I hung up and told Diesel about Doc Weiner.
“Why would Wulf blow up the building?” I asked Diesel. “If he wanted to get rid of Weiner, why didn’t he just kill him like Scanlon?”
“Hard to say with Wulf. He sees himself as a sort of avenging angel, but then he has a playful side.”
“Blowing up a building is playful?”
“It is if you’re Wulf.”
Diesel went to the dining room, retrieved my laptop, and took it to the couch. He turned the computer on and brought up the satellite map of the Pine Barrens. It showed a bird’s-?eye view of trees, lakes, dirt roads, and houses dotted throughout the area.
“Here’s Marbury Road,” he said. “We turned off the paved road and eventually we took this dirt road. The road gets difficult to see on this screen because it narrows and becomes obscured by trees.”
I traced my route and was able to pick out Gail’s animal rescue compound. It was easy to see the exit road on the screen. I found the boggy area that tried to swallow up Lula and me, and the road Munch took on his ATV. The ATV road fed into a crazy quilt of dirt paths that crisscrossed and connected to about a hundred other dirt roads.
“Martin Munch could be living anywhere in the Barrens,” Diesel said. “There are single-?room camps, junker Airstreams, and small ranch-?style houses stuck everywhere. Some are legal and some are squatters. From what I know about Munch, he doesn’t require a lot. Electric for his computer and some basic amenities. Wulf, on the other hand, isn’t the type to rough it.”
“Don’t these guys need an evil laboratory somewhere? A lair where they conduct their dastardly experiments and mea sure magneto-?type stuff with their stolen magnetometer?”
“I don’t know. It depends what they’re doing. One thing we know is that they have Gail Scanlon locked away, and she was able to use a phone.”
Stephanie Plum 14.5 - Plum Spooky
THIRTEEN
I WAS ON my second cup of coffee and the caffeine wasn’t kicking in. Diesel, on the other hand, was bright-?eyed and bushy-?tailed.
“What’s with you?” he asked.
“You kept me awake all night. You’re big and hot and you kept squishing me. I can’t sleep when you’re laying on top of me.”
“No problemo. To night, you can take the top. And here’s a thought. If you didn’t go to bed wearing everything in your closet, you might not be so hot. The only thing missing is body armor.”
If I had it, I’d wear it, I thought. I dragged myself out of the kitche
n and went to my living room window to see if my car was in the parking lot. I got to the window and my cell phone rang. Anthony.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said. “Joe tells me I’m supposed to call you if I need something.”
“Yep. What’s up?”
“I want Halloween candy. I want a couple bags of that sugar candy that’s shaped like pumpkins and bats and corn. And I need more M&Ms.”
“You called to tell me you want candy?”
“Yeah. I know it’s unreasonable, but I feel so crappy. I’m depressed, and I think I’m running a fever, and the nail holes sort of ooze blood when I walk around.”
I felt my upper lip curl back. I didn’t want to hear about his nail holes oozing blood. Better to get him the candy than to hear about the nail holes. I disconnected and searched the lot for my car. No luck. Rangeman hadn’t delivered it yet. Anthony would have to wait for his pumpkins. Diesel’s Escalade was still in the lot, but the Harley had disappeared.
I looked back at Diesel. “What happened to your bike?”
“I gave it to Flash. I wasn’t using it.”
Two Rangeman cars pulled into my lot and parked. Rangeman cars are always new, black, and immaculate. Their origin is a mystery, but there seems to be an inexhaustible supply. Hal got out of the second car. He was dressed in the usual black Rangeman fatigues, and he was carry ing a small plastic bag. I watched him disappear into my building, and minutes later, he was at my door.
“I have some good news and some bad news,” Hal said. “The bad news is there was a back window open on your Jeep, and when we got there this morning the Jeep was full of raccoons. It looked like they were originally after a bucket of fried chicken, but they pretty much tore up everything when they were done with the chicken. And then they relieved themselves.” Hal shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like every raccoon in the state came in there to . . . you know. We had to get it towed. They ate the driver’s seat.” He handed me the plastic bag. “We found this game in the back. It still looks okay. And we took the registration and insurance papers out of the glove compartment. They’re in the bag, too. Ranger got rid of the wrecked Jeep and told me to loan you the one we just drove into your lot.” Hal handed me a set of keys.
I thanked Hal and went to the window to see my new car. It was a shiny black Jeep Cherokee.