Three To Get Deadly

CHAPTER 10

I sprinted across the street and sought cover in the shadows to the side of the store. I hugged the brick wall, creeping back toward the rear exit, thinking I might barricade the door. I’d stand a better chance of capturing Mo if he had just one avenue of escape.

I took a deep breath and peeked around the building corner. The back door to the store was wide open. I didn’t think this was a good sign. Mo wouldn’t have left the door open if he was in the store. I feared history had repeated itself, and Mo had flown the coop.

I inched my way to the door and stood there listening. Hard to hear over the pounding of my heart but no footfalls carried to me from the neighborhood. No car engines being started. No doors slamming shut.

I did another deep breath and poked my head into the gaping doorway, squinting into the dark hall that led to the counter area.

I heard the scrape of a shoe from deep inside the store and almost passed out from adrenaline rush. My first instinct was to run away. My second instinct was to shout for help. I didn’t follow either of these instincts because the cold barrel of a gun was pressed to my ear.

“Be nice and quiet and walk into the store.”

It was the wiry little guy who’d tried to give me money. I couldn’t see him, but I recognized the voice. Low and raspy. A smoker’s voice. North Jersey accent. Newark, Jersey City, Elizabeth.

“No,” I said. “I’m not going into the store.”

“I need some help here,” the guy with the gun said. “We need to persuade Miss Plum to cooperate.”

A second man stepped out of the shadows. He was wearing the requisite ski mask and coveralls. He was taller and heavier. He was shaking a canister of pepper spray. Showing me he knew to make sure the gas is live.

I opened my mouth to scream and was hit with the spray. I felt it suck back to my throat and burn, felt my throat close over. I went down hard to my knees and choked, unable to see, closing my eyes tight to the searing pain, blinded by the spray.

Hands grabbed at me, digging into my jacket, dragging me forward over the doorstep, down the hall. I was thrown to the linoleum at the back of the store, knocking into a teary blur of wall and booth, still unable to catch my breath.

The hands were at me again, wrenching my jacket over my shoulders to form a makeshift straitjacket, binding my arms behind my back and tearing my shirt in the process. I gasped for air and tried to control the fear, tried to ignore the manhandling while I fought the pepper spray. It’ll pass, I told myself. You’ve seen people sprayed before. It passes. Don’t panic.

They moved off. Waiting for me to come around. I blinked to see. Three large shapes in the dark. I assumed they were men in ski masks and coveralls.

One of them flashed a penlight in my eyes. “Bet you’re not feeling so brave anymore,” he said.

I adjusted my jacket and tried to stand but wasn’t able to get farther than hands and knees. My nose was running, dripping onto the floor, mixing with drool and tears. My breathing was still shallow, but the earlier panic had passed.

“What’s it take?” Jersey City asked me. “We tried to warn you away. We tried to compensate you. Nothing works with you. We’re out here trying to do a good deed, and you’re being a real pain in the behind.”

“Just doing my job,” I managed.

“Yeah, well, do your job someplace else.”

A match flared in the dark store. It was Jersey City lighting up. He sucked smoke deep into his lungs, let it curl out from his nose. I was still on hands and knees, and the man swooped down and held the glowing tip of the cigarette to the back of my hand. I yelped and jerked my hand away.

“This is just the start,” Jersey City said. “We’re going to burn you in places that are a lot more painful than the back of your hand. And when we’re done you’re not going to want to tell anyone about it. And you’re not going to want to go chasing after Mo anymore. And if you do…we’re going to come get you and burn you again. And then maybe we’ll kill you.”

A door slammed somewhere far off and footsteps sounded on the pavement behind the store. There was an instant of silence while we all listened. And then the back door was opened wide and a shrill voice called into the darkness. “What’s going on here?”

It was Mrs. Steeger. Any other time Mrs. Steeger would call the police. Tonight she decided to investigate on her own. Go figure.

“Run!” I yelled to Mrs. Steeger. “Call the police!”

“Stephanie Plum!” Mrs. Steeger said. “I might have known. You come out this instant.”

A beam of light played across Mo’s backyard. “Who’s there?” another voice called. “Mrs. Steeger? Is that you in Mo’s backyard?”

Dorothy Rostowski.

A car parked at the curb. Headlights blinked off. The driver’s door opened, and a man stepped onto the sidewalk.

“Shit,” Jersey City said. “Let’s get out of here.” He got down on one knee and put his face close to mine. “Get smart,” he said. “Because next time we’ll make sure nobody saves you.”

James Bond would have shown disdain with a clever remark. Indiana Jones would have sneered and said something snotty. The best I could come up with was, “Oh yeah?”

There was scuffling at the back door and some frightened exclamations from Dorothy and Mrs. Steeger.

I dragged myself to my feet and leaned against a booth for support. I was sweating and shivering, and my nose was still running. I wiped my nose on my sleeve and realized my shirt was open and my Levi’s were unzipped. I sucked in some air and clenched my teeth. “Damn.”

Another deep breath. Come on, Stephanie, get it together. Get yourself dressed and get out there to check on Dorothy and Mrs. Steeger.

I tugged at my jeans, putting a shaking hand to the zipper. My eyes were still watering, and saliva was still pooling in my mouth and I couldn’t get the zipper to slide easily. I burst into tears and gave my nose another vicious swipe with my sleeve.

I gathered my shirt together with one hand and lurched toward the back door. Dorothy was standing, arms crossed over her chest. Self-protective. Mrs. Steeger was sitting on the ground. A man squatted in front of her, talking to her. He helped her to her feet and turned to look when I appeared in the doorway. Morelli. Wouldn’t you know it.

Morelli raised questioning eyebrows.

“Not now,” I said.

I backed up a few paces and sidestepped into the bathroom. I flicked the light on and locked the door. I looked at myself in the rust-rimmed mirror over the sink. Not a pretty sight. I used half a roll of toilet paper to blow my nose. I splashed water on my face and hand and buttoned my shirt. Two of the buttons were missing, but they weren’t crucial to modesty.

I did deep breathing, trying to compose myself. I blew my nose some more. I looked at myself again. Not bad except my eyes looked like tomatoes and the cigarette burn was turning into a beauty of a blister.

Morelli had knocked on the door three times, asking if I was okay. My reply each time had been a cranky “Yes! Go away!”

When I finally opened the door, the lights were on in the candy store, and Morelli was behind the counter. I slid onto a stool in front of him, leaned my elbows on the counter and folded my hands.

Morelli set a hot fudge sundae in front of me and gave it a good dose of whipped cream. He handed me a spoon. “Thought this might help.”

“Wouldn’t hurt,” I said, gnawing on my lip, trying hard not to cry. “How’s Mrs. Steeger?”

“She’s okay. She got shoved out of the way, and it knocked her on her ass.”

“Gee, I always wanted to do that.”

He gave me the once-over. “Like your hair,” he said. “Trying something new?”

I flicked a spoonful of whipped cream at him, but I missed, and it went splat on the wall and slimed its way down to the back counter.

Morelli made a sundae for himself and took the stool next to me. We ate in silence, and when we were done we still sat there.

“So,” Morelli finally said. “Let’s talk.”

I told him about the phone call and the assault and about the attempted payoff.

“Tell me about these men,” Morelli said.

“They always wear ski masks and coveralls, and it’s always been dark, so I’ve never been able to get a good look. The eerie part is that I think they’re regular people. It’s like they’re from the community, and they’re trying to protect Mo but they’ve turned violent. Like a lynch mob.” I looked down at my hand. “They burned me with a cigarette.”

A muscle worked in Morelli’s jaw. “Anything else?”

“Under the coveralls they look respectable. Wedding bands on their fingers and nice running shoes. This wiry little guy seems to be the leader.”

“How little is he?”

“Maybe five-nine. Got a smoker’s voice. I’ve named him Jersey City because he has a Jersey City accent. The other two were bigger and chunkier.”

Morelli covered my hand with his, and we sat some more.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked.

“I accessed your answering machine,” Morelli said.

“You know my code?”

“Well…yeah.”

“You do that a lot? Listen in on my messages?”

“Don’t worry,” Morelli said. “Your messages aren’t that interesting.”

“You’re scum.”

“Yeah,” Morelli said. “You’ve told me that before.”

I scraped at a little fudge that was left on the side of the sundae dish. “What did you want to see me about?”

“We got ballistics back on Leroy Watkins. Looks like the same gun that killed Cameron Brown and Ronald Anders also killed Leroy Watkins.”

I stopped scraping at the fudge and stared at Morelli.

“Oh boy,” I said.

Morelli nodded. “My exact thought.”

I shifted on my stool. “Is it me, or is it warm in here?”

“It’s warm in here,” Morelli said. “Mo must have turned the heat up when he came by to visit.”

“Doesn’t smell all that good either.”

“I wasn’t going to mention it. I thought it might be you.”

I sniffed at myself. “I don’t think it’s me.” I sniffed at Morelli. “It’s not you.”

Morelli was off the stool, moving through the store. He got to the hall and stopped. “It’s pretty strong in the hall.” He opened the cellar door. “Uh-oh.”

Now I was off my stool. “What’s uh-oh?”

“I think I know this smell,” Morelli said.

“Is it dookey?”

“Yeah,” Morelli said. “It’s dookey…among other things.” He flipped the light at the top of the stairs.

I stood behind Morelli and decided I should be thankful my nose was still partially clogged. “Somebody should go down and investigate.”

Morelli had his gun in his hand. “Stay here,” he said.

Which was as good as guaranteeing I’d follow him down.

We crept down together, noting at once that the cellar posed no threat. No bad guys lurking in corners. No nasty-breathed, hairy-handed monsters lying in wait.

“Dirt floor,” I said.

Morelli holstered his gun. “A lot of these old cellars have dirt floors.”

A couple winter overcoats hung on wall pegs. Bags of rock salt, snow shovels, picks and heavy, long-handled spades lined the wall beside the coats. The furnace rumbled, central in the cellar. A jumble of empty cardboard boxes littered a large portion of the room. The smell of damp cardboard mingled with something more foul.

Morelli tossed some of the boxes to one side. The ground beneath the boxes had been recently disturbed. Morelli became more methodical, moving the boxes with the toe of his boot until he uncovered a patch of dirt that showed black garbage bag peeking through.

“Sometimes people get eccentric when they get old,” I said. “Don’t want to pay for trash pickup.”

Morelli took a penknife from his pocket and exposed more of the plastic. He made a slit in the plastic and let out a long breath.

“What is it?” I asked. As if I didn’t know.

“It isn’t candy.” He turned me around and pushed me toward the stairs. “I’ve seen enough. Let’s leave this to the experts. Don’t want to contaminate the scene any more than we already have.”

We sat in his car while he called in to the station.

“I don’t suppose you’d consider going home to your parents’ tonight?” he asked.

“Don’t suppose I would.”

“I’d rather you didn’t go back to your apartment alone.”

Me too. “I’ll be fine,” I said.

A blue-and-white cruised to the curb behind Morelli’s 4x4. Eddie Gazarra got out of the car and walked our way. We met him on the street, and we all looked to the store.

“Break out the crime tape,” Morelli said.

“Shit,” Gazarra said. “I’m not going to like this.”

Nobody was going to like this. It was not good etiquette to bury bodies in the basement of a candy store. And it would be especially loathsome to accuse Mo of doing the burying.

Another blue-and-white showed up. Some more homicide cops arrived on the scene. The ID detective came with his tool kit and camera. People started appearing on front porches, standing with arms crossed, checking out the traffic jam. The crowds on the porches grew larger. A reporter stood, hands in pockets, behind the crime tape.

Two hours later I was still sitting in Morelli’s car when they brought out the first body bag. The media coverage had grown to a handicam and a half dozen reporters and photographers. Three more body bags were trundled out from the cellar. The photographers hustled for shots. Neighbors left the comfort of their living rooms to return to the porches.

I sidled over next to Morelli. “Is this it?”

“This is it,” Morelli said. “Four bodies.”

“And?”

“And I can’t tell you more than that.”

“Any forty-five-caliber bullets embedded in bone?”

Morelli stared at me. Answer enough.

“Anything to implicate Mo?” I asked.

Another stare.

Morelli’s eyes moved to a spot behind my left shoulder. I followed his eyes and found Ranger standing inches away.

“Yo,” Ranger said. “What’s the deal here?”

Morelli looked to the store. “Somebody buried four guys in Mo’s cellar. The last one was buried shallow.”

And he probably hadn’t been buried so long ago, I thought. Like maybe the night Mo stole Ranger’s car and smelled like sweat and dirt and something worse.

“I’ve got to move,” Morelli said. “I’ve got paperwork.”

I had to go, too. I felt like someone stuck a pin in me and let out the air. I fished car keys and a tissue out of my pocket. I blew my nose one last time and pumped myself back up for the walk to the car.

“How are you feeling?” I asked Ranger.

“Feeling fine.”

“Want to run tomorrow morning?”

He raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t ask the question. “See you at six.”

“Six is good,” I said.

I was halfway home before I picked up the headlights in my rearview mirror. I looked again when I turned off Hamilton. The lights belonged to a black Toyota 4x4. Three antennae. Morelli’s car. He was following me home to make sure I was safe.

I gave Morelli a wave, and he beeped the horn. Sometimes Morelli could be okay.

I drove two blocks on St. James and hit Dunworth. I turned into my lot and found a place in the middle. Morelli parked next to me.

“Thanks,” I said, locking the car, juggling the food bag.

Morelli got out of his car and looked at the bag. “Wish I could come in.”

“I know your type,” I said. “You’re only interested in one thing, Morelli.”

“Got my number, do you?”

“Yes. And you can forget it. You’re not getting my leftovers.”

Morelli curled his fingers around my jacket collar and pulled me close. “Sweetheart, if I wanted your leftovers you wouldn’t have a chance in hell of keeping them.”

“That’s disgusting.”

Morelli grinned, his teeth white against swarthy skin and day-old beard. “I’ll walk you to the door.”

I turned on my heel. “I can take care of myself, thank you.” All huffy. In a snit because Morelli was probably right about the leftovers.

He was still watching when I entered the building and the glass door swung closed behind me. I gave him another wave. He waved back and left.

Mrs. Bestler was in the elevator when I got on. “Going up,” she said. “Third floor, lingerie and ladies’ handbags.”

Sometimes Mrs. Bestler played elevator operator to break up the boredom.

“I’m going to the second floor,” I told her.

“Ah,” she said. “Good choice. Better dresses and designer shoes.”

I stepped out of the elevator, shuffled down the hall, unlocked my door and almost fell into my apartment. I was dead-dog tired. I did a cursory walk through my apartment, checking windows and doors to make sure they were secure, checking closets and shadows.

I dropped my clothes in a heap on the floor, plastered a Band-Aid on my burn and stepped into the shower. Out, damn spot. When I was pink and clean I crawled into bed and pretended I was at Disney World. Stephanie Plum, master of denial. Why deal with the trauma of almost being tortured when I could put it off indefinitely? Someday when the memory was fuzzy at the edges I’d dredge it up and give it attention. Stephanie Plum’s rule of thumb for mental health—always procrastinate the unpleasant. After all, I could get run over by a truck tomorrow and never have to come to terms with the attack at all.

I was awakened by the phone at five-thirty.

“Yo,” Ranger said. “You still want to run?”

“Yes. I’ll meet you downstairs at six.” Damned if I was going to let a couple loser men get the better of me. Muscle tone wouldn’t help a lot when it came to pepper spray, but it’d give me an edge on attitude. Mentally alert, physically fit would be my new motto.

I pulled on long johns and sweats and laced up my running shoes. I gave Rex fresh water and filled his little ceramic food dish with hamster nuggets and raisins. I did fifteen minutes of stretching and went downstairs.

Ranger was jogging in place when I got to the parking lot. I saw his eyes flick to my hair.

“Don’t say it,” I warned him. “Don’t say a single word.”

Ranger held his hands up in a backing-off gesture. “None of my business.”

The corners of his mouth twitched.

I stuffed my hands on my hips. “You’re laughing at me!”

“You look like Ronald McDonald.”

“It’s not that bad!”

“You want me to take care of your hair-dresser?”

“No! It wasn’t his fault.”

We ran the usual course in silence. We added an extra block on the way home, keeping the pace steady. Easy for Ranger. Hard for me. I bent at the waist to catch my breath when we pulled up at my building’s back door. I was happy with the run. Even happier to have it behind me.

A car roared down the street and wheeled into the parking lot. Ranger stepped in front of me, gun drawn. The car slid to a stop, and Lula stuck her head out.

“I saw him!” she yelled. “I saw him! I saw him!”

“Who?”

“Old Penis Nose! I saw Old Penis Nose! I could of got him, but you’re always telling me how I’m not supposed to do nothing, how I’m not authorized. So I tried to call you, but you weren’t home. So I drove over here. Where the hell you been at six in the morning?”

“Who’s Old Penis Nose?” Ranger wanted to know.

“Mo,” I said. “Lula thinks his nose looks like a penis.”

Ranger smiled. “Where’d you see him?”

“I saw him on Sixth Street right across from my house. I don’t usually get up so early, but I had some intestinal problems. Think it was the burrito I had for supper. So anyway I’m in the bathroom, and I look out the window and I see Mo walking into the building across the street.”

“You sure it was Mo?” I asked.

“I got a pretty good look,” Lula said. “They got a front light they leave on over there. Must own stock in the electric company.”

Ranger beeped the security system off on his Bronco. “Let’s move.”

“Me too!” Lula yelled, backing into a parking space, cutting her engine. “Hold on for me.”

We all piled into Ranger’s Bronco, and Ranger took off for Sixth Street.

“I bet Old Penis Nose is gonna pop someone,” Lula said. “I bet he’s got someone all lined up.”

I told Lula about the four bodies in Mo’s basement.

“When a man’s got a nose looks like a penis he’s likely to do anything,” Lula said. “It’s the sort of thing makes serial killers out of otherwise normal people.”

I thought chances were pretty good that Mo was involved in the killing of the men in his cellar. I didn’t think his nose had anything to do with it. I thought about Cameron Brown and Leroy Watkins and Ronald Anders. All dead drug dealers. And then I wondered if the men buried in Mo’s basement would turn out to be dealers, too. “Maybe Mo’s a vigilante,” I said. More to hear it said out loud than anything else. And I was thinking that maybe he wasn’t alone in his vigilantism. Maybe there was a whole pack of them, running around in ski masks and coveralls, threatening and killing whoever they deemed to be a danger to society.

Lula repeated the word. “Vigilante.”

“Someone who takes the law into his own hands,” I said.

“Hunh. I guess I know what it means. You’re telling me Mo is like Zorro and Robin Hood. Only Old Penis Nose don’t just slash a big Z in a man’s shirt. Old Penis Nose scatters brains halfway across a room in his pursuit of justice.” She paused for a moment, thinking it through. “Probably Zorro blew a few heads apart, too. They don’t tell you everything in a movie, you know. Probably after Zorro ruined your shirt he cut off your balls. Or maybe he made a Z on your stomach and all your guts fell out. I heard you could cut open a person’s stomach, and his guts could all be hanging out onto the floor and he could live for hours like that.”

I was riding shotgun beside Ranger. I slid my eyes in his direction, but he was in his zone, doing eighty between cross streets. Foot to the brake, jerk to a stop, giving the ABS a good test, look both ways. Foot to the floor on the accelerator.

“So what do you think?” Lula asked. “You think Zorro got off on shit like that? Making people look at their guts hanging out?”

My lips parted, but no words came out.

Ranger turned onto Main and then onto Sixth. This was a neighborhood of board and shingle row houses with stoops for porches and sidewalk for front yard. The houses were narrow and dark—sullen patchworks of brown and black and maroon. Originally built for immigrant factory workers, the houses were now predominantly occupied by struggling minorities. Most houses had been converted to rooming houses and apartments.

“Who lives in the house across from you?” Ranger asked Lula.

“A bunch of people,” Lula said. “Mostly they come and go. Vanessa Long lives on the first floor, and you never know which of her kids is needing to stay there. Almost always her daughter, Tootie, and Tootie’s three kids. Harold sometimes lives there. Old Mrs. Clayton lives on the other side of the hall. There are three rooms on the second floor. Not sure who’s in those rooms. They let out weekly. Used to be Earl Bean lived in one, but I haven’t seen him lately.”

Ranger parked two houses down. “The third floor?”

“Nothing but an attic up there. Crazy Jim Katts lives in it. My guess is Mo was going to see someone on the second floor. It isn’t like it’s a crack house or anything over there, but when you rent weekly you never know what you get. You probably want to talk to Vanessa. She collects the rent. She knows everything goes on. Her apartment’s on the left side when you walk in the door.”

Ranger scanned the street. “Mo come in a car?”

“You mean the car he stole from you? Nope. I looked, but I didn’t see it. I didn’t see any strange cars. Only cars I see were ones that belong.”

“You stay here,” Ranger said to Lula. He gave an almost imperceptible nod in my direction. “You come with me.”

He was wearing black sweatpants and a black hooded sweatshirt. So far as I could tell he’d never broken a sweat during the run. I, on the other hand, started sweating at the quarter-mile mark. My clothes were soaked through, my hair was stuck to my face in ringlets and my legs felt rubbery. I angled out of the car and did a little jig on the sidewalk, trying to keep warm.

“We’ll talk to Vanessa,” Ranger said. “And we’ll look around. You have anything on you?”

I shook my head, no.

“No gun?”

“No gun. Everything’s in my pocketbook, and I left my pocketbook at my parents’ house.”

Ranger looked grim. “Is the gun loaded?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Your granny’ll be doing target practice, shooting the eyes out of the potatoes.”

I tagged after him and made a mental note to get my gun as soon as possible.

The front door to the building was unlocked. The overhead light still on. Inside, the small foyer was dark. Two doors led to the first-floor apartments. Ranger knocked on the left-hand door.

I looked at my watch. Seven forty-five. “It’s early,” I said.

“It’s Sunday,” Ranger said. “She’ll be getting ready for church. Women need time for their hair.”

The door opened the width of the security chain and two inches of face peered out at us.

“Yes?”

“Vanessa?” Ranger asked.

“That’s me,” she said. “What do you want? If you’re looking to rent we’re full up.”

Ranger badged her. “Bond enforcement,” he said. His voice was soft and polite. Respectful. “I’m looking for a man named Moses Bedemier. He was seen entering this house earlier this morning.”

“I don’t know anybody named Moses Bedemier.”

“White man,” Ranger said. “In his sixties. Balding. Wearing a gray overcoat. Probably came here looking to buy drugs.”

The door closed and the chain snapped off. “I didn’t see no jive junkie coming in here, and if I did I’d kick him out on his bony white ass. I’ve got kids in this house. I don’t put up with that kind coming around. I don’t put up with drugs in this house.”

“Would you mind if we check the upstairs apartments?” Ranger asked.

“Mind? Hell, I’d insist on it,” Vanessa said, disappearing into her living room, returning with a set of keys.

She was as wide as Lula, dressed in a red and yellow flowered cotton housecoat with her hair up in rollers. She had a grown daughter and grandchildren, but she didn’t look much over thirty. Maybe thirty-five. She knocked on the first door with a vengeance.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!

The door opened and a slim young man squinted out at us. “Yuh?”

“You got anybody in here?” Vanessa asked, poking her head around the doorjamb, seeing for herself. “You doing business in here that you shouldn’t be doing?”

“No, ma’am. Not me.” He shook his head vigorously.

“Hmmm,” Vanessa said and moved on to door number two.

Again KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

The door was jerked open by a fat man wearing briefs and an undershirt. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he yelled. “What’s a man got to do to get some sleep around here?” He saw Vanessa and took a step back. “Oh, sorry,” he said. “Didn’t know it was you.”

“I’m looking for some nasty white guy,” Vanessa said, arms crossed, chin tucked in outraged authority. “You got one in here?”

“Nobody here but me.”

We all stood staring at door number three.