Джанет Иванович - Twisted Twenty-Six

I called Connie and asked her to run Sidney DeSalle through the system.

“No problem,” she said, “but you’ve got to come get Lula. She’s driving me nuts. She’s all into fitness, doing squats across the room and jumping jacks in her spike-heeled shoes. She says she’s working to look like the woman behind the desk at Miracle Fitness.”

“That’s only going to happen if Miracle Fitness is handing out miracles.”

I disconnected, ran upstairs and got Grandma’s necklace, then went back to the kitchen and put it on her.

“I have to go to work,” I said. “I’ll check back later.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

LULA WAS TRYING to touch her toes when I rolled into the office. She was doing a lot of grunting, and her fingertips weren’t anywhere near her toes.

“My problem is I’m not wearing the right clothes,” Lula said. “I’m not in my workout clothes. These clothes are too restrictive.”

Lula was wearing a black spandex miniskirt, and every time she bent over there was a flash of red thong, which was ultimately lost in the Grand Canyon of Lula.

Connie had her hands over her eyes. “Tell me when she stops.”

“I’m on a self-improvement plan like Stephanie, only mine is physical. I need to lose three or four pounds,” Lula said, standing straight, tugging her skirt down over her ass.

Lula needed to lose fifty or sixty if she wanted to look like the woman behind the Miracle desk. An alternative would be to grow six inches, but that wasn’t likely to happen either.

I called Morelli and told him about Barbara Rosolli and Sidney DeSalle.

“I’ll talk to them,” he said. “We looked at the recording from the security camera that covers the parking lot next to the bail bonds office. A car drove past at one A.M. Tuesday. Couldn’t make out the occupants or the license plate. We also talked to Lucca’s neighbors, but that was a bust. He lives in a big apartment complex where no one knows anyone else.”

“What about the three sisters?”

“Angie, Tootie, and Rose? It looks like they were responsible for the searches and the firebomb. They don’t seem to be interested in kidnapping Grandma. They just want to harass her. And they wouldn’t mind finding the keys in the process.”

“You have a snitch?” I asked.

“Yeah. My mom.”

Never underestimate the value of the Burg gossip network. More news gets passed during bingo at the firehouse and daily mass at the Catholic church than from CBS, NBC, and Fox News combined.

“What’s going on tonight?” Morelli asked.

“I need a night at home. I’ve gone through all my emergency clothes at your house, and I have to clean Rex’s cage.”

“How’s your arm?”

“It’s good. Nothing oozing out of the incision. Stitches are intact. Only aches a little when I use it.”

“I know big, strong cops who would be sidelined for two weeks with your gunshot wound.”

“I don’t have that luxury. And I was lucky. It was only a flesh wound.” I hung up and hooked a thumb at Lula. “Let’s go.”

I got behind the wheel and pulled the hijacker file out of my bag.

“Looks like we’re going after a new guy,” Lula said.

“Emory Lindal. Wanted for hijacking a truck full of beer. Took it while the driver was eating dinner. Made the mistake of drinking a six-pack, and the police found him asleep behind the wheel. Didn’t show up for court.”

“Probably embarrassed to show his face because he’s an alcoholic idiot,” Lula said. “Any priors?”

“Traffic violations. Domestic violence. Seventy-two years old and lives in a mobile home south of town.”

“He doesn’t sound like much of a hijacker,” Lula said. “It sounds to me like he committed a crime of convenience. He probably doesn’t even have a warehouse.”

I drove south toward White Horse and turned off onto Old Bridge Pike. After five miles we still hadn’t come to an old bridge, and we’d passed only one other car.

“According to my phone map, this guy’s road is a quarter mile on the right,” Lula said.

I got to the road and stopped. It was narrow and it was dirt.

“I don’t like this road,” Lula said.

“There’s a sign on it that says Applegate Road. So this is it.”

“I know what’s going to be at the end of this road. There’s going to be some nasty old guy living in a broken-down, rusted-out trailer, and he’s going to have a pet snake. A big one. That’s always the way it is with dirt roads going through the woods.”

I turned onto the road and took it slow over the rutted surface. “That only applies to one guy and one snake,” I said. “Maybe there are others, but we only know one. Simon Diggery and Ethel. And I think Ethel likes you.”

I drove past a shack made of random lumber and half of a VW van. It didn’t look habitable, and I didn’t see any sign of recent use.

“I’m telling you this isn’t going to end good,” Lula said. “I’m totally creeped out. I don’t even like woods when they got flowers, and this woods only has woods.”

We came to the end of the road and stared out at a small mobile home. It was pocked with rust, and the windows were painted black. It was surrounded by high grass. A crude dirt path led to the door. There were signs plastered all over it warning off intruders. KEEP OUT. SURVIVALIST HABITAT. DO NOT ENTER. SECOND AMENDMENT IN FORCE. Vultures hunkered down on the roof and circled overhead. Some of the roof vultures were working at trying to rip the roof open.

“That’s a lot of vultures,” Lula said.

I agreed. It was a lot of vultures.

“You know what vultures like?” Lula said. “Dead things.”

“We should go check it out,” I said.

Lula’s eyes bugged out. “Are you nuts? This is a horror movie. You step out of this car, and some freak is going to rush out of the woods with an ax and chop you up into tiny pieces. He’s going to be bleeding out of his eyes, and his skin is going to be green and falling off him in chunks.”

“I’m thinking that the dead thing in the trailer is Emory Lindal, and that’s why he went FTA.”

“I guess that’s possible,” Lula said. “The guy with the ax could have got to him.”

“You stay here,” I said. “I’m going to take a fast look.”

I opened the car door and stepped out and was almost knocked over by the smell. I jumped back into the car and jerked the door closed. “Wow!”

“You know what that smell is?” Lula said. “It’s the death cooties. I told you not to go out there, but do you listen to Lula? Hell, no. You have to see for yourself. Now we got death cootie smell in our car.”

I put the SUV in reverse, backed up about a quarter mile, stopped, and called the police. Twenty minutes later a patrol car pulled up behind us.

Lula checked the car out in the rearview mirror. “Twenty minutes and all that responds is this lame-ass patrol car. Did you tell them about the guy in the woods with the ax?”

“No. I told them about the vultures and the smell.”

The cop got out of his car and walked up to us. I rolled my window down, showed him my credentials, and gave him the short version of the story, omitting the guy with the ax.

He got back into his car, pulled around us, and drove to the end of the road. I rolled my window up and followed him. He parked, got out of his car, took a couple steps toward the trailer, and returned to his car. Ten minutes later a fire truck and an EMT rolled in, followed by another patrol car.

“This is more like it,” Lula said. “Only thing missing is the helicopter.”

I was getting antsy. I hadn’t intended to spend this much time here. I didn’t like leaving Grandma unattended, and I wanted to work on the Sidney DeSalle angle. I called Morelli a couple times, but he didn’t pick up.