Two for the Dough (Stephanie Plum 2)

“You lied to me. I knew it, too. I knew it right from the beginning, you jerk.”

Silence stretched taut between us, and I realized my accusation covered a lot of territory, so I narrowed the field. “I want to know about this big secret case you're working on, and I want to know how it ties in to Kenny Mancuso and Moogey Bues.”

“Oh,” Morelli said. “That lie.”

“Well?”

“I can't tell you anything about that lie.”

Stephanie Plum 2 - Two For The Dough

4

Thoughts of Kenny Mancuso and Joe Morelli had kept me thrashing around most of the night. At seven I rolled myself out of bed, feeling cranky and bedraggled. I showered, dressed in jeans and T-shirt, and made a pot of coffee.

My basic problem was that I had plenty of ideas about Joe Morelli and hardly any about Kenny Mancuso.

I poured out a bowl of cereal, filled my Daffy Duck mug with coffee, and picked through the contents of the envelope Spiro had given me. The storage facility was just off Route 1 in an area of strip-mall-type light-industrial complexes. The photo of the missing casket had been cut from some sort of flyer or brochure and showed a casket that was clearly at the bottom of the funeral food chain. It was little more than a plain pine box, devoid of the carvings and beveled edges usually found on burg caskets. Why Spiro would buy twenty-four of these crates was beyond my comprehension. People spent money on funerals and weddings in the burg. Being buried in one of these caskets would be lower than ring around the collar. Even Mrs. Ciak next door, who was on Social Security and turned her lights off each night at nine to save money, had thousands set aside for her burial.

I finished my cereal, rinsed the bowl and spoon, poured a second cup of coffee, and filled Rex's little ceramic food dish with Cheerios and blueberries. Rex popped out of his soup can with his nose twitching in excitement. He rushed to the dish, crammed everything into his cheeks, and rushed back to his soup can, where he hunkered in butt side out, vibrating with happiness and good fortune. That's the neat part about a hamster. It doesn't take much to make a hamster happy.

I grabbed my jacket and the large black leather pocketbook that held all my bounty-hunter paraphernalia and headed for the stairs. Mr. Wolesky's TV droned through his closed door and the aroma of bacon frying hung in the hallway just in front of Mrs. Karwatt's apartment. I exited the building in solitude and paused for a moment to enjoy the crisp morning air. A few leaves still tenaciously clung to trees, but for the most part limbs were bare and spidery against the bright sky. A dog barked in the neighborhood behind my apartment building and a car door slammed. Mr. Suburbia was going to work. And Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter extraordinaire, was off to find twenty-four cheap coffins.

Trenton traffic looked insignificant compared to the Holland Tunnel outbound on a Friday afternoon, but it was a pain in the ass all the same. I decided to preserve what little sanity had surfaced this morning and forgo safe, scenic, car-clogged Hamilton. I turned onto Linnert after two blocks of stop-and-go tedium and threaded my way through the blighted neighborhoods that surround center city. I skirted the area around the train station, cut through town, and picked up Route 1 for a quarter mile, getting off at Oatland Avenue.

R and J Storage occupied about a half acre of land on Oatland Avenue. Ten years ago, Oatland Avenue had been a hardscrabble patch of throwaway property. Its spiky grass had been littered with broken bottles and bottle caps, filter tips, condoms, and tumbleweed trash. Industry had recently found Oatland, and now the hardscrabble land supported Gant Printing, Knoblock Plumbing Supply House, and R and J Storage. The spiky grass had given way to blacktop parking lots, but the shards of glass, bottle caps, and assorted urban flotsam had endured, collecting in unattended corners and gutters.

Sturdy chain-link fencing surrounded the self-storage facility, and two drives, designated IN and OUT, led to the honeycomb of garagesized warehouses. A small sign fixed to the fence stated business hours as 7:00 to 10:00 daily. The gates to the entrance and exit were open, and a small OPEN sign had been hung in the glass-paned office door. The buildings were all painted white with bright blue trim. Very crisp and efficient looking. Just the place to snug away hot caskets.

I pulled into the entrance and crept along, counting off numbers until I reached 16. I parked on the apron in front of the unit, inserted the key in the lock, and pressed the button that triggered the hydraulic door. The door rolled up along the ceiling and, sure enough, the warehouse was empty. Not a coffin or clue in sight.

I stood there for a moment, visualizing the pine boxes stacked chocablock. Here one day, gone the next. I turned to leave and almost crashed into Morelli.

“Jesus,” I exclaimed, hand on heart, after squelching a yelp of surprise. “I hate when you creep up behind me like that. What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Following you.”

“I don't want to be followed. Isn't that some sort of an infringement of my rights? Police harassment?”

“Most women would be happy to have me follow them.”

“I'm not most women.”

“Tell me about it.” He gestured at the empty bay. “What's the deal?”

“If you must know . . . I'm looking for caskets.”

This drew a smile.

“I'm serious! Spiro had twenty-four caskets stored here, and they've disappeared.”

“Disappeared? As in stolen? Has he reported the theft to the police?”

I shook my head. “He didn't want to bring the police in. Didn't want word to get out that he'd bulk-bought a bunch of caskets and then lost them.”

“I hate to rain on your parade, but I think this smells bad. People who lose things worth lots of money file police reports so they can collect their insurance.”

I closed the door and dropped the key into my pocketbook. “I'm getting paid one thousand dollars to find lost caskets. I'm not going to try to identify the odor. I have no reason to believe there's anything bogus going on.”