“The autopsy report on Loretta Ricci hasn't come back yet,” Morelli said. “No one's nabbed DeChooch, and Kruper hasn't floated in with the tide. The ball's in your court, Cupcake.”
Oh great.
“So I guess I'll see you tonight.,” Morelli said. “I'll pick you and Bob up at five-thirty.”
“Sure. Anything special?”
Phone silence. “I thought we were invited to your parents' house for dinner.”
“Oh rats! Damn. Shit.”
“Forgot, huh?”
“I was just there yesterday.”
“Does this mean we don't have to go?”
“If only it was that easy.”
“Pick you up at five-thirty,” Morelli said, and he hung up.
I like my parents. I really do. It's just that they drive me nuts. First of all, there's my perfect sister, Valerie, with her two perfect children. Fortunately, they live in L.A., so their perfection is lessened by distance. And then there's my alarming marital status, which my mother feels compelled to fix. Not to mention my job, my clothes, my eating habits, my church attendance (or lack of).
“Okay, Bob,” I said, “time to get back to work. Let's go cruising.”
I thought I'd spend the afternoon looking for cars. I needed to find a white Cadillac and the Batmobile. Start with the Burg, I decided, and then enlarge the search area. And I had a mental list of restaurants and diners with earlybird specials that catered to seniors. I'd save the diners for last and see if the white Cadillac turned up.
I dropped a chunk of bread into Rex's cage and told him I'd be home by five. I had Bob's leash in my hand and was about to take off when there was a knock on my door. It was StateLine Florist.
“Happy Birthday,” the kid said. He handed me a vase of flowers and left.
This was a little strange since my birthday's in October and it was now April. I set the flowers on the kitchen counter and read the card.
Roses are red. Violets are blue. I've got a hard-on and it's because of you.
It was signed Ronald DeChooch. Bad enough he creeped me out at the social club, now he was sending me flowers.
Stephanie Plum 7 - Seven Up
4
“YUCK. ICK. GROSS!” I grabbed the flowers and tried to throw them away, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I had a hard enough time throwing dead flowers away, much less flowers that were all fresh and hopeful and pretty. I dropped the card on the floor and jumped up and down on it. Then I tore it into tiny pieces and pitched it into the garbage. The flowers were still on my counter, looking happy and colorful but giving me the creeps. I picked them up and carefully set them out in the hall. I jumped back into my apartment and closed the door. I stood there for a couple beats to see how it felt.
“Okay, I can live with this,” I said to Bob.
Bob didn't look like he had much of an opinion.
I snagged a jacket off the hook in the foyer. Bob and I exited my apartment, hustled past the flowers in the hall, then calmly walked down the stairs and out to the car.
After half an hour of riding around the Burg I decided looking for the Cadillac was a dumb idea. I parked on Roebling and dialed Connie on my cell phone.
“What's new?” I asked. Connie was related to half the mob in Jersey.
“Dodie Carmine got a boob job.”
This was good stuff but not what I wanted. “Anything else?”
“You're not the only one looking for DeChooch. I got a call from my Uncle Bingo, wondering if we had a line out. After that I talked to my Aunt Flo and she said something went wrong in Richmond when DeChooch went down there for the cigarettes. She didn't know anything more.”