Hardcore Twenty-Four

by Janet Evanovich

  “I’ll stun-gun her.”

  “Say what?”

  “I’ll zap Ethel with my stun gun, load her into the back of the SUV, and take her home to Diggery’s double-wide.”

  “Are you nuts?”

  “It could work.”

  “What about salmonella?” Lula said. “You could get salmonella from touching a snake.”

  “I have hand sanitizer in my messenger bag.”

  SEVEN

  LULA WAS ON the alert when I turned onto Pilkman.

  “There’s three women standing on the sidewalk on the next block,” she said. “I’m guessing they’re snake watching.”

  I parked near the women, and Lula and I got out. A huge snake was curled up on a patch of grass that served as front yard to a modest bungalow.

  “What do you think?” I asked Lula. “Is that Ethel?”

  “Hard to tell,” Lula said. “Last I saw her she was draped in a tree.”

  “It’s a boa,” one of the women said. “We looked it up.”

  “Have you ever seen this snake around here before?” I asked her. “Does anyone in this neighborhood own a snake?”

  Everyone shook their head. No one had seen the snake before today.

  “Hey! Ethel!” Lula shouted at the snake.

  We all took a step closer and looked to see if there was any response.

  “It opened an eye,” Lula said. “That’s Ethel all right.”

  “Is Ethel your snake?” the woman asked.

  “She belongs to someone we know,” Lula said. “And Stephanie here is responsible for bringing her home.”

  “It’s an awfully big snake,” one of the other women said.

  “Yeah, but Stephanie’s got a plan,” Lula said. “She’s gonna load Ethel into the back of her car. I know that Mercedes looks like a luxury vehicle, but it’s got some muscle, and if we keep Ethel all curled up, we’re pretty sure she’ll fit.”

  My heart was beating with a sickening thud. I was terrified of Ethel. And I was repulsed at the thought of touching her.

  Okay, I told myself. Attitude adjustment needed. She’s a pet. She’s had a big adventure, and she’ll be happy to go home. And she doesn’t look hungry, so that’s a good thing. Most likely she’s just eaten a beagle, and she’s feeling sleepy. No reason to be afraid. And probably she feels good to the touch. You wouldn’t have a problem if she was a pair of cowboy boots, right?

  I inched closer, telling myself to stay calm. I circled around to Ethel’s tail and took a deep breath. I reached down to touch her, and she tensed, raised her head, and looked at me. I stumbled back and paused for a moment, relieved that I hadn’t soiled myself.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t get so close,” one of the women said. “Maybe you should wait for animal control.”

  “No worries,” Lula said. “Stephanie knows what she’s doing. Besides, Ethel’s just saying hello.”

  Ethel was uncurling and moving toward me, eyes wide open, forked tongue out. I didn’t see any lumps in her body that would indicate the presence of an undigested beagle, and I was thinking I might be wrong about her not being hungry. I had pepper spray in one hand and my stun gun in my other hand, and I had no idea if either would have any effect on a boa.

  “You grab her, and I’ll go open the back door,” Lula said.

  “Here’s the deal,” I said to Ethel. “I promised Diggery I’d sort of take care of you while he was locked up. So I have to get you back to the double-wide. And that means I have to get you into my car. And that means I have to immobilize you a little. I swear to God, it’ll be okay, and after I get you home I’ll bring you a pizza. It’s the best I can do because the rats got all eaten.”

  Ethel lunged at me, and I gave her a bunch of jolts with the stun gun. She shuddered and twitched, her head hit the ground, and she didn’t move.

  “What did you do?” one of the women said. “Is she dead?”

  “She’s stunned,” I said.

  I wrapped my hands around Ethel’s tail and tried to pull her toward the car, but it was like moving a fifty-pound sandbag.

  “I need help,” I said. “I can’t move her all by myself.”

  No one came forward.

  “She’s currently on someone’s front lawn,” I said.

  A woman with short brown hair raised her hand.

  “If you want her off your lawn you’re going to have to help me move her.”

  “What the heck?” the woman said. “I have three out-of-control kids and a three-hundred-pound husband who snores like a yeti. I guess I can move a snake.”

  Everyone but Lula grabbed a piece of Ethel. We wrestled her into the back of the Mercedes and closed the door on her.

  “Appreciate the help, ladies,” I said. “I’m sure Ethel will be happy to get home.”

  I jumped behind the wheel, and Lula got in beside me.

  “That went off easy-peasy,” Lula said. “Bing bang bam. Are we a team, or what? Now all we got to do is get Ethel into the double-wide. I bet you got a plan for that too.”

  “I have hot dogs. And I promised her pizza.”

  “That would do it for me.”

  I turned onto State, drove for ten minutes, and turned onto Diggery’s road.

  “This could be a new profession for us,” Lula said. “We could be snake wranglers. I bet there’s good money in it.”

  “I think I hear some rustling in the back. Check on Ethel for me. See if she’s okay.”

  “It’s just this bumpy, crap-ass road,” Lula said. “Ethel’s sleeping like a baby.”

  “Still, just turn around and make sure.”

  “No problem. YOW! She’s awake. Lordy, she’s coming to get me. She’s going to eat me alive!”

  “Don’t panic. Take my stun gun and give her another shot of electric.”

  “Let me out. Stop the car.”

  In my peripheral vision, I saw a snake head slither over Lula’s shoulder.

  “YOW!” Lula shrieked, flailing her arms. “Let me out of here!”

  Lula jumped out of the moving car. The snake slid onto the floor and over my foot. I went into a freak-out, the SUV veered off the road, and I crashed into an outhouse that belonged to one of the yurt people. I fought my way free of the inflated airbag, opened my door, tumbled out, and the snake zigzagged over me and disappeared into the woods.

  I lay there for a full minute, struggling to breathe, before Lula gave me a hand-up and pulled me to my feet.

  “This stinks,” Lula said.

  “I know. The snake got away.”

  “No. I mean it really stinks. You trashed an outhouse.”

  The entire front end of the Mercedes was bashed in, and the SUV was resting on the outhouse remains. Both the outhouse and the SUV were leaking. I rescued my messenger bag from the car and called Ranger.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” I said. “There was a snake in the car.”

  “Babe, you’ve had the car for less than two hours.”

  Lula was backing away, holding her nose and fanning the air.

  “If you’re sending someone to take care of this you’ll want to send him in a hazmat suit,” I said to Ranger. “I sort of ran over an outhouse.”

  There was silence on the other end.

  “Hello?” I said. “Are you still there? Do I hear you laughing?”

  “You never disappoint,” Ranger said.

  An hour later, Lula was loaded into a Rangeman SUV and shuttled off to the office. The Mercedes was winched onto a flatbed tow truck. And Ranger and I were in his Cayenne, watching Ethel follow the newly laid out trail of hot dogs that led into Diggery’s double-wide. When all of Ethel was inside, I ran to the door, told her I’d be back with her pizza, and locked her in.

  “Finally,” I said to Ranger. “Success.”

  “I was
thinking the same thing. You owe me a night.”

  “Maybe not. The car might not be totaled.”

  “Babe, you rolled it over an outhouse.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d want to give me another chance?”

  Ranger smiled. “Double or nothing.”

  “Deal.”

  EIGHT

  RANGER DROVE ME home and parked in the lot behind my building.

  “Diesel is still there,” Ranger said, looking up at my second-floor apartment windows.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  “What’s this strange connection between the two of you?”

  “There’s no connection,” Ranger said. “We’ve crossed paths.”

  “You don’t like him.”

  Ranger studied me for a beat. “I understand him. I know who he is.”

  “He’s like you,” I said.

  “In some ways.”

  “That’s pretty scary right there.”

  Ranger leaned in and kissed me. “You have no idea.”

  I left Ranger and trudged off to my apartment. Diesel was sprawled on the couch when I walked in.

  “I’m taking a shower,” I said on my way to the bathroom.

  “Good move,” Diesel said. “You smell like an outhouse.”

  I stopped and looked at him.

  “Lucky guess,” Diesel said.

  “How’s the disturbance in the force? Is it getting better?”

  “It’s getting worse.”

  I gave up a sigh and locked myself in the bathroom. I stuffed my clothes into a plastic trash bag, shampooed my hair three times, and stepped out of the shower feeling like a new woman. I got dressed, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and set out to start my day . . . again.

  Diesel was gone when I walked out of the bedroom. No doubt he was skulking around somewhere, checking on the force. I made myself another peanut butter sandwich and looked out my living room window, down at the parking lot. There were two black SUVs idling near the building’s back door. One was clearly a Rangeman vehicle. The other was smaller. Hard to tell the make from my vantage point. A Rangeman guy stood by the smaller car. I grabbed my messenger bag and went downstairs.

  “From Ranger,” the Rangeman guy said, handing me the key.

  It was a Lexus NX 330 F Sport. Shiny new. Didn’t smell like an outhouse. I got behind the wheel, and Ranger’s men drove off. My plan was to retrieve Lula from the bonds office, take a pizza to Ethel, and hunt down Johnny Chucci.

  Lula was pacing when I got to the office.

  “I’ve got the creeps,” she said. “I feel like I’m being followed. Like someone’s spying on me.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lula said. “It’s just one of them feelings.”

  Connie looked at me and rolled her eyes. This was just short of making one of those circular motions with your finger alongside your head to signify crazy.

  “Maybe you’re hungry,” I said to Lula. “I promised Ethel I’d bring her a pizza. We could get one for you too.”

  “I’d never refuse a pizza,” Lula said. “Especially if it was a Pino’s pizza.”

  Twenty minutes later I was on my way to Diggery’s. Lula had a pizza with the works in a box on her lap, and there was a sausage and extra cheese on the back seat for Ethel. I had her figured for a meat lover.

  “I’m feeling better already,” Lula said, selecting a second piece. “I don’t know what came over me. It was like my skin was crawling. You ever get that? I mean, I’m not necessarily a nervous person. I don’t have any of them panic attacks, so this was weird. I just knew something was wrong.”

  “But it’s not wrong now?”

  “Not so much. I’m settling in with the pizza. You could always count on melted cheese to have a calming effect.”

  I turned onto Diggery’s road and cringed when I passed the demolished outhouse. Not one of my finer moments.

  “It was a lucky break that Ethel decided to go home,” Lula said. “I have to tell you until that happened I wasn’t sure it was Ethel.”

  And it was still possible that it wasn’t Ethel. The only thing I knew for certain was that the snake liked hot dogs.

  I parked close to Diggery’s front door and did a fast scan for snakes and zombies. I didn’t see either, so I gave the pizza to the snake in residence and took off.

  “I suppose we’ll go looking for Zero Slick now,” Lula said. “How do you think he came up with a name like that?”

  “Maybe that’s the way he thinks of himself. Zero slickness.”

  “That might indicate low self-esteem. He could be a man trying to find himself. He could be a victim of bullying at a young age. Or maybe he doesn’t want to be one of those phony slick guys. Maybe he’s saying he’s real. If you look at it that way he could be attractively manly.”

  “He didn’t look attractively manly when he hit me with his sign. He looked like a brainless jerk.”

  “You got a point. And he was insulting about my abundant body. He might be losing some of his appeal for me.”

  My plan was to walk the streets surrounding the building Slick destroyed. This was an area of mostly office buildings with occasional ground-floor shops. There was a church nearby that gave out sandwiches to the homeless every day at noon. A small group of men and women never left the area around the church. They moved about like pack animals, sleeping in doorways. Some were crazy because they were off their meds, and others were crazy because they were overmedicated. I thought I’d show Slick’s photo to the crazies, the shopkeepers, and the loiterers and see if anyone had seen him.

  I approached the burned-out building and saw the flashing lights of police cruisers a block away.

  “Looks like something’s going on at the homeless church,” Lula said. “Maybe it’s a wedding.”

  “Looks more like a crime scene. There’s a CSI truck and the ME’s truck stuck in with the cruisers. And it looks like Morelli’s SUV is parked off to the side.”

  I pulled to the curb, Lula and I got out, and walked to the church. A couple uniforms were standing hands-on-hips by the cars, but most of the activity was in the back alley. I could see yellow crime scene tape cordoning off an area. Morelli was there, watching the CSI techs work around what I suspected was a body. I ducked under the tape and walked over to Morelli, standing with my back to the body, not anxious to see the victim.

  “What’s going on?” I asked him.

  “One of the church volunteers came out with trash from lunch and found a homeless man stretched out next to the dumpster. He was one of the regulars who lived on the street.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yep.”

  I was afraid to ask. “Headless?”

  “No,” Morelli said. “He still had his head, but someone drilled a hole in the skull, and it appears that the brain might have gotten sucked out. Won’t know for sure until the autopsy.”

  A wave of nausea slid through my stomach, and I went light-headed for a moment.

  “Are you okay?” Morelli asked.

  “No. I’m not okay. That’s horrible.”

  “At least they left the head this time. Makes my job easier.”

  “Do you have any leads on this?”

  “Not a one,” Morelli said.

  “Lula thinks it’s zombies.”

  “Okay, so now I have one lead. Does she have an address for the zombies?”

  “They originally came from the cemetery on Morley Street, but I’m not sure where they’re hanging out now.”

  “Well, that’s a start. I’ll check out Morley Street.”

  I grimaced and looked at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Yes. I’m kidding. There’s some psycho nutjob out there collecting cadaver brains.”

&
nbsp; “So I’m safe as long as I’m not dead?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “I guess that’s comforting.”

  “Not to me. The department is working overtime to keep this out of the press, and the mayor is on everyone’s ass to find the idiot who’s doing it.” His expression softened, and he gently touched my cheek with his fingertip. “Your eye looks awful.”

  “Zero Slick hit me with his protest sign.”

  “He’s an asshole. Do you want me to bring him in and charge him?”

  “No. I’ll take care of it. You have your own problems.”

  “Cupcake, you’re my problem.”

  “I don’t want to be your problem. I want to be your sex goddess.”

  This got a smile out of Morelli. “You’re all that and more.”

  I gave him a small kiss and a smile. “Gotta go. Probably I won’t see you tonight?”

  “Not likely.”

  “Okeydokey then,” I said, relieved that I didn’t have to address the Diesel issue.

  Lula was waiting on the other side of the crime scene tape. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Homeless man is dead.”

  “And? There’s a lot going on for a dead homeless man.”

  “He might be missing his brain.”

  “Say what? Holy crapola. It’s the zombies, isn’t it? They came and sucked out his brain. I knew it. I could feel something was happening. I told you, right? I was creeped out. I knew they were roaming around. I bet they wanted my brain, but it wasn’t available, so they went somewhere else.”

  “Zombies aren’t on the short list for the police. They’re thinking more lunatic.”

  “They don’t know nothing. This here’s the work of zombies. Anybody could see that.”

  I didn’t know which was worse . . . a criminally insane cannibal or a hungry zombie. Hard to believe that either existed.

  “This neighborhood seems to be congested,” I said to Lula. “I’m thinking we change direction and look for Johnny Chucci.”

  “Whatever. I’m a flexible person. There’s probably zombies lurking here anyway. Now that I’m thinking about it I can feel them looking at me. You probably want to take some evasive action when you drive out of here.”