11 Eleven On Top (21 page)

Bob wandered around a little and tinkled. I could tell he didn't have his heart in it, but it was good enough, so I dragged Bob inside, fed him some dog crunchies for dinner, and gave him some fresh water. I ran upstairs and got clothes for Morelli. Slacks, belt, button-down shirt. I ran back downstairs and shoved him into the shirt, and then realized he couldn't get the slacks over the cast. He was wearing gray sweatpants with one leg cut at thigh level.

“Okay,” I said, “the sweats are good enough.” I took a closer look. Pizza sauce on the long leg. Not good enough.

I ran upstairs and rummaged through Morelli's closet. Nothing I could use. I rifled his drawers. Nothing there. I went through the dirty clothes basket, found a pair of khaki shorts, and ran downstairs with the shorts.

“Ta-dah!” I announced. “Shorts. And they're almost clean.” I had Morelli out of his sweatpants in one fast swoop. I tugged the shorts up and zipped them.

“Jeez,” Morelli said. “I can zip my own shorts.”

“You weren't fast enough!” I looked at my watch. It was almost six o'clock! Yikes. “Put your foot on the coffee table, and I'll get shoes on you.”

Morelli put his foot on the coffee table, and I stared up his shorts at Mr. Happy.

“Omigod,” I said. “You're wearing boxers. I can see up your shorts.”

“Do you like what you see?”

“Yes, but I don't want the world seeing it!”

“Don't worry about it,” Morelli said. “I'll be careful.”

I pulled a sock on Morelli's casted foot, and I laced a sneaker on the other. I raced upstairs, and I changed into a skirt and short-sleeved sweater.

I threw my jean jacket over the sweater, grabbed my bag, got Morelli up on his crutches, and maneuvered him to the kitchen door.

“I hate to bring this up,” Morelli said. “But aren't you supposed to take the cello?”

The cello. I squinched my eyes closed, and I rapped my head on the wall. Thunk, thunk, thunk. I took a second to breathe. I can do this, I told myself.

Probably I can play a little something. How hard can it be? You just do the bowing thing back and forth and sounds come out. I might even turn out to be good at it. Heck, maybe I should take some lessons. Maybe I'm a natural talent and I don't even need lessons. The more I thought about it, the more logical it sounded. Maybe I was always meant to play the cello, and I'd just gotten sidetracked, and this was God's way of turning me in the direction of my true calling.

“Wait here,” I said to Morelli. “I'll put the cello in the car, and I'll come back to get you.”

I ran into the living room and hefted the cello. I carted it into the kitchen, past Morelli, out the door, and crossed the yard with it. I opened the garage door, rammed the cello into the back of the SUV, dropped my purse onto the driver's seat, and returned to the kitchen for Morelli. I realized he was just wearing a cotton shirt. No sweater on him. No jacket. And it was cold out. I ran upstairs and got a jacket. I helped him into the jacket, stuffed the crutches back under his arms, and helped him navigate through the back door and down the stairs.

We started to cross the yard, and the garage exploded with enough force to rattle the windows in Morelli's house.

The garage was wood with an asbestos-shingle roof. It hadn't been in the best of shape, and Morelli seldom used it. I'd been using it to keep the SUV bomb-free, but I now saw the flaw in the plan. It was an old garage without an automatic door opener. So to make things easier, I'd left the garage open when not in use. Easy to pull in and park. Also easy to sneak in and plant a bomb.

Morelli and I stood there, dumbstruck. His garage had gone up like fireworks and had come down like confetti. Splintered boards, shingles, and assorted car parts fell out of the sky into Morelli's yard. It was Mama Mac all over again. Almost nothing was left of the garage. Morelli's SUV was a fireball.

His yard was littered with smoldering junk.

“Omigod!” I said. “The cello was in your SUV.” I pumped my fist into the air and did a little dance. “Yes! Way to go! Woohoo! There is a God and He loves me. It's good-bye cello.”

Morelli gave his head a shake. “You're a very strange woman.”

“You're just trying to flatter me.”

“Honey, my garage just blew up, and I don't think it was insured. We're supposed to be upset.”

“Sorry. I'll try to look serious now.”

Morelli glanced over at me. “You're still smiling.”

“I can't help it. I'm trying to be scared and depressed, but it's just not working. I'm just so frigging relieved to be rid of that cello.”

There were sirens screaming from all directions, and the first of the cop cars parked in the alley behind Morelli's house. I borrowed Morelli's cell phone and called my mother.

“Bad news,” I said. “We're going to be late. We're having car trouble.”

“How late? What's wrong with the car?”

“Real late. There's a lot wrong with the car.”

“I'll send your father for you.”

“Not necessary,” I said. “Have the rehearsal without me, and I'll meet you at Marsillio's.”

“You're the maid of honor. You have to be at the rehearsal. How will you know what to do?”

“I'll figure it out. This isn't my first wedding. I know the drill.”

“But the cello...”

“You don't have to worry about that either.” I didn't have the heart to tell her about the cello.

Two fire trucks pulled up to the garage. Emergency-vehicle strobes flashed up and down the alley, and headlights glared into Morelli's yard. The garage had been blown to smithereens, and the remaining parts had rained down over a three-house area. Some parts had smoked but none had flamed. The SUV had burned brightly but not long. So the fire had almost entirely extinguished itself before the first hose was unwound.

Ryan Laski crossed the yard and found Morelli. “I'm seeing a disturbing pattern here,” Laski said. “Was anyone hurt... or vaporized?”

“Just property damage,” Morelli said.

“I've sent some uniforms off to talk to neighbors. Hard to believe no one ever sees this guy. This isn't the sort of place where people mind their own business.”

A mobile satellite truck for one of the local television stations cruised into the alley.

Laski cut his eyes to it. “This is going to be a big disappointment. I'm sure they're hoping for disintegrated bodies.”

There's something hypnotic about a disaster scene, and time moves in its own frame of reference, lost in a blur of sound and color. When the first fire truck rumbled away I looked at my watch and realized I had ten minutes to get to Marsillio's.

“The rehearsal dinner!” I said to Morelli. “I forgot about the rehearsal dinner.”

Morelli was blankly staring at the charred remains of his garage and the blackened carcass of his SUV. “Just when you think things can't get any worse...”

“The rehearsal dinner won't be that bad.” This was a blatant lie, but it didn't count since we both knew it was a blatant lie. “We need a car,” I said.

“Where's Laski? We can use his car.”

“That's a department car. You can't borrow a department car to go to a rehearsal dinner.”

I looked at my watch. Nine minutes! Shit. I didn't want to call anyone in the wedding party. I'd rather they read about this in the paper tomorrow. I didn't think Joe would be excited about getting a lift from Ranger. There was Lula, but it would take her too long to get here. I searched the crowd of people still milling around in Morelli's yard. “Help me out here, will you?” I said to Morelli. “I'm running down roads of blind panic.”

“Maybe I can get someone to drop us off,” Morelli said.

And then it came to me. Big Blue. “Wait a minute! I just had a brain flash. The Buick is still sitting in front of the house.”

“You mean the Buick that's been sitting there unprotected? The Buick that's very likely booby-trapped?”

“Yeah, that one.”

Now Morelli was seriously looking around. “I'm sure I can find someone...”

I could hear time ticking away. I looked down at my watch. Seven minutes. “I have seven minutes,” I said to him.

“This is an extreme circumstance,” Morelli said. “It's not every day someone blows up my garage. I'm sure your family will understand.”

“They won't understand. This is an everyday occurrence for me.”

“Good point,” Morelli said. “But I'm not getting in the Buick. And you're not getting in it either.”

“I'll be careful,” I said. And I ran through the house, locking up behind myself. I got to the Buick, and I hesitated. I wasn't crazy about my life, but I wasn't ready to die. I especially didn't like the idea that my parts could be distributed over half the county. Okay, so what was stronger... my fear of death or my fear of not showing up at the rehearsal dinner? This one was a no-brainer. I unlocked the Buick, jumped behind the wheel, and shoved the key into the ignition. No explosion. I drove around the block, turned into the alley, and parked as close as I could to Morelli. I left the motor running and ran to retrieve him.

“You're a nut,” he said.

“I looked it all over. I swear.”

“You didn't. I know you didn't. You didn't have time. You just took a deep breath, closed your eyes, and got in.”

“Five minutes!” I shrieked. “I've got five friggin' minutes. Are you going with me or what?”

“You're unglued.”

“And?”

Morelli blew out a sigh and hobbled over to the Buick. I put the crutches in the trunk and loaded Morelli into the car with his back to the door, his casted leg stretched flat on the backseat.

“I guess you're not that unglued,” Morelli said. “You just spared a few seconds to look up my pants leg again.”

He was right. I'd taken a few seconds to look up his pants leg. I couldn't help myself. I liked the view.

I got behind the wheel and put my foot to the floor. When I reached the corner the Buick was rolling full-steam-ahead and I didn't want any unnecessary slowdowns, so I simply jumped the curb and cut across Mr. Jankowski's lawn. This was the hypotenuse is shorter than the sum of two sides school of driving, and the only thing I remember from high school trigonometry.

Morelli fell off the backseat when I jumped the curb, and a lot of creative cursing followed.

“Sorry,” I yelled to Morelli. “We're late.”

“You keep driving like this and we're going to be dead.”

I got there with no minutes to spare. And there were no parking places. It was Friday night, and Marsillio's was packed.

“I'm dropping you off,” I said. No.

“Yes! I'm going to have to park a mile away, and you can't walk with that cast.” I double-parked, jumped out, and hauled Morelli out of the backseat. I gave him his crutches, and I left him standing on the curb while I ran inside and got Bobby V. and Alan. “Get him up the stairs and into the back room,”

I told them. “I'll be there in a minute.”

I roared away, circling blocks, looking in vain for a place to park. I looked for five minutes and decided parking wasn't going to happen. So I parked in front of a fire hydrant. It was very close to Marsillio's, and if there was a fire I'd run out and move the car. Problem solved.

I rolled into the back room just as the antipasto was set on the table. I took my seat beside Morelli and shook out my napkin. I smiled at my mother. I smiled at Valerie. No one smiled back. I looked down the line at Kloughn. Kloughn smiled at me and waved. Kloughn was wasted. Drunk as a skunk. Grandma didn't look far behind.

Morelli leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Your ass is grass. Your mother's going to cut you off from pineapple upside-down cake.”

“This is the big day,” Morelli said.

I was slumped in a kitchen chair, staring at my mug of coffee. It was almost eight o'clock, and I wasn't looking forward to what lay in front of me. I was going to have to call my mom and tell her about the cello. Then I was going to have to give her the fire details. Then I was going to dress up like an eggplant and walk down the aisle in front of Valerie.

“Your big day, too,” I said. “You're Albert's best man.” “Yeah, but I don't have to be a vegetable.” “You have to make sure he gets to the church.” “That could be a problem,” Morelli said. “He wasn't looking good last night. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't think he's hot on marriage.”

“He's confused. And he keeps having this nightmare about Valerie smothering him with her wedding gown.” Morelli was looking beyond me, out the back window to the place where he used to have a garage.

“Sorry about your garage,” I said. “And your SUV.” “Tell you the truth, it wasn't much of a loss. The garage was falling apart. And the SUV was boring. Bob and I need something more fun. Maybe I'll buy a Hummer.”

I couldn't see Morelli in a Hummer. I thought Morelli was more suited to his Due. But of course, Bob couldn't ride on the Due. “Your Ducati wasn't in the garage,” I said.

“Where's the Ducati?”

“Getting new pipes and custom paint. No rush now. By the time I get the cast off it'll be too cold to ride.” The phone rang and I froze. “Don't answer it.” Morelli looked at the caller ID and handed the phone over to me. “Guess who.”

“Stephanie,” my mother said. “I have terrible news. It's about your sister. She's gone.” “Gone? Gone where?” “Disney World.”

I covered the phone with my hand. “My mothers been drinking,” I whispered to Morelli.

“I heard that,” my mother said. “I haven't been drinking. For goodness sakes, it's eight o'clock in the morning.”

“You have too been drinking,” Grandma yelled from the background. “I saw you take a nip from the bottle in the cupboard.”

“It was either that or kill myself,” my mother said. “Your sister just called from the airport. She said they were all on a plane... Valerie, the three girls, and cuddle umpkins. And they were going to Disney World, and she had to disconnect because they were about to take off. I could hear the announcements over the phone. I sent your father over to her apartment, and it's all locked up.”

“So there's no wedding?”

“No. She said she didn't lose enough weight. She said she was sixty pounds short. And then she said something about cuddle umpkins having an asthma attack from her wedding gown. I couldn't figure out what that was about.”