Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich
“Should I ask why?”
“I expect you already know. You’re caught up in the middle of something bad, and you’re not being careful. Get dressed and come out to the dining room. I have a show-and-tell for you.”
Oh boy. Ranger didn’t stay to watch me get dressed. He didn’t rip the towel off me. He didn’t get naked. I must really look bad. I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. EEK! This was worse than I thought. Huge black bruise developing and swelling under my right eye. Still small amount of blood seeping from my nose. Swollen lip with ugly cut and huge bruise. Then there was the rest of me, with assorted bruises and scrapes. Not exactly a sex goddess.
I pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and half dried my hair. I plastered the ice pack to my face and went out to see Ranger.
“Here’s your Smith and Wesson,” he said. “I took it out of the cookie jar. From what I can see, you haven’t any ammo. I took the stun gun out of your bag. It’s dead. Needs recharging. And it looks to me like you’re out of pepper spray and using hair spray.”
I adjusted the ice pack. “Hair spray works surprisingly well.”
“Don’t push it,” Ranger said. “I’m not in a good place.” He took a gun off the table and handed it to me. “This is a semiautomatic baby Glock. It’s smaller and lighter than the one I carry. It’s ready to go. Do you know how to use it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know how to load it?”
“Yes.”
“The only time I want to see the clip empty is immediately after you’ve dumped every round into a warm body.”
“Jeez,” I said.
“Humor me. Next up is the stun gun. This is larger than the one you’re currently carrying. It’ll drop a 1,500-pound cow. If you don’t keep it charged, it won’t drop anything.”
I nodded. “Yes sir.”
“Is that snark?” he asked.
“It might be.”
Ranger almost smiled.
“The truth is, I’m kind of proud of the way I’ve defended myself so far. I’m still alive, and I only cried once. And as bad as I look, I’m in a lot better shape than the other guy.”
“You work well with panic and rage,” Ranger said.
I looked down at the table. “What’s with the watch?”
“It works as a watch, but it’s also a tracking system. As long as it’s on your wrist, I can find you. There are three little buttons on the side. If you push the red button, we come get you.”
“What’s the blue button?”
“It sets the time.”
Duh.
I removed the watch I was wearing and strapped the new watch to my wrist. “It should have diamonds,” I said to Ranger.
“Maybe if you’re a very good girl.”
“How good would I have to be?” I asked him.
“You have a black eye, a cut lip, a broken nose, and you’re flirting with me?”
“That’s not the worst of it,” I told him. “I’ve decided I’m off men.”
“All things considered, that’s not a bad plan,” Ranger said. “I have to go. Call if you need help, or anything else.”
“Now you’re flirting,” I told him.
“That wasn’t flirting,” Ranger said. “That was an open invitation.”
I locked the door when he left. I slid the chain into place and flipped the dead bolt. None of those locks ever prevented Ranger from entering, and I’d long ago stopped wondering how he did it.
• • •
I made myself a sandwich and took it to the dining room table. Chewing was painful, but I managed to get the whole thing down. I pulled up a search program on my computer and started working my way through Brenda’s husbands.
Brenda married Herbert Luckert right out of high school. The marriage lasted ten years and ended in divorce. A year later, she married Harry Zimmer. That marriage lasted seven months and ended in divorce. She was unmarried for nine years after that, eventually marrying Bernard Schwartz. The Schwartz marriage ended after three years when Schwartz emptied his medicine chest into the blender along with half a pint of vodka and drank himself into a blissful final slumber.
When Brenda married Schwartz, he owned thirty-five car washes spread throughout the state. When he killed himself, he owned four, and they were in foreclosure. He’d lost his house a couple months before. I had no idea if or how this related to the photograph, but it seemed like something to file away.
I got out of the search program and checked my email. Mostly spam. I gingerly touched my lip and my nose. Tender. I went to the bathroom and took another look. Not good, but at least I didn’t have a foot-long, inch-deep gash in my thigh. I hoped Razzle Dazzle was in a lot of pain. And I really wouldn’t mind if the cut got infected and his leg fell off.
My cell phone rang, and I was hoping for Joyce so I could tell her I had the key, but it was my parents’ number that came up on the display.
“The Korda viewing is at seven o’clock tonight,” Grandma said. “I figure you want to go and snoop around, and I was hoping I could have a ride.”
“Sure.”
“Are you coming for dinner? Your mother’s making chicken and rice.”
My mother would have a coronary incident if she saw my face. “I’m going to skip dinner,” I said.
“Okay, but make sure you’re not late. There’s gonna be a crowd tonight, and I don’t want to get muscled to the back of the room. All the action’s gonna be up by the casket.”
I said good-bye to Grandma, and I went to get ice. Lots of ice, I thought. The more the better.
By six-thirty, it was clear there was only so much improvement I could expect from ice. I got dressed in a black pencil skirt, black heels, a cream sweater with a low scoop neck and matching cardigan. I wore my hair down and fluffed out, hoping it would distract from my monster bruise and cut lip. I smeared on a lot of concealer, tried to balance out the black eye with extra blush, and I was wearing my push-up bra for maximum cleavage. I took one last look in the mirror and thought this was as good as it was going to get.
I dropped my new Glock into my purse, along with the stun gun on steroids. I was wearing the GPS watch, pearl earrings, a Band-Aid where the knife had knicked my neck, and a huge Band-Aid on my skinned knee. I was the All-American Girl.
FIFTEEN
GRANDMA WAS AT THE DOOR, waiting for me. I pulled to the curb, and she hustled over to the truck. She was wearing chunky black heels, a lavender suit with a white blouse, and she was carrying the black leather purse that I knew was big enough to hold her .45 long barrel.
She hoisted herself up and into the truck, buckled her seat belt, and looked over at me.
“Don’t you look pretty,” Grandma said. “That’s such a nice sweater set.”
No comment on my face or the various Band-Aids.
“Anything else?” I asked her.
“I like your hair down like that. I hardly ever see it down anymore.” Grandma looked at her watch. “We gotta get a move on.”
“What about my face?”
“What about it?”
“For starters, I have a black eye.”
“Yeah, it’s a pip,” Grandma said, “but I’ve seen you with worse. Remember that explosion that burned your eyebrows off?”
Good lord, this is what it’s come to, I thought. My own grandmother isn’t shocked to see me with a black eye. I might as well admit it. I’m a train wreck.
“Is there a good story that goes with the shiner?” Grandma asked.
“I slipped in a parking garage.”
“Too bad,” Grandma said. “I could use something juicy for conversational material. Do you mind if I make something up?”
“Yes, I mind!”
I drove the short distance to the funeral home, off-loaded Grandma at the entrance, and trolled for a parking place. The small funeral home lot was full, but I found parking on the street a block away. Grandma had been right about the viewing. The building was packed. At three minutes after sev
I kept my head down as I inched my way through the crowd, hoping not to attract attention. I was in the lobby, about to enter Slumber Room #1, and I got a call on my cell phone.
“I knew you would go to the viewing,” Joyce said.
“Where are you?”
“I’m outside. And don’t come out looking for me. You’ll never find me. I’m dying to come in and check it all out, but it’s too risky.”
“Yeah, I’d capture you.”
“You’re the least of my worries,” Joyce said. “Did you get the key?”
“Yes. Now what?”
“Hang on to it. Did you get up to the casket yet? Did you see the grieving widow?”
“No. It took me twenty minutes to cross the lobby. It’s jammed in here.”
“I want a report on the widow,” Joyce said. “I want to know what jewelry she’s wearing. It’s a closed casket, right?”
“I don’t know for sure, but the guy was compacted and aged for a couple days. I’m guessing he’s not real attractive at this point.”
“He wasn’t real attractive before. How about the people there? Anyone stand out?”
“In what way?”
“Remember David Niven in the Pink Panther movies?”
I looked around. I didn’t see David Niven. “No David Nivens here,” I told her.
I hung up with Joyce, and I bumped into Morelli.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him. “Is this official business or did you come for the cookies?”
“Official business. The captain wanted police presence, and I’m supposed to be looking for Joyce.”
“Do you think you’ll find her?”
“Not here. She’d be crazy to show up here. Although it’s hard to assess the extent of Joyce’s craziness.”
“My exact thoughts.”
Morelli was wearing his show-no-emotion cop face. “Berger let me see the tape.”
“And?” I asked.
“And I’m glad I tangled with Ranger and not you. You’re an animal. You kicked the crap out of that poor bastard.”
“I felt threatened.”
“No doubt.” His gaze traveled from my face to my enhanced cleavage, and his expression softened. “I like this sweater.”
Now this is the Morelli I know and love. “Does this sweater fixation mean things are returning to normal?”
“No, this means I’m trying not to focus on your face. You look worse than I do, and I have a broken nose.” He very gently touched a fingertip to my nose and the corner of my mouth. “Does it hurt?”
“Not a lot, but you could kiss it and make it better.”
He brushed a whisper of a kiss across my nose and my mouth. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
“You like me?” I asked him.
“No, but I’m working on it.”
I guess I could live with that. “I was attacked by Razzle Dazzle. Did you recognize him on the tape?”
Morelli shook his head. “No. But Berger seemed to know him.”
“I talked to Brenda earlier today. Not much came of it. I still have no idea why everyone’s interested in the photograph.”
“Berger’s briefed me on the major players, and he called me in to see the tape, but he isn’t talking beyond that. I don’t think he knows the whole story. Someone above him wants that photograph. This isn’t trivial.”
“Why is Berger playing nice with you?”
“You’re the only one who’s seen the photograph, and I’m a connection to you.”
“But I don’t have the photograph, and I don’t know anything. I described Tom Cruise and Ashton Kutcher to the FBI sketch artists.”
Morelli did a palms up. “No one believes you.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. You have nothing to gain by lying. And you look really sexy tonight from your neck down.”
“I thought you didn’t like me.”
“Cupcake, that sweater transcends like or not like.”
I punched him in the chest. “I’m going to find Grandma.”
Grandma had scored a folding chair in the third row and had saved the one next to her for me.
“This here’s a real disappointing viewing,” Grandma said. “I expected better, what with Frank Korda being packed off to the junkyard. I don’t think there’s even a reporter for the paper. And so far I haven’t seen any killers pass by. Only Connie’s Uncle Gino, and he’s pretty much retired. He’s just here for the refreshments. I was hoping to see Joyce Barnhardt. Now, that would be something.” Grandma stared at the casket for a long moment. “Do you think they got him dressed up in there?” she asked. “What kind of tie do you suppose he’s wearing? I bet it’s hard to dress someone after they’ve been compacted. He probably looks like a waffle.” She sighed with longing. “I sure would like to take a look.”
I didn’t want to look. Not even a little. Like Morelli, I’d come here on the odd chance Barnhardt would show. Now that I’d made contact with her, I was anxious to leave.
“How long do you want to stay?” I asked Grandma. “Are you ready to go?”
“Maybe another ten minutes,” Grandma said. “I’m waiting to see if the widow Korda’s gonna cry.”
I thought chances of that were zero to nothing. The widow Korda was tight-lipped and dry-eyed, looking like she’d rather be home watching Cheers reruns. It was hard to see jewelry details from the third row, but it looked to me like she was wearing small gold hoop earrings and a simple gold necklace.
“I’m going to wander around,” I told Grandma. “I’ll meet you by the refreshments.”
I reached the table with cookies and coffee set out just as my mom called me.
“What happened to you? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. Eighteen people have called me so far asking if you were in a car crash. I’ve been calling you for a half hour and you haven’t been answering.”
“I couldn’t hear the phone ringing when I was in the viewing room. Too much noise.”
“Myra Kruger said you had a black eye. And Cindy Beryl said you had a broken knee. How can you drive with a broken knee?”
“I don’t have a broken knee. I have a scrape on my knee, and a bruise under my eye. I slipped in a parking garage and banged my face into a parked car. It’s not serious.”
“Did you get shot?”
“No!”
I disconnected and stared at the tray of cookies. Nothing soft enough for me to eat with a split lip. I looked around the room and wondered who else had ratted me out to my mother. My phone rang again. Joyce.
“Well?” Joyce asked. “What was she wearing?”
“Small gold hoops and a gold necklace. It didn’t look especially expensive, but what do I know.”
“Were there diamonds in the hoops or the necklace?”
“No.”
“Interesting,” Joyce said. And she hung up.
It was close to nine o’clock when Grandma found her way to the cookie table. She ate three cookies, wrapped four more in a napkin, put them in her purse, and she was ready to head for home.
“It got better after you left,” she said. “Melvin Shupe came through the line and cut the cheese right when he got up to the casket. He said he was sorry, but the widow made a big fuss over it. And then the funeral director came with air freshener, and when he sprayed it around, Louisa Belman got a asthma attack and they had to cart her out the back door to get some air. Earl Krizinski was sitting behind me, and he said he saw Louisa’s underpants when they picked her up, and he said he got a stiffy.”
“Louisa Belman is ninety-three years old.”
“Well, I guess to Earl underpants are underpants.”
We walked the block to the truck without incident. We got in and Grandma got a text.
“It’s from Annie,” Grandma said. “She wants to know if you found your true love.”
“Tell her I’m not looking, but if he happens along, she’ll be one of the first to know.”
“That’s a lot to write,” Grandma said. “I’ll just say not yet.” She tapped out the message and sat back in the seat. “It was so much easier when I was young. You got a boyfriend, and you married him. You had some kids, you got older, one of you died, and that was it.”
“Jeez. No true love?”
“There’s always been true love, but in my day, you either talked yourself into thinking you had it, or you talked yourself into thinking you didn’t need it.”
• • •
I took Grandma home, but I didn’t go in. It had been a long day, and I was looking forward to my quiet apartment. I did the usual bad guy car search in my lot, parked the truck, and crossed to the apartment building’s back door with one hand wrapped around the Glock. I took the elevator to my floor and walked down the hall thinking I should probably learn how to shoot. I knew the basics. Lula, Morelli, and Ranger all carried semiautomatics. So I had a lot of exposure, but my actual use was limited.
I let myself into my apartment, still holding the Glock. I stepped into the small foyer and realized the television was on. I was thinking Ranger or Morelli, but it turned out to be Joyce Barnhardt.
“Hey, girlfriend,” Joyce said.
“What the heck are you doing here? And I’m not your girlfriend. I’ve never been your friend. I will never want to be your friend.”
“Gee, that hurts.”
“How did you get in?”
“I climbed up the fire escape and jimmied your window.”
I raised the Glock. “I guess I should be thanking you. This makes everything easy for me.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m not going anywhere, especially not to jail.”
“I have an arrest agreement, and I have a gun aimed at you.”
“Honestly,” Joyce said, “put the gun down. You’re not going to shoot me. For one thing, I’d bleed all over your carpet. Not that it’s all that great. And I’m unarmed. Just think of the paperwork, not to mention you’d probably get charged with assault with a deadly weapon. That carries a decent amount of time in an orange jumpsuit.”
“I hate you.”