18 Explosive Eighteen (15 page)

“I have someone down in the garage securing the scene,” Berger said. “If you parked in the FBI area, we’l have the attack recorded.”

“He came out of nowhere,” I told him. “I was unlocking my car, and he was on me, trying to get me into a van.”

Gooley elbowed his way through the crowd around me. “They have the tape up in the conference room,” he said. “I haven’t had a chance to preview it.” I thanked the paramedic, took my ice packs and towels, and fol owed Gooley and Berger down the hal to the conference room. We sat around the table, and Gooley pul ed the tape up on the flat screen at the end of the room.

“Are you sure you want to watch this?” Berger asked me.

“Absolutely.” Mostly because I couldn’t remember anything. It was a total blur after Razzle said he was going to cut me up and eat me.

The image was grainy black-and-white.

“Not in color?” I asked.

“Budget cuts,” Berger said. “We got discontinued stock from Radio Shack.”

For thirty seconds, there was only the stil image of the parking area. My truck could be seen at the edge of the picture. Final y I appeared and walked across the traffic lane. I approached my truck, pressed the remote, and a man rushed in behind me. He was wearing jeans and a windbreaker. He had a knife that looked like something out of
Arabian Nights
. It had a big curved blade and a thick handle. He grabbed me by my ponytail and yanked me back, pul ing me across the garage to a van. He held the knife to my neck, and got up into my face.

“What is he saying?” Berger asked.

“He said he was going to kil me good. And then he was going to cut me up in little pieces and eat me.”

“Sick,” Gooley said. “I like it.”

The tape continued, and I watched myself try to pul away from Raz, watched Raz hit me in the face with the butt of the knife, snapping my head back.

The three of us sucked in air when I got hit. There was a moment of suspended animation where Raz stepped back and I gathered myself together. What fol owed was pure instinct on my part. I brought my heel down on his instep as hard as I could, catching him by surprise. He bent slightly to look at his foot, and I kicked him in the face.

“Whoa!” Gooley said. “Ow.”

Raz tackled me at knee level, we went down, and it turned into a catfight. He was trying to punch me, and I was scratching and biting. I grabbed his hair and kneed him in the nuts.

“Cripes,” Berger said. “That had to hurt.” I saw myself reach for the knife, wrap my hand around it, and slash at Raz, catching him in the leg, opening a twelve-inch gash in his thigh.

“
Holy shit
,” Berger and Gooley said in unison.

Raz reached for his injured leg, and I scrambled to my feet. He was in a semi-fetal position, trying to protect his nuts and the knife wound, and I kicked him as hard as I could in the kidneys a bunch of times.

Gooley and Berger leaned forward, eyes wide.

“
Fuck,
” Gooley said.

Raz rol ed away, managed to get to his feet, catapulted himself into the van, and slammed the door shut. I was waving the knife and yel ing when he drove away.

“I need to go home and change out of these clothes,” I said. “Is there anything else?”

“I’m good,” Berger said.

“Yeah, me, too,” Gooley said. “I got nothing. I might need some air. I’m lucky I didn’t lose my lunch when you kicked him that last time.”

“I felt threatened,” I said by way of explanation.

• • •

There were no scary cars in my parking lot. No black Town Car, no van, no Scion. I limped into my building and let myself into my apartment. I stood in the kitchen, stripped down naked, stuffed al my clothes into a big plastic garbage bag, and set the bag by the door. The clothes were beyond washing. They were going down the trash chute.

I limped into my bathroom and stood under a hot shower until al the blood was washed away and I stopped sobbing. I had no idea why I was crying. I mean, it wasn’t like I lost the fight, right? I shampooed my hair and lathered up one last time. I got out of the shower, avoided looking at myself in the mirror, and wrapped myself in a towel.

I stepped into my bedroom and came face-to-face with Ranger.

He did a slow, ful -body scan. “Babe.”

“Do
not
tel me I’m a train wreck.”

“Have you seen yourself?”

“No.”

He handed me a fresh ice pack. “You need to keep this on your face. Has a doctor looked at your nose?”

“No. Do you think I should get it X-rayed or something?”

“Can you breathe?” Ranger asked. “Are you in pain?”

“Yes, I can breathe. And it hurts about as much as the rest of me.”

“You have some minor swel ing. Other than that, it looks okay. If things change, you should get it checked out.”

“How did you know I was attacked?”

“We have a friend on the sixth floor.” Ranger wasn’t a man who showed much emotion, but I could swear I detected some steam curling off the roots of his hair. “Are you angry about something?” I asked him.

“Anger isn’t a productive emotion. Let’s just say I’m not happy.”

“Should I ask why?”

“I expect you already know. You’re caught up in the middle of something bad, and you’re not being careful. Get dressed and come out to the dining room. I have a show-and-tel for you.” Oh boy. Ranger didn’t stay to watch me get dressed. He didn’t rip the towel off me. He didn’t get naked. I must real y look bad. I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. EEK! This was worse than I thought. Huge black bruise developing and swel ing under my right eye. Stil smal amount of blood seeping from my nose. Swol en lip with ugly cut and huge bruise. Then there was the rest of me, with assorted bruises and scrapes. Not exactly a sex goddess.

I pul ed on jeans and a T-shirt and half dried my hair. I plastered the ice pack to my face and went out to see Ranger.

“Here’s your Smith and Wesson,” he said. “I took it out of the cookie jar. From what I can see, you haven’t any ammo. I took the stun gun out of your bag. It’s dead. Needs recharging. And it looks to me like you’re out of pepper spray and using hair spray.” I adjusted the ice pack. “Hair spray works surprisingly wel .”

“Don’t push it,” Ranger said. “I’m not in a good place.” He took a gun off the table and handed it to me. “This is a semiautomatic baby Glock. It’s smal er and lighter than the one I carry. It’s ready to go. Do you know how to use it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how to load it?”

“Yes.”

“The only time I want to see the clip empty is immediately after you’ve dumped every round into a warm body.”

“Jeez,” I said.

“Humor me. Next up is the stun gun. This is larger than the one you’re currently carrying. It’l drop a 1,500-pound cow. If you don’t keep it charged, it won’t drop anything.”

I nodded. “Yes sir.”

“Is that snark?” he asked.

“It might be.”

Ranger almost smiled.

“The truth is, I’m kind of proud of the way I’ve defended myself so far. I’m stil alive, and I only cried once. And as bad as I look, I’m in a lot better shape than the other guy.”

“You work wel with panic and rage,” Ranger said.

I looked down at the table. “What’s with the watch?”

“It works as a watch, but it’s also a tracking system. As long as it’s on your wrist, I can find you.

There are three little buttons on the side. If you push the red button, we come get you.”

“What’s the blue button?”

“It sets the time.”

Duh.

I removed the watch I was wearing and strapped the new watch to my wrist. “It should have diamonds,” I said to Ranger.

“Maybe if you’re a very good girl.”

“How good would I have to be?” I asked him.

“You have a black eye, a cut lip, a broken nose, and you’re flirting with me?”

“That’s not the worst of it,” I told him. “I’ve decided I’m off men.”

“Al things considered, that’s not a bad plan,” Ranger said. “I have to go. Cal if you need help, or anything else.”

“Now
you’re
flirting,” I told him.

“That wasn’t flirting,” Ranger said. “That was an open invitation.”

I locked the door when he left. I slid the chain into place and flipped the dead bolt. None of those locks ever prevented Ranger from entering, and I’d long ago stopped wondering how he did it.

• • •

I made myself a sandwich and took it to the dining room table. Chewing was painful, but I managed to get the whole thing down. I pul ed up a search program on my computer and started working my way through Brenda’s husbands.

Brenda married Herbert Luckert right out of high school. The marriage lasted ten years and ended in divorce. A year later, she married Harry Zimmer.

That marriage lasted seven months and ended in divorce. She was unmarried for nine years after that, eventual y marrying Bernard Schwartz. The Schwartz marriage ended after three years when Schwartz emptied his medicine chest into the blender along with half a pint of vodka and drank himself into a blissful final slumber.

When Brenda married Schwartz, he owned thirty-five car washes spread throughout the state. When he kil ed himself, he owned four, and they were in foreclosure. He’d lost his house a couple months before. I had no idea if or how this related to the photograph, but it seemed like something to file away.

I got out of the search program and checked my email. Mostly spam. I gingerly touched my lip and my nose. Tender. I went to the bathroom and took another look. Not good, but at least I didn’t have a foot-long, inch-deep gash in my thigh. I hoped Razzle Dazzle was in a lot of pain. And I real y wouldn’t mind if the cut got infected and his leg fel off.

My cel phone rang, and I was hoping for Joyce so I could tel her I had the key, but it was my parents’

number that came up on the display.

“The Korda viewing is at seven o’clock tonight,” Grandma said. “I figure you want to go and snoop around, and I was hoping I could have a ride.”

“Sure.”

“Are you coming for dinner? Your mother’s making chicken and rice.”

My mother would have a coronary incident if she saw my face. “I’m going to skip dinner,” I said.

“Okay, but make sure you’re not late. There’s gonna be a crowd tonight, and I don’t want to get muscled to the back of the room. Al the action’s gonna be up by the casket.”

I said good-bye to Grandma, and I went to get ice.

Lots of ice, I thought. The more the better.

By six-thirty, it was clear there was only so much improvement I could expect from ice. I got dressed in a black pencil skirt, black heels, a cream sweater with a low scoop neck and matching cardigan. I wore my hair down and fluffed out, hoping it would distract from my monster bruise and cut lip. I smeared on a lot of concealer, tried to balance out the black eye with extra blush, and I was wearing my push-up bra for maximum cleavage. I took one last look in the mirror and thought this was as good as it was going to get.

I dropped my new Glock into my purse, along with the stun gun on steroids. I was wearing the GPS

watch, pearl earrings, a Band-Aid where the knife had knicked my neck, and a huge Band-Aid on my skinned knee. I was the Al -American Girl.

FIFTEEN

GRANDMA WAS AT THE DOOR, waiting for me. I pul ed to the curb, and she hustled over to the truck.

She was wearing chunky black heels, a lavender suit with a white blouse, and she was carrying the black leather purse that I knew was big enough to hold her

.45 long barrel.

She hoisted herself up and into the truck, buckled her seat belt, and looked over at me.

“Don’t you look pretty,” Grandma said. “That’s such a nice sweater set.”

No comment on my face or the various Band-Aids.

“Anything else?” I asked her.

“I like your hair down like that. I hardly ever see it down anymore.” Grandma looked at her watch. “We gotta get a move on.”

“What about my face?”

“What about it?”

“For starters, I have a black eye.”

“Yeah, it’s a pip,” Grandma said, “but I’ve seen you with worse. Remember that explosion that burned your eyebrows off?”

Good lord, this is what it’s come to, I thought. My own grandmother isn’t shocked to see me with a black eye. I might as wel admit it. I’m a train wreck.

“Is there a good story that goes with the shiner?” Grandma asked.

“I slipped in a parking garage.”

“Too bad,” Grandma said. “I could use something juicy for conversational material. Do you mind if I make something up?”

“Yes, I mind!”

I drove the short distance to the funeral home, off-loaded Grandma at the entrance, and trol ed for a parking place. The smal funeral home lot was ful , but I found parking on the street a block away.

Grandma had been right about the viewing. The building was packed. At three minutes after seven, the people were already spil ing out the door onto the large wraparound front porch.

I kept my head down as I inched my way through the crowd, hoping not to attract attention. I was in the lobby, about to enter Slumber Room #1, and I got a cal on my cel phone.

“I knew you would go to the viewing,” Joyce said.

“Where are you?”

“I’m outside. And don’t come out looking for me.

You’l never find me. I’m dying to come in and check it al out, but it’s too risky.”

“Yeah, I’d capture you.”

“You’re the least of my worries,” Joyce said. “Did you get the key?”

“Yes. Now what?”

“Hang on to it. Did you get up to the casket yet?

Did you see the grieving widow?”

“No. It took me twenty minutes to cross the lobby.

It’s jammed in here.”

“I want a report on the widow,” Joyce said. “I want to know what jewelry she’s wearing. It’s a closed casket, right?”

“I don’t know for sure, but the guy was compacted and aged for a couple days. I’m guessing he’s not real attractive at this point.”

“He wasn’t real attractive before. How about the people there? Anyone stand out?”

“In what way?”

“Remember David Niven in the
Pink Panther
movies?”

I looked around. I didn’t see David Niven. “No David Nivens here,” I told her.

I hung up with Joyce, and I bumped into Morel i.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him. “Is this official business or did you come for the cookies?”

“Official business. The captain wanted police presence, and I’m supposed to be looking for Joyce.”

“Do you think you’l find her?”

“Not here. She’d be crazy to show up here.

Although it’s hard to assess the extent of Joyce’s craziness.”

“My exact thoughts.”

Morel i was wearing his show-no-emotion cop face. “Berger let me see the tape.”

“And?” I asked.

“And I’m glad I tangled with Ranger and not you.

You’re an animal. You kicked the crap out of that poor bastard.”

“I felt threatened.”

“No doubt.” His gaze traveled from my face to my enhanced cleavage, and his expression softened. “I like this sweater.”

Now this is the Morel i I know and love. “Does this sweater fixation mean things are returning to normal?”

“No, this means I’m trying not to focus on your face. You look worse than I do, and I have a broken nose.” He very gently touched a fingertip to my nose and the corner of my mouth. “Does it hurt?”

“Not a lot, but you could kiss it and make it better.” He brushed a whisper of a kiss across my nose and my mouth. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

“You like me?” I asked him.

“No, but I’m working on it.”

I guess I could live with that. “I was attacked by Razzle Dazzle. Did you recognize him on the tape?” Morel i shook his head. “No. But Berger seemed to know him.”

“I talked to Brenda earlier today. Not much came of it. I stil have no idea why everyone’s interested in the photograph.”

“Berger’s briefed me on the major players, and he cal ed me in to see the tape, but he isn’t talking beyond that. I don’t think he knows the whole story.

Someone above him wants that photograph. This isn’t trivial.”

“Why is Berger playing nice with you?”

“You’re the only one who’s seen the photograph, and I’m a connection to you.”

“But I don’t have the photograph, and I don’t know anything. I described Tom Cruise and Ashton Kutcher to the FBI sketch artists.”

Morel i did a palms up. “No one believes you.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. You have nothing to gain by lying. And you look real y sexy tonight from your neck down.”

“I thought you didn’t like me.”

“Cupcake, that sweater transcends
like
or
not
like
.”

I punched him in the chest. “I’m going to find Grandma.”

Grandma had scored a folding chair in the third row and had saved the one next to her for me.

“This here’s a real disappointing viewing,” Grandma said. “I expected better, what with Frank Korda being packed off to the junkyard. I don’t think there’s even a reporter for the paper. And so far I haven’t seen any kil ers pass by. Only Connie’s Uncle Gino, and he’s pretty much retired. He’s just here for the refreshments. I was hoping to see Joyce Barnhardt. Now, that would be something.” Grandma stared at the casket for a long moment. “Do you think they got him dressed up in there?” she asked. “What kind of tie do you suppose he’s wearing? I bet it’s hard to dress someone after they’ve been compacted. He probably looks like a waffle.” She sighed with longing. “I sure would like to take a look.” I didn’t want to look. Not even a little. Like Morel i, I’d come here on the odd chance Barnhardt would show. Now that I’d made contact with her, I was anxious to leave.

“How long do you want to stay?” I asked Grandma.

“Are you ready to go?”

“Maybe another ten minutes,” Grandma said. “I’m waiting to see if the widow Korda’s gonna cry.” I thought chances of that were zero to nothing. The widow Korda was tight-lipped and dry-eyed, looking like she’d rather be home watching
Cheers
reruns. It was hard to see jewelry details from the third row, but it looked to me like she was wearing smal gold hoop earrings and a simple gold necklace.

“I’m going to wander around,” I told Grandma. “I’l meet you by the refreshments.”

I reached the table with cookies and coffee set out just as my mom cal ed me.

“What happened to you? Are you al right?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. Eighteen people have cal ed me so far asking if you were in a car crash. I’ve been cal ing you for a half hour and you haven’t been answering.”

“I couldn’t hear the phone ringing when I was in the viewing room. Too much noise.”

“Myra Kruger said you had a black eye. And Cindy Beryl said you had a broken knee. How can you drive with a broken knee?”

“I don’t have a broken knee. I have a scrape on my knee, and a bruise under my eye. I slipped in a parking garage and banged my face into a parked car. It’s not serious.”

“Did you get shot?”

“No!”

I disconnected and stared at the tray of cookies.

Nothing soft enough for me to eat with a split lip. I looked around the room and wondered who else had ratted me out to my mother. My phone rang again.

Joyce.

“Wel ?” Joyce asked. “What was she wearing?”

“Smal gold hoops and a gold necklace. It didn’t look especial y expensive, but what do I know.”

“Were there diamonds in the hoops or the necklace?”

“No.”

“Interesting,” Joyce said. And she hung up.

It was close to nine o’clock when Grandma found her way to the cookie table. She ate three cookies, wrapped four more in a napkin, put them in her purse, and she was ready to head for home.

“It got better after you left,” she said. “Melvin Shupe came through the line and cut the cheese right when he got up to the casket. He said he was sorry, but the widow made a big fuss over it. And then the funeral director came with air freshener, and when he sprayed it around, Louisa Belman got a asthma attack and they had to cart her out the back door to get some air. Earl Krizinski was sitting behind me, and he said he saw Louisa’s underpants when they picked her up, and he said he got a stiffy.”