Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum 11)

Hal tapped Ranger's number into his computer and a screen changed and brought Ranger's car up. Philadelphia airport. “He should be on the ground in three hours,” Hal said. “His cell will come back on then.”

I went back to my cubby and I called Morelli.

“I might know the fifth guy,” I told him. “It might be Constantine Stiva. He was at Dix when Barroni was there. They were army buddies.”

“I can't imagine Con in the army,” Morelli said. “I can't imagine him ever being anything other than a funeral director.”

“It gets even stranger. He was on guard duty, and he was shot during an armored car hijacking.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I've been searching newspapers. I'm going to email you the article on Con. I know it's stupid, but I just have this feeling everything fits somehow. Like maybe the four missing men were involved in the armored car hijacking and Con recognized them.”

“Then it would seem to me Con should be the one in the shallow grave.”

“Yes, but suppose Con told Spiro and Spiro came back and was extorting money from the four men? And then when he didn't think he could get any more he shot them.”

“It’s a lot of supposing,” Morelli said.

“And here's something else that's interesting. There's been no activity since your garage got blown up. Five days without a note, a sniping, or a bombing. Don't you think that's odd?”

“I think it's all odd.”

I sent the news article to Morelli, and then I went to the kitchen, got coffee with milk, no sugar, and went back to my desk and called my mother.

“Are you tippling yet?” I asked her.

“No,” she said.

Damn. “Dad said you and Grandma were going to the memorial service.”

“Yes. It's at one o'clock. I feel so sorry for Carla and the three boys. What a terrible thing. I might have to tipple after the service. Do you think that would be bad?”

“Everybody tipples after a memorial service,” I told her. I knew it was the wrong thing to say. God help me, I was a rotten daughter, but I really needed dessert!

I disconnected and started working my way through the search requests. I called Morelli at noon.

“How's it going?”

“I talked to Con.”

“Just for the heck of it.”

“Yeah. Just for the heck of it. He said the army tried to keep the armoured truck robbery as quiet as possible. The two guards that Con was working with were shot and killed. Con said he was alive because he fainted when he got shot in the leg, and he supposed the hijackers thought he was dead. He couldn't identify any of the hijackers. They were all dressed in fatigues, wearing masks. For security purposes the army never released the entire death toll, but Con said it was rumored that there were three men in the truck who were killed.”

“Did he say how much money was involved?”

“He didn't know.”

“Did you ask him if he thought Barroni might have been involved in that hijacking?”

“Yeah. He looked at me like I was on drugs.

”

“Did Spiro know about the hijacking?”

“Spiro knew his dad was shot. Con said there was a time when Spiro was a kid, and he was sort of obsessed with it. Kept the newspaper article in a scrapbook.”