Eleven on Top

  “Not good,” I said. “He won't be happy to see you behind the wheel. He's a cop, remember? He arrests people who drive without a license.”

  “He can't arrest me. I'm an old lady. I got rights. And besides, he's practically family.”

  Was that true? Was Morelli practically family? Had I become accidentally married?

  My attention returned to Spiro, and I realized Grandma had closed the gap, and we were one car behind him. We sailed past the funeral home, past Morelli standing at the side of the road, hands on hips. He gave his head a small shake as we whizzed by. Probably best not to second-guess his thoughts… they didn't look happy.

  “I know I should have stopped to find out about the viewing,” Grandma said, “but I hate to lose this guy. I don't know why I'm following him, but I can't seem to quit.”

  Spiro drove three blocks and did another loop, taking himself back down Hamilton. We lost the single-car buffer, and Grandma got on Spiro's bumper just as he came up to the funeral home. Spiro flashed his right-turn signal and after that it was all horror and panic and life in slow motion, because Spiro jumped the curb and plowed into a group of men on the sidewalk. He hit two men I'd never seen before and Morelli. One of the men was knocked aside. One was pitched off the hood. And Morelli spiraled off the right front fender of Spiro's SUV and was thrown to the ground.

  Probably I should have gone after Spiro, but I acted without thought. I was out of the car and running to Morelli before Grandma had come to a complete stop. He was on his back, his eyes open, his face white.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, dropping to my knees. “Do I look okay?”

  “No. You look like you've just been run over by an SUV.” “Last time this happened I got to look up your skirt,” he said. And then he passed out. It was close to midnight when I was told Morelli was out of surgery. His leg had been broken in two places but aside from that he was fine. I'd taken Grandma home, and I was alone in the hospital. A bunch of cops had stopped by earlier. Eddie Gazarra and Carl Costanza had offered to stay with me, but I'd assured them it wasn't necessary. I'd already been informed Morelli's injuries weren't life threatening. The two other guys that were mowed down by Spiro were going to be okay, too. One had been sent home with scrapes and bruises. The other was being kept overnight with a concussion and broken collarbone.

  I was allowed to see Morelli for a moment when he was brought up to his room. He was hooked to an IV drip, his leg was elevated on the bed, and he was still groggy. He was half a day beyond a five o'clock shadow. He had a bruise on his cheek. His eyes were partly closed, and his dark lashes shaded his eyes.

  I brushed a light kiss across his lips. “You're okay,” I told him.

  “Good to know,” he said. And then the drugs dragged him back into sleep.

  I walked the short distance to the parking garage and found a blue-and-white parked next to Morelli's SUV. Gazarra was at the wheel.

  “I had late shift and this is as good a place as any to hang,” he said.

  “Lock the car in Morelli's garage tonight. I wouldn't want to see you in the room next to Mama Mac tomorrow.”

  I left the garage and followed Gazarra's instructions. It was a dark moonless night with a chill in the air that ordinarily would have me thinking about pumpkins and winter clothes and football games. As it was, I had a hard time pushing the anger and fear generated by Spiro into the background. Hard to think about anything other than the pain he'd caused Morelli.

  Morelli's garage was detached from his house and at the rear of his property. Bob was waiting for me when I let myself into the house through the back door.

  He was sleepy-eyed and lethargic, resting his big shaggy orange head against my leg. I scratched him behind his ear and gave him a dog biscuit from the cookie jar on the counter.

  “Do you have to tinkle?” I asked Bob.

  Bob didn't look especially interested in tinkling.

  “Maybe you should try,” I told him. “I'm going to sleep late tomorrow.”

  I opened the back door, Bob picked his head up, his nose twitched, his eyes got wide, and Bob bolted through the door and took off into the night. Shit!

  I could hear Bob galloping two yards over, and then there was nothing but the sound of distant cars and the whir of Morelli's refrigerator in defrost cycle behind me.

  Great job, Stephanie. Things aren't bad enough, now you've lost Morelli's dog. I got a flashlight, pocketed the house key, and locked up behind me. I crossed through two yards and stopped and listened. Nothing. I kept walking through yards, occasionally sweeping the area with the light. At the very end of the block I found Bob munching his way through a big black plastic garbage bag. He'd torn a hole in the bag and had pulled out chicken remains, wads of paper towels, empty soup cans, lunch-meat wrappers, and God knows what else.

  I grabbed Bob by the collar and dragged him away from the mess. Probably I should clean up the garbage, but I was in no mood. With any luck, a herd of crows would descend on the carnage and cart everything off to Crowland.

  I dragged Bob all the way home. When I got to the house there was a piece of notebook paper tacked to the back door. A smiley face was drawn on thepaper, isn't THIS FUN? was printed under the smiley face.

  I got Bob inside and threw the bolt. And then as a double precaution I locked us into Morelli's bedroom.

  It was a little after nine, and I had the phone cradled between my ear and shoulder as I scoured Morelli's kitchen floor, cleaning up the chicken bones Bob had hacked up.

  “I can come home,” Morelli said. “I need some shorts and a ride.”

  “I'll be there as soon as I finish cleaning the kitchen.” I disconnected and looked over at Bob. “Are you done?”

  Bob didn't say anything, but he didn't look happy. His eyes cut to the back door.

  I hooked a leash to Bob and took him into the yard. Bob hunched over and pooped out a red lace thong. I was going to have to check upstairs to be sure, but I strongly suspected it was mine.

  Morelli was ON the couch with his foot propped up on a pillow on the coffee table. He had the television remote, a bowl of popcorn, his cell phone, a six-pack of soda, crutches, a week's supply of pills for pain, an Xbox remote, his iPod with headset, a box of dog biscuits, and a gun, all within reach. Bob was sprawled on the floor in front of the television.

  “Is there anything else before I go?” I asked him.

  “Do you have to go?”

  “Yes! I promised my mother I'd get the decorations for the cars. I need to check in on Valerie. We have no food in the house. I used up all the paper towels cleaning up Bob barf. And I need to stop at the personal products plant and get a job application.”

  “I think you should stay home and play with me. I'll let you write dirty suggestions on my cast.”

  "Appealing, but no. Your mother and your grandmother are going to show up.

  They're going to need to see for themselves that you're okay. They're going to bring a casserole and a cake, because that's what they always do. And if I'm here they're going to grill us about getting married, because that's what they always do. And then Bella is going to have a vision that involves my uterus, because that's also a constant. Better to take the cowards way out and run errands." Plus, I wanted to drop in at the funeral home and talk to Constantine Stiva about his son.

  “What if I fall and I can't get up?”

  “Nice try, but I've got it covered. I've got a babysitter for you. Someone who will attend to your every need while I'm gone.”

  There was a sharp rap on the front door, and Lula barged in. “Here I am, ready to baby-sit your ass,” she said to Morelli. “Don't you worry about a thing. Lula's here to take care of you.”

  Morelli looked over at me. “You're kidding.”

  “I wanted to make sure you were safe.”

  And that was true. I was worried about Spiro returning and setting the house on fire. Spiro was nuts.

  Lula set her bag in the hall and walked to the curb with me. B
ig Blue was soaking up sun on the street, ready to spring into action. I had an extra car key from Grandma. I'd gotten an extra apartment key from my building super, Dillon Ruddick. I had Morelli's credit card for the food. I was ready to roll.

  It was early afternoon, and if I didn't hit too much traffic on Route One I'd be home to feed Morelli dinner.

  “We'll be fine,” Lula said. “I brought some videos to watch. And I got the whole bag of tricks with me if anything nasty goes down. I even got a taser. It's brand-new. Never been used. I bet I could give a guy the runs with that taser.”

  “I should be back in a couple hours,” I told her. I slid behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. Something under the car went phunnnf, and flames shot out on all sides and the car instantly died. I got out, and Lula and I got on our hands and knees and checked the undercarriage.

  “Guess that was a bomb,” Lula said.

  Little black dots floated in front of my eyes, and there was a lot of clanging in my head. When the clanging stopped, I stood and brushed road gravel off my knees, using the activity to get myself under control. I was freaking out deep inside, and that wasn't a good thing. I needed to be brave. I needed to think clearly. I needed to be Ranger. Get a grip, I said to myself. Don't give in to the panic. Don't let this bastard run your life and make you afraid.

  “You're starting to scare me,” Lula said. “You look like you're having a whole conversation with someone and it isn't me.”

  “Giving myself a pep talk,” I said. “Tell Morelli about the bomb. I'm taking his SUV.”

  “You're whiter than usual,” Lula said.

  “Yeah, but I didn't totally faint or throw up, so I'm doing good, right?”

  I backed Morelli's car out of the garage and hit the first stop on my list.

  A party store on Route 33 in Hamilton Township. Valerie had, at last count, three bridesmaids, one maid of honor (me), and two flower girls (Angie and

  Mary Alice). We were riding in six cars. The party store had dolls in fancy gowns for the hood, bows for all the door handles, and streaming ribbons that got attached to the back of each car. Everything corresponded to the color of the gown inside the car. Mine was eggplant. Could it get any worse?

  I was going to look like the attendant to the dead.

  “I'm here to pick up the car decorations for the Plum wedding,” I said to the girl at the counter.

  “We have them right here, ready to go,” she said, “but there's a problem with one of them. I don't know what happened. The woman who makes these is always so careful. One of the dolls looks like ... an eggplant.”

  “It's a vegetarian wedding,” I told her. “New Age.”

  I lugged the six boxes out to the car and drove them to my parents' house. I left the SUV idling at the curb, ran in with the boxes, dumped them on the kitchen table, and turned to leave.

  “Where are you going so fast?” Grandma wanted to know. “Don't you want a sandwich? We have olive loaf.”

  “No time. Lots of errands today. And I need to get back to Morelli.” Also I didn't want to leave the car unattended long enough for Spiro to set another bomb.

  My mother was at the stove, stirring a pot of vanilla pudding. “I hope Joseph is feeling better. That was a terrible thing last night.”

  “He's on the couch, watching television. His leg is achy, but he's going to be okay.” I looked over at Grandma Mazur. “He said to tell you the lid was down, and rumor has it Mama Mac went to the hereafter without the mole. Morelli said the medical examiner thinks the mole is still in the parking lot somewhere, but there might not be a lot left of it due to all the foot traffic around the scene.”

  “I get a chill just thinking about it,” Grandma said. “Someone could be walking around with Mama Mac's mole on the bottom of their shoe.”

  From the corner of my eye I saw my mother take a bottle out of a cupboard, pour two fingers of whisky into a juice glass, and knock it back. Guess the ironing wasn't doing it for her anymore.

  “Gotta go,” I said. “If you need me I'll be staying with Morelli. He needs help getting around.”

  “The organist at the church would like to know if you want her to accompany you when you play the cello,” Grandma said. “I saw her at the market this morning.”

  I smacked my forehead with the heel of my hand. “With all the excitement I forgot to tell you. I don't have a cello anymore. I gave it away. It was taking up too much space in my closet. You know how it is when you live in an apartment. Never enough closet space.”

  “But you loved your cello,” Grandma said.

  I tried to plaster an appropriate expression of remorse on my face. “That's the way it goes. A girl has to have priorities.”

  “Who got the cello?”

  “Who?” My mind was racing. Who got the cello? “My cello teacher,” I said. “I gave it to my cello teacher.”

  “Do we know her?”

  "Nope. She lived in New Hope. But she's moved. She moved to South Carolina.

  That's another reason I stopped playing. My cello teacher moved, and I didn't feel like finding a new cello teacher. So I gave the cello back to her. It was originally hers, anyway.“ Sometimes I was really impressed with my ability to come up with this shit. Once I got going, it just rolled out of me. I could compose a whole parallel universe for myself in a matter of seconds. I glanced down at my watch. ”Look at the time! I'm late."

  I snatched a couple cookies off the plate on the kitchen table and ran through the house to the car. I jumped in the SUV and roared away. Next stop was Valerie. I didn't have any real reason to visit Valerie. It was just that I was her sister and her maid of honor and Val wasn't entirely together these days. I thought it wouldn't hurt to check on her once in a while until she made it through the wedding.

  The first thing I noticed when I got to her house was the absence of Kloughn's car. Not surprising since this was a workday. Sort of surprising that he was able to get himself up and out on the road with a raging hangover.

  “What?” Val yelled when she opened the door to me.

  “I just stopped by to say hello.”

  “Oh. Sorry I yelled at you. I'm having a problem with volume control. It turns out when you're starving to death you do a lot of yelling.”

  “Where's Albert? I thought he'd still be in bed with a hangover.”

  “He decided he was better off at the office. He couldn't stand the galloping and whinnying. You might want to see how he's doing. He left in his pajamas.”

  “You know, Val, not everyone's cut out to have a big wedding. Maybe you should reconsider the eloping option.”

  “I wish I'd never started this wedding thing,” Val wailed. “What was I thinking?”

  “It's not too late to bail.”

  “It is. And I'm too chicken. Everybody's made all these plans!”

  “Yeah, but it's your wedding. It shouldn't be some horrible stressful thing. It should be something you enjoy.” Not to mention, if Valerie eloped I wouldn't have to wear the hideous eggplant getup.

  I left Valerie and drove to Kloughn's office. There was a CLOSED sign on his door and when I looked in the window I could see Kloughn was stretched out on the floor in his pajamas with a wet towel over his face. I didn't want to make him get up, so I tiptoed away and headed down Route 1 to the personal products plant. I parked in a visitor slot, ran in, and got a job application from the personnel office. I had no illusions of getting an office job here.

  I had no references and few skills. I'd be lucky if I could get a job on the line. I'd bring the application back tomorrow and wait for a phone call for an interview.

  I slid to a stop in front of Giovichinni's Market and didn't bother to call to check on Macaronis. I figured I had bigger problems than Macaronis. I was being stalked by a homicidal maniac. Spiro was officially over the edge.

  I ran through the store gathering together some basic foods. Bread, cheese, Tastykakes, peanut butter, cereal, milk, Tastykakes, eggs, frozen pizza, Tastyk
akes, orange juice, apples, lunch meat, and Tastykakes. I checked out and muscled my way through the door with bags in my arms.

  Ranger was leaning against the SUV, waiting for me. He pushed off, took the bags, and put them in the car. “Looks like you're playing house,” he said.

  “More like nurse. Morelli needs some help.”

  “Is that your job application on the front seat?” Yep.

  “Personal products plant?”

  “It's halfway to New Brunswick. I'm hoping they won't have heard about me. That's Grandmas line, but it's true.”

  “Babe,” Ranger said. He was smiling, but there was a quality to his voice that told me it wasn't actually funny. We both knew that my life wasn't going in the carefree direction I'd hoped for.