To the Nines

by Janet Evanovich

  Ranger closed and locked the window. “I don't see any boxes of dog biscuits.”

  “Poor little Boo.” The instant I said it I knew it was a mistake. I clapped my hand over my mouth and looked at Ranger.

  “I could help you with these maternal urges,” Ranger said.

  “Get me pregnant?”

  “I was going to suggest a visit to the animal shelter.” He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and pulled me close. “But I could get you pregnant if that's what you really want.”

  “Nice of you to want to help,” I said, “but I think I'll pass on both offers.”

  “Good decision.” He released my shirt. “Let's take a look at the rest of the apartment.”

  We moved from the living room to the bedroom and found more clutter, but no evidence of Singh or Boo. Howie had placed a double mattress on the floor and covered it with an inexpensive quilt. There were two cardboard boxes filled with neatly folded pants and shirts and underwear. The poor man's dresser. No closet in the room. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling. It was the only light source. A laptop computer with a cracked screen was on the floor near the only outlet.

  I looked around. “No bathroom.”

  “There's a common bathroom on the second floor.”

  Yikes. Howie shares a bathroom with the scabby ho and her crackhead friends. I tried to remember if he used gloves when he handled my food.

  “Spartan,” I said to Ranger.

  “Adequate,” Ranger said. He looked down at the mattress.

  “I don't think Howie's been sharing his apartment with anyone lately.”

  I was feeling a little panicky about being alone in a room with a mattress and Ranger, so I scooted out of the room and out of Howie's apartment. Ranger followed and closed and locked Howie's door. We descended the stairs in silence.

  Ranger was smiling when we got to the front foyer. Not the half smile, either. This was a full-​on smile.

  I narrowed my eyes at the smile. “What?”

  “It's always fun to see you get worried about a mattress.”

  Lula hustled over. “So what's going on?” Lula asked. “You find anything up there? Any dog hairs in the bedroom?”

  “Nothing. It was clean,” I told her.

  Lula turned her attention to Ranger. “I didn't hear you breaking any doors down.”

  “It wasn't necessary to break the door down.”

  “How'd you do it then? You use a pick? You use some electronic gizmo? I wish I could open doors like you.”

  “I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you,” Ranger said.

  It was an old line, but it was worrisome when Ranger said it.

  “Hunh,” Lula said.

  “Tell me about Boo and Singh,” I said to Ranger. “Who saw them. Where were they?”

  “A kid working the drive-​through window at Cluck in a Bucket saw him. He remembered Singh and the dog because the dog was barking and jumping around. He said Singh got a bucket of chicken and two strawberry shakes and the dog ate two pieces of chicken before Singh got the window rolled up to drive off.”

  “Guess he was hungry.”

  “Speaking of hungry,” Lula said. “We haven't had lunch yet.”

  “We just had a cheeseburger,” I told her.

  “We shared it. That don't count. If you share, it's a snack.”

  “I want to go back to talk to Howie at one o'clock. Can you wait until then?”

  “I guess. What are we going to do in the meantime?”

  “I want to wander around the neighborhood. Maybe snoop in a few garages.”

  Lula looked up and down the street. “You're going to snoop in this neighborhood? You got a gun on you?”

  Ranger reached behind him, under his shirt, and pulled out a .38. He pulled my T-​shirt out of my jeans and he shoved the .38 under my waistband and draped my shirt over the gun. The gun was warm with his body heat and his fingers had been even warmer sliding across my belly.

  “Thanks,” I said, trying to keep my voice from cracking.

  He curled his hand around my neck and kissed me lightly on the lips. “Be careful.” And he was gone. Off to make the world a better place in his shiny new black Porsche.

  “He had his hand in your pants and he kissed you,” Lula said. “I'm wetting myself.”

  “It wasn't like that. He gave me a gun.”

  “Girl, he gave you more than a gun. I tell you, he ever put his hand in my pants I'll stop breathing and faint dead away. He is so hot.” Lula did some fanning motions with her hand. “I'm getting flashes. I think I'm sweating. Look at me. Am I sweating?”

  “It's ninety degrees out,” I said. “Everyone's sweating.”

  “It's not ninety,” Lula said. “I just saw the temperature on the bank building. It's only seventy-​eight.”

  “Feels like ninety.”

  “Ain't that the truth,” Lula said.

  An alley ran behind the houses. Cars were parked in the alley and garages opened to the alley. Lula and I walked to the end of the block and then cut down the alley, peering into filthy garage windows, cracking garage doors to look inside. Most of the garages were used for storage. A few were empty. None contained a gray Nissan. We walked three more blocks and three more alleys. No dog. No car. No Singh.

  IT WAS 1:15 when I parked in the McDonalds lot. Lula went inside to order and I walked to the outdoor seating area where Howie was eating lunch.

  Howie was hunched over his tray, concentrating on his burger, attempting invisibility.

  “Hey,” I said, sitting across from him. “Nice day.”

  He nodded his head without making eye contact. “Yes.”

  “Tell me about Samuel.”

  “There is nothing to tell you,” he said.

  “He called you at work last week.”

  “You are mistaken.” He had his fists balled and his head down. He gestured for emphasis and knocked his empty soda cup over. We both reached for the cup. Howie caught it first and set it straight. “You must stop bothering me now,” he said. “Please.”

  “Samuel is missing,” I said to Howie. “I'm trying to find him.”

  For the first time, Howie picked his head up and looked at me. “Missing?”

  “He disappeared the day after he called you.”

  For a fleeting moment Howie looked relieved. “I know nothing,” he repeated, dropping his eyes again.

  “What's the deal?” I asked Howie. “Did you owe him money? Did you go out with his girlfriend?”

  “No. None of those things. I truly do not know him.” Howie's eyes darted from one side of the lot to the other. “I must go inside now. I do not like associating with the customers. Americans are a crazy people. Only the games are good. The American games are righteous.”

  I looked around. I didn't see any crazy people . . . but then, I'm from Jersey. I'm used to crazy.

  “Why do you think Americans are crazy?”

  “They are very demanding. Not enough fries in the box. The fries are not hot enough. The sandwich is wrapped wrong. I cannot control these things. I do not wrap the sandwiches. And they are very loud when they tell you about the wrappings. All day people are shouting at me. 'Go faster. Go faster. Give me this. Give me that.' Wanting an Egg McMuffin at eleven o'clock when it is a rule you cannot have an Egg McMuffin past ten-​thirty.”

  “I hate that rule.”

  Howie gathered his wrappers onto his tray. “And another thing. Americans ask too many questions. How many grams of fat are in a cheeseburger? Are the onions real? What do I know? The onions come in a bag. Do I look like the onion man to you?”

  He stood at his seat and took his tray in two hands. “You should leave me alone now. I am done talking to you. If you continue to stalk me, I will report you to the authorities.”

  “I'm not stalking you. This isn't stalking. This is asking a couple questions.”

  There was a momentary lull in the ambient traffic noise. I heard something go pop pop. Howie's eyes got wide,
his mouth opened, the tray slid from his hands and crashed to the concrete patio. Howie's knees buckled and he collapsed without uttering a word.

  A woman screamed behind me and I was on my feet, thinking, He's been shot, help him, take cover, do something! My mind was racing, but my body wasn't responding. I was paralyzed by the unfathomable horror of the moment, staring down at Howie's unblinking eyes, mesmerized by the small hole in the middle of his forehead, by the pool of blood that widened under him. Just a moment ago I was talking to him and now he was dead. It didn't seem possible.

  People were scrambling and shouting around me. I didn't see anyone with a gun. No one in the lot had a gun in his hand. I didn't see anyone armed on the road or in the building. Howie seemed to be the only victim.

  Lula ran to me with a big bag of food in one hand and a large chocolate shake in her other hand. “Holy crap,” she said, eyes bugged out, looking down at Howie. “Holy moly. Holy Jesus and Joseph. Holy cow.”

  I eased away from the body, not wanting to crowd Howie, needing some distance from the shooting. I wanted to make time stand still, to back up ten minutes and change the course of events. I wanted to blink and have Howie still be alive.

  Sirens screamed on the highway behind us and Lula furiously sucked on the shake. “I can't get anything up this freakin' straw,” she shrieked. "Why do they give you a straw if you can't suck anything up it? Why don't they give you a goddamn spoon? Why do they make these things so freakin' thick anyways? Shakes aren't supposed to be solid. This here's like trying to suck up a fish sandwich.

  “And don't think I'm hysterical, either,” Lula said. “I don't get hysterical. You ever see me hysterical before? This here's transference. I read about it in a magazine. It's when you get upset about one thing only you're really upset about something else. And it's different from hysterical. And even if I was hysterical, which I'm not, I'd have a perfect right. This guy got shot dead in front of you. If you'd have moved an inch to the left you probably would have lost an ear. And he's dead. Look at him. He's dead! I hate dead.”

  I grimaced at Lula. “Good thing you're not hysterical.”

  “You bet your sweet ass,” Lula said.

  A Trenton PD blue and white angled to a stop, lights flashing. Seconds later, another blue and white pulled in. Carl Costanza was riding shotgun in the second car. He rolled his eyes when he saw me and reached for the radio. Calling Joe, I thought. His partner, Big Dog, ambled over.

  “Holy crap,” Big Dog said when he saw Howie. “Holy moly.” He looked over at me and winced. “Did you shoot him?”

  “No!”

  “I got to get out of here,” Lula said. “Cops and dead people give me diarrhea. Anybody wants to talk to me, they can send me a letter. I didn't see anything anyway. I was getting extra sauce for my chicken nuggets. I don't suppose you'd want to give me your car keys?” she asked me. “I'm starting to feel transference coming on again. I need a doughnut, Calm me down.”

  Costanza was pushing people around, laying out crime scene tape. An EMS truck arrived, followed by a plainclothes cop car and Morelli's POS. Morelli jogged over to me. “Are you okay?”

  “Pretty much. I'm a little rattled.” “No bullet holes?”

  “Not in me. Howie wasn't so lucky.”

  Morelli looked down at Howie. “You didn't shoot him, did you? Tell me you didn't shoot him.” “I didn't shoot him. I never even carry a gun!” Morelli dropped his eyes to my waist. “Looks to me like you're carrying one now.” Shit. I'd forgotten about the gun.

  “Well, I almost never carry a gun,” I said, doing my best to smooth out the bulge in my T-​shirt. I looked around to see if anyone else noticed. “Maybe I should lose the gun,” I said to Morelli. “There might be a problem.” “Besides carrying concealed without a permit?” “It might not be registered.”

  “Let me guess. Ranger gave you the gun.” Morelli stared down at his feet and shook his head. He muttered something indiscernible, possibly in Italian. I opened my mouth to speak and he held a hand up. “Don't say anything,” he said, “I'm working hard here. Notice I'm not ranting over the fact that not only are you partners with Ranger, but you were stupid enough to take a gun from him.”

  I waited patiently. When Morelli mutters in Italian it's a good idea to give him some room.

  “Okay,” he said, “this is what we're going to do. We're going to walk over to my car. You're going to get in, take the gun out of your goddamn pants, and slide the gun under the front seat. Then you're going to tell me what happened.”

  An hour later, I was still sitting in the car, waiting for Morelli to leave the scene, when my cell phone rang.

  It was my mother. “I heard you shot someone,” she said. “You've got to stop shooting people. Elaine Minardi's daughter never shoots anyone. Lucille Rice's daughter never shoots anyone. Why do I have to be the one to have a daughter who shoots people?”

  “I didn't shoot anyone.”

  “Then you can come to dinner.”

  “Sure.”

  “That was too easy,” my mother said. “Somethings wrong. Omigod, you really did shoot someone, didn't you?”

  “I didn't shoot anyone,” I yelled at her. And I disconnected.

  Morelli opened the driver's side door and angled himself behind the wheel. “Your mother?”

  I sagged in the seat. “This is turning into a really long day. I told my mother I'd show up for dinner.”

  “Let's go over this one more time,” Morelli said.

  “One of Singh's coworkers told me Singh tried to make a phone call to Howie the day before he disappeared. I questioned Howie just now and he denied knowing Singh. I'm pretty sure he was lying. And when I told him Singh was missing I could swear he looked relieved. He ended the interview by telling me Americans are crazy. He stood to go inside and pop pop ... he was dead.”

  “Only two shots.”

  “That's all I heard.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Off the record?”

  “Oh boy,” Joe said. “I hate when a conversation with you starts like that.”

  “I happened to accidentally wander into Howie's apartment this morning.”

  “I don't want to hear this,” Morelli said. “They're going to go to Howie's apartment and dust for prints and you're going to be all over the place.”

  I chewed on my lower lip. Unfortunate timing. Who knew Howie would get killed?

  Morelli raised eyebrows in question. “So?”

  “The apartment is clean,” I told him. “No sign that Singh's been there. No diary detailing secret activities. No hastily scribbled notes that someone wanted him dead. No evidence of drugs. No weapons.”

  “It could have been a random shooting,” Morelli said. “This isn't a great neighborhood.”

  “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Yeah.”

  Not for a single second did either of us believe that to be true. Deep inside I knew Howie's death was tied to Singh and to me. That he was killed in my presence wasn't a good thing.