Janet Evanovich - Notorious Nineteen

“We must be at least thirty years younger than everyone out here,” I said to Lula.

“Yeah,” she said, “it’s like someone sprinkled the beach with a bunch of raisins and a couple prunes. I never saw so much shriveled skin. This group makes Grandma Mazur look like a teenager.”

The sand was hot under my bare feet and the sun felt warm on my skin. “You’re right,” I said to Lula. “It does sort of feel good to be out in the fresh air.”

“Yeah, I love the shore. I wouldn’t mind having a house here someday. I could look at the ocean all day long and listen to the waves.”

I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked down the beach. “Where’s the bar?”

“It’s over at the far end, under that thatched roof. You have to fight your way through the crowd to get to it. Old people like to booze it up.”

“Is Beasley naked?” I asked her.

“Sure he’s naked. Everyone’s naked here.”

We walked closer and I eyed the bar and the people milling around it. “We need a plan. Do you want to be the distractor or the cuffer?”

“I gotta be the distractor,” Lula said. “He already knows what I’m up to and he’ll be on guard if I try to sneak behind him. I figure I’ll walk right up to him and he’ll keep his eye on me. It’s hard to miss all my big brownness.”

Lula set off, plowing through the sand, and I circled around, hugging the perimeter. I was inside the bar area and directly behind Beasley when Lula elbowed her way up to the bar and got his full attention. I opened a bracelet and click it was on him. I went for the second wrist, he yelped, and threw a drink in my face. I blinked and swiped at my eyes. I felt him shove me aside and by the time I recovered he was outside the bar and running.

I sprinted after him, both of us having a hard time in the deep sand. He was distracted by the metal bracelet attached to his wrist, I took a flying leap, and snagged him by the ankle. We both went down face-first. I was holding tight to his foot, and I heard Lula yell “ INCOMING! ” I let go and scooted away just in time to see Lula hurtle over me, casting a massive shadow, and land on Beasley. “WOOF!” Beasley exclaimed on an explosion of air. And then he was completely still with Lula on top of him.

Lula climbed off, I cuffed him, and we rolled him over. His eyes were open, but I wasn’t sure he was breathing.

“Sometimes it takes them a while to get air after I pounce,” Lula said. She looked down at Beasley. “Are you okay?”

“Unh,” Beasely said.

“He’s okay, folks,” Lula said to the crowd that had gathered. “You could go back to your sunnin’ and drinkin’. Bar’s open. Self-serve.”

Beasley wasn’t looking like he was going to get up anytime soon, so Lula and I each took a foot and dragged him to the locker room.

“This is the ladies’ locker room,” the attendant said. “You can’t bring him in here.”

“Wait here,” I said to Lula.

I went to our locker and got dressed in record time. I took twenty dollars out of my purse, gave it to the attendant, and she happened to be looking the other way when we dragged Beasley into the locker room.

Lula got dressed, and we stood there looking at Beasley. We couldn’t take him out onto the boardwalk or through the casino naked, and we didn’t want to go into the men’s locker room to get his clothes.

“Only thing we got here is towels,” Lula said. “We could make him a diaper but I don’t know how to hold it together.”

“Garbage bag,” I said. “Have the attendant open the broom closet and give you a big green trash bag.”

Lula came back with the garbage bag, we tore a hole in the top, got Beasley up on his feet, and pulled the bag over his head. It came to about two inches below his privates.

“Lucky for us he’s not hung like some of the old folks out there,” Lula said. “Some of them would need a bag that comes to their knees.”

We walked Beasley to the car and strapped him in next to Tiki.

“I got sand in my lady parts,” Lula said. “Whoever thought a naked beach was a good idea never sat in one.”

NINETEEN

I BROUGHT BEASLEYinto the police station and ran into Morelli.

“I was just going to call you,” Morelli said.

“I’ve been busy.”

“So I see. Your FTA’s dressed in a garbage bag, you have sand in your hair, and you smell like a piña colada.”

“The guy I just handed over was a bartender at a nudie beach, and he threw a drink at me.”

“You took him down on a nudie beach?”

“Yeah. Lula and me.”

Morelli grinned. “Did you and Lula join in the fun?”

“We didn’t have much choice. They wouldn’t let us on the beach with our clothes on.”

“Both of you full monty?”

“Yep.”

“I’m a little turned on,” Morelli said.

“I hate to disappoint you but it wasn’t all that sexy. I have sand everywhere .”

Someone stuck his head out of a room down the hall and yelled for Morelli.

“Coming!” Morelli yelled back. “I’ll pick you up at your apartment at six o’clock,” he said to me. “We can catch a fast burger and then talk to Mickey Zigler.”

I dropped Lula at the office and continued on home. I brought Tiki into the apartment with me, set him on the couch, and turned the television on. I got into the shower and realized I’d turned the television on for a chunk of wood.

At a little before six I went downstairs to wait for Morelli. I stood in the lobby, where I felt relatively safe, and I called Ranger.

“Just checking in,” I said. “I got another note tacked to my door this morning. Anything new with you?”

“More messages. This freak has a lot of anger.”

“Me too,” I said. “I tried my bridesmaid dress on today. It’s pink. And it has a big bow over my ass.”

I could sense Ranger’s smile over the phone. “Looking forward to seeing it.”

And he hung up.

After a couple minutes Morelli rolled into the lot, and I ran out to his SUV.

“Do you want to eat first or talk to Zigler first?” Morelli asked me.

“Let’s get Zigler out of the way.”

Morelli pulled out of the lot and drove toward Hamilton Avenue. “That would be my choice too.”

“How did it go with the nurses?” I asked him.

“Julie Marconni is a zombie. She’s a single mother who works the night shift and then goes home to take care of her three kids.”

“Who’s with the kids at night?”

“She has a roommate who teaches eighth grade. On the surface it sounds like a good arrangement, but Julie Marconni is a burnout. She was cleaning the house when I got there and she was dead on her feet. I suspect she sleeps a lot on the job. She’s responsible for half the patients on the fourth floor, and none of her patients have gone missing.”

“All the missing patients were Kruger’s?”

“Yeah. Three years’ worth of missing patients.” Morelli stopped for a light. “I asked Kruger if she worked other jobs, and she said once in a while she took on a private client. I asked her if she worked at The Clinic and she said she spent a couple hours there five days a week but she really didn’t do anything. She said if The Clinic ever got up and running she would be guaranteed a supervisory position.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Yes, but I also think there’s something bad going on, and Kruger’s up to her armpits in it. She has a defensive posture when she’s questioned, and things aren’t adding up in her favor.”

“Did she offer to give you a back rub?”

“No. She wasn’t friendly. It was a short conversation.”

“I would have given you a back rub,” I said to Morelli. “I like the way your jeans fit. And I like your shirt when it’s open at the neck a little like this.”