Smokin Seventeen

TWENTY-ONE

I WAS ON MY BACK, looking up at Morelli through cobwebs, and my first thought was that the 7-Eleven victim had exacted revenge on me, and I’d been stun gunned. The cobwebs cleared, and I discounted stun gunning.

“What happened?” I asked Morelli.

“You fainted.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I agree, but if someone sent me a dead woman I might faint, too.” He was down on one knee, bending over me. “Are you ready to get up?”

“I need a moment.”

“Don’t take too long. People will think I’m proposing.”

I slowly got to my feet. “Why me?”

“I don’t know. Have you been getting threatening letters or phone calls?”

“The only one threatening me is your grandmother.”

“Ranger had cameras working and apparently captured the drop. I haven’t seen the video yet, but I’m told the killer was covered head to toe. The interesting thing is he delivered the victim here in her own car.”

“Have you found the car?”

“Not yet. And if we don’t it’ll be following the pattern because we never found Dugan’s car or Lucarelli’s car. Disappeared without a trace.” He kissed me on the forehead. “I have to get back to the station. I want to see the video, and I’m going to run some names through the system. See if I can connect someone to you and Dugan. There are only a handful of people who know about this note, so keep it to yourself.”

“Ranger?”

“You can tell Ranger.”

Lula was standing by the bus, waiting for me. She was dressed in poison green spandex pants, five-inch leopard stilettos, a low-cut scoop neck stretchy lemon yellow shirt, and she’d had her hair done up in braids that made her look like she was wearing a giant spider on her head.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Another body. This one wasn’t buried. Just deposited.”

“We have a sick individual here. He’s killing too many people. He might even be over the legal limit for Trenton.”

For the sake of keeping the note secret I was trying to look calm, but I was actually very rattled. In a back corner of my mind there’d been a nagging thought that Vinnie or the bonds office might have been involved somehow. It never occurred to me that I was the connection. And pinning a note on a dead woman and addressing it to me as if it were a gift tag was hideously disgusting and beyond frightening.

“You look real freaked,” Lula said. “Are you okay?”

“I have problems.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

There was a laundry list, ending with the big one I couldn’t talk about. “For starters, I’ve got the vordo.”

“So you be a good time. What’s wrong with that?”

“I’m too much of a good time. It’s even more confusing than when I wasn’t a good time at all. And I think I might be getting a bladder infection.”

“A bladder infection’s no good. Maybe you should cut back.”

“I can’t cut back. I’ve turned into a sex addict. I get within a foot of Ranger or Morelli and I’m ready to go … and go, and go, and go, and go.”

“That’s a lot of going. I’m a retired professional, and it’d be a lot of going even for me. What you need are granny panties. You put on a big ol’ pair of ugly granny panties and you won’t be dropping your drawers no more. And even if you forget in the heat of the moment, and you pull your skirt up over your head, you’re not gonna see no action on account granny panties have a deflating effect on a man. Your man’s gonna be going unh ah, no way am I getting busy with a woman wearing granny panties.”

Call me crazy, but it made as much sense as anything else going on in my life. And it was better than thinking about Juki Beck. “Okay, sign me up. Where do I get granny panties?”

A half hour later we were at JCPenney, wandering around in the lingerie department.

“This is the perfect all-purpose store,” Lula said. “They got panties to fit any occasion. They got everything from thongs to granny panties and everything in between.” She picked a pair of pink cotton panties off the rack and held them up for inspection. “Now this is what I’m talking about. You don’t want to be seen in these panties. You have to turn the lights out when you put them on so you don’t even see yourself.”

“They look big.”

“Yeah, these suckers are gonna come up to your armpits. Try ’em on, and we’ll take ’em for a test drive. See if you want to hump anybody while you’re wearin’ these panties.”

I took the panties to the dressing room, tried them on, and checked myself out in the mirror. Not a pretty sight. I was definitely moving into birth control territory.

“Well?” Lula asked when I came out.

“They’re perfect.”

“They got them in red and white, too. I bet you put the white ones on, and you want to jump off a bridge.”

I bought one in each color, and I wore the pink ones out of the store. Better safe than sorry was my motto. Although truth is there wasn’t much to be sorry about considering the night I’d just had. And the night before that with Morelli hadn’t exactly been shabby.

“Now that you been back to back with Morelli and Ranger who’s winning the sack race?” Lula asked.

“The food and the bed linens are better at Rangeman, but Morelli has Bob.”

“All those things are important, only I’m talkin’ about the big O.”

I took some time to think about it. “They’re different, but equal.”

“That don’t tell me nothing,” Lula said. “Sounds to me like you gotta do more research.”

Oh boy.

“And what about boyfriend number three?” she asked.

“Dave Brewer? I don’t know him very well.”

“He’s good-lookin’, right? And he’s big and strong and manly?”

“I guess.”

“And he can cook. Seems like that equates to Ranger’s sheets and Morelli’s dog. And your mama likes him.”

“My mother’s endorsement doesn’t count for a lot. One time she fixed me up with Ronald Buzick.”

“The butcher? The fat, bald guy?” Lula followed me out of the mall. “He’s not a real attractive man. Your mama must have been thinking about free sausage. I got some kielbasa from him once that was outstanding.”

I unlocked my Escort, and I thought about Ronald Buzick. He was about the same size as the killer. The jumpsuit had looked padded, but maybe those lumps were actually Ronald. He was strong enough to break someone’s neck. And he was a little odd. He seemed jolly on the outside, but I was guessing he had a lot of anger on the inside. I mean the man had his hand up chicken butts all day long.

“Do you think Ronald Buzick could kill someone?” I asked Lula.

“I think anyone could kill someone. People get a little wacky, and bang someone’s dead. At least in my neighborhood. What are we gonna do now? Do we need lunch?”

“We just ate lunch at the mall.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot.”

I put the car in gear and drove out of the lot. “I think it’s time to visit Merlin Brown again.”

“That’s a good idea on account of I haven’t been knocked on my ass yet today. It wouldn’t be right for a day to go by without him knocking me on my ass.” She looked over at me. “Do we have a plan?”

“No.”

“Probably you still don’t want me to shoot him or run over him with your car.”

“Right.”

“I got a new idea. How about we bring him a poison pizza. I’m not saying we want to kill him or anything. I’m thinkin’ we could just slip him some pepperoni roofies.”

“That’s illegal.”

“Only a little. People eat roofies all the time. At least in my neighborhood.”

“You need to move into a new neighborhood.”

“Yeah, but I got real cheap rent.”

“I bet.”

“And my apartment got a big closet.”

“It also hasn’t got a kitchen.”

“A girl’s gotta have priorities,” Lula said. “I happen to be a stylish person. And I have my whole professional wardrobe from my previous vocation.”

“I used to be a stylish person. And now I’m wearing granny panties.”

“First off, you never been a stylish person. You don’t own a bustier or a single thing in leopard. And second you be out of those panties in no time. You just need to give your lady parts a rest.”