Notorious Nineteen (18 page)

“Yeah, I love the shore. I wouldn’t mind having a house here someday. I could look at the ocean all day long and listen to the waves.”

I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked down the beach. “Where’s the bar?”

“It’s over at the far end, under that thatched roof. You have to fight your way through the crowd to get to it. Old people like to booze it up.”

“Is Beasley naked?” I asked her.

“Sure he’s naked. Everyone’s naked here.”

We walked closer and I eyed the bar and the people milling around it. “We need a plan. Do you want to be the distractor or the cuffer?”

“I gotta be the distractor,” Lula said. “He already knows what I’m up to and he’ll be on guard if I try to sneak behind him. I figure I’ll walk right up to him and he’ll keep his eye on me. It’s hard to miss all my big brownness.”

Lula set off, plowing through the sand, and I circled around, hugging the perimeter. I was inside the bar area and directly behind Beasley when Lula elbowed her way up to the bar and got his full attention. I opened a bracelet and
click
it was on him. I went for the second wrist, he yelped, and threw a drink in my face. I blinked and swiped at my eyes. I felt him shove me aside and by the time I recovered he was outside the bar and running.

I sprinted after him, both of us having a hard time in the deep sand. He was distracted by the metal bracelet attached to his wrist, I took a flying leap, and snagged him by the ankle. We both went down face-first. I was holding tight to his foot, and I heard Lula yell “
INCOMING!
” I let go and scooted away just in time to see Lula hurtle over me, casting a massive shadow, and land on Beasley. “WOOF!” Beasley exclaimed on an explosion of air. And then he was completely still with Lula on top of him.

Lula climbed off, I cuffed him, and we rolled him over. His eyes were open, but I wasn’t sure he was breathing.

“Sometimes it takes them a while to get air after I pounce,” Lula said. She looked down at Beasley. “Are you okay?”

“Unh,” Beasely said.

“He’s okay, folks,” Lula said to the crowd that had gathered. “You could go back to your sunnin’ and drinkin’. Bar’s open. Self-serve.”

Beasley wasn’t looking like he was going to get up anytime soon, so Lula and I each took a foot and dragged him to the locker room.

“This is the ladies’ locker room,” the attendant said. “You can’t bring him in here.”

“Wait here,” I said to Lula.

I went to our locker and got dressed in record time. I took twenty dollars out of my purse, gave it to the attendant, and she happened to be looking the other way when we dragged Beasley into the locker room.

Lula got dressed, and we stood there looking at Beasley. We couldn’t take him out onto the boardwalk or through the casino naked, and we didn’t want to go into the men’s locker room to get his clothes.

“Only thing we got here is towels,” Lula said. “We could make him a diaper but I don’t know how to hold it together.”

“Garbage bag,” I said. “Have the attendant open the broom closet and give you a big green trash bag.”

Lula came back with the garbage bag, we tore a hole in the top, got Beasley up on his feet, and pulled the bag over his head. It came to about two inches below his privates.

“Lucky for us he’s not hung like some of the old folks out there,” Lula said. “Some of them would need a bag that comes to their knees.”

We walked Beasley to the car and strapped him in next to Tiki.

“I got sand in my lady parts,” Lula said. “Whoever thought a naked beach was a good idea never sat in one.”

NINETEEN

I BROUGHT BEASLEY
into the police station and ran into Morelli.

“I was just going to call you,” Morelli said.

“I’ve been busy.”

“So I see. Your FTA’s dressed in a garbage bag, you have sand in your hair, and you smell like a piña colada.”

“The guy I just handed over was a bartender at a nudie beach, and he threw a drink at me.”

“You took him down on a nudie beach?”

“Yeah. Lula and me.”

Morelli grinned. “Did you and Lula join in the fun?”

“We didn’t have much choice. They wouldn’t let us on the beach with our clothes on.”

“Both of you full monty?”

“Yep.”

“I’m a little turned on,” Morelli said.

“I hate to disappoint you but it wasn’t all that sexy. I have sand
everywhere
.”

Someone stuck his head out of a room down the hall and yelled for Morelli.

“Coming!” Morelli yelled back. “I’ll pick you up at your apartment at six o’clock,” he said to me. “We can catch a fast burger and then talk to Mickey Zigler.”

I dropped Lula at the office and continued on home. I brought Tiki into the apartment with me, set him on the couch, and turned the television on. I got into the shower and realized I’d turned the television on for a chunk of wood.

At a little before six I went downstairs to wait for Morelli. I stood in the lobby, where I felt relatively safe, and I called Ranger.

“Just checking in,” I said. “I got another note tacked to my door this morning. Anything new with you?”

“More messages. This freak has a lot of anger.”

“Me too,” I said. “I tried my bridesmaid dress on today. It’s pink. And it has a big bow over my ass.”

I could sense Ranger’s smile over the phone. “Looking forward to seeing it.”

And he hung up.

After a couple minutes Morelli rolled into the lot, and I ran out to his SUV.

“Do you want to eat first or talk to Zigler first?” Morelli asked me.

“Let’s get Zigler out of the way.”

Morelli pulled out of the lot and drove toward Hamilton Avenue. “That would be my choice too.”

“How did it go with the nurses?” I asked him.

“Julie Marconni is a zombie. She’s a single mother who works the night shift and then goes home to take care of her three kids.”

“Who’s with the kids at night?”

“She has a roommate who teaches eighth grade. On the surface it sounds like a good arrangement, but Julie Marconni is a burnout. She was cleaning the house when I got there and she was dead on her feet. I suspect she sleeps a lot on the job. She’s responsible for half the patients on the fourth floor, and none of her patients have gone missing.”

“All the missing patients were Kruger’s?”

“Yeah. Three years’ worth of missing patients.” Morelli stopped for a light. “I asked Kruger if she worked other jobs, and she said once in a while she took on a private client. I asked her if she worked at The Clinic and she said she spent a couple hours there five days a week but she really didn’t do anything. She said if The Clinic ever got up and running she would be guaranteed a supervisory position.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Yes, but I also think there’s something bad going on, and Kruger’s up to her armpits in it. She has a defensive posture when she’s questioned, and things aren’t adding up in her favor.”

“Did she offer to give you a back rub?”

“No. She wasn’t friendly. It was a short conversation.”

“I would have given you a back rub,” I said to Morelli. “I like the way your jeans fit. And I like your shirt when it’s open at the neck a little like this.”

I leaned in and kissed him just below his ear and above the shirt collar.

Morelli dragged me across the console and kissed me. Lots of tongue. His hand under my shirt. The driver behind us leaned on his horn, and Morelli broke from the kiss and moved forward.

“We could turn around and go back to your apartment,” he said.

I retreated to my seat and stuffed myself back into my bra. “Is Zigler expecting you?”

“Yeah,” he said on a sigh. “And Briggs is waiting for us.”

“Then let’s get the job done.”

“My jeans aren’t fitting all that great right now,” Morelli said.

I noticed.

Briggs was in his office waiting for us with Mickey Zigler. Zigler was in his fifties. Gray hair in a buzz cut, barrel-chested, bloodshot eyes.

“Sit,” Morelli said.

We all sat.

“What’s your routine on the night shift?” Morelli asked Zigler.

“I make the rounds every hour. Between the rounds I watch the monitors. We got them all over the building and in the parking areas.”

“That’s a lot of monitors to watch,” Morelli said.

“Not so much at night,” Zigler told him. “Nothing happens. Once in a while we get something coming into the emergency room but usually they go to St. Francis. Especially if it’s a shooting. St. Francis specializes in gunshot wounds. Mostly what I see is pigeons walking around in the lot. And sometimes kids making out in the parking garage.”

“Who watches the monitors when you’re making the rounds?” Morelli asked him.

Briggs answered. “No one. It’s like that during the day too. There’s no money in the security budget for two guys on a shift.”

“So if someone knows when security is on the second floor and the nurses are sleeping on the surgical floor, it wouldn’t be impossible to sneak a patient out,” I said.

“Yeah,” Zigler said, “except we reviewed all the video for the night when Pitch went missing, and it was all the usual stuff. Two to seven is the dead time. There aren’t even pigeons walking around between two and seven.”

“How long does it take you to make the rounds?” Morelli asked.

“A half hour. Unless something unusual happens, it’s a half hour on my feet going through the hospital and then a half hour watching the monitors.”

“When you get to the fourth floor what are the nurses doing?” I asked him.

“They’re usually at the desk, working on the charts or talking.”

“Are they ever asleep?”

“I never saw anyone sleeping. Sometimes Julie looks a little zoned out. She has a tough life. But I never saw her sleeping.”

“How about Kruger?”

“I never saw Kruger sleeping.” He looked at Briggs. “Sometimes she disappears for a while.”

“Where does she go?” I asked Zigler.

Zigler grinned. “Sometimes she gets the orderlies to diddle her in the dayroom. I figure it’s none of my business, but since you asked.”

“Do you have any idea how these patients disappeared while you were working security?” Morelli asked Zigler.

“No, sir,” Zigler said. “I think it must have been aliens. You know how they can beam you up?”

“That’s on television,” Morelli said.

“Maybe,” Zigler said.

I followed Morelli out of the hospital and we buckled ourselves into the SUV.

“Aliens,” Morelli said. “I think he was serious.”

“It
is
hard to explain.” And hell, I was carrying a chunk of wood around with me that I almost believed was putting ideas into my head. I was ready to believe just about anything.

We called ahead to Pino’s and ordered meatball subs. Morelli stopped at his house and got Bob and a six-pack of Bud. We picked the subs up and took everything up to my apartment. We were in front of the television, eating the subs, drinking beer, and watching a pregame show for the Mets. I heard something go
phoonf
from the parking lot and my living room window shattered.

Morelli vaulted over the couch, picked something off the floor, threw it out the shattered window, and a moment later there was a loud explosion from the parking lot.

I went to the window and stood next to Morelli. Three cars were furiously burning. One was Morelli’s. The Buick was fine.

“I’m thinking about marrying a woman who gets rockets launched into her living room,” Morelli said. “What’s wrong with this picture?”

“You’re thinking about marrying me?”

“I’ve been thinking about marrying you for ten years,” Morelli said. “Do you want to explain this latest terrorist attack to me?”

“It’s all a misunderstanding. Some nutcase guy thinks I’m in a relationship with Ranger.”

“Are you?”

“In a relationship with Ranger? No! I’m working for him.”

“And this is why the nutcase guy just fired off a rocket into your living room?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know him by name?”

“Not exactly. Ranger’s working on it.”

Emergency vehicles were pouring into my parking lot. Fire trucks, EMTs, police cars.

“I suppose I should go downstairs and explain this to them,” Morelli said.

“What will you say?”

“I’ll say I haven’t a clue. And I’m absolutely not going to tell anyone I picked it up and chucked it out your window.” He turned when he got to the door. “I want you to call Ranger and tell him I’m not happy.”

Bob and I watched the circus in the parking lot for a while and I called Ranger.

“Morelli wants me to tell you he’s not happy,” I said to Ranger.

“I already talked to Morelli.”

“Was he happy?”

“No.”

“Your guy shot a missile into my living room.”

“Yeah, he hit Amanda Olesen’s townhouse too. He shot it into her front window.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“No, but the townhouse was destroyed. Amanda and Kinsey were in the back of the house when the explosion occurred.”

“Where are they now?”

“I have them in a safe house.”

“Are they going through with the wedding?” I asked.

“They’re trying to decide.”

“They should cancel. It’s too dangerous.”

“Babe, you just want to get out of wearing the pink dress.”

“True.”

Bob and I were watching the game when Morelli finally came back to the apartment. I heard the door open and slam shut, locks were flipped, and Morelli went into the kitchen. A minute later he came to the couch with a beer in his hand.

“Well?” I asked.

“It was a direct hit on my car. There’s nothing left of it.”

I bit into my lower lip to keep from smiling. I didn’t want to make matters worse by laughing at Morelli, but there was some humor to the fact that Morelli tossed the thing onto his own car. Of course, there was also the possibility that in my state of mild hysteria the line between horrible and hilarious was blurred, and it wasn’t all that funny that Morelli blew his car up.

“Sorry,” I said.

Morelli chugged down a bottle of beer. “It’s you. You’re a disaster magnet. I’m surprised this building hasn’t been wiped out by a tornado. How could it possibly have escaped a tornado?”