Fearless Fourteen

by Janet Evanovich

  Brenda rolled her eyes, trying to see through her skull. “What the heck?”

  “Hee, hee, hee,” Carl said. And he reached down and pinched Brenda's nose... hard.

  Brenda slapped his hand away, and Carl shrieked and hunkered down, digging into Brenda's scalp with his monkey fingers and toes. All you could see was monkey tail and brown monkey fur sticking out of Brenda's rat's nest hair.

  “Uh-oh,” Lula said. “I never seen a monkey hump before, but I could swear Carl's in love.”

  “Somebody do something, for crissake,” Brenda yelled. “Get him off me! Kill him. Get him a damn banana!”

  It was the spider all over again, times fifty. The difference was that this time Brenda's freak-out was justified. If I had a monkey humping my head, I'd be freaked, too.

  “Don't slap at him,” Susan said. “You'll make him mad.”

  Lula had her gun out. “Hold still, and I'll nail the nasty little bugger.”

  The sound guy reached for Carl, and Carl latched on to his arm and bit his hand.

  “Yow! Shit!” the sound guy said. “Shoot him. Shoot him.” He whipped his arm out, and Carl flew off into space, hit the wall, and bounced off like a tennis ball. And he kept bouncing. Onto the table, to the chandelier, to the couch, to an end table, to the television.

  Carl rocketed around the room, shrieking and chattering and baring his teeth. His eyes were black and glittery and bugged out of his head, and he was spraying monkey spit.

  “It's a demon monkey!” Lula yelled. “Get a priest.”

  “I'm out of here,” the cameraman said. “Life's too short.”

  The sound guy was already in the hall, and Brenda was at the stairs.

  “Wait for me,” Lula said, pounding after them.

  If I didn't catch up, they'd leave without me. They'd drive away and never look back.

  “Turn yourself in,” I said to Susan. “Sorry about the monkey.”

  I sprinted across the lot and got to the Firebird just as Lula put the key into the ignition. I hurled myself into the backseat, and we took off with the camera crew truck right on our ass.

  “What the hell was that?” Brenda wanted to know.

  Lula gave the Firebird gas. “She said don't open the door, but would you listen? Heck, no. You had to go open the door. What were you thinking?”

  “I wanted to see the monkey. Did she say the monkey was rabid? No. Did she say the monkey was on crack? No. I assumed it was a pet. Its name was Carl.”

  “Right there, it tells you something,” Lula said. “Carls are always crazy. You never trust anyone named Carl or Steve.”

  “That's ridiculous,” Brenda said. “Do you have any other theories on names?”

  “Yeah. It's been my experience that guys named Ralph only got one good nut.”

  I was sitting behind Brenda, and her hair was Wild Woman of Borneo, with a couple chunks obviously chewed off by the monkey.

  “Is my hair all right?” Brenda asked. “Do I need to comb it or something?” She patted the top of her head. “What's this sticky stuff?”

  At the very best, I thought it was monkey spit.

  “Jeez,” I said. “I don't know. I think it might be your gel or something. Probably you want to wait until you get to a ladies' room to comb it.”

  Stephanie Plum 14 - Fearless Forteen

  CHAPTER TEN

  Mark Bird and his producer were waiting for us at the office. The producer gasped when Brenda walked through the door. “H-h-how'd it go?” she asked, her attention caught on Brenda's hair.

  “This bounty hunter thing is harder than I thought,” Brenda said. “I need a ladies' room.”

  “There's a powder room straight back,” Connie said. “It'll be on your right.”

  Brenda sashayed off to the powder room, and we all stayed mute until the door closed.

  “What the heck happened to her?” Connie asked.

  “Monkey,” Lula said. “Bugger humped her head.”

  The sound guy was grinning wide. “We looked at the footage in the truck on the way here. It's great!”

  “You couldn't possibly use it,” I said to him.

  “It would be a crime not to,” he said. “It's gold.”

  Connie looked to me. “I assume there was no capture.”

  I took my cell phone out and punched Morelli's number in. “Your assumption is correct.”

  Morelli answered with a grunt.

  “What's new?” I asked him.

  “Nothing worth talking about. I caught a double homicide this morning and haven't been able to do anything about Dom or Loretta. Larry Skid is working Loretta. So far, no one's spotted Dom.”

  “Larry Skid is an idiot.”

  “Yeah. My description for him would be sack of shit. I've got to go. You're picking the kid up today, right?”

  “Right.”

  I disconnected and fished around in my bag, looking for my keys. “I have to talk to some people,” I said to Connie. “I'll get back to Susan Stitch later. Her monkey needs alone time.”

  “Where you going?” Lula wanted to know. “I might have to go with you. I don't want to be here when Ms. Monkey Hair comes out of the bathroom.”

  Ten minutes later, we were in front of Dom's mother's house. I knew Morelli had done a search, but I didn't think it would hurt for me to take a look, too. I knocked on the front door. No answer. I turned the knob and the door swung open. We stepped inside and listened.

  “All I hear is the refrigerator,” Lula said.

  The interior of the house was dark and fussy. Lots of candy dishes and figurines and vases filled with plastic flowers. The dining room table was covered with a lace tablecloth.

  “What are we looking for?” Lula wanted to know.

  “Clues.”

  “Good thing I asked. I thought it might have been elephants.”

  I prowled through the kitchen, and it looked to me like Dom had cleared out in a hurry. There were dirty dishes in the sink and a fry pan on the stove. The refrigerator held the usual staples. Yesterday's paper was open on the small kitchen table. A cup of cold coffee was beside the paper. A cardboard box containing cereal, jars of soup, and canned food was on the floor next to the sink. I was guessing this came from Loretta's stash. There were more cardboard boxes upstairs in a spare bedroom. They were labeled “clothes” and “bathroom.”

  The master bedroom was untouched, the bed neatly made. A second bedroom was a disaster. Linens rumpled into a mess in the middle of the bed. Drawers open with clothes everywhere. Either Dom was a slob or else the room had been tossed.

  I checked the garage. No cars. Loretta's possessions neatly stacked in a corner.

  “What'd we learn here?” Lula wanted to know.

  “Not much. Loretta moved in and then disappeared. Dom made an unplanned departure. Hard to tell how many people have searched the house. I'm guessing at least three... Morelli and me and someone else.”

  The limo and the film crew van were gone when I returned to the office.

  “Guess it's safe to park,” Lula said. “Looks like everyone went away.”

  Not everyone. Gary-the-Stalker was sitting on the curb in front of the bonds office. He stood when I got out of the Sentra and walked over to me.

  “Brenda went back to the hotel,” I told him.

  “I know. I saw her leave. I thought I'd have better luck talking to you.”

  “I'm not working security for her anymore.”

  “Yeah, but you talk to her.”

  “Actually, no.”

  “I had a dream that she was sitting on a toilet in the southbound lane of Route 1.”

  “Un-hunh?”

  “I thought someone needed to know”

  “Why?”

  “Just in case,” he said.

  “Anything else?”

  “No. That's it.”

  “Okay, then,” I said. “Thanks.”

  My phone rang and a strange number popped onto the screen.

  “Is this
Stephanie Plum?” a man asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, recognizing the voice. “Is this the Mooner?”

  “Affirmative. It's the Moonster, the Moondog, the MoonMan. I'm here at the house, looking for Zookarama, but he isn't here.”

  “He's in school.”

  “School! Far out.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Here's the thing, it was real late when we were done playing last night, and I think I might have left my computer in the house, because I don't seem to have it with me. So I was wondering if you could, like, let me into the house.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I'm at the bonds office. I'll be right there.”

  Morelli's house is minutes from the bonds office. It was close to noon, and there was no traffic. No kids playing. No dogs barking. Only Mooner sitting on the small porch, patiently waiting for me.

  I unlocked the door, and Bob galloped over to us. Bob stuck his snoot into Mooner's crotch and took a sniff.

  “Whoa,” Mooner said. “He remembers me. Cool.”

  We pushed past Bob and found the computer exactly where Mooner had left it, on the coffee table.

  “When's the little dude get out of school?” Mooner asked.

  “Two-thirty.”

  Mooner flopped onto the couch.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him.

  “Waiting.”

  I decided some time ago that Mooner fell into the pet category. He was like a stray cat that showed up on your doorstep and stayed for a few days and then wandered off. He was amusing in small doses, fairly harmless, and for the most part, housebroken.

  I left Mooner on the couch and went to the kitchen to check out the contents of Morelli's refrigerator. It was noon, and as long as I was there, I figured I might as well eat. If I'd been in my house, I would have made a peanut butter sandwich, but this was Morelli's house and he was a meat guy, so I found deli-sliced ham and roast beef and Swiss cheese. I made a sandwich for me and a sandwich for Mooner, and I dragged a big bag of potato chips out of the cupboard. I put it all on the small kitchen table and called Mooner in.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Mooner said, sitting down, dumping some chips onto his plate.

  “This is, like, excellent.”

  I ate half a sandwich, and I realized Bob was at the table, and he was holding a man's shoe in his mouth. It was a scuffed brown lace-up shoe, and I didn't recognize it as Morelli's. I looked under the table at Mooner's feet. Both of them were stuffed into beat-up sneakers.

  “Where'd Bob get the shoe?” I asked.

  “He brought it up from the basement,” Mooner said. “The door's open.”

  I turned and looked behind me and, sure enough, the basement door was open. I got up and cautiously peeked down the stairs. “Hello?” I called. No one answered. I took the carving knife out of the butcher-block knife caddy, switched the light on in the basement, and carefully crept down the stairs and looked around.

  “What's down there?” Mooner wanted to know.

  “Furnace, water heater, and a dead guy.”

  “Bad juju,” Mooner said.

  The dead guy was spread-eagle on his back, eyes wide open, hole in the middle of his forehead, lots of blood pooling under him, wearing only one shoe. I didn't recognize him. He looked like he came out of central casting for a Sopranos episode.

  I took a moment to decide if I was going to throw up or faint or evacuate my bowels. None of those things seemed to be going on, so I stumbled up to the kitchen, closed the basement door behind me, and dialed Morelli.

  “There's a d-d-dead guy in your b-b-basement,” I told him.

  Silence.

  “Did you hear me?” I asked, working hard to control the shaking in my voice.

  “I know this is stupid, but it sounded like you said there was a dead guy in my basement.”

  “Shot in the f-f-forehead. Bob took his shoe and won't give it b-b-back.”

  “Have you called the police?”

  “Just you.”

  “You know what would be good?” Mooner said when I hung up. “Coleslaw. I don't suppose you have any coleslaw?”

  “No.”

  “Just thought I'd ask.”

  “Aren't you bothered by the fact that someone was killed in Morelli's basement?” I asked Mooner.

  “Do I know him?”

  “I don't know. Do you want to take a look?”

  Mooner stood and ambled down the stairs. Moments later, he strolled back into the kitchen and took a handful of chips. “Don't know him,” he said, finishing his sandwich, eating his chips.

  I wasn't nearly so calm. I don't like dead people, and I especially hated that someone was killed in Morelli's house. It felt unclean and scary and like the house had been violated.

  Mooner had taken a lawn chair from Morelli's backyard and set it on the sidewalk in front of Morelli's house, so he could watch the homicide show in comfort. He had a can of soda in one hand and the potato chip bag in the other, and he was kicked back. There were several squad cars parked at angles on the street, plus the medical examiners meat wagon and a couple other assorted cop cars. A clump of uniforms stood by the meat wagon, talking and laughing. Morelli was on his porch, the front door to his house open behind him. He was talking to Rich Spanner, another homicide cop. Spanner had obviously caught the case. I knew him on a superficial level. He was an okay guy. He was a couple years older than Morelli and built like a barrel.

  Just minutes ago, they'd carried the victim out in a zippered bag and stuffed him into the ME's truck. The crime lab guy was still inside, working.

  I was leaning against my car, not wanting to be in the middle of all the police activity inside the house. Rich Spanner and Morelli concluded their conversation. Spanner left, and Morelli walked over to me.

  “This is a frigging nightmare,” Morelli said.

  “Did you know the dead guy?”

  He shook his head. “Not personally. His name is Allen Gratelli. The address on his license was Lawrenceville. Spanner ran him through the system, and he has no priors. He worked for the cable company.”

  “So what's his connection to you?”

  “Don't know. Was he the guy who ran out of the basement the other night?”

  “Could have been. Seemed like the right size, but I couldn't be sure. I don't recognize the name. Did Spanner know him?”

  “No. No one knows him. He's nobody”

  “Well, somebody knows him, because they killed him in your basement.”

  “Let's review my life,” Morelli said. “I have crazy Dom shooting at me because he thinks I stole this house out from under him. I have his nephew living with me. I'm not sure why, except that he looks a little like me, and the kid's mother is missing. And in the last three days, I've had my house broken into twice and a guy killed in my basement. Did I miss anything?”

  “Does Mooner count?”

  “No.”

  “Do you suppose there's a connection between all those people?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, I do. And I think it's all related to the bank job. We know that four men participated in the robbery. Dom took the fall and the other three men were never identified, and the money was never recovered. I'm guessing when we dig around a little, we'll find out Dom knew Allen Gratelli.”

  “And maybe Gratelli was involved in the robbery.”

  “It would explain the hole in his head,” Morelli said.

  “And maybe the money is hidden in your house!”

  “It was a lot of money. They hauled it off in a van. More likely, a key or a clue to the location is hidden in the house.”

  “We need to comb through the house.”

  “Little by little, I've been making this house my own, and I've gotten rid of a bunch of things that belonged to Rose. A lot of the clutter has been tossed.”

  “Yes, but a lot of it is still here. You never throw a key away. You still have your locker key from high school. If you found a key, you'd put it in one of your junk drawers.” I looked at my
watch. “I have to get Zook. When I come back we'll start looking.”

  Stephanie Plum 14 - Fearless Forteen

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ZOOK settled himself onto the passenger seat and stared down at his shoes.