“Any chance I’ll get my car back?”
“There’s always a chance.”
“I saw a TV show about stolen cars,” Grandma Mazur said. “It was on these chop shops that take cars apart. Probably by now there’s nothing left of that Jeep but a grease spot on some garage floor.”
Morelli opened the passenger-side door to his pickup and hoisted Grandma onto the seat. I scootched up beside her and told myself to think positive. Not all stolen cars ended up as spare parts, right? My car was so cute that probably someone couldn’t resist taking it for a short joyride. Think positive, Stephanie. Think positive.
Morelli made a U-turn and retraced back to the burg. We made a perfunctory stop at my parents’ house, only staying long enough to deposit Grandma Mazur in the Lay-Z-Boy rocker and reasure my mother that nothing terrible had happened to us on Stark Street … aside from having my car grand-thefted.
On the way out my mother handed me the traditional bag of food. “A little something for a snack,” she said. “Some spice cake.”
“I love spice cake,” Morelli told me when we were back in his truck, heading for my apartment.
“Forget it. You’re not getting any.”
“Of course I am,” Morelli said. “I went out of my way to help you tonight. The least you can do is give me some spice cake.”
“You don’t really want spice cake, anyway. You just want to come up to my apartment so you can find out about Perry Sandeman.”
“That’s not the only reason.”
“Sandeman wasn’t in a talky mood.”
Morelli stopped for a light. “Learn anything at all?”
“He hates cops. He hates me. I hate him. He lives in a walkup on Morton Street, and he’s a mean drunk.”
“How do you know about him being a mean drunk?”
“Went to his home address and talked to one of his neighbors.”
Morelli slid a glance at me. “That was pretty ballsy.”
“It was nothing,” I said, making the most of the lie. “All in a day’s work.”
“I hope you had the sense not to give out your name. Sandeman won’t be happy to find you snooping around his crib.”
“I think I might have left my card.” No need to tell him about getting caught on the fire escape. Wouldn’t want to weigh him down with unnecessary details.
Morelli gave me a boy, are you stupid or what look. “I understand they have positions available for makeover ladies at Macy’s.”
“Don’t start with that makeover stuff again. So I made a mistake.”
“Cookie, you’re making a career out of making mistakes.”
“It’s my style. And don’t call me Cookie.”
Some people learn from books, some listen to the advice of others, some learn from mistakes. I fit into the last category. So sue me. At least I rarely made the same mistake twice … with the possible exception of Morelli. Morelli had this habit of periodically screwing up my life. And I had a habit of letting him do it.
“Have any luck on the funeral circuit?”
“None.”
He cut the engine and leaned close to me. “You smell like carnations.”
“Watch it. You’ll crush the cake.”
He looked down at the bag. “That’s a lot of cake.”
“Un-huh.”
“You eat all that cake, and it’ll go straight to your hips.”
I heaved a sigh. “Okay, you can have some of the cake. Just don’t try anything funny.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”‘
“You know what that means!”
Morelli grinned.
I thought about looking haughty, but decided it was too late, and I probably couldn’t pull it off anyway, so I settled for a grunt of exasperation and levered myself out of the pickup. I stalked off with Morelli following close on my heels. We rode the elevator in silence, exited at the second floor, and stopped short at the sight of my door slightly ajar. There were gouge marks where a tool had been inserted between jamb and door and used to pry the door open.
I heard Morelli unholster his gun, and I slid a glance in his direction. He motioned for me to step aside, his eyes locked on the door.
I pulled the .38 out of my pocketbook and muscled my way in front of him. “My apartment, my problem,” I said, not actually anxious to be a hero, but not wanting to relinquish control.
Morelli grabbed me by the back of my jacket and yanked. “Don’t be an idiot.”
Mr. Wolesky opened his door with a bag of garbage in his arms and caught us scuffling. “What’s going on?” he asked. “You want me to call the cops?”
“I am the cops,” Morelli said.
Mr. Wolesky gave him a long, considering look, and then turned to me. “He give you any trouble, you let me know. I’m just going down the hall with my garbage.”
Morelli stared after him. “I don’t think he trusts me.”
Smart man.
We both peeked cautiously inside my apartment, entering the foyer glued at the hip like Siamese twins. The kitchen and the living room area were empty of intruders. We immediately went to the bedroom and bath, checking out closets, looking under the bed, peering out at the fire escape beyond the window.
“It’s clear,” Morelli said. “You assess the damage and see if anything’s been stolen. I’ll try to secure the front door.”
At first glance damage seemed to consist exclusively of spray-painted slogans having to do with female organs and anatomically impossible suggestions. Nothing seemed to be missing from my jewelry box. Sort of insulting since I had a very nice pair of cubic zirconias that I thought looked every bit as good as diamonds. Well, what did this guy know? This was a person who’d misspelled vagina.
“The door won’t lock, but I was able to attach the security chain,” Morelli called from the foyer. I heard him walk to the living room and stop. Silence followed.
“Joe?”
“Un-huh.”
“What are you doing?”
“Watching your cat.”
“I don’t have a cat.”
“What do you have?”
“A hamster.”
“Are you sure?”
A little ripple of alarm raced through my chest. Rex! I rushed from the bedroom into the living room, where Rexy’s glass aquarium rested on an end table beside the couch. I halted dead center in the room and clapped a hand to my mouth at the sight of a huge black cat stuffed into the hamster cage, the mesh lid held tight with duct tape.
My heart beat with sickening clarity and my throat closed over. It was Mrs. Delgado’s cat, and the cat sat hunkered down, slitty-eyed and as pissed off as any cat could get. It didn’t look especially hungry, and Rex was nowhere in sight.
“Shit,” Morelli said.
I made a sound that was half gurgle, half sob and bit into my hand to keep from wailing.
Morelli had his arm around me. “I’ll buy you a new hamster. I know this guy who owns a pet store. He’s probably still up. I’ll get him to open the store—”
“I don’t want a new h-h-hamster,” I cried. “I want Rex. I loved him.”
Morelli held me tighter. “It’s okay, honey. He had a good life. I bet he was pretty old too. How old was he?”
“Two years.”
“Hmmm.”
The cat squirmed in the cage and growled low in its throat.
“It’s Mrs. Delgado’s cat,” I said. “She lives directly above me, and the cat lives on the fire escape.”
Morelli went into the kitchen and returned with scissors. He cut the duct tape, lifted the mesh lid, and the cat jumped out and bolted for the bedroom. Morelli followed after the cat, opened the window, and the cat scurried on home.
I looked into the cage, but I didn’t see any hamster remains. No fur. No little bones. No yellow fangs. Nothing.
Morelli looked too. “Pretty thorough job,” he said.
This drew another sob.
We stayed like that for a minute, squatting in fro
nt of the cage, numbly staring at pine shavings and the back of Rex’s soup can.
“What’s the soup can for?” Morelli wanted to know.
“He slept in the soup can.”
Morelli tapped on the can, and Rex rushed out.
I almost fainted with relief, caught midway between laughing and crying, too choked to speak.
Rex was clearly in the same state of emotional overload. He rushed from one end of his cage to the other, nose twitching, beady black eyes bugging out of his head.
“Poor guy,” I said, reaching into the aquarium, taking Rex in my hand, raising him up to my face for a closer look.
“Maybe you should let him relax a while,” Morelli said. “He seems pretty agitated.”
I stroked his back. “Hear that, Rex … are you agitated?”
Rex responded by sinking his fangs into the tip of my thumb. I let out a shriek and jerked my hand away, flipping Rex off into space like a Frisbee. He sailed halfway across the room, landed with a soft thunk, lay stunned for five seconds, and then scrambled behind a bookcase.
Morelli looked at the two puncture wounds in my thumb, then he looked at the bookcase. “You want me to shoot him?”
“No, I don’t want you to shoot him. I want you to go into the kitchen, get the big strainer, and trap Rex in it while I wash my hands and get a Band-Aid.”
When I came out of the bathroom five minutes later, Rex was crouched still as stone under the strainer, and Morelli was at the dining room table eating the spice cake. He’d set out a wedge for me and poured glasses of milk.
“I think we can hazard a pretty good guess at the identity of the villain here,” Morelli said, glancing at my business card impaled on my carving knife, which was sunk into the middle of my square wood table. “Nice centerpiece,” he offered. “Did you say you left your calling card with one of Sandeman’s neighbors?”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Morelli finished his milk and cake and rocked back in his chair. “How spooked are you about all of this?”
“On a scale of one to ten, I guess I’m at six.”
“Do you want me to stay until you can get your door fixed?”
I took a minute to consider. I’d been in worrisome situations before, and I knew it was no fun being alone and scared. Problem was, I didn’t want to admit any of this to Morelli. “You think he’ll be back?”
“Not tonight. Probably not ever unless you push him again.”
I nodded. “I’ll be okay. But thanks for the offer.”
He stood. “You’ve got my number if you need me.”
I wasn’t about to touch that one.
He looked at Rex. “You need any help getting Dracula settled in?”
I knelt down, lifted the strainer, scooped Rex up, and gently set him back in his cage. “He doesn’t usually bite,” I said. “He was just excited.”
Morelli gave me a chuck under the chin. “Happens to me sometimes, too.”
I slid the chain home after Morelli left and jury-rigged an alarm system for myself by stacking glasses in front of the door. If the door opened, it’d knock the pyramid over, and the glasses smashing on the linoleum floor would wake me up. There was the added advantage that if the intruder was barefoot, he’d cut himself on the broken glass. Of course, this was unlikely since it was November and forty degrees.
I brushed my teeth, got into my jammies, put my gun on the table beside my bed, and crawled into bed, trying not to be disturbed by the writing on my wall. First thing in the morning I’d call the super to get my door fixed, and while I was at it, I’d mooch some paint.
I lay awake for a long time, unable to sleep. My muscles were twitchy with nerves and my brain was uneasy. I hadn’t shared my opinion with Morelli, but I was pretty sure Sandeman hadn’t vandalized my apartment. One of the messages on my wall had mentioned conspiracy, and a silver letter K had been pasted below the message. Probably I should have shown Morelli the K, and probably I should have shown him the silver-lettered note suggesting I take a vacation. I wasn’t sure why I’d held back. I suspected the reason was childish. Sort of like … you won’t tell me your secret, then I won’t tell you mine. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.
My mind wandered in the dark. I wondered why Moogey was killed, and why I couldn’t find Kenny, and if I had any cavities.
I awoke with a start, finding myself sitting bolt upright in bed. The sun was streaming in through the crack in my bedroom curtains, and my heart was pounding. There was a scraping sound from far away. My mind cleared, and I realized it had been the glasses crashing to the floor that had jolted me awake.
I was on my feet with my gun in my hand, but I couldn’t make a decision on direction. I could call the cops, jump out my window, or rush out and attempt to shoot the son of a bitch at my door. Fortunately, I didn’t have to choose because I recognized the voice cussing in the hall. Morelli’s.
I looked at the bedside clock. Eight. I’d overslept. Happens when you don’t close your eyes until daybreak. I slipped my feet into my Doc Martens and shuffled to the foyer, where glass shards were scattered over a four-foot area. Morelli had managed to work the chain off the latch and was standing in the open doorway, surveying the mess.
He raised his eyes and gave me the once-over. “You sleep in those shoes?”
I sent him a nasty look and went to the kitchen for a broom and dustpan. I handed him the broom, dropped the dustpan on the floor, and crunched my way over glass, back to the bedroom. I exchanged my flannel nightgown for sweatpants and sweatshirt and almost screamed out loud when I caught sight of myself in the oval mirror above my dresser. No makeup, bags under my eyes, hair out to here. I wasn’t sure brushing would make much of a difference, so I slapped on my Rangers hat.
When I got back to the foyer the glass was gone, and Morelli was in the kitchen making coffee.
“You ever think of knocking?” I asked him.
“I did knock. You didn’t answer.”
“You should have knocked louder.”
“And disturb Mr. Wolesky?”
I stuck my head in the refrigerator and pulled out the remains of the leftover cake, then divided it up. Half for me. Half for Morelli. We stood at the kitchen counter and ate our cake while we waited on the coffee.
“You’re not doing too good here, babe,” Morelli said. “You’ve had your car stolen, your apartment vandalized, and someone tried to snuff your hamster. Maybe you should drop back and punt.”
“You’re worried about me.”
“Yeah.”
We both shuffled our feet some at this.
“Awkward,” I said.
“Tell me about it.”
“Hear anything about my Jeep?”
“No.” He pulled some folded papers from his inside jacket pocket. “This is the report of theft. Look it over and sign it.”
I did a fast read-through, added my name to the bottom, and returned it to Morelli. “Thanks. I appreciate the help.”
Morelli stuffed the papers in his pocket. “I need to get back downtown. Do you have a plan for the day?”
“Fix my door.”
“Are you going to report the break-in and vandalism?
“I’m going to make repairs and pretend it didn’t happen.”
Morelli acknowledged this and stared down at his shoes, making no move to leave.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“Lots of things.” He blew out a long breath. “About this case I’m working on …”
“The big top-secret one?”
“Yeah.”
“If you tell me about it, I won’t tell a soul. I swear!”
“Right,” Morelli said. “Only Mary Lou.”
“Why would I tell Mary Lou?”
“Mary Lou is your best friend. Women always blab everything to their best friend.”
I slapped my forehead. “Unh. That is stupid and sexist.”
“So sue me,” Morelli said.
“Are you going to tell
me, or what?”
“This is to be kept quiet.”
“Sure.”
Morelli hesitated. Clearly a cop between a rock and a hard place. Another exhale. “If this gets around …”
“It won’t!”
“Three months ago a cop was killed in Philadelphia. He was wearing a Kevlar vest but he caught a couple high-penetration rounds square in the chest. One tore into his left lung; the other hit the heart.”
“Cop killers.”
“Exactly. Illegal armor-piercing bullets. Two months ago Newark had a real effective drive-by where the weapon of choice was a LAW—Light Anti-Tank Weapon. Army issue. Significantly decreased the population of the Sherman Street Big Dogs and turned Big Dog Lionel Simms’s new Ford Bronco into pixie dust. The casing from the rocket was recovered and traced to Fort Braddock. Braddock ran an inventory and discovered some munitions missing.
“When we got Kenny into custody we put his gun through NCRC, and what do you think?”
“It came from Braddock.”
“Yeah.”
This was an excellent secret. This made life much more interesting. “What’d Kenny say about the hot gun?”
“Said he bought it on the street. Said he didn’t know the vendor by name, but he’d work with us to try to make an ID.”
“And then he disappeared.”
“This is an interagency operation,” Morelli said. “CID wants it kept confidential.”
“Why did you decide to tell me?”
“You’re in the middle of it. You need to know.”
“You could have told me sooner.”
“In the beginning it looked like we had good leads. I was hoping we’d have Kenny in custody by now and wouldn’t have to involve you.”
My mind was moving at warp speed, generating all sorts of wonderful possibilities.
“You could have bagged him in the parking lot when he was doing his thing with Julia,” I said to Morelli.
He agreed. “I could have.”
“That might not have told you what you really wanted to know.”
“Which is?”
“I think you wanted to follow him to see where he was hiding out. I think you aren’t just looking for Kenny. I think you’re looking for more guns.”
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