14 Fearless Fourteen (14 page)

“Been there, done that,” Brenda said.

I took the new paperwork from Connie, plus a profile on Allen
Gratelli, and we all piled into Lula's Firebird. Lula drove north
on 206, past Bider College, to a neighborhood of modest houses. She
wound down a couple streets and stopped at a house with a lot of
cars parked in the driveway. This was Gratelli's house and it
looked like people were arriving to give their condolences. Problem
was, according to Connie's computer check, Gratelli lived alone. He
was divorced, no children. His parents were deceased. He had two
brothers and one sister.

Lula parked on the street, and we walked to the
house.

The front door was open, and I could hear people yelling at one
another inside.

“Knock, knock,” I said, peeking into the house.

Two men were shoving each other around, a guy in a cable uniform
was ransacking a chest in the hall, and a woman was yelling at the
two men.

“You dumb shit,” the woman said to one of the men. “Who cares if
he slept with your wife? Your wife is a slut. Everyone's slept with
your wife. Stop being a jerk and go look for the stupid
directions.”

“What directions?” I asked her.

Her head snapped around, and she took in Lula and Brenda and me.
“Cripes,” she said. “It's the rod squad. I knew Allen was a sicko,
but this is ridiculous.”

Lula stiffened her spine. “Say what?”

“You heard he was dead, right? And now you're here on the
scavenger hunt? Well, back off, because I was here first,” the
woman said.

I corralled Lula and Brenda and pulled them aside. “Cozy up to
the guy in the cable uniform and find out what he's looking
for.”

The woman made a disgusted gesture at the men and flounced off
to the kitchen.

I tagged along and watched her open and close
drawers.

“Are you his sister?” I asked the woman.

“Yeah.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “This must be a terrible time for
you.”

“We weren't close.” She cut her eyes to me. “Have you known
Allen long?”

“Long enough.”

“I guess men talk when you're, you know, doing
things.”

“Mmm.”

“Like what did he say?” she asked me.

“Uh, mostly he gave instructions.”

“Really? What sort of instructions? Did he say where it was
located?”

“No. I knew where it was located. He mostly said hit me harder.
And then ouch and yow and that sort of thing.”

“I don't mean those instructions. I mean, did he tell you where
the money is hidden?”

“Oh. No.”

“Allen was such an idiot. I can't believe he got himself shot.
What was he thinking?”

“Do you know who shot him?”

“I imagine it was someone looking for the money, just like him.
Probably crazy Dominic Rizzi.”

“This is the money from the robbery, right?”

“I guess. He just kept talking about the money he was going to
get when Dom got out of jail. And then Dom got out and nobody could
find the money. And then last night, Allen said he had directions
and today he's dead. I figure I'm next of kin and the money is
mine. I just need to find the directions. Me and my two remaining
moron brothers.”

“Doesn't it bother you that Allen was probably killed over the
money and you could get killed, too?”

“Do you have any idea how much money we're talking
about?”

“A lot?”

“More than a lot. We're talking a shitload.”

“What if you don't find the directions here?”

“I guess I just start digging around the death house. I figure
Dom gave the money to his crazy old Aunt Rose, and she hid it
somewhere. And then she died before Dom got out of
prison.”

I left the kitchen, gathered up Lula and Brenda, and herded them
outside.

“What did you find out?” I asked them.

“He worked with the dead guy,” Lula said. “And the dead guy was
always talking about the money he was gonna get when Rizzi got out
of prison. And so this jerk-off figured now that the dead guy is
dead, he was gonna come look for the money.”

“That's it?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you get his name?”

“Morty Dill. He was all taken with Brenda here. He would have
told us anything.”

“He reminded me of my fifth husband,” Brenda said. “Sort of cute
the way he kept calling me darlin'.”

“I know all about you from Star magazine,” Lula said. “I thought
your fifth husband was that English guy who got caught with his
pants down in the movie theater. You're thinking of your sixth
husband, who was the country singer. Kenny Bold.”

“Are you sure?”

“There was the guy you married right out of high school. The
plumber. Then there was the ice skater who turned out to be gay.
The third guy was a stock car driver. Then you remarried the
plumber, but that only lasted a couple weeks. And then the English
guy.”

“You're right,” Brenda said. “I'd forgotten about the second
marriage to the plumber.”

A black Mercedes sedan with tinted windows cruised down the
street, stopped in front of the house for a moment, and sped
away.

“Guess he don't like a crowd,” Lula said. “My opinion is, people
gonna be coming out of the woodwork to get that robbery
money.”

“Morty said Allen had directions to the money,” Brenda said.
“Morty was looking for the directions.”

I looked back at the house. “I suppose we should join in the
hunt. Or at least we should wait around to see if anyone finds the
directions.”

An hour later, everyone cleared out. The house had been searched
from top to bottom and the result was a big zero.

“I'm not going to get an Emmy on this episode,” Brenda said.
“This is a huge yawn.”

“You'd get an Emmy if we found the directions,” I told her.
“Let's just think about this a little. Supposedly, Allen Gratelli
had directions to the money, and next thing, he was dead in
Morelli's basement. So, if the directions weren't on him, and they
aren't in his house... where would they be?”

“In his car,” Lula said.

“I don't remember seeing his car. It wasn't parked in front of
Morelli's house.”

“If I was doing B&E on a cop's house, I wouldn't park in
front of it,” Lula said. “When we break into someplace we always
park around the corner.”

A half hour later, we were back in Morelli's neighborhood.
According to Connie's research, Gratelli drove a silver Camry. Lula
motored around the block and, sure enough, there was Gratelli's
car, parked around the corner, a block away. Lula pulled in behind
it, and we all got out and looked into the Camry. There was a
briefcase on the backseat. The cameraman panned across the car and
went in for a close-up.

“There it is,” Brenda whispered into her mic. “There's the
briefcase with the directions to millions of stolen
dollars.”

We tried the doors. Locked.

“No problemo,” Lula said. She opened her trunk and removed a
slim metal tool.

She rammed the tool into the doorframe and popped the lock.
“It's not like I steal cars or anything,” Lula said, “but a girl
needs to be prepared. A girl's gotta have skills, you see what I'm
saying?”

I took the briefcase from the car and set it on the
hood.

It was a Samsonite hardside attache case. The kind gorillas can
jump on and not make a dent. I released the two locks and everyone
crowded close together, excited to see if the directions were
inside. I lifted the lid and... Bang!

Blue dye exploded out of the attache case.

No one moved. No one spoke. No one blinked. We all just stood
there, dripping blue dye.

“What happened?” Brenda wanted to know. “Am I okay? Was it a
bomb?”

I looked at the dye on my hands and shirt. “Gratelli
booby-trapped his briefcase.”

“He's lucky he's dead,” Lula said. “I'm wearing leather.
Somebody's gotta be responsible for this dry-cleaning
bill.”

The cameraman looked at his blue lens. “I'm done for the
day.”

I closed the attache case and snatched it off the hood of
Gratelli's car. “I'm taking this with me. I'll give it to Morelli
to check out.”

“It's in my hair, isn't it?” Brenda asked. “I feel so funky.”
She looked down at herself. “I have blue boobies.”

Lula carefully eased herself into the Firebird and drove away.
Brenda and the camera crew took off in the van. And I walked to
Morelli's house.

Mooner answered the door. “Far out,” he said. “Off the
chain.”

I had no idea what “off the chain” meant, and I didn't care. I
was blue. I walked through the living room, and Zook never looked
up from the computer screen. I got to the kitchen, where Morelli
was stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce, and I dropped the attache
case onto the kitchen table.

Morelli gaped at me with the spoon in his hand. “What the hell
happened to you?”

“Booby-trapped attache case.”

“Have you seen yourself?”

“No. Is it bad?”

“How do you feel about blue?”

I stepped into the powder room, switched the light on, and
stifled a sob. Blue hair, blue eyebrows, blue eyelashes, blue lips,
blue face. I soaked a hand towel and dabbed at my cheek. Nothing
happened.

Morelli was behind me, smiling. “You look like a Smurf. I think
I'm getting turned on.”

“Everything turns you on.”

“Not everything. Remember the time you fell off the fire escape
and rolled in the dog diarrhea?”

“I took the briefcase out of Gratelli's car. There's a chance it
contains directions for finding the money from the
robbery.”

Morelli went to the attache case and flipped the locks. “Guess I
don't have to worry about a dye bomb,” he said. He raised the lid
and looked inside.

Everything was soaked in blue dye.

“Gratelli didn't get the memo telling him to put his important
papers in plastic pouches,” Morelli said. “If there were directions
in here, they're gone.”

I got a spoon out of the silverware drawer and tasted the
spaghetti sauce.

“Yum,” I said.

“It needs to simmer,” Morelli said. “I like to let the r sausage
soak in the gravy It's for tomorrow. We're supposed to have dinner
at your parents' house tonight.”

I put the spoon in the dishwasher. “I bet I know where the money
is hidden. I bet it's in your basement.”

“I've looked in the basement.”

“I bet it's buried. I bet it's under your floor.”

“That floor is poured concrete.”

“And?”

Morelli partially covered his sauce. “I'm not going to take a
jackhammer to my basement floor.”

We trooped downstairs and stared at the floor. It had just been
professionally steam-cleaned to remove the
bloodstains.

“This is an old house,” I said. “The floor down here looks
pretty new.”

“I had it put in two years ago. It used to be
dirt.”

“Omigod!”

“I'm going to forget we had this conversation,” Morelli said. “I
don't care if there's a fortune buried here. It's not like the
money would be mine. It's bank money.”

“The bank would be happy to see it.”

“The bank would think it was a pain in the ass. They've already
collected the insurance.”

“What about the insurance company?”

“Screw the insurance company,” Morelli said.

“You would let nine million dollars sit under this
concrete?”

“Yeah.” He toed the concrete. “I like my floor. The guys did a
good job on it. It's nice and smooth.”

“If we got married, and you died, I'd have this floor up before
your body got cold.”

“As long as you don't slit my throat while I'm sleeping.” He
looked down at me. “You wouldn't, would you?”

“Not for money.”

A HALF HOUR later, I was fresh out of the shower and I was still
blue. I got dressed in a clean T-shirt and a pair of Morelli's
sweats, and I padded downstairs.

“Help,” I said to Morelli.

“I have some turpentine in the garage,” he said. “Maybe that'll
work.”

He opened his back door to go to the garage, and there were two
people digging in his yard. They looked up and saw Morelli and took
off, leaving their shovels behind.

“Anyone you know?” Morelli asked me.

“Nope.”

My cell phone rang. It was Grandma Mazur, and she was excited.
“I just saw you on television,” she said. “You were on the early
evening news. They were doing a report on the murder in Morelli's
basement and they said it was believed it was tied to that bank
robbery that happened years ago. And then there was this part where
Brenda found a briefcase in the dead man's car and it had
directions about where the money was buried. And some lady said she
was pretty sure Dominic Rizzi gave the money to his Aunt Rose and
Rose hid it somewhere before she died. Just think-Morelli could
have hidden treasure in his backyard!”

I glanced out the kitchen window at the hole the two diggers had
started. “And they said all that on television?”

“Yep. It was a pip of a report.”

I hung up and passed the news on to Morelli.

“There might be money buried in my basement,” Morelli said. “But
I'm pretty sure the only thing anyone is going to find in my yard
has been left there by Bob.”

Morelli jogged across his backyard to his garage and returned
with a small can of turpentine. We dabbed it on my hand and rubbed
and nothing happened.

“I'll call the crime lab and see if they have a suggestion,”
Morelli said.

The doorbell rang and Mooner answered. “It's some dude named
Gary,” Mooner yelled at me. “He says he's a
stalker.”

I went to the door, and Gary tried hard not to notice I was
blue. He looked at his feet, and he looked above my head, and he
cleared his throat.

“It's okay” I said. “I know I'm blue.”

“It caught me by surprise,” he said. “I didn't want to seem
rude.”

“Just so you know, Brenda is blue, too.”

“Is this some art thing?”