Джанет Иванович - Twisted Twenty-Six

Morelli walked in, and my mom and grandmother got all smiles. They liked Morelli. They would like me to marry him and make a bunch of little Morellis. Grandma also liked Ranger, but not to marry.

“This is my favorite meal,” Morelli said to my mom. “I could smell the gravy when I parked my car.”

“You’re just in time,” she said.

She poured the gravy into the gravy boat and handed it over to me. Grandma took the bowl of mashed potatoes. My father was already at the table. My mother set the pot roast platter in front of him. He had the carving knife and fork in hand. We were Catholic and my mother and grandmother went to Mass almost daily, but we didn’t say grace. We assumed God knew our thoughts when it came to food. We were thankful, we wanted world peace, yadda yadda yadda.

Morelli always sat next to me. Grandma was across from me. My mom and dad were at either end of the table. This was a good arrangement because Grandma was a reach for my dad if she went off on aliens doing anal probes on humans and he decided he had to stab her with the meat fork.

“What are you working on now?” Grandma asked Morelli. “Did you ever find out about the guy who tried to kidnap me? The dead one with the red shoes.”

“We’re running down some leads,” Morelli said.

“So, in other words,” Grandma said. “You got nothing.”

Morelli took a slab of pot roast and passed the platter to me. “Yep. That’s about it.”

“I hear his body got shipped back to Newark for burial. Not even having a viewing here. That’s a shame,” Grandma said. “A lot of people would like to take a look at him. He would have drawn a good crowd.”

My father had his head down, concentrating on his meat. My mother had emptied her iced tea glass and was gnawing on her lip, wondering if anyone would notice if she got more. Grandma had the bottle of red wine in front of her and poured out a glass.

“Who wants wine?” she asked.

Morelli and I raised our hands.

By the time the pineapple upside-down cake came out, I’d had three glasses of wine and my lips were numb.

“Did you see I’m wearing a special medallion necklace?” Grandma said to Morelli. “If you press it, like this, people know where you are.”

Morelli whipped his phone out and called Ranger’s control room. “That was a test drive,” he said. “No reason to respond.”

He stayed on the line for a couple beats and then said, “Hunh, for real?” He looked over at Grandma. “Press it again.” Another thirty seconds of silence. Morelli turned to me. “Press your medallion.”

I pressed it and waited.

“So, nothing?” Morelli said to the guy in the control room.

Morelli hung up and slid a glance at me. “They aren’t working.”

“Probably made in China,” Grandma said.

My mother cut the cake and passed pieces around.

“All that technology is a bunch of crap,” my father said. “You can’t beat a baseball bat.”

“Or an iron,” Grandma said.

Just because I’d had three glasses of wine didn’t mean that I was stupid. I didn’t like that the medallions weren’t working.

“What did Ranger say about the medallions?” I asked Morelli.

“I didn’t talk to Ranger.”

I was on my second piece of cake when Ranger came in. He sat in the chair next to Grandma and unhooked her necklace. He pressed it and spoke to his control room through an earbud. He dropped the necklace into his shirt pocket.

“It’s not working,” he said.

“Would you like a piece of cake?” my mother asked. “Coffee? Wine?”

“No. I need to get back to work. I’m going to leave a Rangeman car with you for tonight.” He stood and looked at me. “I’d like to talk to you for a moment, outside.”

I followed him out to the porch and punched him in the arm. “You wanted that piece of cake, didn’t you?”

He grinned at me. “How much wine have you had tonight?”

“Thwee.”

I attempted to lean against the porch railing, misjudged the distance, and went over the railing into a hydrangea bush. Ranger picked me out of the bush and set me on my feet.

“We can talk tomorrow,” he said.

I smiled at him. “Okeydokey. Do you want to kiss me?”

“Not here,” he said. “I don’t want to risk a shootout with Morelli.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

IT WAS MORNING. I was in Morelli’s bed, and I was loving the luxury of sleeping late. Morelli came in with coffee and my laundry basket. He was dressed in sweats and a T-shirt.

“I told the guys I’d play ball with them this morning,” he said. “Bob’s been walked and fed. And your mom dropped your laundry basket off on her way to church.” He handed me the coffee, kissed me on the top of my head, and left.

I sat up in bed and drank my coffee, thinking this was nice. This was the way life should be. Drinking coffee in bed on a Saturday morning. I finished my coffee, took a shower, and went downstairs. I allowed myself the extra treat of toasting my frozen waffle, had a second cup of coffee, and was ready to start my day. I also had an epiphany. Maybe the reason I didn’t have a work-related passion was that I actually didn’t want to work at all. I had a passion for doing nothing. Now that I realized this, I just had to find a way to get paid for it.

I drove past my parents’ house on my way to the office. The Rangeman SUV was parked at the curb, and I didn’t see any crazy old Italian men skulking around. It was all good.

Lula and Connie were listening to police chatter when I walked in.

“Richie is on another roof,” Connie said. “They’re trying to get him in the bucket, but he says he’s waiting for his dragon to return.”

“I’ll say it again,” Lula said. “That boy needs a more reliable dragon.”

Connie and I looked at Lula.

“You don’t really think he has a flying dragon, do you?” Connie asked Lula.

Lula leaned forward and cocked her head, eyebrows up. “Have you got a better explanation?”

“No,” Connie said.

Lula sat back. “There you have it. Boom.”

“Anything new come in?” I asked Connie.

“No, but it’s early. Oliver Turkel had his hearing yesterday, and he has a history of no-shows.”

“I remember him,” Lula said. “He’s the guy who robs people and then moons them. It’s his trademark move. Last time we brought him in, he mooned Stephanie and me. I even got it videoed on my phone.”

“Something to look forward to seeing,” Connie said.

“Yeah, but I doubt he’ll moon us again,” Lula said. “Stephanie tagged him on his bare ass with her stun gun, and he went down like a sack of cement. And then he wet himself.” Lula shook her head. “It wasn’t a real pretty sight.”

I did an involuntary shiver at the memory.

“I’m still up for finding the shoplifter,” Lula said. “I vote we ride around and look for him. And we could ride down Maple Street and see if Richie is still on the roof. It’s not far from where Carol Joyce lives.”

This sounded like a decent activity. It was a nice day to go cruising around. And I didn’t think anything would come of it. We could look for Carol for a couple hours, have lunch, and then I’d quit for the day and go back to Morelli’s house to get my laundry. Maybe Morelli would want to go to the shore.

We started by checking out Richie Meister. He was still on the roof, and traffic was snarled for blocks.

“I can see the hook and ladder,” Lula said. “They got the big ladder up.”

“Do you see any dragons?”

“Nope. Not a single one.”

I circled around the Richie mess and drove past the Joyce house. No SUV in the driveway, thank goodness. I wasn’t in a mood to arrest Carol Joyce.