TWENTY-FOUR
I DROVE AWAY feeling agitated. I hated that Forest was locked up in jail. I didn’t like leaving the dogs with Briggs. I was terrified that something horrible was going to happen to Ranger. And I had a sick feeling in my stomach that I was going to get disemboweled by Vlatko.
All morning I’d been fighting the urge to call Ranger. I wanted reassurance that he was okay, but I didn’t want to overstep the boundaries of our relationship. Ranger wasn’t a chatty person, and we didn’t make casual phone calls. Truth is, if I made a phone call every time I was worried Ranger’s life was in danger, I’d spend half my life on the phone. Still, this felt different. This was bigger and crazier and scarier.
Morelli’s green SUV wasn’t in front of his house when I pulled to the curb. He was still helping Anthony. I let myself in and realized there was no Bob. Bob was usually the first to greet me. I went to the kitchen in search of lunch, knowing there were good things waiting for me in Morelli’s refrigerator.
Morelli had started out as the bad kid in the neighborhood. He was every teenage girl’s dream and every mother’s nightmare. He’d done some time in the Navy, joined the Trenton police, set a record for barroom brawls and one-night stands, and miraculously emerged from the devastation as a disease-free, mostly mature and responsible adult. Go figure.
I’d had a less tumultuous transition from childhood to adulthood, but somewhere in my twenties I feel like I got stalled in the process and now I’m drifting, marking time without any great passion to move forward. It could be that I’m just liking where I’m at and want to stay there a while longer. Still, it would be helpful if I could get motivated enough to buy a toaster.
I pulled a half-eaten tray of lasagna out of the fridge, carved a chunk off for myself, and ate it cold. I called Morelli and got a progress report on the swing set. It sounded to me like there was more beer drinking going on than bolting and wrenching. I went upstairs, brushed my teeth, and dabbed at the lasagna stain on my T-shirt. I gave up on the shirt, changed into a new one, and went downstairs. For lack of anything better to do I thought I’d go back to my apartment and help Briggs with the dogs. I went to the kitchen to get my messenger bag and froze in the middle of the room, unable to move, unable to breathe, my thoughts momentarily scrambled.
My messenger bag was on the counter, and next to it in a smear of blood was what looked like a human heart. The little sticky note next to it said, I’ll have yours next.
I looked around. No broken or open windows. The back door was locked. With shaky hands I got the key from the red coffee mug in Morelli’s over-the-counter cupboard, unlocked the drawer next to the sink, and removed Morelli’s spare Glock 9.
I stood with my back to the kitchen wall and called Ranger.
“I’m alone in Morelli’s house and someone just left a bloody heart on the kitchen counter,” I said. “I have a gun, and I’m in the kitchen, and I’m not going to move until you get here.”
“I’m fifteen minutes away, but I’ll have one of my men in your backyard sooner than that.”
I hung up and called my parents’ house.
“Just checking in,” I said when Grandma Mazur answered. “How’s everything going there?”
“We just finished lunch, and now your father’s sleeping in front of the television.”
I called my sister. I called Briggs. I called Connie and Lula. No one was missing a heart. I looked outside and saw that two Rangeman guys were at attention in Morelli’s yard.
I debated calling Morelli. It was his house, and he should be told about this. Problem was, it would create a firestorm of unwanted activity. If I blurted out the whole story, it would get tied to the polonium and the feds would take over. There’d be CSI trucks and crime scene tape and hours of interrogation. If I didn’t blurt out the whole story, I’d be withholding information in a federal investigation. And my biggest reservation was that the feds wouldn’t be as efficient as Ranger when it came to solving the problem. In fact, they might only complicate things. I had confidence that Ranger would find Vlatko and eliminate him. The feds, not so much.
My cellphone rang, and Ranger told me he was at the front door and coming in. I heard the door open and close, and moments later Ranger walked into the kitchen. He glanced at me and then at the heart on the counter.
“Have you cleared the house?” he asked me.
“No.”
“Stay here while I do a walk-through.”
Minutes later he returned to the kitchen.
“All the doors and windows were locked,” I told him. “I went upstairs to brush my teeth and change my shirt, and when I came down the heart was on the counter.”
“Are you sure you locked the front door when you came in?”
“Absolutely.”
“It was unlocked when I arrived. Morelli could use a better locking system, although I suspect if Vlatko wants to get through a door he can find a way.”
Ranger went to the counter and looked down at the heart. He tapped a number into his phone and gave the person on the other end Morelli’s address and told him to use the back door.
“I’m not an expert,” Ranger said, “but this looks like a human heart.”
“You’ve seen a lot of hearts?”
“How many is a lot?”
“One,” I said.
“Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of hearts. Have you called Morelli?”
“No. Not yet.”
“If it’s a human heart, we have to call him,” Ranger said. “If it’s something other than human, I’d rather not make the call. It’ll further complicate the Vlatko search.”
“Are you making any progress?”
“I’ve been researching Viktor Volkov. Volkov is a common Russian surname. There are several Viktor Volkovs in New York and New Jersey. One of them lives in Atlantic City.”
“That’s a convenient coincidence.”
“The Atlantic City resident has been in the U.S. for several years, working as an independent contractor for a heating and air-conditioning company. Fifty-two years old. Single. Renting a house in a low-income neighborhood. Two eyes. Obviously not Vlatko. He doesn’t answer his phone.”
“Are you going to Atlantic City to talk to him?”
“Yes. I would have gone today, but we moved back into the building and I needed to be there.”
A narrow-faced, pockmarked guy in Rangeman black fatigues knocked on the back door. Ranger let him in and nodded toward the heart.
“Tell me about this,” Ranger said.
“It’s a heart,” the guy said.
“What kind?”
“Human. You can tell by the shape. It’s adult-size. It appears to have been frozen and recently defrosted. The liquid on the counter is from the defrosting process. Cells breaking down.”
“Anything else?” Ranger asked.
“It appears to have been healthy, but that’s all I could tell you without slicing into it.”
“Thanks,” Ranger said.
The Rangeman guy joined the two who were still standing at parade rest in the backyard.
“Who the heck was that?” I asked Ranger.
“Rodriguez. He’s a specialist.”
“I bet.”
“Make the phone call,” Ranger said.
“Maybe you should leave.”
He shook his head. “I’m staying.”
I blew out a sigh and called Morelli.
“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“We hit a snag on the sliding board, but I think we have it figured out.”
“I’m at your house, and I have a sort of situation here.”
“What sort of situation?”
“Sort of a home invasion situation. I’m fine and Ranger is here, but we thought you’d want to check out the … problem.”
“Oh man, did someone shoot a rocket into my living room?”
“Nope. No rocket. Your living room is just like you left it. It’s the kitchen that was sort of invaded.”
“Okay, I’ll round Bob up and come home.”
“This probably isn’t going to go well,” I said to Ranger.
Bob bounded into the kitchen, slammed into me, and sniffed at Ranger. Morelli followed. He nodded to Ranger and focused on me. His gaze traveled down my arm to my hand, and I realized I was still holding his Glock.
“On the counter,” I said.
Morelli shifted his attention. “It’s a heart,” he said.
“We think it’s human,” I told him. “Someone broke in while I was upstairs and left it here with a note.”
Morelli walked to the counter and read the note. “I’ll have yours next.”
He looked at me, and I could see the checked anger in the set of his mouth. “Do you know what this means?”
“Probably,” I said. “We think it relates to the polonium.”
“I’m listening.”
“When I was with Special Forces,” Ranger told Morelli, “I had an encounter with an SVR agent named Vlatko. He’s an assassin and an interrogator, and he’s in this country on some sort of mission. He used Rangeman for a practice run. I’ve tracked him to the Russian consulate in New York, and have some leads, but he’s still in the wind.”
“What has this got to do with me?” Morelli asked. “Why do I have a heart on my kitchen counter?”
“It has nothing to do with you,” Ranger said. “It was left for Stephanie. He’s targeting her because she’s worked for me. Eventually he’ll come after me. In the meantime, he’s playing with the people around me.”
“Do the feds know about the Vlatko connection?”
“Not from me,” Ranger said. “But they followed all the same initial leads that I followed. Since they don’t share their information with me, I have no idea where they’re at in the investigation.”
“If it’s a human heart, it has a body somewhere,” Morelli said. “At the very least, it needs to be tested and registered as a crime.”
We all looked over at the kitchen counter. No heart. Just a watery smear of blood and a trail of drops on the floor leading into the dining room. We followed the drops through the dining room and into the living room, where Bob was gnawing on the last remnant of the heart.
“Bad Bob,” Morelli said, shaking his finger at Bob. “That’s not Bob food.”
Bob obviously had a different opinion, because he snatched the mangled piece of meat and ran upstairs.
Morelli ran after him, there was a lot of yelling and growling, and Morelli came down empty-handed.
“He ate it,” Morelli said.
I was horrified to the point of gagging. Ranger stared down at his shoe, making a monumental effort not to laugh. And Morelli stood hands on hips, staring at the bloody splotch on his rug. The splotch sort of blended in with the rug pattern and various other food and beverage stains.
We were all carrying guns, and no one wanted to say the wrong thing and start World War III, so no one said anything.
“This never happened,” Morelli finally said.
“I didn’t see anything,” Ranger said.
I agreed. “Me either.”
Morelli turned to Ranger. “If anything happens to her, I’m holding you responsible.”
“Understood,” Ranger said.
“Excuse me?” I said. “I’m an adult. I make my own decisions. And I’m responsible for my well-being. Is that clear?”
“No,” both men said in unison.
“I have to get back to Anthony before he wrenches his own thumb off,” Morelli said. “He’s no Mr. Fix-It.”
Bob slunk down the stairs and stared up at Morelli with soulful eyes. He was sorry he’d eaten the evidence.
“That was bad,” Morelli said to Bob. “You know you’re not supposed to eat off the counter.”
A shoestring of drool hung from the side of Bob’s mouth, his eyes got glassy, he planted his four feet, and GAK … he barfed up the heart.
“Maybe you can still test it for DNA or something,” I said to Morelli.
Ranger grinned. “You’re going to need a snow shovel to get that up.”
Morelli and I were snuggled together on the couch, watching television, when Lula called.
“We just got out of the movie,” she said. “He’s getting one last tub of popcorn for the ride home, and then we’re going to start to waddle out to his car.”
“He has a car?”
“It’s his dad’s. I wouldn’t put him in my Firebird on account of he’d ruin my suspension system. Anyway, I thought I’ll get him to take me home, and I’ll get him out of the car with the promise of sex. And if that don’t work, I’ll tell him I got pot roast and gravy upstairs. Soon as I get him out of the car, you can jump out from the bushes in my front yard and snap the cuffs on him.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said, and disconnected.
“What’s a plan?” Morelli asked.
“Stanley Kulicky is FTA, and Lula just had a date with him. She’s going to hold him over at her house until I can get there.”
“Have you seen him lately? He must weigh three hundred pounds.”
“Yep, he’s a big boy.”
“Bring the extra large flexi-cuffs.”
“Check.”
Lula lives in a low-to-no-income neighborhood that has a lot less crime than Stark Street. There’s some gang and drug activity and a bunch of fourteen-year-old pregnant girls, but Lula is happy with the rent, and the commute to the office is manageable. She lives on the second floor of a small lavender house with elaborate trim that was just recently painted pink. For the most part the house is graffiti free.
I parked the Buick one house down and waited with the engine running, the windows up, and Morelli’s Glock on my lap. The neighborhood didn’t worry me, but Vlatko had my intestines in knots. I’d picked up two Rangeman tails when I left Morelli’s house. One was now parked directly behind me, and another drove past me, made a U-turn, and parked across the street.
A big SUV rolled past me and parked in front of Lula’s house. I grabbed the cuffs from my bag, cut the engine, and got out of the car. I shoved the Glock under the waistband of my jeans at the small of my back and crouched behind the car in front of me. Stanley got out of the SUV and opened the door for Lula. Lula got out and fumbled with her purse.
“Oh my,” Lula said. “I hope I have my house keys.”
I rushed Stanley, cuffed him, and asked Lula about the movie.
“The movie was excellent,” Lula said. “RoboGod saved the world, but not before a lot of awesome shit went down.”
“This sucks,” Stanley said to Lula. “You took advantage of me. I want my money back for the movie ticket.”
“I didn’t have nothing to do with this,” Lula said. “She figured this out on her own. I swear to RoboGod. And anyways, I bought the first two buckets of popcorn, and I let you fondle my knee.”
“I’m not going to jail,” Stanley said. “They make you take your clothes off and they look up your poopoo hole.”
“Dude,” Lula said. “You were sitting naked on your garage roof. Every time you turned around or bent over, everybody looked up your poopoo hole. That ship sailed.”
“I don’t care,” Stanley said, sitting down on the sidewalk. “I’m not going.”
“We need a forklift,” Lula said.
I had something better than a forklift. I had Rangeman guys. I motioned to the SUVs that I needed help, and two big guys emerged from each shiny black Rangeman vehicle.
“I need to deliver Mr. Kulicky to the police station,” I said.
Two of the men lifted Stanley and carried him to the SUV that was parked behind my Buick. He was buckled in, doors were closed, and we were ready to roll.
Lula and I got into the Buick and led the parade.
“I wasn’t going to come with,” Lula said, “but those Rangeman guys are hot. Not as hot as Ranger, but they’re totally acceptable.”
“What about Stanley?”
“Stanley is cuddly. There’s a difference between cuddly and hot. Hot trumps cuddly.”
I wasn’t sure that hot trumped cuddly. I liked cuddly a lot. Lucky for me, Morelli was both. I didn’t know about Ranger. I hadn’t had much cuddle time with Ranger.
We handed Stanley over to the docket lieutenant, I got my body receipt, and Stanley made another movie date with Lula.
We drove back to Lula’s house, Lula got into Mr. Kulicky’s SUV, and the parade took the SUV home. It was almost eleven o’clock, but lights were still on in the Kulicky house. I rang the bell and explained to Mr. Kulicky that Stanley was okay, and we’d bond him out first thing Monday morning. I handed him the keys to his car, took Lula home, and returned to Morelli with my Rangeman escort following close behind.
“How’d it go?” Morelli asked when I flopped onto the couch beside him.
“Smooth as silk.”
“You realize you have a tail, right?”
“It’s all your fault.”
“He would have done it anyway.”
This was true.
“I hope you didn’t exhaust yourself on that capture,” Morelli said. “Because I have plans for the rest of the night and possibly tomorrow morning.”
“I hope the plans for tomorrow morning involve a trip to the bakery.”
“Kinky,” Morelli said, “but I might be able to work it in.”