Tricky Twenty-Two (Stephanie Plum 22)

“No, I don’t believe it, but I didn’t think the police would pay attention to me when Becker’s parents weren’t worried.”

“So you’ve been in the wind, trying to find Becker?”

“Yes, but it turns out we’re not great at playing detective. Mostly we tried to watch Pooka. We broke into his apartment once, but he has an alarm system, and we panicked and ran. He lives in a really crappy apartment. Who would have thought he had an alarm?”

“He has aquariums all over the place,” Julie said. “We couldn’t figure out what was in them.”

“We weren’t there long enough to really look,” Gobbles said.

“Did you notice anything else unusual?” I asked them.

“His apartment is small,” Julie said. “One bedroom, one bathroom, tiny kitchen, living room that was being used as an office. Papers and books stacked all over. Dirty dishes in the sink. It was like the Unabomber lived there.”

“We broke in through the back door, and I saw a dead rat in the sink,” Gobbles said. “That’s about it for his apartment. The alarm went off and we ran through really fast because we were looking for Becker. When Becker wasn’t in any of the rooms we left.”

“Did you follow Pooka around?”

“As much as was possible,” Gobbles said. “He goes to his office. He goes to class. He goes to Zeta. He goes home.”

“What does he do when he goes to Zeta?”

“He goes straight to the cellar door. He opens it and disappears into the cellar. An hour later he reappears. He locks up and leaves without talking to anyone. I was worried he might have Becker locked

up down there so I had a friend bump the lock and break in.”

“What did he find?”

“Fireworks. Pooka still has the fireworks there.”

“Have you tried to make contact?”

“I called him once, and he kept asking me where I was hiding. And he tried to get me to meet with him. I was afraid he was going to turn me in.”

“I have a friend who has a class with Pooka,” Julie said. “She says he rambles on about how bad the school is, and how it squashes creative research. And then she says he scribbles some numbers and symbols on the board and leaves.”

“Isn’t anyone reporting his behavior?”

“He’s not so far off the bubble,” Gobbles said. “A lot of the teachers come in and rant on social and political issues and then tell you to go home and read chapter ten.”

“And it’s not as if Dean Mintner was any more sane,” Julie said. “He was obsessed with closing Zeta.”

“So where do we go from here?” I asked them.

“I think someone needs to see what’s happening in the Zeta house cellar,” Gobbles said. It has to be more than fireworks. “And I wouldn’t mind knowing what was in those aquariums.”

“I don’t want to know about the contents of the aquariums,” Julie said. “Don’t anyone tell me.”

“Right now you’re a felon,” I said to Gobbles. “Would you like me to check you in with the court and get you bailed out again?”

“No. I’m afraid the judge might not set bail, and I’ll be locked away, and Becker won’t be able to get in touch with me.”

“Be careful,” I said to Gobbles. “Go hide somewhere and let me figure this out.”

I couldn’t believe I was saying this. Stephanie Plum, total screwup, worst bounty hunter ever…and I was going to solve the mystery of the cellar and find Becker.

I walked back to Lula and slid behind the wheel.

“So how’d that go?” Lula asked.