Janet Evanovich: Smokin Seventeen

There was a small explosion inside the store, the black sedan laid down rubber and sped away, and then there was a large explosion. BAROOOM . The front windows to Black’s blew out, and bits and pieces of comic books floated in the air like giant dust motes. Fire licked out the open windows and black smoke billowed into the street and was swept skyward.

My initial reaction was shocked paralysis. I stood rooted to the spot, mouth open, eyes wide. When my heart resumed beating I thought about the people who might be trapped inside. No hope for Uncle Black, but there were two floors above him.

“What’s on the second and third floor?” I asked Mooner.

“Storage. I was up there once. It’s like where comic books go to sleep.”

People were gathering in the street, keeping a good distance from the fire. There was a third explosion, and flames shot out the door and ignited the Shelby. The car alarm went off, a fireball rose around the car, and the car exploded. Everyone backed up.

“Dude,” Mooner said.

I felt my cell phone buzz, and I looked at the screen. Ranger.

“Your GPS just went blank,” Ranger said when I answered.

“The car exploded.”

There was a beat of silence. “Rafael won the pool,” Ranger said. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll send someone.”

Two cop cars and a fire truck rolled down Stark. A second fire truck rumbled in. Firemen went to work, and Mooner and I stood for a few minutes, watching the Shelby burn out.

“I’m guessing Uncle Black didn’t make his protection payment on time,” I said to Mooner.

“Comic book people are fearless,” Mooner said.

I saw two Rangeman vehicles stop half a block away. They couldn’t get closer. I waved, and we walked the distance.

Hal was on the sidewalk, waiting with the key to a gleaming new black Ford Escort. “I hope this is okay,” he said. “Ranger said to take one from the fleet.”

“This is perfect. Thank you. Sorry you didn’t win the pool.”

Hal grinned. “I was twelve hours off. I didn’t think the Shelby would last this long.” He opened the door to the Escort for me. “You’re not going to believe this, but I swear a rooster ran across the road right in front of us when we were coming down Stark.”

I blew out a sigh, got into the Escort, and drove to the bonds bus. Lula was doing nail polish repair when I walked in. She was wearing a lemon yellow spandex dress and four-inch black platform heels, and her hair was a big puffball of neon green.

“Is that your real hair?” I asked her.

“No way. This here’s a wig. We had to do surgery on some of my hair since the chicken from hell got into it. Was that another new car you just drove up in? What happened to the Shelby?”

“Exploded.”

“Shit happens,” Lula said.

“That would lead me to believe it didn’t go well with Uncle Black,” Connie said.

“Also exploded,” I told her.

“It was a tragedy,” Mooner said. “They blew up a Creeper comic in primo condition, man. Someone should pay.”

“People will be scared after this,” Connie said. “No one’s going to be talking on Stark Street.”

“What’s all down the front of you?” Lula asked me.

“Chocolate ice cream. Mooner lost his mellow over the Creeper demise, so we stopped for ice cream to calm him down.” I glanced at my shirt. “I needed calming down, too.”

My phone buzzed and my parents’ number popped up. No way was I talking to my mother. She’d ferret the car explosion out of me, and she’d want to talk about Dave, and God help me if she found out about the chickens. I’d need more ice cream.

“I’m going home,” I said to Connie. “I need a new shirt.”

The good thing about always wrecking cars, is that at least for a while no one knew what I was driving. I parked in my lot and thought chances were good I wouldn’t find a dead body in the Escort when I returned. I let myself into my apartment, went straight to the bedroom, flopped onto the bed, and covered my head with a pillow.

I woke up to a phone ringing.

“I’ve been calling and calling,” my mother said. “Where were you that you couldn’t answer?”

“It was in my bag. I didn’t hear it.”

“Well thank goodness I finally got you. Everyone will be here in fifteen minutes.”

“Everyone?”

“The dinner party. I told you about it days ago. Emma and Herb Brewer and Dave. Emma said everyone was very excited to get the invitation.”

“Not everyone ,” I said. “ I’m not excited. I’m horrified. I’m not interested in Dave, and I don’t want to have dinner with his parents.”

“I made chicken Parmesan.”

“I can’t come. I have plans. I have to work.”

“I know when you’re fibbing Stephanie Plum. I went to all this trouble just for you, so you could spend some time with a nice man. A man who could give you a future. A family. The least you can do is make an effort. I even made pineapple upside-down cake.”

I was screwed. A major load of guilt plus pineapple upside-down cake.

“And for goodness sakes,” my mother said, “wear something nice. Please don’t wear jeans and a T-shirt.”

I pulled the T-shirt over my head and looked around. Lots of dirty clothes. Not many clean ones. The new red dress was hanging in the front of the closet. It was the easy choice.

Grandma was waiting when I parked in the driveway behind my dad’s car. “Don’t you look pretty,” Grandma said. “I read somewhere that men like women who wear red. It’s supposed to be one of them things that gets a man in a state.”

From my experience it didn’t take much to get a man in a state.

“Dave might even propose when he sees you in this dress,” Grandma said. “This dress is a man catcher.”

I didn’t want to catch any more men. I wanted to eat chicken Parm and go home and put the pillow over my head again. I watched a silver Honda Accord roll down the street and park behind my car, and I was relieved to be one step closer to dinner. Dave was driving. It looked like his dad was sitting alongside him, and his mom was in the back. Dave got out, ran around the car, and retrieved a party platter from the backseat.

All the blood drained from my head and pooled in my feet. I put a hand out to steady myself and forced myself to breathe. Put a rubber Frankenstein mask and a padded coverall on Dave and you had Juki Beck’s killer. It was an instant gut reaction. There was something about Dave’s posture and the way he moved when he rounded the car that clicked in my brain. The next thing that clicked in my brain was disbelief. There was no way it could be Dave, right?

“Omigosh,” Grandma said when she saw Dave. “What the heck happened to you?”

His eyes were less swollen, but they were still pretty ugly. Black with tinges of green. And he still had the Band-Aid across his nose.

“I took an elbow to the nose in a football game,” Dave said. “No big deal.”

“You always were an athlete,” Grandma said, ushering everyone into the living room.

Emma and Herb Brewer were in their late fifties. They were pleasant-looking people, tastefully dressed, seemingly happy. Hard to believe they’d spawn a killer. Hard to believe nudnik Dave would strangle someone.

“What a lovely home,” Emma said.

My father stood from his chair and nodded hello. He’d been coerced into abandoning his Tony Soprano — collared knit shirt in favor of a buttoned-down dress shirt. This signified a major social event. The buttoned-down dress shirt was usually reserved for Christmas, Easter, and funerals.

Dave handed me the party platter, our eyes met for a long moment, and I had an irrational stab of fear that he knew I suspected him of murder. I placed the platter on the table and made an effort to pull myself together. There was no hard evidence that suggested Dave was the killer, I told myself. I usually had good intuition, but it was only intuition after all, and it wasn’t infallible. And in this case it felt ridiculous.