Explosive Eighteen

NINE

MY FATHER WAS SETTLED IN, watching sitcom reruns, when I left. My mother and grandmother were at the small kitchen table enjoying a ritual glass of port, celebrating the return of order and cleanliness in the kitchen. And I departed in the powder blue and white ’53 Buick that was kept in the garage for emergencies. Sitting on the seat beside me was a doggy bag that included fried chicken, soft little dinner rolls from the bakery, a jar of pickled beets, half a homemade apple pie, and a bottle of red table wine. The wine had been sent along, I’m sure, with the hopes that I might have a romantic evening with Morelli and make a grandchild. So much the better if I got married first.

I drove past the Bugkowski house out of morbid curiosity to see if my car was there. Not only wasn’t the car parked at the curb, but the house was dark. No one home. Probably, Big Buggy took his parents for a drive in his new RAV4.

Twenty minutes later, I rolled into the lot to my apartment building and did another car check. No RAV4. No black Lincoln Town Car. No green SUV that belonged to Morelli. No megabucks shiny black Ranger car. I found a space close to the building’s back door, parked, and locked up. I took the elevator to the second floor, walked down the hall, and listened at my door. All was quiet. I let myself in, kicked the door closed, and a swarthy guy with lots of curly black hair jumped out of the kitchen at me. He was holding a huge knife, and his dark eyes were narrowed.

“I want photograph,” he said. “Give it to me, or I kill you big-time. I make you very painful.”

I grabbed the bottle of wine from the doggy bag, hit the guy in the face with it as hard as I could, his eyes rolled back, and he crashed to the floor. I’d acted totally on instinct and was as surprised as he was that he got knocked out. I put a hand to the wall to steady myself and took a couple deep breaths. It felt icky to have the guy in my apartment, so I cuffed him and dragged him into the hall. I returned to my apartment and closed and locked the door in case there was a partner lurking somewhere.

I retrieved my Smith & Wesson from the cookie jar and walked through my apartment looking in closets and under the bed, finding dust bunnies but no more swarthy guys. I went back to the kitchen and called Bill Berger.

“There was a nasty-looking guy in my apartment when I came home just now,” I told him. “He had a big knife, and he said he’d kill me if I didn’t give him the photograph.”

“And?” Berger asked.

“I hit him in the face with a bottle of table wine and knocked him out.”

“Where is he now?”

“He’s in the hall.”

There was a beat of silence. “What’s he doing in the hall?”

“I didn’t want him in my apartment, so I dragged him into the hall.”

More silence. Probably, Berger wasn’t believing any of this.

“Did you check for ID?” he finally asked.

Damn! “No. Hold on, and I’ll go look.”

I opened the door, and the hall was empty. No swarthy guy.

“He’s gone,” I said to Berger.

“Problem solved,” Berger said. And he hung up.

I closed and locked the door, plugged my stun gun into a wall socket, returned the Smith & Wesson to the cookie jar, and opened the bottle of wine. Thank God it hadn’t broken, because I really needed a drink. A Cosmo or a Margarita or a water glass filled with whiskey would have been even better. I brought the bottle into the living room, settled in front of the television, tuned in to the Food Network, and tried to get my heart rate under control.

Some woman was making cupcakes. Cupcakes are good, I told myself. There’s an innocence to a cupcake. A joy. I poured a second glass of wine, and I watched the woman frost the cupcakes.

Halfway through the bottle of wine, I flipped to the Travel Channel, and I don’t remember much after that.

I woke up to the sun streaming into my bedroom. I was naked, tucked under the covers, and alone. I vaguely remembered half-waking to Morelli telling me the chicken was all he hoped it would be.

I rolled out of bed, wrapped myself in my robe, and padded into the kitchen. No Morelli. No chicken. No dinner rolls. No apple pie. A note was stuck to the counter by Rex’s cage.

You were asleep on the couch, so I put you to bed and ate the chicken.

I dialed Morelli. “How’d I get naked?” I asked him.

“That was the way I found you. You were mumbling something about being hot, and God was just going to have to deal with it.”

Good grief. “How’d it go at the junkyard?”

“We didn’t find Joyce’s body, but we found Frank Korda, the jeweler she supposedly stole the necklace from, and we found Joyce’s other shoe.”

“Was Korda dead?”

“Yeah, and then some.”

“Do you think Joyce killed him?”

“Personally, I don’t, but as a cop I’d have to consider it.”

“Any leads?”

“The usual relatives and friends,” Morelli said. “It looks like someone tried to break into Joyce’s condo. I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that?”

“Who, me?”

“If anyone does break in, they should be careful about withholding evidence.”

“I have a feeling the condo would be clean. And let me take a wild guess that Frank Korda was found in Joyce’s Mercedes.”

“Your guess would be right. I have to run. We’re taking the dog back to the junkyard.”

“You should bring Bob. He could hang with the cadaver dog and get some exercise. Maybe Bob could help find another body.”

“If Bob found a body, he’d eat it,” Morelli said.

I disconnected, took a shower, and got dressed in my usual girly T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. I fed Rex and gave him fresh water. He rushed out of his soup-can home, stuffed a bunch of hamster crunchies into his cheeks, and hustled back to his can. Maybe he was still creeped out by the guy with the knife last night. Understandable, because that would make two of us.

I tossed my fully charged stun gun into my bag and took off. First stop was the coffee shop. Connie, Lula, and Vinnie were sitting at a table in the window. I got a coffee and a cinnamon roll and joined them.

“They found Frank Korda at the junkyard,” Connie said. “It came over the police channel.”

I nodded. “Morelli told me. How’s the office space search going?”

“I have it narrowed down,” Connie said. “There’s a vacant storefront a couple blocks from the police station. Or I can rent a Winnebago RV, which would be smaller than the bus, but we could park it in our usual location.”

“We’d get more business by the police station,” Vinnie said. “Let’s go with the storefront.”

“I’ll pick the lease up this morning, and we can move in tomorrow,” Connie said. “It’s not pretty, but it’s usable space.”

“As long as it got good facilities,” Lula said. “I might still have some potato salad left inside me.”

“How about the fire investigation?” Vinnie asked. “Do they know what started it yet?”

Connie closed her laptop and stood. “They said it was suspicious, but they’re still looking at all the little pieces they collected.”

DeAngelo and his foreman walked into the coffee shop.

“Hey, what’s doin’ here?” DeAngelo said to Vinnie. “How come you’re not at work in your office? Oh yeah, now I remember… it blew up.”

Vinnie narrowed his eyes, said something in Italian, and flipped DeAngelo the bird.

“Better be careful,” DeAngelo said. “Your house could blow up next.”

Vinnie’s lip curled back. “Are you threatening me?”

“I don’t threaten,” DeAngelo said. “I’m more a doer.”

“Don’t look to me like you do much of anything but flap your lips,” Lula said. “If you were a doer, we’d be in our new office by now.”

DeAngelo looked at Vinnie. “Who’s the fat chick?”

Everyone sucked in air.

“Excuse me?” Lula said, leaning forward, hands on hips, eyes set in her wild boar on the attack squint. “Did you just say what I think you said? Because if you said that, you better say it was a mistake. I’m a reasonable person, but I don’t stand for disrespecting and slandering. I’m a big, beautiful woman. I am not a fat chick. You don’t apologize, and I’ll squash you like a bug. I’ll step on you until you’re just a grease spot on the floor.”

“I like it,” DeAngelo said to Lula. “You want to spank me?”

“No, I don’t want to spank you,” Lula said. “That’s disgusting. I don’t know you good enough to want to spank you.”

DeAngelo winked at her and went to pick up his coffee.

“He’s giving me the runs,” Lula said.

I pushed back from the table. “I have to talk to the FBI this morning.”

“Then what?” Lula asked. “Who’s up for today?”

“Big Buggy and my RAV4 for starters. I’ll call when I’m done downtown.”