Fearless Fourteen: A Stephanie Plum Novel

by Janet Evanovich

  “If you leave, I have no way to get home.”

  “What about Morelli? What about Ranger? What about calling a cab?”

  “What about waiting in your car in the parking lot?” I said to her.

  “I guess I could do that.”

  She hotfooted it out of the apartment, and I thought there was a twenty percent chance she’d be in the lot when I was ready to go home. Not that Lula was unreliable, more that her cop phobia overrode her best intentions.

  I figured I had five to ten minutes before the first cop showed up, so I told myself to get over the dead guy and think about rescuing Loretta. I did a quick run through the kitchen, being careful not to leave prints. I found leftover fast-food chicken and expired milk in the refrigerator, and dots of blue mold on the bread that was sitting on the counter. Not enough mold to slow down a big, tough construction guy from Trenton. No scraps of paper lying around with a phone number or address.

  I walked back into the bedroom, and as best I could, I avoided looking at the body. A pair of beat-up CAT boots had been kicked off beside the bed, and a framed photograph of a large powerboat was propped on the dresser. I’d found the third partner’s apartment. And probably the guy on the floor was the third partner, since he was in socks. I guess I could have seen if the boots fit, but I didn’t want to know who he was that bad. Let the police figure it out.

  There were clothes all over the place. Hard to tell if the apartment had been tossed, since Zero wasn’t the world’s best housekeeper. I went through all pockets, omitting the ones attached to the dead guy, and I looked through drawers. I did a fast bathroom check.

  I looked out the bedroom window and saw the first police car angle to a stop in the lot. He’d come in without a siren, probably at Morelli’s suggestion. A second squad car followed. Eddie Gazarra got out of the second squad car. That was a relief. We’d grown up together and he’d married my cousin, Shirley the Whiner. Eddie wouldn’t come at me with a suspicious, hostile attitude, and that would make my life much more pleasant.

  I stepped out of the apartment and waited in the hall. I got an eye roll from Gazarra when he walked out of the elevator, and then concern.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes. The door was open when I got here. He was dead on the floor in the bedroom. No one else was here. I assume it’s Stanley Zero, but I don’t know for sure.”

  Gazarra went about securing the crime scene, and a couple minutes later, Rich Spanner showed up.

  “We have to stop meeting like this,” Spanner said to me. “People are gonna talk.” He entered the apartment, checked out the body, and returned to the hall. “What do you think?”

  “I think he’s got one too many holes in his forehead.”

  “Yeah,” Spanner said. “I noticed that. I also noticed he reminds me a lot of the dead guy in Morelli’s basement.”

  “Because of the hole in his head?”

  “Mmm. And because you found him.”

  “It’s getting old.”

  “I bet,” Spanner said.

  I repeated my mostly true story for Spanner. The ME slipped past us, followed by two paramedics and a forensic photographer.

  “Do you have anything else you want to share?” Spanner asked.

  I shook my head. “No. Do you think that’s Stanley Zero on the floor?”

  Spanner moved into the doorway. “Hey, Gazarra, you have a tentative ID?”

  “Looks like Stanley Zero. We got a driver’s license here. He matches the photo, except for the hole in his head.”

  SIXTEEN

  I WAS SHOCKED to find Lula still in the lot.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked her.

  “Waiting for you.”

  “It’s been over an hour and you’re still here.”

  “I have stuff to ask you. I want to know about the honeymoon. I’m thinking Paris or Tahiti.”

  “Can you afford that?”

  “Don’t the groom pay?”

  “Can Tank afford that?”

  “He better,” Lula said. “I don’t come cheap.”

  “I thought the groom planned the honeymoon.”

  “That was in the Dark Ages. And besides, Tank’s busy. He don’t got a lot of time for that stuff. He’s gotta watch Ranger’s ass.”

  “If it was me, I’d go to Paris,” I told her. “Better shopping, and it’s a shorter plane ride. Italy would be good, too, if you’re interested in handbags and shoes.”

  “I never thought of Italy, but that’s a good idea. I could always use a new handbag.”

  “Why do you want to get married?” I asked Lula.

  “I don’t know. It just sort of popped into my head. And then one thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was at the lawyer drawing up my prenup. I guess it was one of those snowball things. You don’t think I’m rushing into it, do you? I could postpone it to July, but I got a good deal on the hall for the reception. I’d have to give the hall up. And the fireworks wouldn’t be the same. This way, I get the jump on July Fourth.” Lula cranked her car over. “Where we going now?”

  “Back to Morelli’s house. I should make sure Zook is okay.”

  EVERYTHING LOOKED STATUS quo at Morelli’s. It was early afternoon, but there was no activity. The crime scene tape was in place. No gawkers present. Lula pulled to the curb, took the key out of the ignition, and there was a sound like a grenade getting launched, and then thud, something hit the passenger-side door.

  “What the bejeezus was that?” Lula yelled. “Incoming! We’re under attack. Call SWAT. No, wait a minute. I hate those SWAT guys.”

  Mooner waved at me from Morelli’s small front porch. “Sorry,” he said. “My bad.”

  I got out and examined the car door. There was a dent in it, and something was splattered from one end to the other. I cautiously touched it with my finger.

  “Potato?” I asked Mooner.

  “Yep. Yukon Gold.”

  Lula was around the car and next to me, and there was a frightening amount of white showing in her eyes. The whole eyeball was about the size of a tennis ball. “My baby!” she yelled. “My Firebird! Who did this? Who made this mess on my Firebird?” The big eyes narrowed, her face scrunched up, and she took a closer look, her nose just about touching the potato splatter. “Is this a dent? This better not be a dent I’m seeing.”

  “I didn’t recognize you,” Mooner said. “Good thing I was all out of Russet. Russet is, like, atomic.”

  Zook and Gary were standing behind Mooner.

  “We’ve been guarding the house,” Zook said. “Mooner is so cool. He knows all about homegrown security. He knows how to make potato cannons.”

  Mooner tapped the top of his head. “No grass growing here.”

  “What’s a potato cannon?” Lula wanted to know.

  “All you need is PVC pipe and hairspray and a lighter,” Zook said. “And you can shoot anything out of it. You can shoot eggs and apples and tomatoes.”

  “See, that’s the thing about a potato cannon,” Mooner said. “You can stuff anything into it. You could shoot monkey shit out of a potato cannon. All you gotta do is find a monkey.”

  “I know where there’s a monkey,” Lula said.

  “Whoa,” Mooner said. “Far out. You want to go get some shit?”

  Great. Just what I need. Mooner shooting monkey shit at passing motorists.

  “It’s illegal to shoot monkey shit on a Sunday,” I told him. “Have you had lunch?”

  Zook was grinning. “We didn’t eat lunch. We launched lunch.”

  “I got a deductable, and I don’t know if I’m covered for potatoes,” Lula said, her eyes still narrowed.

  I was having a hard time getting worked up over the dent in Lula’s Firebird. I had bigger fish to fry. I had a pinky toe in Morelli’s freezer. And tomorrow I’d have two toes if I didn’t hang a scarf in the upstairs window.

  “Everyone inside,” I said. “You stay out here too long, and some new griefer will take ov
er.”

  “We’re not playing Minionfire anymore,” Zook said. “We’re in charge of homegrown security now. We got weapons to make and posts to man. We’re keeping the integrity of the crime scene. We’re protecting the house.”

  “Yeah, but what about the back?” Lula asked. “You can’t see the back from here.”

  “Dude, she’s right,” Mooner said. “Man your potato cannon. Secure the yard!”

  Mooner, Zook, and Gary ran inside. Lula and I followed at a slightly slower pace.

  “You got a loony bin,” Lula said to me.

  Mooner was already at the living room window when we walked into the room. He was holding a two-foot section of white PVC pipe that had a smaller pipe glued toward the base.

  “Lieutenant Zook,” he said into a two-way attached to his shirt. “Are you in position?”

  “Yessir, Captain,” Zook answered from the kitchen.

  “Munitions Expert Gary, are you ready?”

  “Yessir,” Gary said.

  Gary was in the dining room, halfway between Mooner and Zook. He was wearing a utility belt that carried a can of hairspray and a grill lighter. And he was holding a basket of potatoes. Tucked into the potato basket was a large bag of M&Ms and a large order of fast-food fries still in the cardboard container.

  “What’s with the M&Ms and the fries?” Lula wanted to know.

  “It’s in case we need a shotgun.”

  “Makes sense,” Lula said. And she turned and looked at me and made the crazy signal with her finger going around alongside her head.

  Zook’s voice whispered over the two-way. “I got a bandit at two o’clock. I need a partial baked.”

  Gary ran into the kitchen and handed Zook a potato. Zook dropped it into his PVC pipe and rammed it down. Gary sprayed hairspray into the pipe and jumped back. Zook pointed the spud gun out the door and phoonf! Zook got knocked on his ass from the kick, and the potato rocketed out of the pipe and caught the digger in the back of his leg. The guy went down like a house of cards and rolled around yelping. He got up and half limped, half ran out of the yard.

  I was dumbstruck. I didn’t know whether to burst out laughing or be truly horrified.

  Zook got to his feet. “We only use raw potatoes on cars and stuff. We use half-baked on poachers. It leaves a good bruise, but it isn’t lethal. We tried using eggs, but the gun kept misfiring.”

  I called Morelli and got his voice mail. “Just checking in,” I said. “And by the way, no reason to get alarmed, but do you have personal liability insurance tacked on to your homeowner’s?”

  Lula had her head stuck in the refrigerator. “Where’s the fried chicken? You gotta have fried chicken on Sunday.”

  “I want to talk to Stanley Zero’s almost-ex-wife,” I said to Lula. “We can stop at Cluck-in-a-Bucket on the way.”

  “Why do you want to talk to his ex?”

  “I had good luck with Dom’s ex. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to try Zero’s.”

  Lula looked at Gary, standing in the dining room. “You think we should leave the homegrown idiots alone?”

  I was between a rock and a hard place. I didn’t trust the three potato heads to make the right decision on anything, but I was panicked over Loretta’s fingers and toes.

  “You stay here,” I said to Lula. “I’ll have a little conversation with Zero’s wife, and I’ll stop at Cluck-in-a-Bucket on the way home.”

  “You aren’t going to be long, are you? I don’t have a lot of patience when it comes to fried chicken.”

  “An hour, tops.”

  “Okay,” Lula said. “I guess I could last. I want a large bucket of extra spicy, extra crispy fried chicken. I want a order of biscuits with gravy and some coleslaw.”

  “I thought you were trying to lose weight.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to waste away to nothing. And anyway, everyone knows you don’t gain weight on Sunday. Sunday’s a free day.”

  LISA ZERO LIVED in a nice little house in Hamilton Township. The nine-year-old answered the door and Lisa immediately showed up behind him. She was wearing makeup and a skirt, and I guessed she’d gone to church this morning. She was a couple inches shorter than me and a couple pounds heavier. Her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. I supposed she’d heard about Stanley.

  I introduced myself and apologized for being blue and for intruding.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Let’s step outside. I don’t want the kids to hear. I haven’t told them yet. Stanley was an asshole, but he was still their father.”

  “Did you know he was involved in the bank robbery?”

  “I suspected. Not at the time, but the last couple years he started drinking too much and he’d say things. I guess you’re after the money.”

  I shook my head. “No. I’m looking for the fourth partner.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you there. Stanley never said anything about the partners. He only talked about the money. How when Dom got out, they could put it all together, and they’d all be rich.”

  “Put it all together?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know what he meant by that, but I got the feeling there was a map or something. Or maybe a bank account in all their names. Like they each had a piece of a puzzle. I didn’t figure I’d ever see it, so I didn’t pay close attention. He’d drink, and then he’d get real talky, and then he’d get mean.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I got the house, and we’re moving ahead with our lives.”

  “Do you know a guy named Allen Gratelli?”

  “No.”

  “But you knew Dom.”

  “Not really. I only knew him from the newspaper articles when he robbed the bank, and then when Stanley started talking about him.”

  “You must have been surprised to learn Stanley was mixed up in a bank robbery.”

  “Stanley was always mixed up in something. He was always looking for easy money. One time, he held up a convenience store and stole lottery tickets. Hello. Like they couldn’t figure that one out if he won?”

  I gave Lisa Zero my card and told her to call if she thought of anything helpful. I wound my way through her subdivision, hit Klockner, and drove on autopilot to Cluck-in-a-Bucket. I parked in the lot, under the big rotating chicken. I stuffed a couple twenties into my jeans pocket and got out of the Zook car.

  Cluck-in-a-Bucket is a zoo on Sunday. It’s the lunch of choice for the lazy, the fat, the salt-starved, the emotionally injured, the families on budgets, the cholesterol-deprived, and the remaining ten percent of the population who just want a piece of chicken.

  The tables and booths were filled and there were lines in front of all the registers at the counter. Clucky Chicken was making balloon chickens for the kids and handing out coupons for Clucky Apple Pies. I went to the end of a line and zoned out. No one seemed to notice I was blue.

  I was thinking about Lisa Zero and her comment about the puzzle pieces. Suppose Dom was the one who hid the money, and to make sure it was still intact when he got out of prison, he didn’t tell his partners the exact location. But maybe it was a concern that Dom might not make it through his term, so each partner got a piece of the treasure map. No. That didn’t work. They could put their pieces together any time they wanted and cut Dom out. Okay, suppose a fifth person, like Aunt Rose, hid the money? And then she gave each of the partners a piece of the map. I shuffled forward in the chicken line, still thinking about the map. The fifth-person theory didn’t totally hold up, either. The partners were ruthless. They were killing one another off and mutilating Loretta. They would have gotten the money location out of Rose.

  I absentmindedly looked around as I took another step forward. Two people in front of me. Three lined up behind. There were five registers working. I was in the line farthest from the door. I looked over and saw a stocky guy push in. Big head, balding, curly black hair. Unibrow. Looked like he slept in his clothes. Dom.

  I had nothing on me to help subdue him. Stun gun, pep
per spray, cuffs were in my purse in the car. He was bigger and meaner than me, and I had no legal reason to apprehend. I moved out of line, keeping my eye on him, trying to be invisible. My plan was to work my way around to the door and try to follow him when he left.

  Dom was rumbling around, looking for the shortest line. My line moved forward, Dom elbowed his way over and spotted me. Our eyes locked for a moment, and Dom whirled around and shoved his way to the door. His effort was misconstrued as line-breaking, and this was an unfortunate thing, since line-breaking doesn’t go down well in Jersey.

  “Asshole,” some woman said, giving him a hard shot to the kidney.

  Dom instinctively turned on her and coldcocked her with a punch to the forehead. The woman went down to the ground and the rest was pandemonium. I dove for Dom and missed him by inches. Mothers were grabbing for their children and dropping food. Clucky Chicken was in the mix, waving his wings, trying to keep his footing. I slid on mashed potatoes and took Clucky down with me. A pack of people piled on top of us.

  “I hate this lousy job,” Clucky said, kicking people off him. “This is the third time this has happened this month.”

  I was on hands and knees, and I saw Brenda and her crew at the door. Brenda had a mic in her hand and the camera guy was filming.

  “This is Brenda reporting from Cluck-in-a-Bucket,” Brenda said. “Bringing you a live update on the latest developments in the hunt for the missing nine million dollars. We’re here to interview Stephanie Plum.”

  I dragged myself to my feet and picked mashed potatoes out of my hair. I was drenched with soda and covered with gravy. I looked around, but I didn’t see Dom.

  “So,” Brenda said, pointing the mic at me, “are you making any progress at locating the money?”

  “How did you find me?” I asked her.

  “We were driving by and saw the Zook car in the parking lot.”

  Great. The Zook car.

  “No comment,” I said, easing my way past the film crew.

  “Jeez,” Brenda said. “Give me a break here. I’m trying to get something going. Do you have any idea what it’s like for a sixty-one-year-old woman in show business? The only parts you can get are witches and grandmothers.”