Fearless Fourteen - Janet Evanovich [84]
“What about the sack of shit?”
“Larry Skid? He could leak. And there were some other people working details. Looking at it in retrospect, we should have played it tighter, but there’s always all this chain-of-command crap.”
“I assume the department is investigating.”
“Yes, but there’s not much to go on. Truth is, some of this op went through the bureaucracy. The van needed to be requisitioned, the storage facility had to be cleared, yada yada.”
I checked to make sure Zook wasn’t listening and I lowered my voice. “He said he would cut Loretta’s hand off at noon tomorrow if he doesn’t have the money.”
“He’s sick,” Morelli said. “He’s caught up in the drama. If he was thinking sanely, he’d back off and wait. There’s no way he’s going to drive away with nine million dollars. It was a good plan when they executed it ten years ago, but it’s not a good plan now that the police are involved.”
“I suppose he figures he can stay ahead of the game if he can force me to locate the money and drive the van to him without telling anyone.”
Morelli cut his eyes to me. “You wouldn’t do that, would you?”
“Of course not,” I said. And we both knew I would.
Problem was, I had the key but I didn’t know what to do with it. And I had no way to reach Dom. I suspected Dom and the fourth partner had the same dilemma. Dom had always talked to Zero and Gratelli.
“I can practically see the wheels turning in your head,” Morelli said. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking this is pathetic. There’s no communication between the major players here. Dom and I have identical goals right now, but we can’t get anything done because I can’t get in touch with him.”
“Connie couldn’t pull up a cell number?”
“No. Nothing for Dom. And the partner has me calling him on Zero’s phone. I had Connie run it.”
“Let’s go obvious,” Morelli said. “We think Dom watches the house, so make a sign and hang it in the living room window. ‘Have key. Call me.’”
I ran upstairs to Morelli’s office and used black magic marker on a piece of computer paper. I brought the sign downstairs and taped it to the window.
“We only have a couple hours of daylight where he can read it,” I said to Morelli.
“No problem. I’ll hook up a spot.”
We moved Zook and Mooner and Gary into the dining room, and Morelli and Bob and I sat in front of the television, waiting for the call.
At ten o’clock, I got a call, but it was from the wrong person.
“You must be kidding,” he said.
It was the fourth partner.
“What?”
He sighed into the phone. “You don’t have any way of getting in touch with this idiot, either, do you?”
“You mean Dom? No.”
“You better hope he sees your sign, because I’m running out of patience.”
And he disconnected.
“That was the fourth partner,” I told Morelli. “He saw the sign.”
At ten-thirty, I had a problem. I didn’t know how to get out of the house to meet Ranger without Morelli going postal. Take the coward’s way out, I thought. Go out the bathroom window and deal with Morelli when you get home.
I didn’t want anyone to think I was kidnapped, so I wrote a message on the toilet lid with my eyeliner pencil. BE BACK SOON. DON’T WORRY. I climbed out the window onto the small overhang that shelters the back stoop. Morelli’s house is almost identical to my parents’ house, and this was the route I’d used all through high school to sneak out with my friends. I rolled off the edge of the roof and lowered myself down. I felt hands at my waist, and I got an assist from Morelli.
“Dammit,” I said to him. “How did you know?”
“I have the windows attached to the new alarm system. It dings when you open them. What are you doing?”
“I’m meeting Ranger, and you don’t want any more information than that.”
“Wrong.” He glanced at his garage. “It looks like the light is on.”
“Gary has his camper parked in there.”
Morelli was silent for a couple beats. “Notice I’m not yelling,” he said to me.
“Yeah, but I think the roots of your hair are smoking.”
“How long has Gary been squatting in my garage?”
“A couple days.”
Morelli opened the back door for me.