Hardcore Twenty-Four (Stephanie Plum 24)

“No. Another bad idea. The mayor frowns on cops moonlighting as peeping toms.”

“Understood. So you stay here, and I’m going to take a quick look.”

“No!”

Too late. I was halfway across the yard doing a tippy-toe jog. I got as far as the junker truck, and dogs started barking inside the house. The front door opened, and a man looked out. I held my breath and stood statue still. I was in shadow, behind the truck, and I was pretty sure he couldn’t see me. The door slammed shut, and I could hear the man yelling at the dogs. The dogs kept barking, the door opened again, and the dogs charged out. Three of them. They were running straight for me, and I had a double fear. The first was that they would tear me to shreds. The second was that Morelli would shoot them.

I had one of the packages of wieners in my sweatshirt pocket. I tore the package open with my teeth and threw the hot dogs at the lead dog. He snapped up a wiener, and it turned into a feeding frenzy when the other dogs reached him and the remaining food.

Morelli ran across the yard, grabbed my sweatshirt sleeve, and yanked me toward the road. We reached the road and walked hand in hand back to the car.

“This was fun,” Morelli said. “We should do this more often.”

“Tomorrow?”

“No.”

We were at the car, and we took a last look around. The sun had set, and the double-wide was a black blob in the darkness. There was some rustling in the surrounding brush, but aside from that it was quiet. No dogs barking. No cats howling. No one screaming that they were being eaten alive by a giant snake.

“Do you think we should look inside before we leave?” I asked Morelli.

“No,” Morelli said. “We should definitely not look inside.”

Forty-five minutes later Morelli pulled to the curb in front of his house.

“Usually Simon gets rebonded when he misses his date,” Morelli said. “What’s the deal with him staying in jail?”

“He’s being stalked by zombies. He figures he’s safer if he’s locked up.”

That got a smile out of Morelli. “One of the disadvantages to being a grave robber. I guess occasionally you dig up a zombie.”

“He said he dug into a portal.”

“That can’t be good.”

I cut my eyes to Morelli. “You don’t believe in zombies, do you?”

“No. Do you?”

“No, of course not.” And if I did believe in zombies I for sure wouldn’t admit to it.

• • •

Bob did his happy dance when we walked through the door. His happiness was enhanced by the fact that we were carrying hot dogs. I snagged a couple bottles of beer from Morelli’s fridge, and we all went out to the backyard. Morelli fired up the grill, and before long we were all stuffed full of hot dogs.

“So, what’s new?” I asked Morelli.

Morelli cracked open a second beer. “Someone was decapitated last night. Male Caucasian without identification. He was found in the alley behind the hardware store on Broad Street. Looks like he was dragged there. The ME puts the time of death around four A.M.”

“Is it your case?”

“Yeah, lucky me.”

“And?”

“And I got nothing. I’m waiting for the lab reports to come back.”

“You didn’t recognize him?”