I parked on Ferris Street, got out of the car and sashayed up the sidewalk to Steeger’s front porch. I gave the door a couple authoritative knocks and stood back.
Mrs. Steeger opened the door and looked me over. “Are you carrying a gun? I don’t want you in my house if you’re carrying a gun.”
“I’m not carrying a gun,” I said. Lie number one. I told myself it was all right to lie since Mrs. Steeger expected it. In fact, she’d probably be disappointed if I told the truth. And hell, I wouldn’t want to disappoint Mrs. Steeger.
She led the way into the living room, seated herself in a club chair and motioned me to a corresponding chair on the other side of the coffee table.
The room was compulsively neat, and it occurred to me that Mrs. Steeger had retired while still vital and now had nothing better to do than to polish the polish. Windows were trimmed with white sheers and heavy flowered drapes. Furniture was boxy. Fabric and rug were sensible browns and tans. Mahogany end tables, a dark cherry rocker. Two white Lenox swan nut dishes sat side by side on the coffee table. Nut dishes without nuts. I had a feeling Mrs. Steeger didn’t get a lot of company.
She sat there for a moment, poised on the edge of her seat, probably wondering if she was required by burg etiquette to offer me refreshments. I saved her the decision by immediately going into my spiel. I emphasized the fact that Mo was in danger now. He’d put a dent in the pharmaceutical profit margin and not everyone was pleased. Relatives of dead people were unhappy. The pharmaceutical management was bound to be unhappy. Users and abusers were unhappy.
“And Mo isn’t good at this,” I added. “He isn’t a professional hit man.” Even as I said it a little voice was whispering…eight bodies. How many does it take to make a professional?
I rose and handed Mrs. Steeger my card before she could quiz me on state capitals or ask me to write a book report on John Quincy Adams, Biography of a Statesman.
Mrs. Steeger held my card between two fingers. The way you do when you’re afraid of cootie contamination. “Just exactly what is it you want me to do?”
“I’d like to talk to Mo. See if I can work something out. Get him back into the system before he gets hurt.”
“You want him to call you.”
“Yes.”
“If I hear from him again I’ll pass the message.”
I extended my hand. “Thank you.”
End of visit.
Neither of us had mentioned the incident in the store. This subject was way beyond our comfort zone. Mrs. Steeger hadn’t discovered I was lying about the gun and hadn’t threatened to send me to the principal’s office, so I considered the entire session a rousing success.
I thought it wouldn’t hurt to revisit some neighboring houses. Hopefully the climate would be more receptive now that bodies had been discovered in Mo’s basement.
Dorothy Rostowski seemed a good place to start. I knocked on her door and waited while kids shouted inside.
Dorothy appeared with a spoon in her hand. “Making supper,” she said. “You want to come in?”
“Thanks, but I’ve only got a minute. I just wanted to let you know I’m still looking for Mo Bedemier.”
I felt the climate shift, and Dorothy’s husband came to stand at her side.
“There are a lot of people in this community who’d prefer Mo wasn’t found,” Rostowski said.
My stomach clenched and for a chilling moment I thought he might pull out a gun or a knife or light up a cigarette and threaten me. My mind raced back to the phone call that had lured me to the candy store. Would I have recognized Dorothy’s voice on the phone? Would I have recognized Mrs. Molinowsky’s niece, Joyce, or Loretta Beeber, or my cousin Marjorie? And who were those men who were prepared to burn me and possibly kill me? Fathers of kids like these? Neighbors? Schoolmates? Maybe one of them had been Dorothy’s husband.
“What we’d really like is for all this to be over, so Mo could come back and reopen the store,” Dorothy said. “The kids miss him.”
I had a hard time hiding my astonishment. “Mo’s suspected of killing eight men!”
“Drug dealers,” Dorothy said.
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“It makes it better than okay. Mo should get a medal.”
“Killing people is wrong.”
Dorothy looked down at the floor, studying a spot just in front of her toe. Her voice dropped. “Theoretically I know that’s true, but I’m fed up with the drugs and the crime. If Mo wants to take matters in his own hands, I’m not going to rain on his parade.”
“I don’t suppose you’d call me if you saw Mo in the neighborhood?”
“Don’t suppose I would,” Dorothy said, still avoiding my eyes.
I crossed the street to talk to Mrs. Bartle.
She met me at the door with her arms crossed over her chest. Not good body language, I thought, taking a mental step backward.
“Is this about Mo?” she asked. “Because I’m going to tell you up front if he was running for president I’d be right there with my vote. It’s about time somebody did something about the drug problem in this country.”
“He’s suspected of killing eight men!”
“Too bad it isn’t more. Get rid of every last one of them dope pushers.”
On the way home I stopped in to see Connie and Lula. Connie was at her desk. Lula was out like a light on the couch.
“She had a tough morning,” I said to Connie. “Went running with Ranger and me. Then she got drilled with special sauce by a chicken.”
“So I hear.”
Lula opened an eye. “Hmmph.” She opened the other eye and took in the suit. “What are you all dressed up for?”
“Business. It’s a disguise.”
“How’s the Mo hunt going?” Connie wanted to know.
“Picking up. Ranger got his car back.”
This got Lula to her feet. “Say what?”
I told them about the two visits to Mrs. Steeger. Then I told them about Ranger’s office.
“You see,” Lula said. “Just like Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne had an office.”
Connie gave Lula one of her “what the hell are you talking about” looks, so Lula explained her Ranger is a superhero theory.
“First off,” Connie said, “Bruce Wayne is Batman, and Batman isn’t actually a superhero. Batman’s just some neurotic guy in a rubber suit. You have to get nuked or come from another planet to be a real superhero.”
“Batman’s got his own comic book,” Lula said.
Connie wasn’t impressed with this logic. “Donald Duck has his own comic book. You think Donald Duck is a superhero?”
“What’s the office like?” Lula asked. “Does he have a secretary?”
“No secretary,” I said. “It’s a one-person office with a desk and a couple chairs.”
“We should go over there and snoop around,” Lula said. “See what we can find.”
Anyone snooping around Ranger’s private space would have to have a death wish. “Not a good idea,” I told Lula. “Not only would he kill us, but it’s also not a nice thing to do. He’s not the enemy.”
Lula didn’t look convinced. “That’s all true, but I’d still like to snoop.”
“You don’t really think he’s a superhero,” Connie said to Lula. “You think he’s hot.”
“Damn skippy I do,” Lula said. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t hiding something. The man has secrets, I’m telling you.”
Connie leaned forward. “Secrets could mean lots of things. He could be wanted for murder in twelve states and have assumed a new identity. Even better…he could be gay.”
“I don’t want to think about him being gay,” Lula said. “Seems like anymore, all the buff bodies are gay, and all the bad-smelling, rangy men are straight. I find out Ranger’s gay and I’m going straight to the freezer section at Shop & Bag. Only men you can count on these days is Ben and Jerry.”
Connie and I nodded sympathetically. Used to be I wo
rried about losing my boyfriends to Joyce Barnhardt. Now I had to worry about losing them to her brother, Kevin.
I was curious about Ranger, but I wasn’t nearly as curious as Lula. I had bigger fish to fry. I had to find Mo. I had to get my pickup. I had to nail down Joe Morelli’s sudden disinterest in me. I was pretty sure it didn’t have to do with a shortage of Y chromosomes.
I backtracked to my parents’ house, recruited my father to drive the Buick home and zipped off to the garage.
My father didn’t say anything on the trip over, but his thoughts were vibrating off the top of his head.
“I know,” I said, testily. “I wouldn’t be having this trouble if I’d bought a Buick.”
The Nissan was parked in a numbered slot in the lot. My father and I cut our eyes to it in silent suspicion.
“You want me to wait?” my father asked.
“Not necessary.”
My father cruised off. We’d done this routine before.
Ernie, the service manager, was in the little office attached to the warehouse of bays. He saw me on line and stepped from behind the counter, took my keys from a hook on the wall and pulled my bill. “You talked to Slick about the carburetor?”
“Yes.”
Ernie smiled. “We like to keep our customers happy. Don’t want you going away without a full explanation.”
I was so happy I was practically suicidal. If I had to spend any more time talking to Slick, I was going to slit my throat.
“I’m in sort of a hurry,” I said, passing Ernie my credit card. Another lie. I had absolutely nothing to do. I was all dressed up with nowhere to go.
If I was a hotshot detective I’d park myself in a van a couple houses down from the candy store, and I’d watch Mrs. Steeger. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a hotshot detective. I didn’t have a van. I couldn’t afford to buy one. I couldn’t afford to rent one. And since everyone in the burg was so nosy, a van probably wouldn’t work anyway.
Just for kicks I drove by Morelli’s house. Sort of test-driving the pickup. Morelli’s car was parked at the curb, and lights were on inside the house. I eased up behind the 4x4 and cut the engine. I checked myself out in the rearview mirror. When a person has orange hair it’s best to appraise it in the dark.
“Well, what the hell,” I said.
By the time I knocked on Morelli’s front door my heart was doing little flutter things in my chest.
Morelli opened the door and grimaced. “If you have another dead guy in your car I don’t want to hear about it.”
“This is a social call.”
“Even worse.”
The chest flutterings stopped. “What kind of a crack is that?”
“It’s nothing. Forget it. You look frozen. Where’s your coat?”
I stepped into the foyer. “I didn’t wear a coat. It was warmer when I started out this afternoon.”
I followed Morelli back to the kitchen and watched while he filled a cordial glass with amber liquid.
“Here,” he said, handing the glass over. “Fastest way to get warm.”
I took a sniff. “What is it?”
“Schnapps. My uncle Lou makes it in his cellar.”
I tried a teeny taste and my tongue went numb. “I don’t know…”
Morelli raised eyebrows. “Chicken?”
“I don’t see you drinking this stuff.”
Morelli took the glass from my hand and tossed the contents down his throat. He refilled the glass and gave it back to me. “Your turn, Cupcake.”
“To the Pope,” I said and drained the glass.
“Well?” Morelli asked. “What do you think?”
I did some coughing and openmouthed wheezing. My throat burned, and liquid fire roiled in my stomach and shot through to every extremity. My scalp started to sweat, and my vagina went into spasm. “Pretty good,” I finally said to Morelli.
“Want another?”
I shook my finger in a no motion. “Maybe later.”
“What’s with the suit?”
I told him about Ranger’s car, and about my second trip to speak to Mrs. Steeger. I told him about Dorothy Rostowski and Mrs. Bartle.
“People are nuts,” Morelli said. “Freaking nuts.”
“So why don’t you want this to be a social visit?”
“Forget it.”
“It’s the hair, isn’t it?”
“It’s not the hair.”
“You’re secretly married?”
“I’m not secretly anything.”
“Well then, what? What?”
“It’s you. You’re a walking disaster. A man would have to be a total masochist to be interested in you.”
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe I will have another schnapps.”
He poured two out, and we both threw them back. It was easier this time. Less fire. More glow.
“I’m not a walking disaster,” I said. “I can’t imagine why you think that.”
“Every time I get social with you I end up all by myself, naked, in the middle of the street.”
I rolled my eyes. “That only happened once…and you weren’t naked. You were wearing socks and a shirt.”
“I was speaking figuratively. If you want to get specific, what about the time you locked me in a freezer truck with three corpses? What about the time you ran over me with the Buick?”
I threw my hands into the air. “Oh sure, bring up the Buick.”
He shook his head, disgusted like. “You’re impossible. You’re not worth the effort.”
I curled my fingers into the front of his T-shirt and hauled him closer. “Not even in your dreams could you imagine how impossible I can be.”
We were toe to toe with my breasts skimming his chest, our eyes locked.
“I’ll drink to that,” Morelli said.
The third schnapps went down smooth as silk. I gave the empty glass to Morelli and licked my lips.
Morelli watched the lip licking, and his eyes darkened and his breathing slowed.
Aha! I thought. This was more like it. Got him interested with the old lip-licking routine.
“Shit,” Morelli said. “You did that on purpose.”
I smiled. Then he smiled.
It looked to me like his “gotcha” smile. Like the cat that just caught the canary. Like I’d been had…again.
Then he closed the space between us, took my face in his hands and kissed me.
The kisses got hotter, and I got hotter and Morelli got hotter. And pretty soon we were all so hot that we needed to get rid of some clothes.
We were half undressed when Morelli suggested we go upstairs.
“Hmmm,” I said with lowered eyelids. “What sort of a girl do you think I am?”
Morelli murmured his thoughts on the subject and removed my bra. His hand covered my bare breast, and his fingers played with the tip. “Do you like this?” he asked, gently rolling the nipple between thumb and forefinger.
I pressed my lips together to keep from sinking my teeth into his shoulder.
He tried another variation of the nipple roll. “How about this?”
Oh yeah. That too.
Morelli kissed me again, and next thing we were down on the linoleum floor fumbling with zippers and panty hose.
His finger traced a tiny circle on my silk-and-lace panties, directly over ground zero. My brain went numb, and my body said, YES!
Morelli moved lower and performed the same maneuver with the tip of his tongue, once again finding the perfect spot without benefit of treasure map or detailed instructions.
Now this was a superhero.
I was on the verge of singing the Hallelujah Chorus when something crashed outside the kitchen window. Morelli picked his head up and listened. There were some scuffling sounds, and Morelli was on his feet, pulling his jeans on. He had his gun in his hand when he opened the back door.
I was right behind him, my shirt held together by a single button, my panty hose draped over a kitchen chair, my gun drawn. “What is it?” I ask
ed.
He shook his head. “I don’t see anything.”
“Cats?”
“Maybe. The garbage is tipped over. Maybe it was my neighbor’s dog.”
I put a hand to the wall to steady myself. “Uh-oh,” I said.
“What uh-oh?”
“I don’t know how to break this to you, but the floor is moving. Either we’re having an earthquake, or else I’m drunk.”
“You only had three schnapps!”
“I’m not much of a drinker. And I didn’t have supper.”
My voice sounded like it was resonating from a tin can, far far away.
“Oh boy,” Morelli said. “How drunk are you?”
I blinked and squinted at him. He had four eyes. I hated when that happened. “You have four eyes.”
“That’s not a good sign.”
“Maybe I should go home now,” I said. Then I threw up.
I woke up with a blinding headache and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I was wearing a flannel nightshirt, which I dimly remembered crawling into. I was pretty sure I was alone at the time, although the evening was fuzzy from the third schnapps on.
What I clearly remembered was that a Morelli-induced orgasm had once again eluded me. And I was fairly certain Morelli hadn’t fared any better.
He’d done the responsible thing and had insisted I sober up some before I went home. We’d logged a couple miles in the cold air. He’d poured coffee into me, force-fed me scrambled eggs and toast, and then he’d driven me to my apartment building. He’d delivered me to my door, and I think he said good night before the nightshirt crawling-into.
I shuffled into the kitchen, got some coffee going and used it to wash down aspirin. I took a shower, drank a glass of orange juice, brushed my teeth three times. I took a peek at myself in the mirror and groaned. Black circles under bloodshot eyes, pasty hungover skin. Not a nice picture. “Stephanie,” I said, “you’re no good at drinking.”
The headache disappeared at midmorning. By noon I was feeling almost human. I took myself into the kitchen and was standing in front of the refrigerator, staring at the crisper drawer, contemplating the creation of the universe, when the phone rang.
My first thought was that it might be Morelli. My second thought was that I definitely didn’t want to talk to him. Let the machine take the message, I decided.
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