14 Fearless Fourteen (20 page)

And before I could stop him, he picked it up and shook it to see
if the box rattled.

“It's got the dude's name on it,” Mooner said.

I craned my neck and read the writing on the box. Joe
MORELLI.

“What's it doing sitting here in the yard?” Mooner wanted to
know. “There's no mail delivery today. It's a Sunday. Even I know
that.”

“Someone tossed it through Morelli's window.”

“Get the heck out,” Mooner said. “Was the window
open?”

“No,” I told him.

“Get the heck out,” he said.

The box was held to the brick with electrician's tape. I took
the box upstairs, set it on Morelli's desk, and called
Morelli.

“How's it going?” I asked him.

“Not good. I got a call from dispatch. Two gang killings in the
projects. I'm on my way there now. I don't know when I'll get home.
Sometimes these things take time to sort out. What's up with
you?”

“Someone pitched a brick through your living room window. And
attached to the brick was a box with your name on
it.”

“Is this for real?”

“Yep.”

“Put the brick and the box in the garage. Don't leave it in the
house. Better to blow up the garage than the house.”

“Do you think it's a bomb?”

“I think it doesn't hurt to be careful. I'll deal with it when
I'm done here,”

Morelli said. “And I'll call Mooch and get him to replace the
glass. And I'll make arrangements to have an alarm system
installed.”

I disconnected and stared at the box. I was faced with a
dilemma. Gary was living in the garage. I didn't want to explode
Gary. No big deal, I thought.

Just ask Gary to pull his camper out of the
garage.

The doorbell chimed, the door opened and closed, and I heard
Lula ask for me.

“I'm upstairs,” I yelled at her. “Come on up.”

Lula was dressed down. Running shoes, black stretch yoga pants,
and a black stretch T-shirt that looked like it was going to burst
at the seams.

“What's the occasion?” I asked her.

“I went to try some wedding gowns yesterday, and it was a
depressing experience. First off, they only had itty-bitty sizes
for those skinny bitches. Like us big and beautiful women don't get
married? And then they said they were gonna have to charge extra on
account of they were gonna have to order so much material. What the
heck is that about? It's not like I'm getting a circus tent. So
anyway, I decided I'd join a gym. I figure with the money I save on
less material, I could pay for the membership.”

“That's a terrific idea. I should do something like that. What
gym did you join?”

“I didn't exactly join a gym yet. I just got the
clothes.”

“It's a start,” I said to Lula.

“Damn right,” Lula said. “What's this package with Morelli's
name on it? And why's it on a brick?”

“Someone pitched it through his living room window just
now.”

“Get the heck out. What are you going to do with
it?”

“Morelli wants me to put it in the garage for safe keeping until
he gets home later today.”

“I don't think that's a good idea.” Lula picked the box up and
tested its weight. “It could be something important that requires
immediate attention. I think you should open this
sucker.”

“It could be a bomb.”

“Okay then, let Gary open it.”

I did an eye roll.

“Nothing wrong with that,” Lula said. “He's always saying how he
knows things. Let's see if he knows it's a bomb. Anyway, it don't
look like a bomb.”

“It's all wrapped up. How could you tell?”

“Well, if it was a bomb, it would be a little
one.”

I heard Bob jump off the bed and head down the
stairs.

“I need to get the glass cleaned up before Bob steps in it,” I
told Lula. “Put the box down and look up some gyms in the phone
book and we'll check some out.”

Five minutes later, I walked back into Morelli's office and
found Lula unwrapping the box.

“It's not a bomb,” Lula said. “There's a note in here and
something all wrapped up.” She handed me the note.

“That was addressed to Morelli,” I said to her.

“Yeah, but I didn't want him to get hisself all blown up.
Besides, I kicked the box around some and nothing happened, so I
figured it was safe.”

I unfolded the piece of paper and read the printed
message.

I KNOW YOU HAVE THE MONEY. GIVE ME THE MONEY AND I'LL GIVE YOU
LORETTA. JUST

SO YOU KNOW I'M SERIOUS I'M ENCLOSING A PRESENT. EVERY DAY I
DON'T GET THE

MONEY YOU'LL GET ANOTHER PRESENT. Hang a red scarf in the
upstairs window WHEN YOU WANT TO MAKE A DEAL.

“I like getting presents,” Lula said, “but this one don't smell
too good.”

I had a bad feeling about this present. I carefully peeled away
the tissue paper, and we stared at a pinkie toe with red toenail
polish.

“Good pedicure,” Lula said.

I clapped a hand over my mouth and told myself I wasn't going to
throw up. I was sweating at my hairline and little black dots were
floating in front of my eyes. They'd chopped off one of Lorettas
toes, and they were going to keep chopping until they got their
money.

“Maybe we should give them the money,” Lula said.

“We don't have the money,” I whispered.

“Oh yeah. I forgot.”

“I don't want Zook to see this,” I told her. “He's just a kid.
He doesn't need this. And I can't stand around and let them chop
off Lorettas body parts. We have to find either Loretta or the
money.”

“And we're gonna do this how?”

“I have a lead.”

“Okay,” Lula said. “But what about the pinkie
toe?”

“It's evidence. I'll put it in the freezer for
now.”

I'd seen army barracks that were more attractive than Stanley
Zero's apartment complex. Hummingbird Hollow consisted of six
cement-block, three-story buildings clustered around a large
macadam parking lot. As far as I could see, there were no trees, no
flowers, no hummingbirds. And the only hollow was an empty, sick
feeling in the pit of my stomach. The mailboxes would lead me to
believe that there were twenty-four units to each building. Zero
lived on the second floor, in unit 2D, with his windows facing the
lot. According to my report, he lived alone. I found his truck in
the lot, and I checked the plate to make sure.

“He's home,” I said to Lula.

We were in Lula's Firebird. It wasn't the best surveillance
vehicle, but it was better than my Zook car. Lula slid into a space
behind and to the left of the F150.

“Now what?” Lula asked.

“Now we wait.”

“I hate to wait. He don't know me. How about if I go up and ring
his bell and ask if he wants some Lula? Then I could look around
and see if he got Loretta tied up without her toe in his
closet.”

“They don't have Loretta here,” I said. “It's not private
enough. You can probably hear everything through these walls. I'm
hoping he'll go out and lead us to his partner.”

We sat for an hour, looking up into his windows, watching the
building's back door. Nothing.

“He might not even be in there,” Lula said. “Maybe someone came
and picked him up, and we'll sit here 'til the cows come
home.”

“Then we'll check out the car that drops him off, and maybe that
car will belong to the partner.”

“You sure you don't want me to go up there and poke around?”
Lula asked.

I cut my eyes to her. “You're not going to give up, are
you?”

“I should have brought my bride magazines to read. I got nothing
to do here. I sit here much longer, I'm gonna get that thing they
were talking about on the morning show... restless leg
syndrome.”

“Okay already, go see if he's home.”

Lula marched across the lot and into the building. Five minutes
later, she was back at the car.

“Nobody home,” Lula said. “I tried the door, but it was
locked.”

“That doesn't usually stop you.”

“I fiddled with the lock a little, but I couldn't get anything
to work. Too bad, because this here's a good opportunity to
snoop.”

I called Ranger. “I'm watching an apartment off Route 1, and I'd
like to get in but it's locked up tight.”

“I'll send Slick.”

I gave Ranger the address, and Lula and I waited with slightly
elevated heart rates. Breaking and entering was always tense.
Especially since it was a crapshoot if Lula could squeeze under a
bed. A shiny black Rangeman SUV

pulled into the lot and Slick got out and went into the
building. He was out of uniform, dressed in jeans and a baggy
shirt. Wouldn't be good if he was seen picking a lock in Rangeman
black. Five minutes later, he walked through the door, looked my
way, and nodded. He got into the Rangeman SUV, and drove
away.

“Rock and roll,” Lula said.

We took the stairs to the second floor and went directly to
Zero's apartment.

I turned the knob, and the door opened. We stepped inside and
closed the door.

“Hello,” I called out.

No one answered.

We were standing in an area that was living room, dining room.
Beyond was the kitchen and a hall that would lead to the bedrooms.
The furniture was old and collected for comfort with no thought to
design. Empty beer cans and Styrofoam coffee cups with days-old
coffee still in the bottom were left on end tables.

A couple newspapers had been tossed to the floor. Mud had been
tracked onto the rug. Not that it mattered. The rug looked like it
hadn't been vacuumed in a long, long time. Maybe
never.

We glanced at the kitchen and moved into the hall. It was a
one-bedroom, one-bath apartment, and the bedroom door was open.
Lula and I looked through the open door and froze. There was a man
on the floor, toes up, eyes open, bullet hole in the middle of his
head. Dead.

“I hate when we find dead people,” Lula said. “Dead people give
me the heebie-jeebies. I'm not doing this no more if we keep
finding dead people. And I'm getting out of here. I'm not staying
in no room with a guy with a hole in his head.”

Don't panic, I told myself. Take it one step at a time. I
followed Lula back to the living room, did some deep breathing, and
punched Morelli's number into my cell phone.

“Talk,” Morelli said.

“I found another dead guy.”

“You want to run that by me again?”

“Lula and I decided we'd talk to Stanley Zero, so we knocked on
his door, and the door swung open, and we found a dead guy in the
bedroom.”

There was a moment of silence, and I knew Morelli was either
popping Rolaids or counting to ten. Probably both. “The door swung
open when you touched it,” he finally said.

“Yeah.” No need to go into details on how the door got unlocked,
right? I mean, he didn't ask how it got unlocked.

“Where are you now?”

“In the living room,” I told him.

“Anything else I need to know before I call this
in?”

“Nope. That's the whole enchilada.”

I disconnected and noticed Lula had her keys in her
hand.

“Are you going somewhere?” I asked Lula.

“I figure you don't need me anymore, so I thought I'd go home. I
got things to do. I gotta think about a honeymoon. And this place
is gonna be swarming with cops, and I hate cops. Except for
Morelli. Morelli is fine.”

“If you leave, I have no way to get home.”

“What about Morelli? What about Ranger? What about calling a
cab?”

“What about waiting in your car in the parking lot?” I said to
her.

“I guess I could do that.”

She hotfooted it out of the apartment, and I thought there was a
twenty percent chance she'd be in the lot when I was ready to go
home. Not that Lula was unreliable, more that her cop phobia
overrode her best intentions.

I figured I had five to ten minutes before the first cop showed
up, so I told myself to get over the dead guy and think about
rescuing Loretta. I did a quick run through the kitchen, being
careful not to leave prints. I found leftover fast-food chicken and
expired milk in the refrigerator, and dots of blue mold on the
bread that was sitting on the counter. Not enough mold to slow down
a big, tough construction guy from Trenton. No scraps of paper
lying around with a phone number or address.

I walked back into the bedroom, and as best I could, I avoided
looking at the body. A pair of beat-up CAT boots had been kicked
off beside the bed, and a framed photograph of a large powerboat
was propped on the dresser. I'd found the third partner's
apartment. And probably the guy on the floor was the third partner,
since he was in socks. I guess I could have seen if the boots fit,
but I didn't want to know who he was that bad. Let the police
figure it out.

There were clothes all over the place. Hard to tell if the
apartment had been tossed, since Zero wasn't the world's best
housekeeper. I went through all pockets, omitting the ones attached
to the dead guy, and I looked through drawers. I did a fast
bathroom check.

I looked out the bedroom window and saw the first police car
angle to a stop in the lot. He'd come in without a siren, probably
at Morelli's suggestion. A second squad car followed. Eddie Gazarra
got out of the second squad car. That was a relief. We'd grown up
together and he'd married my cousin, Shirley the Whiner. Eddie
wouldn't come at me with a suspicious, hostile attitude, and that
would make my life much more pleasant.

I stepped out of the apartment and waited in the hall. I got an
eye roll from Gazarra when he walked out of the elevator, and then
concern.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes. The door was open when I got here. He was dead on the
floor in the bedroom. No one else was here. I assume it's Stanley
Zero, but I don't know for sure.”

Gazarra went about securing the crime scene, and a couple
minutes later, Rich Spanner showed up.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” Spanner said to me. “People
are gonna talk.” He entered the apartment, checked out the body,
and returned to the hall. “What do you think?”