I found Grandma sipping tea with Joe Morelli. I’d never seen Morelli with a teacup in his hand, and the sight was unnerving. As a teenager Morelli had been feral. Two years in the navy and twelve more on the police force had taught him control, but I was convinced nothing short of removing his gonads would ever completely domesticate him. There was always a barbarous part of Morelli that hummed beneath the surface. I found myself helplessly sucked in by it, and at the same time it scared the hell out of me.
“Well, here she is,” Grandma said when she saw me. “Speak of the devil.”
Morelli grinned. “We’ve been talking about you.”
“Oh, goody.”
“I hear you had a secretive meeting with Spiro.”
“Business,” I said.
“This business have anything to do with the fact that Spiro and Kenny and Moogey were friends in high school?”
I gave him an eyebrow raise to signify surprise. “They were friends in high school?”
He held three fingers up. “Like this.”
“Hmmm,” I said.
His grin widened. “I guess you’re still in war mode.”
“Are you laughing at me?”
“Not exactly laughing.”
“Well then, what?”
He rocked back on his heels, hands rammed into his pockets. “I think you’re cute.”
“Jesus.”
“Too bad we’re not working together,” Morelli said. “If we were working together I could tell you about my cousin’s car.”
“What about his car?”
“They found it late this afternoon. Abandoned. No bodies in the trunk. No bloodstains. No Kenny.”
“Where?”
“The parking lot at the mall.”
“Maybe Kenny was shopping.”
“Unlikely. Mall security remembers seeing the car parked overnight.”
“Were the doors locked?”
“All but the driver’s door.”
I considered that for a moment. “If I was abandoning my cousin’s car, I’d make sure all the doors were locked.”
Morelli and I stared into each other’s eyes and let the next thought go unsaid. Maybe Kenny was dead. There was no real basis in fact to draw such a conclusion, but the premonition skittered through my mind, and I wondered how this related to the letter I’d just received.
Morelli acknowledged the possibility with a grim set to his mouth. “Yeah,” he said.
Stiva had formed a lobby by removing the walls between what had originally been the foyer and the dining room of the large Victorian. Wall-to-wall carpet unified the room and silenced footsteps. Tea was served on a maple library table just outside the kitchen door. Lights were subdued, Queen Anne period chairs and end tables were grouped for conversation, and small floral arrangements were scattered throughout. It would have been a pleasant room if it wasn’t for the certain knowledge that Uncle Harry or Aunt Minnie or Morty the mailman was naked in another part of the house, dead as a doorknob, getting pumped full of formaldehyde.
“You want some tea?” Grandma asked me.
I shook my head no. Tea held no appeal. I wanted fresh air and chocolate pudding. And I wanted to get out of my panty hose. “I’m ready to leave,” I said to Grandma. “How about you?”
Grandma looked around. “It’s still kind of early, but I guess I haven’t got anybody left to see.” She set her teacup on the table and settled her pocketbook into the crook of her arm. “I could use some chocolate pudding anyway.”
She turned to Morelli. “We had chocolate pudding for dessert tonight, and there’s still some left. We always make a double batch.”
“Been a long time since I’ve had homemade chocolate pudding,” Morelli said.
Grandma snapped to attention. “Is that so? Well, you’re welcome to join us. We’ve got plenty.”
A small strangled sound escaped from the back of my throat, and I glared no, no, no at Morelli.
Morelli gave me one of those ultranaive what? looks. “Chocolate pudding sounds great,” he said. “I’d love some chocolate pudding.”
“Then it’s settled,” Grandma announced. “You know where we live?”
Morelli assured us he could find the house with his eyes closed, but just to make sure we’d be safe in the night, he’d follow us home.
“Don’t that beat all,” Grandma said when we were alone in the car. “Imagine him worrying about our safety. And have you ever met a more polite young man? He’s a real looker too. And he’s a cop. I bet he has a gun under that jacket.”
He was going to need a gun when my mother saw him standing on her doorstep. My mother would look out the storm door, and she wouldn’t see Joe Morelli, a man in search of pudding. She wouldn’t see Joe Morelli who had graduated from high school and joined the navy. She wouldn’t see Morelli the cop. My mother would see Joe Morelli the fast-fingered, horny little eight-year-old who had taken me to his father’s garage to play choo-choo when I was six.
“This here’s a good opportunity for you,” Grandma said as we pulled up to the curb. “You could use a man.”
“Not this one.”
“What’s wrong with this one?”
“He’s not my type.”
“You’ve got no taste when it comes to men,” Grandma said. “Your ex-husband is a cow’s tail. We all knew he was a cow’s tail when you married him, but you wouldn’t listen.”
Morelli pulled up behind me and got out of his truck. My mother opened the storm door and even from a distance I could see the stern set to her mouth and a stiffening of her spine.
“We all came back for pudding,” Grandma said to my mother when we reached the porch. “We brought Officer Morelli with us on account of he hasn’t had any homemade pudding in an awful long time.”
My mother’s lips pinched tight.
“I hope I’m not intruding,” Morelli said. “I know you weren’t expecting company.”
This is the opening statement that will get you into any burg house. No housewife worth her salt will ever admit to having her house not up to company twenty-four hours a day. Jack the Ripper would have easy access if he used this line.
My mother gave a curt nod and grudgingly stepped aside while the three of us slid past.
For fear of mayhem, my father had never been informed of the choo-choo incident. This meant he regarded Morelli with no more and no less contempt and apprehension than any of the other potential suitors my mother and grandmother dragged in off the street. He gave Joe a cursory inspection, engaged in the minimum necessary small talk and returned his attention to the TV, studiously ignoring my grandmother as she passed out pudding.
“They had a closed casket all right for Moogey Bues,” my grandmother said to my mother. “I got to see him anyway on account of the accident.”
My mother’s eyes opened wide in alarm. “Accident?”
I shrugged out of my jacket. “Grandma caught her sleeve on the lid, and the lid accidentally flew open.”
My mother raised her arms in appalled supplication. “All day I’ve had people calling and telling me about the gladioli. Now tomorrow I’ll have to hear about the lid.”
“He didn’t look so hot,” Grandma Mazur said. “I told Spiro that he did a good job, but it was pretty much a fib.”
Morelli was wearing a blazer over a black knit shirt. He took a seat, and his jacket swung wide, exposing the gun at his hip.
“Nice piece!” Grandma said. “What is it? Is that a forty-five?”
“It’s a nine-millimeter.”
“Don’t suppose you’d let me see it,” Grandma said. “I’d sure like to get the feel of a gun like that.”
“NO!” everyone shouted in unison.
“I shot a chicken once,” Grandma explained to Morelli. “It was an accident.”
I could see Morelli searching for a reply. “Where did you shoot it?” he finally asked.
“In the gumpy,” Grandma said. “Shot it clear off.”
Two puddings and
three beers later, Morelli peeled himself away from the TV. We left together and lingered to talk privately at the curb. The sky was starless and moonless and most of the houses were dark. The street was empty of traffic. In other parts of Trenton the night might feel dangerous. In the burg the night felt soft and secure.
Morelli turned my suit collar up against the chill air. His knuckles brushed my neck, and his gaze lingered on my mouth. “You have a nice family,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes. “If you kiss me I’ll scream, and then my father will come out and punch you in the nose.” And before any of those things happened, I’d probably wet my pants.
“I could take your father.”
“But you wouldn’t.”
Morelli still had his hands on my collar. “No, I wouldn’t.”
“Tell me about the car again. There was no sign of struggle?”
“No sign of struggle. The keys were in the ignition and the driver’s door was closed but unlocked.”
“Any blood on the pavement?”
“I haven’t been out to the scene, but the crime lab checked around and didn’t come up with any physical evidence.”
“Prints?”
“They’re in the system.”
“Personal possessions?”
“None found.”
“Then he wasn’t living out of the car,” I reasoned.
“You’re getting better at this apprehension agent stuff,” Morelli said. “You’re asking all the right questions.”
“I watch a lot of television.”
“Let’s talk about Spiro.”
“Spiro hired me to look into a mortuarial problem.”
Morelli’s face creased in laughter. “Mortuarial problem?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Doesn’t have anything to do with Kenny?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
The upstairs window opened and my mother stuck her head out. “Stephanie,” she stage-whispered, “what are you doing out there? What will the neighbors think?”
“Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Plum,” Morelli called. “I was just leaving.”
Rex was running in his wheel when I got home. I switched the light on, and he stopped dead in his tracks, black eyes wide, whiskers twitching in indignation that night had suddenly disappeared.
I kicked my shoes off en route to the kitchen, dropped my pocketbook onto the counter, and punched PLAY on my answering machine.
There was only one message. Gazarra had called at the end of his shift to tell me no one knew much about Morelli. Only that he was working on something big, and that it tied in to the Mancuso-Bues investigation.
I hit the off button and dialed Morelli.
He answered slightly out of breath on the sixth ring. Probably had just gotten into his apartment.
There didn’t seem to be much need for small talk. “Creep,” I said, cutting to the heart of the matter.
“Gosh, I wonder who this could be.”
“You lied to me. I knew it, too. I knew it right from the beginning, you jerk.”
Silence stretched taut between us, and I realized my accusation covered a lot of territory, so I narrowed the field. “I want to know about this big secret case you’re working on, and I want to know how it ties in to Kenny Mancuso and Moogey Bues.”
“Oh,” Morelli said. “That lie.”
“Well?”
“I can’t tell you anything about that lie.”
Thoughts of Kenny Mancuso and Joe Morelli had kept me thrashing around most of the night. At seven I rolled myself out of bed, feeling cranky and bedraggled. I showered, dressed in jeans and T-shirt, and made a pot of coffee.
My basic problem was that I had plenty of ideas about Joe Morelli and hardly any about Kenny Mancuso.
I poured out a bowl of cereal, filled my Daffy Duck mug with coffee, and picked through the contents of the envelope Spiro had given me. The storage facility was just off Route 1 in an area of strip-mall-type light-industrial complexes. The photo of the missing casket had been cut from some sort of flyer or brochure and showed a casket that was clearly at the bottom of the funeral food chain. It was little more than a plain pine box, devoid of the carvings and beveled edges usually found on burg caskets. Why Spiro would buy twenty-four of these crates was beyond my comprehension. People spent money on funerals and weddings in the burg. Being buried in one of these caskets would be lower than ring around the collar. Even Mrs. Ciak next door, who was on Social Security and turned her lights off each night at nine to save money, had thousands set aside for her burial.
I finished my cereal, rinsed the bowl and spoon, poured a second cup of coffee, and filled Rex’s little ceramic food dish with Cheerios and blueberries. Rex popped out of his soup can with his nose twitching in excitement. He rushed to the dish, crammed everything into his cheeks, and rushed back to his soup can, where he hunkered in butt side out, vibrating with happiness and good fortune. That’s the neat part about a hamster. It doesn’t take much to make a hamster happy.
I grabbed my jacket and the large black leather pocketbook that held all my bounty-hunter paraphernalia and headed for the stairs. Mr. Wolesky’s TV droned through his closed door and the aroma of bacon frying hung in the hallway just in front of Mrs. Karwatt’s apartment. I exited the building in solitude and paused for a moment to enjoy the crisp morning air. A few leaves still tenaciously clung to trees, but for the most part limbs were bare and spidery against the bright sky. A dog barked in the neighborhood behind my apartment building and a car door slammed. Mr. Suburbia was going to work. And Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter extraordinaire, was off to find twenty-four cheap coffins.
Trenton traffic looked insignificant compared to the Holland Tunnel outbound on a Friday afternoon, but it was a pain in the ass all the same. I decided to preserve what little sanity had surfaced this morning and forgo safe, scenic, car-clogged Hamilton. I turned onto Linnert after two blocks of stop-and-go tedium and threaded my way through the blighted neighborhoods that surround center city. I skirted the area around the train station, cut through town, and picked up Route 1 for a quarter mile, getting off at Oatland Avenue.
R and J Storage occupied about a half acre of land on Oatland Avenue. Ten years ago, Oatland Avenue had been a hardscrabble patch of throwaway property. Its spiky grass had been littered with broken bottles and bottle caps, filter tips, condoms, and tumbleweed trash. Industry had recently found Oatland, and now the hardscrabble land supported Gant Printing, Knoblock Plumbing Supply House, and R and J Storage. The spiky grass had given way to blacktop parking lots, but the shards of glass, bottle caps, and assorted urban flotsam had endured, collecting in unattended corners and gutters.
Sturdy chain-link fencing surrounded the self-storage facility, and two drives, designated IN and OUT, led to the honeycomb of garage-sized warehouses. A small sign fixed to the fence stated business hours as 7:00 to 10:00 daily. The gates to the entrance and exit were open, and a small OPEN sign had been hung in the glass-paned office door. The buildings were all painted white with bright blue trim. Very crisp and efficient looking. Just the place to snug away hot caskets.
I pulled into the entrance and crept along, counting off numbers until I reached 16. I parked on the apron in front of the unit, inserted the key in the lock, and pressed the button that triggered the hydraulic door. The door rolled up along the ceiling and, sure enough, the warehouse was empty. Not a coffin or clue in sight.
I stood there for a moment, visualizing the pine boxes stacked chocablock. Here one day, gone the next. I turned to leave and almost crashed into Morelli.
“Jesus,” I exclaimed, hand on heart, after squelching a yelp of surprise. “I hate when you creep up behind me like that. What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Following you.”
“I don’t want to be followed. Isn’t that some sort of an infringement of my rights? Police harassment?”
“Most women would be happy to have me follow them.�
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“I’m not most women.”
“Tell me about it.” He gestured at the empty bay. “What’s the deal?”
“If you must know … I’m looking for caskets.”
This drew a smile.
“I’m serious! Spiro had twenty-four caskets stored here, and they’ve disappeared.”
“Disappeared? As in stolen? Has he reported the theft to the police?”
I shook my head. “He didn’t want to bring the police in. Didn’t want word to get out that he’d bulk-bought a bunch of caskets and then lost them.”
“I hate to rain on your parade, but I think this smells bad. People who lose things worth lots of money file police reports so they can collect their insurance.”
I closed the door and dropped the key into my pocketbook. “I’m getting paid one thousand dollars to find lost caskets. I’m not going to try to identify the odor. I have no reason to believe there’s anything bogus going on.”
“What about Kenny? I thought you were looking for Kenny.”
“Kenny’s a dead end right now.”
“Giving up?”
“Dropping back.”
I opened the door to the Jeep, slid behind the wheel, and shoved the key into the ignition. By the time the engine cranked over, Morelli had seated himself next to me.
“Where are we going?” Morelli asked.
“I’m going to the office to talk to the manager.”
Morelli was smiling again. “This could be the start of a whole new career. You do good on this one and maybe you can advance to catching grave robbers and headstone vandals.”
“Very funny. Get out of my car.”
“I thought we were partners.”
Yeah, right. I put the Jeep into reverse and K-turned. I parked at the office and swung out of the Jeep, with Morelli following close on my heels.
I stopped and turned, facing him, hand to his chest to keep him at arm’s length. “Halt. This is not a group project.”
Plum Boxed Set 1, Books 1-3 Stephanie Plum Novels) Page 28