Plum 12 - Twelve Sharp

by Janet Evanovich

  Dooby lived in a row house in the Burg. According to Meri's research, Dooby rented with three other guys. And needless to say, Dooby was unemployed.

  I idled in front of Dooby's house, and Lula and I stared out at it, neither of us moving.

  'I don't feel like doing this,' I finally said.

  'Me either,' Lula said. 'I'm wore out with this job. I'm tired of dragging these people off to jail. Nobody's ever happy. I feel like the Grinch.'

  'Somebody's got to do it,' I said, trying to convince myself of my worth.

  'I know that,' Lula said. 'This here's for the good of society. It's not like the police have time to find these people. I just think I need a mental health day.'

  I looked in my rearview mirror for Ranger.

  Lula looked too. 'He's back there, isn't he? He's following you around, right? That's how come they were at the Pleasure Treasures.'

  'We're hoping the Ranger impostor will come after me. And then when he nabs me he'll lead us to Julie.'

  'That's a pretty good plan,' Lula said. 'Unless the Ranger impostor decides to kill you instead.'

  I slumped a little lower in my seat.

  'It's gonna be a hot one today,' Lula said. 'You know what I'd like to do? I'd like to go to Point Pleasant and play the claw machine in the arcade and get one of them orange and vanilla swirly frozen custard ice creams.'

  I put the Mini into gear, hooked a U-turn, and drove back to the office. 'We need to take your car,' I said. 'Is it parked in back?'

  'Yep. It's in the lot. The glass truck was parked in my usual spot on the street.'

  'Just changing cars,' I said to Connie, as we breezed through the office.

  I selected a gun from the cabinet, took a box of rounds, and left the panic button in the gun cabinet. I dropped the gun and the ammo in my bag and Lula and I went out the back door.

  'I know this is the wrong thing to do,' I said to Lula, 'but I need a break from all the sad scary things. And I need to get away from Ranger for a couple hours.'

  'I don't see nobody back here,' Lula said. 'I think we tricked them.'

  ===OO=OOO=OO===

  Ranger called when we were on the bridge, crossing the Manasquan Inlet. 'Where are you?' he asked.

  'I'm taking a day off.'

  'You removed the panic button.'

  'Yes, but I took a gun. And it's even loaded. And I have extra bullets. And Lula is with me.'

  Silence.

  'Hello?' I said. 'Are you mad?'

  'Mad doesn't come close. Are you going to tell me where you are?'

  'Not when you're in this kind of mood.'

  More silence.

  'Are you trying to control yourself?' I asked. Easy to be brave when Ranger was in Trenton, and I was in Point Pleasant.

  'Don't push me,' Ranger said.

  'You can just keep going and going and going,' I told him. 'I'm not that strong. I'm running low on happy. And I hardly have any brave left at all. We were careful not to be followed. We're armed. We're sober. I'll be home this afternoon. I'll call you when I get to Trenton.' I disconnected and broke into a nervous sweat. 'That was Ranger.'

  'No shit.'

  'It gets worse,' I told her. 'He's been staying in my apartment, and this morning Morelli moved in.'

  'Let me get this straight. You got Ranger and Morelli living with you. At the same time.'

  'Looks that way.'

  Lula pulled into the lot at the pavilion. 'Girl, you got a problem. You can't put two alpha dogs in the same kennel. They'll kill each other. It's not like those two are ordinary men. They got enough testosterone between them that if testosterone was electricity they could light up New York City for the month of August.'

  'I don't want to talk about it. I want to get some ice cream and sit in the sun and listen to the ocean.'

  ===OO=OOO=OO===

  Ranger was brooding in the parking lot in front of my condo when I pulled in. He was in a RangeMan SUV, which meant it was new, it was immaculate, it had the big engine, it was black with black tinted windows, and it had the big-bucks chrome wheel covers.

  He got out of the SUV and silently escorted me to my apartment.

  'Is Morelli here?' I asked him.

  'No. Not yet, but it's almost five, so I imagine he'll be rolling in soon.' He unlocked the apartment door, stepped in first, and looked around before he motioned me in. 'Your nose is sunburned,' he said. 'They don't sell sunscreen at Point Pleasant?'

  'Are you sure I was at Point Pleasant?'

  'I knew it was either the mall or Point Pleasant, and there were no background mall sounds when you talked to me.'

  'You followed me down there?'

  'No. I sent Hal and Roy.'

  'I didn't see them.'

  'That's my point. Hal doesn't blend in. It's like being followed by a stegasaurus. So if you didn't see Hal, you sure as hell weren't going to pick out Edward Scrog.' He tossed his keys on the kitchen counter. 'If you have an issue with me I expect you to tell me about it, not run away.'

  'You don't listen.'

  'I always listen,' Ranger said. 'I don't always agree. I have a problem right now that I can't seem to solve by myself. I need you to help me find my daughter. And there's an even bigger problem involved. I feel a financial and moral obligation to my daughter. I send child support, I send birthday and Christmas presents, I visit when I'm invited. But I've kept myself emotionally distanced. I'm not emotionally distanced from you. I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you because I was using you to find someone… even if that someone was my daughter. So I have to make every effort to keep you safe.'

  'You're a little smothering.'

  'Deal with it.' He looked over at Morelli's duffle bag still sitting in the foyer. 'This should be interesting.'

  'You're not going to do something stupid and macho, are you?'

  'I try hard not to do things that are stupid. I'm willing to make an exception in this case. I'm not leaving. And if you sleep with him while I'm here, I'll have to kill him.'

  If anyone else had said that I'd burst out laughing, but there was a slight chance Ranger was serious.

  I took a shower and spent a few minutes on makeup and used the roller brush on my hair. Then I spent a few more minutes on makeup. I wiggled into a little black dress and stepped into black heels. I sashayed out of the bedroom and found Morelli and Ranger in the kitchen, eating.

  Ranger was eating a chopped salad with grilled chicken. Morelli was eating a meatball sub. I checked out the refrigerator and discovered Ella had dropped off a cheesecake… so that's what I ate. No one said anything.

  I finished off the cheesecake and glanced at my watch. Six o'clock. 'Gotta go,' I said. 'Don't want to be late for the viewing.'

  Ranger had the panic button in his hand, and he was looking my dress over. If we'd been alone, he would have slipped it into my cleavage, but Morelli was watching with his hand on his gun.

  'Oh, for God's sake,' I said. 'Just give me the stupid thing.' I took the panic button and stuck it into my Super Sexy Miracle Bra.

  'GPS,' Ranger said to Morelli.

  'Probably I can find her breast without it,' Morelli said. 'But it's good to know there's a navigational system on board if I need it.'

  I saw Ranger's mouth twitch, and I was pretty sure it was a smile. I wasn't sure what the smile meant. First guess would be he was thinking he had no problem finding my breast without GPS either.

  I grabbed my handbag and swung my ass out of the kitchen, out of the apartment, and down the hall. I was thinking I might get into the Mini and drive to California. Start over. New job. New boyfriend. No forwarding address. I checked my rearview mirror. Ranger in the silver BMW. Morelli in his green SUV. Two RangeMan goons in a black SUV, too far back to see their identity. I was leading a friggin' parade. And the parade would follow me to California.

  'Stephanie,' I said, 'you're in deep shit.'

  The little lot attached to the funeral home was packed by the time I got there. I dro
ve up and down the streets, but the curbside parking was taken for blocks. I double-parked and got out of the car. The shiny black RangeMan SUV rolled up to me, the window slid down, and Hal looked out from the passenger seat.

  'RangeMan valet parking?' I asked.

  Hal got out, rammed himself into the Mini, and I thought I saw the tires flatten a little. Both cars drove off. One mark on the tally for Ranger. Employees available for valet parking. On the Morelli side was hates salad.

  I fought my way through the crush of people on the funeral home porch and wormed my way through the crowd in the lobby. I felt a hand at my back and heard Morelli's voice in my ear.

  'Go do your thing, and I'll keep you in sight,' Morelli said. 'Ranger has some men in here who are also watching you. Probably there are a couple feds as well.'

  I got into the viewing room, but there was a wall of people in front of me. I looked left and saw a head rising above all else. It was Sally Sweet, close to seven feet tall in his heels. I inched closer and saw he was wearing shocking pink platform pumps with a five-inch stiletto heel and a raincoat. Lula was beside him, also in pink heels and a raincoat. I looked at the ground and saw they were molting pink feathers.

  'This here's a mess,' Lula yelled when she saw me. 'I can't go forward, and I can't go back.'

  Grandma elbowed her way over to us. 'I lost my sense of direction. Which way's the casket? I can't see a darned thing.'

  Sally picked Grandma up and held her over his head.

  'Okay,' Grandma yelled to Sally. 'I got a fix on it. You can set me down now.' And Grandma took off, burrowing through the bodies.

  Sixteen

  I tried following, but Grandma was instantly swallowed up by the mob of mourners. 'Can you see her?' I asked Sally.

  'I can't exactly see her, but I can see people moving to get out of her way. She's almost all the way up front. She should pop out any minute now. Yep, there she is. She's right in front of the casket. Looks like the funeral director standing firm to one side, and everyone else is milling around, jockeying for position. And there's Granny, holding her ground. I can only see the tops of heads,' Sally said. 'Hold on, something's happening. People are scrambling. The funeral director's waving his arms and bobbing around.'

  I heard someone shouting to stand back. Then some hysterical screaming. And a loud crash. Someone yelled out Get her!

  'What's going on?' I asked Sally.

  'It looks like a riot. Someone just got knocked into a big floral arrangement, and it all went over. And I think the funeral director's thrown himself on top of the casket. Looks like there's someone under him. I can see two feet sticking out. It's someone in patent leather pumps. Omigod, I think it's your granny.'

  'I bet she tried to get the lid up,' Lula said. 'You know how she hates when she can't see nothing.'

  My mother was going to kill me.

  'Everybody looks real angry,' Sally said. 'We should probably try to rescue Granny.'

  'Coming through,' Lula said, head down, plowing her way to the front. 'S'cuse me, move your bony little ass, outta my way, make way for mama.'

  Sally and I rode in her wake, stumbling up to the casket, coming nose to nose with Dave Nelson.

  Nelson grabbed me by the front of my shirt. 'You have to help me. These people are insane. Your grandmother is insane. She started it all. Somehow she got the lid up. And now everyone wants to see!'

  'Is there a problem with that?' I asked.

  'Carmen Manoso has been autopsied! She makes Frankenstein look good. She's had her brain taken out and weighed and put back in!'

  'Oh yeah,' I said. 'I forgot.'

  'I drove here from Perth Amboy,' some lady said. 'I'm not leaving until I get to see the body.'

  'Yeah,' everyone said. 'We want to see.'

  'They're going to take my mortuary apart, brick by brick,' Dave whispered. 'These people are all ghouls.'

  'They just want to be entertained,' I told them. 'I bet you ran out of cookies.'

  I stood on a chair and yelled at the crowd. 'Everybody quiet down. We can't open the casket, but we've got some exciting entertainment. Two members of the What band have agreed to do a special performance.'

  'We can't do that,' Lula said. 'We don't have any music. And besides, we're professionals. We don't do this shit for nothing.'

  'All kinds of people have come to see Carmen,' I told Lula. 'I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of television crews were here. And I think I saw Al Roker when I walked in.'

  'Al Roker! I love Al Roker. Do you think he's married?'

  'I thought you were in love with Tank.'

  'Yeah, but Al is so cute. And I hear he has his own barbecue sauce. You gotta love a man's got his own barbecue sauce. Boy, it'd be real hard to have to choose between Al and Tank.'

  'There's a stage behind the casket,' I said. 'And there's even a microphone on that pulpit thing. This could be your big break.'

  Okay, so I didn't really see Al Roker and this was probably a rotten thing to do, but I couldn't figure anything else out. And who knows, maybe there were television people in the viewing room. From where I was standing, it looked like half the state was here.

  Lula and Sally took the stage and stood there in their pink high heels and raincoats and the whole room went silent. They took their raincoats off and the room went nuts. Lula looked like a big round pink puffball in her genuine domestic farm-raised fowl feather dress. Sally looked like nothing anyone had ever seen before. He was wearing the heels and the flamingo feather thong. The thong sack looked like dyed dead bird. And the rest of Sally made a strong case for full body waxing.

  'Hey, all you fuckin' mourners,' Sally yelled. 'Are you fuckin' ready for this?'

  Everyone cheered and clapped and hooted. Jersey's always fuckin' ready for anything. Especially if it's hairy and in a thong.

  Lula and Sally started singing and waving their arms and dancing around and the mourners all backed up a couple feet. Feathers were flying, and Lula was sweating, and the room was starting to smell like wet water fowl. By the time Lula and Sally got through the second song the room had emptied out some.

  'Thanks,' I said to Lula. 'That did the trick. Everybody's happy now. I think you can stop singing.'

  'Yeah,' Lula said, climbing off the stage. 'We were pretty good. Too bad, I didn't see Al Roker out there. But I think I saw Meri. Guess she didn't want to be left out.'

  'I always wanted to be in a rock-and-roll band,' Grandma said. 'I could do all those dancing moves too. I'm old, but I still got legs. I can't play any instruments though.'

  'Can you sing?' Sally asked.

  'Sure. I'm a good singer,' Grandma said.

  'I've been thinking now that we're playing all these geezer gigs we could use an older demographic in the band. You'd have to get some outfits, and we practice once a week.'

  'I could do all that,' Grandma said.

  'Sometimes we're not done until ten o'clock when we do assisted living,' Sally said. Those cats get to stay up later. Can you stay up that late?'

  'Sure,' Grandma said. 'Sometimes I even watch the ten o'clock news.'

  'We could dress her up like us,' Lula said to Sally. 'And I'll teach her my moves.'

  'Do you wear these feather outfits all the time?' Grandma asked. They look real pretty, but they don't seem practical. Sally's doodle sack lost all its feathers. Not that it don't look good bald like that, but it must be a lot of work putting those feathers back all the time.'

  'Yeah, the feathers didn't totally work out,' Lula said. 'I got feathers up my ass. I gotta go shopping again.'

  'Looks like the crowd's thinned out,' Grandma said. 'I'm going to see if there's any cookies left in the kitchen.'

  'Sorry about the casket getting opened,' I said to Dave. 'I was supposed to keep an eye on Grandma, but she got away from me in the crowd.'

  'It worked out okay,' Dave said. 'But it was scary there for a while. I was doing the best I could to protect your grandmother and the deceased, but I couldn't have h
eld them off much longer. Good thing you arrived with the band.'

  'We gotta get going,' Lula said, looking at her watch. 'The old folks don't like when you're late. They get real cranky.'

  Lula and Sally had driven a lot of people out of the viewing room, but there was still a huge bottleneck in the lobby. I pushed my way into the gridlock and inched forward. I looked over my shoulder and spotted Morelli. He was keeping watch over me with people five or six deep between us.

  'Look here,' someone said directly behind me.

  I followed the voice and experienced the same flash of confusion Ranger's security man had described. For a nanosecond I thought I was looking at Ranger. And then all the hairs raised on my arm and the back of my neck, and I realized I was looking at Edward Scrog.

  'I only have a moment,' he said. 'I know you're waiting for me to come get you, but there are too many people watching us here. You have to be patient. We'll be together soon enough, and then we'll never be parted again. We'll go to the angels together.'

  'Where's Julie?'

  'Julie is at home, waiting for you. I told her I was going to bring her a mommy soon. And then we'll be a family, and I can finish my work.'

  'She's okay?'

  'I love you,' Scrog said.

  I grabbed hold of his sleeve and opened my mouth to yell for Morelli. I heard something sizzle, and everything went black.

  ===OO=OOO=OO===

  Even before I opened my eyes I knew what had happened. I felt the familiar tingle and then the feeling getting restored to my fingertips. The noise in my head went from a buzz to a hum and then disappeared, replaced by voices.

  Morelli's face swam into focus. He looked worried. 'Are you okay?' he asked. 'I was watching you, and all of a sudden you collapsed.'

  'I think I was stun-gunned by Scrog. Did you see him?'

  'I saw you say something to the guy behind you. I couldn't see his face, and from the back he didn't resemble Ranger. The skin tone might have been the same, but the hair, and the build, and the clothes were all different. You had Tank two people away to the side of you, and he didn't spot Scrog either.'

  Morelli helped me to my feet and wrapped a supporting arm around my waist. People had been cleared away from me. A paramedic had just arrived and was standing to the side.