I sneaked out when your mother went to the bathroom. I was lucky to be able to hitch a ride with Mabel from next door.”

  “We can't let Grandma go to that viewing,” I said to Morelli. “She'll be nothing but a grease spot on Stiva's carpet after the Macaronis get done with her.”

  “You really shouldn't go to the viewing,” he said to Grandma. “Why don't you get in the car, and we'll go to a bar and get wasted?”

  “Not a bad offer,” Grandma said. “But no can do. I can't take a chance on them having the lid up.”

  “There's no chance they'll have the lid up,” Morelli said. “I saw them collecting the pieces, and they're not going to fit together.”

  Grandma slid her dentures around in her mouth while she weighed her choices.

  “Don't seem right not to pay my respects,” she finally said.

  “Here's the deal,” Morelli said. “I'll go in and scope things out. If the lid is up I'll come get you. If the lid is down I'll drive you home.”

  “I guess that sounds reasonable,” Grandma said. “I don't want to get torn limb from limb by the Macaronis for no good cause. I'll wait here.”

  “And ask Constantine if he's seen Spiro,” I told Morelli.

  Morelli got out, and Grandma took his place behind the wheel. We watched Morelli walk into the funeral home.

  “He's a keeper,” Grandma said. “He's turned into a real nice young man. And he's nice looking, too. Not as hot as that Ranger but pretty darn close.”

  Cars rolled past us on Hamilton. People parked in the lot next to Stiva's and made their way to the big front porch. A group of men stood just outside the door. They were smoking and talking and occasionally there'd be a bark of laughter.

  “I guess you're unemployed again,” Grandma said. “You have any ideas where you'll go next?”

  “I hear they're hiring at the sanitary products plant.”

  “That might work out. That plant is way down Route One and they might not have heard about you yet.”

  The light changed at the end of the block and cars began moving again. An SUV slid by us going in the opposite direction... and Spiro was behind the wheel.

  I started climbing over the console. “Get out of the car,” I yelled. “I need to follow that SUV.”

  “No way. I'm not missing out on this. I can catch him,” Grandma said.

  “Buckle your seat belt.”

  I opened my mouth to say no, but Grandma already had the car in gear. She shot back and rammed the car behind us, knocking him back a couple feet.

  “That's better,” Grandma said. “Now I got room to get out.” She wheeled Morelli's SUV into traffic, stopped short, laid on the horn, and cut into the stream of oncoming cars.

  Grandma learned to drive a couple years ago. She immediately racked up points for speeding and lost her license. She wasn't all that good a driver back then, and she wasn't any better now. I tightened my seat belt and started making deals with God. I'll be a better person, I told God. I swear I will. I'll even go to church. Okay, maybe that's not going to happen. I'll go to church on holidays. Just don't let Grandma kill us both.

  “I'm coming up on him,” Grandma said. “He's just two cars ahead of us.”

  “Keep the two cars between us,” I told her. “I don't want him to see us.”

  The light changed at the corner. Spiro went through on the yellow, and we were stopped behind the two cars. Grandma yanked the wheel to the right, jumped the curb, and drove on the sidewalk to the intersection. She leaned on the horn, smashed her foot to the floor, and rocketed across two lanes of traffic.

  I had my feet braced against the dash and my eyes closed.

  “I have a better idea,” I said. “Why don't we go back to the funeral home? You wouldn't w
ant to miss hearing that the lid was up. And maybe it would be a good idea to pull over and let me drive, since you don't have a license.”

  “I got him in my sights,” Grandma said, hunched over the wheel, eyes narrowed.

  Spiro turned right and Grandma raced to the corner and took it on two wheels. One block ahead of us we saw Spiro right-turn again. Grandma stuck with him, and two turns later we found ourselves back on Hamilton, heading for the funeral home. Spiro was going to make another pass.

  “This is convenient,” Grandma said. “We can see if Joseph is waiting for us.”