This takes place after Fearless Fourteen.
CHAPTER 4
I raced back out of the house and onto the lawn, gasping for fresh air. Well, as fresh air as we can get in Jersey. I staggered to the front to my car and opened my phone. I dialed 911 and waited for the police to show up. I didn't bother calling Morelli. He'd be about ten seconds behind the ambulance, probably. That was his usual spot.
I sighed. "Usual spot." I had a life where my boyfriend had a usual spot behind the ambulance.
"Why me?" I muttered aloud.
I could hear the sirens in the distance getting closer. The first blue and white pulled up. My friend Carl Costanza and his partner Big Dog got out of their car.
"Morning, Bombshell. You've found another one, huh? It's been weeks! We had a pool going. I think I may have won." With that he started pulling out the crime scene tape and marking off the area. Other police were arriving, along with the ambulance, and as predicted, Morelli.
He walked over to me before he went around back. "I thought you were going to look for a friend's niece. Is this her?" I shook my head. I didn't think so. I told him, "The house belongs to Emily Tully. She's a friend of the niece and she didn't show up for work this morning. I came around to talk to her and instead..." I let the sentence trail off. We both knew what would happen from here. Morelli would do his cop thing, and I would do my answering question thing, then we'd meet back up together later. I had a life where we had a pattern for when I found a dead body. I sighed again.
"You still think they just went away for the weekend, Cupcake?" Morelli watched me for a moment, then started toward the back of the house. Carl came over to ask the usual questions. I answered him for about a half hour when we both looked up to watch the ME bring the body up.
"Is it Emily?" I asked Carl. He nodded. "The neighbor came over and identified the body. How, I don't know. She doesn't look so good. It's been a couple of days they think. She's wearing her Cluck in a Bucket uniform still."
I sighed. Emily Tully was dead. Elizabeth was missing. Suddenly it felt very important that I speak with Lizzie Spegrula. A cold lump had formed in my stomach. Fear. Sometimes fear could be a good thing, but sometimes it just got in the way of thinking clearly. Today seemed to be the second kind.
Carl watched me, looking at the emotions and concerns going across my face. "Anything else you'd like to tell me?" he asked me.
I shook my head. "I didn't even know her. I just wanted to talk to her, that's all. She's not wanted for anything, she's not an FTA of mine." I stopped there before I broke my vow to Sandra. None of it was untrue, but I certainly wasn't telling Carl everything.
"Ok, Bombshell. You can go. We'll get in touch with you if we need to."
I knew Morelli was going to be busy for another couple of hours at the crime scene, and I didn't want him telling me that suddenly my day has turned into a big deal, so I got into my Acclaim and left.
An hour later I was back at my apartment, freshly showered and made up. Finding a dead body was always a good reason for a long hot shower and three layers of mascara.
I moved into my living room and called Sandra Rizzo. She answered on the second ring. I could hear Paige in the background.
"Sandra, I was just checking in. Have you heard from Elizabeth at all?"
"No, my dear, we haven't. Though there was a letter this morning left on the doorstep. I found it when Paige and I came back from the market. I don't know if it's related to Elizabeth at all. It simply says, 'I want what is mine.' What does this mean, dear? We've lived here quietly for many years. We've never had anything stolen, and we've certainly never taken anything from someone else. We live quiet lives. Suddenly Elizabeth stops writing and there's a note on the doorstep." There was a pause while Sandra collected herself. It sounded like she was getting close to tears. Burg women don't cry. They iron, they wash windows, they bake. But they don't cry. When she started talking again her voice was as steady as if we'd been discussing the weather.
"We did get a message for Elizabeth two days ago, as it turns out dear. Ronald took the message and I didn't get it until now. He said it was from her friend Emily. She didn't know where Elizabeth was, but she asked if we spoke to her to have Elizabeth call her back again, that it was urgent. Apparently they'd been trying to reach one another. Do you know anything about what's going on with Emily?"
I didn't know what to tell her. I knew Emily had just been removed from a shallow grave in her own cellar not but two hours ago. I didn't want to scare her, though.
"I haven't talked to Emily, Sandra, I'm sorry. I'll see if I can find out what the message is about, ok?" There. No lies, no fear for Sandra, Ronald, and Paige. Well, no added fear because of what happened to Emily. They'd hear about it soon enough, no doubt. It's hard to keep a secret in the Burg, and Emily lived there. She was friends with Elizabeth. I'm sure within an hour Sandra's phone would start ringing with the news. But I couldn't bring myself to be the one to tell her.
I disconnected and took stock. I had one missing niece, a dead friend, and a mysterious company they both worked for. I needed to talk to Lizzie. Connie had gotten me her home number, so I dialed the phone and waited. There was no answer. The cold lump of fear returned to my belly. I grabbed her address and a bullet hole free sweatshirt and ran out the door to my car. I drove quickly to her house, scared of what I might fine.
Lizzie had an address in an area of town that in ten years would be called up and coming. Now it was just the slums, with some effort put into making it more cheerful. I guess life hadn't been good for Lizzie after she'd run away from home and her mother died.
I found Lizzie's building and parked my car. Unlike Ranger, my cars were never so elaborate or exotic that I needed to worry about them being stolen out from under me in bad areas of town. He had told me once that the way to do a stake out was to blend in. Well, my beat up Acclaim blended in quite well in the slums. I thought about the cash in my pocket from the capture this morning. Maybe after talking to Lizzie I'd get a new car.
With that happy thought I went into her building and my spirits immediately fell. The foyer smelled like trash and weed. There were unspeakable things stuck to the walls. The floor crunched as I walked, and I could see movement on the floor. A mouse scurried away from me. I made my way carefully over to the mailboxes, trying to hold my nose against the stench of trash. Though I reminded myself, it could smell worse.
Six apartments, two per floor. There were names on only two mailboxes, the other four were empty. At least empty of legal residents. Apartment three was Lizzie, and the mailbox read Spegrula. Apartment six was marked Petrski. I went to the second floor and knocked on Lizzie's door. There was no answer. The ball of fear in my stomach grew and growled. I took solace that at least I didn't smell any dead bodies. Not that I could have smelled anything with the toxic mess at the bottom of the stairs and in the hallway, but I didn't smell death. I went upstairs to the third floor and knocked on apartment 6's door. The door cracked open and from behind the security chain a short, squat, elderly woman looked out at me. She looked tired, like she had given up. In this neighborhood, in this building, I don't know that I blamed her.
"Hi," I said. "My name is Stephanie Plum. I was hoping to speak to Lizzie, she lives downstairs in number three. Do you happen to know where she's gone? She's not answering her phone or door, and she's not at work."
"I don't know nothing," she said with a thick Polish accent. "She comes, she goes. I don't watch. Better that way. Now go." The door was closed in my face. I had the feeling that Mrs. Petrski would ignore World War III if it was outside her door, just so she could claim neutrality.
I had no reason to go into Lizzie's apartment. She wasn't FTA, she wasn't late for work, she wasn't reported missing. But there was a suspicion in my mind, a horrible thought. I didn't want to wait until she was late for work. And since I was the only person I knew who couldn't pick a lock, I had to make a phone call.
"Yo," Ranger answered.
"Yo yourself. I could use some unofficial help getting into an apartment."
"I'll send one of my men over. Where are you?" I gave him the address and went back out into my car to wait. It didn't smell so bad in my car. Actually, my car smelled kind of nice. A vague memory of fries, chicken, and Bob. Maybe I shouldn't have taken Bob for a drive last week.
Within minutes a black Rangeman SUV pulled up and one of the merry men hopped out. I lead him to Lizzie's apartment. He worked for about three seconds and turned the knob for me to open, then he left. I slid on gloves and waited until I heard his door close and the SUV pull away before I went in. I would have given anything to have had someone with me, but I didn't want to implicate Rangeman if something was about to happen here.
I gave the door a gentle shove and it swung open fully on its hinges. I guess the building had sagged slightly and the door wasn't in the jam properly anymore. That'd be good to tell the police if I needed to. As it was it made it very tough to close the door again.
I moved quickly through the first room. The smell of garbage was even worse here than in the hallway. It appeared that mice had gotten into Lizzie's trash and had spread it around on the floor and were using it as both a nest and a litter box. Ick. Give me a hamster any day.
The first room, the living room, was empty. The kitchen was a mess. It didn't look like the room had been trashed, just lived in by a single young woman who didn't care much. I glanced into the bedroom. A picture of Elizabeth and two other girls was on the nightstand. That must be Elizabeth, Lizzie, and Emily. I hadn't looked at Emily when I found her body that morning, but the picture had the look of three friends who had been friends forever. I found a second picture with one of the girls in it as well as an older gentleman. So that girl in both pictures must be Lizzie.
I moved around the mess in her room as best I could. Clothes were hanging out of the dresser and falling off of hangers in the closet. Food and glasses and used condoms were under the bed. I guess the older man in the picture may have made some visits here. The bed was unmade, though she had taken the time to lay out three stuffed animals across the top. All of them were obviously well loved, probably from her childhood. I wondered what was going on in the life of the girl who loved these three animals.
The last room in the apartment was the bathroom. There was a toilet, sink, and a small tub with a ducky shower curtain pulled closed. I took a glance and was about to leave when I noticed that the bathroom floor was slightly damp. There seemed to be drops coming down the side of the bathtub. My nerves tingled as my heart got my blood pumping faster. I didn't want to know what was on the other side of the shower curtain.
I approached it slowly, hoping and praying that it was nothing. For good measure I made the sign of the cross, and then I quickly pulled aside the shower curtain. My hand immediately flew to my mouth as I stifled a scream. Lizzie was in the bathtub, naked and bloated. The water was a dull red from where her wrists had bled. Her eyes were open and her head rested on her shoulder. Her chin and mouth were submerged.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not two in one day! I couldn't believe this. This was going to take some explaining. I didn't want to call the police. Let someone else find her. Tomorrow when she didn't show up for work someone would wonder. Since I was in her apartment illegally I just let myself back out and closed the door. I tried to close the door, anyway. It wouldn't stay shut completely. No matter what I did I couldn't get it to stay.
Finally I left it partially open. It gave me an idea. I walked to the nearest pay phone and called in an anonymous tip that I had been in Lizzie's building and there was a door open. No one answered when I yelled from the hallway, so maybe they'd like to send someone around. I hung up quickly and raced to my car, eager to get out of there before the first police arrived. I practically flew home, and straight back into the shower.
After I'd been turned back into a prune for the second time in one day the phone rang. Caller ID said that it was Morelli. Great. Just what I needed.
"What were you doing this afternoon?" he asked.
"Driving around, trying to be helpful. Why, what's the matter?"
"There was an anonymous tip called in today to check out some girl's apartment. Turns out she
was dead in her bathtub. Do you know anything about it?"
"Who, me?" I tried to sound honestly innocent.
"Christ, Stephanie!" I heard him unwrap something and chew several tablets. Rolaids, probably. "What the hell were you doing down there? You finding two bodies in one day is something, even for you!"
"First off, I was just helping out a friend, like I said, and second, of course I didn't find that body! You make it sound like I have nothing better to do than go around like some corpse sniffing dog."
We both were silent on the phone. I could tell he didn't believe me at all, but that he had nothing he could hang on me. I was just waiting for him to calm down. Morelli angry was not something I enjoyed.
"Look," he finally sighed. "I'm going to be busy all night with Emily and Lizzie. That's the second girl's name. Lizzie." He paused, maybe waiting for me to give something away. I kept my mouth tightly closed, not completely trusting myself. "I'll check in with you tomorrow. Stay out of trouble, will you?" and with that he hung up.
Stay out of trouble? I try to stay out of trouble. I really really honestly do. It just seems to have a way to find me.
The sun had gone down by now and with it the temperature. Soon spring would be here full time, but for now I pulled on a jacket over my shirt and grabbed my car keys. Tonight was a night for an emergency bakery run.
When I got back to my apartment 15 minutes later I was carrying a bag with six donuts, three muffins, four different Tastykakes, and a bag of carrots. Ok, the carrots were for Rex, I admit it. The grocery store was right next to the bakery. I unlocked my door and opened it and nearly dropped my bag when I saw someone was sitting on my couch. My heart rate started to return to normal when I realized it was Ranger. Well, my heart went back to as normal as it gets when I'm around Ranger.
He looked at me, and the bag with Tasty Pastry marked on the outside. A grin spread across his mouth. My heart rate sped back up slightly.
"Bad day, Babe?" He crossed the room and took the bag from me and put it on the counter. He put his hands on my shoulders and helped me out of the jacket, leaning in to kiss me fully and deeply on my lips. I let him take the jacket. More kissing like this and I'd let him take anything. But he pulled back and hung my jacket up on my hook before picking up the bag and taking it to the kitchen.
I stood rooted to the spot. I licked my lips and peeked around the corner into the kitchen. Ranger was putting away my carrots into the fridge, leaving one out and dropping it in Rex's aquarium. The bakery bag he put in the cabinet. Sometimes Ranger was most scary not when he was shooting down bad guys but when he was acting domestic.
"Who are you?" I asked him. That earned me another slight grin.
"I brought dinner, Babe. I know you, you find two dead bodies and you're going to run to Tasty Pastry and eat nothing but dessert all evening. So I stopped and picked up some salads and subs at Pino's." He looked at me. "Maybe we'll move on to dessert later."
At that last sentence my knees nearly buckled. Ranger had described himself to me previously as dessert. That which should not be the basis of my food pyramid. Now obviously, for me dessert WAS the basis. This caused problems when I was trying to figure out which Mr. Right was right at any given moment. One was good for me, and one I wanted all the time, consequences be damned.
Ranger, on the other hand, doesn't eat dessert. So his comment was loaded to the gills with innuendo.
I stood there, my mind frozen from thought, recovering from the near orgasm I'd had just from Ranger mentioning dessert. Something finally clicked, and the wheels started spinning again.
"How did you know I'd discovered two dead bodies today? I hadn't told you about them, and one of them I called in anonymously."
"Babe, it doesn't take a lot to put two and two together. We heard the first go out on the police radio, and then you call me asking for help getting into a locked apartment. Ten minutes later a call goes out to that address for an open door with a dead body behind it."
Oh, right. I had forgotten I had called him. It had been an awful day. I closed my eyes for a moment. I started feeling like I was deep over my head here. Elizabeth was missing, Lizzie and Emily were murdered. I knew in my gut that Elizabeth was probably dead. Why else would she have cut off contact? Ranger's help would be so appreciated, but I promised I wouldn't tell anyone. I knew Ranger could keep a secret, but a promise is a promise. Plus there was the nagging worry about the cost of asking him for help.
"Earth to Babe. Come in, Babe."
I opened my eyes and found Ranger standing inches away. How does he do that? He can move across a room without a sound, without the air moving in front of him. It was uncanny.
"Sorry, just thinking. But look on the bright side. I still have the same dying car I started out with this morning. It's something, right?"
Ranger stepped back and gave me a small smile. I moved quickly to put plates and glasses into the living room. Ranger brought out a turkey sub for me (on worthless white bread with mayo, thank you very much) and a grilled chicken salad for him. I turned on the first game I came to and we ate in companionable silence. When we were finished Ranger cleared the dishes and brought back a bottle of beer for each of us. He opened mine and handed it to me, muting the TV.
"Do you want to talk about it, Babe?"
Boy, did I ever. I just couldn't. I shook my head. "I can't. I want to, but I promised I wouldn't. Things are crazy. I'm a little scared. But as far as I can see there's nothing I can do, and I'm not involved, other than asking questions. I don't need to worry about someone coming after me. Heck, I haven't even been able to ask questions yet, come to think of it. The people I want to talk to keep ending up dead!" On that thought I finished my beer in one go and got up to go to the kitchen to help myself to another bottle.
Ranger watched me drink, sipping his beer. I'd never known him to drink a full drink. He doesn't get drunk. Me, on the other hand, I get drunk on two bottles of beer. I downed half of my second bottle in one chug, then belched. That's me, Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter and belcher extraordinare.
I was feeling more relaxed now. I didn't want to talk about Elizabeth and Paige. I didn't want to think of anything. I reached for the remote and turned the sound back on. Ranger took the remote from my hand and hit mute again.
"Sometimes asking questions is reason enough, Babe. Be careful." With that he turned the sound back on and continued to slowly sip his beer. I turned my attention back to the game, but I didn't hear a single thing. Just Ranger's statement. "Sometimes asking questions is enough." Shit. Like I needed trouble in my life again. Ranger and Morelli were right. Trouble just finds me. Why me? I thought, and from the hard line of Ranger's mouth I think I may have said that out loud.
I finished the rest of my beer quickly and nearly immediately felt the results. Things weren't so bad. I understood why some people loved drinking. It must be nice feeling this peaceful and happy all of the time. I nuzzled into Ranger and watched the game. His arm came around my shoulders and his cheek rested on my head. It took about three minutes before I was sound asleep.
Ranger's POV
Babe snuggled into me and fell asleep nearly instantly. I watched the game for a while longer, barely paying attention. I knew who the two dead girls had worked for before their fast food stints. I worried that Stephanie was going to be heading straight into the spider's web with this one. But she hadn't shared anything with me. I didn't know for a fact. Just a hunch. And with Stephanie's luck she was probably going to bullseye straight for the center of the web.
I had occasionally interacted with Conzitto and his men. More often with his men than with Conzitto himself. He always scurried away it seemed. And his men were everywhere. They covered more ground than Rangeman could keep an eye on. Protecting Stephanie from Conzitto and his men, if it came down to it, was going to be nearly impossible. Not to mention protecting Stephanie from Stephanie. She was not known to willingly walk into a safe house and stay there in the past. I'd cuffed her before, threatened her, been angry with her, and she'd stood her ground. Morelli had had no better success. Her luck had held and no one had killed her, yet. Captured yes. Tortured, yes, but not killed.
I looked at the woman sleeping in my arms. I could see on her arm the scar from a hot poker that Abruzzi had left for her. I saw on the back of her hand the scar from when a vigilante had burned her with a cigarette. And of course I could see the current bandage on her arm from the gunshot that morning. It was very near to the scar that was left from when Homer Ramos shot her.
Abruzzi and Ramos couldn't hurt her again. I'd made sure of that. But I'd been trying for ten years to get to Conzitto. I hadn't had the same success. I was scared for her.
I sighed and looked down at her again. It made me feel good to know that she trusted me so much to simply fall asleep in my arms. It made the thought of betraying her and locking her up without her say so, even for her own good, that much harder to think about. One day I knew it was probably going to come to that. Hopefully not today.
I leaned down and kissed her head. When she didn't stir I moved my arms around her and stood, cradling her slender form to my chest. I carried her into her room and placed her on her bed. I took off her shoes and her socks, then removed her jeans. As much as I would have liked to, I removed nothing else of hers. My moral code requires that actions are consensual. A few minutes later I had tucked her under her covers and set her alarm for 10 a.m. She'd need some time to sleep off the beer. I chuckled to myself. Two beers. That's my Babe.
I passed through the living room and locked up behind me. All the way back to Rangeman I thought about what Stephanie's goals may be, and what may happen. I went to my seventh floor apartment, showered, and got into bed.
The next morning I woke, went for a run, showered and shaved. At 9:30 I left the Rangeman parking garage and drove through the drive thru at McDonald's. I picked up a coke and fries. Babe's hangover remedy. I listened at her door, then let myself into her apartment and put them on her counter. As I let myself out I heard the alarm go off from the bedroom. It sounded like something fell, then I heard movement in the apartment. I slipped away and went back to Rangeman.