Finger Lickin' Fifteen (Stephanie Plum 15)

“You missed your court date. You need to reschedule.”

“I’m not going to court. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You flashed Mrs. Zajak.”

“It’s my thing. Everybody knows I’m the flasher. I’ve been flashing for years.”

“No kidding. This is the third time I’ve captured you for failing to appear. You should get a new hobby.”

“It’s not a hobby,” Turley said. “It’s a calling.”

“Okay, it’s a calling. You still have to reschedule your court date.”

“You always say that, and then when I get to the courthouse with you, I get locked up in jail. You’re a big fibber. Does your mother know you tell fibs?”

“Does your mother know you flash old ladies?”

Turley’s attention switched to the door where Lula and Grandma were standing. “What are the police doing here?” he asked.

I turned to look, and he jumped away.

“Hah! Fooled you,” he said. And he scuttled around to the other side of the casket.

I lunged and missed, bumping into Mary Jane Dugan. “Sorry about your loss,” I said, shoving her aside.

“What’s going on?” she wanted to know. “Stephanie Plum, is that you?”

Turley took off for the double doors at the front of the room, and I ran after him. He knocked some lady on her ass, and I tripped over her.

“Sorry,” I said, scrambling to my feet in time to see Grandma do a flying tackle at Turley.

Turley wriggled away from Grandma and escaped into the ladies’ room. Two women ran shrieking out, and Grandma, Lula, and I barged in.

Turley was trapped against the wall between the tampon dispenser and the sanitary hand dryer.

“You’ll never take me alive,” he said.

“Do you have a gun?” I asked him.

“No.”

“Are you booby-trapped?”

“No.”

“Then how are you going to die?”

“I don’t know,” Turley said. “I just always wanted to say that.”

“Could we hurry this up?” Lula said. “I’m missing my Wednesday night television shows.”

“I’ll make a deal,” Turley said. “I’ll go with you if I can flash everyone on my way out of the ladies’ room.”

“No way,” I told him.

“Eeuw,” Lula said. “Ick.”

Grandma slid her dentures around a little, thinking. “I wouldn’t mind seeing that,” she said.