Three to Get Deadly (Stephanie Plum 3)

“Wrong!”

“All right, all right. No cause to go PMS. How come you need a ride to Bessie's?”

“Joe Morelli is camped out in my parking lot, waiting to talk to me, and I don't want to be talked to.”

“I guess I could understand that. He got one fine ass, but he's a cop all the same.”

Bessie's was a coffee and doughnut shop around the corner from the Social Security offices. It was a scruffy little place with dusty floors and dirty windows, and it was always packed with the chronically unemployed and with worker drones from Social Security. It was the perfect place to get a cheap cup of terrible coffee and to fade away into the huddled masses.

Lula dropped me at the curb, cranked the noise level back to deafening and rumbled off. I elbowed my way to the back of the shop where Ranger was waiting. He had the last stool at the counter with his back to the wall. I never asked how he consistently managed to procure such a position. Sometimes it's best not to know these things.

I took the stool next to him, raising an eyebrow at the coffee and cruller on the counter. “Thought you weren't into internal pollution,” I said. Lately Ranger'd been on a health food thing.

“Props,” Ranger told me. “Didn't want to look out of place.”

I didn't want to burst his fantasy bubble, but the only time Ranger wouldn't look out of place would be standing in a lineup between Rambo and Batman.

“I have a problem,” I said to Ranger. “I think I'm in over my head.”

“Babe, you've been in over your head since the first day I met you.”

I ordered coffee and waited for my cup to arrive. “It's different this time. I might be a suspect in a homicide investigation. The guy on Mo's floor was Ronald Anders. One of Vinnie's skips.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I went to Uncle Mo's to look around.”

“Hold it,” Ranger said. “You break into the store?”

“Well, sort of. I had a key. But I guess technically it was an illegal entry.”

“That's cool.”

“Anyway, I was in the store, and I saw someone pass by the front window, so I went to the back door to leave. Before I could get out I heard footsteps, and then someone trying the lock. I hid in the bathroom. The back door opened and closed. The cellar door opened and closed. And then the door to the bathroom opened, and I was eyeball to eyeball with some big, pissed-off, Rasta-type guy who threw me against the wall and knocked me out. When I came around the guy was dead. What does this mean?”

“It means after you got knocked out someone else arrived and shot Ronald Anders,” Ranger said.

“Who? Who would do that?”

We looked at each other, knowing we were both considering the same possibility. Mo.

“Nah,” I said. “Impossible.”

Ranger shrugged.

“That's a ridiculous idea,” I told Ranger. “Mo isn't the sort of man who goes around shooting people.”

“Who else could have shot Anders?”

“Anyone.”

“That narrows it down.” Ranger slid a five onto the counter and stood. “I'll see what I can find.”

“My gun?”

He transferred my .38 from his pocket to my shoulder bag. “Not going to do you much good if you don't put bullets in it.”

“One more thing,” I said. “Could you give me a ride to the office?”