Finger Lickin' Fifteen (Stephanie Plum 15)

“My hero,” I said to Morelli.

Morelli grinned. “Lula’s the hero. She sucker punched him.”

“And it was a pip of a fart, too,” Grandma said.

I looked over at Joyce. The paramedics had her stable and ready to medevac out.

“How is she?” I asked one of them.

“Lost some blood, but I don’t think anything critical was hit.”

“I need to go downtown with Dudley,” Morelli said to me. “Call me when you get things figured out.”

I walked to our kitchen, where Grandma, Lula, and Connie were standing, staring at the blackened ribs and ashes spread across the ground.

“I don’t suppose we’re gonna win the contest, what with the grill falling apart and the ribs burning up,” Grandma said.

“I’m tired of this whole barbecue thing, anyway,” Connie said. “I could use a calzone.”

“I’m in for a meatball sub,” Lula said.

“And spaghetti,” Grandma said. “Do you think we should stick around to see who wins the contest?”

“I don’t care who wins the contest, since it’s not me,” Lula said.

Connie had her bag hiked up on her shoulder. “We can read about it in the paper tomorrow.”

TWENTY

IT WAS A little after six when I pulled into the Rangeman garage. Marco the Maniac and Zito Dudley were in jail. Joyce was being treated. Lula, Grandma, and Connie were at Pino’s. I parked the cab next to the Buick and took the elevator to the seventh floor.

Ranger had called shortly after four o’clock and asked that I come in when the dust settled on the barbecue fiasco. I entered his apartment and found him in his office, at his computer.

“Come here,” he said. “I want you to see something. This came in at four o’clock.”

I looked over his shoulder at a grainy picture of a wall. A motion detector was fixed at the top of the wall, and alongside the motion detector was a small square box, the same size as the detector. A slim young man dressed in khakis and a white collared shirt came into the picture, looked around, fixed on the Rangeman camera for a moment, and left.

“Is that your break-in guy?” I asked Ranger.

“He fits the description, other than the uniform. I have Hal and Ramon watching the house, and they missed him. He drove up in a van from the client’s pest control company.”

“Was anyone home when he went in?”

“Mrs. Lazar, the homeowner. Her husband was still at work. She said she let someone in from pest control. We called the company, and they said he didn’t belong to them. He was in and out before we could get the information to Hal and Ramon.”

“So for some reason, he changed his routine. Maybe he saw Hector go into the house to install your camera.”

“Or maybe he just decided it was time for a change.”

“Now what?”

Ranger pushed back in his chair. “More of the

same.”

“I’m still driving my father’s cab. Unless you have something for me to do, I’m going to run to the Starbucks on the corner, get him a couple of his favorite cookies as a thank-you, and return the cab.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Ranger said.