An hour later I was back at the office trading in my body receipt for Sanchez, getting a check for the capture in return.
“How did it go with Gobbles?” I asked Connie. “Was Vinnie able to get him released?”
“It wasn’t necessary. Charges were dropped against Gobbles. Insufficient evidence. Mintner’s injury wasn’t consistent with getting hit with a baseball bat. Plus, it’s not like Mintner is here to testify against Gobbles.”
“According to Julie, Mintner was obsessed with closing Zeta and created the incident to use as one more strike against the fraternity.”
“I was curious so I did some digging,” Connie said. “Mintner had a record of dirty tricks against Zeta. In his own way he was just as crazy as Pooka. I guess some of his craziness was justified. I found a newspaper article from a couple years ago about a scandal at Kiltman. Faculty wives had been going to parties at Zeta, and two of the wives ended up getting pregnant by a Zeta. Both Zetas involved were underage so there was a big legal mess. The women were able to avoid jail time but both of them were eventually divorced. One of those women was Ginger Mintner, Mintner’s wife.”
“Bummer.”
“Yeah. I heard you took down Pooka today.”
“Actually it was my mother who took him down.”
Connie grinned. “Lula told me. She called a couple minutes ago. She was calling from her home phone because Otis couldn’t get her new phone activated until tomorrow.”
“Do you know Otis?”
“Everyone knows Otis.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
I WAS STIFF and sore when I woke up. It was eight o’clock Wednesday morning. The sun was shining. Crazy Pooka was locked away. All I had to worry about was bubonic plague. I didn’t have a fever. No swollen lymph nodes. All positive signs. I looked out my bedroom window into the parking lot. More happy news. Ranger’s SUV was still there. I was on a roll. The dumpster forklift hadn’t carted it away. It didn’t look like it was full of geese. It had all its tires.
I limped into the kitchen and put a frozen waffle into the toaster. I started coffee brewing and I made a mental list of things I needed to do. Get a driver’s license, buy a phone and a messenger bag, replace stun gun, handcuffs, and pepper spray, find more Pilates pants, check on Becker.
I called Connie and told her I was taking a day off to organize myself. She said she’d gotten a call from Susan Gower saying that Becker was looking good and going home with his parents today. That was a relief. I was happy for him and even happier for myself. If his fingers and toes hadn’t fallen off yet maybe I’d get to keep mine awhile longer.
I spent three hours in line, waiting to get a replacement driver’s license. I would have cut out after two hours and gone to Otis but I didn’t know where to find him and I didn’t have a phone so I couldn’t call anybody. By five o’clock I’d gotten the license, bought a new messenger bag and four pairs of black Pilates pants, and had my new phone activated. I’d swapped out my jeans for one of the Pilates pants, and my knee was feeling much better.
It was close to six when I finally drove into my apartment building’s parking lot and saw Morelli’s green SUV with Morelli lounging against it. He looked over and smiled when he saw me.
“I’ve been calling you all day,” he said.
“I didn’t have a phone. It burned up in the Porsche. I just got a new one, and I had to get a new number.”
He pulled me close and kissed me. Lots of tongue and some groping in broad daylight in my parking lot. His hand moved over the stretchy Pilates pants, feeling up my ass.
“No underwear,” he said.
“Jeez Louise! We’re in the parking lot. I can see Mr. Zajak hanging out of his window.”
“Don’t care. What’s with the no underwear?”
“They’re Pilates pants. You’re not supposed to wear underwear with them.”
“I like it.”
“I can tell. Holy cow, Morelli.”
“Let’s get married. Do you want to get married?”
“Omigod,” I said. “You’re going to die. You only have two days left.”
“Do I look like a man who’s going to die?”
“No. You look really healthy. Maybe too healthy.”