Janet Evanovich: Sizzling Sixteen

Ranger’s office was a few steps down the hall. He was on the computer when I walked in, and he smiled when he saw me. A big thing for Ranger, since he doesn’t do a lot of smiling. He was dressed in Rangeman black T-shirt, cargo pants, and running shoes. Everyone in the building was dressed exactly like this, but Ranger’s clothes fit him better. Possibly because Ranger was clearly at the front of the line when God was handing out the good body parts. You could dress Ranger in a black plastic garbage bag, and he’d still look hot.

“I need a tracking lesson,” I said to Ranger. “You know how you always know my location? I want to be able to do that. I want to put one of those gizmos on someone’s car.”

“I can give you the gizmo,” Ranger said. “And I can show you how to install it, but it won’t do you any good if you can’t receive the signals. It would be easier and less expensive if you let me track this person for you.”

“That would be great. I need to know where Mickey Gritch is going. He’s kidnapped Vinnie, and I have to get Vinnie back.”

“Why?”

I blew out a sigh. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Ranger opened his desk drawer, took out a set of keys, and tossed them to me. “You need a car.”

“So you’re giving me one?”

“It’s the right thing to do,” Ranger said.

RANGEMAN KEEPS A fleet of shiny new black cars for employee use. Most are SUVs. There are a couple F150s and a couple vans. And Ranger’s personal car is a Porsche Turbo. The car I drew in the Rangeman lottery was a black Jeep Wrangler.

It was noon when I parked the car in front of the office, and Lula and Connie had two pizza boxes open on Connie’s desk.

“That’s a lot of pizza for someone only eating one of everything,” I said to Lula.

“I’m not eating from Connie’s box,” Lula said. “I got myself one pizza and that’s what I’m eating, but if you want a piece, you could help yourself.”

Lula’s pizza had the works, and Connie had a cheese and pepperoni pizza. Since I was in a cheese and pepperoni mood, I went with Connie’s pizza.

“Let me guess where you got the shiny black car,” Lula said. “I’m guessing Ranger.”

“It’s a loaner.”

Lula selected another piece. “Do you know what I think? I think that man is all bad and scary silent on the outside and soft and mushy on the inside.”

I knew Ranger pretty well and I wasn’t sure what was on the inside, but I knew it wasn’t soft and mushy.

“Have you heard any more from Mickey Gritch?” I asked Connie.

“No. I got a phone call first thing this morning and nothing since. I guess Mickey called Lucille last night. Lucille called Harry, and Harry made a few inquiries and found out about the hooker. And by the time I talked to Lucille, she was having the locks changed on the house, and Harry was on a rant. I got the clear impression no one on that side of the family cares if Mickey Gritch offs Vinnie.”

“That’s a shame,” I said. “I know Vinnie brought all this on himself, but it’s still sad.”

I ate two pieces of pizza, chugged a bottle of water, and hiked my bag onto my shoulder.

“Where you going?” Lula wanted to know.

“I have Ranger tracking Mickey Gritch, so I thought I’d take the afternoon to try to find Dirk McCurdle. He’s still in violation of his bond.”

“I thought his name was McCuddle,” Lula said.

“Nickname,” I told her.

The papers branded him McCuddle because he married four women before the state of New Jersey wised up and arrested him. Besides being tagged for bigamy, McCurdle got caught shoplifting some very expensive lingerie. He said social security didn’t give him enough money for him to keep up with the anniversary presents.

“He looks like a nice little old man in his newspaper pictures,” Lula said.

Dirk McCurdle was seventy-two years old, 5′9″ tall, pleasantly plump and pink-cheeked, had wispy white hair and a face like a cherub.

“I have a feeling McCurdle is with one of his wives,” I said. “One is in the Burg, one’s on Cherry Street, and two are in Hamilton Township.”

“Hold on,” Lula said. “I’ll go with you in case one of those wives gets out of hand and you need backup.”

I glanced at the file Connie had given me. McCurdle’s first wife was his age. All the other wives were in their late seventies. Probably, I could handle them.

“Anyway, I never saw any bigamist wives,” Lula said. “I want to see what they look like.”

I THOUGHT I’D start with the most recent wife and work my way back. Margaret McCurdle lived in a garden apartment in Hamilton Township. The buildings in the complex were two-story redbrick with white doors and white shutters at the windows. There were ten apartments in each building. Five up and five down. Margaret lived in an end unit on the ground floor.

“This looks real normal,” Lula said, swinging out of my Jeep, taking in the faux colonial columns in the front of the building. “This don’t look like a bigamist hide out. I hope I’m not gonna be disappointed. I hate when that happens.”

We crossed the lot to the front door and I rang the bell.

The woman who answered the door was about five foot nothing. Her hair was pale blond and cut short. Her makeup reminded me of pictures of Japanese geisha. Exaggerated bow mouth painted with glossy bright-red lipstick, white pancake makeup, and pencil-thin black eyebrows. She was wearing a magenta velour warm-up suit and white tennis shoes.

“Are you Margaret McCurdle?” I asked her.

“Yes. You aren’t more wives, are you?”

“No.”

“Thank goodness,” she said. “I can’t keep track of them anymore. I don’t know how Dirk does it. He has wives coming out of the woodwork.”

I gave her my card. “I’m a bond enforcement agent,” I told her, “and I’m looking for Dirk.”

“Good luck,” Margaret said on a sigh. “I’ve given up looking for him. He went out for ice cream two weeks ago and never came back. And now it turns out I’m wife number four. I read about it in the paper. I suppose I should get a lawyer, but they’re so expensive.”

“What’s it like being married to a bigamist?” Lula asked her.

“It’s perfect,” she said. “He told me he was still managing his company in Des Moines. So he would show up on Thursday night in time to set the garbage out for Friday pickup. And then he would leave early Sunday. He was very attentive, and he was always a gentleman. And he was excellent in bed.”

“No kidding,” Lula said. “You and McCuddle have a lot of sex?”

“No, but we talked about it.”

“Do you know where he is now?” I asked her.

“Jail?”

“Not yet,” I said.

Lula and I said good-bye to Margaret McCurdle, and I drove us a half mile to Ann McCurdle’s house on Sycamore Street. Ann lived in a small ranch house in a neighborhood filled with small ranch houses. Her house was pale gray, with blue shutters and a blue door. Her yard was tidy, and it looked like someone had just mulched around her azalea bushes.

“This is fascinating to me,” Lula said, “because I’m a student of human nature. That’s why I was such a good ’ho. I took an interest in my clients. And now here I am seeing all these bigamist wives living in all these different kinds of houses. Don’t you think it’s fascinating?”

Actually, it wasn’t high on my list of things that fascinated me, but I thought it was nice that Lula was fascinated.

I rang Ann’s doorbell with Lula hovering behind me. I rang a second time and the door was answered by a wiry old lady with a paintbrush in her hand. She had gray hair the color and texture of steel wool, her bifocals were crooked on her face, and she was dressed in white orthopedic shoes and a shapeless cotton creation that was somewhere between a dress and a bathrobe.