Look Alive Twenty-Five (Stephanie Plum 25)

“Did Waggle give up any information about Hal?” I asked.

“No. It doesn’t sound like he was part of that piece of the operation.” Ranger peeled the big bandage off my neck and replaced it with a smaller one. “I told Morelli we’d meet him at the police station.”

I took my sandwich and coffee in the car with me and finished eating seconds before Ranger parked. I took my coffee into the building with me.

Morelli was waiting in the hall for us, and led us into a small interview room. His eyes immediately went to the bandage on my neck.

“It’s fine,” I said. “A little sore to the touch but other than that it’s good. No problems.”

There was a small table with four chairs in the room. Morelli’s laptop was on the table.

“How’s Waggle?” I asked.

“His head wound is okay,” Morelli said. “Lula chose a good fry pan. If she’d gone with the cast iron she might have killed him, and then we’d have no one to talk to.”

“She’s not much of a shot with a gun,” I said, “but she’s spot on with a fry pan.”

“Beyond the head wound, the man has serious problems,” Morelli said. “Some of the problems are drug related. We did a blood test at the hospital, and he’s a walking pharmacy. I don’t know how he functions at all. Plus, I suspect there’s some underlying mental illness. Possibly bipolar. Possibly schizophrenia. He has lucid moments where we get snippets of information from him, and then he gets crazy eyes and goes off on a rant that’s unintelligible. I’ve had two sessions with him. One last night when we brought him in, and one this morning. I’m hoping you’ll pick up something I missed.”

Morelli pulled the first session up on his laptop and turned the computer, so Ranger and I could see the screen. There were the usual niceties of “What is your name?” and the waiving of a lawyer. Waggle was sitting slumped in his seat. His head was bandaged. He mumbled his answers and was asked to speak up.

“I want a burrito,” he said. “I’m not going onstage until I get a burrito.”

Morelli carefully explained to him that he was in a police station, and he wouldn’t be going onstage.

“Does that mean I won’t get a burrito?”

Morelli made a sign to someone off camera.

“We’ll try to get you a burrito,” Morelli said.

“Some people do yoga, but I do burrito,” Waggle said.

Morelli nodded. The good cop understanding and sympathizing. “Tell me about Leonard Skoogie,” Morelli said.

There was an instant change in Waggle. If he hadn’t been shackled to the chair he would have been on his feet.

“I hate Leonard Skoogie,” he said. “He was my agent, and he sold me out. I went to his office to kill him. I would have stabbed him and cut him up into tiny pieces until he looked like Skoogie confetti, but he was already dead by the time I got to him. How shitty is that? Nothing ever works out for me. I could hardly get the knife in him. It got stuck in his neck.”

“Do you know who killed him?” Morelli asked.

“No, but I hate the bastard who got to him first. I wanted to kill Skoogie. There’s no justice in this world.”

“Yeah, bummer,” Morelli said.

“He sold me out. I was supposed to star in the show. I was going to be a big television star, and he made the deal without me. He didn’t die of natural causes or anything, did he? I would hate that. I hope he suffered. Did he suffer?”

“I don’t know,” Morelli said. “By the time I got to him he wasn’t talking, and he had your knife sticking out of his neck. Why did you put him in the closet?”

“It seemed boring to leave him on the floor. People would come in and it would just be another dead guy on the floor. Having him pitch himself out of a closet is more memorable. And don’t forget the shoe. Did you like the shoe on the desk? It made you think, right? It added to the plotline and brought it all together.”

“Tell me about the plotline,” Morelli said.

Waggle’s eyes were darting around. “Where’s my burrito? You promised me a burrito.”

Morelli looked to someone off camera. “Do we have the burrito?”

Moments later a uniform came in holding a fast-food bag. He handed the bag to Morelli and left. Morelli opened the bag and passed it over to Waggle.