THIRTY
RANGER NEEDED TO stay in Atlantic City to debrief with the FBI, but I was free to leave with Grandma and Lula. I might have been more inclined to stay with Ranger but for the fact that I was wearing head-to-toe monkeys. The day had been traumatic enough, and the day before hadn’t been all that good either, and now I had monkey underpants on. The saying “Out of sight, out of mind” didn’t apply to monkey underpants. I wanted to go home and try to feel normal and convince myself that the threat was gone.
Rafael and Hal walked me from the room to the hotel drive court and made sure I was securely belted into Lula’s Firebird. Hard to tell if Ranger was still afraid for my safety, or if he was afraid I’d change my mind and come back to the room with Lula and Grandma.
Lula pulled away from the hotel and headed for the freeway.
“I must have ate a million shrimps at that buffet. And the cocktail sauce had just the right amount of horseradish.”
“Yep,” Grandma said. “This was a real good day. We should do this more often. I wouldn’t mind having another day just like this one.”
I was in the backseat with an ice pack on my bruised cheek, and I didn’t ever want to repeat my day.
It was close to nine o’clock when I walked into Morelli’s house. He was on the couch watching television with Bob, and they both looked happy to see me. Then Morelli took a closer look, and his expression changed from happy to heartburn. Good thing he hadn’t seen me before the shower and clean clothes.
I dumped my messenger bag and clothes bag on the floor and squeezed in next to Morelli. “It looks worse than it is,” I said. “The important thing is that it ended well. Vlatko is gone and will never come back. And I’m here with you and Bob.”
“You have a monkey on your shirt,” Morelli said.
“I have a monkey on my everything. What happened today? Did I miss anything good?”
“Miriam Pepper had a few too many Manhattans for breakfast, and her bathrobe caught fire while she was attempting to scramble some eggs. She managed to get herself out of the bathrobe, but in the process she set her kitchen on fire and half her house burned down.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yeah, but here’s the good part. When the fire marshal went into the basement, he found bricks of high-grade Mexican marijuana stacked up like cordwood, plus some rocket launchers and stuff to make firebombs. They started to question Pepper, and he lawyered up. When they questioned Miriam, she said the marijuana was for personal use and medicinal purposes.”
“What about the rocket launchers?”
“She said they were used for family fun outings.”
“Did she say anything about Briggs?”
“Yeah. She said Silvio hated Briggs. Briggs was driving Silvio nuts with his nitpicking all the transportation expenses. And Silvio told Miriam that Briggs hums when he works. Briggs would come in to do the books, and he’d hum.”
“Pepper was trying to blow Briggs up for humming?”
“That’s one theory.”
“So let me get this straight. No one wanted to kill Briggs because he knew about Poletti’s money stash and about the cooked books. Everyone wanted to kill Briggs because he’s annoying.”
“That’s what we’re hearing.”
“It’s a real accomplishment to be that annoying.”
“I don’t buy it,” Morelli said. “There has to be more.”
“What about Scootch, Siglowski, Ritt, and Poletti? Do you have a lead on the shooter? I was going with Silvio Pepper.”
“The gun wasn’t found in Pepper’s house or office.”
“Too bad. That would have tied things up nice and neat.”
Morelli was long gone by the time I rolled out of bed. I had a bruise on my face and a Band-Aid on my neck. The cut on my lip was slightly swollen but not terrible. I made myself a peanut butter sandwich and washed it down with two cups of coffee. I slung the messenger bag over my shoulder, told Bob to be good, and went to the front door. There were two black SUVs at the curb and two Rangeman guys. One SUV was an Escalade, the other was a small Mercedes. I was handed the key to the Mercedes.
“Ranger wanted you to have this,” one of the men said.
I texted Thank you to Ranger and got behind the wheel. I had money to get another car, but this made my life instantly better. I was spending a fortune on gas for the Buick, and sourcing out a good used SUV would take time.
First stop was my apartment, to check on Briggs. I ran into Dillan, the super, in the hall.
“We’re painting on Friday, and your carpet is supposed to get installed the following Monday,” he said.
“That’s great,” I told him. “Thanks.”
I let myself into the apartment, and the dogs rushed over to me.
“Hey, look who’s here!” Briggs said. “It’s Aunt Stephanie.”
He was dressed in the tan suit, and it looked like he’d gotten a haircut.
“What’s with the suit?” I asked him.
“I have a job interview, so Nick let me keep it a while longer. What happened with the Russian guy?”
“The problem is solved.”
“I bet.”