Twisted Twenty-Six (Stephanie Plum 26)

by Janet Evanovich

  I drove to the end of the street and got a bird’s-eye view of the outlet mall up on my cellphone. I moved around the area until I found something that looked like strips of offices.

  “I know where that is,” Lula said. “It’s a mix of self-storage units and office units. I was at a studio there a couple times during my short but highly acclaimed adult film career.”

  “It looks like it’s off Rosewood.”

  “Yep. There’s a whole complex between Rosewood and the highway. Must be a hundred of these little units that people use for all kinds of things.”

  I took Route One to the Rosewood exit, drove a half mile on Rosewood, and came to a sign for Rosewood Light Industries and Storage.

  “This is it,” Lula said. “It’s like a maze after you get inside the complex. You’ll have to ride up and down a bunch of dead-end streets to look for the Escalade.”

  I cruised three streets and found the Escalade on the fourth. It was parked in front of a middle unit on Avenue D. Five units on one side of it and six on the other. The entire stucco building was painted salmon. Each unit had a door. No windows. Each unit had a number, and most had plaques with names. The Escalade was in front of CJ Enterprises.

  “Lots of these are used for storage,” Lula said. “They all have roll-up garage doors in the back and there’s service roads behind them.”

  I was about to park behind the Escalade, blocking its escape, and immediately thought better of it. Been there, done that. I parked two units down, and we went to the door of CJ Enterprises. I knocked and no one answered. I tried the door. Not locked. I opened it, and Lula and I stepped in. It was basically an empty room. There was an old wooden desk and chair in the middle of the room. Some empty cardboard boxes lay in a jumble in a corner. A long folding table was against one wall. No stolen merchandise. No Carol Joyce, but the lights were on. There was an open door and a closed door next to the folding table.

  “That’s the bathroom and the utility closet,” Lula said. “It’s a pretty basic setup.”

  We crossed the room and looked in the bathroom. Sink and toilet and a double-door closet. I opened the closet and found stacks of men’s jeans.

  “They’re real nice,” Lula said. “Ralph Lauren. They’re pricey jeans. I wouldn’t be leaving them in a bathroom.”

  We heard a scuffling behind us, and the door slammed shut.

  “What the heck?” Lula said.

  I tried the doorknob. “We’re locked in.”

  “No problem,” Lula said. “I’ll shoot the shit out of this door.”

  “Where’s your gun?”

  “It’s in my purse.”

  “Where’s your purse?”

  “It’s in the car.”

  “Plan B,” I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket. “I’ll call for help.”

  “Babe,” Ranger said on the first ring.

  “I’m locked in a bathroom.”

  “And?”

  “I can’t get out. The bathroom is in the CJ Enterprises unit, Avenue D.”

  “Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “Nope. That’s it.”

  The line went dead, and I knew help was on the way.

  “This is annoying,” Lula said. “I bet it was Carol Joyce who locked us in here. I’m disliking him more all the time.”

  I checked my email and text messages, and before I had a chance to look in at Facebook, I heard footsteps and a rap on the door.

  “Anybody in there?” a male voice asked.

  “Yep,” I said. “Can you get me out?”

  “You’re padlocked in. Hang on and we’ll get the bolt cutters.”

  Five minutes later, Lula and I were set free.

  “There are some real nice men’s jeans in there,” Lula said to the two Rangeman guys. “You should check them out and see if any of them are your size. Our treat.”

  We reached my new Porsche, and “losers” was written in lipstick on the driver’s side door window.

  “Looks like the little prick hit the cosmetics counter,” Lula said. “How do you suppose he knew this was our car?”

  “It’s the only one here.”

  “He has a lot of nerve calling us losers. We might be inept at this job, but we aren’t losers. ‘Losers’ implies a whole other thing. He doesn’t know us well enough to call us losers. He could have written a lot of other stuff on the window that would apply better. For instance, he could have written ‘pussy,’ and it would be insulting but accurate, you see what I’m saying?”

  I got a tissue out of my bag and tried to wipe the lipstick away, but it turned into a big pink smear.

  “I got a wipe,” Lula said, ripping a packet open. “Best invention ever. It’s like taking a little bit of clean with you wherever you go.” She scrubbed the window and got most of the lipstick off. “Now what? I think we should try Macy’s. He likes that store.”

  “You still want to chase after this guy?”

  “You bet your ass. Just because he made fools out of us three times, don’t mean one of these times we won’t luck out. Notice he called us losers and not quitters. That’s on account of we never quit. In my mind, that’s the difference between being a loser and a winner. A winner is willing to look like a idiot for as long as it takes to get the job done. I figure you stick with it long enough and you win. Unless you die or come down with some disease like shingles or cancer of the rectum. If I ever got cancer of the rectum, I’d go to the best rectumologist out there. Like I’d get a celebrity rectumologist. I wouldn’t mess around with some local yokel.”

  “All good to know,” I said, “but I vote we take a break from Carol Joyce and go back to the office to see what Connie has for me on Sylvester Lucca.”

  “Works for me,” Lula said. “There might be some donuts left.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CONNIE HANDED ME a slim manila folder. “Not much on him,” she said. “The interesting part is that he needed money. He was living way beyond what he could afford. He was in an expensive apartment, and he had a flashy, expensive car. He was behind on his payments for both. He had three maxed-out credit cards. Two in collection.”

  “He had just the one job?”

  “Yeah. He was a trainer at Miracle Fitness.”

  “No connection to Jimmy?”

  “None that I could find. He fits the profile of a wiseguy, but I didn’t see anything that would indicate he was part of the club. I called a couple of my friends that use Miracle Fitness, and they said Lucca was a real ladies’ man. Came on to everyone. Didn’t much care about age or marital status. I guess it was generally believed he fooled around on the side with some of his clients.”

  “Do we have a list of his clients?”

  “Not exactly. He taught classes that didn’t require a sign-up. When you join Miracle Fitness you get to use the equipment and attend the classes. Some of the trainers had their own private clients, but it wasn’t done through Miracle Fitness. I gave you a copy of the Miracle membership list. I sort of hacked into their system to get it.”

  “Did you look through the list?”

  “No. I didn’t have time.”

  “We should go check this place out,” Lula said. “I always wanted to see what it was like inside. I figured it had to be good, since they had those naked statues on the outside. I even thought about joining a couple times when I wanted to tone up. It’s in a convenient location.”

  “Why didn’t you join?” I asked.

  “I figured it was expensive. Anything that’s got naked gods by the front door has to be pricey. And it’s not like I don’t already have some tone. I mean, I got tone coming out of my ass.”

  “So, it seemed like a waste of money,” I said.

  “Not so much a waste as I had to prioritize. Instead of putting my money into the gym, I put my money into the gym clothes. I got a bunch of those leggings and sporty bra tops. I got a set that’s leopard print.”

  “Do you ever wear them?”

  “Hell, y
eah,” Lula said. “I put them on every Sunday after church and then I go to the supermarket to do my weekly shopping. There’s a lot of bending and lifting involved. I’m all about multitasking. And they’re comfy. Gym clothes got a lot of stretch to them.” She took the last donut and turned to me. “We should go get you some. It would be a good part of your ‘new Stephanie’ program. We could get a set that goes with your extensions. They’d be a excellent accessory. Gym clothes aren’t real expensive, either, if you know where to shop. I get mine at Target and when the seams split open, I just go get some more.”

  “Maybe they wouldn’t split if you’d go easier on the donuts,” Connie said.

  “Nope,” Lula said. “It’s not the donuts. It’s that I get a workout at the supermarket on account of the beer I like is always on the bottom shelf.”

  I stuffed the file into my messenger bag. “Let’s take a look at Miracle Fitness.”

  I parked the Porsche in the lot attached to the gym, and Lula and I walked into the lobby. The floor was polished marble, and the reception desk was high-gloss wood. The young woman behind the desk was in black workout clothes that showed she was fitness perfection. A glass wall running across the back of the lobby gave us a view of the fitness equipment and the women using it.

  “They must all be beginners,” Lula whispered to me, “on account of none of them look like the bitch behind the desk.”

  “I’m interested in a membership,” I said to the woman. “Do you have a list of classes? And I’d also like some information on your trainers.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I can give you a packet that will answer all your questions. It will also include a breakdown of our fees and various membership choices. Would you like a tour of our facility?”

  “A tour would be great,” I said, taking a glossy pink folder from her.

  Four minutes later we were following a guy named Thor.

  “This is the Pilates room,” he said. “We have two of them. As you can see there’s a class going on. The second one is almost always free for unsupervised use. Any questions?”

  “I got one,” Lula said. “Is Thor your real name?”

  “No,” he said. “My real name is Bruce. They make you take a godlike name when you come to work here.”

  “I got another question,” Lula said. “Are there any more naked statues besides the ones out front?”

  “Nope. That’s it.”

  We looked in on a Zumba class and a spinning class.

  “I couldn’t do that spinning class,” Lula said. “My cooter falls asleep when I ride a bike.”

  I have the same problem, but I wasn’t comfortable discussing my cooter with Thor.

  “I have a friend who took some classes with one of the trainers here and really liked him,” I said. “I don’t know his name, but he wore red Air Jordans.”

  “That would be Zeus,” Thor said. “He’s dead.” Thor moved to the next door. “We also have a room with a heavy bag and a couple speed bags if you’re into that.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute,” I said. “Zeus is dead? What happened?”

  “Don’t know. They found him behind a dumpster.”

  “Who would want to kill Zeus?”

  “Probably lots of people,” Thor said. “He was an okay guy, but he messed around. And I think he owed a bunch of people money.”

  “Miracle Fitness won’t be the same without a Zeus,” Lula said.

  “It’s only temporary,” Thor said. “The new Zeus starts tomorrow.”

  “The new Zeus,” Lula said. “That’s like the old Stephanie and the new Stephanie, only instead of changing himself, the old Zeus got dead and replaced. Gives you something to think about when you see how that’s another route to take.”

  If Thor was confused, he didn’t show it. He just stood there and calmly waited to continue his tour. Probably he smoked a lot of pot.

  “I guess that’s the cycle of life,” Lula said. “Still, seems like it was awful easy to replace Zeus.”

  “They keep a file of applicants in the office,” Thor said.

  Lula and I peeked into the ladies’ locker room and followed Thor back to the lobby.

  “This has been helpful,” I said. “I’ll go home and look through the packet of information.”

  We returned to the SUV and buckled ourselves in.

  “It’s wrong that someone could kill Zeus,” Lula said.

  “He wasn’t really Zeus,” I said. “You know that, right?”

  “Yeah, but he was sort of Zeus. It just seems wrong.”

  For sure.

  I dropped Lula off at the office and continued on to my parents’ house. I wanted to make sure everything was okay, and I wanted to mooch lunch and read through the information I got from Connie and Miracle Fitness. If one of the La-Z-Boys snatched Grandma, it would be worrisome, but at least we would have a place to start looking. This other player was much more frightening.

  My father was watching television and eating an egg salad sandwich off a tray table. My mom and my grandmother were at the kitchen table. They each had an egg salad sandwich. The first thing I noticed was that Grandma wasn’t wearing her necklace.

  “Where’s your necklace?” I asked, hanging my messenger bag on the back of a kitchen chair. “You’re supposed to never take it off.”

  “It got wet in the shower, so I set it on the counter to dry, and then I forgot about it,” Grandma said. “There’s more egg salad in the fridge.”

  I made myself a sandwich and brought it to the table. “You can’t forget about the necklace. You need to always wear it.”

  “I’ll put it on when I go upstairs, but I don’t see the need for it,” Grandma said. “This seems like a lot of to-do about nothing.”

  “The man who tried to kidnap you is dead,” I said. “I’m sure he was killed so he couldn’t divulge the name of whoever hired him.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Grandma said. “People get killed in Trenton all the time.”

  “Humor me and wear the necklace,” I said. “Besides, it’s pretty and it’s a gift from Ranger.”

  “I understand the man who was murdered worked at Miracle Fitness,” my mother said. “That place has a real reputation. It’s practically a swingers’ club.”

  Grandma leaned forward over the table and lowered her voice. “Marg Bowman said the ladies diddle themselves in the sauna. She said they wear nothing but a towel and they diddle.”

  I felt my face scrunch up. “Eeuuww!”

  “I’d like to know how that goes,” Grandma said. “Do they all sit down and one of them asks, ‘Should we diddle today?’ Seems like it would be rude if one of them just started diddling without asking.”

  “I’m eating egg salad,” I said. “Could we talk about something besides . . . you know? Like, is there anything new going on?”

  “I got a letter from the lawyer setting the estate meeting for Monday,” Grandma said. “I’m thinking about giving some of my money to the animal shelter.”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  “I’m going to get more money than I need, so you all can have what you want and then I’ll give the rest away to the homeless dogs and cats.”

  “That’s nice of you,” my mother said, “but I don’t need anything. The house is paid off and my car is only two years old.”

  “Yeah, but you’re gonna need a new liver one of these days, and that costs money,” Grandma said.

  I pulled Connie’s folder plus the pink folder out of my bag. First up was the list of trainers. This wasn’t worth anything because they all had phony names. Poseidon, Hermes, Apollo, Atlas. I went to the membership list next. Eight pages of small print. Mental groan.

  “Something wrong?” Grandma asked. “Your eyes just rolled so far back in your head I was afraid you’d fall out of your chair.”

  “It’s this list. Connie got me the names of everyone who has a Miracle Fitness membership. I thought I might find someone who was connected to Jimmy in some way an
d would want the keys. Someone who would hire Red Air Jordans and then kill him to shut him up.”

  “That’s easy,” Grandma said. “Jimmy’s first wife, Barbara. She’s always talking about the hot trainers at Miracle. She’s in her late seventies, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s one of the diddlers. She’s on hormone replacement, and Rogaine. I think she gets Botox, too. Did you see her at the viewing? Her face doesn’t move. She’s all frozen up. She belongs on that show . . . Housewives of Hell.” Grandma reached for a cookie from the white bakery box on the table. “Barbara never married again, after the divorce. She tells everybody she has PTSD from being with Jimmy. She’d take out a hit on me in a heartbeat. His daughter, Jeanine, goes to Miracle Fitness too. She’s married to Bernard Stupe.”

  “I went to school with one of their kids,” I said. “Don. He was a year ahead of me.”

  “He’s in Seattle now,” Grandma said. “And the other one is in the military. I’m sure Jeanine would know about the keys, but I can’t see her killing over them. She’s always been a nice person. Quiet. Not like her mother. Bernard’s quiet too. Polite.”

  “What about the second wife?” I asked.

  “Bunny,” Grandma said. “They were married for less than a year. Rumor has it that she got a bucketload of money from the divorce. She’s living in Arizona now. She was at the viewing and then she flew back to Phoenix. I think she just wanted to make sure Jimmy was dead.”

  I looked at my mother. “Can you think of anyone?”

  “Sidney DeSalle owns Miracle Fitness,” she said. “There are a lot of rumors about him and his business practices. He’s known for being a pretty rough guy. I don’t know if he would be interested in the keys, but I imagine he’d know about them.”

  I called Connie and asked her to run Sidney DeSalle through the system.

  “No problem,” she said, “but you’ve got to come get Lula. She’s driving me nuts. She’s all into fitness, doing squats across the room and jumping jacks in her spike-heeled shoes. She says she’s working to look like the woman behind the desk at Miracle Fitness.”