1 Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun (28 page)

"It's too quiet," I told Fogarty.

"Maybe they all went out to dinner or a movie."

"In twenty-degree weather without a car?"

"Someone could've picked them up."

I shined my flashlight into the living room, sweeping across
each piece of furniture, paying particular attention to Ralph's favorite perches and the cushions where Catherine the Great liked to
lounge. "Along with the dog, the cat, and the parrot?"

"Right," he admitted. "Odd"

"Wait," I said.

"What?"

"Did you hear that?" I could have sworn I heard a muffled
groan.

"The wind's picking up," said Fogarty. We had left the front
door open. He shut it.

"No. It wasn't wind." I held my breath and listened. "There it is
again."

"It's coming from down the hall," he said. "I'll check it out."

"Not without me." I dogged his heels as he headed for the bathroom. The door was closed. "We always leave the bathroom door
open when no one's using it."

"Get back," he said. "Over there" He waited until I stood where
he indicated.

As if on cue, the power came on the moment Fogarty swung
open the bathroom door. "Jeez!"

"What?" I ran up behind him and stood on tiptoe to see over
his shoulder. "Omigod!" Alex, Nick, Mama, and Lucille were all
trussed up with duct tape, their hands secured behind their backs,
their legs bound together at their ankles, all wriggling and squirming and banging into each other as they grunted and groaned behind duct tape gags. Blindfolds covered their eyes.

Mama and Lucille were taped together back-to-back. All were
shoehorned into the bathtub with Nick and Alex sprawled on top
of their grandmothers.

Fogarty lifted the boys out of the tub and settled them on the
floor. Then he ripped a strip of silver tape from Mama's mouth.
She screamed.

"Sorry, ma'am." He removed the blindfold. "There's no gentle
way to get this stuff off. Faster is better"

"Mama, what happened?"

"That awful man. He had a gun."

"Who, Mama?"

"How should I know his name? But I think he might have been
the same nasty man who ran into me during the first robbery."

"Did he hurt you?"

"Every joint and muscle in my body is screaming. What time is
it? I swear we've been in here for hours. Where've you been?"

"On a wild goose chase," I said as I worked free the tape around
her body-a task made even more difficult because Lucille continued to squirm and jerk.

"Stop moving!" yelled Mama, shoving her butt backwards into
Lucille.

Fogarty ripped the tape from Nick's and Alex's mouths. "Did
either of you boys see anything?"

"The house was pitch black when I got home," said Nick. "He
came up from behind me. Next thing I knew, I was in the tub with
the grandmas."

"Same here," said Alex. "Except Nick was already in the tub
when he dumped me in."

"When was that?" asked Fogarty.

"About six-thirty."

"Over two hours ago," said Fogarty.

"What!" shrieked Mama.

Lucille twisted, jerked, and growled. Fogarty tossed me a do-1really-have-to? glance before ripping the tape from her mouth.
"Where the hell have you been, Anastasia? If you came home from
work at a decent hour instead of gallivanting all over creation-"

"I'd be stuck in the tub with the rest of you, and who would
have rescued us?"

Harley poked his head into the bathroom. "Looks like he
cleaned you out this time, Mrs. Pollack."

"What do you mean?"

"He got all the electronics equipment. Stereos. TVs. Computers."

"Shit! My term paper's on my computer," cried Alex. "All my
research notes! The rough draft."

"Did you back up?" asked Mama.

Back up? Since when had Mama become computer literate?

"Not sure that's going to help," said Harley. "Unless you kept
the disks hidden somewhere. Looks like he took anything that
wasn't nailed down. The desk drawers were all upended. I didn't
see any disks."

Alex groaned, and it wasn't from the tape Fogarty was ripping
off his wrists.

"Your bedroom's been ransacked, too, Mrs. Pollack. Looks like
he grabbed some jewelry."

Mama climbed out of the tub as soon as her limbs were freed.
Poor Mama. Her joints creaked and cracked, but she didn't complain.

Too bad the same couldn't be said for Lucille. "Watch where
you're putting those hands, young man," she yelled at Fogarty.
"How dare you touch me there! I'll sue for sexual harassment."

Fogarty dropped his arms to his sides and stepped away from
the tub. "Sorry, ma'am. I'm only trying to help you out. Maybe
you'd like to do this on your own?" He spoke in a calm, civil voice,
and I gave him credit for keeping his cool. A lesser man would
have dumped her back on her rump and walked away.

"Just give me your hand," she demanded.

He stepped forward and held his hand out to her, but she
couldn't hoist herself up. Eventually, she had to give in to the inevitable, and it took both Fogarty and Harley lifting her from
under the armpits to hoist her up and over the rim of the soaker
tub.

Alex had retrieved her cane and handed it to her. She waved it
in my face. "If you had a normal bathtub, I wouldn't have had a
problem."

Of course, it's always my fault. I'm surprised she didn't blame
me for the break-in.

"Where's Manifesto?" she demanded.

I turned to Harley. "Did you see any animals? A dog? A cat? A
parrot?"

"The dog's in the kitchen, but I-"

"Out of my way!" Lucille pushed Harley aside and hobbled out
of the bathroom. "Manifesto? Where are you, my darling? Come to
mother."

"Ma'am-" Harley reached for her arm, but she swatted him
away and headed toward the kitchen.

"What is it?" I asked.

"The dog and cat are lying on the kitchen floor. The parrot's-"

"Manifesto!" Lucille's scream cut off the rest of his sentence.

The Devil Dog, Catherine the Great, and Ralph weren't dead,
just drugged. The thief had apparently laced their food and water
bowls with a sedative or something. Fogarty called headquarters to
dispatch the animal control officer. Ten minutes later Mephisto the
Devil Dog, Catherine the Great, and Ralph were on their way to
the We Care Animal Clinic.

Lucille insisted on accompanying her dog, but Officer Fogarty
refused to let her leave. "You're witness to a crime," he said. "Either
you answer my questions here, or I cart you down to headquarters."

"You can't do that. I know my rights."

"Have it your way." Fogarty reached for the set of handcuffs attached to his belt.

Lucille's eyes widened. She stumbled backwards, steadying herself with her cane. "You wouldn't dare!"

Fogarty called her bluff. Or at least I think he was calling her
bluff. "Wanna bet?"

With a grunt and a mutter, Lucille plopped onto the sofa, folding her arms across her chest. I swore I could see little puffs of
steam emanating from the top of her closely cropped, utilitarianstyled head.

"Can you describe your assailant?" asked Harley, his ever-present stub of a pencil poised over his ever-present spiral notepad.

"He was tall," said Lucille. "Well over six feet. And fat. Maybe
around three hundred pounds."

"He was not," said Mama, settling herself in the center of the
sofa. "Don't listen to that crack-pot commie. He was five-nine. I
remember because he was exactly the same height as my third husband."

"You can't even remember your third husband," said Lucille.
"You don't keep them around long enough" She turned to Harley.
"He was at least six-three, maybe six-four." She pointed to his
notebook. "Write that down."

"How dare you!" cried Mama. "Are you going to believe
this ... this communist or a law-abiding citizen and member of the
Daughters of the American Revolution?"

She glared at Lucille. "At least my husbands have the misfortune to die. They don't run off on me and never come back."

"Isidore didn't leave me," said Lucille. "He was abducted."

Mama, the boys, and I exchanged baffled glances. This was
news to us. Karl claimed his father had walked out on his mother.

"By aliens?" asked Nick.

"By J. Edgar Hoover and his battalion of right-wing cronies,"
said Lucille. "I have reason to believe they buried him under one
of the goalposts in Giants Stadium."

Mama snorted. "That's Jimmy Hoffa, you pinko idiot. Besides,
Giants Stadium wasn't even built when your husband walked out
on you.

Way to go, Mama. I had no idea she had such a wealth of trivia
hiding beneath those wavy strawberry blonde locks of hers. Maybe
I should sign her up for the seniors' Jeopardy tournament.

"And for your information, I remember each and every one of
my husbands, thank you very much. That man was exactly the
same height as my dear departed Oscar Scoffield. And he wasn't
fat." She turned to Harley. "He was very muscular. Like a body
builder."

Fogarty rolled his eyes. "What about hair?"

"Black," said Mama.

"Light brown," said Lucille. "What was left of it. He had a large
bald spot in the front."

"He had a full head of hair," said Mama. "Thick. Like my first
husband's." She turned to me. "You remember what a gorgeous
head of hair your father had, don't you, Anastasia dear?"

"Yes, Mama."

Fogarty and Harley shook their heads. Lucille and Mama exchanged looks that could kill if given half a chance. Nick and Alex
tried to stifle their laughter. They weren't very successful.

"Why don't I make some coffee?" I suggested.

"I'm hungry," said Nick.

"Me, too," added Alex.

I headed back into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I
flung open the freezer.

I ran across the room and yanked open the pantry.

"That bastard!" I screamed.

ALEX, NICK, MAMA, FOGARTY, and Harley came running. The refrigerator and freezer doors stood open, bare bulbs illuminating
their cavernous, totally empty interiors. The pantry was equally
bare.

"He didn't leave us with so much as a lousy cornflake!" I said.

I wanted to throw myself on the linoleum and kick and scream
like an overtired two year old, but I contained my tantrum to an
adult-like two-fisted pummeling of the refrigerator door. In hindsight, considering the size of the dent I created, I should have gone
with my first and baser instinct.

"He was here a long time," said Mama. "Surely one of the
neighbors saw him carrying stuff out the front door and can give
the police a description."

"Yeah, Mom," said Nick. "Batty Bentworth probably even wrote
down his license plate number. You know what a busybody snoop
she is."

Fogarty grimaced. "We know all about Mrs. Bentworth. She
calls at least once a day to report alien sightings. No one at the station pays attention to her."

"Maybe you should this time," said Mama.

Fogarty shook his head. "We'll check it out, but most likely the
perp pulled a truck around to the back before ringing the front
doorbell. He wouldn't have been seen from the street, and you have
high shrubbery masking the yard from your next door neighbors."

"He also may not have been here as long as you think," added
Harley.

"But it had to take hours to empty the house," I said.

"He probably had help," said Fogarty. He turned to Mama and
the boys. "Did it ever sound like more than one person was in the
house? Did you hear him speaking to anyone?"

"I couldn't hear much of anything," said Nick.

"Me, neither," added Alex.

Mama scrunched up her face and shook her head. "Not with the
way that woman was carrying on with her grunting and groaning."

"This guy is a real sicko," said Harley. "We'd better check the
garage and apartment. He probably hit those, as well."

I turned to reach for the keys I kept on a hook by the phone.
They weren't there.

Harley and Fogarty, their hands poised on their guns, headed
out into the back yard.