18 Explosive Eighteen (11 page)

“Thanks. I’m not far from there.”

“What was that about?” Lula looked over at me when I disconnected.

“That was Richard Crick’s fiancée. How does everyone find me? The real FBI guys I get, because they have resources. But what about everyone else?

They know I was sitting next to Crick. They know where I live. They know my cel phone number.”

“It’s the electronic age,” Lula said. “We aren’t the only ones got search programs. And then there’s the whole social network. ’Course, you wouldn’t know about that since you’re in the Stone Age. You don’t even tweet.”

I put the RAV in gear. “Do you tweet?” I asked Lula.

“Hel , yeah. I’m a big tweeter.”

• • •

I drove to the coffee shop and parked. Connie was back in the window. No Vinnie. Lula and I went inside and pul ed chairs up to Connie’s table.

“Do we have an office?” I asked Connie.

“Yeah, Vinnie signed the papers. He wanted to come back here and punch out DeAngelo, but I told him he had to stay and wait for the furniture-rental truck. With any luck, by the time the furniture’s delivered, DeAngelo wil have gone home for the day.”

“What al furniture did you rent?” Lula asked. “You got a big ol’ comfy couch, right? And one of them flat-screen televisions.”

“I got two cheap desks and six folding chairs. I’m counting on this being short-term.”

A woman walked into the coffee shop, looked around, and came over to the table.

“Is one of you Stephanie Plum?” she asked.

I raised my hand.

“I’m Brenda Schwartz, Ritchy’s fiancée. I just talked to you on the phone. Could we go outside?” She was about 5′5″ and excessively curvy. She had a lot of overprocessed blond hair piled on top of her head in a messy upsweep. Her makeup was close to drag queen. She was wearing platform heels, a tight black skirt, and a red scoop-neck sweater that showed a lot of boob enhanced with spray-on tan. Hard to tel exactly what was under the makeup, but I was guessing she was in her forties.

I fol owed her out, and she immediately lit up. She sucked the smoke in al the way down to her toes and blew it out her nose.

“This cigarette tastes like ass,” she said.

I wasn’t sure what ass tasted like, but she looked like she would know, so I was wil ing to take her word for it.

She took another hit. “I’m trying to get off menthol, and it’s a real bitch. I swear, I’m just inches away from trying one of those electronic things.”

“You wanted to see me about Richard Crick?”

“Yeah. Poor Ritchy. It’s so sad.” She squinted at me through the smoke haze. “The worst part is he was bringing me a picture. He said it was a special present for me, but they didn’t find it when they dug him out of the garbage can. So I was wondering if you knew anything about it, because it would be real sentimental for me. It would help with the pain of losing Ritchy.”

“What kind of picture are we talking about?”

“A picture of a person.”

“Man or woman?”

“This is sort of embarrassing, but poor Ritchy didn’t say.”

“And it’s important, why?”

“Because Ritchy took the photo. And it was, like, his last wish that I have it. And now he’s dead.” She sniffed and contorted her face like she might cry. “I just want something to remember Ritchy. Something he did for me, you know?”

“Ritchy must have been a sweet guy.”

“Yeah, and he liked photography. He was always taking pictures.”

“I’d love to help you out,” I said, “but I don’t have the photograph.”

“Maybe you have it stuffed somewhere, and you don’t even know it. Like, have you emptied al your suitcases and bags?”

“Yes. I don’t have it.”

“Okay, here’s the thing. Ritchy cal ed me from LAX, and he said he might have misplaced the photo, and he was sitting next to you, and he was pretty sure he might have accidental y put it in your bag.”

“Why didn’t Ritchy just get back on the plane?”

“He wasn’t feeling good. And then he was … you know, dead.”

“Jeez.”

“Shit happens,” Brenda said. “So where’s the photograph?”

“Don’t know. Don’t have it.”

Her lips compressed. “You want money, right?

How much?”

“I don’t want money. I don’t have the stupid photograph.”

Brenda stuck her hand into her hobo bag and pul ed out a little silver gun. “I want the photograph.

We al know you have it. So get smart and hand it over.”

I looked down at the gun. “Is that real?”

“You bet it’s real. It’s pretty, right? And it’s light. I bet you carry some piece of shit like a Glock or a Smith and Wesson. Those guns ruin your whole look.

You get a neck spasm, right?”

“Yeah, I have a Smith and Wesson.”

“They’re dinosaurs.”

“Who
are
you?”

“Boy, you don’t listen. I already told you. I’m Brenda Schwartz. And I want the photograph.”

“Shooting me isn’t going to get it.”

“I could shoot you in the knee for starters. Just so you know I’m serious. It hurts a lot to get shot in the knee.”

Lula swung through the coffee shop door and came over to us. “Is that a gun?”

“Oh, for Crissake, who’s this?” Brenda said.

“I’m Lula. Who the heck are you?”

“This is a private conversation,” Brenda said.

“Yeah, but I want to take a look at your little peashooter. It’s kinda cute.”

“It’s a
gun,
” Brenda said.

Lula pul ed her Glock out of her bag and aimed it at Brenda. “Bitch,
this
is a gun. It could put a hole in you big enough to drive a truck through.”

“Honestly,” Brenda said, “this is just so boring.” And she huffed off to her car and drove away.

“She was kinda snippy, being I just wanted to see her gun,” Lula said.

Snippy was the least of it. She was a perfect addition to my growing col ection of homicidal misfits.

“She’s in mourning,” I told Lula. “Thanks for stepping in.”

“She didn’t look like she was in mourning,” Lula said. “And she didn’t look like no doctor’s fiancée.” Lula and I returned to Connie, and I cal ed Bil Berger.

“I’ve got a third party interested in the photograph,” I told him. “Do you care?”

“Who’ve you got?” Berger asked.

“Brenda Schwartz. Says she was Crick’s fiancée.

Blond, five foot five, in her forties. Carries a little bitty gun.”

“As far as we know, Crick didn’t have a fiancée.” I ended the cal with Berger and turned to Connie.

“Can you find her?”

“Brenda Schwartz is a fairly common name,” Connie said. “Do you have an address? Did you get her license plate number?”

“The first part was ‘POP,’ and I didn’t get the rest.

She was driving one of those cars that looks like a toaster.”

“It was a Scion,” Lula said.

Connie plugged the information into a search program and started working her way through it. I got a black-and-white cookie and a Frappuccino, and came back to the table.

“I think I’ve got her,” Connie said. “Brenda Schwartz. Age forty-four. Hairdresser, working at The Hair Barn in Princeton. Divorced from Bernard Schwartz, Harry Zimmer, Herbert Luckert. One child.

Jason. Looks like he’s twenty-one now. Most current address is West Windsor. Renting. No litigation against her. Picked up for possession of a control ed substance five years ago. Got a slap on the wrist.

There’s more personal information. I’l print it for you later. I haven’t got a printer here.” I wrote down Brenda’s address, ate my cookie, and sipped my drink, wondering what I should do about the photograph mess. Probably, I should tel Ranger, but he might kil everyone, and that wouldn’t help his karma issue. I glanced out the big front window and realized my car was gone.

“Damn! Shit! Sonovabitch!” I said.

“That’s a lot of swearin’,” Lula said.

“He took my car again.”

Everyone turned and looked out the window.

“Yep, it sure looks gone,” Lula said.

I cal ed the Rangeman control room. “Where’s my car?” I asked the tech who answered.

“It’s on Hamilton. Looks like it just parked at Cluck-in-a-Bucket.”

I stood at my seat. “Let’s rol ,” I said to Lula. “He’s at Cluck-in-a-Bucket.”

“WHAM!” Lula said. “Turn me loose on him.”

“I have two guys I’d like you to run through the system for me,” I said to Connie. “Mortimer Lancelot and Sylvester Larder.” I wrote the Town Car’s license plate number on a napkin. “And I’d love to know who owns the car.”

Five minutes later, we were in the Cluck-in-a-Bucket lot, and Lula was idling behind my RAV. We could see Buggy inside, standing in line at the counter.

“Now what?” Lula said. “You got any ideas how we’re gonna do this? Maybe we should go to the packing plant and borrow a cattle prod.”

“I just want my car. At this point, I don’t care if Buggy stays in the wind forever.”

“Yeah, but how are you gonna keep him from taking it again if you don’t get him locked up?”

“I’l trade the RAV in. I give up. I can’t get the key away from him, so I’l get another car.”

“Wow, that’s smart thinking.”

“I’m probably done working for the day,” I said to Lula. “I’l cal if anything changes.”
TWELVE

IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON by the time I swapped out the RAV for a four-door Chevy Colorado pickup. I don’t usual y buy trucks, but the price was right, and I didn’t have a lot of choices. Apparently, a couple kids had been driving it, smoking weed, and the seat had caught fire. There wasn’t much mechanical damage, but the interior was trashed. New seats had been instal ed, but the smel of seriously smoked cannabis remained.

I’d removed the Rangeman tracking device from the RAV undercarriage, slipped it into the Chevy’s glove box, and cal ed the vehicle change in to the control room. I cal ed Morel i to tel him about the change, but he wasn’t picking up his cel . Probably, the electromagnet at the junkyard was interfering. Or maybe he saw the cal was from me, and he threw his phone into the Delaware River.

I was in a bad place with Morel i. Technical y, I hadn’t done anything wrong, since I wasn’t in a committed relationship with him. That fact didn’t stop my stomach from frequently turning queasy, because I had an ongoing relationship with two men I real y cared about. And it was obvious Morel i was the more vulnerable of the two. Ranger accepted the limitations, took ful advantage when he had the opportunity, and rol ed with the rest. Morel i was capable of none of that. Morel i’s temper and libido ran in the red zone. And the truth is, while Morel i was sometimes more difficult to live with, I preferred the transparency of his emotions.

My dilemma was that I wanted Morel i to know Ranger had come to Hawaii on legitimate business, but I was afraid the conversation would lead to an ugly discussion about sleeping arrangements. And it was becoming obvious Morel i didn’t want to have that discussion any more than I did.

I drove my truck off the lot and headed for Hamilton Township. If there was anything that could partial y push thoughts of Morel i aside, it was thoughts of Joyce Barnhardt.

• • •

Barnhardt was unfinished business. I’d hated her in grade school and high school, and I’d found her naked and woman-on-top on my brand-new husband on my brand-new dining room table. In the end, it had turned out she’d done me a favor, because the man was a philandering jerk. Stil , her behavior hadn’t gotten better after that, so I real y shouldn’t care if she was dead or alive, but it turns out I did care. Go figure.

I cruised through Joyce’s neighborhood, which was empty as usual. I idled in front of her town house. No sign of life inside. I left Mercado Mews and returned to the Burg.

The Barnhardts live on Liberty Street. Joyce’s mom teaches third grade, and her father instal s air-conditioning units for Ruger Air. The Barnhardts keep their house and lawn tidy, and their lives private. Grandma says Joyce’s father is an odd duck, but I wouldn’t know personal y. I’ve never had any interactions with Joyce’s father, and I learned early on to avoid Joyce’s mother. Her mother turned a blind eye to Joyce’s many shortcomings. Pleasant for Joyce, I suppose, but difficult for the kid who got Joyce boogers on her sandwich.

I checked out the Barnhardts’ house, made a U-turn, and crept past a second time. The house felt benign. At least as benign as was possible, considering Joyce had lived there. If circumstances had been different, I might have knocked on the door and questioned the Barnhardts.

Because I was in the neighborhood, I stopped to see if my mother was sober and making dinner.

“She’s sleeping it off,” Grandma said, meeting me at the door. “I ordered pizza. You’re welcome to stay.

I got three extra-large pies from Pino’s, and they just got delivered.”

My father was in the living room watching television, one of the pizza boxes on his lap, a beer bottle stuck between his legs. I sat in the kitchen with Grandma and pul ed off a piece with pepperoni, extra cheese.

“What’s the word on Joyce Barnhardt?” I asked.