11 Eleven On Top (28 page)

I was skating on thin ice here. I had the jelly-doughnut hormone problem going on, and I didn't want it to get out of control. I'd spent a night with Ranger a while ago, and I knew what happened when he was encouraged. Ranger knew how to make a woman want him. Ranger was magic.

“Let's take a look at my life,” I said to Ranger. “I keep rolling in garbage.”

“Mind-boggling,” Ranger said.

“And let's take a look at your life. You have a deep dark secret.”

“Let it go,” Ranger said.

“Are you sick?”

“No, I'm not sick. Not physically, anyway. I'm not so sure sometimes about the mental, emotional, and sexual.”

I locked myself in Ranger's dressing room and got dressed in the second Rangeman outfit. Short black T-shirt, black cargo pants, black socks. Ella hadn't provided underwear or shoes, so I sent my soda-and-ketchup-soaked underwear and my chocolate-shake-covered shoes off to the laundry with the first Rangeman outfit. I was feeling a little strange without underwear, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, right?

I returned to my desk, and I ignored the search requests piling up in my in-box. I picked up where I left off with the Dix search, reading the front pages. By five o'clock I had a list of crimes that I thought had potential. Nothing sensational. Just good solid crimes like a rash of unsolved burglaries, an unsolved murder, an unsolved hijacking. None of the crimes really grabbed me, and I still had lots of front pages to read, so I decided to keep searching.

I called Morelli and told him I was working late.

“How late?” he said.

“I don't know. Does it matter?”

“Only if you come home with your underwear on backwards.”

I could go him one better than that. How about no underwear at all?

“Dial yourself some food,” I said. “And tie Bob out back. I need to finish this project. How was your day? Is your leg okay?”

“The leg is okay. The day was long. I don't like being stuck in the building.”

“Anything on Barroni and the three other guys?”

“They've all been positively identified. You were right about all of them. They were killed on-site. That's it so far.”

“No one's seen Spiro?”

“No, but the pizza kid gave a good description, and it matches yours.”

I struggled up from a deep sleep and opened my eyes to Ranger.

“Babe,” he said softly. “You need to wake up. You need to go home.”

I had my arms crossed on my desk and my head on my arms. The screen saver was up on my computer. “What time is it?”

“It's a little after eleven. I just came back from a breakin on one of the Rangeman accounts and saw you were still here.”

“I was looking for a crime.”

“Did you call Morelli?”

“Earlier. He knows I'm working late.”

Ranger looked down at my feet. “Have you heard anything about your shoes? Ella was going to wash them.”

“Haven't heard anything.”

Ranger punched Ella's extension on my phone. “Sorry to call so late,” he said. “What's happening with Stephanie's shoes?”

Ranger smiled at Ella's answer. He disconnected and slung an arm around my shoulder. “Bad news on the shoes. They melted in the dryer. Looks like you're going home in your socks.” He pulled me to my feet. “I'll drive you. You can't ride the bike like this.”

We took the elevator to the garage, and Ranger went to the Porsche. Of all his cars, this was my favorite. I loved the sound of the engine, and I loved the way the seat cradled me. At night, the dash looked like controls on a jet, and the car felt intimate.

I was groggy from sleep and exhausted from the events of the day. And I suspected the last two nights were catching up with me. I closed my eyes and melted into the cushy leather seat. I felt Ranger reach across and buckle my seat belt. I heard the Porsche growl to life and move up the ramp to exit the garage.

I dozed on the way home and came awake when the car stopped. I looked out at the darkened neighborhood. Not a lot of lights shining in windows at this time of the night. These were hardworking people who rose early and went to bed early. We were stopped half a block from Morelli's house.

“Why are we stopped here?” I asked Ranger.

“I have a working relationship with Morelli. I think he's a good cop, and he thinks I'm a loose cannon. Since we both carry guns, I try not to do things that would upset the balance in an insulting way. I wanted to give you a chance to wake up, so we didn't sit at the curb in front of his house like a couple teenagers adjusting their clothes.” Ranger looked over at me. “You got the rest of your clothes from Ella, didn't you?”

Damn. “I forgot! I was working, and then I fell asleep. She's got my underwear.”

Ranger laughed out loud, and when he looked back at me he was smiling the full-on Ranger smile. “I'm worrying about parking too long in front of Morelli's house, and I'm bringing his girlfriend home without her underwear. I'll have to put double security on the building tonight.” He put the Porsche in gear, drove half a block, and parked. Lights were on in the downstairs rooms. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

“Morelli's a reasonable person. He'll understand.” Plus he had a cast on his leg. He couldn't move fast. I'd head straight for the stairs, and I'd be changed before he could get to me.

Ranger locked eyes with me. “Just so you know, for future reference, I wouldn't understand. If you were living with me, and you came home without underwear, I'd go looking for the guy who had it. And it wouldn't be pretty when I found him.”

“Something to remember,” I said. And the truth is, Morelli wasn't so different from Ranger. And Morelli wasn't usually a reasonable person. Morelli was being uncharacteristically mellow. I wasn't sure why I was seeing the mellow, and I wasn't sure how long it would last. The main difference between Morelli and Ranger was that when Morelli got mad he got loud. And when Ranger got mad he got quiet. They were both equally scary.

I jumped out of the Porsche and ran to the house. I let myself in, called to Morelli, and ran up the stairs and into the bedroom to get clothes. I smacked into Morelli en route to the bathroom. He dropped a crutch and put an arm out to steady me.

“What are you doing up here?” I asked.

“Going to bed? I live here, remember?”

“I thought you were downstairs.”

“You were wrong.” He looked over at me. “Where's your bra?”

“What?”

“I know your body better than I know my own. And I know when you're not wearing a bra.”

I slumped against the doorjamb. “It's in Ranger's dryer. You're not going to make a big deal about this, are you?”

“I don't know. I'm waiting to hear the whole story.”

“I helped Lula capture Willie Martin this morning, and I sort of got thrown into a table filled with food and people.”

“Costanza told me.”

“Yeah, he responded to the call from Fennick's. Anyway, my clothes and my shoes were a mess, and I had chicken soup in my hair, so I used Ranger's shower to get cleaned up. And I put clean clothes on, except Ella hadn't gotten me any underwear or shoes.” We both looked down at my feet. Black socks. No shoes.

“So here I am, and I don't have any underwear.”

“Was Ranger in the shower with you?”

“Nope. Just me.”

“And you were actually working tonight?” Yep.

"If I had anyone else for a girlfriend I'd be out the door with a gun in my hand, looking for Ranger-but your life is so insane I'm willing to believe anything.

Living with you is like being in one of the reality shows on television where people keep getting covered with bees and dropped off forty-story buildings into a vat of Vaseline."

“I admit it's been a little... hectic.”

“Hectic is getting three kids to soccer practice on time. Your life is... there are no words for your life.”

“That's what my mother says. Is this leading to something?”

“I don't know. I'm really tired right now. Let's talk about it tomorrow.”

I picked Morelli's crutch up for him, and he moved toward the little guest room.

“Where are you going?” I asked him.

“I'm sleeping in the guest room, and I'm locking the door. I need a night of uninterrupted sleep. I'm running on empty. I was a mess at work. I couldn't keep my eyes open. And my guys feel like they've been run over by a truck. They need a day off.”

“What about my guys?”

“Cupcake, you don't have guys.”

“I have something.”

“You do. And I love it. But you're on your own tonight. You're going to have to fly solo.”

I rolled out of bed and crossed the hall to the little guest room. The door was open, and the room was empty. No Morelli in the bathroom or study, but Bob was sleeping in the bathtub. I crept down the stairs and walked through the house to the kitchen. There was hot coffee, and a note had been left by the coffeemaker.

SORRY ABOUT LAST NIGHT. THE GUYS MISSED YOU THIS MORNING. DON'T WORK LATE.

That sounded hopeful. I poured a mug of coffee, added milk, and took it upstairs. An hour later, I was dressed in black jeans and black T-shirt, and I was ready for work. I'd called my dad and mooched a ride. He was at the curb when I came down the stairs.

“You're doing pretty good on the new job,” he said. “Almost a week. And nothing's caught fire or blown up.”

It'd be a real challenge for Spiro to penetrate Range-man. And that's probably the reason Morelli's garage got destroyed. Spiro went for what was available.

Truth is I was beginning to be bothered by the lack of activity. The garage went five days ago and there hadn't been any threatening notes, snipings, or bombings since the Buick.

“They're holding a memorial service for Michael Barroni today,” my father said. “Your mother said to tell you she's taking your grandmother. It's being held at Stiva's. Ordinarily they'd hold it at the church, but Stiva and Barroni were old friends, and I guess Stiva gave the Barronis a discount if they held the service in his chapel.”

“I didn't realize Stiva and Barroni were that close.”

“Yeah, me neither. I didn't see them spending a lot of time together. But then that happens when you got a big family and a business to run. You lose touch with your buddies.”

I had a chill run up my spine to the roots of my hair, and my scalp was tingling like I was electric. “How'd Stiva and Barroni get to be friends?” I asked, holding my breath, my heart skipping beats.

“They were in the army together. They were both at Dix.”

I might have the fifth man. I was so excited I was hyperventilating. Now here's the thing, why was I so excited? Ranger had his FTA, so the excitement didn't come from case closure. I barely knew Barroni and I didn't know the other three men at all, so there was nothing personal. My original long jump tying Anthony Barroni to Spiro and the missing men proved to be groundless. So why did I care? The four missing men seemed to be completely unrelated to anything I'd care about. And even if Spiro did turn out to have a tie to the four men, even if there was a crime involved, it really didn't matter to me, did it?

Finding Spiro and stopping the harassment was really the only thing that mattered, right? Right. But stopping the harassment could be a problem. There were really only two ways the harassment would stop. Ranger could kill Spiro. Or Spiro could get convicted of a crime, like murdering Mama Macaroni, and get locked away. The latter was definitely the preferred. Okay, maybe I was excited about the fifth man because it might be Constantine Stiva. And if Con was involved, then Spiro might be involved. And if there wasn't evidence that convicted Spiro of the bombings, there might be evidence to convict him of the shallow grave homicides. So, was this why I couldn't wait to plug Con's name into the search program? I didn't think so. I suspected the hard reality was that it all just came down to tasteless curiosity.

I was a product of the Burg. I had to know all the dirt.

My dad pulled up to the front of the building and I jumped out. “Thanks,” I yelled, hitting the ground running.

I was supposed to sign in and sign out when I entered and left the building. And I was supposed to show my picture ID when I came through the first-floor lobby. I never remembered to sign in or out, and my picture ID was lost in the garage fire. Good thing everyone knew me. Being the only woman in an organization had its upside.

I waved to the guy at the desk and danced in place, waiting for the elevator. I barreled out of the elevator on the fifth floor and crossed to my cubby.

I got my computer up and running and punched “Constantine Stiva” into the newspaper search program. A single article appeared. It was small and on page thirteen. I would have missed it on my front-page search.

Private first class Constantine Stiva had been injured in his attempt to thwart a robbery. A government armored truck carrying payroll had been hijacked when it had stopped for a routine gate check at Fort Dix. Stiva had been on guard duty, along with two other men. Stiva was the only guard to survive.

He'd been shot in the leg. There'd been no mention of the amount of money involved. And there weren't a lot of details on the hijacking, other than a few brief sentences that the truck had been recovered. I searched papers for two weeks following the incident but came up empty. There'd only been the one article.

I called Ranger on his cell and got a message. I left my cubby and went to the console that monitored Rangeman cars. “Where's Ranger?” I asked Hal. “He's not answering his cell, and I don't see him on the board.”

“He's on a plane,” Hal said. “He had to bring an FTA up from Miami. He'll be back tonight. Manny was supposed to bring the guy up on a red-eye yesterday, but he had problems with security, so Ranger had to go down this morning.” Hal tapped Ranger's number into his computer and a screen changed and brought Ranger's car up. Philadelphia airport. “He should be on the ground in three hours,” Hal said. “His cell will come back on then.”

I went back to my cubby and I called Morelli.

“I might know the fifth guy,” I told him. “It might be Constantine Stiva. He was at Dix when Barroni was there. They were army buddies.”

“I can't imagine Con in the army,” Morelli said. “I can't imagine him ever being anything other than a funeral director.”