Three To Get Deadly

CHAPTER 13

I thought it wouldn’t hurt to look professional when I went to see Mrs. Steeger, so I’d dressed in a tailored black suit, white silk shirt, leopard print silk scarf, taupe stockings and heels. I wasn’t a master at long division, but I could accessorize with the best of them.

I’d called ahead to tell Mrs. Steeger I was stopping by. Then I’d spent a few moments lecturing myself about attitude. I was an adult. I was a professional. And I looked pretty damn good in my black suit. It was unacceptable that I should be intimidated by Mrs. Steeger. As a final precaution against insecurity, I made sure my .38 was loaded and tucked into my shoulder bag. Nothing like packing a pistol to put spring in a girl’s step.

I parked on Ferris Street, got out of the car and sashayed up the sidewalk to Steeger’s front porch. I gave the door a couple authoritative knocks and stood back.

Mrs. Steeger opened the door and looked me over. “Are you carrying a gun? I don’t want you in my house if you’re carrying a gun.”

“I’m not carrying a gun,” I said. Lie number one. I told myself it was all right to lie since Mrs. Steeger expected it. In fact, she’d probably be disappointed if I told the truth. And hell, I wouldn’t want to disappoint Mrs. Steeger.

She led the way into the living room, seated herself in a club chair and motioned me to a corresponding chair on the other side of the coffee table.

The room was compulsively neat, and it occurred to me that Mrs. Steeger had retired while still vital and now had nothing better to do than to polish the polish. Windows were trimmed with white sheers and heavy flowered drapes. Furniture was boxy. Fabric and rug were sensible browns and tans. Mahogany end tables, a dark cherry rocker. Two white Lenox swan nut dishes sat side by side on the coffee table. Nut dishes without nuts. I had a feeling Mrs. Steeger didn’t get a lot of company.

She sat there for a moment, poised on the edge of her seat, probably wondering if she was required by burg etiquette to offer me refreshments. I saved her the decision by immediately going into my spiel. I emphasized the fact that Mo was in danger now. He’d put a dent in the pharmaceutical profit margin and not everyone was pleased. Relatives of dead people were unhappy. The pharmaceutical management was bound to be unhappy. Users and abusers were unhappy.

“And Mo isn’t good at this,” I added. “He isn’t a professional hit man.” Even as I said it a little voice was whispering…eight bodies. How many does it take to make a professional?

I rose and handed Mrs. Steeger my card before she could quiz me on state capitals or ask me to write a book report on John Quincy Adams, Biography of a Statesman.

Mrs. Steeger held my card between two fingers. The way you do when you’re afraid of cootie contamination. “Just exactly what is it you want me to do?”

“I’d like to talk to Mo. See if I can work something out. Get him back into the system before he gets hurt.”

“You want him to call you.”

“Yes.”

“If I hear from him again I’ll pass the message.”

I extended my hand. “Thank you.”

End of visit.

Neither of us had mentioned the incident in the store. This subject was way beyond our comfort zone. Mrs. Steeger hadn’t discovered I was lying about the gun and hadn’t threatened to send me to the principal’s office, so I considered the entire session a rousing success.

I thought it wouldn’t hurt to revisit some neighboring houses. Hopefully the climate would be more receptive now that bodies had been discovered in Mo’s basement.

Dorothy Rostowski seemed a good place to start. I knocked on her door and waited while kids shouted inside.

Dorothy appeared with a spoon in her hand. “Making supper,” she said. “You want to come in?”

“Thanks, but I’ve only got a minute. I just wanted to let you know I’m still looking for Mo Bedemier.”

I felt the climate shift, and Dorothy’s husband came to stand at her side.

“There are a lot of people in this community who’d prefer Mo wasn’t found,” Rostowski said.

My stomach clenched and for a chilling moment I thought he might pull out a gun or a knife or light up a cigarette and threaten me. My mind raced back to the phone call that had lured me to the candy store. Would I have recognized Dorothy’s voice on the phone? Would I have recognized Mrs. Molinowsky’s niece, Joyce, or Loretta Beeber, or my cousin Marjorie? And who were those men who were prepared to burn me and possibly kill me? Fathers of kids like these? Neighbors? Schoolmates? Maybe one of them had been Dorothy’s husband.

“What we’d really like is for all this to be over, so Mo could come back and reopen the store,” Dorothy said. “The kids miss him.”

I had a hard time hiding my astonishment. “Mo’s suspected of killing eight men!”

“Drug dealers,” Dorothy said.

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

“It makes it better than okay. Mo should get a medal.”

“Killing people is wrong.”

Dorothy looked down at the floor, studying a spot just in front of her toe. Her voice dropped. “Theoretically I know that’s true, but I’m fed up with the drugs and the crime. If Mo wants to take matters in his own hands, I’m not going to rain on his parade.”

“I don’t suppose you’d call me if you saw Mo in the neighborhood?”

“Don’t suppose I would,” Dorothy said, still avoiding my eyes.

I crossed the street to talk to Mrs. Bartle.

She met me at the door with her arms crossed over her chest. Not good body language, I thought, taking a mental step backward.

“Is this about Mo?” she asked. “Because I’m going to tell you up front if he was running for president I’d be right there with my vote. It’s about time somebody did something about the drug problem in this country.”

“He’s suspected of killing eight men!”

“Too bad it isn’t more. Get rid of every last one of them dope pushers.”

On the way home I stopped in to see Connie and Lula. Connie was at her desk. Lula was out like a light on the couch.

“She had a tough morning,” I said to Connie. “Went running with Ranger and me. Then she got drilled with special sauce by a chicken.”

“So I hear.”

Lula opened an eye. “Hmmph.” She opened the other eye and took in the suit. “What are you all dressed up for?”

“Business. It’s a disguise.”

“How’s the Mo hunt going?” Connie wanted to know.

“Picking up. Ranger got his car back.”

This got Lula to her feet. “Say what?”

I told them about the two visits to Mrs. Steeger. Then I told them about Ranger’s office.

“You see,” Lula said. “Just like Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne had an office.”

Connie gave Lula one of her “what the hell are you talking about” looks, so Lula explained her Ranger is a superhero theory.

“First off,” Connie said, “Bruce Wayne is Batman, and Batman isn’t actually a superhero. Batman’s just some neurotic guy in a rubber suit. You have to get nuked or come from another planet to be a real superhero.”

“Batman’s got his own comic book,” Lula said.

Connie wasn’t impressed with this logic. “Donald Duck has his own comic book. You think Donald Duck is a superhero?”

“What’s the office like?” Lula asked. “Does he have a secretary?”

“No secretary,” I said. “It’s a one-person office with a desk and a couple chairs.”

“We should go over there and snoop around,” Lula said. “See what we can find.”

Anyone snooping around Ranger’s private space would have to have a death wish. “Not a good idea,” I told Lula. “Not only would he kill us, but it’s also not a nice thing to do. He’s not the enemy.”

Lula didn’t look convinced. “That’s all true, but I’d still like to snoop.”

“You don’t really think he’s a superhero,” Connie said to Lula. “You think he’s hot.”

“Damn skippy I do,” Lula said. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t hiding something. The man has secrets, I’m telling you.”

Connie leaned forward. “Secrets could mean lots of things. He could be wanted for murder in twelve states and have assumed a new identity. Even better…he could be gay.”

“I don’t want to think about him being gay,” Lula said. “Seems like anymore, all the buff bodies are gay, and all the bad-smelling, rangy men are straight. I find out Ranger’s gay and I’m going straight to the freezer section at Shop & Bag. Only men you can count on these days is Ben and Jerry.”

Connie and I nodded sympathetically. Used to be I worried about losing my boyfriends to Joyce Barnhardt. Now I had to worry about losing them to her brother, Kevin.

I was curious about Ranger, but I wasn’t nearly as curious as Lula. I had bigger fish to fry. I had to find Mo. I had to get my pickup. I had to nail down Joe Morelli’s sudden disinterest in me. I was pretty sure it didn’t have to do with a shortage of Y chromosomes.

I backtracked to my parents’ house, recruited my father to drive the Buick home and zipped off to the garage.

My father didn’t say anything on the trip over, but his thoughts were vibrating off the top of his head.

“I know,” I said, testily. “I wouldn’t be having this trouble if I’d bought a Buick.”

The Nissan was parked in a numbered slot in the lot. My father and I cut our eyes to it in silent suspicion.

“You want me to wait?” my father asked.

“Not necessary.”

My father cruised off. We’d done this routine before.

Ernie, the service manager, was in the little office attached to the warehouse of bays. He saw me on line and stepped from behind the counter, took my keys from a hook on the wall and pulled my bill. “You talked to Slick about the carburetor?”

“Yes.”

Ernie smiled. “We like to keep our customers happy. Don’t want you going away without a full explanation.”

I was so happy I was practically suicidal. If I had to spend any more time talking to Slick, I was going to slit my throat.

“I’m in sort of a hurry,” I said, passing Ernie my credit card. Another lie. I had absolutely nothing to do. I was all dressed up with nowhere to go.

If I was a hotshot detective I’d park myself in a van a couple houses down from the candy store, and I’d watch Mrs. Steeger. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a hotshot detective. I didn’t have a van. I couldn’t afford to buy one. I couldn’t afford to rent one. And since everyone in the burg was so nosy, a van probably wouldn’t work anyway.

Just for kicks I drove by Morelli’s house. Sort of test-driving the pickup. Morelli’s car was parked at the curb, and lights were on inside the house. I eased up behind the 4x4 and cut the engine. I checked myself out in the rearview mirror. When a person has orange hair it’s best to appraise it in the dark.

“Well, what the hell,” I said.

By the time I knocked on Morelli’s front door my heart was doing little flutter things in my chest.

Morelli opened the door and grimaced. “If you have another dead guy in your car I don’t want to hear about it.”

“This is a social call.”

“Even worse.”

The chest flutterings stopped. “What kind of a crack is that?”

“It’s nothing. Forget it. You look frozen. Where’s your coat?”

I stepped into the foyer. “I didn’t wear a coat. It was warmer when I started out this afternoon.”

I followed Morelli back to the kitchen and watched while he filled a cordial glass with amber liquid.

“Here,” he said, handing the glass over. “Fastest way to get warm.”

I took a sniff. “What is it?”

“Schnapps. My uncle Lou makes it in his cellar.”

I tried a teeny taste and my tongue went numb. “I don’t know…”

Morelli raised eyebrows. “Chicken?”

“I don’t see you drinking this stuff.”

Morelli took the glass from my hand and tossed the contents down his throat. He refilled the glass and gave it back to me. “Your turn, Cupcake.”

“To the Pope,” I said and drained the glass.

“Well?” Morelli asked. “What do you think?”

I did some coughing and openmouthed wheezing. My throat burned, and liquid fire roiled in my stomach and shot through to every extremity. My scalp started to sweat, and my vagina went into spasm. “Pretty good,” I finally said to Morelli.

“Want another?”

I shook my finger in a no motion. “Maybe later.”

“What’s with the suit?”

I told him about Ranger’s car, and about my second trip to speak to Mrs. Steeger. I told him about Dorothy Rostowski and Mrs. Bartle.

“People are nuts,” Morelli said. “Freaking nuts.”

“So why don’t you want this to be a social visit?”

“Forget it.”

“It’s the hair, isn’t it?”

“It’s not the hair.”

“You’re secretly married?”

“I’m not secretly anything.”

“Well then, what? What?”

“It’s you. You’re a walking disaster. A man would have to be a total masochist to be interested in you.”

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe I will have another schnapps.”

He poured two out, and we both threw them back. It was easier this time. Less fire. More glow.

“I’m not a walking disaster,” I said. “I can’t imagine why you think that.”

“Every time I get social with you I end up all by myself, naked, in the middle of the street.”

I rolled my eyes. “That only happened once…and you weren’t naked. You were wearing socks and a shirt.”

“I was speaking figuratively. If you want to get specific, what about the time you locked me in a freezer truck with three corpses? What about the time you ran over me with the Buick?”

I threw my hands into the air. “Oh sure, bring up the Buick.”

He shook his head, disgusted like. “You’re impossible. You’re not worth the effort.”

I curled my fingers into the front of his T-shirt and hauled him closer. “Not even in your dreams could you imagine how impossible I can be.”

We were toe to toe with my breasts skimming his chest, our eyes locked.

“I’ll drink to that,” Morelli said.

The third schnapps went down smooth as silk. I gave the empty glass to Morelli and licked my lips.

Morelli watched the lip licking, and his eyes darkened and his breathing slowed.

Aha! I thought. This was more like it. Got him interested with the old lip-licking routine.

“Shit,” Morelli said. “You did that on purpose.”

I smiled. Then he smiled.

It looked to me like his “gotcha” smile. Like the cat that just caught the canary. Like I’d been had…again.

Then he closed the space between us, took my face in his hands and kissed me.

The kisses got hotter, and I got hotter and Morelli got hotter. And pretty soon we were all so hot that we needed to get rid of some clothes.

We were half undressed when Morelli suggested we go upstairs.

“Hmmm,” I said with lowered eyelids. “What sort of a girl do you think I am?”

Morelli murmured his thoughts on the subject and removed my bra. His hand covered my bare breast, and his fingers played with the tip. “Do you like this?” he asked, gently rolling the nipple between thumb and forefinger.

I pressed my lips together to keep from sinking my teeth into his shoulder.

He tried another variation of the nipple roll. “How about this?”

Oh yeah. That too.

Morelli kissed me again, and next thing we were down on the linoleum floor fumbling with zippers and panty hose.

His finger traced a tiny circle on my silk-and-lace panties, directly over ground zero. My brain went numb, and my body said, YES!

Morelli moved lower and performed the same maneuver with the tip of his tongue, once again finding the perfect spot without benefit of treasure map or detailed instructions.

Now this was a superhero.

I was on the verge of singing the Hallelujah Chorus when something crashed outside the kitchen window. Morelli picked his head up and listened. There were some scuffling sounds, and Morelli was on his feet, pulling his jeans on. He had his gun in his hand when he opened the back door.

I was right behind him, my shirt held together by a single button, my panty hose draped over a kitchen chair, my gun drawn. “What is it?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t see anything.”

“Cats?”

“Maybe. The garbage is tipped over. Maybe it was my neighbor’s dog.”

I put a hand to the wall to steady myself. “Uh-oh,” I said.

“What uh-oh?”

“I don’t know how to break this to you, but the floor is moving. Either we’re having an earthquake, or else I’m drunk.”

“You only had three schnapps!”

“I’m not much of a drinker. And I didn’t have supper.”

My voice sounded like it was resonating from a tin can, far far away.

“Oh boy,” Morelli said. “How drunk are you?”

I blinked and squinted at him. He had four eyes. I hated when that happened. “You have four eyes.”

“That’s not a good sign.”

“Maybe I should go home now,” I said. Then I threw up.

I woke up with a blinding headache and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I was wearing a flannel nightshirt, which I dimly remembered crawling into. I was pretty sure I was alone at the time, although the evening was fuzzy from the third schnapps on.

What I clearly remembered was that a Morelli-induced orgasm had once again eluded me. And I was fairly certain Morelli hadn’t fared any better.

He’d done the responsible thing and had insisted I sober up some before I went home. We’d logged a couple miles in the cold air. He’d poured coffee into me, force-fed me scrambled eggs and toast, and then he’d driven me to my apartment building. He’d delivered me to my door, and I think he said good night before the nightshirt crawling-into.

I shuffled into the kitchen, got some coffee going and used it to wash down aspirin. I took a shower, drank a glass of orange juice, brushed my teeth three times. I took a peek at myself in the mirror and groaned. Black circles under bloodshot eyes, pasty hungover skin. Not a nice picture. “Stephanie,” I said, “you’re no good at drinking.”

The headache disappeared at midmorning. By noon I was feeling almost human. I took myself into the kitchen and was standing in front of the refrigerator, staring at the crisper drawer, contemplating the creation of the universe, when the phone rang.

My first thought was that it might be Morelli. My second thought was that I definitely didn’t want to talk to him. Let the machine take the message, I decided.

“I know you’re there,” Morelli said. “You might as well answer. You’re going to have to talk to me sooner or later.”

Better later.

“I have news on Mo’s lawyer.”

I snatched at the phone. “Hello?”

“You’re going to love this one,” Morelli said.

I closed my eyes. I was having a bad premonition on the identity of the lawyer. “Don’t tell me.”

I could feel Morelli smiling at the other end of the line. “Dickie Orr.”

Dickie Orr. My ex-husband. The horse’s ass. This was a harpoon to the brain on a day when there was already impaired activity.

Dickie was a graduate of Newark Law. He was with the firm Kreiner and Kreiner in the old Shuman Building, and what he lacked in talent, he compensated for in creative overbilling. He was acquiring a reputation for being a hotshot attorney. I was convinced this was due to his inflated pay schedule rather than his court record. People wanted to believe they got what they paid for.

“When did you learn this?”

“About ten minutes ago.”

“Is Mo turning himself in?”

“Thinking about it. Guess he’s hired himself a dealmaker.”

“He’s suspected of murdering eight men. What kind of a deal does he want? Lobster every Friday while he’s on death row?”

I got a box of Frosted Flakes from the kitchen cupboard and shoved some into my mouth.

“What are you eating?” Morelli wanted to know.

“Frosted Flakes.”

“That’s kid cereal.”

“So what does Mo want?”

“I don’t know. I’m going over to talk to Dickie. Maybe you’d like to tag along.”

I ate another fistful of cereal. “Is there a price?”

“There’s always a price. Meet you at the coffee shop in the Shuman Building in half an hour.”

I considered the state of my hair. “I might be a few minutes late.”

“I’ll wait,” Morelli said.

I could make the Shuman Building in ten minutes if I got all the lights right. It would take at least twenty minutes to do hair and makeup. If I wore a hat I could forgo hair, and that would cut the time in half. I decided the hat was the way to go.

I hit the back door running with a few minutes to spare. I’d gone with taupe eye-liner, a bronze-tone blusher, natural lip gloss and lots of black mascara. The key ingredient to hangover makeup is green concealer for the under-eye bags, covered over with quality liquid foundation. I was wearing my Rangers ball cap, and a fringe of orange frizz framed my face. Orphan Annie, eat your heart out.

I paused for a light at Hamilton and Twelfth and noticed the Nissan was running rough at idle. Two blocks later it backfired and stalled. I coaxed it into the center of the city. Ffft, ffft, ffft, KAPOW! Ffft, ffft, ffft, KAPOW!

A Trans Am pulled up next to me at a light. The Trans Am was filled with high school kids. One of them stuck his head out the passenger-side window.

“Hey lady,” he said. “Sounds like you got a fartmobile.”

I flipped him an Italian goodwill gesture and pulled the ball cap low on my forehead. When I found a parking space in front of the Shuman Building, I revved the engine, popped the clutch and backed into the parking slot at close to warp speed. The Nissan jumped the curb and rammed a meter. I gnashed my teeth together. Stephanie Plum, rabid woman. I got out and took a look. The meter was fine. The truck had a big dent in the rear bumper. Good. Now the back matched the front. The truck looked like someone had taken a giant pincers to it.

I stormed into the coffee shop, spotted Morelli and stomped over to him. I must have still looked rabid, because Morelli stiffened when he saw me and made one of those unconscious security gestures cops often acquire, surreptitiously feeling to see if their gun is in place.

I tossed my shoulder bag onto the floor and threw myself into the chair across from him.

“I swear I didn’t intentionally try to get you drunk,” Morelli said.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Unh.”

“Well, okay, so I did,” he admitted. “But I didn’t mean to get you that drunk.”

“Take a number.”

He smiled. “You have other problems?”

“My car is possessed by the devil.”

“You should try my mechanic.”

“You have a good mechanic?”

“The best. Bucky Seidler. You remember him from high school?”

“He got suspended for letting a bunch of rats loose in the girls’ locker room.”

“Yeah. That’s Bucky.”

“He calm down any?”

“No. But he’s a hell of a mechanic.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Morelli thumbed through a stack of cards he kept in his wallet. “Here it is,” he said, passing the card over to me. “Mr. Fix It. You can keep the card.”

“Bucky Seidler, proprietor.”

“Yeah,” Morelli said. “And resident crazy man.”

I ordered a Coke and French fries. Morelli ordered a Coke and a cheeseburger.

When the waitress left I leaned my elbows on the table. “Do you think Mo could actually have something to bargain?”

“The rumor going around is that Mo is claiming he didn’t kill anybody.”

“Being an accomplice to murder is the same as pulling the trigger in Jersey.”

“If he was cooperative and had something vital to give us…” He made a palms-up “who knows” gesture with his hands.

The waitress set the plates on the Formica-topped table and returned with the drinks.

Morelli snitched one of my French fries. “What did you ever see in Dickie Orr?”

I’d asked myself that same question many times and never found a satisfactory answer. “He had a nice car,” I said.

Morelli’s mouth curved. “Seems like a sound basis for marriage.”

I poured ketchup on the fries and started working my way through them. “You ever think about getting married?”

“Sure.”

“Well?”

“It’s been my sad observation that cops don’t make wonderful husbands. In all good conscience, I’d have to marry someone I didn’t especially like, so I wouldn’t feel crummy about ruining her life.”

“So you’d marry someone like me?”

Morelli’s face creased into a broad smile.

“I hate to admit this, but I actually like you. You’re out of the race.”

“Jeez,” I said. “What a relief.”

“Tell me about Dickie.”

I drank half the Coke. “Is this the price?”

He nodded. “I’ve seen Orr in court. Don’t know him personally.”

“And what’s your opinion?”

“Gets a good haircut. Has lousy taste in ties. Big ego. Little dick.”

“You’re wrong about the dick.”

This earned me another smile.

“He cheats on everything from his taxes to his clients to his girlfriends,” I told Morelli.

“Anything else?”

“Probably doesn’t pay his parking tickets. Used to do some recreational coke. Not sure if he’s still into that. Did the deed with Mallory’s wife.”

Mallory was a uniform who was known for having a higher-than-normal incidence of accidental injuries on his arrest sheets. Uncooperative arrests had a habit of falling down entire flights of stairs while in Mallory’s care.

“You sure about Mallory’s wife?” Morelli asked.

“Heard it from Mary Lou, who heard it at the beauty parlor.”

“Then it must be true.”

“I suppose that’s the sort of stuff you were looking for?”

“It’ll do.”

Morelli finished his cheeseburger and Coke and threw a ten onto the table. “Order yourself a piece of pie. I’ll come back when I’m done with Dickie.”

I jumped from my seat. “You said you’d take me with you!”

“I lied.”

“Creep.”

“Sticks and stones…”