'Okay, so run this by me again,' Lula said. 'We're all dressed up like Handy Andy for why?'
'Dickie is part owner of an apartment building. On the odd chance that he isn't dead, I thought it might be a place he'd hole up. Or maybe a place someone would hold him hostage. It's on Jewel Street, right on the edge of public housing. I did a drive-by, and it looks like a candidate for urban renewal. There are ten units, and I'm sure they all have leaky faucets and broken toilets. I figure we go in looking like maintenance, and we won't have a problem poking around.'
'I hope you realize I could be shopping right now. There's a big shoe sale at Macy's.'
'Yes, but since you're with me, going on a crime-solving adventure, you get to wear this neat tool belt. It's got a hammer and a tape measure and a screwdriver.'
'Where'd you get this thing anyway? It don't hardly fit a full figure woman like me.'
'Borrowed it from my building super, Dillon Rudick.'
I parked the Cayenne next to a Dumpster in the alley behind the building. Joyce was still following me, but I didn't care a whole lot as long as she stayed in her rental car and didn't interfere.
'We'll start at the bottom and work our way to the top,' I told Lula. 'It shouldn't take long.'
'Just suppose we find this dickhead, then what? It's not like he committed a crime. It's not like he's FTA and we can haul his bony ass off to jail.'
'I guess we sit on him and call the
'I would have worn something different if I'd known that. I got a sweatshirt and baggy-ass jeans on so I look handy. This isn't gonna show me off in a photograph. And look at my hair. Do I have time to change my hair color? I photograph much better when I'm blond.'
I opened the back door to the building and peered into the dark interior. It was a three-story walk-up with a central stairway. Four apartments on the first floor, four on the second, and two on the third. It was late afternoon. Coming up to dinnertime. Most tenants would be at home.
I knocked on 1A and a Hispanic woman answered. I told her we were checking toilet seals.
'Toilet don't work,' the woman said. 'No toilet.'
'What do you mean it don't work? You gotta have a toilet,' Lula said.
'Don't work.'
Lula elbowed her way in. 'Maybe we could fix it. Let me have a look at this toilet. Sometimes you just gotta jiggle the handle.'
The apartment consisted of one large room opening off a galley kitchen, plus a single bedroom and bathroom. Seven kids and six adults were watching a small television in the living room. A big pot of something vaguely smelling like chili bubbled on the stove.
Lula wedged herself into the little bathroom and stood in front of the toilet. 'This toilet looks okay to me,' Lula said. 'What's wrong with it?'
'Don't work.'
Lula flushed the toilet. Nothing. She picked the lid up and looked inside. 'There's no water in this toilet,' she said. 'That's your problem.' Lula reached around and turned the valve on the pipe leading to the toilet. 'It's gonna work just fine now,' she said. She flushed the toilet again and the bowl began to fill with water.
The Hispanic woman was waving her arms and talking rapid-fire Spanish.
'What's she saying?' Lula asked me.
I shrugged. 'I don't speak Spanish.'
'You're with Ranger all the time. Don't he ever speak Spanish?'
'Yes, but I don't know what he says.'
The toilet bowl was now entirely filled with water and the water was still running.
'Uh-oh,' Lula said. 'Maybe I should shut the water off.' She reached behind the toilet, turned the valve, and it came off in her hand. 'Hunh,' she said. 'This ain't good.'
'Don't work,' the Hispanic woman said. 'Don't work. Don't work.'
The water was running over the side of the toilet bowl, splashing onto the floor.
'We gotta go now,' Lula said to the woman, giving her the handle to the valve. 'And don't worry, we're gonna put this on our report. You'll be hearing from someone.' Lula closed the apartment door behind us and we headed for the stairs. 'Maybe we should skip right to the second floor,' she said.
'Don't offer to fix anything this time,' I said. 'And let me do the talking.'
'I was just trying to be helpful is all. I saw right off her problem was she didn't have the water turned on.'
'She didn't have it turned on because the valve was
'She didn't communicate that to me,' Lula said.
I knocked on the door to 2A and my knock was answered by a little black woman with short gray hair.
'We're checking to see if there are any maintenance issues with this building,' I told her.
'I don't have any problems,' the woman said. 'Thank you for asking.'
'How about your toilet?' Lula said. 'Does your toilet work okay?'
'Yes. My toilet is fine.'
I thanked the woman and pushed Lula away from the door, over to 2B.
'1 know something's wrong here,' Lula said, sniffing the air. 'Smells like a gas leak. Good thing we're going around checking on these things.'
'We're not checking on anything. We're looking for Dickie.'
'Sure, I know that,' Lula said. 'That don't mean we can't detect a gas leak.'
The door was answered by a fat guy wearing boxer shorts. 'Waddaya want?' he asked.
'We been sent by the gas company,' Lula said. 'We smelled a leak.' She stuck her head into his apartment. 'Yeah, it's coming from in here all right.'
'There's no gas in here,' he said. 'Everything's electric.'
'I guess I know gas when I smell it,' Lula said. 'My partner and me are from the gas company. We know these things. How about the oven? Are you sure the oven isn't gas?'
'Waddaya think this is, the Hotel Ritz? The oven don't even work. The oven never worked. I gotta cook everything in the microwave.'
Lula pushed past him. 'Stephanie, you go walk around and make sure there's no gas leakin' out of anything.'
I stepped in and gasped at the stench. I looked at the fat guy and I was pretty sure I knew what was leaking gas, but I held my breath and did a fast run through the apartment to make sure Dickie's corpse wasn't rotting in the bathtub.
'This place reeks,' Lula said to the fat guy. 'What are you cooking in that microwave?'
'Bean burritos. It's all it cooks. It explodes everything else.'
'Guess we found the gas source,' Lula said. 'And you should put a shirt on. It should be illegal for you to go without a shirt.'
'What about my microwave? Are you gonna fix it? It explodes everything.'
'We're from the gas company,' Lula said. 'We don't do microwaves.'
'You got a tool belt on,' the guy said. 'You're supposed to fix things, and I want my microwave fixed.'
'Okay, okay,' Lula said. 'Let me take a look here.'
'Careful of the door,' he said. 'It sticks.'
'That's probably your problem. It takes you too long to get the door open, and then you cook everything too long, and it explodes.' Lula gave the door a good hard yank, a couple screws flew off into space, the hinges snapped, and the door came off in her hand. 'Oops,' Lula said.
I didn't waste any time getting out of there. I was halfway up the stairs to the third floor when I heard Lula slam the door on 2B and come pounding after me.
'Least he won't be stinking things up eating more of them microwave burritos,' Lula said.
My cell phone rang. It was Tank.
'Are you okay?' he asked.
'Yep.'
Tank disconnected.
'Who was that?' Lula wanted to know.
