Finger Lickin' Fifteen (Stephanie Plum 15)

“It’s paint,” Ranger said to them. “Mr. Dell was feeling playful.”

Tank clapped a hand to his heart.

“Sweet Mother of God,” Ramon said.

Ranger handed Ernie over to Tank. “I’ll get the paperwork for you, and you can turn him in for Stephanie. And I need a thermal blanket from the emergency kit for her.”

Five minutes later, Ernie was shackled to the floor in the backseat of the Rangeman SUV and trundled off to the police station. This left me with two open files, and as far as I was concerned, Joyce was welcome to both of them. I kicked my shoes off at car-side, wrapped myself in the aluminum blanket from the emergency kit, and eased myself into the Turbo, next to Ranger.

“I’m trying not to drip,” I said to him.

“I saw the can in the upstairs bedroom. It’s water-based. It should wash off.”

“Why don’t you have any paint on you? It’s always me. Why isn’t it ever you?”

“I don’t know,” Ranger said. “But I like it this way.”

Ranger backed out of the driveway and drove toward Olden. I was soaked through with paint and wrapped in an aluminum foil blanket like a baked potato. I’d left my shoes in the driveway, and my feet were getting cold.

“Take me to my apartment,” I said to Ranger.

“Isn’t Lula there?”

“No. She’s cleared out.”

THIRTEEN

I LET MYSELF into my apartment and went to my kitchen first thing. It was sparkling clean, with only a few pale pink stains in the ceiling paint and a small chunk of the ceiling chipped away from the lid impact. The living room and dining room were nice and neat. No sign of Lula. Yay. Yippee.

The bedroom wasn’t nearly so happy. Lula’s clothes were still there. Okay, don’t panic, I told myself. Maybe she was in a hurry to go to brunch and just hasn’t come back to collect her clothes. I was holding a big plastic garbage bag that I’d taken from the kitchen. I stripped down and put everything, including the disposable aluminum blanket, into the garbage bag. There was a limit to how much paint you could wash out of a shirt, and my clothes were way beyond the limit.

I stepped into the shower and, after a lot of scrubbing and shampooing, finally emerged red-free. I fluffed my hair out with the dryer, swiped some mascara on my lashes, and dressed in a ratty T-shirt, washed-out jeans, and a denim jacket. Not a high-fashion day, since my laundry basket with all my clean clothes was still at my mother’s house.

I’d promised to test-drive more barbecue sauce tonight at my parents’ house. I called Lula for a ride and went down to the parking lot to wait for her.

Mostly seniors on fixed incomes lived in my building. There were a couple Hispanics and a young single mom with two kids, but everyone else had a subscription to AARP The Magazine. It was almost five, and half of my building was out taking advantage of the early bird specials at the diner, and the other half was in front of the television, eating a defrosted entrée.

Lula barreled into the lot and came to a sharp stop in front of me. “Hop in,” she said. “I gotta get back to help your granny. We’re in the middle of saucin’ up some chicken.”

“Is this Mister Clucky’s recipe?”

“Yeah, and I think it’s a good one. His secret ingredient is blackberry jelly. Leave it to a cross-dresser to come up with something real creative like that.”

Lula was wearing a stretchy orange sweater with a low V-neck and short sleeves, and a matching orange-and-black tiger-striped skirt. No flak vest.

“What happened to the flak vest?” I asked her.

“I was always sweating under it and it gave me a rash. I just gotta be on a more vigilant outlook for those idiot killers. If I get rid of the rash in time, I might wear the vest to the cook-off. Although I hate for it to interfere with my chef outfit.”

“Do you still think Chipotle’s killers will be at the cook-off?”

“They’ll be there,” Lula said. “And we’ll catch them and be rich. I got a bracelet all picked out at the jewelry store. And I’m going on a cruise down to the Panama Canal. I always wanted to see the Panama Canal.”

I agreed with Lula. I thought there was a good chance the killers would be at the cook-off. They were sticking around, and the cook-off seemed to be the logical reason. Although for me, it wouldn’t have been reason enough. If I whacked someone’s head off and was worried about being recognized, I’d get out of town. These guys didn’t seem to be all that smart. They were focused on getting rid of the witness, and in the bargain they were getting more witnesses.

Lula parked at the curb in front of my parents’ house and looked around before getting out of the car.

“I guess the coast is clear,” she said. “I don’t see no killers anywhere.”