and one of his men brought me a cup of coffee.
“This building is owned by a local insurance company,” Ranger said. As you can see, the first floor is mostly lobby, with a front desk and satellite glass-fronted offices. Executive offices, a boardroom, a small employee kitchenette, and a storeroom are on the second floor. It’s not a high-security account. They have an alarm system. No cameras. For the most part, there’s nothing of value in this building. The computers are antiquated. There are no cash transactions. The only thing of value was a small collection of Faberge eggs in the company president’s office. And that’s what was taken.”
“Was the routine the same?”
“The thief entered through a back door that had a numerical code lock. He deactivated the alarm, went directly to the second-floor office, took the eggs, reset the alarm, and left. The alarm was off for fifteen minutes.”
“He had to be moving to get all that done in fifteen minutes.”
“I had one of my men run through it. It’s possible.”
“Was the president’s office locked?”
“The office door was locked, but it wasn’t a complicated lock, and the thief was able to open it. He didn’t bother to close the door or relock it when he left.”
“How much were the eggs worth?”
“There were three eggs. One was especially valuable. Collectively, he probably lost a quarter of a million.”
“Is this guy going to have a hard time fencing the eggs?”
“I imagine they’ll go out of country.”
I looked around. There was one uniform left in the building and one plainclothes guy from Trenton P.D. I didn’t know either of them. Ranger had four men on site. Two were at the front door, and two were at the elevator.
“How was this discovered?” I asked Ranger. “Is there a night watchman or something?”
“The company president likes to get an early start. He’s here at five every morning.”
Morelli was awake at five. Ranger was awake at five. And now here was another moron at work at five. As far as I was concerned, five was the middle of the night.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked Ranger.
“Look around.”
I went to the back door and looked outside. From what I could see, there was an alley, a small blacktop parking lot with six designated spaces. No light. There should be a light. I stepped outside and looked up at the building. The light had been smashed. There were some glass shards on the ground under the light.
I went back inside and looked for the alarm pad. On the wall to my right. Exactly where I would have put it. I walked to the stairs, imagining the thief doing this in the dark. Probably had a penlight and knew exactly where he was going. And he was in a hurry, so he would take the stairs rather than the elevator.
I prowled through the second floor, peeking into offices, the kitchen, the storeroom. It all looked pretty normal. The president’s office was nice but not extravagant. Corner office with windows. Executive desk and fancy leather chair. Couple smaller chairs in front of the desk. Built-in bookcase behind the desk with an empty shelf. I guessed that was where the eggs used to be.
I sat in the fancy leather chair and swiveled a little, checking out the pictures on the desk. Balding, overweight guy with a cheesy mustache, posing with a preppy dark-haired woman and two little boys. The corporate family photo display placed next to the corporate pen-and-pencil set that some decorator probably requisitioned and the guy never used. Matching leather blotter. And alongside the desk was the matching corporate wastebasket. A single Snickers wrapper was in the wastebasket.
I called Ranger on my cell phone. “Where are you?” I asked.
“Downstairs with Gene Boran, the president of the company.”
“How did the thief know about the eggs?”
“The Trenton paper ran a feature on them two weeks ago.”
“Perfect.”
“Anything else?” Ranger asked.
“It looks like the cleaning crew came through here last night.”
“They left at eleven-thirty.”
“There’s a Snickers wrapper in the wastebasket.”
There was some discussion at the other end, and Ranger came back on. “Gene said he saw it on the floor, so he put it in the wastebasket.”
“It could be a clue,” I said to Ranger.
Ranger disconnected.
I ambled downstairs and slouched into a man-size chair in the lobby. The police had cleared out, and there were only two Rangeman employees left. Ranger spoke to the company president for another five minutes, they shook hands, and Ranger crossed the room to where I was sitting.
“I’m leaving Sal and Raphael here until the building opens for business,” Ranger said. “We can go back to Rangeman.”
“It isn’t even seven A.M.! Normal people are still asleep.”
“Is this going somewhere?” Ranger asked.
“Yes. It’s going to… take Stephanie home so she can go back to bed.”
“Babe, I’d be happy to take you back to bed.”
Unh. Mental head slap.
IT WAS ALMOST noon when I left my apartment for the second time that morning. I’d run out of Rangeman clothes, so I was dressed in jeans and a stretchy red V-neck T-shirt. My hair was freshly washed and fluffed. My eyes were enhanced with liner and mascara. My lips were comfy in Burt’s Bees lip balm.
I stopped at the bonds office on my way to Rangeman.
“Just in time for lunch,” Lula said when I walked in the door. “Me and Connie are feeling like we should try the chicken at the new barbecue place by the hospital.”
“That’s sacrilege. You always get your chicken at Cluck-in-a-Bucket.”
“Yeah, but we gotta do barbecue research. I don’t have my just-right gourmet barbecue sauce yet. I might have had it on the chicken last night, but the dogs run off with it. Anyways, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to shop around. And I hear the guy who owns the barbecue place is gonna be in the contest.”
“Sorry, no can do. I’m late for work.”
“Just tell Ranger you needed barbecue,” Lula said. “Everybody understands when the barbecue urge comes over you. And besides, there’s no place to park by that barbecue place. I need a ride up there. It’ll take you a minute, and it’s the least you can do since I rescued you from that embarrassing experience last night.”
“You didn’t rescue me! You pulled me down the stairs and let Junior escape.”
“Yeah, but people was watching me go ass-over-elbows down the stairs, and they hardly noticed you at all.”
That could be true. “Okay, I’ll give you a ride, but then I have to go to work.”
Lula hiked her purse onto her shoulder. “We got it all planned out what me and Connie want to eat. All’s I gotta do is run in and out.”
Lula and I stepped out of the office onto the sidewalk and stood for a moment squinting into the sun.
“This here’s a beautiful day,” Lula said. “I got a real good feeling about today.”
A black Mercedes with tinted windows pulled out of a parking space half a block away and cruised up to the bonds office. It slowed, the side window slid down, a gun barrel appeared, there was maniacal giggling, and four rounds were fired off.
I heard a bullet whistle past my ear, the plate-glass window behind me cracked, and Lula and I hit the ground. Connie kicked the bonds office door open and aimed a Glock at the Mercedes, but the car was already too far away.
“That asshole took out my computer,” Connie said.
Lula hauled herself up off the sidewalk and pulled her lime green spandex miniskirt down over her butt. “Someone call the police. Call the National Guard. Those guys are out to get me. That was one of those Chipotle killers behind that gun. I saw his idiot face. And I heard that crazy-ass giggling. Did someone get that license plate?”
