Twelve Sharp

Twelve

I woke up wrapped in Ranger's arms, our legs entwined, my face snuggled into his neck. He smelled nice, and he felt even better… warm and friendly. I enjoyed it for a moment before reality took hold.

'This is a little déjà vu,' I said to him. 'Didn't you start the night out on the couch?'

'No. I was on the computer when you went to bed. You were already asleep by the time I was done.'

'So you climbed in next to me? I thought when you moved in you'd be sleeping on the couch.'

'You thought wrong.'

'You can't sleep in my bed. It just isn't done. I have a boyfriend. He's a nice guy, but he's not good with sharing.'

'Babe, we're sharing a bed, not a sexual experience. I can control myself if you can.'

'Oh great.'

Ranger's face creased into a smile. 'You can't control yourself?'

I bit into my lower lip.

'Stephanie,' he said. 'You shouldn't tell me things like that. I'll take advantage.'

I blew out a sigh and rolled away from him. 'No you won't. You're Ranger. You're the guy who protects me.'

'Yes, but not from myself!'

I kicked the covers off and slid out of bed. I needed to find Edward Scrog. I needed to find him now! I couldn't manage another morning of waking up next to Ranger.

I took a shower and called Morelli.

'What's going on?' I said.

'I don't know,' Morelli said, sounding half asleep. 'Give me a hint?'

'With Carmen. With Julie Martine. Why hasn't someone found Julie Martine yet? What the heck are you guys doing? I don't understand what's taking so long.'

'What time is it?' Morelli wanted to know. I heard some fumbling and then swearing. 'It's seven-fucking-thirty,' Morelli said. 'It was after two when I got to bed.'

'Did I wake you?'

'Mmm.'

'Sorry. You always get up so early.'

'Not today. Talk to you later.' And he hung up.

I stomped out of the bedroom and into the kitchen where Ranger was making coffee. 'I'm going out,' I said.

'Where are you going?'

'I'm going out for muffins.'

'Give me five minutes to get my shoes on.'

'I don't have five minutes,' I said. 'I have things to do. I've got the panic button. I'll be fine. I'll bring a muffin back for you. What do you want, zucchini, no fat, no sugar, extra bran?'

I turned to go and Ranger scooped me up and carried me into the bedroom and tossed me onto the bed. 'Five minutes,' he said, lacing his shoes.

I lay there spread-eagle, waiting for him. 'Very macho,' I said.

He grabbed my hand and yanked me to my feet. 'Sometimes you try my patience.'

'You don't like it? You can leave.'

He slammed me into the wall and kissed me. 'I didn't say I didn't like it.'

'Okay, good to get that straightened out,' I said. 'Are we going to get muffins, or what?'

He walked to the lot with me, stuffed me into the passenger seat on the Mini and got behind the wheel.

'I thought you were supposed to be secretly following me. I thought I was supposed to be luring Scrog into action.'

'This morning we're both luring him into action. Where do you want to go for muffins?'

'Tasty Pastry. And then Italian Bakery. And then Prizolli's. And then Cluck-in-a-Bucket for a breakfast muffin. And then the convenience store on Hamilton for a paper.'

'Trying to get yourself kidnapped?'

'Do you have a better idea?'

Ranger drove out of the lot and headed for Hamilton. 'Nice to know you're going proactive.'

By the time we got to the convenience store we had the Mini filled with muffin bags. 'Get coffee and a couple papers,' Ranger said. 'We'll have a picnic.'

Ten minutes later, we were on a bench in front of a used bookstore on Hamilton, next to the bonds office. The only way we'd have higher visibility would be to stand in the middle of the road.

'Anybody following us?' I asked Ranger.

'Three cars. Tank in the green SUV, a grey Taurus, and a mini-van.'

'Aren't you afraid you'll get arrested?'

'I'm more afraid I'll get shot by some good Samaritan citizen who saw my picture on America's Most Wanted.' He took a coffee and called Tank. 'Do you have a fix on the Taurus and minivan?'

I chose a carrot cake muffin and waited through a couple beats of silence while Ranger took in the information.

'Amateur bounty hunters,' Ranger finally said to me. 'Disable them,' Ranger said to Tank. 'I don't want Stephanie dragging that clutter around with her.' He disconnected, and we sat there for a half hour eating our muffins, drinking our coffee and reading the paper. We were ready to leave for greener pastures when Morelli drove by, came to a screeching halt, and pulled to the curb. He got out of his SUV and walked over to us.

'You want to explain this to me?'

I told him about Edward Scrog and the scrapbook and the computer blogs.

'So you're sitting here trying to provoke him into making a move?'

'Yep.'

'This is a dangerous stupid idea. He shot his wife and there's no reason to think he won't shoot you.'

'Yeah,' I said. 'But I don't think he'll shoot me right away.'

'That makes me feel a lot better,' Morelli said. 'I'll tell that to my acid reflux.'

'I'll be fine. I swear!' I told him.

Morelli made a disgusted hand gesture. 'I didn't see this,' Morelli said. 'But I want to be kept appraised of the evidence you gather. And if you overstep boundaries with Stephanie and move in on me,' he said, turning to Ranger, 'I'll find you, and it won't be good.'

Morelli took a blueberry muffin out of a bag, jogged back to his car, and took off.

Ranger smiled at me. 'Just so you know, that's not going to stop me from trying to move in on him.'

'You and Morelli have an entirely different agenda. Morelli wants to marry me, and you want to…'

I stopped because I wasn't sure what word I wanted to insert. Not that any word was necessary. We both knew what Ranger wanted.

'Babe,' Ranger said. 'What I want to do to you is no secret. And I want to do it bad. But I can think with two body parts simultaneously, and I'm not going to do anything stupid.'

'That includes marriage?'

'Marriage, pregnancy, and anything nonconsensual.' He ran a finger under the strap on my tank top. 'I will make a move with partial consent.'

Ranger collected the bags and empty coffee cups and newspapers. He let himself into the bonds office, shut down the alarm, and dumped the trash into Connie's wastebasket. He reset the alarm, exited the office, and locked the door.

'I need to go back to your apartment,' he said. 'I have work to do this morning. Tank will stay with you, and I'll join him later in the day in a separate car. Try to move around and be visible. Remember to always wear your panic button.'

Ranger pulled me to him and kissed me before we got into the Mini.

'Just in case Scrog is watching I don't want to miss an opportunity to piss him off,' Ranger said.

Connie, Lula, and Melvin Pickle were in the office when I returned.

'Meri Maisonet is scheduled to start this morning,' Connie said. 'I'm going to have her run some of the simple search programs. If you have phone work or background checks, just put your file in the queue.'

I dropped Charles Chin, Lonnie Johnson, and Dooby Biagi onto the Maisonet 'to-do' stack, writing a brief note for each. For Chin and Biagi I asked for work and residence histories, followed by phone verification of the most current. For Johnson, I simply said 'Find him.' Johnson's file was already thick with information. I didn't expect Maisonet to find him, but sometimes a new set of eyes saw things previously missed.

I paged through the remaining files and looked for jobs that didn't require the help of a partner. Edward Scrog would be more likely to approach me if I was alone.

I put Bernard Brown at the top of the list. He was low bond and low risk. His danger quotient was close to zero. Bernard had gotten drunk off his ass at Marilyn Gorley's wedding and in a display of ill-timed homage had set fire to a floor-to-ceiling drapery while holding his lighter aloft during a John Lennon song. The result was approximately $80,000 in damages to the banquet room of Littuchy's Restaurante. Probably no criminal charges would have been pressed but Bernard had panicked and punched out the maitre d' when the man had attempted to extinguish Bernard's flaming hair with a bottle of beer.

Bernard was a self-employed accountant working out of his house. Should be an easy catch.

'I'm going to help Bernard Brown get reregistered for court,' I said to Lula. 'It's not a two-man job. Maybe you want to stay here and help Meri get started. Tell her about being a BEA.'

'Sure, I could do that. I got a lot of things I could tell her.'

I avoided looking at Connie and whisked myself out of the office before I got stuck with Lula. I was on the sidewalk when I got a call from Morelli.

'I thought you should know we just towed an abandoned rental. It was rented at Newark Airport on Thursday around eight p.m. The name on the rental agreement was Carmen Manoso. That's why it bounced back to me. Not sure how it slipped through the FBI search. Maybe no one thought to look for something registered to Carmen. Anyway, I've got the car impounded and we're going through it. It looks like blood on the back seat. No way of knowing whose blood it is right now.'

'Is it a lot of blood?'

'Doesn't look like someone died there if that's what you're asking. The bad news is there was also a scrunchie on the floor of the back seat. You know, one of those things the kids use to tie up a ponytail. We photographed it and emailed it to Rachel Martine, and it's tentatively been identified as belonging to Julie Martine.'

'Where did you find the car?'

'It was by the train station.'

I called Ranger and gave him the news. Then I got into the Mini and drove to Hamilton. I was following Ranger's advice. Keep moving forward. Try not to think about the blood in the car.

Bernard Brown lived in a neighborhood that was adjacent to the Burg, just past St Francis Hospital. I drove down his street, checking off house numbers, parking when I reached his duplex.

Brown was forty-three years old and divorced. His house was neat but showing wear. A small sign next to Bernards front door read BERNARD BROWN, CPA.

I rang his bell and waited, resisting the urge to burst into tears or frantically look around for stalkers.

Bernard answered the door in his pajamas and a knit cap. 'Yes?'

I gave him my card and introduced myself.

'I'll be a laughingstock if I go into court,' he said. 'I know people. I do taxes for half the cops. I'll have to take my hat off, and I'll never live it down.'

My eyes went to the knit cap. Eighty degrees out, and he was wearing a knit cap. I looked at the mug shot on his bond agreement. Yow. Torched hair.

'Anything go up in flames besides your hair?' I asked him.

The entire north side of the banquet room. Luckily no one was hurt. Except for the maitre d'. I broke his nose when he threw beer on me. That was before I knew my hair was on fire.'

'It's probably not so bad,' I said. 'Take your hat off. Maybe we can fix it.'

He took his hat off, and I tried not to grimace. He had patches of angry red scalp and tufts of singed hair. And it was all greasy with salve.

'Have you been to a doctor?'

'Yeah,' he said. 'He gave me the salve to put on.'

'You should shave your head. Shaved heads are sexy these days.'

He rolled his eyes up like he was trying to see the top of his head. 'I guess so, but I don't think I can do it myself.'

'Get dressed and we'll go to a hair salon before I take you to court.'

'Okay, but not the one on Hamilton. She's a big busybody. And not the one on Chambers Street. My ex-wife goes there. And I don't want to go to the mall. Everyone looks at you. And it's all women in there. I'd feel funny. Maybe you could find someplace where men get shaved.'

'What's this?' Bernie asked. 'Why are we here?'

'This is the only place I could think of where men regularly get shaved.'

'This is a funeral parlor.'

'Yeah, have you ever seen anyone laid out with a two-day-old beard? No. Everyone's perfectly groomed when they get put in the box. And it's very private. And I just met these guys. They're new here. And they seem nice. And they make their own cookies.'

'It's creepy.'

'Don't be such a whiner. This is what I came up with. Take it or leave it.'

Bernie got out of the Mini and followed me into the funeral home. I walked through the lobby and saw that the office door was open. I could see Dave Nelson at his desk. He was wearing a crisp white dress shirt and navy slacks. He looked up and smiled when I got close.

'We have a problem,' I told him.

'Oh dear. I'm so sorry.'

'Not that kind of problem. Bernie here has had a hair disaster and needs someone to shave his head. I know you guys shave men all the time, so I thought maybe you could help us out.'

Bernie took his hat off, and Dave yelled for his partner. 'Scooter is here somewhere,' Dave said. 'He's wonderful with hair and makeup. He used to work at the Estée Lauder counter at Saks.'

'Estée Lauder,' Bernie said. 'I don't know. That's women's stuff.'

Scooter came up behind us. 'Estée Lauder has a wonderful line just for men. A dab of their eye serum each night would take years off your face,' he said to Bernie. He extended his hand. 'I'm Scooter. I was in the kitchen making cookies for tonight's viewing. I chose snickerdoodles for Mrs Kessman and big-chunk chocolate chip for Mr Stanko. I wanted something masculine for Mr Stanko. He was a truck driver. That's such a guy job, don't you think?'

Bernie shook Scooter's hand, and there was bolt-and-run all over Bernie's face, so I clapped a bracelet on him and attached the other half to my wrist.

'Just a formality,' I said to Bernie. 'Don't give it another thought.'

'Oh dear,' Scooter said. 'Is he a criminal?'

'No,' I told Scooter. 'He's having a bad hair month, and I thought he looked like he was getting cold feet. We were wondering if you could shave his head.'

'Of course I can shave his head,' Scooter said. 'He'll look wonderful. And I have some moisturizer which will be much better than that dreadful grease he's using now. Follow me back to my workroom.'

We crossed the lobby and trailed after Scooter into the new addition to the rambling funeral home. 'We'll use treatment room number two,' Scooter said. 'Number one is occupied.'

Bernie and I peeked into the room. Tilt-top stainless steel grooved table. Slight odor of formaldehyde. Carts filled with instruments best not seen in the light of day.

'This is an embalming room!' Bernie said.

'Isn't it wonderful?' Scooter said. 'State-of-the-art. And it has excellent light. Sit on the little stool by the table, and I'll get my razor. I've gotten used to working on people who are horizontal, so this will be a fun experience.'

'Oh fuck,' Bernie whispered. 'Get me out of here!'

'Chill,' I told him. 'He's going to shave your head, not drain your body fluids. It's not a big deal. And when he's done I bet he'll give you a cookie.'

'I guess congratulations are in order,' I said to Scooter when he got into position behind Bernie. 'Sounds like you've got a full house. Mrs Kessman and Mr Stanko. And a third body in prep.'

'The third body is just a holdover. It's poor Carmen Manoso. They autopsied her and released her, but we can't ship the body until Thursday. I had some free time, so I was trying to get her prettied up a little. Not much you can do to someone who's had their brain surgically removed, not to mention has a big bullet hole in the head, but I did what I could to soften it for her parents in case they open the casket.'

Carmen Manoso! And she was hanging out with nothing to do until Thursday.

'She needs a viewing,' I said to Scooter.

'Excuse me?'

'She's famous. The Burg loves a murder. You won't be able to shoehorn all the mourners in. You'll have to give out tickets like at the bakery.'

'I don't know. I'd have to check with her parents.'

'She doesn't belong to her parents. She belongs to her husband.'

'The murderer?'

'He's still her husband. And I bet he'd want her to have a viewing.'

'Interesting,' Scooter said. 'I'd have to bake a lot of cookies.'

I called Ranger on the special cell phone. 'You're not going to believe this… I'm at the funeral home on Hamilton, and they've got Carmen here.'

'Should I ask what you're doing at the funeral home?'

'No. It's not important. The important thing is, Carmen is here and isn't getting shipped off to Virginia until Thursday And I thought since you're her husband you might want to hold a viewing so her friends and relatives who might be in the area could see her one last time.'

'Gruesome but clever,' Ranger said. 'Let me talk to whoever is in charge.'

I passed the phone over to Scooter.

'Is this Mr Manoso?' Scooter asked. 'The husband of the deceased?'