Two for the dough

Chapter Four

Thoughts of Kenny Mancuso and Joe Morelli had kept me thrashing around most of the night. At seven I rolled myself out of bed, feeling cranky and bedraggled. I showered, dressed in jeans and T-shirt, and made a pot of coffee.

My basic problem was that I had plenty of ideas about Joe Morelli and hardly any about Kenny Mancuso.

I poured out a bowl of cereal, filled my Daffy Duck mug with coffee, and picked through the contents of the envelope Spiro had given me. The storage facility was just off Route 1

in an area of strip-mall-type light-industrial complexes. The photo of the missing casket had been cut from some sort of flyer or brochure and showed a casket that was clearly at the bottom of the funeral food chain. It was little more than a plain pine box, devoid of the carvings and beveled edges usually found on burg caskets. Why Spiro would buy twentyfour of these crates was beyond my comprehension. People spent money on funerals and weddings in the burg. Being buried in one of these caskets would be lower than ring around the collar. Even Mrs. Ciak next door, who was on Social Security and turned her lights off each night at nine to save money, had thousands set aside for her burial. I finished my cereal, rinsed the bowl and spoon, poured a second cup of coffee, and filled Rex's little ceramic food dish with Cheerios and blueberries. Rex popped out of his soup can with his nose twitching in excitement. He rushed to the dish, crammed everything into his cheeks, and rushed back to his soup can, where he hunkered in butt side out, vibrating with happiness and good fortune. That's the neat part about a hamster. It doesn't take much to make a hamster happy.

I grabbed my jacket and the large black leather pocketbook that held all my bounty-hunter paraphernalia and headed for the stairs. Mr. Wolesky's TV droned through his closed door and the aroma of bacon frying hung in the hallway just in front of Mrs. Karwatt's apartment. I exited the building in solitude and paused for a moment to enjoy the crisp morning air. A few leaves still tenaciously clung to trees, but for the most part limbs were bare and spidery against the bright sky. A dog barked in the neighborhood behind my apartment building and a car door slammed. Mr. Suburbia was going to work. And Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter extraordinaire, was off to find twenty-four cheap coffins. Trenton traffic looked insignificant compared to the Holland Tunnel outbound on a Friday afternoon, but it was a pain in the ass all the same. I decided to preserve what little sanity had surfaced this morning and forgo safe, scenic, car-clogged Hamilton. I turned onto Linnert after two blocks of stop-and-go tedium and threaded my way through the blighted neighborhoods that surround center city. I skirted the area around the train station, cut through town, and picked up Route 1 for a quarter mile, getting off at Oatland Avenue. R and J Storage occupied about a half acre of land on Oatland Avenue. Ten years ago, Oatland Avenue had been a hardscrabble patch of throwaway property. Its spiky grass had been littered with broken bottles and bottle caps, filter tips, condoms, and tumbleweed trash. Industry had recently found Oatland, and now the hardscrabble land supported Gant Printing, Knoblock Plumbing Supply House, and R and J Storage. The spiky grass had given way to blacktop parking lots, but the shards of glass, bottle caps, and assorted urban flotsam had endured, collecting in unattended corners and gutters. Sturdy chain-link fencing surrounded the self-storage facility, and two drives, designated IN and OUT, led to the honeycomb of garagesized warehouses. A smal sign fixed to the fence stated business hours as 7:00 to 10:00 daily. The gates to the entrance and exit were open, and a small OPEN sign had been hung in the glass-paned office door. The buildings were all painted white with bright blue trim. Very crisp and efficient looking. Just the place to snug away hot caskets.

I pulled into the entrance and crept along, counting off numbers until I reached 16. I parked on the apron in front of the unit, inserted the key in the lock, and pressed the button that triggered the hydraulic door. The door rolled up along the ceiling and, sure enough, the warehouse was empty. Not a coffin or clue in sight.

I stood there for a moment, visualizing the pine boxes stacked chocablock. Here one day, gone the next. I turned to leave and almost crashed into Morelli.

"Jesus," I exclaimed, hand on heart, after squelching a yelp of surprise. "I hate when you creep up behind me like that. What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Following you."

"I don't want to be followed. Isn't that some sort of an infringement of my rights? Police harassment?"

"Most women would be happy to have me follow them."

"I'm not most women."

"Tell me about it." He gestured at the empty bay. "What's the deal?"

"If you must know . . . I'm looking for caskets."

This drew a smile.

"I'm serious! Spiro had twenty-four caskets stored here, and they've disappeared."

"Disappeared? As in stolen? Has he reported the theft to the police?" I shook my head. "He didn't want to bring the police in. Didn't want word to get out that he'd bulk-bought a bunch of caskets and then lost them."

"I hate to rain on your parade, but I think this smells bad. People who lose things worth lots of money file police reports so they can collect their insurance." I closed the door and dropped the key into my pocketbook. "I'm getting paid one thousand dollars to find lost caskets. I'm not going to try to identify the odor. I have no reason to believe there's anything bogus going on."

"What about Kenny? I thought you were looking for Kenny."

"Kenny's a dead end right now."

"Giving up?"

"Dropping back."

I opened the door to the Jeep, slid behind the wheel, and shoved the key into the ignition. By the time the engine cranked over, Morelli had seated himself next to me.

"Where are we going?" Morelli asked.

"I'm going to the office to talk to the manager."

Morelli was smiling again. "This could be the start of a whole new career. You do good on this one and maybe you can advance to catching grave robbers and headstone vandals."

"Very funny. Get out of my car."

"I thought we were partners."

Yeah, right. I put the Jeep into reverse and K-turned. I parked at the office and swung out of the Jeep, with Morelli following close on my heels.

I stopped and turned, facing him, hand to his chest to keep him at arm's length. "Halt. This is not a group project."

"I could be helpful," Morelli said. "I could lend authority and credibility to your questions."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"I'm a nice guy."

I felt my fingers begin to clutch at his shirt and made an effort to relax. "Try again."

"Kenny, Moogey, and Spiro were practically joined at the hip in high school. Moogey's dead. I've got a feeling Julia, the girlfriend, is out of the picture. Maybe Kenny's turned to Spiro."

"And I'm working for Spiro, and you're not sure you believe the coffin story."

"I don't know what to think of the coffin story. You have any more information on these coffins? Where they were originally purchased? What they look like?"

"They're made of wood. About six foot long . . ."

"If there's one thing I hate, it's a wise-ass bounty hunter." I showed him the picture.

"You're right," he said. "They're made of wood, and they're about six foot long."

"And they're ugly."

"Yeah."

"And very plain," I added.

"Grandma Mazur wouldn't be caught dead in one of these," Morelli said.

"Not everyone is as discerning as Grandma Mazur. I'm sure Stiva keeps a wide range of caskets on hand."

"You should let me question the manager," Morelli said. "I'm better at this than you are."

"That does it. Go sit in the car."

In spite of all the sparring that went on between us, I sort of liked Morelli. Good judgment told me to stand clear of him, but then I've never been a slave to good judgment. I liked his dedication to the job, and the way he'd risen above his wild teen years. He'd been a street-smart kid, and now he was a street-smart cop. True, he was sort of a chauvinist, but it wasn't entirely his fault. After all, he was from New Jersey, and on top of that he was a Morelli. All things considered, I thought he was coping pretty well. The office consisted of a small room divided in half by a service counter. A woman wearing a white T-shirt sporting a blue R and J Storage logo stood behind the counter. She was in her late forties—nearly fifties, with a pleasant face and a body that had comfortably gone to plump. She gave me a perfunctory nod before focusing on Morelli, who had paid no attention to my order and was standing close behind me. Morelli was wearing washed-out jeans that had suggestively molded to an impressive package in front and the state's best buns in back. His brown leather jacket hid only his gun. The R and J lady swallowed visibly and dragged her eyes upward from Morelli's crotch.

I told her I was checking on some stored items for a friend of mine and that I was concerned with security.

"Who was this friend?" she asked.

"Spiro Stiva."

"No offense," she said, fighting back a grimace, "but he's got that locker filled with coffins. He said they were empty, but I don't care. I wouldn't come within fifty feet of that place. And I don't think you have to worry about security. Who on earth would steal a coffin?"

"How do you know he has coffins in there?"

"Saw them come in. He had so many they had to come in a semi and get off loaded with a forklift."

"Do you work here full-time?" I asked.

"I work here all the time," she said. "My husband and I own it. I'm the R in the R and J. Roberta."

"You have any other big trucks come in here in the last couple of months?"

"A few real big U-Hauls. Is there a problem?"

Spiro had sworn me to secrecy, but I didn't see any way I could get the information I needed without bringing Roberta into the investigation. Besides, she undoubtedly had a master key, and coffins or not, she'd probably check on Spiro's locker when we left and discover it was empty.

"Stiva's coffins are missing," I said. "The locker is empty."

"That's impossible! A person can't just make off with a locker ful of caskets. That's a lot of caskets. They filled the locker from one end to the other!

"We have trucks coming and going all the time, but I would have known if they were loading caskets!"

"Locker sixteen is in the back," I said. "You can't see it from here. And maybe they didn't take them all at once."

"How did they get in?" she wanted to know. "Was the lock broken?" I didn't know how they got in. The lock wasn't broken, and Spiro had been emphatic that the key had never left his possession. Of course, that could be a lie.

"I'd like to see a list of your other renters," I said. "And it would be helpful if you could think back to trucks in the vicinity of Spiro's locker. Trucks big enough to haul those caskets."

"He's insured," she said. "We make everybody take insurance."

"He can't collect on insurance without filing a police report, and at this preliminary stage Mr. Stiva would prefer to keep things quiet."

"Tell you the truth I'm not anxious for this to get around, either. Don't want people thinking our lockers aren't safe." She punched up her computer and produced a printout of renters.

"These are renters that are on the books right now. When someone vacates we keep them in file for three months and then the computer drops them." Morelli and I scanned the list, but we didn't recognize any of the names.

"Do you require identification?" Morelli asked.

"Driver's license," she said. "The insurance company makes us get a photo ID." I folded the printout, tucked it into my pocketbook, and gave Roberta one of my cards with instructions to call should something turn up. As an afterthought I asked her to use her set of master keys and check each locker on the odd possibility that the caskets weren't taken off the premises.

When we got back to the Jeep, Morelli and I looked the list over one more time and drew a big zero.

Roberta hustled out of her office with keys in hand and the portable phone stuffed into her pocket.

"The great coffin search," Morelli said, watching her disappear around the end of the first row of lockers. He slouched in his seat. "Doesn't compute to me. Why would someone choose to steal caskets? They're big and heavy, and the resale market is limited to nonexistent. People probably have all kinds of things stored here that would be easier to fence. Why steal caskets?"

"Maybe that's what they needed. Maybe some down-on-his-luck undertaker took them. Like Mosel. Ever since Stiva opened up his new addition, Mosel has been on a downslide. Maybe Mosel knew Spiro had caskets stashed here, and he tippy-toed in one dark night and swiped them."

Morelli looked at me like I was from Mars.

"Hey, it's possible," I said. "Stranger things have happened. I think we should go around to a bunch of viewings and see if anyone's laid out in one of Spiro's caskets."

"Oh, boy."

I shifted my bag higher onto my shoulder. "There was a guy at the viewing last night named Sandeman. Do you know him?"

"I busted him for possession about two years ago. He got caught in a sweep."

"Ranger tells me Sandeman worked with Moogey at the garage. Said he heard Sandeman was there the day Moogey got shot in the knee. I was wondering if you'd talked to him."

"No. Not yet. Scully was the investigating officer that day. Sandeman gave him a statement, but it didn't say much. The shooting took place in the office, and Sandeman was in the garage working on a car at the time. Had an air wrench going and didn't hear the shot."

"Thought maybe I'd see if he had any ideas on Kenny."

"Don't get too close. Sandeman's a real jerk. Bad temper. Bad attitude." Morelli pulled car keys out of his pocket. "Terrific mechanic."

"I'll be careful."

Morelli gave me a look of total no-confidence. "You sure you don't want me to go with?" he asked. "I'm good at thumbscrews."

"I'm not really into thumbscrews, but thanks for the offer." His Fairlane was parked next to my Jeep.

"I like the hula girl in the back window," I said. "Nice touch."

"It was Costanza's idea. It covers an antenna."

I looked at the top of her head and, sure enough, there was the tip of an antenna poking through. I squinted at Morelli. "You're not going to follow me, are you?"

"Only if you say please."

"Not in this lifetime."

Morelli looked like he knew better.

I cut across town and left turned onto Hamilton. Seven blocks later I nosed into a parking slot to the side of the garage. Early morning and evening the pumps were in constant use. At this hour they didn't see much action. The office door was open, but the office was empty. Beyond the office the doors to the bays were up. The third bay had a car on a rack. Sandeman worked nearby, balancing a tire. He was wearing a faded black Harley tank top that stopped two inches short of low-rider, grease-stained jeans. His arms and shoulders were covered with tattoos of snakes, fangs bared, forked tongues sticking out. Stuck between snakes was a red heart with the inscription I LOVE JEAN. Lucky girl. I decided Sandeman could only be enhanced by a mouthful of rotting teeth and possibly a few festering facial sores.

He straightened when he saw me and wiped his hands on his jeans. "Yeah?"

"You're Perry Sandeman?"

"You got it."

"Stephanie Plum," I said, forgoing the usual formality of an introductory handshake. "I work for Kenny Mancuso's bondsman. I'm trying to locate Kenny."

"Haven't seen him," Sandeman said.

"I understand he and Moogey were friends."

"That's what I hear."

"Did Kenny come around the garage a lot?"

"No."

"Did Moogey ever talk about Kenny?"

"No."

Was I wasting my time? Yes.

"You were here the day Moogey was shot in the knee," I said. "Do you think the shooting was accidental?"

"I was in the garage. I don't know anything about it. End of quiz. I got work to do." I gave him my card and told him to get in touch if he should think of anything useful. He tore the card in half and let the pieces float to the cement floor. Any intelligent woman would have made a dignified retreat, but this was New Jersey, where dignity always runs a poor second to the pleasure of getting in someone's face. I leaned forward, hands on hips. "You got a problem?"

"I don't like cops. That includes pussy cops."

"I'm not a cop. I'm a bond enforcement agent."

"You're a fucking pussy bounty hunter. I don't talk to fucking pussy bounty hunters."

"You call me pussy one more time, and I'm going to get mad."

"Is that supposed to worry me?"

I had a canister of pepper spray in my pocketbook, and I was itching to give him a blast. I also had a stun gun. The lady who owned the local gun shop had talked me into buying it, and so far it was untested. I wondered if 45,000 volts square in his Harley logo would worry him.

"Just make sure you're not withholding information, Sandeman. Your parole officer might find it annoying."

He gave me a shot to the shoulder that knocked me back a foot. "Somebody yanks my parole officer's chain, and somebody might find out why they call me the Sandman. Maybe you want to think about that."

Not anytime soon.