'That's the beauty of it,' Vinnie said. 'You don't have to go after him. He'll come to you. He's got a thing for you.'
'No! No way. Forget it.'
'Fine,' Vinnie said, 'you don't want the job, I'll put Joyce on it.'
Joyce Barnhardt is my archenemy. Ordinarily, I'd eat dirt before I'd give anything up to Joyce. In this case, Joyce could take it. Let her spend her time spinning her wheels, looking for the invisible man.
'So what else have you got?' I asked Connie.
'Two minors and a real stinker.' She passed three folders over to me. 'Since Ranger isn't available I'm going to have to give the stinker to you.'
I flipped the top file open. Morris Munson. Arrested for vehicular manslaughter. 'Could be worse,' I said. 'Could be a homicidal rapist.'
'You didn't read down far enough,' Connie said. 'After this guy ran over the victim, who just happened to be his ex-wife, he beat her with a tire iron, raped her, and tried to set her on fire. He was charged with vehicular manslaughter because according to the M.E. she was already dead when he took the tire iron to her. He had her soaked in gasoline and was trying to get his Bic to work when a blue-and-white happened to drive by.'
Little black dots danced in front of my eyes. I sat down hard on the fake-leather couch and put my head between my legs.
'You okay?' Lula asked.
'Probably it's just low blood sugar,' I said. Probably it's my
'It could be worse,' Connie said. 'It says here he wasn't armed. Just bring your gun along, and I'm sure you'll be fine.'
'I can't believe they let him out on bail!'
'Go figure,' Connie said. 'Guess they didn't have any more room at the inn.'
I looked up at Vinnie, who was still standing in the doorway to his private office. 'You wrote bail on this maniac?'
'Hey, I'm not a judge. I'm a businessman. He didn't have any priors,' Vinnie said. 'And he has a good job working at the button factory. Homeowner.'
'And now he's gone.'
'Didn't show up for his court date,' Connie said. 'I called the button factory, and they said last they saw him was Wednesday.'
'Have they heard from him at all? Did he call in sick?'
'No. Nothing. I called his home number and got his machine.'
I glanced at the other two files. Lenny Dale, missing in action, charged with domestic violence. And Walter 'Moon Man' Dunphy, wanted for drunk and disorderly and urinating in a public place.
I tucked the three folders into my shoulder bag and stood. 'Page me if you hear anything on Ranger.'
'Last chance,' Vinnie said. 'I swear I'll give his file to Joyce.'
I took a doughnut from the box, gave the box over to Lula, and left. It was March and the snowstorm was having a hard time working itself up into anything serious. There was some slush on the street, and a layer of ice had accumulated on my windshield and my passenger-side windows. There was a large blurry object behind the window. I squinted through the ice. The blurry object was Joe Morelli.
Most women would have an orgasm on the spot to find Morelli sitting in their car. He had that effect. I'd known Morelli for most of my life, and I almost never had an on-the-spot orgasm, anymore. I needed at least four minutes.
He was wearing boots and jeans and a black fleece jacket. The tails of a red plaid flannel shirt hung under the jacket. Under the flannel shirt he wore a black T-shirt and a.40-caliber Glock. His eyes were the color of aged whiskey and his body was a testament to good Italian genes and hard work at the gym. He had a reputation for living fast, and the reputation was well deserved but dated. Morelli focused his energy on his job now.
I slid behind the wheel, turned the key in the ignition, and cranked up the defroster. I was driving a six-year-old blue Honda Civic that was perfectly good transportation but didn't enhance my fantasy life. Hard to be Xena, Warrior Princess in a six-year-old Civic.
'So,' I said to Morelli, 'what's up?'
'You going after Ranger?'
'Nope. Not me. No siree. No way.'
He raised his eyebrows.
'I'm not magic,' I said. Sending me after Ranger would be like sending the chicken out to hunt down the fox.
Morelli was slouched against the door. 'I need to talk to him.'
'Are you investigating the fire?'
'No. This is something else.'
'Something else that's related to the fire? Like the hole in Homer Ramos's head?'
Morelli grinned. 'You ask a lot of questions.'
'Yeah, but I'm not getting any answers. Why isn't Ranger answering his page? What's his involvement here?'
'He had a late-night meeting with Ramos. They were caught on a lobby security camera. The building is locked up at night, but Ramos had a key. He arrived first, waited ten minutes for Ranger, then opened the door for him. The two of them crossed the lobby and took the elevator to the third floor. Thirty-five minutes later Ranger left alone. And ten minutes after that, the fire alarm went off. Forty-eight hours' worth of tape has been run, and according to the tape no one else was in the building with Ranger and Ramos.'
'Ten minutes is a long time. Give him three more to ride the elevator or take the stairs. Why didn't the alarm go off sooner, if Ranger started the fire?'
'No smoke detector in the office where Ramos was found. The door was closed, and the smoke detector was in the hall.'
'Ranger isn't stupid. He wouldn't let himself get caught on videotape if he was going to kill someone.'
'It was a hidden camera.' Morelli eyed my doughnut. 'You going to eat that?'
I broke the doughnut in half and gave him a piece. I popped the other into my mouth. 'Was an accelerant used?'
'Small amount of lighter fluid.'
'You think Ranger did it?'
'Hard to say with Ranger.'
'Connie said Ramos was shot.'
'Nine millimeter.'
'So you think Ranger is hiding from the police?'
'Allen Barnes is the primary on the homicide investigation. Everything he's got so far leads to Ranger. If he brought Ranger in for questioning, he could probably hold him for a while based on priors, like the carrying charge. No matter how you look at it, sitting in a cell isn't in Ranger's best interest right now. And if Barnes has Ranger nailed as his number one suspect, there's a good chance Alexander Ramos has reached the same conclusion. If Ramos thought Ranger blew Homer away, Ramos wouldn't wait for justice to be served by the court.'
The doughnut was sitting in a big lump in my throat. 'Or maybe Ramos has already gotten to Ranger…'
'That's a possibility, too.'
Shit. Ranger is a mercenary with a strong code of ethics that doesn't necessarily always correspond to current popular thinking. He came on board as my mentor when I first started working for Vinnie, and the relationship has evolved to include friendship, which is limited by Ranger's lone-wolf lifestyle and my desire for survival. And, truth is, there's been a growing sexual attraction between us which scares the hell out of me. So my feelings for Ranger were complicated to begin with, and now I added a sense of doom to the list of unwanted emotions.
Morelli's pager beeped. He looked at the readout and sighed. 'I have to go. If you run across Ranger, pass my message on to him. We really need to talk.'
'It'll cost you.'
'Dinner?'
'Fried chicken,' I said. 'Extra greasy.'
