Fearless Fourteen - Janet Evanovich [81]
I swiveled around and stared out the window. The houses on the opposite side of the street were all two-story, like Morelli’s. Easy to see into their bedroom windows from here. The convenient assumption would be that the partner lived in one of these houses, but Morelli had already gone door-to-door in his neighborhood and hadn’t found anything odd.
I called Morelli, but got his voice mail. I called my mother, and got my grandmother. She said my mother couldn’t come to the phone because she’d taken a pill and fallen asleep after seeing me wrestling with the chicken on News at Noon. I called the office and was transferred to Connie’s cell. She was at the courthouse trying to help resolve the Susan Stitch mess.
My modus operandi when investigating is, if you have no ideas . . . eat something. It doesn’t help to get ideas, but it passes the time. So I trekked downstairs and nuked a tray of mac and cheese.
This got me to feeling very mellow, because it’s impossible to stay upset while eating mac and cheese. Here’s the positive side, I told myself. You continue to make little inroads on the fourth partner’s identity. If you can’t find Dom and get your hands on the money, maybe you can find the fourth partner. He’s kind of full of himself, and that confidence could be his undoing.
I called Ranger.
“I want to get into Stanley Zero’s apartment again,” I told him.
“That’s a sealed crime scene,” Ranger said.
“And?”
“It would be safer if we went in at night.”
“I can wait.”
“I’ll meet you in his apartment parking lot at eleven.”
I REACHED THE school just as it was letting out. Zook ambled over to the car with his usual cluster of misfits and pulled the passenger-side door open. He slouched into the seat, dropped his backpack on the floor between his feet, and looked over at me. “The kids at school are talking.”
I gave the Sentra some gas and moved into the stream of traffic. “What are they saying?”
“They’re saying my mom cut out on me. Like maybe she found the nine million and took off with it.”
“They’re wrong.”
“I sort of wouldn’t blame her. That’s a lot of money.”
“Your mom is okay. She’s just not . . . accessible right now.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I can’t tell you, but we’re trying to work it all out.”
He pushed his backpack around with a foot that seemed way too big for his slim frame. He was like a puppy that hadn’t grown up to his feet yet. “I’m not some dumb little kid,” he said. “I deserve to know what’s going on with my mom.”
I turned onto Hamilton and slid a sideways glance at him. He wasn’t dumb, and he wasn’t a little kid. He was a big kid. And he had a point. He needed to know what was going on with his mom.
“You’re right,” I said. “You deserve to know. But you can’t tell anyone. No one at school. Not Mooner. Not Gary. No one.”
He nodded his head.
“Three men robbed the bank with your Uncle Dom. Two are dead, and your uncle is in hiding. The fourth partner has your mom and is holding her for ransom. He wants the nine million dollars. Problem is, we don’t have it, and we don’t know where it’s located. The police are involved, and we’re making progress at getting your mom back, but you have to be patient.”
“That is so sucky,” he said.
“You’re right,” I said on a sigh. “It is totally sucky.”
Mooner and Gary were waiting on Morelli’s front steps when I pulled to the curb with Zook. They were dressed in Army fatigues, and they stood and saluted when I parked the car.
Zook and I burst out laughing.
“I know they’re goofy,” I said to Zook, “but I like them. They’re in the moment.”
I unlocked Morelli’s front door, and Bob rushed out and ran around in circles. He did some yelping and grunting, and then he hunched and pooped out my underwear.
“Whoa,” Mooner said. “Victoria’s Secret colonic, dude. Far out.”
Bob ran back into the house the instant he was done, and we all followed. Eventually,