Janet Evanovich - Plum Spooky

The car was locked.

“Did you lock the car?” I asked Lula.

“No way.”

I looked inside. The key was in the ignition. The monkeys had somehow managed to lock the car.

“You got a problem,” Lula said. “You better hope they don’t drive away. Where’s your extra key?”

“I don’t have an extra key.”

It was a little after ten. I called Diesel, but he didn’t pick up. I could call a locksmith, break a window, or call Ranger. Since it was Ranger’s car, the choice was obvious.

“I’m locked out of the Jeep,” I told him. “The key is in the ignition, and the doors are locked.”

“Where are you?”

“In the alley behind Munch’s house on Crocker Street.”

Ten minutes later, a black Rangeman SUV eased to a stop behind the Jeep. Ranger got out of the SUV, walked over to me, and looked in the Jeep.

“Babe,” he said.

I blew out a sigh. I had five monkeys in the Jeep and two sitting on the roof.

Hal was left at the wheel of the Rangeman SUV, and I could see he was turning red, making an effort not to laugh. Hal is one of Ranger’s younger guys. He keeps his blond hair cut short in a buzz cut, he has a personality like a St. Bernard puppy, and he’s built like a stegosaurus.

Ranger’s life is mostly made up of serious business, and it’s not often you see Ranger laughing, but I guess a car full of monkeys was the tipping point because Ranger was smiling.

He took a key out of his pocket and opened the car door. “Do you want the two on the roof inside? Or do you want the five inside to get out of the car?”

“I want the two on the roof inside,” I said.

I rattled the cookie box and threw it into the backseat. Gail’s monkey jumped into the car, and all the monkeys attacked the cookie box. Carl didn’t want any part of it. Ranger had regained his calm, and I thought he was probably calculating the depreciation on his Jeep. Not that this was unusual. I’d done worse to his cars.

“I know I’m going to regret asking,” Ranger said, “but where are you going with the monkeys?”

“I don’t know. Originally, they were in a habitat in the Barrens, but Carl opened the door and they all escaped.”

“Carl?”

“Eep,” Carl said.

Ranger looked at Carl, and Carl gave him a thumbs-up.

“Anyway, a lot happened in between,” I told Ranger, “but last night, Diesel and I were in the Barrens looking for Wulf and Martin Munch, and we ended up with all these monkeys in the car.”

“Diesel’s been driving these monkeys around?”

“More or less.”

Ranger looked like he might burst out laughing again, but he squelched it.

“It’s not like they’re bad monkeys,” I said. “It’s just that I don’t know what to do with them. Except for Carl, they belong to Gail Scanlon, but Wulf has her locked away somewhere. I can’t bring them back to the habitat and leave them there all alone.”

Ranger cut his eyes to the monkeys. They were fighting over the cookies, shoving them into their mouths, cookies flying everywhere.

“I can put a man at the habitat until this sorts itself out,” Ranger said.

“I don’t know if that’s safe with Wulf prowling the Barrens.”

“Wulf won’t go after my man.”

Ranger motioned to Hal. Hal left the SUV and approached the Jeep.

“You’re going to follow me in the Jeep,” Ranger said to Hal.

Hal’s mouth dropped open and he went white.

“The Jeep’s full of monkeys,” Hal said.

Ranger clapped him on the back. “You’ll be fine. Just don’t touch the cookies.”

We dropped Lula off at her house, and Hal followed behind in the Jeep.

“Hal looks terrified,” I said to Ranger.

Ranger checked him out in the rearview mirror. “This is going to cost me. I’m going to have to give him hazard pay for this trip.”

We took the Turnpike and the Atlantic City Expressway. We exited the Expressway, and Ranger wound his way around the Barrens to Gail Scanlon’s compound. He drove the SUV into the habitat yard and parked. Hal parked behind him, and we all got out. Four monkeys had returned to the habitat and were huddled together on an outside table. They were still wearing their helmets.

“We took the helmets off the monkeys I had in the Jeep,” I told Ranger. “We couldn’t figure out why they were wearing them.”

“Did Gail Scanlon put these helmets on?”

“I doubt it. I think it must have been Munch or Wulf.”

Ranger approached the huddled monkeys, removed the helmets, and gave them to Hal.

“Put these in my SUV,” he said. “If Wulf wants them back, he can talk to me.”

We wrangled the remaining monkeys into the compound. We set food out and made sure there was fresh water. We closed and locked the door.

“Eep,” Carl said, monkey fingers curled around the chain-link fence, looking out at me.

I opened the door, let Carl out, and relocked the door.

“He doesn’t belong with the rest of the monkeys,” I said to Ranger.

“No doubt,” Ranger said.

We went into Gail Scanlon’s house and took stock. It seemed exactly as I’d left it.

“I’m going to leave you here,” Ranger said to Hal. “Make sure the monkeys have food and water. As soon as I get phone reception, I’ll dispatch someone to bring in a couple days’ supplies and communication.”

Hal seemed okay with that. He was out of the monkey truck. Life was sweet again.

Ranger, Carl, and I left the compound. Ranger stopped when he got to the paved road.

“Do you want to look for Munch or Gail Scanlon?” Ranger asked.

“I wouldn’t know where to begin. They’re here somewhere, but I have absolutely no direction. We did aerial surveillance and couldn’t find anything.” I pulled Gordo Bollo’s file out of my bag. “This is the guy who threw the tomatoes at me. He lives in Bordentown, and since it’s a weekend, he might be home. I’d love to catch him.”

Ranger looked at the file and punched the address into his navigation system.

“What’s the charge on this guy?”

“His ex-wife remarried, and I guess he had unresolved marital issues because he ran over the new groom with his pickup truck, twice.”

A half hour down the road, Carl was squirmy in the backseat.

“Puh,” Carl said. “Puh, puh, puh.”

Ranger’s eyes flicked to Carl in the rearview mirror.

“Does he want to live?” Ranger asked.

“Eep,” Carl said.

The nav system got us to Ward Street, and it didn’t look any more promising this time than it had last time. A cemetery ran down one side, and on the other was scrub field and the ceramic pipe factory. Ranger drove the length of it, turned, and drove back. He stopped at the entrance to the cemetery.

“Babe, there aren’t any houses here.”

“Connie double-checked this address.”

Ranger called in to his office and asked them to run Gordo Bollo. Minutes later, the same address came back.

“I’m sitting here, and there’s no house,” Ranger said. “It’s a field next to a ceramic pipe factory. Go into the tax rec ords and see who owns this land.”

Ranger waited for the answer, and when it came, he disconnected.

“Gordo Bollo owns 656 Ward, but it’s a lot. No house.”

DIESEL WAS AT the dining room table with coffee and my computer when Carl and I walked in.

“Every time I call you for help, you don’t answer your phone,” I said. “Where were you this time? Peru? Madagascar?”

“I was in the shower. You didn’t say to call back. I figured you were pulling on rubber gloves and decontaminating Munch’s house.”

“The monkeys all escaped through the pet door.”

“There’s a pet door?”

“Anyway, I found them and took them back to the habitat. Ranger has one of his men staying there until we find Gail.”