Notorious Nineteen

FOURTEEN

I WAS THE first to get to the FedEx lot. Lula arrived a few minutes after me. Randy Briggs drove up a few minutes after Lula. We all had penlights and pepper spray. We were all dressed in black, just like in the movies. And we all felt sort of stupid. Okay, maybe not Lula, but definitely Briggs and me.

“We’ll go in Lula’s car,” I said. “We’ll park in Myron Cryo’s lot and cut through the band of trees. I drove around the cul-de-sac when I first got here and there are no cars parked in front of The Clinic and no lights shining from any of the windows.”

Lula killed her lights at the entrance to the Cryo lot and glided to a stop close to the greenbelt. We all piled out and crept through the trees and shrubs to the blacktopped driveway that led to The Clinic’s underground garage. There was a single light shining over the garage entrance. And there was a light in a room at the far end of the second floor.

The drop box was next to the roll-down door. The metal fire door was to the other side of the drop box. I opened the drop box door, clicked my penlight on, and took a look inside. It was going to be a tight fit for Briggs.

“I’m not crazy about this,” Briggs said. “What if I get stuck? What if I get caught?”

“If you get caught just tell them some college kids kid-napped you and put you in the box for fun,” Lula said. “Probably happens all the time to you little people.”

“I got a gun,” Briggs said to Lula. “I could shoot you.”

“You don’t scare me,” Lula said. “My gun’s bigger than your gun.”

“Oh yeah?” Briggs said. “Haul it out and we’ll see who’s got the bigger gun.”

“Jeez Louise!” I said. “Here we go with the gun stuff again. Stop the gun stuff! There’s no gun stuff!”

“She don’t understand the joys of shooting,” Lula said to Briggs.

“She hasn’t got enough rage,” Briggs said. “She needs more rage.”

“You’re going to see rage if you don’t stop talking and get in the box,” I said to Briggs.

“Alley-oop,” Lula said, lifting Briggs up and sliding him in feetfirst.

“I don’t fit,” Briggs said.

“Sure you do,” Lula told him. “Just squish down a little.”

Lula put her hand on top of Briggs’s head, compacted him into the box, and closed the door.

“See,” Lula said. “I knew he’d fit.”

There was a lot of swearing and banging around inside the box and then silence.

Lula and I waited, staring at the box.

“You think I should open it and look inside?” Lula asked. “If he’s dead I’m not pulling him out. Bad enough I just ran the risk of getting Briggs cooties. I’m not getting dead cooties. They’re worse than hospital cooties.”

I opened the box and looked inside. Empty.

“I think I hear something,” Lula said. “Sounds like he’s working at the lock on the door.”

My cellphone rang. It was Briggs.

“Hang tight,” Briggs said. “I can’t reach the deadbolt. I’m going to get something to stand on.”

A minute later Briggs opened the door, and Lula and I scooted into the building. The garage was dimly lit. Two cars were parked in the garage. The black Escalade and a white panel van. We took the stairs to the first floor, and I cautiously poked my head out the door and squinted into a dark hall.

“Stay here,” I said to Lula and Briggs. “I’m going to investigate.”

I tiptoed down the hall, looking into empty, unfurnished rooms with en suite handicap bathrooms. I was thinking that the building had been designed for use as a nursing home, but probably never had any residents.

The hall was bisected by a nurses’ station from which a short corridor led to the small lobby and main entrance, and to the far side of the nurses’ station were more unused, unfurnished rooms.

I retraced my steps and took the stairs to the second floor. The hall was dark, but I could see light spilling from a room on the far side of the center foyer. I’d been nervous as I walked the first floor. The nerves kicked up to heart palpitations and nausea when I stepped into the second-floor hall. The rooms on either side of the hall were obviously offices. Two of the offices were furnished and looked like they were being used. I didn’t want to take the time to snoop in the offices. The rest of the offices were empty.

I crossed the center foyer, held my breath, and opened a door to a fully equipped lab. I assumed this belonged to Darhmal, the biochemist. There were two hospital type rooms across from the lab. Beds were made. No one in them. No sign that anyone occupied either of the rooms. No personal possessions. No toothbrush in the bathroom. No water glass.

I could hear a television droning in the room at the end of the hallway. I swallowed back panic at the knowledge that someone probably was in the room. Cubbin maybe. More likely whoever owned the two vehicles in the garage. There were two doors opening onto the television room. Not a normal hospital room, I thought. It was most likely a dayroom for staff or a rec room for patients who didn’t exist.

I had one more door to open. It had a numbered keypad on it. No window in the door. I gently pushed against it. Unlocked. I stepped in and flicked my penlight on. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing at first. It took me a moment to realize it was an operating room. My experience with operating rooms is little to none, but to my untrained eye this looked very complete and high tech. There were cabinets with drugs and syringes, refrigeration units, gas tanks, autoclaves, surgical equipment trays, high-powered lights, a hydraulic table, computers, and a bunch of mysterious machines.

I heard a phone ring in the television room. Heard a man’s voice answer the phone. My heart stopped dead in my chest for a beat, and I started to sweat. I had the penlight in one hand and my phone in the other. Lula and I had done the drill before. If I opened the line to her it meant I was screwed.

Hard to hear what the man was saying over the noise of the television, but it sounded like a social call. There were no shocked or angry exclamations. I stepped out of the operating room, tiptoed to the first door, and carefully peeked in. It was the Yeti with his back to me. No one else in the room.

I whirled around and speed walked the length of the hall. I was almost at the stairs when I heard the Yeti yell.

“Hey! What the hell? Stop right where you are.”

I bolted the last couple steps, ducked into the stairwell, flew down the stairs, and ran past Lula and Briggs.

“Time to go,” I said to them.

I kept running, through the garage, out the door, across the driveway to the patch of trees. I could hear Lula and Briggs behind me. We were all breathing heavy when we piled into the Firebird. Lula put the car in gear and peeled out of the lot.

“What happened?” Lula wanted to know, racing to the FedEx lot. “Did you see Cubbin?”

“No,” I said. “I saw the Yeti. He was watching television, and he caught me creeping down the hall. I think I might have wet my pants.”

“You saw a Yeti?” Briggs said. “Isn’t that one of them Big-foot things?”

“Actually what I saw was a six-foot-six albino with one blue eye and one brown eye,” I told him.

“We’re onto something,” Lula said. “This is big. We’re like crime solvers. We should have our own television show. What do we do next?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I need to go home and have a glass of wine and stop hyperventilating.”

“Just remember who got you into the building,” Briggs said. “I want to be there when you get Cubbin. And I don’t want to be left out of the television show either. Little people are sexy now. Have you seen Game of Thrones? We’re hot.”

I left Lula and Briggs and drove out of the industrial park. I didn’t have hands-free phoning in the Buick so I waited until I was home to call Morelli.

“I’m home,” I said.

“How did it go?”

“I didn’t get arrested or shot at.”

“That’s good.”

“I don’t know what to think of The Clinic. It looks like it’s set up for business. It’s got offices, and a lab, and an emergency room, and rooms for patients, but there are no patients.”

“And no Cubbin?”

“I didn’t see him. I saw the albino.”

“The guy who stunned you?”

“Yeah.”

There was a big awkward silence in which I imagined Morelli was trying to get a grip on himself.

“And?” Morelli asked.

“And he saw me but I ran away.”

“Did he follow you?”

“I don’t think so. I checked for a tail.”

I had Tiki sitting on my dining room table, and he was telling me to go back to the Mexicana Grill for a bucket of margaritas.

“Bad Tiki,” I said.

“Are you talking to the wood chunk?” Morelli asked.

“Only a little.”

I woke up pleased with myself that I’d ignored Tiki’s margarita suggestion. I was able to snap the top snap on my jeans, and I felt right with the world. No residual nausea from the night’s adventure. I’d almost gotten caught, but almost doesn’t count, right?

I worked my way through a bowl of cereal and a mug of coffee while I constructed a mental to-do list for the day. First up was Dottie Luchek. Then I might take a look at Franz Sunshine. And I wanted to go back to Cranberry Manor. I was forgetting something, but I couldn’t nail it down. It wasn’t Melvin Barrel. His case was closed. It wasn’t Nurse Norma. Susan Cubbin was staked out on that one, though I thought she made the wrong choice. I didn’t think her husband was doing the sex slave thing with Norma Kruger.

I rinsed my dishes, brushed my teeth, grabbed Tiki and my messenger bag, and opened my front door. There was a note tacked to it.

Fear not. I will cleanse you of the evil. You will burn and your soul will flee the body he’s contaminated.

I had a moment of scramble brain, followed by the sort of cold terror that only the criminally insane can inspire. And then I remembered the other item on the list. I needed to go to the bridal salon and get the bridesmaid dress fitted.

I ripped the note off the door and stuffed it into my bag. I returned to the kitchen, took my .45 out of the brown bear cookie jar, and spun the barrel. No bullets. I’d have to mooch some from Connie. I slipped the gun into the side pocket of my messenger bag, locked up my apartment, and took the stairs to the lobby.

I was a little freaked walking to the car. I didn’t feel good about the whole burning-and-soul-leaving-body thing, so I was looking around for incendiary devices and being careful.

I put Tiki on the seat next to me and took off for the office. “You have to help me out here,” I said to Tiki. “I can’t be distracted by donuts and margaritas. If I don’t stay sharp we could both could end up as a big pile of ashes.”

Traffic was light and fifteen minutes later I docked the Buick in front of the bonds office and called Ranger.

“I had a note tacked to my door this morning,” I told him, trying to keep my voice even. I didn’t want to sound like a freaked-out girl, but my hand was shaking as I read him the message.

“I got something similar,” Ranger said. “Would you consider staying with me until we solve this? It would be easier for me to keep you safe if you were under my roof.”

Very tempting. Ranger’s private apartment in the Rangeman building was beyond comfortable. It was professionally decorated in soothing earth shades. The furniture was all clean modern lines. The kitchen was sleek and stocked with food thanks to his housekeeper. The shower had limitless hot water and Bulgari Green shower gel. The king-size bed had thousand-thread-count sheets. And then there was Ranger. He was total eye candy and surprisingly easy to live with as long as you understood that his energy would always dominate his space. Not to mention Ranger in bed. If I allowed myself to think too long about Ranger in bed I’d be on the road to Rangeman, foot to the floor.

“Thanks for the offer but I’m going to pass,” I said. “It would be complicated.”

“Babe,” Ranger said. And he disconnected.

I looked over at Tiki. “You could have persuaded me,” I said. “Where are you when I need you?”