I WAS DRESSED and in the kitchen when Ranger called.
“Are you up?” he asked.
“I’m up and making coffee.”
The lock tumbled and Ranger walked in. He didn’t have a key. Didn’t need one. He could pick a lock faster than it took me to insert a key. I was just happy he’d called before breaking in so he didn’t scare the crap out of me.
He was wearing the standard Rangeman uniform of black fatigues. If you didn’t look closely at the logo on the shirt and ball cap you might think he was part of a SWAT unit.
“I heard you had an interesting night,” Ranger said.
“There’s something bad going on at Kiltman. Mintner was on a rant to shut down the Zeta house, and he was shot and left for dead in their overgrown azalea bushes.”
“What’s the gun doing on the counter? It’s usually in the cookie jar.”
“I put it there so I’d remember to buy bullets.”
“Babe,” Ranger said.
I think he was amused.
I poured my coffee into a to-go mug, grabbed a frozen waffle, and rammed my feet into my big rubber boots. “I’m ready.”
“What about the gun?”
“Um, no bullets.”
“Take it.”
I dropped the gun into my messenger bag and followed Ranger to the parking lot. He was driving a black Ford Explorer that I knew was a Rangeman fleet car. He took Hamilton to Broad and stopped at the hardware store.
My first thought was that he was getting boots like mine, but it turned out the hardware store sold ammo. Who would have thought? He waited while I loaded my gun. He gave his head a slight shake when I dropped one of the rounds onto the floor, but didn’t say anything. He marched me out of the store and back into the car.
Conversation was minimal for the rest of the ride. Ranger was in the zone. He drove into Blatzo’s neighborhood and parked one house down. We got out and Ranger strapped on a gun belt and shrugged into a Kevlar vest. He gave me a vest and a similar gun belt.
I looked down at the big black Glock that was secured to my thigh with Velcro straps. “I feel like Annie Oakley.”
“The Glock is just for looks. Don’t try to use it. You have a place on the belt for your S&W. Use the gun you’re most comfortable with.”
I shoved the S&W into the gun belt and grimaced. I wasn’t comfortable with any gun.
Ranger stood hands on hips and looked at me. “I’m completely enamored with you, and I have no idea why.”
“I’m cute?”
“Babe, there has to be more, but honestly I don’t know what it is.”
“One of life’s great mysteries,” I said.
He pulled me hard against him and kissed me. Our tongues touched and I got a first-class rush.
“I hope that’s your gun I feel pressing into my stomach,” I said.
“My gun is on the side of my leg.”
“Oh boy.”
“You’re feeling my flashlight.”
“Sure,” I said. “I knew that. That was my second guess.”
He stepped away. “Watch for the snakes when we go to the door.”
“I’m prepared.”
He looked down at my boots. “Are those your snake boots?”
“I bought them special for this.”
He grinned at me. “And I thought you didn’t know what you were doing. How did this go down last time?”
“I knocked on the door. He opened it. And before I could say anything he grabbed me and pulled me into the house.”
“Any weapons?”
“I saw a shotgun by the door.”
“Okay, let’s try this routine again.”
I followed a couple paces behind Ranger and moved to the side when he rapped on the door. No one answered. Ranger rapped again and I called out, “Bond enforcement.”
Blatzo opened the door, saw me standing there, and started to reach for me when he spotted Ranger. He stepped back and went for the shotgun. Ranger grabbed him by the front of his shirt, lifted him off his feet, and threw him across the room. Blatzo hit the wall with a wump! that knocked the air out of him. He slid to the floor, and Ranger walked over and cuffed him.
“That was easy,” I said to Ranger.
“Keep your eye on him. I want to walk through the house.” Ranger came back moments later and called dispatch at Trenton PD for police backup. “We have a cache of weapons and suspicious items in the freezer,” he told her. “We’ll stay on the scene until someone gets here.”
“Suspicious items?” I asked him.
“You don’t want to know more. And you definitely don’t want to look for yourself.”
It took ten minutes for a squad car to reach us. A second one immediately followed. The four men got out and cautiously walked to the front porch, obviously aware of the snakes.
“Why are there so many snakes in this neighborhood?” I asked Ranger.
“The meth dealers and crazies bring them in and set them loose. It’s cheaper and more effective than a guard dog.”
I showed the first cop my paperwork for Blatzo. It gave me permission to enter and capture.
“Looks legal,” he said. “How do you want to go forward? Do you want to take him in or would you rather we take him?”
“We’ll let you take him, and we’ll follow,” Ranger said.
One of the cops walked into the kitchen and looked in the fridge. “Whoa!” he said. “Hey, Stan, come take a look at this.”
Stan grimaced and looked at Ranger. “Am I going to wish I hadn’t eaten that burrito for breakfast?”
“It might not have been a good choice,” Ranger said.
I felt like the house was getting crowded, and it didn’t smell all that great, so I tiptoed down the sidewalk, removed my gun belt, and waited in the SUV. An unmarked car cruised down the street and angle-parked in front of the house. A third squad car rolled in. Stan was on the front stoop. He was holding a roll of crime scene tape, looking like he didn’t know what to do with it. No one wanted to venture into the high grass around the house.
Ranger and two uniforms appeared in the doorway with Blatzo. Blatzo was frog-marched to a squad car, shackled, and tucked into the backseat.
Ranger walked back to me and got behind the wheel. “This was a good bust,” he said. “There’s enough evidence in that house to put Blatzo away forever.”
I gave an involuntary shiver. If it hadn’t been for Lula and the dildo, it might have been my body parts that were found in the freezer.
It was noon when I swung into the bonds office, and Connie and Lula were working their way through a bucket of extra crispy fried chicken.
“We got this chicken to celebrate that you snagged Blatzo,” Lula said. “There’s a piece left for you.”
I took my crispy chicken part and gave Connie the body receipt. “I’m sure you heard about Dean Mintner.”
“Everyone heard,” Connie said. “It was on morning television. National.”
“I told Connie how I found him, too,” Lula said.
“You didn’t find him,” I said. “You fell over him.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m pretty sure I was guided there by my extra sensoring ability.”
Connie looked past the chicken bucket on her desk to the large plate glass window that fronted the bonds office. “What does your extra sensoring ability tell you about the guy who’s staring in the window at us?”
We all looked out at him.
“Maybe he’s hungry, and he sees this empty chicken bucket only he doesn’t know it’s empty,” Lula said. “He could have a hungry expression on his face.”
He moved from the window to the door and stepped inside. “Stephanie Plum, aka Gina Bigelow?”
“Oh crap,” I said.
“I recognize you from your picture. I hope you don’t mind me showing up like this, but I had to see you. We had this great relationship and then you broke it off. I wonder if we could talk in private.”
“Private isn’t necessary,” I said. “You have the wrong person. We never had a relationship.”
“Where are you from?” Lula asked him.
“Des Moines.”
“I knew it,” Lula said. “He’s Mr. Dildo and Skanky Panties.”
“I’m guessing these are your friends,” he said, “so obviously they know about your problem with the head lice and toenail fungus. It’s not a big issue for me. We can find a good doctor. One who won’t molest you when he examines you. I’m sure that had to be traumatic…even if it did cure your, you know, frigid problem.”
“You gotta love Granny,” Lula said. “She should be writing books.”
“I’m confused,” he said. “Who’s Granny?”
“She’s the woman taking your panties for a test-drive,” Lula said. “You’ve been catfished.”
A red scald started at his collar and rose up his face. “Seriously? You mean, like, lied to?”
He was about five foot five inches tall, in his forties, and balding. He had a spray tan that reminded me of Gulden’s mustard, and I suspected his own shoes hid toenail fungus. He looked like he might be an okay guy if you didn’t set your expectations too high.
“Think of it as a fantasy adventure,” I said.
“Everything you wrote to me was so sincere,” he said.
“I didn’t write to you,” I told him. “Someone borrowed my picture.”
“Yeah, it was her Granny,” Lula said. “Maybe you want to meet her Granny. She’s more fun than Stephanie here anyways.”
“How old is she?” he asked Lula.
“Real old,” Lula said, “but she’s got some kick left in her. You could get a couple good dates out of her.”
His attention shifted back to me. “I’d rather date you.”
“No,” I said. “Not going to happen.”
“We put your dildo to good use, though,” Lula said. “We hit a serial killer in the head with it. Stephanie might be cat food right now if it wasn’t for that big-ass dildo.”
“Sorry you came all the way from Des Moines,” I said.
“It’s okay. This was a side trip. I’m at a dental convention in Atlantic City.”
“Are you a dentist?” Lula asked.
“I sell floss. We have three new flavors this season. I’m expecting a lot of excitement over it.”
Lula, Connie, and I didn’t exactly know where to go with that announcement so we wished him good luck and told him to stay in touch.
“You never know with people,” Lula said when he left. “Who would guess he’d have such stellar taste in dildos?”
“Stellar,” Connie said. “Where’d that word come from?”
“It’s my word of the day,” Lula said. “I’m always self-improving. I pick a word out and use it all day and then it’s mine. Today’s word is stellar.”
“When did you start doing that?” Connie asked her.
“Today,” Lula said. “This is the beginning of a new Lula. So what are you doing now?” Lula asked me. “You going home to bake another cake?”
I took the new FTA file from Connie. “One cake was enough.” I read through the file. “Jesus Sanchez. Wanted for theft of a lawn mower. Are you kidding me? If I catch him I’ll make fifty dollars. And I’m not going to catch him because by now he’s cutting grass in Guatemala.”
“I just hand them over,” Connie said. “I don’t necessarily tell you what to do with them.”
“I tell you what to do with them,” Vinnie yelled from inside his office. “Go find that asshole. Fifty bucks to you is five hundred smackers to me.”
I stuffed the file into my messenger bag. Maybe I could go to beauty school. I could be a hairdresser. It would be like making a cake only with hair. Creative, right?
“I have stuff to do this afternoon,” I said to Lula, “but I might be on the prowl for Gobbles tonight. Can I call you?”
“Yep. You can count on me.”
I went home and googled beauty schools. There were two in Trenton and one in Bordentown. One of the Trenton schools I could attend part-time. That would be perfect. I went into the bathroom and looked at my hair. Shoulder length. Brown. Curly. Now that the rain had stopped it was calming down. When I was in high school I’d ironed it to get it straight.
I heard someone knocking on my door. I went to the door and looked out the security peephole. It was Morelli. He was holding a package.
“And?” I said, opening the door.
“I ran into the UPS guy in the lobby, and I said I’d take this up to you.”
“The UPS guy knows you?”
“He’s my cousin.”
“And you were coming here anyway?”
“Yeah. I’m on my way home, and I thought I’d stop by and tell you about the forensic report so far on Mintner.”
“That’s nice of you, but not typical. You don’t usually share information about ongoing investigations with me. Even when I want the information. Even when I beg you for the information.”
“Don’t push it, okay? I’m trying to be helpful.”
I raised an eyebrow. Not buying it.
“I needed an excuse to see you,” Morelli said.
“Why do you need an excuse?”
“I dumped you, remember? You haven’t punched me in the face yet. I’m giving you another shot at it.”
“The moment has passed.”
“Open the package. It says it’s from someone named Kenny. Is this a new boyfriend?”
“Are you jealous?”
He took a beat. His answer was soft. Almost whispered. “Yes.”
Okay, I was feeling much better now. I was torturing Morelli. I opened the package and took out a golden two-pound box of Godiva chocolates. The card said Sweets to my sweetie. Kenny.
“I can’t compete with this,” Morelli said. “I can’t afford two pounds of Godiva.”
I blew out a sigh. I couldn’t do it. “It’s not mine,” I said. “Grandma’s been catfishing with my picture, and I’m getting all these stupid presents.”
That got a full-on smile from Morelli. “Your grandmother is awesome. Are you going to give this box to her?”
“No. I’m going to eat them.”
I picked one out and popped it into my mouth, but Morelli declined.
“Watching my weight,” he said.
“You look the same as always.”
Truth is, he was perfect.
“Do you want to know about Mintner?” he asked.
I put the cover back on the box. “Yes. Tell me about Mintner.”
“He was shot with the same gun that killed Getz and Linken. And he had black gunpowder on the soles of his shoes.”
“Do you have a connection?”
“Kiltman. Two alums and a dean. Beyond that, no.”
“Suspect?”
“No one who feels just right.”
“Globovic?”
“Why?” Morelli asked. “Smart kid. Maybe too smart. A little bored. Uses up excess energy planning toga parties and pranks.”
“He’s accused of assault.”
“I’ve read the arrest report, and I’m not convinced. Something happened that night and Mintner ended up with a broken arm. The break wasn’t consistent with someone getting hit with a bat.”
“Gobbles said Mintner tripped over an ottoman.”
Morelli took a beat, his expression changed, and he went into cop mode. “Do you talk to Gobbles a lot?”
“Not a lot.”
“That was an impressive bust you made this morning.”
“I didn’t have much to do with it. Ranger went in and did his thing.”
“They tell me Stanley Stoley checked out the refrigerator and lost his breakfast burrito.”
“I didn’t look. Ranger did the walk-through. Are you sure you don’t want a chocolate?”
“Positive. I have to go. Bob is at home, waiting to go for a walk.”
Morelli left. I closed and locked the door, and had four more pieces of candy. I went back to the bathroom and looked at my hair again. Who was I kidding? I wouldn’t make it as a hairdresser. I had no patience with hair. I didn’t even like fussing with my own hair. I’d make a better auto mechanic than hairdresser.
I put the lid on the candy and retied the red ribbon. I’d run it over to Grandma when I got the chance. A text message buzzed my phone at five o’clock. Gobbles wanted to meet with me at ten in the Windward Dorm parking lot. I texted back that I would be there with Lula.