Janet Evanovich - Explosive Eighteen

I carried the casserole to the door and rang the bell. No answer. I listened carefully for sounds inside the house. The house was silent.

Lula and Buggy were close behind me. Lancer and Slasher were parked behind the Firebird. Lula was wearing a black spandex miniskirt, a black silky spandex wrap shirt, and a fake leopard jacket that had been designed for a much smaller woman. She was in black four-inch spike-heeled shoes, and her hair was sunflower yellow for the occasion. Buggy looked like Shamu in a Russian-made secondhand suit.

“You want my sweetie to kick the door in now?” Lula asked.

“No!”

“How about we go around back and break a window?”

“No. I don’t want to see any property damage.”

“Well then, how we supposed to get in?” Lula asked.

“I’m going in,” Buggy said, pushing me aside. “I’m tired of waiting.”

And he opened the door. It hadn’t been locked.

I tiptoed in and looked around. “They have the buffet set out,” I said to Lula. “ DO NOT let Buggy eat anything.”

“You hear that, Sweetums?” Lula said to Buggy. “We aren’t going to eat any of the funeral food. When we’re done here, I’ll take you out for breakfast.”

“I like breakfast,” Buggy said.

I found the kitchen and set my casserole on the counter. There were several other casseroles there, plus bags of bakery rolls, and a couple coffee cakes. A professional coffee urn was ready to go and a full bar was set up next to the urn. I did a fast scan of the kitchen, moved through the dining room, and into the living room.

“What are we looking for?” Lula followed.

“A little chest. A pirate chest.”

“You mean like that chest on the fireplace mantel?” she asked.

Holy cow, it was the chest. It was exactly as Joyce had described it.

Lula took the chest off the mantel and examined it. “What’s so special about this chest? What’s in it?” She turned it upside down and looked at the bottom. “It says ‘Miss Kitty R.I.P.’ ”

The top to the chest dropped open, and ashes flew out at Lula and scattered across the living-room rug.

“What the heck?” Lula said.

I clapped my hand over my mouth. I wasn’t sure if I was going to laugh, gag, or shriek. “I think Miss Kitty was cremated, and those are her ashes.”

Lula stared down at herself. “Are you shitting me? I’m allergic to cat. I feel my throat closing up. I can’t breathe. I’m makin’ snot. Somebody do something! Call 911!”

She ran into the kitchen, grabbed the DustBuster off the wall by the pantry, and sucked the ash off herself.

“Freakin’ cats,” she said.

So much for Miss Kitty’s final resting place.

Lula felt her face. “Do I got hives?”

“No, you haven’t got hives,” I said. “You can’t be allergic to cat ashes. They’re sterile. There’s no dander.”

“I feel like I have hives. I’m pretty sure I feel some popping out.”

“It’s all in your head,” I told her.

“I’m very impressionable,” Lula said. “My family’s prone to hysteria.”

I examined the chest, looking for a false bottom or secret message. I didn’t find either, so I carefully placed the chest back on the mantel.

“Do I get breakfast now?” Buggy asked.

“I want to make a fast run through the house to make sure there aren’t any more chests,” I told Lula. “Keep your eyes open for visitors, and maybe you can DustBuster up what’s left of Miss Kitty.”

I did a cursory search, found nothing, and we were all out the door in ten minutes. Lula and Buggy left in the Firebird in search of a breakfast buffet, and I drove two blocks down and waited for the mourners to return from the cemetery.

Lancer and Slasher parked behind me. They didn’t seem to be much of a threat for now, but I suspected that could change if their boss pressed the go button. And while I didn’t feel immediately threatened, they were a constant reminder that I had a huge, horrible, scary problem.

It was almost noon when the cars filed by. I was sure one of the cars contained Grandma. I couldn’t see her missing Frank Korda being laid to rest. I waited for the last car to arrive, and I gave it another ten minutes before I joined the crowd. I’d done a decent job of hiding my bruise under makeup, not to mention that after ten minutes, everyone would have knocked back a drink or two and not be noticing much beyond the shrimp salad.

I slipped into the house and located Grandma. She was sitting on the couch with Esther Philpot. They were drinking what appeared to be port wine, and they had a plate of cookies. I said hello and snitched a cookie.

“I didn’t see you at the service,” Grandma said.

“I couldn’t make it,” I told her. “I had a previous commitment.”

“She’s a working girl,” Grandma said to Esther. “And she’s got a gun. It’s not as big as mine, but it’s pretty good.”

“What do you carry?” Esther asked Grandma.

“Forty-five long barrel,” Grandma said. “What about you?”

“I have a little Beretta Bobcat. My grandson gave it to me for Christmas last year.”

They looked at me.

“What do you have, dear?” Esther asked me.

“Glock.”

“Get the heck out,” Grandma said. “When did you get a Glock? Can I see it?”

“I wouldn’t mind having a Glock,” Esther said. “Maybe I’ll get one next year.”

They leaned in and peeked into my purse at my gun.

“It’s a beauty,” Grandma said.

“I should mingle.” I looked around.

Grandma sat back. “There’s little bitty cupcakes in the dining room, and the liquor’s in the kitchen. I imagine that’s where you’ll find the widow. She was already three sheets to the wind at the service. Not that I blame her. A funeral is stressful, poor thing.”

“Poor thing, my behind,” Esther said. “She’s not upset. She’s celebrating. She was only staying with him for the house. Everybody knows that. Frank did some stepping out, if you know what I mean. There was Mitchell Menton’s wife, Cheryl. And Bitsy Durham. Her husband is on the city council. I’m sure there were others.”

“I guess Frank was having one of those midlife crises,” Grandma said.

“And I imagine there are advantages to having an affair with a jeweler,” Esther said.

I wandered into the kitchen, where Pat Korda was scarfing ham roll-ups and drinking something colorless.

“Vodka?” I asked her.

“Fuckin’ A,” she said.

I poured some into a tumbler. “Me, too.”

“Here’s to you,” Pat said. “Whoever the hell you are. Looks like someone beat the crap out of you.”

“Yeah, it’s been one of those weeks.”

Pat rolled her eyes and listed a little to the left. “Tell me about it.”

“Sorry about your husband.”

“Thanks. You want some ham? It goes good with vodka, but then, hell, everything goes good with vodka.”

“I noticed the little chest on your mantel. The one that looks like a pirate chest.”

“That’s Miss Kitty,” Pat said. “She was our cat. Frank used to keep her in the store, but I brought her back here when he croaked.”

“It’s an interesting chest. Is it one of a kind?”

“Frank got it at the pet crematorium.”

So if the Pink Panthers didn’t kill Frank Korda, and Joyce didn’t kill him… who killed him? Maybe his wife?

“Do you ever wear pink?” I asked her.

“No. I hate pink.” She took another slurp of vodka. “Frank was the pink guy. He had this whole pink thing. He used to tell his bimbos he was a Pink Panther. Hah! Can you imagine?”

“You knew about it?”

“Honey, wives know all kinds of shit. Frank had this whole routine. He got it from a Schwarzenegger movie. True Lies . Schwarzenegger was a spy, but his wife didn’t know. She thought he was, like, boring. She was all hot for this other guy who was pretending to be a spy. So the wife’s thinking of screwing the pretend spy, right? Anyway, Frank saw this movie and wigged out. He must have watched it a hundred times. Do you have a cigarette?”