I took a shower and got dressed in clean jeans and a T-shirt. I put some gel in my hair and worked with the big roller brush so I had a lot of loose curls and looked like a cross between Jersey Girl and Baywatch Bimbo. I felt dwarfed by the volume of hair, so I added extra mascara to my lashes to balance things out.

I spent some time straightening the apartment, but then I started to get nervous that I was a sitting duck. Not just for Habib and Mitchell, but for Ranger as well. It was past my nine o'clock deadline.

I called Morelli at the office.

“Did your grandmother ever come home?” he asked.

“Yes. And it wasn't pretty. I need to talk to you. How about meeting me for early lunch at Pino's?”

After I hung up with Morelli I called into the office to see if Lula knew anything about Morgan.

“He's fine,” Lula said. “But I don't think those guys Habib and Mitchell are gonna get their Christmas bonus.”

I call

ed Dougie and told him I was going to keep the Cherokee for a little longer.

“Keep it forever,” he said.

By the time I got to Pino's, Morelli was already at a table, working on breadsticks.

“I'll make a deal with you,” I said, shrugging out of my denim jacket. “If you tell me what's going on between you and Ranger, I'll let you keep Bob.”

“Oh boy,” Morelli said. “How can I pass that up?”

“I have an idea about this Ramos business,” I said. “But it's pretty far out. I've been thinking about it for three or four days now.”

Morelli grinned. “Woman's intuition?”

I smiled, too, because as it's turned out, intuition is the big gun in my arsenal. I can't shoot, I can't run all that fast, and the only karate I know is from Bruce Lee movies. But I have good intuition. Truth is, most of the time I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but if I follow my instincts things usually work out okay. “How was Homer Ramos identified?” I asked Morelli. “Dental records?”

“He was identified by jewelry and circumstance. There were no dental records. They mysteriously disappeared.”

“I've been thinking—maybe it wasn't Homer Ramos who got shot. No one in his family seems upset that he's dead. Even if a father thinks his son is rotten to the core, I find it hard to believe there's no emotion at his death. And then I went snooping and discovered someone was living in Hannibal's guest room. Someone the exact size of Homer Ramos. I think Homer was hiding out in Hannibal's town house, and then Macaroni got clipped and Homer ran.”

Morelli paused while the waitress brought us our pizza. “This is what we know. Or at least, what we think we know. Homer was the bagman for Stolle's new drug operation. This whole thing sat real bad with the boys in north Jersey and New York, and people started choosing sides.”

“Drug war.”

"More than that. If a member of the Ramos family was going to deal drugs, then north Jersey was going to deal guns. And nobody was happy about any of this because it meant boundaries would have to be redrawn. Everyone was feeling nervous. So nervous that it became known a contract was out on Homer Ramos.

“What we think but can't prove is that you're right—Homer Ramos isn't dead. Ranger suspected it right from the beginning, and you reinforced the theory when you told him you saw Ulysses in the doorway of the shore house. Ulysses never left Brazil. We think some other poor schnook got toasted in that building, and Homer's squirreled away someplace, waiting to get moved out of the country.”

“And you think he's at the shore now.”

“It seemed logical, but I don't know anymore. We have no reason to go in and search. Ranger went in but couldn't find anything.”

“What about the gym bag? That was filled with Stolle's money, right?”

“We think when word got back to Hannibal that his little brother was about to start a crime wave, he ordered Homer to stop all activity outside the family business and have no further contact with Stolle. Then Hannibal asked Ranger to transport Stolle's money and tell Stolle he was no longer protected by the Ramos name. Problem is, when Stolle opened the suitcase it was filled with newsprint.”

“Didn't Ranger check on the contents before he accepted it?”

“The suitcase was locked when it was turned over to Ranger. That was the way Hannibal Ramos had arranged it.”

“He set Ranger up?”

“Yeah, but probably only for the fire and execution. I guess he figured Homer had gone too far this time, and promising to be a good boy and stop selling drugs wasn't going to get the contract removed. So Hannibal arranged to have Homer look dead. Ranger makes a good scapegoat because he doesn't belong to anyone. No reason for any retaliation if Ranger's the killer.”

Tags: Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net