Lean Mean Thirteen

Everyone wants to talk to me. The police, Joyce, Peter Smullen.'

'Did Smullen say why he wanted to meet with you?'

'He said he wanted to talk about things.' Like, maybe the fact that I planted a bug on him.

'And Joyce?'

'She was here this morning, demanding to know where I stashed Dickie.'

'As in chopped-up body parts you fed to your neighbors cat? Or alive and living in your closet?'

'I don't know.'

'You should find out. Maybe she knows something we don't.'

'Maybe you should talk to her,' I said to Ranger. 'She likes you.'

'You'd throw me into the shark tank?'

That got me smiling. 'Is big, bad Ranger afraid of Joyce Barnhardt?'

'I'd rather face the python.'

'Joyce doesn't have a long attention span. I'm surprised she's still involved in this.'

Ranger's phone buzzed, and he answered it on speaker mode.

'You have a meeting on the calendar for one o'clock,' Tank said. 'Do you need a ride?'

'Yes.'

'I'm in the lot.'

'I'll be right down.'

Ranger took the Cayenne keys from his pocket and placed them on the counter. He counted out four hundred dollars and placed that on the counter as well. 'Caesar is designing a system for a new client tomorrow morning, and a female point of view would be helpful. He'll pick you up at nine. I'll send a uniform with him. The money is an advance on salary for services you'll provide.'

He backed me against the wall, leaned into me, and kissed me. His tongue touched mine, and I felt my fingers involuntarily curl into his shirt as heat rushed through my stomach and headed south. He broke from the kiss and looked down at me with a suggestion of a smile. Just a slight curve to the corners of his mouth.

'That's an advance on services I provide,' He said.

He grabbed his jacket and left.

SEVEN

Since I was no longer desperate for money, I decided to spend the afternoon on activities designed to keep me out of jail. I heard what Morelli was saying… that Dickie was just a missing person and I shouldn't worry. But people had been sent to jail for less. I knew this for a fact. I helped put them there.

First up was the conversation with Joyce. I drove to her house and parked in her driveway behind a Pro Serve van and hatchback. Joyce's front door was open, and I could see a cleaning crew working inside. A couch and chair had been set curbside. Terminal victims of the beaver explosion.

I picked out a guy who looked like he might speak English and asked for Joyce.

'Not here,' he said. 'She let us in and split.'

'That's okay I'll just look around until she gets back. I'm her interior decorator. We had an appointment, but I'm early.'

'Sure,' he said. 'Knock yourself out.'

The house was elaborately decorated with a lot of velvet upholstery and gilt-framed mirrors. Rugs were plush. Marble in the kitchen and bathroom. Satin in the bedroom. Flat-screen televisions everywhere. Joyce had married well this last time around. She'd chosen more velvet and gilt than I could manage, but it looked expensive.

There was a designated office/library, the shelves filled with hardcover books that had probably belonged to her ex. A large carved mahogany desk floated in the middle of the room. The desktop was clean. Telephone but no scribble pad. No computer. I checked all the drawers. Telephone book. Nothing else.

I returned to the kitchen and sat at the little built-in workstation. The phone was attached to an answering machine. A Starbucks coffee mug held pens and markers. A couple sticky pads were stacked next to the phone.

I opened the top drawer and found a piece of paper with two nine-digit numbers and a phone number scrawled on it. I recognized one as Dickie s social security number. Odd how you remember things like that. I didn't recognize the second number or the phone number.

I dialed the phone number, and a programmed voice introduced itself as the Smith Barney automated Reserved Client Service Center and asked for an account number. That was as far as I was going to get, so I copied the three numbers on a sticky pad and put the paper in my pocket.

I didn't see anything else of interest on Joyce's desk. I scrolled through calls made and calls received on her phone and copied I the list, going back lour days.

I packed up and ran into Joyce as I was leaving the kitchen.

'What the fuck?' Joyce said.

'I was looking for you,' I told her.

'Well, you found me. What do you want?'

'I thought if we put our heads together we might be able to figure out what happened to Dickie.'

'I know what happened to him. I just don't know where he is now.'

'Why do you care?' I asked Joyce.

'I love him.'

I burst out laughing, and Joyce cracked a smile.

'Okay, even I couldn't keep a straight face on that one,' Joyce said.

'Do you think he's dead?'

'Hard to say one way or another until a body turns up. What I can tell you is this-stay out of my way. I've got an investment here, and I intend to collect. And I'll run over anyone who tries to stop me.'

'Hard to believe Dickie had that much money. From what I could see, he wasn't that smart.'

'You have no idea what's involved here. And I'm warning you again. Stay out of it.'

Joyce was really starting to annoy me. Bad enough from time to time Morelli and Ranger tried to push me around, now Joyce was telling me to butt out.

'Looks like you're doing some redecorating,' I said to Joyce. 'Is that animal fur on your chandelier?'

We locked eyes, and I knew the thought was fluttering in her head… did Stephanie Plum mastermind the beaver bombing? And then the moment passed, and we both stepped back from it.

I walked to the Cayenne, got in, and powered out of the driveway. I drove to Coglin's house just for the heck of it and saw that the green SUV was parked in the alley, two tires on Coglin's property line. I angle-parked behind the SUV, blocking its exit, and approached Coglin's back door with stun gun in hand.

Coglin answered the door with a sawed-off shotgun in his. 'Now what?' he asked.

'Same ol’, same ol’,' I told him.

'I'm not going with you. I can't. I gotta stay here. I'll go as soon as I can.'

I looked down the barrel of the sawed-off. 'All right, then,' I said. 'Good conversation. Call me when you're ready to, uh, you know.'

I got into the Cayenne and took off for the bonds office.

'If you're looking for Lula, she isn't here,' Connie said when I walked in. 'She went home to get dry clothes and never came back. Sounds like you had a busy morning. I hear people are driving from all over the state to breathe Burg air.'

'I swear, I didn't have anything to do with that fire. I wasn't anywhere near that house.'

'Sure,' Connie said. 'Did you get Hansen?'

'Yes and no. I came here to use the by-phone number program.'

'Is this for Hansen?'

'No. I'm trying to make sense of the Dickie mess. Joyce is tied up in it. I don't exactly know how or why, but I got some numbers off her phone, and I want to run them down. One of them is for the Smith Barney automated Reserved Client Service Center.'