Seven Up (Stephanie Plum 7)

“The old lady started it.”

“From the way your nose looks I'd say she also finished it.”

“Lucky punch.”

“DeChooch passed me going about seventy in the opposite direction,” Morelli said. “I couldn't turn in time to go after him.”

“That is the story of my life.”

WHEN MY NOSE stopped bleeding Morelli loaded Grandma and Valerie and me into my CR-V and followed us to my parents' house. He waved good-bye at that point, not wanting to be around when my mother saw us. I had bloodstains on Valerie's skirt and knit shirt. The skirt had a small tear in it. My knee was skinned and bleeding. And I had the beginning of a black eye. Grandma was in about the same condition but without the black eye and torn skirt. And something had happened to Grandma's hair so that it was standing straight up, making her look like Don King.

Because news travels at the speed of light in the Burg, by the time we got home, my mother had already taken six phone calls on the subject and knew every detail of our brawl. She clamped her mouth shut tight when we walked in and ran to get ice for my eye.

“It wasn't so bad,” Valerie said to my mother. “The police got it all straightened out. And the EMT people said they didn't think Stephanie's nose was broken. And they don't do much for a broken nose, anyway, do they, Stephanie? Maybe put a Band-Aid on it.” She took the ice pack from my mother and put it on her own head. “Do we have any liquor in the house?”

Mooner ambled over from the television. “Dude,” he said. “What's up?”

“Had a little dispute over a parking place.”

He nodded his head. “It's all about standing in line, isn't it?” And he went back to the television.

“You're not leaving him here, are you?” my mother asked. “He's not living with me, too, is he?”

“Do you think that would work?” I asked hopefully.

“No!”

“Then I guess I'm not leaving him.”

Angie looked around from the television. “Is it true you got hit by an old lady?”

“It was an accident,” I told her.

“When a person gets hit in the head the blow makes their brain swell. It kills brain cells and they don't regenerate.”

“Isn't it late for you to be watching television?”

“I don't have to go to bed because I don't have to go to school tomorrow,” Angie said. “We haven't registered in this new school system. And besides, we're used to staying up late. My father frequently had business dinners, and we were allowed to stay up until he got home.”

“Only now he's gone,” Mary Alice said. “He left us so he could sleep with the baby-sitter. I saw them kissing once and Daddy had a fork in his pants and it was sticking straight out.”

“Forks do that sometimes,” Grandma said.

I collected my clothes and Mooner and headed for home. If I was in better shape I would have driven over to The Snake Pit, but that was going to have to wait for another day.

“So tell me again why everyone is looking for this Eddie DeChooch guy,” Mooner said.

“I'm looking for him because he failed to appear for a court date. And the police are looking for him because they think he might be involved in a murder.”

“And he thinks I've got something that's his.”

“Yeah.” I watched Mooner as I drove, wondering if something was shaking loose in his head, wondering if a piece of important information would float to the surface.

“So what do you think?” Mooner said. “Do you think Samantha can do all that magic stuff if she doesn't twitch her nose?”

“No,” I said. “I think she has to twitch her nose.”

Mooner gave this serious consideration. “That's what I think, too.”