“What were you checking for?”
“I suppose I was checking for the phantom assailant.”
I collapsed into a chair. “I wasn’t sure you believed me. I don’t exactly have an airtight alibi.”
“Honey, you don’t have any alibi at all. The only reason I didn’t book you for murder is I’m too tired to fill out the paperwork.”
I didn’t have the energy for indignation. “You know I didn’t kill him.”
“I don’t know anything,” Morelli said. “What I have is opinion. And my opinion is that you didn’t kill the guy with the dreads. Unfortunately, there are no facts to support that opinion.”
Morelli was wearing boots and jeans and a heavy olive drab jacket that looked like army issue. The jacket had lots of pockets and flaps and was slightly worn at the cuffs and collar. By day Morelli looked lean and predatory, but sometimes late at night when his features were softened by exhaustion and eighteen hours of beard growth there were glimpses of a more vulnerable Morelli. I found the vulnerable Morelli to be dangerously endearing. Fortunately, the vulnerable Morelli wasn’t showing its face tonight. Tonight Morelli was all tired cop.
Morelli strolled into the kitchen, lifted the lid on my brown bear cookie jar and looked inside. “Where’s your thirty-eight? It wasn’t on you, and it’s not in your cookie jar.”
“It’s sort of lost.” It was lost two houses down and across the street from Mo’s store, neatly tucked into an azalea bush. I’d called Ranger when I’d stopped home to shower, and I’d asked him to quietly retrieve the gun for me.
“Sort of lost,” Morelli said. “Unh.”
I saw him out and locked the door after him. I dragged myself into the bedroom and flopped on the bed. I lay there fully clothed with all the lights blazing and finally fell asleep when I could see the sun shining through my bedroom curtains.
At nine o’clock I opened my eyes to pounding on my apartment door. I lay there for a moment hoping the pounder would go away if I ignored him.
“Open up. It’s the police,” the pounder yelled.
Eddie Gazarra. My second-best friend all through grade school, now a cop, married to my cousin Shirley.
I rolled out of bed, shuffled to the door and squinted at Gazarra. “What?”
“Jesus,” he said. “You look like hell. You look like you slept in those clothes.”
My head was throbbing and my eyes felt like they were filled with sand. “It makes it easier in the morning,” I said. “Not a lot of fuss.”
Gazarra shook his head. “Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
I looked down at the white bakery bag hanging from his chunky Polish hand. “Are there doughnuts in that bag?”
“Fuckin’ A,” Gazarra said.
“Do you have coffee too?”
He held a second bag aloft.
“God bless you,” I said. “God bless your children and their children.”
Gazarra got a couple plates from the kitchen, grabbed the roll of paper towels and took everything into the dining room. We divided up the doughnuts and coffee and ate in silence until all that was left was a splot of raspberry jelly on the front of Gazarra’s uniform.
“So what is this?” I finally asked. “Social call, pity party, show of faith?”
“All of the above,” Gazarra said. “Plus a weather report, which you didn’t get from me.”
“I hope it’s warm and sunny.”
Gazarra flicked at the mess on his shirt-front with a wad of paper napkin. “There are members of the department who’d like to pin last night’s homicide on you.”
“That’s crazy! I had no motive. I didn’t even know that guy.”
“Turns out his name is Ronald Anders. Arrested on the eleventh of November for possession and sale of a controlled substance and illegal possession of firearms. Failed to appear in court two weeks later. Recovery never made…until last night. Guess who his bondsman is?”
“Vinnie.”
“Yes.”
Direct hit to the brain. No one had said anything to me about the FTA, including Morelli.
The doughnuts were sitting heavy in my stomach. “How about Morelli? Does Morelli want to charge me?”
Gazarra stuffed the paper coffee cups and napkins into a bag and carted it all off to the kitchen. “I don’t know. I’m short on details. What I know is that you might want to get your ducks in a row just in case.”
We faced each other at the door.
“You’re a good friend,” I said to Gazarra.
“Yeah,” Gazarra said. “I know.”
I closed and locked the door behind him and leaned my forehead against the doorjamb. The backs of my eyeballs hurt and the pain radiated out to the rest of my skull. If ever there was a time for clear thought, this was it, and here I was without a clear thought in my head. I stood a few minutes longer trying to think, but no wondrous revelations, no brilliant deductions burst into my consciousness. After a while I suspected I’d been dozing.
I was debating taking a shower when there was a loud rap on the door. I rolled my eye to the peephole and looked out. Joe Morelli.
Shit.
CHAPTER 5
“Open the door,” Morelli said. “I know you’re in there. I can hear you breathing.”
I figured that was a big fat lie because I’d stopped breathing with the first rap of his knuckles.
Morelli knocked on the door again. “Come on, Stephanie,” he said. “Your car’s in the lot. I know you’re home.”
Mr. Wolesky, across the hall, opened his door. “What, you never heard of people in the shower? People sleeping? People going for a walk? I’m trying to watch some TV here. You keep making noise I’m gonna call the cops.”
Morelli gave Mr. Wolesky a look that sent Mr. Wolesky scurrying back into his apartment. SLAM, click, click.
Morelli moved out of sight, and I waited with my eye glued to the peephole. I heard the elevator doors open and close, and then everything was quiet. Reprieve. Morelli was leaving.
I didn’t know what Morelli wanted, and it seemed prudent not to find out—just in case it involved arresting me. I ran to my bedroom window, looked through the slit between the curtains and peeked down at the parking lot. I watched Morelli leave the building and get into an unmarked car.
I continued to watch, but nothing happened. He wasn’t leaving. It looked like he was talking on his car phone. A few minutes went by, and my phone rang. Gosh, I thought, I wonder who that could be? On the odd chance it might be Morelli I let the machine pick it up. No message was left. I looked down into the lot. Morelli wasn’t on his phone anymore. He was just sitting there, staking out the building.
I took a fast shower, dressed in clean clothes, fed Rex and went back to the window to check on Morelli. Still there. Rats.
I dialed Ranger’s number.
“Yo,” Ranger answered.
“It’s Stephanie.”
“I have something that belongs to you.”
“That’s a relief,” I said, “but that’s not my most pressing problem. I’ve got Joe Morelli sitting out in my parking lot.”
“He coming or going?”
“There’s a small chance he might want to arrest me.”
“Not a good way to start the day, babe.”
“I think I can get out the front door without being seen. Can you meet me at Bessie’s in half an hour?”
“Be there,” Ranger said.
I disconnected, called the office and asked for Lula.
“Your nickel,” Lula said.
“It’s Stephanie,” I told her. “I need a ride.”
“Oh boy. Is this more bounty hunter shit?”
“Yeah,” I said. “This is bounty hunter shit. I want you to pick me up at my front door in ten minutes. I don’t want you to park in the lot. I want you to cruise by the front of the building until you see me standing on the curb.”
I blasted my hair with the dryer and did another take-a-look at Morelli. No change. He had to be freezing. Fiftee
n minutes more, and he’d be back in the building. I zipped myself into my jacket, grabbed my big shoulder bag and took the stairs to the first floor. I quickly crossed the small lobby and exited the front door.
There was no sign of Lula, so I huddled with my back to the building, crunched down inside my coat. Hard to believe Morelli would be here to arrest me, but stranger things have been known to happen. Innocent people were accused of crimes every day. More likely Morelli wanted to do another question session. I couldn’t get excited about that either.
I heard Lula before I saw her. To be more specific, I felt the vibrations in the soles of my feet and against my rib cage. The Firebird slid to a stop in front of me, Lula’s head bobbing in time to the music, lips moving to the beat. Boombaba boombaba.
I jumped in next to her and motioned to take off. The Firebird sprang to life and rocketed into the stream of traffic.
“Where we going?” Lula shouted.
I adjusted the volume. “Bessie’s. I’m meeting Ranger.”
“Your Buick on the blink too?”
“The Buick is fine. It’s my life that’s on the blink. Did you hear about the homicide at Uncle Mo’s last night?”
“You mean that you aced Ronald Anders? Sure I heard. Everybody heard.”
“I didn’t ace him! I was knocked out. Someone killed him while I was unconscious.”
“Sure. That’s what’s going around, but I figured…you know, dead or alive, right?”
“Wrong!”
“All right, all right. No cause to go PMS. How come you need a ride to Bessie’s?”
“Joe Morelli is camped out in my parking lot, waiting to talk to me, and I don’t want to be talked to.”
“I guess I could understand that. He got one fine ass, but he’s a cop all the same.”
Bessie’s was a coffee and doughnut shop around the corner from the Social Security offices. It was a scruffy little place with dusty floors and dirty windows, and it was always packed with the chronically unemployed and with worker drones from Social Security. It was the perfect place to get a cheap cup of terrible coffee and to fade away into the huddled masses.
Lula dropped me at the curb, cranked the noise level back to deafening and rumbled off. I elbowed my way to the back of the shop where Ranger was waiting. He had the last stool at the counter with his back to the wall. I never asked how he consistently managed to procure such a position. Sometimes it’s best not to know these things.
I took the stool next to him, raising an eyebrow at the coffee and cruller on the counter. “Thought you weren’t into internal pollution,” I said. Lately Ranger’d been on a health food thing.
“Props,” Ranger told me. “Didn’t want to look out of place.”
I didn’t want to burst his fantasy bubble, but the only time Ranger wouldn’t look out of place would be standing in a lineup between Rambo and Batman.
“I have a problem,” I said to Ranger. “I think I’m in over my head.”
“Babe, you’ve been in over your head since the first day I met you.”
I ordered coffee and waited for my cup to arrive. “It’s different this time. I might be a suspect in a homicide investigation. The guy on Mo’s floor was Ronald Anders. One of Vinnie’s skips.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I went to Uncle Mo’s to look around.”
“Hold it,” Ranger said. “You break into the store?”
“Well, sort of. I had a key. But I guess technically it was an illegal entry.”
“That’s cool.”
“Anyway, I was in the store, and I saw someone pass by the front window, so I went to the back door to leave. Before I could get out I heard footsteps, and then someone trying the lock. I hid in the bathroom. The back door opened and closed. The cellar door opened and closed. And then the door to the bathroom opened, and I was eyeball to eyeball with some big, pissed-off, Rasta-type guy who threw me against the wall and knocked me out. When I came around the guy was dead. What does this mean?”
“It means after you got knocked out someone else arrived and shot Ronald Anders,” Ranger said.
“Who? Who would do that?”
We looked at each other, knowing we were both considering the same possibility. Mo.
“Nah,” I said. “Impossible.”
Ranger shrugged.
“That’s a ridiculous idea,” I told Ranger. “Mo isn’t the sort of man who goes around shooting people.”
“Who else could have shot Anders?”
“Anyone.”
“That narrows it down.” Ranger slid a five onto the counter and stood. “I’ll see what I can find.”
“My gun?”
He transferred my .38 from his pocket to my shoulder bag. “Not going to do you much good if you don’t put bullets in it.”
“One more thing,” I said. “Could you give me a ride to the office?”
Connie came out of her chair when I blew through the door. “Are you okay? Lula said you actually got knocked out last night.”
“Yes, I’m okay. Yes, I got knocked out. No, I didn’t kill Ronald Anders.”
Vinnie popped out of his office. “Christ, look who’s here,” he said. “The bounty hunter from hell. I suppose you want your recovery money for whacking Anders.”
“I didn’t whack Anders!” I shouted.
“Yeah, right,” Vinnie said. “Whatever. Just next time try not to shoot your FTA in the back. It doesn’t look good.”
I gave Vinnie a hand gesture, but he was already back in his office with the door closed.
“Details,” Connie said, leaning forward, eyes wide. “I want to know everything.”
Truth is, there wasn’t much to tell, but I went through the routine one more time.
When I was done Lula gave a disgusted sigh. “That’s a pretty lame story,” she said. “Cops gonna be after you like flies on a bad bean pie.”
“Let me get this straight,” Connie said. “You never saw the killer. You didn’t smell him or hear him. In fact, you haven’t got a teeny-tiny clue who he could be.”
“I know the killer came from outside,” I said. “And I think Ronald Anders knew the killer. I think Anders let the killer into the store and then turned his back on him.”
“A partner?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe it was Old Penis Nose,” Lula said. “Maybe Ronald Anders ran a tab and couldn’t pay for his Snickers bars, so our man popped him.”
“That’s disgusting,” Connie said. “That’s not even funny.”
“Hunh,” Lula said. “You got a better idea?”
“Yeah,” Connie said, “my idea is that you better get to work instead of saying dumb things about Uncle Mo.”
“I’d like to get to work,” I said, “but I don’t know what to do. I’m at a total dead end. I’m a failure as a bounty hunter.”
“You’re not a failure,” Connie said. “You got an apprehension this week. You got Ronald Anders.”
“He was dead!”
“Hey, that’s the way it goes sometimes.” Connie pulled a stack of manila folders from her bottom drawer. “It’s just that you’re stalled on Mo. You should keep working other cases.” She slid a folder from the top of the stack and flipped it open. “Here’s a good one. Leroy Watkins. Came in yesterday, and I haven’t given it out yet. You could have it if you want.”
“He isn’t cute, is he?” I asked Connie. “My image is at an all-time low. I’m not taking on any more cases where the FTA is Mr. Popularity.”
“I know Leroy,” Lula said. “Everybody call him Snake on account of his dick is…”
I squinched my eyes closed. “Don’t tell me.” I looked over at Connie. “What’d Leroy do to get himself arrested?”
“Tried to sell some dope to a narc.”
“He ever resist arrest?” I asked.
“Not that I know of,” Connie said. “There’s nothing on his charge sheet about shooting cops.”
I took the file from Connie. If L
eroy Watkins was certifiably ugly I might take a crack at it. I flipped to the photo. Yow! He was ugly, all right.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll see if I can find him.” I glanced over at Connie. “There isn’t anything else I should know, is there? Like, was he armed when arrested?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Connie said. “A forty-five, a twenty-two and a seven-inch blade.”
My voice pitched to incredulity. “Two guns and a knife? Forget it! What do I look like, a suicide waiting to happen?”
We were all quiet for a minute while we considered my chances of success.
“I could go with you,” Lula said. “We could be discreet.”
Discreet? Lula?
“You think he’s dangerous?” Connie asked Lula.
“He ain’t no Boy Scout. Don’t know if he’d want to shoot us, though. Probably he’s just FTA so he could stay on the street and make maximum profit before getting locked down. I know his woman, Shirlene. We could go talk to her.”
Talk to his woman. That sounded reasonable. I thought I might be able to handle that. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll give it a try.”
Shirlene lived in a third-floor walk-up at the southern end of Stark Street. The cement stoop was littered with globules of rock salt that had eaten their way through yesterday’s ice, leaving a doily of frozen gray slush. The front door to the building was weathered and stood ajar. The small inside hall was steeped in frigid damp.
“Feels like a meat locker in here,” I said.
Lula snorted. “That’s what it is, all right…a meat locker. Plain and simple. That’s the trouble with Stark Street. It’s all one big meat locker.”
We were both panting by the time we got to the third floor.
“I’ve got to get in better shape,” I said to Lula. “I’ve got to join a gym or something.”
“I’m in plenty good shape,” Lula said. “It’s the altitude that gets me. If it wasn’t for the altitude I wouldn’t be breathing hard at all.” She stared at Shirlene’s door. “What are we gonna do if Snake’s at home? I figure I should ask, being that you don’t like violence except when you’re out cold.”
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