Janet Evanovich - Finger Lickin’ Fifteen

So I hung out in Ranger’s brand-new Cayenne, watching Kaplan’s house, telling myself I was doing surveillance. Truth is, I was snoozing. I had the seat reclined and was feeling very comfy inside the big car with the dark tinted windows.

I woke up a little after nine and saw movement behind Kaplan’s front window. I got out of the car and rang Kaplan’s bell.

“Oh jeez,” Kaplan said when he saw me. “You again.”

“I’ll make a deal,” I said. “I’ll take you to breakfast if you go to the police station with me when you’re done.”

“I don’t want to go to breakfast. I haven’t got any teeth. I have to gum everything to death. And if I swallow big chunks of stuff, I get indigestion. Can’t eat bacon at all.”

“You got your money back. Why don’t you go to another dentist and get new teeth?”

“I called some other dentists and couldn’t get an appointment. I think they’re all in cahoots. I’m on a blacklist.”

“Dentists don’t have blacklists.”

“How do you know? Are you sure they don’t have blacklists?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Pretty sure doesn’t cut it, chickie.”

“Okay, we’ll go to plan B. Let’s pay a visit to your old dentist.”

“The quack?”

“Yeah. Let’s talk to him about your teeth.”

“Do you have a gun?”

“No.”

“Then it’s a waste of time,” Myron said. “You’ll never get in.”

“Trust me, I’ll get in.”

WILLIAM DUFFY, DDS, had an office suite on the fifth floor of the Kreger Building. The waiting room was standard fare. Durable carpet, leatherette chairs, a couple end tables holding artfully arranged stacks of dog-eared magazines. A receptionist desk presided over one wall and guarded the door that led to Duffy.

“That’s her,” Myron said. “Miss Snippity.”

Miss Snippity was in her forties and looked pleasant enough. Short brown hair, minimal makeup, blue dental office smock with the name Tammy embroidered on it.

“Don’t come any closer,” Tammy said. “I’m calling Security.”

“That’s not necessary,” I told her. “We aren’t armed.” I glanced over at Myron. “We aren’t, right?”

“My daughter took my gun away,” Myron said.

“We’d like to talk to Dr. Duffy,” I said to Tammy.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No.”

“Dr. Duffy only sees by appointment.”

“Yes,” I said, “but you just opened for the day and there’s no one in the waiting room.”

“I’m sorry. You’ll have to make an appointment.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’d like an appointment for now. Do you have that available?”

“Dr. Duffy doesn’t see patients until 10 A.M.”

“Okay. Give me an appointment at 10 A.M.”

“That’s not available,” she said, thumbing through her appointment book. “The next available appointment would be three weeks from now.”

“Here’s the deal,” I said to her. “Poor Mr. Kaplan has no teeth. He’s getting indigestion, and he can’t eat bacon. Can you imagine a life without bacon, Tammy?”

“I thought Mr. Kaplan was Jewish.”

“There’s all kinds of Jewish,” Mr. Kaplan said. “You sound like my daughter. Maybe you want to tell me to get a colonoscopy, too.”

“Oh my goodness, you haven’t had a colonoscopy?”

“No one’s sticking a camera up my rump,” Mr. Kaplan said. “I never like the way I look in pictures.”

“About Mr. Kaplan’s teeth,” I said to Tammy.

“I have no appointments,” Tammy said. “If I break the rule for Mr. Kaplan, I have to break the rule for everyone.”

Tammy was starting to annoy me.

“Just this once,” I said. “No one will know. I know Dr. Duffy is in. I can hear him talking on the phone. We want five minutes of his time. We just want to talk to him. Five minutes.”

“No.”

“I told you,” Mr. Kaplan said to me. “She’s snippity.”

I put palms down on Tammy’s desk and I leaned in real close to her. Nose to nose. “If you don’t let me in, I’m going to picket this building and let everyone know about the shoddy work Dr. Duffy is doing. And then I’m going to run a personal computer check on you and get the names of all your high school classmates and tell them you have relations with ponies and large dogs.”

“You don’t scare me,” Tammy said.

So that was when I went to plan C and broke into my imitation of Julie Andrews, singing, “The hills are alive, with the sound of music…”

Dr. Duffy almost immediately stuck his head out the door. “What the heck?”

“We’d like to talk to you for a moment,” I said. “Mr. Kaplan is very sorry he held you up, and he’d like to discuss his teeth.”

“I’m not sorry,” Mr. Kaplan said. “This office gives me a pain in my behind.”

“You aren’t armed, are you?” Dr. Duffy asked.

“No.”

“Come back to my office. I have a few minutes until my first appointment.”

Myron stuck his tongue out at Tammy, and we followed Dr. Duffy down a short corridor, past dental torture rooms.

“What would you like to discuss?” Dr. Duffy said, settling himself behind his desk.

“Do you still have Myron’s teeth?”

“The police have them. They’re evidence.”

“Can they be fixed so they fit him and they’re comfortable?”

“They seemed to fit him when he left my office.”

“They were fine, and then a week later, they were terrible,” Myron said.

“You should have made an appointment to get them rechecked,” Dr. Duffy said.

“I couldn’t get an appointment,” Myron said. “Your snippity secretary wouldn’t give me one.”

“It would be really great if you could drop the charges against Mr. Kaplan and fix his teeth,” I said to Duffy. “He’s not a bad guy. He just wants teeth. And for the record, your secretary is snippity.”

“I know she’s snippity,” Duffy said. “She’s my wife’s first cousin, and I can’t get rid of her. I’ll see what I can do about getting the charges dropped, and I’ll call you as soon as the police release your teeth.”

“That would be real nice of you,” Myron said. “I’m getting tired of oatmeal.”

Ten minutes later, we were in front of the courthouse. “I have to check you in,” I said to Myron, “but Connie is on her way to bail you out again. And hopefully, you’ll be cleared of charges soon.”

“That’s okay,” Myron said. “I didn’t have anything to do today, anyway.”

I HAD MY map and a summary of Ranger’s accounts in front of me. My plan was to take a look at those accounts I’d tagged as high risk and those accounts that had already been hit. The first two houses were high risk. Each of the houses had a touch pad by the front door and a touch pad by the garage entrance. I couldn’t find any evidence of filming devices in the touch-pad areas. The next stop was the only commercial account on my list. It was the insurance company that had been burgled four days ago.

I went directly to the rear-entrance touch pad and looked to find possible lines of sight. Rangeman had installed a motion sensor over the door. This was the spot I’d choose if I wanted to snoop on the touch pad. I’d set the camera above the motion sensor, and it would look like it belonged there. There was no camera there now, but it looked to me like some of the paint above the motion sensor had flaked off.

I asked building maintenance to get me a stepladder. I climbed up, took a closer look, and I was pretty sure something had been taped there. When the tape was removed, the paint had peeled away with it. I took a picture with my cell phone and thanked the maintenance guy for the ladder.

“No problem,” he said. “The guy last week needed a ladder, too.”