TWENTY-TWO CALIBER: A STEPHANIE PLUM-INSPIRED NOVEL

p. 19

Chapter Thirteen

Ranger and I decided to go check out my apartment to see if I had received any more threats while we waited for two o'clock. I picked up my new files – four new cases – on my way past Connie's desk and put them in my messenger bag. I figured I would look at them later when I had more time. I joined Ranger in his car and we drove to my apartment. We got in the parking lot and out of habit looked up to my apartment. The window from my fire escape to my bedroom was broken. This didn't look good and I was glad Ranger was with me. I didn't want to see what state my apartment was in and having some moral support was appreciated. We took the stairs up to the second floor and walked down the hall to my apartment. The door wasn't fully shut. Ranger motioned to me to stay in the hall. He withdrew his gun and thoroughly searched the apartment. "It's clear", he called out to me, "although you have a huge mess to clean up."

I walked in the apartment and immediately went into the kitchen. The food I had just bought was dumped all over the floor. The fridge and freezer doors were ajar and condiments were smeared on the counters and cupboard doors.

I ran over to Rex. There was a note on his cage. It said "This time your apartment trashed. Next time it will be your hamster. Stop looking for me!"

I looked in on Rex. I could see his butt through the end of the soup can. He wasn't moving. I couldn't tell if he was asleep or whether he was upset over my apartment. I picked a raisin off the floor and placed it in his dish. He ran out of the soup can, whiskers twitching in glee, stuffed the raisin in his cheeks and scurried back into the soup can. He didn't seem traumatized by the condition of the apartment and, I thought if he could handle it, then I should also have enough courage to inspect the rest of the space.

I looked across the living room at Ranger. He had his hands on his hips, staring at the devastation surrounding him. Couch cushions were slashed and shredded, bathroom toiletries and make-up were ground into the carpet, clothes were thrown all over the floor. Books and magazines were ripped, my laptop was trashed and wooden furniture was broken into bits. My eyes filled with tears. My apartment wasn't filled with expensive things – mainly with rejects from various family members. However, it was mine and I liked it. I found it comforting to own and use Aunt Ethyl's old coffee table and Uncle Vernon's old couch. It made me feel loved. And now I didn't have it. I sniffled.

Ranger came over to me and enfolded me in a tight hug. "It's okay. You're safe. And Rex is safe. That is what's important. Don't lose sight of that. The rest of this? It's just stuff." He gave me a kiss on the top of my head and wiped a tear from my cheek. I did some deep breathing and got myself under control. "Do you want me to call Morelli? You should try to see if there is anything missing." I wandered around my apartment, dazed by the devastation. I couldn't see how I could tell if anything was taken. I had started to pick up clothes when Ranger stopped me. "Morelli will need to see the apartment the way it was left for you, not the way it will be after you clean it up. He will be here in about five minutes. Do you want to wait for him in here or do you want to wait for him in my car?"

"In truth, all I want to do is go back to bed! I've had enough of today."

"I don't blame you. It's been a tough couple of days."

I went back into the kitchen to look after Rex. I changed his water bottle and refilled his dish with hamster crunchies. I picked a carrot off the floor, rinsed it and added it to Rex's food dish. Rex scurried out of his can, overjoyed at the extra bounty I was giving to him. He vibrated with excitement, staring at me in stupefied pleasure. He wheeled around and scurried back into his soup can. Excitement was over.

Morelli knocked on the door and entered. He whistled. "Wow – what a mess." He came over and gave me a quick hug and kiss. "Is there any chance you have been able to identify whether anything is missing?" He went to my cookie jar and nodded to himself in satisfaction when he saw my gun was still there.

"How will I tell whether anything is taken? Everything is all over the place, all mixed up together. And so much is broken. I can't tell what I have here, let alone what I don't have."

"I know. I will call in some uniforms to come fill out an incident report. I want them to canvas your neighbours as well to see if anyone saw anything. Have you received any more threats, other than this vandalism?" When I nodded my head he said "after I get off the phone I want to review all the threats you have received. I'm sure Ranger has already looked at them, but I want to see if I can see something, too. At the very least it will give me an idea of what you've been dealing with over the past few days." Morelli called in the uniforms.

I righted the dining room table and got the file of threats out of my messenger bag. I laid them out in order on the table, placing my phone in the middle of the table where the fourth threat was supposed to be. I explained to Morelli how and when each of the threats were given, including the pictures of my vandalized front door. Morelli got quiet and put his hands on his hips. He had the "not happy" serious cop look on his face. I showed him the last note from Rex's cage. "That's sick!" he said. I pointed out that the good thing is the person threatening me obviously doesn't know how to pick locks, otherwise they would have picked the locks to my front door rather than breaking the window. "That doesn't give me any comfort, Cupcake. If you hadn't been at Ranger's, you could have been here when they broke in. And that could have been bad news for you. I can't believe I am saying this, but I'm glad you were at Ranger's rather than at home. Please tell me you won't stay here tonight. Stay with me. Stay with your parents. Hell, even stay with Ranger again. But don't stay here tonight."

A couple of uniforms came to the door and Morelli broke off talking to me to go talk to the officers. He gave them all the information I had given him. They came into the apartment with cameras and took pictures and wrote up an incident report while I went down to the basement to ask Dillon to come back with me upstairs. He came up, saying "I didn't hear anything at all. Nobody mentioned anything unusual to me." He walked into my apartment and gasped. "It certainly didn't look like this the day before yesterday when I fixed your door. I will put some boards over your window as soon as I am allowed to and will arrange to have it fixed as soon as possible. Don't worry, Stephanie, we'll get this place looking good again." It is nice to have friends like Dillon.

"I have to do my cop thing", Morelli said. He gave me a quick kiss. "Ranger will take you to lunch. Can you please pick me up a sandwich and bring it to the bonds office? I won't get time to eat otherwise." I said I would. Ranger picked up Rex's hamster cage and went down the elevator to the car with me. We got in, putting Rex in the back seat. We drove to Giovichinni's and bought sandwiches at the deli counter. Ranger got tuna and sprouts on multi-grain with a side salad, no dressing. I got a ham and Swiss on a ciabatta roll. We bought a club for Morelli with a bag of chips. We phoned Connie. Connie wanted a Greek salad, extra olives and Lula wanted a Rueben sandwich with a tub of macaroni salad and a tub of coleslaw. Vinnie wasn't there – he was probably out having a nooner with a duck. Again. We got bottles of water for everybody and took the feast back to the office.

After eating my lunch, I pulled out the files Connie had given me that morning. The first was a low-level bond for Benjamin Williams, no priors. Wanted for purse snatching, Williams had approached a senior citizen with a cane while she was taking a walk in the park. Williams took off with her purse. Unfortunately for Williams, the lady took the cane and tripped Williams as he tried to get away. Williams hit the ground hard enough to knock him out, at which point the lady called the police. He lived on Empire Street, near State. His sister put up her television as collateral.

The second file was a medium level bond for armed robbery. Aaron Kimmel went into a convenience store and identified himself as Maori Man. He robbed the store for over three thousand dollars and a couple of boxes of chips. It didn't say why he was known as Maori Man, but I would be sure to ask him when I picked him up. His place of residence listed was on State Street, near Stark. He put up his car to insure the bond.

The third file was a high level bond. This woman, Dorothea Pringle, another Burg resident, stole the identity of her next door neighbour. Over five hundred thousand dollars were charged to the neighbour in a variety of credit card scams over the period of a year before Dorothea was caught. All of Dorothea's belongings and investments were seized as a result of the investigation. Her father put up his house to secure the bond.

The fourth, Caden Kenchiro, was also a high level bond. Caden was wanted for vehicular manslaughter. He was having problems at work with his boss. His boss threatened to fire him because of Caden's poor attitude. So Caden waited in his car at the end of the day and, when his boss left the building, Caden ran him over with his 4x4 truck. When picked up, Caden was more concerned with the blood and bone splatters on the truck than he was by the death of his former boss. This was the second time Caden had killed someone in such a manner.

Same old, same old. I put the files back in my messenger bag. "Do you want to go hunting tomorrow?" I asked Lula. "After this meeting I will take the rest of the day off, but I was thinking tomorrow we could talk to Robin Hood's family and perhaps follow up on some of these new files."

"I'm ready to go whenever you are", avowed Lula. "I could hunt their scrawny little asses all day. You just let me know what time to meet you and I'll be ready." We arranged to meet at the office whenever I got there. I didn't want to be tied down to a certain time in case I could sleep in a bit. My throat was still quite sore.

Vinnie, Joyce, Joey and Morelli all arrived at the office within minutes of each other. We sat in the outer office; Vinnie's inner office was too small to hold that many people. I sat on the couch with Lula and Joey. Joey sat on the edge of her seat, hands tightly folded in her lap. Connie sat in her usual spot behind her desk. Nobody wanted to sit near Joyce, so Joyce moved some files and sat on the corner of Connie's desk, angling towards the men and crossing her legs to let her skirt ride up to better show her assets. Ranger lounged against the wall in a spot where he could see everybody. Joe stood near Ranger, feet planted wide on the floor and hands placed on his hips. The only clue as to the turmoil within was the tightness in his body language. Vinnie paced in his small space – two steps one way, two steps the other – looking more like he was a dog chasing his tail than a man who was pacing. Vinnie stopped pacing and started the meeting.

"As all of you know, Joyce, Joey and I have been blackmailed."

"What are you being blackmailed with?" Joe asked.

Joey winced. "A video showing Joyce, Joey's dog and myself in some compromising sexual positions. Did you really have to know that?" Vinnie bit out. Lula's lip curled but surprisingly she didn't say anything.

"Yes," said Joe. "I just wanted the context of the blackmail threat." I could tell it wasn't really that he wanted the context of the threat. I knew Joe had asked just to make Vinnie and Joyce squirm.

"Anyway", said Vinnie, "I asked Stephanie and Ranger to look into the blackmail threats."

"Why didn't you call the police?" interrupted Joe.

"Because I didn't want to involve the police when I didn't know what was going on and because I hoped I could solve it in house. And I didn't want this video getting out. Joyce, Joey and I all have reasons to avoid making this video public, if you really want to know." Vinnie was getting frustrated. I looked at Joe. He looked perfectly composed, but his eyes showed he was having mischief at Vinnie's expense. I guess he was getting his licks in before the Mario connection came out.

"So, as I was saying, I asked Stephanie and Ranger to look into the threats. I will hand this meeting over to Ranger so he can tell you what is happening." Vinnie started pacing again.

"With your help," Ranger nodded to Joyce, Joey and Vinnie, "Rangeman traced the emails back to the source, an internet café on State. We accessed the security videos and saw there were six people in the café using the computers at the time the original threats were sent. We have copies of the video for you, Joe, if you want to see them. Of these six people, we identified five. Two of these people have no criminal records, no connections to any of you and no motive for blackmail. The remaining three have criminal records. One is a pimp, one is a drug dealer and the third has been charged with theft. The pimp and drug dealer did not appear to have strong motives or the connections to identify the three of you. Even so, Stephanie and I spoke to the pimp and the drug dealer. After speaking to them we decided it was unlikely either of these people were the blackmailer. I have more details, Morelli, if you would like me to outline them later." Ranger nodded to Joe. "This left the thief as a suspect."

"The break in the case came when the blackmailer sent a second email, this time outlining the drop directions. Again, we traced the emails to the same internet café. We accessed the security video. Again, Joe, I have copies of the security video for you. At the time the emails were sent, there were three people sending emails. All three have criminal records. One was a seventy year old man who was charged with propositioning a hooker. It was a first time offence. He did not have any ties to any of you and had no motive. We did not feel this person was a good candidate for the person who was blackmailing you. The remaining two people were more interesting. The first was Carlos Ramirez." Lula paled and Morelli threw a glance at me. The Ramirez name struck fear into more than just my heart. "Carlos is the cousin of Benito Ramirez, a felon with which the bail bonds staff have had some experience. It was due to this experience Benito was put in jail and ultimately why Benito died. Tank and I went to talk to Carlos. He did not seem to have any love for Benito. He had been tortured by Benito as a boy and seemed happy Benito was dead. Additionally, although he had ties to the bonds office he did not have any ties to either Joyce or Joey. It didn't feel like a good match."

"The third computer user was the most interesting of the three. This person was only wanted for small crime from when he was a juvenile, but more interestingly, he was the close friend of the person who we suspected from the first round of emails." Joe had removed his hands from his hips and stood clenching and unclenching his fists. His cop eyes were hard and unflinching; I could only guess how he felt. "The person who we suspect sent the first round of emails is Mario Morelli and the person we suspect sent the second round of emails is Alex Lipinski."

"We had been tracking Mario anyway, as he is due in court soon and it appears he is a flight risk. Mario's bond is being held by Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. His parents' house was put up as collateral to insure the bond. Stephanie had already talked to his parents, his grandmother, his brothers, his wife and a couple of his cousins. Nobody had seen Mario for at least a week. However, we knew he was in town and had just gone underground since we had seen him on the video. Stephanie found out the names of Mario's best friend and his mistress. Together, Stephanie and I went to talk to those people this morning. Mario's best friend seemed to know what we were talking about when we talked about the blackmailing but was not giving us any information other than what we could ascertain through body language. His mistress was more interesting. Through body language she indicated Mario was in her apartment at the time." Joey gasped.

"Why didn't you arrest him?" Joey cried out.

"We couldn't. We aren't the police. We could only have captured him if he was deemed failure-to-appear, but he isn't FTA until Monday. And that's only if he doesn't show up for court."

"His mistress", Ranger continued, "said Mario had a plan which helped him avoid jail on Monday at the same time as protecting his parents' house. Our assumption is the plan is to blackmail you for the money to pay off the bond and then to skip town to avoid jail."

"Now, the question is what you want to do with this information and what you would like to do about the blackmailing?" Ranger asked.

There was silence in the room. Everyone looked at each other, then at Joe. Joe was looking down at his shoe, hiding his thoughts and feelings from everyone. When no one said anything, Ranger jumped in again. "Mario's trial is scheduled for Monday. Today is Thursday. The money drop is scheduled for Sunday. What I would suggest is we fill envelopes with blank pieces of paper and have each of you place your envelope under your bench in the train station. Then, I think we should have people undercover at the train station to see if Mario or one of his friends show up. I doubt Mario will be the person doing the pick-up since he knows we are on to him. When the person collecting the ransom shows up, we could then capture the person and get further information both on where Mario is hiding as well as the motive behind the blackmailing. What do you think, Joe?"

Joyce interrupted the meeting. "How will you handle this, Joe? We are talking about your brother here. If we capture him, how can we be sure you just won't let him go?" Everyone in the room took a collective gasp. Only Joyce would have the audacity to question Joe's professionalism.

"And what happens if Mario isn't caught and he gets angry when there is no money in the envelopes? I can't have this get out!" Joey was panicking again. "Maybe it is better to just come up with the money and pay off Mario."

"Are you insane?" Joyce cried. "If we pay Mario once, he will never stop blackmailing us. He will come to us every time he needs money." We all nodded. As much as I hated to admit it, I agreed with Joyce.

Joe let everyone think about the situation for a minute. Then he jumped in. "I really think the plan Ranger has laid out is the best one. The key is to put pressure on the blackmailer in order to get him to show his hand. There is a time limit on this for us – not only do we have the drop scheduled for Sunday, but we have the court date of Monday to aim for. If Mario doesn't come to court on Monday, Mario will be FTA and we will legally have the help of the bail bonds office and Rangeman to find and capture Mario."

"I just want to catch the fucker. That little shit will continue to bleed us dry if we pay him now. Let's go with the bait and switch plan Ranger and Joe have come up with." Vinnie got agreement from Joyce and, reluctantly, from Joey.

"We will make the envelopes up at my office", said Joe. "I will need phone numbers for you where I can contact you on Saturday and I will let you know your instructions then. In the meantime it will be important for you to continue to keep this quiet. Except for the people directly involved in this at my office, I will also respect your privacy and work to keep this quiet."

The room was quiet. "That's it, everyone. Thank you for coming", Ranger said. Everyone got up to leave. Joyce and Joey left first. Vinnie shook Ranger's and Joe's hands and escaped into his office, leaving Connie, Lula, Ranger, Joe and myself in the outer office.

"Wow. A dog? That's disgustin'. I always thought Vinnie's relationship with the duck was a tall tale, but now I'm not so sure", Lula huffed. "I've done a lot of things as a 'ho, but a dog? That's just wrong. A girl's got to have her standards, do you see what I'm saying? And how do they train a dog to do that?"

"Peanut butter", I answered.

"Hunh", Lula said. "I may never eat peanut butter again. And that will be hard as I considered that to be one of my main food groups." I nodded my head. I considered peanut butter to be one of my main food groups as well.

"Where to now? You said you wanted to have a nap – do you want to come back to my apartment for the night?" Ranger asked when we got back in the car.

"No, thanks for the offer, but I think I better go to Joe's tonight", I answered.

"Probably for the best."

Ranger dropped me off at Joe's house, saying he would have Rangeman drop the Explorer off in front of the house within the hour. I started to search for the keys to the car to give to Ranger. He just looked at me. "Keep them." Duh, of course he wouldn't need them to operate the car. Rangeman staff have superpowers.

Ranger carried Rex into Joe's house for me and put him on the kitchen counter, the whole time avoiding Bob as Bob danced his happy dance between and around Ranger's and my feet. Ranger patted the top of Bob's head and scratched behind his ears and under his chin. Bob's tail whipped back and forth. Ranger walked back to the front door. Bob ran to get his ball and came back to Ranger, dropping his ball at Ranger's feet. Ranger took the ball and threw it down the length of the house. He gave me a quick kiss and went back to his car to return to Rangeman.

I sat down on the step and cuddled Bob. "I missed you", I told him. "It's been a strange few days. I feel terrible and Ranger looked after me. It was homey, like we are in a real relationship. And I don't know what to think about that. Then there is my apartment getting trashed and I don't know what to think about that either. The threats seemed so benign until they threatened Rex. Most importantly is this thing with Mario. You will have to be extra nice to Joe, because he is going through a lot right now. No eating any clothes or furniture, okay? I will have to be extra nice to Joe as well. I'm not sure how Mario thinks he will get away with this." I shook my head and rubbed Bob's ears. I locked the door and went upstairs. I took off my pants and socks, climbed into bed and covered my head with my pillow. I was asleep within seconds.

I woke up at five the next morning to the weight of Joe's body wrapped around me and the sound of the alarm going off. Joe moved his arm to shut off the alarm. Now this is the thing about the men in my life. They wake up alert and ready for the day. Not me. I snuggled into Joe and wrapped my arms around him. "Sorry, Cupcake. Not today. I have an early morning meeting at the precinct about this Mario thing. I have to brief my supervisor. I didn't get a chance to do it yesterday." Joe jumped out of bed and into the shower while I stumbled down to the kitchen to make coffee. As I scooped out coffee and put water in the coffee maker, I started to wake up. By the time Joe was out of the shower and dressed I was fully functioning. I poured a coffee for Joe and myself.

"I'm sorry about last night. I was wiped out", I said.

"I knew your throat was bothering you. And when you didn't wake up when I came in I decided to let you sleep. I figured the sleep would do you good. How do you feel today?"

"Better. How about you? How are you feeling with all this Mario stuff?"

"I don't know. I don't want to believe it, but the evidence is overwhelming. Ranger emailed me copies of the security tapes yesterday and it was definitely Mario and Alex on the tapes. I want to talk to Alex and Tina myself today, but I don't expect I will find out anything different than you did with Ranger." He paused.

"But I'm angry, too", he said. "I've spent much of my life cleaning up Mario messes. He was always in trouble as a kid. And I was always the one who had to take care of it before Mom found out. And I usually got blamed for it when it did come out. This will break her heart. I'm not looking forward to telling her.

"And to think Mario could be behind the threats to you?" Joe continued. "That makes me crazy." He enfolded me in a hug and lightly kissed me on the lips. "I have to walk Bob and then get going. I noticed a Rangeman car out in front of the house last night. Are you going car shopping today, or what are you doing?"

"I'm picking up Lula later and going in search of Robin Hood as well as some new files that just came in."

"Well, go back to bed and get some more sleep before you head out. Take it easy on yourself. Remember you aren't one hundred percent yet. I love you! Will I see you tonight?" I nodded and he was gone. I went up to bed and tried to go back to sleep. Bob bounded in, back from his walk and jumped up on the bed. He laid with his back against mine, stretching out with his head upon Joe's pillow. He sighed. Life was good in Bob-land. I tossed and turned, trying not to disturb the dog. Life wasn't good in Stephanie-land. My stomach felt squishy and my chest felt tight. I didn't like this situation with Mario. And I didn't like the threats to myself. Finally I got up. Apparently over twelve hours of sleep was enough and I couldn't hide from the world any longer.