Plum Boxed Set 1, Books 1-3 Stephanie Plum Novels) (40 page)

“I like soup,” Morelli said.

“No. No soup,” I told him.

Grandma Mazur appeared at the door. “What are you doing with him?” she asked. “I thought you said he wasn’t your type.”

“He followed me home.”

“If I’d known I’d have put on some lipstick.”

“He’s not coming in.”

“Of course he’s coming in,” my mother said. “I have plenty of soup. What would people think if he didn’t come in?”

“Yeah,” Morelli said to me. “What would people think?”

My father was in the kitchen putting a new washer in the kitchen faucet. He looked relieved to see Morelli standing in the hallway. He’d probably prefer I bring home someone useful, like a butcher or a car mechanic, but I guess cops are a step up from undertakers.

“Sit at the table,” my mother said. “Have some bread with cheese. Have some cold cuts. I got the cold cuts at Giovichinni’s. He’s always got the best cold cuts.”

While everyone was ladling out soup and scarfing up cold cuts I pulled the paper with the casket photo out of my pocketbook. The detail in the photo wasn’t especially good, but the hardware looked similar to what I’d seen at the fire site.

“What’s that?” Grandma Mazur wanted to know. “Looks like a picture of a casket.” She took a closer look. “You aren’t thinking of buying that for me, are you? I want one with some carving. I don’t want one of them military caskets.”

Morelli’s head came up. “Military?”

“Only place they got caskets this ugly is the military. I saw on TV about how they got all these caskets left over from Desert Storm. Not enough Americans died over there and now they have acres of caskets to get rid of, so the army’s been auctioning them off. They’re—what do you call it—surplus.”

Morelli and I looked at each other. Duh.

Morelli put his napkin on the table and slid his chair back. “I need to make a phone call,” he said to my mother. “Is it okay if I use your phone?”

It seemed pretty far-fetched to think Kenny had smuggled the guns and ammo off the base in caskets. Still, crazier things have been known to happen. And it would explain Spiro’s casket anxiety.

“How’d it go?” I asked when Morelli returned to the table.

“Marie’s checking for me.”

Grandma Mazur paused with a spoonful of soup halfway to her mouth. “Is this police business? Are we working on a case?”

“Trying to get a dental appointment,” Morelli said. “I’ve got a loose filling.”

“You need teeth like mine,” Grandma told him. “I can mail them to the dentist.”

I was having second thoughts about dragging Grandma off to Stiva’s. I figured she could hold her own with a disgusting undertaker. I didn’t want her involved with a dangerous one.

I finished my soup and bread and helped myself to a handful of cookies from the cookie jar, glancing at Morelli, wondering at his lean body. He’d eaten two bowls of soup, half a loaf of bread slathered in butter, and seven cookies. I’d counted.

He saw me staring and raised his eyebrows in silent question.

“I suppose you work out,” I said, more statement than question.

“I run when I can. Do some weights.” He grinned. “Morelli men have good metabolism.”

Life was a bitch.

Morelli’s beeper went off, and he returned the call from the kitchen phone. When he came back to the table he looked like the cat that swallowed the canary. “My dentist,” he said. “Good news.”

I stacked all the soup bowls and plates and hustled them into the kitchen. “Got to go,” I said to my mother. “Got work to do.”

“Work,” my mother said. “Hah! Some work.”

“It was wonderful,” Morelli said to my mother. “The soup was terrific.”

“You should come again,” she told him. “We’re having pot roast tomorrow. Stephanie, why don’t you bring him back tomorrow?”

“No.”

“That’s not polite,” my mother said. “How is that to treat a boyfriend?”

When my mother was willing to accept a Morelli as a boyfriend, this only went to show how desperate my mother was to get me married, or at least for me to have a social life. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

My mother gave me a bag of cookies. “I’ll make cream puffs tomorrow. I haven’t made cream puffs in a long time.”

When we got outside I stood straight and tall and looked Morelli square in the eye. “You are not coming to dinner.”

“Sure,” Morelli said.

“What about the phone call?”

“Braddock had a shitload of surplus caskets. The DRMO conducted a sale six months ago. That was two months before Kenny was discharged. Stiva’s Mortuary bought twenty-four. The caskets were stored in the same general area as the munitions, but we’re talking about a lot of ground. A couple warehouses and an acre or two of open yard, all behind fence.”

“Of course the fence was no problem for Kenny, because he worked in the compound.”

“Yep. And when bids were accepted the caskets were marked for pickup. So Kenny knew which caskets were assigned to Spiro.” Morelli snitched a cookie from my bag. “My uncle Vito would have been proud.”

“Vito stole a few caskets in his day?”

“Mostly Vito filled caskets. Hijacking was a sideline.”

“So you think it’s possible Kenny used the caskets to smuggle the guns off the base?”

“Seems risky and unnecessarily melodramatic, but yeah, I think it’s possible.”

“Okay, so Spiro, Kenny, and probably Moogey maybe stole all this stuff from Braddock, and stored it at R and J. Then all of a sudden the stuff is missing. Someone pulled a double cross, and we know it wasn’t Spiro because Spiro hired me to find the caskets.”

“Doesn’t seem like it was Kenny either,” Morelli said. “When he said Spiro had something that belonged to him, my guess is he was talking about the stolen guns.”

“So who does that leave? Moogey?”

“Dead men don’t set up late-night sales meetings with the Long brothers.”

I didn’t want to run over the jagged remnants of Morelli’s taillight, so I picked the major pieces out of the gutter, and for lack of something better to do with them, handed the chunks of plastic to Morelli. “Probably you’re insured for this,” I said.

Morelli looked pained.

“Are you still following me?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Then watch out for my tires when I go into Stiva’s.”

Stiva’s little side lot was totally filled with the matinee crowd, forcing me to park on the street. I got out of the Buick and tried to be cool about looking for Morelli. I couldn’t find him, but I knew he was close because my stomach felt hot and squishy.

Spiro was in the lobby doing his best impersonation of God directing traffic.

“How’s it going?” I said.

“Busy. Joe Loosey came in last night. Aneurysm. And Stan Radiewski is here. He was an Elk. The Elks always get a big turnout.”

“I have some good news and some bad news,” I said. “The good news is … I think I found your caskets.”

“And the bad news?”

I took the blackened clasp out of my pocket. “The bad news is … this is all that’s left.”

Spiro looked at the clasp. “I don’t get it.”

“Someone barbecued a bunch of caskets last night. Had them all stacked up in one of the loading bays at the pipe factory, soaked the caskets in gasoline, and lit a fuse. They were pretty badly burned, but there was enough of one to identify as a casket in a crate.”

“And you saw this? What else got burned? Was there anything else?”

Like a few LAWs? “From what I could see there were just caskets. You might want to check for yourself.”

“Christ,” Spiro said. “I can’t go now. Who’s gonna babysit all these fucking Elks?”

“Louie?”

“Jesus. Not Louie. It’s going to have to be you.”

“Oh no. Not me.”

“All you have to do is make sure there’s hot tea and say a lot of crapola like … the Lord moves in mysterious ways. I’ll only be gone a half-hour.” He dug his keys out of his pocket. “Who was there when you got to the pipe factory?”

“The fire marshal, a uniform, some guy I didn’t know, Joe Morelli, a bunch of firemen packing up.”

“They say anything worth remembering?”

“Nope.”

“You tell them the caskets belonged to me?”

“No. And I’m not staying. I want my finder’s fee, and then I’m out of here.”

“I’m not handing over any money until I see this for myself. For all I know they could be someone else’s caskets. Or maybe you’re making all this up.”

“Half-hour,” I yelled to his back. “That’s all you get!”

I checked the tea table. Nothing to do there. Lots of hot water and cookies set out. I sat down in a side chair and contemplated some nearby cut flowers. The Elks were all in the new addition with Radiewski, and the lobby was uncomfortably quiet. No magazines to read. No television. Music to die by softly filtered over the sound system.

After what seemed like four days, Eddie Ragucci ambled in. Eddie was a CPA and a big magoo in the Elks.

“Where’s the weasel?” Eddie asked.

“Had to go out. He said he wouldn’t be long.”

“It’s too hot in Stan’s room. The thermostat must be broken. We can’t get it to cut off. Stan’s makeup is starting to run. Things like this never happened when Con was here. It’s a damn shame Stan had to go when Con was in the hospital. Talk about the lousy breaks.”

“The Lord moves in mysterious ways.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“I’ll see if I can find Spiro’s assistant.”

I pushed a few buttons on the intercom, yelling Louie’s name into the thing, telling him to come to the lobby.

Louie appeared just as I got to the last button. “I was in the workrooms,” he said.

“Anybody else in there?”

“Mr. Loosey.”

“I mean, are there any other employees? Like Clara from the beauty parlor?”

“No. Just me.”

I told him about the thermostat and sent him to take a look.

Five minutes later he trundled back. “The little thing was bent,” he said. “It happens all the time. People lean on it, and the little thing gets bent.”

“You like working in a funeral home?”

“I used to work in a nursing home. This is a lot easier on account of you can just hose people down here. And once you get them on the table they don’t move around.”

“Did you know Moogey Bues?”

“Not until after he was shot. Took about a pound of putty to fill in his head.”

“How about Kenny Mancuso?”

“Spiro said it was Kenny Mancuso that shot Moogey Bues.”

“You know what Kenny looks like? He ever come around here?”

“I know what he looks like, but I haven’t seen him in a while. I hear people say how you’re a bounty hunter, and that you’re looking for Kenny.”

“He failed to appear in court.”

“If I see him I’ll tell you.”

I gave him a card. “Here are some numbers where I can be reached.”

The back door banged open and was slammed closed. A moment later Spiro stalked into the room. His black dress shoes and the cuffs of his slacks were powdered with ash. His cheeks were an unhealthy red, and his little rodent eyes were dilated black.

“Well?” I asked.

His eyes fixed over my shoulder. I turned and saw Morelli cross the lobby.

“You looking for someone?” Spiro said to Morelli. “Radiewski’s in the addition.”

Morelli flashed his badge.

“I know who you are,” Spiro said. “There a problem here? I leave for a half-hour, and I come back to a problem.”

“Not a problem,” Morelli told him. “Just trying to find the owner of some caskets that burned.”

“You found him. And I didn’t set the fire. The caskets were stolen from me.”

“Did you report the theft to the police?”

“I didn’t want the publicity. I hired Ms. Marvel here to find the damn things.”

“The one casket that was left looked a little plain for a burg casket,” Morelli said.

“I got them on sale from the army. Surplus. I was thinking maybe I’d franchise out into other neighborhoods. Maybe take them down to Philly. Lot of poor people in Philly.”

“I’m curious about this army surplus stuff,” Morelli said. “How does this work?”

“You submit a bid to the DRMO. If the bid gets picked up, you’ve got a week to haul your shit off the base.”

“Which base are we talking about?”

“Braddock.”

Morelli was a study of calm. “Wasn’t Kenny Mancuso stationed at Braddock?”

“Yeah. A lot of people are stationed at Braddock.”

“Okay,” Morelli said, “so they accept your bid. How do you get the caskets back here?”

“Me and Moogey went down with a U-Haul.”

“One last question,” Morelli said. “You have any idea why someone would steal your caskets and then set a match to them?”

“Yeah. They were stolen by a nut. I’ve got things to do,” Spiro said. “You’re done here, right?”

“For now.”

They locked eyes, a muscle worked in Spiro’s jaw, and he wheeled off to his office.

“See you back at the ranch,” Morelli said to me, and he was off, too.

The door to Spiro’s office was closed. I knocked and waited. No answer. I knocked louder. “Spiro,” I yelled, “I know you’re in there!”

Spiro ripped the door open. “Now what?”

“My money.”

“Christ, I have more things to think about than your chickenshit money.”

“Like what?”

“Like crazy Kenny Mancuso setting fire to my goddamn caskets.”

“How do you know it was Kenny?”

“Who else could it be? He’s looney tunes, and he’s threatening me.”

“You should have told Morelli.”

“Yeah, right. That’s all I need. Like I haven’t got enough problems, I should have the cops looking up my butt.”

“I’ve noticed you’re not fond of cops.”

“Cops suck.”

I felt breath on the back of my neck and turned to find Louie Moon standing almost on top of me.

“Excuse me,” he said, “I’ve got to talk to Spiro.”

“Talk,” Spiro said.

“It’s about Mr. Loosey. There’s been an accident.”

Spiro didn’t say a word, but his eyes bore like drill bits into Louie’s forehead.

“I had Mr. Loosey on the table,” Louie said, “and I was gonna get him dressed, and then I had to go fix the thermostat, and when I got back to Mr. Loosey I noticed he was missing his … um, private part. I don’t know how this could happen. One minute it was there, and then the next minute it was gone.”