Janet Evanovich - Takedown Twenty

“I’m a butcher.”

“Cupcake, you go green walking past the chicken parts in the supermarket.”

“This is right up there for the worst day of my life.”

“You’ve had some pretty bad days. Remember when you fell off the fire escape into the dog diarrhea?”

“This was worse.”

“Wow.”

I took the beer bottle off my eye and drank the beer. “I need a shower.”

“Do you need help?”

“No. I need food. Something vegetarian.”

“A salad?”

“A pizza. Hold the pepperoni and sausage.”

I was working my way through my second beer and third piece of pizza, and I was beginning to feel human.

“How’s your nose?” Morelli asked.

“It’s good. I can breathe through it, and it doesn’t hurt if I don’t touch it.”

“Are you going to keep the butcher job?”

“At least for a couple more days. Randy Berger has moved to the top of my list for murder suspects. He knew all the women. He’s big enough and strong enough to pitch someone into a Dumpster. And he’s scary.”

“How is he scary?”

“He worships meat. His eyes get glittery and crazy when he talks about it.”

“All meat?”

“Mostly pork.”

“It’s a guy thing,” Morelli said. “Any normal, red-blooded guy is going to go a little gonzo talking about pig products. All the best food in the world comes from a pig. Hot dogs, bacon, ribs, pulled pork, pork roast, pork chops, ham, Taylor pork roll.”

“He was roasting a whole pig. It was massive. And he had its ears wrapped in aluminum foil.”

“That’s so they don’t burn.”

“You know about this?”

“I can find my way around a smoker.”

“So you don’t think Randy Berger killed the women.”

“I didn’t say that. I said he’s not crazy just because he gets a little sloppy over pork.”

“What’s your best guess for the killer?”

“I don’t have a best guess,” Morelli said. “What we believe is that he’s local. And the women knew him. He’s neat. Doesn’t like a messy crime scene. Has some ego. Likes to leave a calling card. Feels safe. Maybe feels like he’s above the law. Beyond that we don’t know much.”

“What about the bank accounts?”

“The bank accounts have for the most part been explained away. One account was moved to another bank. One account was cleaned out to buy a cruise ticket that was never used.”

“Your profile doesn’t entirely fit Randy Berger. He probably wouldn’t choose a Venetian blind cord as his instrument of death. He wouldn’t care about neat. He’d be more comfortable with a cleaver.”

“And what about motive?” Morelli asked. “What’s his motive?”

“Fun?”

“It sounds to me like you quit working for Vinnie but you’re still working for Ranger,” Morelli said.

“I can’t bring myself to walk away from those women. And I think it’s odd that four women have been killed and left in a Dumpster and no one saw anything. It’s like the giraffe. There’s a giraffe hanging out on Fifteenth Street and no one’s reported it. What’s with that?”

“It’s a mystery,” Morelli said, sliding his arm around me and leaning close. “You don’t smell like barbecue anymore, but I like you anyway. Maybe we should take some of those items I bought at the drugstore for a test drive.”

“If you touch my nose I’ll make you incapable of fathering a child.”

“Touching your nose wasn’t in my game plan.”

“Are you willing to chance it?”

“No,” Morelli said.

TWENTY-TWO

I GOT TO the hardware store at seven-thirty in the morning and bought rubber boots. My credit card was declined, so I gave Victor my last five dollars and the promise of pork chops. I went from there to the butcher shop, where I pulled on my new boots and wrapped the Sasquatch-size apron around myself as best I could.

“This is a big day,” Randy said, taking the first hit of the day from the peach schnapps bottle. “We just got blood sausage and tongue from a farm in Wisconsin, and we have to start butchering the side of beef. I thought after we fill the display cases, you could take care of the customers, so I can tackle the side of beef. You know how to work the slicer and the scale, and you can come get me if there’s a problem. Just remember, the customer is always right.”

I added rubber gloves to my ensemble and helped Randy set up the trays of sausages and steaks. He brought out the tongue, and I felt my gag reflex kick in. The tongue was big. In fact it was bigger than just big. It was monstrous. It was the biggest freaking tongue I’d ever seen. Good thing Morelli’d stayed over last night, because there wasn’t going to be anything happening tonight after my seeing a tray full of cow tongue.

At eleven o’clock I was feeling pretty good about how things were going. I’d weighed out deli meats, steaks, and a roasting chicken, and I hadn’t fainted or thrown up. I’d gagged a little when Mrs. Carlson came in and asked for chicken livers, but I don’t think she noticed. Not that this was a career position for me. I thought I’d stick with it long enough to be sure Randy Berger wasn’t the old lady killer, and then I’d try to get a job stuffing sanitary napkins into a box at the personal products plant.

The front door opened and I caught a glimpse of Joe’s Grandma Bella scuttling past the register and heading for the meat counter. I ducked behind the display case and told myself not to panic.

“Who’s here?” Bella shouted. “Who’s working here?”

Randy stuck his head around the corner from the back room and looked down at me cringing behind the case.

“Dropped my pen,” I said.

“Who’s that?” Bella asked. “Who do I hear?”

I popped up. “Me. Can I help you?”

“You! What you doing here?”

“I’m working here,” I said.

“Then I never shop here.”

Randy rushed to the counter. “I have your special order,” he said to Bella. “It just came in. I sliced into the blood sausage this morning, and it’s the best I’ve ever seen. And the tongue is nice and fat.”

“I like fat tongue,” Bella said. “You give me good price?”

“Of course,” Randy said. He reached into the case and pushed the tongues around until he found one he liked. He held it out for Bella to see. “It’s a beauty,” he said. “What do you think?”

“I’ve seen better tongue,” Bella said. “But I guess this will have to do.”

“You’re a hard negotiator,” Randy said to Bella.

“You give me good price or I give you the eye,” Bella said. “And that one behind you I already give the eye. She going to hell.”

Randy weighed and wrapped the tongue and weighed and wrapped Bella’s sausage. “Anything else?”

“I get my discount?”

“It’ll show up at the register,” Randy said.

Bella left and I turned to Randy. “What discount?”

“The senior discount.”

“Bella is in the wellness program?”

“She’s a certified card-carrying participant. She comes in every other week for blood sausage and tongue.”

I did an inadvertent shiver. God knows what she did with the sausage and tongue. Probably ate it raw. Probably tossed it into her stewpot with beetle legs and rat tails and brewed up some evil concoction. Or she could be feeding it to Sunny.

“I thought you were almost engaged to her grandson,” Randy said. “Why did she give you the eye?”

“Uncle Sunny failed to appear for his court date, and I was given the unpopular job of capturing him and bringing him in.”

Randy nodded. “The Sunucchis and Morellis are a tight family.”

Ten minutes later Lula swung into the store and marched back to the meat counter.