“That’s charitable.”
“And she drinks a lot.”
“That’s real. I was looking for more than that. There was a weird-looking guy at graveside. He wasn’t part of the usual funeral crowd.”
“The guy wearing pajamas?”
“Yes.”
“That’s Stanley Pooka. He’s a biology professor at Kiltman. Doug Linken was a Kiltman alum. Active in fundraising and stuff. Dean Mintner was also at graveside.”
Ranger’s voice came into my earbud. “Kiss him goodbye and get out here with the food.”
“Gotta go,” I said to Morelli.
Monica was waiting in the SUV when I brought the vodka rig to her.
“Do you need further security?” Ranger asked her.
“No, but I wouldn’t mind keeping the two gorillas in the front seat for a couple hours of fun.”
“Their shift ends at four,” Ranger said.
“It won’t take that long,” Monica told him.
They drove away and Ranger wrapped an arm around me. “We missed our date with Ernie Blatzo this morning. Do you want to take him down now or wait until tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow.”
“You need to get out of your wet clothes, Babe. I’d be happy to help.”
“Thanks for the offer, but you’ve helped enough.”
SIXTEEN
I KICKED MY shoes off when I walked into my apartment, and I left my wet clothes on the bathroom floor. I took a fast shower to wash the smell of funeral flowers out of my hair, and I dressed in sweats and a T-shirt. It was the moment of truth. I was going to bake a cake.
Rex was running on his wheel when I walked into the kitchen.
“I’m going to bake a cake,” I told him. “It’s going to be awesome.”
Rex stopped running for a moment, blinked his shiny black eyes at me, and went back to running. Not impressed.
I’d never seriously looked at my kitchen before, but it turns out I haven’t got a lot of counter space. I also haven’t got a mixer or a big bowl. I had a mixer when I first moved in but it got charred when my apartment was fire-bombed.
“No problem,” I said to Rex. “I’ll make my cake at my parents’ house.”
I packed my cake pans and all the cake ingredients into a shopping bag, laced up my sneakers, hung my messenger bag on my shoulder, and told Rex he was in charge of the apartment. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and it looked like the sun was trying to burn through. I parked in my parents’ driveway just as Mrs. Kulicki was dropping Grandma off from the wake.
“Too bad you couldn’t stay longer,” Grandma said to me. “Emily Root had too many highballs and started singing one of them Miley Cyrus songs and tried to hump the fire pole. She was doing pretty good, too, considering she’s so old.”
“I don’t think I know Emily Root.”
“She was wearing the purple dress. They bused her in from Senior Living. She had her teeth in her purse on account of they were giving her trouble.” Grandma looked at my shopping bag. “What have you got in there?”
“My cake stuff. I thought I’d make it here.”
“Good idea. There’s nothing better than smelling a cake baking in the house.”