Janet Evanovich - Takedown Twenty

“Grandma says Uncle Sunny keeps his toothbrush at her house.”

“Grandma knows everything. Did you ask her about the giraffe?”

“The giraffe didn’t come up.”

“How could the giraffe not come up? We got a giraffe in Trenton. It’s practically a miracle. And it’s not like he’s some plain-ass horse or cow. A giraffe’s special. It’s the tallest animal. It’s taller than a elephant. A giraffe can get to be nineteen feet tall. And his legs could be six foot. Did you know that?”

“No. I didn’t know that.”

“A giraffe could run thirty-five miles an hour, and they could weigh twenty-eight hundred pounds. And here’s the good part: He got a tongue could measure twenty-one inches. Bet Mrs. Giraffe likes that one.”

“That’s a big tongue.”

“Freakin’ A. In the wild a giraffe lives about twenty-five years, but I think running around Trenton could shorten a giraffe lifespan. I’m worried about poor Kevin.”

“Who’s Kevin?”

“The giraffe. I named him Kevin.”

I scanned the file on Rita. She was fifty-one years old, twice divorced, indeed living in Hamilton Township. She worked out of a downtown Trenton office as a realtor.

“I don’t suppose you want to go look for the giraffe,” Lula said.

“What would we do if we found him?”

“We could talk to him. He might be lonely. And we could make sure he’s getting something to eat. There’s not a whole lot of trees with nice juicy leaves in the neighborhood he picked out.”

“Surely his owner has found him by now.”

“Maybe his owner don’t want him. Maybe he’s an orphan giraffe. Like cats that go wandering around and don’t have a home. What do you call them cats?”

“Feral.”

“Yeah, this here could be a feral giraffe.”

I looked at my watch. “We can take a fast drive down Morgan and scope out the side streets, but then I need to follow up on Rita Raguzzi.”

“That works for me. I’ve just gotta make sure Kevin isn’t laying in the road with a dart stuck in his butt like Ralph Rogers. Lucky for Ralph that was only a tranquilizer dart.”

I nodded. “Lucky him,” I said, thinking this probably wasn’t a good time to tell Lula that Ralph Rogers was dead.

I took Hamilton to Olden and turned off at Morgan. Lula powered her window down so she could listen for giraffe noises, and I cruised up and down the streets.

“Hold on,” Lula said. “What’s that up ahead? Stop the car! I see giraffe poop.”

I jerked to a stop, and we squinted at the mound of brown stuff that was half on the sidewalk and half in the gutter about ten feet in front of us.

“How do you know it’s giraffe poop?” I asked Lula.

“I saw a giraffe taking a poop on YouTube. Once you see giraffe poop, you don’t forget it.”

Lula got out, took a closer look, and returned to the car.

“It’s pretty fresh,” she said. “I bet it’s only about a hour old.”

“You know that by looking at it?”

“It’s my professional opinion. We should get out of the car and look on foot. The little guy must be hiding somewhere.”

“He’s not a little guy, and there’s nowhere he could hide here. You’d need a grain silo to hide a giraffe.”

We were on Sixteenth Street. A door opened toward the end of the block, and Moe stepped out and lit up. He sucked in some tar and nicotine, looked our way, and gave his head a small disgusted shake, as if our presence was ruining his euphoric lung-destroying experience. He stubbed out his cigarette and sauntered over to my car.

“See, here’s the thing,” Moe said, looking in my window. “It’s actually unhealthy for your health that you should be in this neighborhood.”

“We were looking for the giraffe,” Lula said.

“You shouldn’t be looking for that, either,” Moe said. “It’s all detrimental to your well-being.”

“Do you know the giraffe?” Lula asked.

“Not personally,” Moe said.

“Move out of the way,” I said to Moe. “We’re looking for Sunny, and I think he’s in that house.”

“It happens he isn’t in that house,” Moe said. “And you’re not looking there anyway.” He pulled a gun and shot two rounds into my back door. “I’d hate to think that could be your head.”

“You got a lot of nerve doing that to her car,” Lula said. “You’re gonna hear from her insurance company.”

Moe stepped back and looked at the Taurus. “You got insurance on this?”

I blew out a sigh. “No.”

“How about life insurance?” he asked me. “You got any of that?”

“No.”

“Then you should be extra careful, girlie.”

I put the car in gear and drove away.

“He got a attitude issue,” Lula said. “If you ask me, he could use a personality adjustment.”

“Do you think Sunny is in that house?”

“We could go around back and do some investigating.”

I drove around the block and came back down the alley that ran behind the Sixteenth Street buildings. We counted off houses and stopped three from the end. I moved up a house and pulled in behind an Econoline van.

“We gonna be peeping Toms?” Lula asked.

“Yes.”

A silver Toyota sedan drove past us and parked behind the house. A woman got out and took two brown grocery bags from the backseat. She was in her forties, clearly ate a lot of pasta, and needed a new hairdresser. The back door opened, and Moe came out and took the grocery bags. They both went into the house and closed the door.

“That’s sweet,” Lula said. “He came out to help with the bags. I bet that’s Mrs. Moe.”

So probably we’d found Moe’s house, and chances weren’t good that Sunny was holed up there.

“Let’s check out Rita Raguzzi,” I said to Lula.

I backtracked on Olden and headed for Hamilton Township. Rita Raguzzi lived in a residential neighborhood of single-family houses that had been developed in the seventies. Yards were large and lawns were green. Homes were comfortable but not luxurious. Raguzzi’s house was a split-level with an attached garage. Convenient for sneaking a man in and out when he was someone else’s husband. There was a black Mercedes in the driveway. It was the economy model, if there is such a thing.

“Looks to me like someone’s home,” Lula said. “Maybe Uncle Sunny’s here, walking around in his underwear.”

I thought that was doubtful but not impossible.

“You want me to sneak around and snoop while you ring the doorbell?” Lula asked.

“Sure.”

I rang the doorbell, and Lula crept around the side of the house, walking tiptoed so her four-inch spike-heel Manolo knockoffs wouldn’t sink into the grass.

A woman opened the door and looked out at me. “What?”

She was in her late forties to early fifties. Her complexion was Mediterranean and her hair was platinum, cut short with one side tucked behind her ear and the other side dramatically sweeping across her forehead and partially obscuring her eye. She was wearing red patent-leather stiletto heels and a little red dress that showed a lot of cleavage and a lot of leg, and had a lot of spandex in it.

“Rita Raguzzi?” I asked.

“Yeah, and unless you want to buy or sell a house I haven’t got time. I’m late for a showing.”

I gave her my card. “I’m looking for Sunny.”

“Stephanie Plum. I thought I recognized you. Aren’t you engaged to Joe Morelli?”

“Not exactly. Are you engaged to Sunny?”

“Not exactly.”

“So we have something in common.”

She did a fast scan of my jeans and sneakers and crappy car at the curb. “The only thing we have in common is an interest in Salvatore Sunucchi. And our interests aren’t compatible. You want to lock him up, and I want to lock him down.”