Tricky Twenty-Two: A Stephanie Plum Novel

by Janet Evanovich

  “Yeah,” I said. “It wouldn’t be good.”

  “Of course I just came from church, so I might still have some holy protection.”

  Gobbles wasn’t saying anything. He had a grim set to his mouth, and I knew he had it figured out.

  “There are going to be police here,” I said to Gobbles. “You might want to go home or wherever it is that you go.”

  “You’ll call me?”

  “As soon as I know something.”

  “So let me see if I got this put together right,” Lula said. “Pooka was making fleas, and he was gonna shoot them off in the fireworks. And then all the people at homecoming would get fleas dropped on them, and the fleas might be infected with this Yersinia. Which we don’t want to have, either.”

  “Right.”

  “And just exactly what is this Yersinia?” She tapped it into her phone. “Plague!” she yelled. “It’s freaking plague. It’s the black death. Do you know what this shit does to you? It gives you boo-boos. And then your fingers and toes turn black and fall off. Good thing I don’t have a dick. Imagine what it could do to that!” She kicked her shoes off and looked at her toes. “I see a flea. I got a flea on me. Shoot it. Burn it. Somebody do something.”

  I looked down at her feet. “I don’t see any fleas.”

  “What’s that on my big toe?”

  “It looks like a wart.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot. I have to go home,” Lula said. “I’m gonna take a shower and boil all my clothes. If I leave can you catch a ride with Morelli?”

  “No problem.”

  •••

  I was alone when Morelli pulled to the curb.

  “I have a hazmat team on the way,” he said. “Do you know if anyone’s in the house?”

  “I haven’t seen anyone. I have a description of Pooka’s van but no license plate number. You probably want to sift through his office in the science building.”

  A patrol car arrived and parked beside Morelli’s SUV, and Morelli gave the uniform instructions to secure the second-floor apartment but not go in.

  “We don’t want this broadcast on the evening news,” Morelli said. “Who knows about this besides you?”

  “Gobbles. And he’s not going to say anything. And Lula. She just went home to boil her clothes.”

  I saw sweat bead on Morelli’s upper lip.

  “Cramps?” I asked him.

  “It’s okay. It’ll pass. Probably. We need to contain Lula. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to babysit her for a couple days.”

  “What all would that involve?”

  “Twenty-four-seven. You could bring her over to your apartment.”

  “Are you insane? Live with Lula? She snores. Loud. And she would be in my bathroom. I don’t like other people in my bathroom.”

  “You let me use it.”

  “I didn’t mind you using it. It felt friendly. I was in love with you.”

  “I notice you used the past tense. You’re not still in love with me?”

  “I am but I don’t want to admit it. And I certainly don’t want to say it out loud.”

  “I’d kiss you, but I have cramps,” Morelli said.

  A hazmat van rumbled up and parked.

  “This is going to be a long day,” Morelli said. “If it turns out the bag of plague is for real, this place will be crawling with every three-letter agency in the country.”

  “I’d go home and clean my hamster cage, but I don’t have a car.”

  Morelli gave me his keys. “Take my SUV. I’ll pick it up when I’m done here.”

  “Can I bring you a yogurt or something?”

  “No, but thanks. I’m off dairy.”

  “Is there anything left that you can eat?”

  “Alcohol, as long as it’s not made with grain.”

  •••

  I put Rex in the bathtub while I cleaned his cage. I returned him to the cage and scrubbed the bathroom. I vacuumed the floors, dusted the few things that collected dust, washed the kitchen floor, and took the garbage out to the trash chute. My mother and grandmother seem to get satisfaction from this. I get nothing. I would get satisfaction from paying a housekeeper once a week to clean my house. Unfortunately I’m not in that income bracket. I’m almost in the no income bracket.

  Morelli showed up at three-thirty.

  “Do you need to use the bathroom?” I asked him.

  “No, but it’s comforting to know there’s one close by.”

  “I’d offer you something to eat, but I don’t think I have anything.”

  “It’s okay. I just had a gluten-free, dairy-free snack bar that tasted like sawdust. I’m going to go home and eat half a loaf of gluten-free, dairy-free bread. I think I can put grape jelly on it.”

  “Can you eat chicken? We could make a roast chicken.”

  “You know how to roast a chicken?”

  “Almost. My mother roasts chickens all the time.”

  “I appreciate the offer but I think I’ll go home and stick with the bread. The good news is that Becker might be alive and with Pooka. The bad news is that he might not be in great shape. It turns out that Pooka doesn’t just rent that apartment. He actually owns the house and rents out the other three units. At the back end of the property there’s a single-car garage where he’s been keeping the white van. The van isn’t there anymore but he’s left behind a load of garbage. Without going into gruesome detail, we’ve collected evidence that would indicate someone was being kept in the garage. It looks like he was sedated and restrained and either giving blood or getting blood. My guess is he was giving blood and that Pooka was using it to feed his fleas. Nothing has been analyzed yet, so this is all conjecture. Some of the containers left behind were labeled and some weren’t, so we don’t know exactly what we’re seeing. The bag in the garbage in the apartment is being looked at by the CDC. We’re going on the assumption that it’s real.”

  “I thought plague was eradicated.”

  “Not entirely. A small number of cases pop up every year. It can be treated with antibiotics, but it’s still life threatening and it’s an ugly disease. And it wouldn’t be impossible for someone to get hold of an infected rat or even a rogue vial. Pooka is a biology professor. I imagine he knows how to get his hands on all sorts of stuff.”

  “That’s scary.”

  “Yes. And it’s now considered domestic terrorism, so along with the FBI, the CDC, and the state police, we have Homeland Security digging around in every garbage receptacle from here to Camden. I’m happy about it because I’m out of the plague business. All I have to do is solve three murders.”

  “Sorry I dragged you into this.”

  “You didn’t drag me in. I was dragged in when I pulled the first homicide. And, honestly, I’d be all about this if I didn’t feel so lousy.”

  “Don’t worry about Lula. She’s home and she’s busy doing laundry. I’ll see her first thing in the morning, and I’ll take control.”

  “I expect it’s no longer an issue. We have guys running around in biohazard suits. The only thing missing from the circus is a detonation robot. The SAT truck cruised in just as I was leaving.”

  I watched Morelli walk down the hall, I closed my door, and locked all three of my locks. This still didn’t make me feel entirely safe. I’d been threatened with a horrible death by a lunatic who’d most likely already killed three people. All it would take was a single infected flea. It could hop under my door. It could sit in the hallway and wait for me to walk to the elevator. And just like that I’d have bubonic plague. At least my apartment was clean. If I got the plague my mother wouldn’t be embarrassed about my housekeeping.

  TWENTY-THREE

  IT WAS MONDAY morning, and I had to go to the office. I looked out my security peephole into the hall. No lunatics in sight. I stepped out and studied the carpet. No fleas hopping around. If there were fleas on the carpet they were sleeping in. Best to try to forget about the fleas.

  Connie was alone in the office wh
en I walked in. Vinnie’s door was shut, and I didn’t see his car parked outside. No Lula.

  “Where is everybody?” I asked Connie.

  “Vinnie is at the courthouse, and Lula is always late. It’s just that you’re usually later than Lula. Sounds like you had a fun day yesterday. I saw the guys in the hazmat suits on the evening news. We made national again.”

  “Did they say anything about fleas?”

  “No. They said there was the rumor of biological warfare by a terrorist cell. And they showed a picture of Pooka that made him look totally insane.”

  “At least they got that right.”

  The door crashed open, and Lula bustled in. “We were on the evening news and the morning news. I couldn’t get unglued from my television.”

  “We?” I asked.

  “Trenton,” Lula said. “They didn’t get a whole lot about the situation right, but there was a picture of Pooka that if it was me I’d rush out and get a makeover.”

  I squinted across the room at her. “What have you got around your neck? Omigod, is that a flea collar?”

  “Damn skippy it’s a flea collar. I’m not taking no chances. Suppose that nutcase Pooka decides to go spreading his fleas everywhere. Or he could be building new fireworks even as we speak.” Lula tapped her head with her index finger. “No grass growin’ here. I’m no dummy. I went out and got myself some flea protection. This here’s the size for a big dog.”

  “It’s got sparkly jewels in it,” Connie said.

  “I bedazzled it,” Lula said. “It’s practical and yet it’s fashionable. I might go into business making these. There’s a lot of people out there with flea issues. Even if your fleas don’t have plague, you still don’t want them sucking out your blood, right?”

  “Plague?” Connie asked.

  “She didn’t say plague,” I said. “She said plaque like in heart disease.”

  “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Connie said. “Are you shitting me? Plague? Like in bubonic plague? Like in the black death?”

  “It’s not conclusive,” I said.

  “I want one of those flea collars,” Connie said. “Do they really work?”

  “Fuckin’ A they work,” Lula said. “They sell them at Petco. They wouldn’t sell them at Petco if they didn’t work.”

  “Do you have any extra?” Connie asked her.

  “I’ve only got this one ’cause I had to make sure it would fit, but I could make a Petco run and pick up a couple,” Lula said. “What would you like on yours? Do you want the diamond look or do you want some color in it?”

  “I think color,” Connie said. “Something flattering to my skin tone. Maybe red.”

  “I don’t want to bust anyone’s bubble here,” I said, “but the fleas could be hopping onto your feet and biting you in the ankle, and I don’t think a flea collar on your neck is going to be much help.”

  “Ankle bracelet!” Lula said. “Everybody likes a ankle bracelet. I could hang a charm from it. A little heart or your initial.”

  “I’d like my initial,” Connie said.

  “This is big,” Lula said. “I could be the next Martha Stewart. Martha’s gonna be real angry that she didn’t think of this. Although I have to say she makes a damn good laundry basket. And I got a stellar cake decorating book by her.”

  “I thought you didn’t have an oven,” I said.

  “Well, yeah,” Lula said, “but I got the book. Everybody should have that book. Just in case the occasion arises to make a cake and you got an oven.”

  “I have some new FTAs,” Connie said. “They came in first thing this morning. Nothing big. Nuisance roundups if you haven’t anything better to do.”

  As it happened I had nothing better to do, so I stuffed them into my bag along with Jesus Sanchez, the lawn mower bandit.

  “I don’t mind riding along with you while you pick up these losers,” Lula said, “so long as we can make a Petco stop. And then I got to go to the craft store to get some charms and more jewels.”

  We took my car and did the Petco run first. After Petco we made a fast stop at the craft store.

  “I can’t wait to put this all together,” Lula said when she was back in the Porsche. “I don’t know if you noticed but I got a knack for embellishment.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Who’d Connie give you? Anybody fun?”

  “I read through them while you were in the craft store. We have a drunk and disorderly, a shoplifter, and a guy who stole a snake.”

  “Say what?”

  “It was a four-foot python, and he stole it from a pet store that sold exotic reptiles and birds.”

  “Throw that one out the window. I bet he got a house full of snakes. I’m not going near him. I don’t care if he never goes to jail and Vinnie goes broke because of him.”

  “How about the shoplifter?”

  “Sure. Where’s this person live?”

  I pulled the file out of my bag and gave it to Lula.

  “Richard Nesman,” Lula said. “He lives downtown. Trevor Court. I know that area. It’s a street of nice townhouses.”

  For the most part shoplifters are an easy catch. They aren’t usually violent and they aren’t usually armed. This is even true for the professionals, like Skookie Lewis, who takes whole stacks of T-shirts and transfers them out of the Gap and into the trunk of his 1990 Eldorado for resale. Lula has been known to shop out of Skookie’s trunk.

  I parked in front of Richard Nesman’s townhouse and paged through his file. He was fifty-six years old, retired, married to Larry Staples.

  “You see I don’t get that,” Lula said. “I got traditional values. I mean what’s this world coming to?”

  “You don’t think gay men should marry?”

  “Hell, I don’t care if they marry. I’m talking about the name. You get married and you take your husband’s name. Everybody knows that. Otherwise it’s too confusing. It’s chaos, you see what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, but what if they’re both husbands?”

  “Say what?”

  “Gee, look at the time,” I said. “We should get moving if we want to get all this done before lunch.”

  I went to the door to the townhouse and knocked, and a pleasant-looking silver-haired man answered.

  “Richard Nesman?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I represent Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. You’ve missed your court date, and I’d like to help you reschedule.”

  “I’m sure that’s a mistake,” Richard said. “I have it on my calendar in big red letters. It’s next Friday.”

  “The court thought it was last Friday,” I said.

  “That’s very upsetting. They should at least notify you if they change your date.”

  Lula was standing behind me. “So what did you shoplift?” she asked him.

  “Shoes.”

  “Like boxes of Air Jordans or something?”

  “Good heavens, no. These were Salvatore Ferragamo Sardegna Crocodile Driving Loafers.”

  “Get out!” Lula said. “Those are excellent shoes. Those shoes retail at $2,400.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked Lula.

  “Sometimes I moonlight selling shoes. I help Skookie with the night shift. You gotta know what you’re selling.” She turned to Richard. “I could get you those same shoes for twenty-four dollars. You just gotta be careful if you wear them in the rain ’cause the color might run.”

  “Is this your first arrest?” I asked him.

  “Sadly, no. I’m afraid I have a compulsion to steal shoes. I like to think of it as a hobby, but not everyone sees it that way.”

  “Everybody needs a hobby,” Lula said to him. “I like to bedazzle. You should switch your hobby to something more constructive like decoupage or bedazzlin’.”

  •••

  We left Richard with the docket lieutenant, picked up our body receipt, and returned to the office.

  “I made some phone calls,” Connie said, “and I found Jesu
s Sanchez. He’s living with his sister on Maple Street. So far as I can see he doesn’t have a job, so you might find him at home.”

  Lula and I drove to Maple Street and started reading off numbers. It’s a long street on the north end of town and by the time we counted down to the Sanchez house we were just two blocks from Kiltman.

  An older woman answered the door.

  “He’s not here,” she said. “He’s walking the dog. They like to go to the school so Frank can make poopie on the grass.”

  “Frank’s the dog?” Lula asked.

  “Yes. Big dog. Big black dog. Very nice.”

  We thanked the woman, went back to the car, and drove toward the campus. We cruised along the loop road and spotted Jesus and Frank sitting in the middle of the field, watching some students play Frisbee.

  “Guess nobody told any of these people about the fleas,” Lula said.

  “There haven’t been any reports of fleas or plague,” I said. “I think Pooka is hiding somewhere, and I’m sure he’ll be found before he has a chance to do any damage.”

  “You don’t know that for sure. Pooka could be out at night sprinkling his bloodthirsty fleas all over the place. Just because he lost his fireworks don’t mean he’s given up on spreading the black death. I personally think they should be warning people.”

  “I’m sure if they thought there was a real threat they would be taking precautions.”

  “Not that it affects me,” Lula said. “I got my flea collar on, and if I gotta walk across the grass to arrest that idiot out there I’m putting my ankle bracelets on, too.”

  I parked on the side of the road, and Lula pulled a flea collar out of its box and strapped it around her ankle.

  “It don’t make the same fashion statement as when you put a charm on it, but it still looks okay. This here is the minimalist version,” Lula said.

  Heaven help me, I couldn’t figure out if Lula was genius smart or flat-out stupid for wearing the flea collars. At a very basic level they made sense.

  “Okay,” I said. “Give me a couple of the ankle-size collars.”

  I mean, what did I have to lose besides some dignity? Better safe than sorry, I told myself.

  Lula and I got collared up, and we tramped across the lawn to Jesus.