09 To the Nines (11 page)

“That does it,” I said, standing at my seat, throwing my napkin onto the table. “I'm out of here.” I stomped out of the dining room into the foyer and stopped with my hand on the door. “What did you make for dessert?” I yelled to my mother.

“Chocolate cake.”

I wheeled around and flounced off to the kitchen. I cut a good-size wedge from the cake, wrapped it in aluminum foil, and swept out of the house. Okay, so I was acting like an idiot. At least I was an idiot with cake.

I took to the road and drove off, spewing indignation and self-righteous fury. I was still fuming when I reached Joe's house. I sat there for a couple beats, considering my predicament. My clothes and my hamster were in the house. Not to mention my safety and great sex. Problem was, there was all this . . . emotion. I know emotion covers a lot of ground, but I couldn't hang a better name on my feelings. Wounded might be in the ballpark. I was stung that Morelli couldn't keep from smiling when he thought back to Gilman in her thong and camisole. Gilman and her perfect boobs. Unh. Mental head slap.

I opened the aluminum foil and ate the chocolate cake with my fingers. When in doubt, eat some cake. Halfway through the cake I started to feel better. Okay, I said to myself, now that we have some calm, let's take a look at what happened here.

To begin with, I was a big fat hypocrite. I was all bent out of shape over Morelli and Gilman when I had the exact same situation going on between Ranger and me. These are working relationships, I told myself. Get over it. Grow up. Have some trust here.

Okay, so now I've yelled at myself. Anything else going on? Jealousy? Jealousy didn't feel like a fit. Insecurity? Bingo. Insecurity was a match. I didn't have a lot of insecurity. Just enough insecurity to surface at times of mental health breakdown. And I was definitely having a mental health breakdown. The denial thing wasn't working for me.

I put the car in gear and drove to my apartment building. I wouldn't stay long, I decided. I'd just go in and retrieve a few things . . . like my dignity, maybe.

I parked in the lot, shoved the door open, and swung from behind the wheel. I beeped the car locked with the remote and headed for the back door to my building. I was halfway across the lot when I heard a sound behind me. Phunf. I felt something sting my right shoulder blade and heat swept through my upper body. The world went gray, then black. I put my hand out to steady myself and felt myself slide away.

I was swimming in suffocating blackness, unable to surface. Voices only partially penetrated. Words were garbled. I ordered myself to open my eyes. Open them. Open them!

Suddenly there was daylight. The images were blurred, but the voices snapped into focus. The voices were calling my name.

“Stephanie?”

I blinked a couple times, clearing my vision, recognizing Morelli. My first words were, “What the fuck?”

“How do you feel?” Morelli asked.

“Like I've been hit by a truck.”

A guy I didn't know was bending over me, opposite Joe. A paramedic. I had a blood pressure cuff on and the paramedic was listening.

“She's looking better,” he said.

I was on the ground in the parking lot and Joe and the paramedic brought me up to sitting. An EMS truck idled not far off. There was a lot of equipment beside me. Oxygen, stretcher, medical emergency kit. A couple Trenton cops stood hands on hips. A small crowd was gathered behind the cops.

“We should take her to St. Francis to have her checked by a doctor,” the medic said. “They might want to keep her overnight.”

“What happened?” I asked Morelli.

“Someone shot you in the back with a tranquilizer dart. The impact was partially absorbed by your jacket, but you got enough tranq to knock you out.”

“Am I okay?”

“Yeah,” Morelli said. “I think you're okay. More than I can say for me. I just had three heart attacks.”

“I don't want to go to St. Francis. I want to go home . . . wherever that is.”

The medic looked over at Morelli. “Your call.”

“I'll take responsibility,” Morelli said. “Help me get her to her feet.”

I walked around for a couple minutes on shaky legs. I was feeling really crappy, but I didn't want to broadcast it. I didn't want to overnight in the hospital. They take your clothes away and hide them and make you sleep in one of those cotton gowns that your ass hangs out of. “Jeez,” I said. “What was I shot with, an elephant gun?”

Morelli had the dart in a plastic evidence bag in his pocket. He held the bag out for me to see. “Looks to me to be more large dog size.”

“Oh great. I was shot with a dog dart. That doesn't even make good bar conversation.”

Morelli eased me into his truck. “We'll leave your car here. I don't think we want to put you behind the wheel yet.”

I wasn't going to argue. I was developing a monster headache.

There was a single red rose on the dash. A square white card in a plastic evidence bag had been placed beside the rose.

Morelli gestured at the rose. “That was left on your windshield.” He reached across and took the card and turned it so I could read the message. You should be more careful. If you make it too easy, the fun will be gone.

“This is creepy,” I said. “This is definitely psycho.”

“It started right after you became involved with Singh,” Morelli said.

“Do you think it's Bart Cone?”

“He'd be on the list, but I'm not convinced he's the one. I can't see him leaving roses. Bart Cone doesn't strike me as a man who has a flare for the dramatic.”

I wanted it to be Bart Cone. He was an easy mark. I had a fantasy scenario going in my head. Stephanie and Lula break into Bart's home, find the tranquilizer gun stashed beside the gun that killed Howie, and call the police. The police immediately arrest Bart. And Stephanie lives happily ever after. Needless to say, the fantasy scenario didn't include Stephanie doing time for illegal entry. “This has moved way beyond my comfort zone,” I said to Morelli. “If I wasn't shot full of tranquilizer you'd be seeing some first-rate hysteria.”

Morelli left-turned out of the lot. “What were you doing here, anyway?”

“I was returning to my apartment because you liked looking at Gilman in her thong.”

“Shit,” Morelli said. “You're such a girl.”

I closed my eyes and rested my head on the seat back. “You're lucky I'm drugged.”

“Did you notice anything unusual when you parked? A strange car? A paranoid schizophrenic lurking in the shadows?”

“Nothing. I wasn't looking. I was making the most of my indignation.”

By the time we reached Morelli's house the sun was low in the sky and the night insects were singing. I looked down the street, more from comfort than fear. Hard to believe anything bad could happen on Morelli's street. Mrs. Brodsky was sitting on her porch and Aunt Rose's second-story curtains, filmy behind the glass, floated like a protective charm. Morelli's neighborhood felt benign. Of course, none of that stopped Morelli from doing his cop thing. He'd been checking his tail all the way over, making sure we weren't followed. He parked and helped me out of the truck, hustling me into the house, partially shielding me with his body.

“I appreciate the effort,” I said, sinking onto his couch. “But I hate when you put yourself in danger to protect me.”

Bob climbed up next to me, leaving no room for Morelli. Bob had a piece of dog biscuit stuck to his head.

“How does he always get food stuck to him?” I asked Morelli.

“I don't know,” Morelli said. “It's a Bob mystery. I think stuff falls out of his mouth and he rolls in it, but I'm not sure.”

“About Gilman ...” I said.

“I can't talk about Gilman. It's police business.”

“This isn't one of those James Bond things where you sleep with Gilman to get information out of her, is it?”

Morelli slouched into a chair and clicked the television on. “No. This is one of those Trenton cop things where we threaten and bribe Gilman to get information out of her.” He found a ball game, adjusted the sound, and turned to me. “So are you sleeping with me tonight?”

“Yes. But I have a headache.” I closed my eyes and tried to relax. “Omigosh!” I said, my eyes popping open. “I forgot to tell you. I have an email from Howie's killer and it links the killing and the flowers.”

Morelli was long gone by the time I dragged myself out of bed. I shuffled into the bathroom, took a shower, dressed in jeans and T-shirt, and found my way to the kitchen. I got coffee brewing and put a couple slices of bread in the toaster while I drank my orange juice and checked my email. I suspected there would be a message from the killer. I wasn't disappointed. Now the hunter is the hunted, the email read. How does it feel? Does it excite you? Are you prepared to die? Bob was sitting beside me, waiting for bread crumbs to fall out of my mouth.

“I'm not excited,” I told Bob. “I'm scared.” The words echoed in the kitchen and made my breath catch in my chest. I didn't like the way the words sounded and decided not to say them out loud again. I decided to give denial another chance. Some thoughts are best kept silent. That's not to say I was going to ignore being scared. I was going to try very, very hard to be very, very careful.

I signed off and called Morelli and told him about the latest email. Then I called Lula and asked her to pick me up. I wanted to go back to TriBro and my car was still parked in my apartment building lot. I needed a ride. And I needed a partner. I wasn't going to stay inside, hiding in a closet, but in all honesty I didn't want to go out alone.

Ten minutes later, Lula rolled to a stop in front of Morelli's house. Lula drove a big ol' red Firebird that had a sound system that could shake the fillings loose in your teeth. The front door to Joe's house was closed and locked and I was in the kitchen in the back of the house . . . and I knew Lula had arrived because Shady s bass was giving me heart arrhythmia.

“You don't look so good,” Lula said when I got into the car. “You got big bags under your eyes. And your eyes are all bloodshot. You must have really had a good time last night to look this bad this morning.”

“I was shot with a tranquilizer dart last night and I had a killer hangover from it until about four this morning.”

“Get out! What were you doing getting shot with a tranquilizer dart?”

“I wasn't doing anything. I was walking from my car to my apartment building and someone shot me in the back.”

“Get out! Did you find out who did it?”

“No. The police are investigating.”

“I bet it was Joyce Earnhardt. Joyce would do something like that, trying to even the score for all the times we zapped her with the stun gun and you let Bob poop on her front lawn.”

Joyce Earnhardt. I'd forgotten about Joyce Earnhardt. She'd be a prime contender, too, except for the Howie shooting. Joyce wasn't a killer.

I went to school with Joyce and she'd made my life a misery. Joyce publicized secrets. When she didn't have a secret she fabricated stories and started rumors. I wasn't the only one singled out, but I was a favorite target. A while back, Vinnie hired Joyce to do some apprehension work and once again Joyce and I crossed paths.

“I don't think it's Joyce,” I told Lula. “I think the tranq incident is related to the Howie shooting.”

“Get out!”

If Lula said get out one more time I was going to choke her until her tongue turned blue and fell out of her head.

“And you're probably in danger when you hang with me,” I told Lula. “I'd understand if you wanted to bail.”

“Are you shitting me? Danger's my middle name.”

We were out of Joe's neighborhood and moving across town. Lula had Eminem cranked up. He was rapping about trailer park girls and how they go round the outside, and I was wondering what the heck that meant. I'm a white girl from Trenton. I don't know these things. I need a rap cheat sheet.

I was checking the rearview mirror now. I didn't want a second dart between the shoulder blades. It was time to be vigilant. I had no indication that the creep who was stalking me knew I was living with Joe. And I was riding in Lula's car. So maybe today would be uneventful.

We hit Route 1 and I noticed there was a cooler on the backseat. “Are you still on the diet?” I asked. “Is the cooler filled with vegetables?”

“Hell no. That was a bogus diet. You could waste away and die on that diet. I'm on a new diet. This here's the all-protein diet that I'm on. I'm going to be a supermodel in no time on this diet. All I have to do is stay away from the carbs. Carbohydrates are the enemy. I can eat all the meat and eggs and cheese I want, but I can't eat any bread or starch or any of that shit. Like, I can have a burger but I can't eat the roll. And I can only eat the cheese and grease on the pizza. Can't eat the crust.”

“How about doughnuts?”

“Doughnuts are gonna be a problem. Don't think there's anything I can eat on a doughnut.”

“So what's in the cooler?”

“Meat. I got ribs and rotisserie chicken and a pound of crispy bacon. I can eat meat until I grow a tail and moo. This is the best diet. I can eat things on this diet that I haven't been able to eat in years.”

“Like what?”

“Like bacon.”

“You always eat bacon.”

“Yeah, but I feel guilty. It's the guilt that puts the weight on.”

Lula turned into the industrial park and wound around some until she came to TriBro.

“Now what?” she asked. “You want me to go on in with you? Or you want me to stay here and guard the chicken?”

“Guard the chicken?”

“Okay, so I'm gonna eat the chicken. That's the good part of this diet. You eat all the time. You could shove pork roast and leg of lamb down your throat all day long and it's okay. Long as you don't have biscuits with it. I had a steak for breakfast. A whole steak. And then I had a couple eggs. Is that a diet, or what?”

“Sounds a little screwy.”

“That's what I thought at first, but I bought a book that explains it all and now I can see where it makes sense.”

“Keep your eyes open while you're guarding the chicken. I shouldn't be more than a half hour. Call me on my cell if you see anyone suspicious in the lot.”