Twisted Twenty-Six (Stephanie Plum 26)

I locked the door and hiked my bag higher on my shoulder. “I can’t stay,” I said. “I’m on my way to work, and I needed to pick up the car.”

“I guess your arm’s not too bad if you’re going to work,” Grandma said.

“It’s manageable. What are your plans for today?”

“I haven’t got much plans,” Grandma said. “We got laundry going, and after that we’re making meatballs for dinner. Crystal Buzick is at Stiva’s tonight. There won’t be much of a crowd, but I’m interested to see how they covered up the big mole she had on her chin. It was all lumpy and it stuck out something awful and it had hairs growing out of it. It’s going to take some skill to make that look good.”

I slid my mother a look that said don’t even think about sending me with Grandma to see the lumpy mole.

* * *

—

Lula and Connie were outside the office, staring up at the roof. I parked and went to stand next to them.

“What are we looking at?” I asked.

“Richie Meister,” Connie said. “We aren’t sure how he got up there, but it looks like he doesn’t know how to get down.”

“Hey, Richie!” I yelled.

A head with shaggy brown hair popped over the side of the building. “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t get Humpty-Dumpty down again,” Richie said.

“Richie’s been snarfing magic mushrooms,” Lula said.

“We should get a ladder,” I said.

“No need for that,” Lula said. “Mrs. Capello walked by and saw him up there and called the fire department. She said they got her cat out of a tree once, so she figured they could get Richie off the roof.”

We looked down the street toward the firehouse and saw that a hook and ladder was chugging our way. It was followed by a police car and an EMT.

“Seems like overkill, but I guess they gotta be prepared in case he turns out to be a jumper,” Lula said. “I like that they brought the hook and ladder. Shows that they take their job seriously. This should be real entertaining.”

The fire truck stopped in front of the office, and a bunch of guys in full gear got out and looked up at Richie. I knew one of the guys. Butch Kaharski.

“This is the third time this month we’ve taken him off a roof,” Butch said.

“Yo, Richie,” he yelled. “How’d you get up there?”

“My dragon dropped me off,” Richie said.

“Can your dragon get you down?” Butch asked.

“He flew away. I don’t know where he went. He’s sort of a free-spirit dragon.”

Butch turned to Connie. “Are there stairs to the roof?”

“No.”

“This building backs up to an alley,” Butch said. “We’ll drive the truck around and pick him off from there.”

Everyone got back into the truck, and the truck chugged around the corner. Connie, Lula, and I went into the bonds office and had a donut. After a couple minutes there was a knock on the back door. We all went to the door and looked out at Butch.

“There’s a dead guy back here,” he said.

My heart skipped a beat. “Richie?”