Notorious Nineteen

NINETEEN

I BROUGHT BEASLEY into the police station and ran into Morelli.

“I was just going to call you,” Morelli said.

“I’ve been busy.”

“So I see. Your FTA’s dressed in a garbage bag, you have sand in your hair, and you smell like a piña colada.”

“The guy I just handed over was a bartender at a nudie beach, and he threw a drink at me.”

“You took him down on a nudie beach?”

“Yeah. Lula and me.”

Morelli grinned. “Did you and Lula join in the fun?”

“We didn’t have much choice. They wouldn’t let us on the beach with our clothes on.”

“Both of you full monty?”

“Yep.”

“I’m a little turned on,” Morelli said.

“I hate to disappoint you but it wasn’t all that sexy. I have sand everywhere.”

Someone stuck his head out of a room down the hall and yelled for Morelli.

“Coming!” Morelli yelled back. “I’ll pick you up at your apartment at six o’clock,” he said to me. “We can catch a fast burger and then talk to Mickey Zigler.”

I dropped Lula at the office and continued on home. I brought Tiki into the apartment with me, set him on the couch, and turned the television on. I got into the shower and realized I’d turned the television on for a chunk of wood.

At a little before six I went downstairs to wait for Morelli. I stood in the lobby, where I felt relatively safe, and I called Ranger.

“Just checking in,” I said. “I got another note tacked to my door this morning. Anything new with you?”

“More messages. This freak has a lot of anger.”

“Me too,” I said. “I tried my bridesmaid dress on today. It’s pink. And it has a big bow over my ass.”

I could sense Ranger’s smile over the phone. “Looking forward to seeing it.”

And he hung up.

After a couple minutes Morelli rolled into the lot, and I ran out to his SUV.

“Do you want to eat first or talk to Zigler first?” Morelli asked me.

“Let’s get Zigler out of the way.”

Morelli pulled out of the lot and drove toward Hamilton Avenue. “That would be my choice too.”

“How did it go with the nurses?” I asked him.

“Julie Marconni is a zombie. She’s a single mother who works the night shift and then goes home to take care of her three kids.”

“Who’s with the kids at night?”

“She has a roommate who teaches eighth grade. On the surface it sounds like a good arrangement, but Julie Marconni is a burnout. She was cleaning the house when I got there and she was dead on her feet. I suspect she sleeps a lot on the job. She’s responsible for half the patients on the fourth floor, and none of her patients have gone missing.”

“All the missing patients were Kruger’s?”

“Yeah. Three years’ worth of missing patients.” Morelli stopped for a light. “I asked Kruger if she worked other jobs, and she said once in a while she took on a private client. I asked her if she worked at The Clinic and she said she spent a couple hours there five days a week but she really didn’t do anything. She said if The Clinic ever got up and running she would be guaranteed a supervisory position.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Yes, but I also think there’s something bad going on, and Kruger’s up to her armpits in it. She has a defensive posture when she’s questioned, and things aren’t adding up in her favor.”

“Did she offer to give you a back rub?”

“No. She wasn’t friendly. It was a short conversation.”

“I would have given you a back rub,” I said to Morelli. “I like the way your jeans fit. And I like your shirt when it’s open at the neck a little like this.”

I leaned in and kissed him just below his ear and above the shirt collar.

Morelli dragged me across the console and kissed me. Lots of tongue. His hand under my shirt. The driver behind us leaned on his horn, and Morelli broke from the kiss and moved forward.

“We could turn around and go back to your apartment,” he said.

I retreated to my seat and stuffed myself back into my bra. “Is Zigler expecting you?”

“Yeah,” he said on a sigh. “And Briggs is waiting for us.”

“Then let’s get the job done.”

“My jeans aren’t fitting all that great right now,” Morelli said.

I noticed.

Briggs was in his office waiting for us with Mickey Zigler. Zigler was in his fifties. Gray hair in a buzz cut, barrel-chested, bloodshot eyes.

“Sit,” Morelli said.

We all sat.

“What’s your routine on the night shift?” Morelli asked Zigler.

“I make the rounds every hour. Between the rounds I watch the monitors. We got them all over the building and in the parking areas.”

“That’s a lot of monitors to watch,” Morelli said.

“Not so much at night,” Zigler told him. “Nothing happens. Once in a while we get something coming into the emergency room but usually they go to St. Francis. Especially if it’s a shooting. St. Francis specializes in gunshot wounds. Mostly what I see is pigeons walking around in the lot. And sometimes kids making out in the parking garage.”

“Who watches the monitors when you’re making the rounds?” Morelli asked him.

Briggs answered. “No one. It’s like that during the day too. There’s no money in the security budget for two guys on a shift.”

“So if someone knows when security is on the second floor and the nurses are sleeping on the surgical floor, it wouldn’t be impossible to sneak a patient out,” I said.

“Yeah,” Zigler said, “except we reviewed all the video for the night when Pitch went missing, and it was all the usual stuff. Two to seven is the dead time. There aren’t even pigeons walking around between two and seven.”

“How long does it take you to make the rounds?” Morelli asked.

“A half hour. Unless something unusual happens, it’s a half hour on my feet going through the hospital and then a half hour watching the monitors.”

“When you get to the fourth floor what are the nurses doing?” I asked him.

“They’re usually at the desk, working on the charts or talking.”

“Are they ever asleep?”

“I never saw anyone sleeping. Sometimes Julie looks a little zoned out. She has a tough life. But I never saw her sleeping.”

“How about Kruger?”

“I never saw Kruger sleeping.” He looked at Briggs. “Sometimes she disappears for a while.”

“Where does she go?” I asked Zigler.

Zigler grinned. “Sometimes she gets the orderlies to diddle her in the dayroom. I figure it’s none of my business, but since you asked.”

“Do you have any idea how these patients disappeared while you were working security?” Morelli asked Zigler.

“No, sir,” Zigler said. “I think it must have been aliens. You know how they can beam you up?”

“That’s on television,” Morelli said.

“Maybe,” Zigler said.

I followed Morelli out of the hospital and we buckled ourselves into the SUV.

“Aliens,” Morelli said. “I think he was serious.”

“It is hard to explain.” And hell, I was carrying a chunk of wood around with me that I almost believed was putting ideas into my head. I was ready to believe just about anything.

We called ahead to Pino’s and ordered meatball subs. Morelli stopped at his house and got Bob and a six-pack of Bud. We picked the subs up and took everything up to my apartment. We were in front of the television, eating the subs, drinking beer, and watching a pregame show for the Mets. I heard something go phoonf from the parking lot and my living room window shattered.

Morelli vaulted over the couch, picked something off the floor, threw it out the shattered window, and a moment later there was a loud explosion from the parking lot.

I went to the window and stood next to Morelli. Three cars were furiously burning. One was Morelli’s. The Buick was fine.

“I’m thinking about marrying a woman who gets rockets launched into her living room,” Morelli said. “What’s wrong with this picture?”

“You’re thinking about marrying me?”

“I’ve been thinking about marrying you for ten years,” Morelli said. “Do you want to explain this latest terrorist attack to me?”

“It’s all a misunderstanding. Some nutcase guy thinks I’m in a relationship with Ranger.”

“Are you?”

“In a relationship with Ranger? No! I’m working for him.”

“And this is why the nutcase guy just fired off a rocket into your living room?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know him by name?”

“Not exactly. Ranger’s working on it.”

Emergency vehicles were pouring into my parking lot. Fire trucks, EMTs, police cars.

“I suppose I should go downstairs and explain this to them,” Morelli said.

“What will you say?”

“I’ll say I haven’t a clue. And I’m absolutely not going to tell anyone I picked it up and chucked it out your window.” He turned when he got to the door. “I want you to call Ranger and tell him I’m not happy.”

Bob and I watched the circus in the parking lot for a while and I called Ranger.

“Morelli wants me to tell you he’s not happy,” I said to Ranger.

“I already talked to Morelli.”

“Was he happy?”

“No.”

“Your guy shot a missile into my living room.”

“Yeah, he hit Amanda Olesen’s townhouse too. He shot it into her front window.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“No, but the townhouse was destroyed. Amanda and Kinsey were in the back of the house when the explosion occurred.”

“Where are they now?”

“I have them in a safe house.”

“Are they going through with the wedding?” I asked.

“They’re trying to decide.”

“They should cancel. It’s too dangerous.”

“Babe, you just want to get out of wearing the pink dress.”

“True.”

Bob and I were watching the game when Morelli finally came back to the apartment. I heard the door open and slam shut, locks were flipped, and Morelli went into the kitchen. A minute later he came to the couch with a beer in his hand.

“Well?” I asked.

“It was a direct hit on my car. There’s nothing left of it.”

I bit into my lower lip to keep from smiling. I didn’t want to make matters worse by laughing at Morelli, but there was some humor to the fact that Morelli tossed the thing onto his own car. Of course, there was also the possibility that in my state of mild hysteria the line between horrible and hilarious was blurred, and it wasn’t all that funny that Morelli blew his car up.

“Sorry,” I said.

Morelli chugged down a bottle of beer. “It’s you. You’re a disaster magnet. I’m surprised this building hasn’t been wiped out by a tornado. How could it possibly have escaped a tornado?”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“I’m serious,” Morelli said. “You’re like one of those people who keep getting hit by lightning.”

“Hey, it’s no picnic for me either. Do you think I like having rockets shot into my living room? Do you think I like getting poisoned, threatened with cremation, and forced into a pink taffeta dress?”

“Don’t forget the stun gun,” Morelli said. “You got stunned. And this all happened in one week.”

I sucked in some air and burst into tears. “You’re right,” I said, sobbing. “And it’s even worse. I got two more cars totally toasted and my arm slashed. I’m a walking time bomb.”

“Oh jeez,” Morelli said, putting his beer bottle down and wrapping his arms around me. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I hate when you cry. I got carried away with the disaster magnet thing.”

“I’m a big, humongous mess! I need an exorcist.”

He wiped away a tear that had streaked down my face. “You’re not that much of a mess, Cupcake. And to tell you the truth I don’t think an exorcist would help a lot. It’s not like you’re a biblical mess. You just have a knack for rolling in dog doo.”

I wiped my nose on the back of my hand. “That’s awful.”

“It’s not so bad. Bob rolls in dog doo, and we love Bob, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there you have it.” Morelli kissed me on the top of my head. “You know what you need? A beer. I could use another one too. Don’t go away.”

I watched Morelli trot off to the kitchen, and I was half worried he wasn’t coming back. If I was in his shoes, I might be tempted to grab Bob and head for the hills. Of course Morelli didn’t have a car so I guess that would slow him down.

At any rate, he was right. I needed a beer. And he was right about the dog doodie too. Even when I was a kid I had a knack for pushing the boundaries of common sense and normal behavior. I walked into the boys’ bathroom in grade school because I was convinced I was invisible. I jumped off the roof of my parents’ garage because I thought I could fly. And that was the tip of the iceberg.

And I’m still pushing boundaries, flopping around in water that’s over my head. And here’s the scary part that I wouldn’t say out loud to anyone . . . I’m a little addicted to it. I like my crazy job and my disaster-prone life. Not that I want a bomb in my living room, but I’ve come to like the adventure. I was hooked into the challenge of the manhunt. And the occasional rush of adrenaline was sort of invigorating.