Lean Mean Thirteen

SIXTEEN

GRANDMA WAS WAITING at the door when we got to the house.

"Mr. Coglin isn't here yet," she said.

Morelli let Bob off the leash, and Bob ran into the kitchen to say hello to my mother. I heard my mother shriek and then all was quiet.

"He must have eaten something," Grandma said. "I hope it wasn't the cake."

The house smelled good, like Italian spices in marinara sauce and garlic bread in the oven. The dining room was set for six. Two bottles of red wine on the table, a bowl of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. My father was asleep in front of the television, and I could hear my mother working in the kitchen, talking to Bob.

"Be a good boy, and I'll give you a little lasagna," she said to Bob.

I followed Grandma into the kitchen and looked around for Bob damage. "What did he eat?" I asked my mother.

"It was almost the cake, but I caught him in time."

I went to the stove and stirred the extra sauce cooking in the pan. I love being in my mothers kitchen. It is always warm and steamy and filled with activity. In my mind, I have a kitchen like this. The cabinets are filled with dishes that actually get used. The pots sit out on the stove, waiting for the days sauces and soups and stews. The cookbook on the counter is dog-eared and splattered with grease and gravy and icing smudges.

This is a fantasy kitchen, of course. My actual kitchen has dishes, but I eat standing over the sink, paper towel in hand. I have a single pot that is only used to boil water for tea when I have a cold. And I don't own a cookbook.

Sometimes, I wanted to marry Morelli so I'd have a kitchen like my moms. Then, other times, I worried that I couldn't pull it off, and I'd have a husband and three kids, and we'd all be eating take-out standing over the sink. I guess there are worse things in the world than take-out, but in my mothers kitchen, take-out feels a little like failure.

The doorbell chimed and Grandma took off like a shot.

"I've got it!" she yelled. "I've got the door."

My mother had the hot lasagna resting on the counter. The bread was still in the oven. It was three minutes to six. If the food wasn't on the table in eight minutes, my mother would consider everything to be ruined. My mother operates on a tight schedule. There is a small window of opportunity for perfection in my mother's kitchen.

We all went into the living room to greet Carl Coglin,

"This here's Carl Coglin," Grandma announced. "He's a taxidermist, and he got the best of the cable company."

"Those fuckers," my father said.

"I brought you a present for being so nice and watching my house," Coglin said to Grandma. And he handed her a big box.

Grandma opened the box and hauled out a stuffed cat. It was standing on four stiff legs, and its tail looked like a bottlebrush. Like maybe the cat had been electrocuted while standing in the rain.

"Ain't that a pip!" Grandma said. "I always wanted a cat."

My mother turned white and clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Holy crap," my father said. "Is that son of a bitch dead?"

"His name is Blackie," Coglin said.

"He won't explode, will he?" Grandma asked.

"No," Coglin said. "He's a pet."

"Isn't this something," Grandma said. "This is about the best present I ever got."

Bob came in, took one look at Blackie, and ran off to hide under the dining room table.

"Goodness," my mother said, "look at the time. Let's eat. Everyone take a seat. Here, let me pour the wine." My mother poured herself a tumbler and chugged it down. It took a couple beats to hit her stomach, and then the color started to come back into her face.

Grandma dragged an extra chair to the table so Blackie could eat with us. Blackie had close-set eyes, one higher in his head than the other, giving him a pissed-off, slightly deranged expression. He peered over the edge of the table, one eye focused on Morelli and one eye on his water glass.

Morelli burst out laughing, I gave him an elbow, and he bowed his head and sunk his teeth into his lower lip to gain some self-control. His face turned red, and he started to sweat with the effort.

Bob growled low in his throat and pressed himself against my leg.

"I'm not eating with a dead cat at the table," my father said.

Grandma put her hands over Blackie's ears. "You'll hurt his feelings," she said to my father.

"Just shoot me," my father said. "Morelli, give me your gun."

My mother was on her third glass of wine. "Honestly, Frank," she said. "You're such a drama queen."

Morelli's phone buzzed, and he excused himself to take the call.

I grabbed his shirt when he stood. "If you don't come back, I'll find you, and it won't be pretty."

Minutes later, he returned, leaning close to me. "That was Ranger. He has Dickie, and he's drugged but okay. He was being held in Dave's apartment. I don't know any more details. Rangers taking Dickie to RangeMan. I said we'd be over when we were done here."

"Carl said he would teach me taxidermy," Grandma said.

"I was gonna take up bowling, but now I'm thinking taxidermy might be the way to go. Carl said I could do my taxidermy right here in the kitchen."

My mothers fork fell out of her hand and clattered onto her plate.

DICKIE WAS IN a holding cell at RangeMan. He was stretched out on a cot with an ice bag on his face. We were looking at him through a one-way window in the door.

"I didn't know you had holding cells," I said to Ranger.

"We like to think of them as private rooms," Ranger said.

"Why's he got the ice bag?"

"To keep the swelling down on his broken nose. Its not a bad break. We put a Band-Aid on it and gave him some Advil. Apparently, they had to encourage him to talk."

"Anything else wrong with him?"

"Yeah, lots of things," Ranger said, "but not from the time spent with Dave. They gave him something to keep him quiet. We won't get much information out of him until it works its way through his system. We can keep him here until he comes around, but we can't keep him against his will beyond that."

"You might as well unload him on me now," Morelli said. "I'm going to get stuck with him eventually anyway."

"I'll have him brought to your house. We'll bring him in through the back."

"What about Dave?" I asked Ranger.

"Never saw Dave. Dickie was alone in the apartment. They had him chained up in the bathroom. We set an alarm off when we went in, so it's likely Dave won't return. I left a man in the area just in case. I did a fast search of the apartment, but didn't find anything that would tell us where Petiak is hiding. We didn't wait for the police."

Ranger walked us down to the parking garage.

"What do you want to do about Stephanie?" Ranger asked Morelli. "She can't go back to her apartment. Do you want to leave her here, or do you want her with you?"

"I don't see her living in the same house as Dickie," Morelli said to Ranger. "Can you be trusted with her?"

"No," Ranger said. "Not for a second."

"Good grief," I said. "I won't stay with either of you. I'll stay with Lula or my parents. I need to go after Diggery tonight anyway."

"So TELL ME again what’s going on," Lula said.

We were in her Firebird in front of RangeMan, and Binkie was at idle behind us.

"We're going after Diggery," I said. "Stanley Berg was buried this morning in a nice new suit and a diamond pinkie ring."

"I'll drive you to the cemetery, but I'm not walking around with you. I'm staying in my car. There's a full moon out tonight. That cemetery is probably full of werewolves and all kinds of shit."

1 looked out the windshield. "I don't see a moon."

"It's behind the clouds. Just 'cause yon can't see it don't mean it isn't there. The werewolves know it's there."

"Okay, fine. Wait in the car. Leave the window cracked so you can call the police1 if you hear me screaming."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Lula said. "I swear, you're a crazy person. You go around up to your eyeballs in snakes and dead people and exploding beavers. Its just not normal. Even when I was a 'ho, my life wasn't that freaky. Only thing normal about you is your hot boyfriend, and you don't know what the heck to do with him. To make matters worse, you got that spook Ranger sniffing after you. Not that anyone wouldn't want him sniffing after them. I mean, he is finer than fine. But he's not normal."

"Sometimes he seems normal."

"Girl, you aren't paying attention. He is way better I than normal."

Lula pulled up to the gate leading in to the cemetery and stopped. "I can't go no further," Lula said. "This sucker's closed to traffic at night."

"I'll go the rest of the way on foot," I told her.

"You got a flashlight?"

"I can't use a flashlight. I can't take a chance on Diggery seeing me."

"This is nuts," Lula said. "I can't let you go out there by yourself. You don't even got a gun."

"Binkie will go with me."

"Binkie don't look like the sharpest tack on the cork-board. I can't turn yon over to Binkie. Honest to goodness, we should all he at home watching television, working our way through a bag of chips, but no, we're out in a bone-yard. The way things are going, we probably find Diggery, and he got his snake with him."

I got out of the Firebird and walked back to Binkie.

"I'm after an FTA who sidelines as a grave robber," I said to Binkie. "I have reason to believe he'll be here tonight."

Binkie looked at the pitch-black cemetery. "Oh jeez."

I understood Binkie's reluctance to traipse through the cemetery. At first glance, it was kind of creepy, but I'd chased Diggery through this cemetery before at night and lived to tell about it. What I've discovered with my job is that there's a difference between being brave and being stupid. In my mind, bungee jumping is stupid. Stalking an FTA in a cemetery at night doesn't seem to me to be all that stupid, but the creep factor is moderate to high, so it requires some bravery. And I've found I can sometimes force myself to be brave. Usually, the bravery is accompanied by nausea, but hell, it's not a perfect world, right?

"You can wait here," I said to Binkie.

Binkie opened his door and stepped out. "No way. Ranger'll kill me if anything happens to you. I'm not supposed to let you out of my sight."

Lula came over and checked Binkie out. He was in RangeMan SWAT black with a loaded utility belt, and he stood a full foot taller than Lula.

"You got silver bullets in that Glock you're carrying?" Lula asked.

"No, ma'am."

"Too bad, on account of this place is probably full of werewolves tonight, and you need silver bullets to get rid of those bad boys. And we should probably have garlic and crosses and shit. You got any of those?"

"No, ma'am."

"Hunh," Lula said.

I set out, walking down the private road that led into the cemetery. It was an old cemetery that sprawled over maybe fifty acres of low, rolling hills. It was laced with paths leading to family plots that held generations of hardworking people laid to rest. Some of the headstones were elaborately carved and worn by time and weather, and some were flat pieces of recently polished granite.

"Where are we going?" Lula wanted to know. "I can't hardly see anything."

"The Bergs are just ahead on the left. They're halfway up the hill."

"How far on the left? It all looks the same."

"They're behind the Kellners. Myra Kellner has an angel carved at the top of her marker."

"I don't know how you remember these things," Lula said. "Half the time, you get lost in Quakerbridge parking lot, but you know where the Kellners and Bergs live in this graveyard."

"When I was little, I used to come here with my mother and grandmother. My relatives are buried here."

I used to love the cemetery excursions. The family plot, like my mothers kitchen, is tended by women.

"This is your Great-Aunt Ethel," Grandma Mazur would say to my sister. Valerie, and me. "Ethel was ninety-eight years old when she died. She was a pip. She loved a good cigar after dinner. And Ethel played the accordion. She could play 'Lady of Spain' by heart. Her sister Baby Jane is buried next to her. Baby Jane died young. She was only seventy-six when she died. She choked on a kielbasa. She didn't have no teeth. Used to gum all her food, but I guess you can't gum kielbasa so good. They didn't know the Heimlich in those days. And here's your Uncle Andy. He was the smart one. He could have gone to college, but there was no money for it. He died a bachelor. His brother Christian is next to him. Nobody really knows how Christian died. He just woke up dead one day. Probably, it was his heart."

Valerie and I had every square inch of our plot committed to memory, but it was part of the experience to have Grandma point out Great-Aunt Ethel. Just as it was part of the experience to go exploring in the tombstone forest while my mother and grandmother planted the flowers. Val and I visited the Hansens and the Krizinskis and the Andersons on the top of the hill. We knew them almost as well as Great-Aunt Ethel and Baby Jane. We planted lilies for Easter and geraniums for the Fourth of July. In the fall, we'd visit just to clean things up and make sure all was right with the family.

I stopped going to the cemetery when I was in junior high. Now I only go for a funeral or to chase down Simon Diggery. My mother and grandmother still go to plant the lilies and geraniums. And now that my sister has moved back to the Burg with her three girls, I'm sure they'll help plant the lilies this year and listen to Grandma talk about Ethel.

"Here's an angel," Lula said, stepping off the path, heading uphill. "Excuse me," she said, walking on graves. "Sorry. Excuse me."

Binkie was silent behind me. I turned and looked at him, and he had his hand on his gun. I wasn't sure what he thought he might have to shoot.

"Simon Diggery isn't usually armed with anything other than a shovel," I told Binkie. "Lula and I have done this before. We'll get to the grave site and find a place to hide. Then we'll let Simon dig himself into a hole. It makes the apprehension easier."

"Yes, ma'am," Binkie said.

"I hate being ma'am," I told him. "Call me Stephanie."

"Yes, ma'am, Stephanie."

"I'm at the top of the hill, and I don't see no fresh-dug grave," Lula said.

"Are you sure you turned at Kellner?"

"I turned at the angel. I don't know about Kellner."

I squinted into the darkness. Nothing looked familiar.

"Is that rain I feel?" Lula asked. "It wasn't supposed to rain, was it?"

"Chance of showers," I told her.

"That's it," she said. "I'm going home. I'm not being out here in the rain. I'm wearing suede." Lula looked around. "Which way's home?"

I didn't know. It was pitch black, and I was all turned around.

"We can't go wrong if we go downhill," Lula said, taking off. "Oops, excuse me. So sorry. Excuse me."

It was raining harder and the ground was getting slick underfoot.

"Slow down," I said to Lula. "You can't see where you're going."

"I got X-ray vision. I'm like a cat. Don't worry about me. I just gotta get this coat out of the rain. I can see there's a tent ahead."

A tent? And then I saw it. The grounds crew had erected a tarp over a hole dug for a morning burial.

"I'm just waiting under this tent until the rain lets up," Lula said, rushing forward.

"No!"

Too late.

"Whoops," Lula said, disappearing from view, landing with a loud whump.

"Help!" she yelled. "The mummy got me."

I looked down at her. "Are you okay?"

"I think I broke my ass."

She was about six feet down in a coffin-sized hole. The sides were steep and the surrounding dirt was fast turning into mud.

"We have to get her out of here," I said to Binkie.

"Yes, ma'am. How?"

"Do you have anything in the car? Rope?"

Binkie looked around. "Where's the car?"

I had no idea.

I flipped my cell phone open and called Ranger.

"We're in the cemetery and we're lost," I said to him. "It's raining and it's dark and I'm cramping. I've got the transmitter thingy in my pocket. Can you get a bead on us?" There were a couple beats of silence. "Are you laughing?" I asked him. "You'd better not be laughing."

"I'll be right there," Ranger said.

"Bring a ladder."

WE WERE A ragtag group, standing in the rain at the cemetery gates. Ranger and two of his men fading into the night in their black rain gear, Lula head-to-toe mud, and Binkie and me soaked to the skin.

"I feel funky," Lula said. "I got graveyard mud on me." She had her car keys in her hand. "Do you need a ride somewhere?" she asked me.

"I'm good," I said to her.

Lula got into her car and drove off. Binkie left and Ranger's men got into their SUV and left.

"Just you and me," Ranger said. "What's the plan?"

"I want to go to Morelli's house. I want to be there when Dickie starts talking."

Thirty minutes later. Ranger walked me to Morelli's back door and handed me over.

"Good luck," Ranger said to Morelli. "You might want to hide your gun."

And Ranger left.

Morelli brought me into the kitchen. "Diggery?" he asked.

"Never saw him. We got lost in the cemetery and had to get Ranger to track us down. I need a shower."

I slogged upstairs to the bathroom, locked myself in, and stripped. I stood in the shower until I was all warmed up and squeaky clean. I ran a comb through my hair, wrapped a towel around myself, and shuffled into Morelli s bedroom.

Morelli was in the middle of the room looking like he wanted to do something but wasn't sure where to begin. Bed linens and clothes were in a crumpled mess on the floor, and there were empty beer bottles, plates, and silverware on all surfaces.

"This isn't good," I said to him.

"You have no idea what this has been like. I hate this guy. I hide in my room. I'd like to hit him, but it isn't allowed. He eats all my food. He controls the television. And he's always talking, talking, talking. He's everywhere. If I don't lock my door, he just walks in."

"Is he still drugged?"

"Yeah. I'd like to keep him that way"

"Do I have any clothes here?"

"Some underwear. I think it's mixed in with mine."

I found the underwear and borrowed a T-shirt. I located some clean sheets and made the bed.

"This is nice," Morelli said. "I knew the room needed something, but I couldn't figure out what. It was sheets."

"Stick a fork in me," I said, crawling into bed.