High Five (13 page)

Juniak was passing through. "You're lucky," he said to Briggs. "Usually she blows people up."

Briggs didn't look like he thought that was funny. "I've been framed," he said.

I got my body receipt for Briggs, and then I went upstairs to Crimes Against Persons and gave my report on the Sloane Street shooting. I called Vinnie and told him I brought Randy Briggs in, so America could rest easier tonight. Then I drove over to RGC with Bunchy close on my bumper.

It was a little after three when I got to Water Street. Clouds had rolled in late in the day, thick and low, the color and consistency of lard. I could feel them pressing on the roof of the Buick, slowing my progress, dulling down the firing of brainy synapses. I cruised on autopilot, my thoughts sliding from Uncle Fred to Joe Morelli to Charlie Chan. Life was good for Charlie Chan. He knew freaking everything.

Two blocks from RGC I snapped out of the stupor, realizing there was something going on in the street ahead. There were cops in front of RGC. Lots of them. The medical examiner's truck was there, too, and this was not a good sign. I parked half a block from RGC and walked the rest of the way, Bunchy trailing after me like a faithful dog. I looked for a familiar face in the crowd. No luck. A small knot of uniformed RGC employees huddled on the fringe. Probably had just come in with the trucks.

"What's going on?" I asked one of the men.

"Somebody got shot."

"Do you know who?"

"Lipinski."

The shock must have shown on my face, because the man said, "Did you know him?"

I shook my head. "No. I was just coming to settle my aunt's bill. How did it happen?"

"Suicide. I was the one who found him," another of the men said. "I brought my truck in early, and I went inside to get my paycheck. And there he was with his brains blown out. He must have put the gun in his mouth. Christ, there was blood and brains all over the place. I wouldn't have thought Lipinski had that much brains."

"Are you sure it was suicide?"

"There was a note, and I read it. Lipinski said he was the one who offed Martha Deeter. Said they'd had a fight over an account, and he shot her. And then he tried to make it look like she was robbed. Said he couldn't live with what he'd done, so he was checkin' out."

Oh boy.

"That's horseshit," Bunchy said. "That smells like a load of horseshit."

I hung around for a while longer. The forensic photographer left. And most of the police left. The RGC men left one by one. And then I left, too, with Bunchy in tow. He'd gotten quiet after his horseshit pronouncement. And very serious.

"Two RGC employees are dead," I said to him. "Why?"

We locked eyes for a moment, and he shook his head and walked away.

I TOOK A fast shower, dried my hair, and dressed in a short denim skirt and red T-shirt. I took a look at my hair and decided it needed some help, so I did the hot roller thing. My hair still didn't look wonderful after the rollers, so I lined my eyes and added extra mascara. Stephanie Plum, master of diversion. If your hair is bad, shorten your skirt and add extra mascara.

Before I left the apartment, I took a minute to go through the Yellow Pages and find a new garbage company for Mabel.

Bunchy was in the lobby when I came down. He was leaning against the wall, and he was still looking serious. Or maybe he just looked tired.

"You look nice," he said to me. "Real nice, but you wear too much makeup."

GRANDMA WAS AT the door when I arrived. "Did you hear about the garbage guy? Blew his brains out. Lavern Stankowski called and said her son, Joey, was working the EMS truck. And he said he never saw anything like it. Said there was brains all over the place. Said the whole back half of the guy's head was stuck to the wall in the garbage office."

Grandma slid her uppers around some. "Lavern said the deceased was being laid out at Stiva's. Imagine the job Stiva's going to have with that one. Probably use up two pounds of putty to fill all the holes. Remember Rita Gunt?"

Rita Gunt was ninety-two when she died. She'd lost a lot of weight in the later years of her life, and her family had asked Stiva to give her a more robust look for her last public appearance. I guess Stiva had done the best he could with what he had to work with, but Rita had gone into the ground looking like Mrs. Potato Head.

"If somebody was going to kill me I wouldn't want it to be with a bullet to the head," Grandma said.

My father was in the living room in his favorite chair. And from the corner of my eye I saw him peek around the edge of his newspaper.

"I want to get poisoned," Grandma said. "That way my hair wouldn't get messed."

"Hmm," my father said thoughtfully.

My mother came out from the kitchen. She smelled like roast lamb and red cabbage, and her face glowed from stove steam. "Any word about Fred?"

"Nothing new," I said.

"I think there's something funny going on with these garbage people," Grandma said. "Somebody's killing the garbage people, and I bet they killed Fred, too."

"Larry Lipinski left a suicide note," I told her.

"It could have been forged," Grandma said. "It could have been a fake to throw everybody off guard."

"I thought it was aliens that took Fred," my father said from behind his paper.

"That would account for a lot of things," Grandma said. "Nothing to say aliens didn't off the garbage people, too."

My mother shot my father a warning glance and went back to the kitchen. "Everyone come to the table before the lamb gets cold," she said. "And I don't want to hear any more talk about aliens and killing."

"It's the change," Grandma whispered to me. "Your mother's been snarfy ever since she started the change."

"I heard that," my mother said. "And I'm
not
snarfy."

"I keep telling her she should take them hormone pills," Grandma said. "I've been thinking about taking them myself. Mary Jo Klick started taking them, and she said there were parts to her that had got all shriveled, and after a week on them hormones she was all plumped up again." Grandma looked down at herself. "I wouldn't mind getting plumped up in some of them parts."

We all went to the table and took our places. Grace was said at Christmas and Easter. Since this wasn't either of those, my father shoveled food onto his plate and dug in, head down, concentrating on the task at hand.

"What do you think happened to Uncle Fred?" I asked, catching his attention between forkfuls of lamb and potato.

He looked up surprised. No one ever asked his opinion. "Mob," he said. "When someone disappears without a trace, it's the mob. They've got ways."

"Why would the mob want to kill Uncle Fred?"

"I don't know," my father said. "All I know is it sounds like the mob."

"We better hurry," Grandma said. "I don't want to be late for the viewing. I want to get a good seat right up front, and there'll probably be a crowd, being that the deceased was shot. You know how some people are nosy about that sort of thing."

There was silence at the table, no one daring to make a comment.

"Well, I guess I might be a little nosy," Grandma finally said.

When we were done I put some lamb and potatoes and vegetables in a disposable aluminum pie plate.

"What's that for?" Grandma wanted to know.

I added a plastic knife and fork. "Stray dog down by the Kerner's."

"He eat with a knife and fork?"

"Don't ask," I said.

STIVA'S FUNERAL HOME was in a big white house on Hamilton. There'd been a fire in the basement, and much of the house was newly rebuilt and refurnished. New green indoor-outdoor carpet on the front porch. New ivory medallion wallpaper throughout. New industrial-strength blue-green carpeting in the lobby and viewing rooms.

I parked the Blue Bomb in the lot and helped Grandma wobble inside on the black patent-leather pumps she always wore to evening viewings.

Constantine Stiva was in the middle of the lobby, directing traffic. Mrs. Balog in slumber room three. Stanley Krienski in slumber room two. And Martha Deeter, who was clearly going to be the big draw, was laid out in room one.

Not long ago I'd had a run-in with Constantine's son, Spiro. The result had been the aforementioned fire and the mysterious disappearance of Spiro. Fortunately, Con was the consummate undertaker, his demeanor always controlled, his smile sympathetic, his voice as smooth as vanilla custard. There was never any ugly mention of the unfortunate incident. After all, I was a potential customer. And with my line of work it might be sooner rather than later. Not to mention Grandma Mazur.

"And who are you visiting tonight?" he asked. "Ah yes, Ms. Deeter is resting in room one."

Resting. Unh.

"Let's get a move on," Grandma said, taking me by the hand and pulling me forward. "Looks like there's already a crowd collecting."

I scanned the faces. Some regulars like Myra Smulinski and Harriet Farver. Some other people who probably worked for RGC and most likely wanted to make sure Martha was really dead. A knot of people dressed in black, staying close to the casket—family members. I didn't see any representatives from Big Business. I was pretty sure my father was wrong about the mob doing in Uncle Fred and the garbage people. Still, it didn't hurt to keep my eyes open. I also didn't see any aliens.

"Will you look at this," Grandma said. "Closed casket. Isn't this a fine howdy-do. I get dressed up and come out to pay my respects, and I don't even get to see anything."

Martha Deeter was shot and autopsied. They'd taken her brain out to get weighed. After she was put back together she probably looked like Frankenstein. I was personally relieved to see a closed casket.

"I'm going to check out the flowers," Grandma said. "See who sent what."

I did another crowd scan and spotted Terry Gilman,
Hello!
Maybe my father was right. It was rumored that Terry Gilman worked for her uncle Vito Grizolli. Vito was a family man who ran a dry cleaning business that laundered a lot more than dirty clothes. What I heard from Connie, who was connected in a nonparticipating sort of way, was that Terry had started out in collections and was moving up the corporate ladder.

"Terry Gilman?" I said with more statement than question, extending my hand.

Terry was slim and blond and had dated Morelli all through high school. None of which endeared her to me. She was wearing an expensive gray silk suit and matching heels. Her manicure was to die for, and the gun she carried in a slim-line shoulder holster was discreetly hidden by the line of her jacket. Only someone who had worn a similar rig would notice Terry's.

"Stephanie Plum," Terry said, "nice to see you again. Were you friends with Martha?"

"No. I'm here with my grandma. She likes to come to scope out the caskets. How about you? Were you friends with Martha?"

"Business associates," Terry said.

That hung in the air for a moment.

"I hear you're working for your uncle Vito."

"Customer relations," Terry said.

Another silence.

I rocked back on my heels. "Funny how Martha and Larry died from gunshots one day apart."

"Tragic."

I lowered my voice and leaned a little closer. "That wasn't your job, was it? I mean, you weren't the one to, uh—"

"Whack them?" Terry said. "No. Sorry to disappoint you. It wasn't me. Anything else you want to know?"

"Well, yeah, actually my uncle Fred is missing."

"I didn't whack him either," Terry said.

"I didn't think so," I said, "but it never hurts to ask."

Terry glanced at her watch. "I've got to give my respects, and then I'm out of here. I have two more viewings tonight. One at Moser and one across town."

"Boy, sounds like Vito's business is booming."

Terry shrugged. "People die."

Uh-huh.

Her eyes focused on something beyond my shoulder, and her interest shifted. "Well, well," she said, "look who's here."

I turned to see who put the purr in Terry's voice and wasn't all that surprised. It was Morelli.

He draped a proprietary arm around my shoulders and smiled at Terry. "How's it going?"

"Can't complain," Terry said.

Morelli cut his eyes to the casket at the end of the room. "You know Martha?"

"Sure," Terry said. "We go way back."

Morelli smiled some more.

"I think I'll go find Grandma," I said.

Morelli tightened his hold on me. "Not yet. I need to talk to you." He nodded at Terry. "Will you excuse us?"

"I need to be moving on anyway," Terry said. She sent Joe a smoochy air kiss and went off in search of the Deeters.

Joe dragged me out to the lobby.

"That was
very
friendly back there," I said, trying hard not to narrow my eyes and grind my teeth.

"We have a lot in common," Morelli said. "We both work in vice."

"Hmm."

"You know, you're kind of cute when you're jealous."