Eleven on Top

by Janet Evanovich

  “I see you're working very closely with the boss,” Morelli said.

  “Don't start.”

  “I heard from the crime lab. The bomb was inside the garage, next to a wall, halfway to the rear. It was manually detonated.”

  “Like the Mama Macaroni bomb.”

  “Exactly. They found another interesting piece of equipment. Did you know you were being tracked?”

  “Yes.”

  “And last but not least, your mother called and said she was having meatballs and wedding cake for dinner.”

  “I'll pick you up at six.”

  “It's amazing what you'll do for a piece of cake,” Morelli said.

  I gave the phone back to Ranger. “He could have killed me, but he didn't.”

  “Morelli?”

  “The bomber. The bomb was detonated manually, like the bomb that killed Mama Macaroni.”

  “So this guy is still taking risks to play with you.”

  “I guess I can sort of understand his motivation. If he thinks I ruined his life, his face, maybe he wants to torment me.”

  “The notes felt real. The sniping felt real. The first car bomb made sense to me. They were all consistent with increasing harassment and intimidation. After the Mama Macaroni bombing he loses me.”

  “What's your theory?”

  “I don't have a theory. I just think it feels off.”

  “Do you think there's a copy cat?”

  “Possible, but you'd think the crime lab would have noticed differences in the bomb construction.” Ranger slid the files into my file cabinet. “Let's roll. If we're going to break into Anthony's house we want to do it before the store closes and he comes home.”

  I grabbed my jean jacket and got halfway out of my cubby when I was yanked back by my ponytail.

  “What did you forget?” Ranger asked.

  “My orange?”

  “Your gun.”

  I blew out a sigh, took the gun out of my desk drawer, and then didn't know what to do with it. If I carry a gun, I almost always carry it in my purse, but guess what, no purse. My purse was a cinder in what was left of Morelli's SUV.

  Ranger took the gun, pulled me flat against him, and slid the gun under the waistband of my jeans, so that it was nestled at the small of my back.

  “This is uncomfortable,” I said. “It's going to give me a bruise.”

  Ranger reached around and removed the gun. And before I realized what he was doing, he had the gun tucked into the front of my jeans at my hipbone. “Is this better?”

  “No, but I can't imagine where you'll put it next, so let's just leave it where it is and forget about it.”

  We rode the elevator to the garage, and Ranger confiscated one of the black Explorers normally set aside for his crew. “Less memorable than a Porsche,” he said. “In case we set off an alarm.”

  We got into the Explorer, and I couldn't sit with the gun rammed into my pants. “I can't do this,” I said to Ranger. “This dumb gun is too big. It's poking me.”

  Ranger closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the wheel. “I can't believe I hired you.”

  “Hey, it's not my fault. You picked out a bad gun.”

  “Okay,” he said, swiveling to face me. “Where's it poking you?”

  “It's poking me in my . . . you know.”

  “No. I don't know.”

  “My pubic area.”

  “Your pubic area?”

  I could tell he was struggling with some sort of emotion. Either he was trying hard not to laugh or else he was trying hard not to choke me.

  “Give me the gun,” Ranger said.

  I extracted the gun from my pants and handed it over.

  Ranger held the gun in the palm of his hand and smiled. “It's warm,” he said. He put the gun in the glove compartment and plugged the key into the ignition.

  “Am I fired?”

  “No. Any woman who can heat up a gun like that is worth keeping around.”

  In twenty minutes we were parked across the street and two houses down from Anthony. Ranger cut the engine and dialed Anthony's home number. No answer.

  “Try the door,” he said to me. “If someone opens it tell them you're selling Girl Scout cookies and keep them talking until I call you. I'm going in through the back. I'm parking one street over.”

  I swung out of the Explorer and watched Ranger drive away. I waited a couple minutes and then I crossed the street, marched up to Anthony's front door, and rang the bell. Nothing. I rang again and listened. I didn't hear any activity inside. No television. No footsteps. No dog barking. I was about to ring a third time when the door opened, and Ranger motioned me in. I followed him to the second floor, and we methodically worked our way through all three levels.

  “I don't see any evidence of a second person living here,” Ranger said when we reached the basement.

  “This is a real bummer,” I said. “No books on how to build a bomb. No sniper rifles. No dirty underwear with ”Spiro“ embroidered on it.”

  We were in the kitchen and only the garage remained. We knew there was something in the garage because Anthony never parked his fancy new Vette in the garage.

  Ranger drew his gun and opened the door that led to the garage, and we both looked in at wall-to-wall boxes. Never-been-opened cartons containing toaster ovens, ceiling fans, nails, duct tape, grout guns, electric screwdrivers.

  “I think the little jerk is stealing from his brothers,” I said to Ranger.

  “I think you're right. There'd be larger quantities of single items if he was hijacking trucks or legally storing inventory. This looks like he randomly fills his trunk every night when he leaves.”

  We backed out and closed the garage door.

  Ranger looked at his watch. “We have a little time. Let's see what he's got on his computer.”

  Anthony had a small office on the first floor. Cherry built-ins lined the walls, but Anthony hadn't yet filled them with books or objets d'art. The cherry desk was large and masculine. The cushy desk chair was black leather.

  The desktop held a phone, a computer and keyboard, and small printer.

  Ranger sat in the chair and turned the computer on. A strip of icons appeared on the screen. Ranger hit one of the icons and Anthonys e-mail program opened.

  Ranger scrolled through new mail and sent mail and deleted mail. Not much there. Anthony didn't do a lot of emailing. Ranger opened Anthony's address book.

  No Spiro listed. Ranger closed the program and tried another icon.

  “Let's see what he surfs,” Ranger said. He went to the bookmarked sites.

  They were all porn.

  Ranger closed the program and returned his attention to the icon strip. He hit iPhoto and worked his way through the photo library. There were a couple pictures of Anthony's Vette. A couple pictures of the front of his town house. And three photos from the Macaroni funeral. The quality wasn't great since they were downloaded from his phone, but the subject matter was clear.

  He'd been taking pictures of Carol Zambelli's hooters. Zambelli had just purchased the set, and couldn't get her coat closed at graveside.

  Ranger shut the computer down. “Time to get out of here.”

  We left through the back door and followed a bike path through common ground to the street. Ranger remoted the SUV open, we buckled ourselves in, and Ranger hung a U-turn and headed back to the office.

  “This trip doesn't take Anthony Barroni out of the picture,” Ranger said, “but it definitely back-burners him.”

  We pulled into the Rangeman garage at five-thirty. Ranger parked and walked me to the Buick. “You have a half hour to get to Morelli. Where are you taking him?”

  “We're having dinner with my parents. They have wedding cake for two hundred.”

  “Isn't this nice,” my mother said, glass in hand, amber liquid swirling to the rim, stopping just short of sloshing onto the white tablecloth. “It's so quiet. I hardly have a headache.”

  Two leaves had been ta
ken out of the dining room table, and the small dining room seemed strangely spacious. The table had been set for five. My mother and father sat at either end, and Morelli and I sat side by side and across from Grandma, who was lost behind the massive three-tier wedding cake that had been placed in the middle of the table.

  “I was looking forward to a party,” Grandma said. “If it was me, I would have had the reception anyway. I bet nobody would even have noticed Valerie wasn't there. You could have just told everybody she was in the ladies' room.”

  Morelli and my father had their plates heaped with meatballs, but I went straight for the cake. My mother was going with a liquid diet, and I wasn't sure what Grandma was eating since I couldn't see her.

  “Valerie called when they got off the plane in Orlando , and she said Albert was breathing better, and the panic attacks were not nearly as severe,” my mother said.

  My father smiled to himself and mumbled something that sounded like “friggin' genius.”

  “How'd Sally take the news?” I asked my mother. “He must have been upset.”

  “He was upset at first, but then he asked if he could have the wedding gown. He thought he could have it altered so he could wear it onstage. He thought it would give him a new look.”

  “You gotta credit him,” Grandma said. “Sally's always thinking. He's a smart one.”

  I had the cake knife in hand. “Anyone want cake?”

  “Yeah,” Morelli said, shoving his plate forward. “Hit me.”

  “I heard your garage got blown up,” Grandma said to Morelli. “Emma Rhinehart said it went up like a bottle rocket. She heard that from her son, Chester . Chester delivers pizza for that new place on Keene Street , and he was making a delivery a couple houses down from you. He said he was taking a shortcut through the alley, and all of a sudden the garage went up like a bottle rocket. Right in front of him. He said it was real scary because he almost hit this guy who was standing in the alley just past your house. He said the guy looked like his face had melted or something. Like some horror movie.”

  Morelli and I exchanged glances, and we were both thinking Spiro.

  An hour later, I helped Morelli hobble down the porch stairs and cross the lawn. I'd parked the Buick in the driveway, and I'd bribed one of the neighborhood kids into baby-sitting the car. I loaded Morelli into the car, gave the kid five dollars, and ran back to the house for my share of the leftovers.

  My mother had bagged some meatballs for me, and now she was standing in front of the cake. She had a cardboard box on the chair and a knife in her hand.

  “How much do you want?” she asked.

  Grandma was standing beside my mother. “Maybe you should let me cut the cake,” Grandma said. “You're tipsy.”

  “I'm not tipsy,” my mother said, very carefully forming her words. It was true. My mother wasn't tipsy. My mother was shitfaced.

  “I tell you, we're lucky if we don't find ourselves talking to Dr. Phil one of these days,” Grandma said.

  “I like Dr. Phil,” my mother said. “He's cute. I wouldn't mind spending some time with him, if you know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean,” Grandma said. “And it gives me the creeps.”

  “So how much of the cake do you want?” my mother asked me again. “You want the whole thing?”

  “You don't want the whole thing,” Grandma said to me. “You'll give yourself the diabetes. You and your mother got no control.”

  “Excuse me?” my mother said. “No control? Did you say I had no control? I am the queen of control. Look at this family. I have a daughter in Disney World with oogly woogly smoochikins. I have a granddaughter who thinks she's a horse. I have a mother who thinks she's a teenager.” My mother turned to me.

  “And you! I don't know where to begin.”

  “I'm not so bad,” I said. “I'm taking charge of my life. I'm making changes.”

  “You're a walking disaster,” my mother said. “And you just ate seven pieces of cake.”

  “I didn't!”

  “You did. You're a cakeaholic.”

  “I don't mind thinking I'm a teenager,” Grandma said. “Better than thinking I'm an old lady. Maybe I should get a boob job, and then I could wear them sex-kitten clothes.”

  “Good God,” my mother said. And she drained her glass.

  “I'm not a cakeaholic,” I said. “I only eat cake on special occasions.” Like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. . .

  “You're one of them comfort eaters,” Grandma said. “I saw a show about it on television. When your mother gets stressed, she irons and tipples. When you get stressed, you eat cake. You're a cake abuser. You need to join one of them help groups, like Cake Eaters Anonymous.”

  My mother sliced into the cake and carved off a chunk for herself. “Cake Eaters Anonymous,” she said. “That's a good one.” She took a big bite of the cake and got a smudge of icing on her nose.

  “You got icing on your nose,” Grandma said.

  “Do not,” my mother said.

  “Do, too,” Grandma Mazur said. “You're three sheets to the wind.”

  “Take that back,” my mother said, swiping her finger through the frosting on the top tier and flicking a glob at Grandma Mazur. The glob hit Grandma in the forehead and slid halfway down her nose. “Now you've got icing on your nose, too,” my mother said.

  Grandma sucked in some air.

  My mother flicked another glob at Grandma.

  “That's it,” Grandma said, narrowing her eyes. “Eat dirt and die!” And Grandma scooped up a wad of cake and icing and smushed it into my mothers face.

  “I can't see!” my mother shrieked. “I'm blind.” She was wobbling around, flailing her arms. She lost her balance and fell against the table and into the cake.

  “I tell you it's pathetic,” Grandma said. “I don't know how I raised a daughter that don't even know how to have a food fight. And look at this, she fell into a three-tiered wedding cake. This is gonna put a real crimp in the leftovers.” She reached out to help my mother, and my mother latched on to Grandma and wrestled her onto the table.

  “You're going down, old woman,” my mother said to Grandma.

  Grandma yelped and struggled to scramble away, but she couldn't get a grip.

  She was as slick as a greased pig, in lard icing up to her elbows.

  “Maybe you should stop before someone falls and gets hurt,” I told them.

  “Maybe you should mind your own beeswax,” Grandma said, mashing cake into my mother's hair.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” my mother said. “Stephanie didn't get her cake.”

  They both paused and looked over at me.

  “How much cake did you want?” my mother asked. “This much?” And she threw a wad of cake at me.

  I jumped to dodge the cake, but I wasn't quick enough, and it caught me in the middle of the chest. Grandma nailed me in the side of my head, and before I could move she got me a second time.

  My father came in from the living room. “What the devil?” he said.

  Splat, splat, splat. They got my father.

  “Jesus Marie,” he said. “What are you, friggin' nuts? That's good wedding cake. You know how much I paid for that cake?”

  My mother threw one last piece of cake. It missed my father and hit the wall.

  I had cake and icing in my hair, on my hands and arms, on my shirt, my face, my jeans. I looked over at the cake plate. It was empty. The aroma of sugar and butter and vanilla was enticing. I swiped at the cake sliding down the wall and stuck my finger in my mouth. If I'd been alone I probably would have licked the wall. My mother was right. I was a cakeaholic.

  “Boy,” my grandmother said to my mother. “You're fun when you've got a snootful.”

  My mother looked around the room. “Do you think that's how this happened?”

  “Do you think you'd do this if you were sober?” Grandma asked. “I don't think so. You got a real stick up your ass when you're sober.”

  “That'
s it,” my mother said. “I'm done tippling.”

  I caught myself licking cake off my arm. “And maybe I should cut back on the cake,” I said. “I do feel a little addicted.”

  “We'll have a pact,” my mother said. “No more tippling for me and no more cake for you.”

  We looked at Grandma.