AN: This is the second Chapter I've posted today after another long absence. Don't forget to read Chapter 22! Thanks for your patience! Enjoy!
"What the hell could I have missed?" I asked again.
"Maybe nothing," Ranger said. "It could be that he's just discovering the shit that you already dug up, or it could be that your friend at the warehouse remembered something new. Either way, we'll find out soon enough."
"Did Ed Settle say anything else to you on the way to Atlantic City?" I asked.
"We went to Philly," Ranger said. "I figured the fewer people who knew where he was, the better."
"Aren't Abby and Sadie in Philly?"
"I have more than one safe house there," he said. "It's a big city. We have other concerns."
"Which are?"
"I spoke to Detective Ross about Calvin Darren. I said that he was a person of interest and that she should pick him up for questioning."
"What did she say?"
"She said that I should fuck myself and stop telling her how to do police work."
"That's helpful," I said.
"Not really, but she did try to pick him up, and he's found a reason to be out of town. Some emergency popped up a couple of days ago."
"Yeah, I stole his book," I said. "I bet he wants it back real bad."
"Unfortunately for him, it's locked in a safe in our bedroom next to my guns."
"There are a few obstacles between the front door and the bedroom," I said.
Ranger nodded.
"And even more if he were to somehow make it up to seven," I said.
"He's got to get through a guard hamster and a pink bird. I think I'd rather take my chances with a few cartels than face that," Ranger said.
I laughed and checked my email. I had a message from Minnie. First, Dickerson confirmed that we were looking at his calculations from back in the day and that, yes, it was Calvin Darren's book. Second, Minnie had the reason why Buckerson left New York.
"Bucky transferred to Boston because he was first on the scene of a double murder, and the victim was his sister. He left New York for Boston because he wanted nothing more to do with the Big Apple. So for reasons unrelated to muppets. I was hoping it would give me a clue as to why the hell he was searching for muppets in New York and not Boston or New Jersey."
"How many muppet costumes are there in New York?"
"Damned if I know," I said. "I didn't really look. Hang on. A quick search gives me twenty stores in Manhattan alone that sell muppet costumes. Maybe that's why he was looking there? Maybe because you're more likely to find places to buy a proper muppet costume in New York near Times Square than anywhere else in New Jersey?"
"Maybe," Ranger said.
It was logical, but my gut was telling me there was a more significant reason than that. I called Joe and got voicemail, so I called Eddie instead.
"Yeah," he said. "Steph, I'm swamped."
"I'll be quick. Can you call the property clerk in New York and ask them who the last person to check on the muppets was. I want to know when Miss Piggy went missing from Evidence Lockup."
"Yeah, okay, fine," he said. "I think Joe has the case number on his desk."
"I have it," I said. I found it in my notes and read it to Eddie.
"How urgent is this? Can it wait an hour or two?"
"Yeah," I said.
He hung up, and Ranger looked at me.
"I just realized I never actually looked into Miss Piggy's Disappearance. And why not spring Gonzo as well as Miss Piggy?"
Ranger didn't say anything. His spidey sense was tingling about something. I could tell. Without him asking me to, I reached under the seat and got myself a gun. "Thanks, Babe."
We got to the business park, and I put the gun in my purse since I wasn't wearing pants. We had beaten Joe; his jeep wasn't in the lot. I didn't see Bucky's car, but the man himself was waiting for us.
"So Morelli called you two? He didn't trust me?" Bucky said.
"I think it's more that he thought we might be able to lend some insight since we've been able to focus our undivided attention on this case," I said. "What did you find?"
"The muppet costumes were from a parade back in the '80s; I think they were stolen from this place. They told me that they hadn't been, but I got a search warrant to check the property. I found the Miss Piggy costume crammed into one of the completed floats, and she has blood on her. It's a good place to hide it because nobody is going to find it until the week before Thanksgiving when they do the last-minute touch-ups to the floats."
"Miss Piggy?" I said. "We found that one at Linton University. We had the costumes collected."
"I don't know what to tell you, except that I found it under a fucking glitter-covered float. You know, Morelli told me that if I didn't end up in a garbage can, talking to Oscar the Grouch by the time this was over, he'd call it a case wasted. I think finding a blood-stained Miss Piggy in a gingerbread house is close enough."
"I mean, yeah. I'm just stunned. I was pretty sure we had them confiscated."
"You say it was one of the Linton Muppets? Fuck I should have made that connection. No surprise that someone has sprung them already. Stupid alumni association gets involved every time we get the damned things off of the streets."
He led us to the back of the warehouse, where there were dozens of garage bay doors for the floats. He had one opened, and we walked inside. He pulled out a key and opened the padlock he'd put on the gingerbread house portion of one of the floats, and opened the door. He stood back and motioned for Ranger and me to go in. I walked forward and made it to the door.
"Oh shit," I said. Miss Piggy wasn't in the house; it was Joe. His hands were cuffed behind his back, he was gagged, and he looked about as pissed as I'd ever seen him.
I spun around and saw Ranger putting his gun down on the floor. Miss Piggy, Kermit, and Rowlf were pointing machine guns at me while Bucky pointed his service weapon at Ranger. "And the other one, hers too," Bucky said. "And your phones."
Ranger took my gun and the gun in his ankle holster and added them to his other weapons. Bucky threw a set of cuffs at me. "Put them on him."
I did as I was told, and made to cuff him in front… "Behind his back Cupcake. I'm not taking any chances."
Ranger had a key in one of his many pockets. I don't know if Bucky knew that or not, but it didn't matter. We couldn't get to it fast enough to release Ranger without finding ourselves ventilated. "In you go," Bucky said, motioning to the gingerbread house.
For a second, we both hesitated, and then Bucky turned his gun on me and shot me in the damned arm.
"OH COME ON!" I shouted.
"Move! Or the next one isn't a flesh wound!"
I swayed on my feet slightly as the pain registered and put my hand on Ranger to steady myself. "One…" Bucky said, and we moved. Bucky secured the door behind us, and we heard movement outside. It sounded like they were moving something large on wheels, and the sliver of light that was under the door disappeared. That really wasn't good. Bucky was right. They wouldn't find us until November, and I was already starting to get hungry. Ranger wasn't interested in that, so much as the flesh wound in my arm.
"My left pocket," he said. I put my hand in, pulled out his keys and uncuffed him, then sat down hard because I suddenly felt dizzy.
Ranger took the keys from me and freed Morelli. Morelli pulled his gag from his mouth. "Stop. It's a trap," he said.
"Thanks, Tips!" I yelled.
Ranger stripped off his shirt and handed Morelli his mag light. Morelli held the light up to the wound. "Of course," he said. "Can't you do anything easy, Cupcake? You couldn't have arranged for a through and through?"
"Like I knew he was going to shoot me! And by the way, you two, what the hell?" Ranger briefly looked up at Joe and went back to the task at hand, retrieving the multitool from his pocket. He had produced some first aid supplies from another pocket and wiped down his knife with a betadine wipe.
"You're going to have to be more specific, Cupcake, because this whole thing is fucked up," Joe said.
"You two are supposed to be hot shit. How the hell did you both let Micro-Mark and the Fucked-Up Bunch get the drop on you? That's the sort of shit that I expect from me! Not you! Ow Ranger! Stop it!" Ranger was using a pair of tweezers he'd pulled from who knows where to dig the bullet out of my arm.
"Well, we wouldn't be in this situation if you'd just kept me in the loop from the beginning," Joe yelled back. "I would have caught on to how corrupt Bucky was instead learning during his supervillain bit that he blamed Dickerson for his Sister's death."
"I tried to keep you in the loop, and you kept passing me off on Bucky. Maybe if you weren't so blinded by food and sex, you would have realized I was onto something earlier!"
"That's all of it," Ranger said, as he used super glue to close the hole in my arm.
"Thank God, I was running out of ammo," Joe said.
"What?" I said.
"You're too stubborn to faint when you're pissed off, Babe. Bullet extraction without pain killers sucks," Ranger said.
"I… You both suck."
Ranger kissed my forehead and stood up.
"She's right, you know; we let the muppets get the drop on both of us," Joe said.
"Yeah," Ranger said. "Not our finest moment."
"In fairness, I thought Bucky was lazy; I didn't think he was corrupt," Joe said.
"Same," Ranger said.
"Oh, so it's a family thing," I snapped.
"I'm sorry?" Joe and Ranger said at the same time.
"I'm not talking about you, asshole. I knew you were an idiot," I said to Joe, "I'm talking about him! First Lester and the damned library, and now you with this? You never let me go first! What was it, some kind of collective family brain fart today?"
"I think she might still be mad," Ranger said.
"Not my problem anymore. She's all yours…" Joe said.
"You can both fuck off," I grumbled. My arm hurt, and I didn't like being held against my will in small spaces. It was getting old.
"So?" Joe said.
"So what?" I snapped.
"Any ideas about how we get the hell out of this gingerbread house? I don't think it's real, so eating our way through a wall isn't going to work."
"Why are you asking me?"
"You're the one who finds herself in these sorts of situations the most. What do you usually do?"
"Talk a bunch of shit until someone shows up to rescue me," I said. "Usually, you two. What about you, Ranger? Didn't you once escape from a prison that was basically a hole in the ground?"
"Uh oh," Ranger said.
"What?"
"We're in a gingerbread house, not a hole. I'm stumped."
"RANGER!" I shouted and turned back on Joe, "This is your fault, you know that, right?"
"How is this my fault?" Joe said, bemused.
"You made fun of me last night about ruining the parade with Lula. Aside from Lula peeing on Mrs. Claus, we were just fine until you said that. Now we're going to have to use Ranger's knife to cut our way out of a stupid float."
"Babe," Ranger said.
"It's true!" I shouted. "He jinxed us."
Ranger walked over to me and pressed the panic button on my watch. "We were ambushed at the parade grounds. We're locked in a gingerbread house in garage bay 6. Stephanie has been shot, and she's pissed about it."
"10-4," my watch said, in Tank's voice, and I screamed in surprise, jerking my wounded arm.
"Ranger! When the hell did my watch learn to talk?"
"You wanted an upgrade," Ranger said.
"Not that it matters if you forget about the damn thing every time," Joe said.
"Look," I said. "I would have remembered my panic button eventually. I always do."
"Uh-huh," Ranger said.
"Anyway, I think I missed an episode," Joe said, "Lula peed on Mrs. Claus?"
"She wets herself when she sneezes now. Apparently, it's a thing caused by pregnancy," I said.
"I know," Joe said. "The women in my family bitch about it constantly. You know they make this underwear that helps with it."
"I'll tell Lula," I said. I moved from the floor to a sturdy looking gumdrop and gingerly lowered myself onto it.
If the boys were coming from Trenton, we had some time to wait. I figured the best thing to do would be to sit still and try not to think about the fact that I'd been shot. Again. Five minutes later, the door to the Gingerbread house opened, and Bobby was there, with his medkit. "How did you…"
"Babe," Ranger said.
"Bucky needed backup; Ranger wasn't taking chances going in alone," Bobby said.
"Why the hell did you have to dig the bullet out of my arm? Why didn't you wait for Bobby and his drugs?"
"'Because if I let Bobby deal with it, he'd put you in an ambulance and take you to the hospital to have it done there. If I do it, he'll patch you up so you can come with us to deal with these pricks, and you can go to the hospital later. I assumed you'd want to go that route."
"Well, yeah," I said.
Bobby looked at Morelli, "You hurt?"
"Just my pride."
"Did you get the bastards?" Ranger asked.
"We got two out of three?" Bobby said. "Buckerson and Kermit got away."
"They aren't getting far," Joe said. He walked out of the floats, borrowed one of the guy's cellphones and put out an APB for Bucky. We didn't even really pause to look at the gingerbread house as we made our way to the cars. Bobby got into the back of a Range Rover with me and numbed up my arm so he could trade the glue for sutures. He bandaged me up while Joe and Ranger spoke to Tank. Tank was in charge of transporting the now unmasked muppets. They were Gary Gadson and Greg Neudendorf. Leaving Kermit to be John Lewis or Calvin Darren.
"They don't know we know who they are," I said. "John Lewis has a house in Cape May."
"They aren't going to go there," Joe said. "Darren might trust the other two not to spill about their safe house, but Bucky won't. He'll have a backup location."
"What's his deal?" I asked.
"You remember how you said that Jerry Caruso and his wife died of a heroin overdose?" Joe said, "It turns out it was a murder-suicide. Bucky found them, and his real reason for transferring to Boston was to work with Darren on taking down Dickerson."
"Why the hell didn't we figure that out?"
"For the same reason Miss Piggy was sprung from evidence, and why none of the muppet cases from Boston showed up in the system. Bucky removed them. He used Captain Hodges's password to get rid of anything online."
"How did he get the password?"
"He probably watched the Captain enter it," Joe said. "Hodges is the slowest typist in the universe. It wouldn't be hard to figure out his password if he trusted you enough to enter it while you were watching."
"I asked Eddie to find out when Miss Piggy was checked out of Evidence," I said.
"The day before the shootout at the warehouse," Joe said. "That I did find out, but it wasn't Bucky who checked it out. It was an Officer Maddox."
"Bucky must have fake credentials. Maddox was his sister's maiden name," I said. "I don't know why they don't have the same last name. I didn't get that far."
"We'll have to ask Bucky that," Joe asked.
Ranger picked up his radio from the dash, "I want Ed Settle on the horn, now. I want to know where we're going."
Two minutes later, Settle spoke over the radio, "They will go to Cape May," Ed said.
"No," I said. "He won't. We have Gadson and Neudendorf. Bucky won't be willing to go anywhere they know about."
"Then how can I help you?" Ed asked.
"The guy you were talking about earlier, the one who hung around; does he look like a shrunken Mark Wahlberg?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said. "Why?"
"He's Detective Buckerson," I said.
"Shit," Ed said.
"Do you know where he might go? He was Jerry's brother-in-law."
"Oh yeah!" Ed said, "That's it. I remember that now. Thanks, it's been bugging me."
"Where would they go?" Ranger said.
"Cape May," Ed said again. "John gave Jerry a house near his on some cliff or something. I went there once. He put it in Deb's name, and she left everything to her brother."
"Do you have an address?"
"No, sorry," Ed said. Ranger put the receiver down.
Joe was already on the phone having someone do a title search on Debbie Maddox. Who knew what name the house was under now, but he could find if she'd been a previous owner of anything. He punched the address into the GPS as he was barking instructions to have local law enforcement brought in on it.
"We're sure about this?" I asked. Cape May was pretty damned far away. Something was wrong, and then it hit me.
"Guys Ed just outed himself. He's in cahoots with the rest of the fucking Muppet gang! He said he didn't know how Bucky was related to the group, but then he said that Debbie left everything to her brother. If he knows what's in Debbie's will and he's been to the house before, then he knows that Bucky was her brother.
"When I did Background on these guys, I found out that John Lewis had given a hand to all of his former conspirators except for Jerry Caruso. Why? And why did John Lewis help everyone? He didn't need to unless they had something on John. I bet Ed knows exactly what that is."
"She's right, and he's probably lying about the house too," Ranger said.
"Even if the house was in Maddox's name, she was married to Jerry," I said. "They had nothing when they died. They were about to get evicted from their apartment. If they had a house to go to, why the hell wouldn't they? I bet Bucky or John bought that house recently. Or at the very least transferred it into Debbie's name somehow."
"Where does Settle live?" Joe asked.
"In an apartment in Trenton, but he did get a job in one of Justin Lewis's factories. Maybe he's the one with the beach house? Seriously, why would they drag us all of the way out to Moonachie when it would mean they would have to drive forever to get someplace safe. It increases their chances of getting caught."
Joe ran the title search on Ed Settle this time. "Nice thinking, Cupcake. Ed Settle has a house in Moonachie."
Ranger sent half of the men ahead to Cape May, just in case, while the other half of us turned around and went back to Moonachie, with a new destination entered into the GPS. Ranger had Settle locked down in the safe house, away from any possible means of communication, while Joe has some of the TPD go out to pick him up.
We found the house at the end of a long dark road, and Ranger cut the lights as we pulled up. The Kit's Mom van was parked in the drive, next to a seriously average Carola.
"That's Bucky's car," Joe said.
There were lights on in the house, and we could see Darren, Bucky and Lewis sitting at a table. Not one of them looked particularly concerned. "Do we have any gizmos in this car," I asked.
"Define Gizmo," Bobby asked.
"A Parabolic mic?" I said. "I want to hear what they are saying."
Bobby shifted around and looked in the back. He pulled out a pelican case and set up the mic.
"We just have to lay low," Bucky was saying. "Ed texted me while he was in the head in some service station. Plum told her pet gorilla to take him to Atlantic City. She bought his whole story. He'll send them to Cape May; they'll trip the alarm going in, and that's when we head North."
"We know, Bucky," John Lewis said. "You've said this a hundred times. You're sure Dickerson is dead?"
"I've seen the body," Bucky said. "I made sure the dental records matched. I just wish I knew how the body got there. His murder is going to be pinned on me; I'll cop to the blackmail, but that? That was all you."
"Bullshit," Lewis said. "If we go down, so do you, as an accessory. And I won't hesitate to tell them about how you helped us get rid of that car we used to push Dickerson off the road twenty years ago. You keep us out of jail."
"You're both fucking idiots," Darren said. "I told you going after Dickerson again was a dumb idea. I don't care if someone is resurrecting his work. I told you, he told me the weaknesses in his theories. I knew how to get around it, and you had to go drawing attention to it again. You had to use those fucking muppets."
"We were sending a message," Lewis said.
"But you dragged me into it," Darren said. "And now you've killed a cop, and…"
"No," Bucky said. "We didn't kill a cop. They got themselves locked in a float while snooping around where they shouldn't. They will die of natural causes."
"You shot Plum," Lewis said. "Ain't nothing natural about that."
"Yeah, I lost my temper. She's a fucking pain in the ass."
"Wait, let me get this straight," Darren said. "You didn't kill them. You locked them inside a parade float?"
"We disarmed them. We took away their phones."
"Are you fucking insane‽?" Darren said, jumping to his feet. "Have you never watched a movie? Ever? Even if that cop is as dumb as you say he is, I'd bet everything I own that that other dude is Special Forces. He's not going to be some brainless Jarhead. We have to get out of here."
"Let's move," Joe and Ranger said at the same time.
Darren looked out of the window just as Ranger's men closed in on the house. He shouted a warning, and the three men bolted. Bucky fired at Ranger as Bucky moved towards our car, forcing Ranger to find cover. Either Bucky forgot about me, or he seriously underestimated how much I hate getting shot. He was running at full speed, looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was following him. As he drew alongside the truck, I opened the door, and he ran headfirst into it and went sprawling backwards onto the ground. Just to make sure he had even more trouble sucking air back into his lungs, I took the opportunity to kick him hard in the gonads. I really, really hate getting shot.
