Lean Mean Thirteen (Stephanie Plum 13)

“Good news?” I asked.

“Yes, but I'm going to have to go to work.”

“The Berringer case?”

“No. Something else.”

He went to the bedroom, rousted Bob off the bed, and snapped the leash on him. “I might have to go under for a while, but I'll call,” Morelli said. “And don't worry about Dickie. I'm sure it'll work out okay.” He grabbed his jacket and kissed me. “Later.”

I closed and locked the door after him and stood for a moment taking the pulse of the apartment. It felt empty without Morelli. On the other hand, I could watch something sappy on television, wear my ratty, comfy flannel jammies, and hog the bed.

SIX

I GOT UP late because there was no real good reason to get up early. I made coffee and ate junky cereal out of the box and pushed it down with a banana. My files were spread across the dining room table. Coglin, Diggery, and a third file I hadn't yet opened. Today was the day for the third file. I had the file in my hand when my phone rang.

“Are you all right?” my mother asked.

“Couldn't be better.”

“Have you seen the paper this morning?”

“No.”

“Don't look,” she said.

“Now what?”

“Its all over the news that you killed Dickie.”

“Tell her I'll visit her in the big house,” Grandma yelled at my mother. "Tell her I'll bring

cigarettes so she can pay off the butch guards."

“I'll call you back,” I said to my mother.

I disconnected and looked out my peephole. Good deal.

Mr. Molinowski's morning paper was still lying in front of his door. I tiptoed out, snatched

it up, and scurried back into my apartment.

The headline read local bounty hunter prime suspect in ORR disappearance. Front page.

And the article was accompanied by an unflattering picture of me taken while I was waiting

for Gobel in the municipal building lobby. They'd interviewed Joyce, and Joyce was quoted as

saying I'd always been jealous of her and had fits of violent behavior even as a child. There

was a mention of the time Grandma and I accidentally burned down the funeral home. There

was a second file photo of me with no eyebrows, the result of my car exploding into a fireball

a while back. And then there were several statements by secretaries who'd witnessed me

going postal on Dickie. One of the secretaries stated that I pointed a gun at Dickie and

threatened to “put a big hole in his head.”