Lean Mean Thirteen (4 page)

'"We're disturbing him," Lula whispered. "We should leave now and let him finish his breakfast."

The snake swallowed and the lump moved six inches farther down its throat.

"Oh crap," Lula whispered.

And next thing I knew, I was in my car.

"How did I get in the car?" I asked Lula.

"You let out a shriek and ran out of the trailer and all the way here. I bet I got footprints on my back where you ran over me."

I slouched in my seat and concentrated on getting my heart to stop racing. "That wasn't a snake. Snakes aren't that big, are they?"

"It was the snake from hell. It was a motherfucking mutant reptile." Lula shook her finger at me. "I told you we didn't want to go in there. You wouldn't listen." I was still shaky enough that I had to two-hand the key to get it in the ignition. "Took me by surprise," I said.

"Yeah, me too," Lula said. "Do I get my lunch now?" I dropped Lula at the office and looked at my watch. It was a little after one. I had more skips sitting in my bag, waiting to get found, but I was having a hard time working up enthusiasm for the whole bounty hunter thing. I decided procrastination was the way to go, so I called Morelli.

"Is there anything new on Dickie?" I asked him.

"No. As far as I know, he's still missing. Where are you?"

"I'm in my car in front of the office, and I'm trying to calm myself." I could hear Morelli smile over the phone line. "How's the snake?"

"Big."

"Did you catch a Diggery?"

"No. Didn't even come close."

I disconnected Morelli and called Ranger.

"Can we talk?" I asked him.

"Your place or mine?"

"Yours."

"I'm parked behind you."

I looked in my rearview mirror and locked eyes with him. He was in the Porsche Cayenne.

"Sometimes you freak me out," I said to Ranger.

"Babe."

I got out of my garbage-scow Crown Vic and into Rangers shiny, immaculate SUV.

"You involved me in a murder," I said to Ranger.

"And you have no alibi," Ranger said.

"Is there anything you don't know?"

"I don't know what happened to Dickie."

"So I guess that means you didn't snatch him?"

"I don't leave bloodstains," Ranger said.

Ranger was dressed in his usual black. Black Vibram-soled boots, black jeans, black shirt, black wool pea coat, and his black Navy SEAL ball cap. Ranger was a shadow. A mystery man. A man who had no time or desire to mix and match colors.

"Those bugs I planted on Dickie… what was that about?" I asked him.

"You don't want to know."

"Yes, I do."

"You don't."

I stared him down. "I do."

Ranger did what for him was a sigh. The barest whisper of expelled breath. I was being a pain in the keester.

"I'm looking for a guy named Ziggy Zabar. His brother, Zip, works for me and came to me for help when Ziggy disappeared last week. Ziggy's a CPA with a firm downtown. They prepare the tax reports for Petiak, Smullen, Gorvich, and Orr. Every Monday, the partners hold a meeting off-site, and Ziggy had the meeting on his calendar. He was seen getting into his car to go to the meeting, and then he disappeared. The four partners swear Zabar never showed up, but I don't believe it. There's something not right about the firm. Dickie has legitimate credentials and has passed the Jersey bar. His partners have law degrees from Panama. Right now, I can't tell if Dickie is dumb or dirty."

"Did the bugs work?"

"The meeting was canceled. We listened until a little after ten and packed up when Dickie went to bed."

"So you weren't listening when shots were fired."

"No, but I was in his house after the police sealed it, and it looks to me like Dickie left the house wearing the same clothes he had on all day. We've tried scanning to pick up a bug, but haven't had any luck. Either he's out of range, or the bugs have been found and destroyed."

"Now what?"

Ranger took a little plastic bag from his pocket. It contained another bug. "Do you think you can plant this on Peter Smullen?"

I felt my jaw drop and my eyebrows shoot up into my forehead. "You're not serious." Ranger took a file off the dashboard and handed it to me. "Smullen wasn't in the office yesterday. He had a dentist appointment. So he shouldn't recognize you. Here are a couple pictures of Smullen, a short bio, plus our best guess at what his schedule will be like tomorrow. He divides his time between Trenton and Bogota. When he's in town, he's a creature of habit, so running into him won't be a problem. Try to tag him tomorrow morning, so I can listen to him all day."

"And I'm going to do this, why?"

"I'll let you wrestle with that one," Ranger said. He looked through the Cayenne windshield at my car. "Is there a reason you're driving the Vic?"

"It was cheap."

"Babe, free wouldn't be cheap enough."

"You haven't asked me if I killed Dickie," I said to Ranger.

"I know you didn't kill Dickie. You never left your apartment." There was a time when I considered Rangers surveillance an invasion of privacy, but that time was long gone. There's not much point to worrying about things you can't control, and I had no control over Ranger.

"Where is it? On my car?" I asked him, doing a pretty decent job of not sounding completely pissed off.

Rangers mouth didn't smile, but his eyes crinkled a little at the corners. "GPS unit in your bag. Please don't remove it."

I took the file and the bug-in-a-bag and got out of the Cayenne. "I imagine you'll be watching my every move."

"Just like always," Ranger said.

I got into the Crown Vic, cranked the engine over, and turned the heat on full blast. I looked in my rearview mirror. No Ranger.

I studied the pictures of Peter Smullen. He was an average-looking guy with receding brown hair and a beer belly. Heavy five o'clock shadow in all the photos. Lips like a flounder. His file put him at five feet eight inches. Forty-six years old. Married with two kids, ages twenty and twenty-two. Both kids and the wife were in Colombia. Smullen kept a bachelor apartment in Hamilton Township. When Smullen was in town, at precisely eight a.m., he'd roll into a parking garage that was a block from his office at the law firm and get a triple-shot Frappuccino at the Starbucks on the corner.

I'd get him at the Starbucks.

I closed the file, turned to lay it on the seat next to me, and the Vic's driver's side door was suddenly wrenched open. Joyce Barnhardt glared in at me and called me the "c" word. Joyce was six feet tall in four-inch, spike-heeled black boots. She was wearing a black leather duster lined with fake fur, her eyes were enhanced with rhinestone-studded fake eyelashes, her red enameled nails were long and frightening. The package was topped with a lot of shoulder-length brilliant red hair arranged in curls and waves. Joyce had never moved beyond Farrah Fawcett.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Is there a point to this conversation?"

"You killed him. You found out we were a couple, and you couldn't handle it. So you killed him."

"I didn't kill him."

"I was inches from marrying the little turd, and you ruined it all. Do you have any idea how much he's worth? A fucking fortune. And you killed him, and now I get nothing. I hate you." I turned the key in the ignition and put the Vic into drive. "I have to go now," I said to Joyce. "Good talk."

"I'm not done," Joyce said. "I'm just beginning. I'm going to get even. I'm going to make your life a misery." Joyce pulled a gun out of her coat pocket and aimed it at me. "I'm going to shoot out your eye. And then I'm going to shoot you in the foot, and the knee, and the ass…"

I stomped on the gas pedal and rocketed off with my door still open. Joyce squeezed off two rounds, putting a hole in the rear window. I looked in my mirror and got a glimpse of her standing in the middle of the road, giving me the finger. Joyce Barnhardt was nuts. I drove one block down Hamilton and turned into the Burg. I was thinking that after the traumatic Joyce experience, I needed something to calm myself… like a piece of the raspberry Entenmann's. Plus, my dad had all lands of things stashed in his cellar, like electrician s tape, that I could use to patch my rear window. Wind was whistling through the bullet hole, creating a draft on the back of my neck. It would have been perfectly okay in July, but it was damn cold in February. I wound through the maze of Burg streets to my parents' house and parked in the driveway. I got out and examined the car. Hole in the rear window, and Joyce had taken out a taillight.

I hunched against the sleet and ran to the front door. I let myself in, dropped my bag on the sideboard in the foyer, and went to the kitchen. My mother was at the sink, washing vegetables. Grandma was at the little table with a cup of tea. The Entenmann s box was on the small kitchen table. I held my breath and approached the box. I flipped the lid. Two pieces left. I anxiously looked around. "Anyone want this Entenmann s?" I asked.

"Not me," Grandma said.

"Not me either," my mother said.

I shrugged out of my jacket, hung it on the back of the chair, and sat down.

"Anything new in the world of crime?" Grandma asked.

"Same ol, same ol," I told her. "What's new with you?"

"I'm outta that glue stuff for my dentures. I was hoping you could run me out to the drugstore."

"Sure." I wolfed down the last of the cake and scraped back in my chair. "I can take you now, but then I need to get back to work."

"I'll just go upstairs to get my purse," Grandma said. I leaned toward her and lowered my voice. "No gun."

Grandma Mazur carried a. long barrel named Elsie. It wasn't registered, and she didn't have a permit to carry concealed. Grandma thought being old gave her license to pack. She called it the equalizer. My mother kept taking the gun away, and the gun kept mysteriously returning.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Grandma said.

"I've got enough problems with the police right now. I can't afford to get pulled over for a broken taillight and have them discover you're armed and dangerous."

"I never go anywhere without Elsie," Grandma said.

"What's all the whispering about?" my mother wanted to know.

"We were trying to decide if I needed to put on some fresh lipstick," Grandma said. I looked over at her. "You don't need lipstick."

"A woman always needs lipstick."

"Your lipstick is fine."

"You're getting to be just like your mother," Grandma said. There was a time when that statement would have freaked me out, but now I was thinking maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have some of my mother’s qualities. She was a stabilizing influence on the family. She was the representative of accepted social behavior. She was the guardian of our health and security. She was the bran muffin that allowed us to be jelly doughnuts.

Grandma and I were at the front door, and I remembered the hole in the windshield. "Duct tape," I called to my mother. 'Where would I find it, the garage or the cellar?" My mother came with a roll. "I keep some in the kitchen. Are you fixing something?"

"I have a hole in my back window."

Grandma Mazur squinted at the Vic. "Looks like a bullet hole."

"Dear God," my mother said. "It s not a bullet hole, is it?"

"No," I told her. "Absolutely not."

Grandma Mazur buttoned herself into her long royal blue wool coat. She buckled a little under the weight but managed to right herself and get to the car.

"Isn't this the kind of car the cops use?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Does it have one of them flashing lights?"

"No."

"Bummer," Grandma said.

I followed Grandma up and down the aisles, past personal products to Metamucil, hemorrhoid remedies, hair spray, Harlequin romances, greeting cards. She got her denture glue and moved to lipsticks.

A gap-toothed, redheaded kid rounded a corner and came to a stop in front of us.

"Hi!" he yelled.

He was followed by Cynthia Hawser. Cynthia and I had been classmates. She was married now to a gap-toothed, redheaded guy who'd fathered three gap-toothed, redheaded kids. They lived a block over from Morelli in a little duplex that had more toys than grass in the front yard.

"This is Jeremy/' Cynthia said to Grandma and me.

Jeremy had trouble written all over him. Jeremy just about vibrated with energy.

"What a cute little boy," Grandma said. "I bet you're real smart."

"I'm too smart for my britches," Jeremy said. "That's what most people tell me." An old man shuffled up and looked us over. He was wearing a wavy jet-black toupee that sat slightly askew on his bald dome. He had bushy, out-of-control eyebrows, a lot of ear hair, and even more slack skin than Grandma. I thought he looked to be on the far side of eighty.

"What s going on here?" he asked.

"This is Uncle Elmer," Cynthia said. "There was a fire in his apartment at assisted living so he came to live with us."

"It wasn't my fault," Uncle Elmer said.

"You were smoking in bed," Jeremy said. "It's lucky you didn't cream yourself." Cynthia grimaced. "You mean cremate"

Uncle Elmer grinned at Grandma. "Who's this sexy young thing?"

"Aren't you the one," Grandma said to Elmer.

Elmer winked at her. "The boys at the home would love you. You look hot."

"It's the coat," Grandma said. "It's wool."

Elmer fingered the coat. "Looks like good quality. I was in retail, you know. I can tell quality."

"I've had it for a while," Grandma said. "I was taller when I first bought it. I've shrunk up some."

Elmer gave his head a small shake, and the toupee slid over one ear. He reached up and righted it. "The golden years are a bitch," Elmer said.

"You don't look like you shrunk much," Grandma said. "You're a pretty big guy."

"Well, some of me s shrunk and some of me s swollen up," Elmer said. "When I was young, I got a lot of tattoos, and now they don't look so good. One time, I got drunk and got Eisenhower tattooed on my balls, but now he looks like Orville Redenbacher."

"He makes good popcorn," Grandma said.

"You bet. And don't worry, I still got it where it counts."

"Where s that?" Grandma asked.

"In the sack. Hangs a little lower than it used to, but the equipment still works, if you know what I mean."

"Uncle Elmer poops in a bag," Jeremy said.

"It's temporary," Elmer said. "Jus* ^ the bypass heals up. They put some pig intestine in me on an experimental basis."

"Gee," I said, "look at the time. We have to be running along now."

"Yeah, I can't be late for dinner tonight," Grandma said. "I want to make the early viewing at the funeral parlor. Milton Buzick is laid out, and I hear you wouldn't even recognize him."

"You got a good funeral parlor here?" Elmer asked Grandma.

"I go to the one on Hamilton Avenue. It's run by two real nice young men, and they serve homemade cookies."

"I wouldn't mind some homemade cookies," Elmer said. "I could meet you there tonight. I'm looking for a lady friend, you know. Do you put out?"

Cynthia smacked Uncle Elmer on the head. "Behave yourself."

"I haven't got time/' Elmer said, readjusting his hair. "I gotta know these things."

"Now what?" I asked Grandma Mazur when we'd settled ourselves in the car.

"I gotta go home, so I can get ready for tonight. That Elmer is a frisky one. He'll get snapped up fast. Myra Witkowski would snap him up in an instant if I let her."

"Remember, I'm looking for Simon Diggery. Check out Milton's jewelry for me, and let me know if he's going in the ground with anything pricey enough to get Diggery out to the cemetery on a cold night."

Morelli and Bob strolled in a little after six. Morelli shucked his boots and jacket in the foyer and dumped a grocery bag and a six-pack onto the kitchen counter. He grabbed me, and kissed me, and cracked open a beer from the six-pack.

"I'm starving," he said. "I didn't have time for lunch." I pulled a bunch of chili dogs and a bucket of cheese fries out of the grocery bag. I put two dogs and some fries in a bowl for Bob and unwrapped a dog for myself.

"This is what I love about you," I said to Morelli. "No vegetables." Morelli ate some hotdog and drank some more beer. "Is that all you love about me?"

"No, but it's high on the list."

"The Berringer murders are going into the toilet. The security company didn't have film in any of the surveillance cameras. Everyone hated the two people who were killed. It was cold and overcast and there was no exterior lighting in the back of the building. No one saw anything. No one heard anything. Forced entry. Nothing stolen."

"Maybe you should hire a psychic."

"I know you're being a wiseass, but I'm about at that point."

"What's happening with Dickie? Am I still a suspect?"

"Right now, Dickie is just a missing person who disappeared under suspicious circumstances. If his body floats in on the tide, you could be in trouble. Marty Gobel is still the primary investigator, and he wants to talk to you first thing tomorrow. I gave him your cell number."

"Do you think I should use the orgasm defense?"

"Yeah, my reputation could use a boost." Morelli finished off his second hotdog and ate some fries. "I'm not on the case, but I've been poking around on my own, and I don't like Dickie's partners. I'm probably going to regret saying this, but maybe you should bring Ranger in. He can do things I can't. Ranger doesn't mind bending the law to get information. Have him take a look at the partners."

"You're worried about me."

Morelli wiped his hands on his jeans and pulled me to him, wrapping his arms around me.

"Dickie was a respected lawyer. And Joyce is making a lot of noise. This is going to go high profile, and the politicians will have to point a finger at someone. When the media gets hold of this case, unless new evidence is found, you're going to be in the spotlight." He rested his cheek on the top of my head. "I can manage the media attention. I couldn't manage having you taken away from me."

I tipped my head back and looked at him. He was serious. "Do you think I might be arrested and convicted?"

"I think the possibility is slim, but I'm not willing to take a chance on it. Ask Ranger for help and keep your head down. Don't do anything to bring more attention to yourself." I WAS dragged awake by something ringing in the dark room. Morelli swore softly, and his arm reached across me to the nightstand, where he'd left his cell phone.

"What?" Morelli said into the phone.

Someone was talking on the other end, and I could feel Morelli coming awake.

"You're fucking kidding me," he said to the caller. "Why does this shit always happen in the middle of the night?"

I squinted at my bedside clock and grimaced. Three A.M.

Morelli was up and moving around the room, looking for his clothes. He still had the phone to his ear. "Give me an address," he said, and a moment later he snapped his phone closed. He slipped his watch onto his wrist and pulled his jeans on. He sat on the edge of the bed and tugged on socks. He leaned over and kissed me. "I have to go, and I probably won't get back tonight. I'll take Bob with me."

"Is this about the Berringer murders?"

"Someone else was just found dead in the building."He clipped his gun onto his belt and pulled a sweater over a T-shirt. "I'll call when I can."

I had A third of a jar of peanut butter in my pantry, no milk, no bread, no juice. Half a box of Cheerios. I dropped some Cheerios into Rex's food dish and mixed some up with the peanut butter for myself. I washed the Cheerios and peanut butter down with black coffee and grabbed my coat.

Marty Gobel, the cop who was in charge of Dickie's disappearance, was supposed to call to talk. If I wasn't Morelli s girlfriend, I'd probably be getting fingerprinted. Good thing I had something solid in my stomach because otherwise I might be inclined to throw up. I really didn't want to go to jail.

Peter Smullen was first on my list of hideous jobs. According to Ranger's research, Smullen would be rolling into Starbucks a little after eight. I arrived fifteen minutes in front of the hour and tried to look inconspicuous by studying the shelves of coffee mugs for sale. Not that inconspicuous was much of a problem. The place was packed, and anyone under seven feet tall wasn't going to stand out.

I saw Smullen push through the door at five of eight and realized I might have a problem. He was buttoned into a black cashmere overcoat. There was no way to drop a bug into his suit pocket. Fortunately, the store was warm and the line was long. If the line went slowly enough, he'd unbutton his coat. I watched from my spot at the front of the store. I had a plan. I was going to wait until he had his coffee, and then I'd approach him. My coat was open, and I was wearing a low-cut V-neck sweater with a push-up bra. I looked pretty good considering my boobs were real, but it was hard to compete with all the double-D silicone jobs. Smullen finally got to the counter and put in his order. He unbuttoned his coat to get his wallet, and I almost collapsed with relief. I had access to his pockets. He shuffled to the pickup counter, got his triple Frappuccino, and when he turned toward the door, he was flat against me. I had my boobs pressed into his chest and my leg between his.

"Whoops," I said, sliding my hand under his coat, dropping the bug into his pocket.

"Sorry!"

Smullen didn't blink. He just hung on to his Frappuccino as if this happened every morning. And maybe it did. There were a lot of people in the store. I took one step back and one step to the side to let Smullen get past me, and he inched his way toward the door and disappeared. I felt someone lean in to me from behind, and a coffee was placed in my hand.

"Nice," Ranger said, guiding me out to the sidewalk. "I couldn't have gotten that close. And he wouldn't have been distracted by my chest."

"I don't think he even noticed."

"A man would have to be dead not to notice," Ranger said.

"Morelli's worried I'll be involved in Dickie's disappearance. He said I should ask you for help."

"He's a good man," Ranger said. "And you?" “I’m better." Lula WAS filing when I walked into the bonds office.

"What s with this?" I asked.

"Hunh," Lula said. "You act like I never do nothing. It's just I'm so efficient I get my work done before anyone notices. My name should be Flash. You ever see any files laying around?"

"I assumed you were throwing them away."

'Tour ass," Lula said.

For a short time, we had a guy named Melvin Pickle doing our filing. Pickle was a filing dynamo. Unfortunately, he was so good he was able to get a better job. Les Sebring hired him to work in his bonds office, and Connie had to coerce Lula to take back filing responsibilities. Connie was carefully adding a topcoat to her nails. "Having any luck with the new batch of FTAs?"

"No, but Milton Buzick is getting buried today. I'm waiting to get a jewelry report from Grandma."

"If he got a Rolex on, I don't want to know," Lula said. "Two things I'm not doing. I'm not going back to that trailer, and I'm not sitting in no cemetery. Dead people creep me out."

"What about Carl Coglin?" Connie asked. "He looks pretty straightforward. He has a small shop attached to his home."

'Who's Carl Coglin?" Lula wanted to know.

I pulled Carl's file out of my bag and flipped it open. "Sixty-four years old. Never married. Lives alone. His sister put up the bond. Accused of destruction of personal property. Doesn't go into detail. Lists his occupation as taxidermist."

"Taxidermist," Lula said. "We never busted a taxidermist before. It could be fun." A half hour later, we were in North Trenton, standing in front of Coglin's house. This was a working-class neighborhood filled with people stretched too thin to plant flowers in the spring. Houses were neat but shabby. Cars were tired.

Coglin lived in a redbrick single-family house with mustard trim. The paint was blistered and the wood around the windows had some rot. The front porch had been enclosed as an afterthought, and a small sign on the door advertised Coglin's taxidermy business.

"Don't look to me like taxidermy pays real well," Lula said. A scrawny little guy answered my knock, and I knew from the picture on file that it was Coglin. Hair the color and texture of steel wool. Wire-rimmed glasses.

"Carl Coglin?" I asked.

"Yes."

"I represent Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. You missed your court date last week, and I'd like to help you reschedule."

"That's nice of you," Coglin said, "but I don't want to inconvenience you."

"Its my job."

"Oh," Coglin said. "Well, what does this rescheduling involve?"

"You need to go to the courthouse and get rebonded."

We were standing in Coglin's front-porch showroom, and it was hard not to notice the animals lining his walls.

"Where's the mooseheads?" Lula asked Coglin. "I thought you taxidermy guys stuffed lions and tigers and shit. All I see is cats and dogs and pigeons."

"This is urban taxidermy," Coglin said. "I restore pets and found objects."

"What's a found object?" Lula wanted to know.

"Treasure found in nature. For instance, if you were walking through the park and you found a deceased pigeon, that would be a found object. And sometimes I make performance pieces. The performance pieces are mechanicals. There's a growing market for the mechanicals."

Lula looked at a woodchuck posed on a piece of Astro-turf. Some of its fur had been worn away, and it had what appeared to be part of a tire track imprinted on its back. "You're a sick man," Lula said.

"It's art," Coglin said. "You don't understand art."

"I understand roadkill," Lula said.

"About that rescheduling," I said to Coglin.