Lean Mean Thirteen (6 page)

Morelli WAS AT my kitchen counter, drinking coffee, eating cereal. His hair was still damp from the shower, and he was clean-shaven. In ten minutes, he'd have a five o'clock shadow. He was wearing worn-out black jeans, a pale gray cable-knit sweater, and black motorcycle boots.

"You don't look like a cop," I told him. "All the other guys wear suits."

"I've been asked by the chief not to wear a suit. I look like a casino pit boss when I wear a suit. I don't inspire trust."

I poured myself a bowl of cereal and added milk. "It was nice of you to bring all this food."

"Your cupboards were empty. And your refrigerator. I'm guessing the bounty hunter business is slow."

"It comes and goes. Problem is, I only make enough money to live day by day. I can't make enough to get ahead."

"It would be easier if you moved in with me."

'"We've tried that. It's always a disaster. Eventually, we drive each other nuts."

"It's your job," Morelli said.

"Its your expectations."

He put his cereal bowl in the sink and buckled his gun onto his belt. "Yeah, my expectations are that you'll give up your job."

"Are we fighting?"

"Am I yelling and waving my arms?"

"No."

"Then we aren't fighting." He crooked an arm around my neck and kissed me. "I have to go. I'm working with Phil Panchek. He hates being baffled without me."

"Marty Gobel never called to talk to me. Does that mean I'm off the hook?"

"No. It means he's dreading talking to you for fear you don't have an alibi, and he's procrastinating as long as possible."

Bob was leaning against me. "Are you taking Bob?"

"Yeah, I'll drop him off at my house. He has a routine. He eats the couch. He takes a nap. He gnaws on a dining room table leg. He takes a nap. He spreads the garbage all over the kitchen floor. He takes a nap."

I fondled Bob's ear. "You're lucky you have a dog who can amuse himself while you're gone."

Morelli shrugged into his jacket and clipped Bob's leash on him. "Later." I finished my coffee and cereal and hand-washed the dishes. I took a shower and put in the minimum effort on my hair. Truth is, the minimum effort isn't that far removed from the maximum effort, and my hair pretty much looks the same no matter what I do with it. I applied some mascara and looked myself in the eye in the mirror.

"Today is the day," I said to myself. "Time to get serious. If you don't catch someone soon, you'll get kicked out of your apartment."

I got dressed in my lucky jeans and my lucky black sweater. It was still cold, but it wasn't snowing or sleeting, so I traded my fake Uggs for running shoes… just in case I had to chase down Diggery. I had cuffs in my back jeans pocket. Pepper spray in my jacket pocket. A stun gun clipped to my belt. I went to the kitchen and took my gun out of my cookie jar. It was a little five-shot Smith & Wesson. I spun the barrel. No bullets. I looked in the jar. No bullets. I rummaged through kitchen drawers. No bullets. I put the gun back into the cookie jar. I didn't really want to shoot anyone today anyway.

I got bundled up in my parka and scarf and gloves, and went out to the Vic. I crawled in and plugged the key into the ignition. It took a while, but the engine finally caught. All right, so I didn't have a great car. No big deal, I told myself. At least it was running. And today was the day it was all going to turn around. I was going after Diggery first and then Coglin. And then I was going to plow through the rest of the cases.

I took Broad and headed for Bordentown. It was just past rush hour, and traffic was heavy but moving. The cloud cover had finally lifted and the sky was as blue as it gets in Jersey. I was on Route one, cruising along, listening to the radio, when the grinding sound coming from under the hood turned into BANG, BANG, BANG and the car coasted to a stop at the side of the road. It wasn't entirely unexpected, but it left me breathless all the same. Another example that sugar isn't pixie dust, and wish as hard as you might, it won't make you invisible. I was sitting there trying to keep from crying, running through my options, and Ranger called.

"Babe, you're stopped on Route one. What's up?"

I remembered the gizmo in my bag. RangeMan was monitoring me. "My car died." Fifteen minutes later, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw Ranger pull in behind me. He got out of his car and into mine. Ranger didn't smile a lot, but clearly he was amused.

"I don't know how you do it," Ranger said. "In a matter of days, you've managed to turn a perfectly good piece-of-shit car into something so fucked up it's a work of art."

"It's a gift."

"The bullet hole in the rear window?"

"Joyce Barnhardt," I told him. "She's unhappy with me because she thinks I killed Dickie."

"And the crud on the dash?"

"Squirrel bomb."

He looked incredulous for a moment and then burst out laughing. In all the time I'd known Ranger, this was maybe the third time I'd seen him actually laugh out loud, so it turned out to be worth getting squirrel-bombed.

Ranger dropped back to a smile and tugged me out of the car. He kicked the door closed, slung an arm around my shoulders, and walked me back to his Porsche Cayenne. "Where were you going?" he asked.

" “I’m looking for Simon Diggery," I said. "I stopped by his double-wide on Tuesday, but no one was home. I thought Fd try again."

Ranger opened the Cayenne door for me. "I'll go with you. If we're lucky, we might get to see his snake eat a cow."

I looked back at the Vic. "What about my car?"

"I'll have it picked up."

Ranger didn't bother parking out of sight of Diggery s trailer. He drove the Cayenne onto the blighted grass and pulled up between the trailer and the stand of hardwoods. We got out of the Porsche, and he gave me his gun.

"Stay here and shoot anyone who makes a run for it, including the snake."

"How do you know I don't have my own gun?"

"Do you?"

"No."

Ranger did another one of those almost sighing things and jogged around to Diggery's front door. I heard him rap on the door and call out. There was the sound of the rusted door opening and closing and then silence. I held my ground.

After a couple minutes, Ranger reappeared and motioned for me to join him.

"Simon is off somewhere, but the uncle is here. And stay away from the sink," Ranger said. I gave him his gun back, followed him into the trailer, and immediately checked out the kitchen area. The snake was sprawled on the counter, its head in the sink. I guess it was thirsty. The uncle was at the small built-in table.

The uncle wasn't much older than Simon Diggery, and the family resemblance was there, blurred over a little by hard drinking and an extra fifty pounds. He was wearing black socks and ratty bedroom slippers and huge boxer shorts.

"Give you a quarter if you pull your shirt up," Bill Diggery said to me.

'Til give you a quarter if you put your shirt on" I told him. Ranger was against the wall, watching Diggery. "Where s Simon?" Ranger asked.

"Don't know," Bill said.

"Think about it," Ranger told him.

"He might be at work."

"Where is he working?"

"Don't know."

Rangers eyes flicked to the snake and back to Bill. "Has he been fed today?"

"He don't eat every day," Bill said. "He probably ain't hungry."

"Steph," Ranger said. "Wait outside so I can talk to Bill."

"You aren't going to feed him to the snake, are you?"

"Not all of him."

"As long as it's not all of him," I said. And I let myself out. I closed the door and waited for a couple minutes. I didn't hear any screams of pain or terror. No gunshots. I hunkered down in my jacket and shoved my hands into my pockets to keep warm. A couple more minutes passed, and Ranger came out, closing the door behind him. "Well?" I asked.

"Simon is working in the food court at Quakerbridge Mall. Bill didn't know more than that."

"Did you feed Uncle Bill to the snake?"

"No. He was right… the snake wasn't hungry."

"Then how did you get him to talk?"

Ranger slid an arm around me, and I felt his lips brush my ear when he spoke. "I can be very persuasive."

No kidding.

Quakerbridge is on Route One, northeast of Trenton. It seemed like a long way for Diggery to drive for an odd job in a food court, but what the heck, maybe Diggery was lucky to get it. And maybe he had a better car than I did. That thought brought me up to a sobering reality. Diggery for sure had a better car than I did because I had no car at all. Ranger drove out of Diggery s neighborhood and headed north. We were on Route, and I was dreading the section of highway where I'd left the Vic. I didn't want to see the poor, sad, broken-down car. It was a reminder of what was wrong with my life. Crappy job, hand-tomouth existence, no future I was willing to commit to. If it was June and the sun was shining, I might feel different, but it was cold and the clouds had returned and a mist had started to fall.

"I need macaroni and cheese," I said to Ranger, clapping my hands over my eyes. "I promised myself French fries, jelly doughnuts, birthday cake… and I never got them."

"I have a better way to make you happy," Ranger said. "Less fattening but more addicting."

"Pharmaceuticals?"

"Sex. And you can open your eyes. The Vic's gone.”

"Gone where?"

"Car heaven."

Twenty minutes later, Ranger stopped at a light on Broad, and his cell buzzed. He answered on a Bluetooth earpiece and listened for a couple minutes, his mood somber, his expression not showing anything. He thanked the caller and disconnected.

"They found the accountant, Ziggy Zabar," Ranger said. "He washed ashore about a quarter mile south of the Ferry Street Bridge. He was identified by a credit card and a medic alert bracelet for a heart condition."

Ranger parked behind the medical examiners truck, and we walked the distance to the crime scene. It was turning into a miserable day and the weather was holding the crowd down. Only a few hardy photographers and reporters. No gawkers. A handful of uniforms, a couple plainclothes guys. An EMS team that looked like they wanted to be somewhere else. No one I recognized. We ducked under the yellow tape and found Tank.

Tank is Rangers next in command and his shadow. No need to describe him. His name says it all. He was dressed in RangeMan black, and he looked impervious to the weather. Tank was with Ziggy Zabar s brother, Zip, also in Range-Man black, his face stoic, his posture rigid.

"We picked the call up from police dispatch," Tank said, stepping away from Zip. "He's been in the water awhile, and he's not in great shape, but I've looked at him, and even in his condition it's obvious it was an execution. Single bullet nice and clean in the forehead. He's wearing an ankle shackle, so I'm guessing he was attached to something heavy, and the tide broke him loose."

I sucked in some air. I didn't know Ziggy Zabar, but it was horrible all the same. We stayed for a while, keeping Zip company while he watched over his dead brother. The police photographer left and the EMS guys came in with a body bag. I could hear the motor running on the ME truck at the top of the hill. The uniforms had their collars turned up and were shuffling their feet. The mist had turned into a drizzle.

Ranger was wearing his SEAL ball cap. He tucked my hair behind my ears and put his hat on my head to keep me dry. "You look like you need that birthday cake."

"I'd settle for a peanut butter sandwich and some dry socks."

"I want to talk to the ME, and then I have some things to do." He handed me the keys to the Cayenne. "Use my car. I can ride with Tank and Zip. I don't care if you destroy the car, but take care of the hat. I want it back."

I scrambled up the hill, hoisted myself into the Porsche, and turned the heat on full blast. As I pulled off the service road onto Broad, my cell phone buzzed. It was Marty Gobel.

"I need you to come in and make a statement," Marty said. "I know this isn't anything you want to do, but I can't put it off any longer."

"That's okay," I told him. "I understand. I'll be there in ten minutes." The cop shop is on Perry Street. Half the building is the courthouse and half the police station. It's redbrick, and the architecture could best be categorized as utilitarian municipal. Money wasn't wasted on fancy columns or art. This is strictly a -watt building. Still, it serves its purpose, and it's in a neighborhood where it's convenient for the police to find crime. I parked in the public lot across the street and stowed the pepper spray, handcuffs, and stun gun in the console. I applied fresh lip gloss and went to talk to Marty. I crossed the lobby to the cop-in-a-cage and gave him my name. Court was in session across the hall and people were milling around, waiting to pass through security. Marty met me in the lobby. We got coffee and found an empty room where he could take my statement.

"So," Marty said when we were seated, "why did you kill Dickie Orr?" I felt my mouth drop open and my eyes go wide.

Marty gave a bark of laughter. "I'm just fucking with you," he said. "The guys made me do it."

"Should I have an attorney present?" I asked him.

"Do you have one?"

"My brother-in-law."

"Oh jeez, are you talking about Albert Kloughn? He chases ambulances. He paid for his law degree with chickens. Got it somewhere in the islands, right?" I did some mental knuckle cracking. "What do you want to know?"

"Do you have an alibi?"

Oh boy.

An hour later, I pushed my chair back. "I'm done," I told Gobel. "If you want any more, you'll have to feed me."

"The best I could do is a Snickers bar."

"How many?"

Gobel closed his notepad. "I'm done anyway. You and Morelli aren't planning on going out of the country any time soon, are you?"

I slanted my eyes at him. "What are you saying?"

"Well, you know, you're kind of a suspect. Actually, you're our only suspect."

"What's my motive?"

"You hated him."

"Everybody hated him."

"Not true. Not everybody. And you stand to inherit a lot of money. He had a will drawn up when you were married, and it never got changed. You get everything."