I checked my watch. It was almost six o’clock. Too late to try the bridesmaid dress on for size. I’d have to do it tomorrow. I left the bonds office and drove to my parents’ house.
“Just in time for dinner,” Grandma said when I strolled into the kitchen.
“That was my plan,” I said, setting Tiki onto the kitchen table.
My mother was spooning mashed potatoes into a bowl. “What is that?” she asked. “It looks like a totem pole.”
“It’s a Hawaiian tiki,” I told her. “Vinnie took it as security on a bond and I’m babysitting it because he didn’t want it in the office.”
“It’s cute,” Grandma said. “It reminds me of a big tater tot.”
I looked over my mother’s shoulder. “Pot roast?”
My mother nodded. “With mashed potatoes, green beans, and gravy.”
“And chocolate pudding for dessert,” Grandma said.
I set a plate for myself at the table and helped carry the food in.
“Have you heard any more about Geoffrey Cubbin?” I asked Grandma, taking my seat.
“Nothing about Cubbin,” she said, “but there’s talk going around that some residents of Cranberry Manor were planning to kidnap him and squeeze some information out about the money.”
“Do you have names?”
“Nope. Just the rumor. I heard about it at the bakery this morning when I went for coffee cake.”
I forked a slab of meat onto my plate. “Those people are pretty old. Hard to believe they’d be able to kidnap Cubbin.”
“They want their money back,” Grandma said. “And they haven’t got a lot to lose. If they get arrested it’s not like they’ll spend a lot of years in prison. Most of them have one foot in the grave already.”
I helped myself to potatoes. “I’ll go back to Cranberry Manor tomorrow and dig around,” I told Grandma. “See if you can get me a name.”
“You bet,” Grandma said. “I’m on the job.”
“Gravy,” my father said. “I need more gravy.”
My mother jumped up and scurried into the kitchen with the gravy boat. At first glance it would seem that she was waiting on my father, but truth is she was happy for an opportunity to go to the kitchen to refresh her “ice tea.”
My family doesn’t spend a lot of unnecessary time on body functions. We eat and we leave to do other things. My father has television shows to watch. My mother and my grandmother have dishes to wash and the kitchen to set straight. I helped in the kitchen and by seven-thirty I was on my way.
I had Tiki on the seat next to me guarding the bag of leftovers. I called Morelli and asked if he was interested in pot roast and chocolate pudding. He asked if I was delivering the food naked. I said no. And he said he wanted it anyway.
He was at the door when I parked. He was in his usual outfit of jeans and T-shirt. He had a five o’clock shadow going that was two days old. And he looked better than dessert.
I handed him the bag of food, he dragged me to him, and he kissed me with an indecent amount of tongue and ass grabbing.
“I haven’t got a lot of time,” I said. “I’m meeting Lula at nine.”
“I can be fast,” Morelli said.
“Not fast enough. I’m just dropping off.”
He looked in the bag. “Yum.”
“You used to say that about me,” I told him.
“Cupcake, you’re still
I returned his kiss. “Gotta go.”
“Where are you going?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Morelli immediately turned from playful boyfriend to serious cop. “Tell me.”
I studied him for a moment. It would be good to confide in him and tap in to his expertise. He was smart. And he had more experience than I did. Unfortunately I was about to do something not entirely legal, and I’d compromise his cop ethics if I told him. Not that Morelli didn’t sometimes bend his ethics to suit the occasion. It was more that I never knew when he would bend and when he’d handcuff me to the bedpost to keep me from committing a crime.
“I need to get into a building,” I said. “And it’s locked except for a large drop box for mail.”
“How large is the drop box?”
“About as big as Randy Briggs.”
Morelli’s face creased into a grin. “You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“Why is this building so important?”
“I think Geoffrey Cubbin might be in there.”
“You have reasons for thinking this?”
“Yep.”
“Then why don’t you just break in and announce yourself? You have that privilege as a bail bonds agent.”
“If he’s not in there I want to be able to snoop around.”
“I didn’t hear any of this,” Morelli said. “And I want you to call me when you get home.”
“Deal.”
FOURTEEN
I WAS THE first to get to the FedEx lot. Lula arrived a few minutes after me. Randy Briggs drove up a few minutes after Lula. We all had penlights and pepper spray. We were all dressed in black, just like in the movies. And we all felt sort of stupid. Okay, maybe not Lula, but definitely Briggs and me.
“We’ll go in Lula’s car,” I said. “We’ll park in Myron Cryo’s lot and cut through the band of trees. I drove around the cul-de-sac when I first got here and there are no cars parked in front of The Clinic and no lights shining from any of the windows.”
Lula killed her lights at the entrance to the Cryo lot and glided to a stop close to the greenbelt. We all piled out and crept through the trees and shrubs to the blacktopped driveway that led to The Clinic’s underground garage. There was a single light shining over the garage entrance. And there was a light in a room at the far end of the second floor.
The drop box was next to the roll-down door. The metal fire door was to the other side of the drop box. I opened the drop box door, clicked my penlight on, and took a look inside. It was going to be a tight fit for Briggs.
“I’m not crazy about this,” Briggs said. “What if I get stuck? What if I get caught?”
“If you get caught just tell them some college kids kid-napped you and put you in the box for fun,” Lula said. “Probably happens all the time to you little people.”
“I got a gun,” Briggs said to Lula. “I could shoot you.”
“You don’t scare me,” Lula said. “My gun’s bigger than your gun.”
“Oh yeah?” Briggs said. “Haul it out and we’ll see who’s got the bigger gun.”
“Jeez Louise!” I said. “Here we go with the gun stuff again. Stop the gun stuff!
“She don’t understand the joys of shooting,” Lula said to Briggs.
“She hasn’t got enough rage,” Briggs said. “She needs more rage.”
“You’re going to see rage if you don’t stop talking and get in the box,” I said to Briggs.
