Tricky Twenty-Two (Stephanie Plum 22)

“I’d kiss you, but I have cramps,” Morelli said.

A hazmat van rumbled up and parked.

“This is going to be a long day,” Morelli said. “If it turns out the bag of plague is for real, this place will be crawling with every three-letter agency in the country.”

“I’d go home and clean my hamster cage, but I don’t have a car.”

Morelli gave me his keys. “Take my SUV. I’ll pick it up when I’m done here.”

“Can I bring you a yogurt or something?”

“No, but thanks. I’m off dairy.”

“Is there anything left that you can eat?”

“Alcohol, as long as it’s not made with grain.”

•••

I put Rex in the bathtub while I cleaned his cage. I returned him to the cage and scrubbed the bathroom. I vacuumed the floors, dusted the few things that collected dust, washed the kitchen floor, and took the garbage out to the trash chute. My mother and grandmother seem to get satisfaction from this. I get nothing. I would get satisfaction from paying a housekeeper once a week to clean my house. Unfortunately I’m not in that income bracket. I’m almost in the no income bracket.

Morelli showed up at three-thirty.

“Do you need to use the bathroom?” I asked him.

“No, but it’s comforting to know there’s one close by.”

“I’d offer you something to eat, but I don’t think I have anything.”

“It’s okay. I just had a gluten-free, dairy-free snack bar that tasted like sawdust. I’m going to go home and eat half a loaf of gluten-free, dairy-free bread. I think I can put grape jelly on it.”

“Can you eat chicken? We could make a roast chicken.”

“You know how to roast a chicken?”

“Almost. My mother roasts chickens all the time.”

“I appreciate the offer but I think I’ll go home and stick with the bread. The good news is that Becker might be alive and with Pooka. The bad news is that he might not be in great shape. It turns out that Pooka doesn’t just rent that apartment. He actually owns the house and rents out the other three units. At the back end of the property there’s a single-car garage where he’s been keeping the white van. The van isn’t there anymore but he’s left behind a load of garbage. Without going into gruesome detail, we’ve collected evidence that would indicate someone was being kept in the garage. It looks like he was sedated and restrained and either giving blood or getting blood. My guess is he was giving blood and that Pooka was using it to feed his fleas. Nothing has been analyzed yet, so this is all conjecture. Some of the containers left behind were labeled and some weren’t, so we don’t know exactly what we’re seeing. The bag in the garbage in the apartment is being looked at by the CDC. We’re going on the assumption that it’s real.”

“I thought plague was eradicated.”

“Not entirely. A small number of cases pop up every year. It can be treated with antibiotics, but it’s still life threatening and it’s an ugly disease. And it wouldn’t be impossible for someone to get hold of an infected rat or even a rogue vial. Pooka is a biology professor. I imagine he knows how to get his hands on all sorts of stuff.”

“That’s scary.”

“Yes. And it’s now considered domestic terrorism, so along with the FBI, the CDC, and the state police, we have Homeland Security digging around in every garbage receptacle from here to Camden. I’m happy about it because I’m out of the plague business. All I have to do is solve three murders.”

“Sorry I dragged you into this.”

“You didn’t drag me in. I was dragged in when I pulled the first homicide. And, honestly, I’d be all about this if I didn’t feel so lousy.”

“Don’t worry about Lula. She’s home and she’s busy doing laundry. I’ll see her first thing in the morning, and I’ll take control.”

“I expect it’s no longer an issue. We have guys running around in biohazard suits. The only thing missing from the circus is a detonation robot. The SAT truck cruised in just as I was leaving.”

I watched Morelli walk down the hall, I closed my door, and locked all three of my locks. This still didn’t make me feel entirely safe. I’d been threatened with a horrible death by a lunatic who’d most likely already killed three people. All it would take was a single infected flea. It could hop under my door. It could sit in the hallway and wait for me to walk to the elevator. And just like that I’d have bubonic plague. At least my apartment was clean. If I got the plague my mother wouldn’t be embarrassed about my housekeeping.

TWENTY-THREE