Sizzling Sixteen (Stephanie Plum 16)

“The stink bomb,” Connie said. “I’ll set off the stink bomb. Everyone will leave, Stephanie can run upstairs, get the money, and get out of the building.?

?? Connie looked over at me. “I’ll give you a gas mask.”

“How will I get out of the building? Everyone will be outside, milling around.”

“Go out the back door,” Connie said. “I’ll make sure it smells bad enough back there that it’ll be deserted.”

No one made a sound for a couple beats, absorbing the stupidity of what we were about to do.

“Okay then,” I finally said. “Let’s do it.”

“Rendezvous here at seven,” Connie said.

I WAS HALFWAY home when my mom called.

“Your grandmother went to an afternoon viewing,” she said, “and I have no way to get her home. Your father is working, and I’m stuck in traffic on Route One. I’m coming home from the mall, and there must be an accident in front of me, because everything’s stopped. I was hoping you could pick your grandmother up at the funeral parlor.”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll get her.”

Grandma was waiting on the porch when I parked in front of the funeral home. She was wearing a blue print dress with a cardigan sweater, one white tennis shoe, and her huge black ortho boot. She was standing lopsided from the boot. I jumped out to help her, but she forged ahead without me. Stomp, step, stomp, step, stomp, step. Down the stairs, hanging on to the railing, her black leather purse hooked over her shoulder.

“Look at this,” she said, eyeballing the SUV. “You got another new car. This is a beauty. Did Ranger give this one to you?”

“Yes.”

“He must have a lot of money.”

I had no idea how much money Ranger had, but he wasn’t poor. His address was a vacant lot when I first started working with him, and now he lived in a slick apartment in a building he at least partially owned. The origin of the limitless new black cars was a mystery. And that was part of the problem with Ranger. So much of him was a mystery.

I got Grandma buckled into the Mercedes and pulled away.

“How was the viewing?” I asked her.

“I thought they did a nice job making Miriam look good, considering she didn’t look that good to begin with. I don’t want to talk bad about the dead, but Miriam wasn’t a natural beauty. Poor thing had them warts all over her face. Her son was there. And her nephew. And they had a nice assortment of cookies. Personally, I prefer the night viewings, but sometimes they interfere with my television shows.”

“How’s your foot?”

“It’s okay. I would have got more attention if they put me in a wheelchair, but they said I would have to rent one of those, and I already spent my social security check. Bitsy Kurharchek has some crutches she said I could borrow, and I might use them for tomorrow night. It’s gonna be a big night. Burt Pickeral finally died. He was old as dirt, but he was a royal magoo in the Elks lodge. All the Elks will be there, and all the Pickerals.”

“Do you know the Pickerals?”

“I know some of them.”

“Do you know Lenny?”

“No, but the name rings a bell. He might be Ralph’s boy. There’s a mess of Pickerals.”

I stopped for a light, pulled the Pickeral file out of my bag, and showed Grandma my file photo of Lenny Pickeral, the toilet paper bandit.

“He looks familiar,” Grandma said, “but then all them Pickerals sort of look alike. What’s he done?”

“Petty theft.”

“That’s not so interesting, but I’ll keep my eye open for him anyway,” Grandma said.

I pulled into the driveway at my parents’ house and made sure Grandma got through the front door.

A WHILE BACK, Morelli’s Aunt Rose died and left him her house. It’s a two-story row house with basically the same floor plan as my parents’ house. Living room, dining room, kitchen on the ground floor. Plus, Morelli added a half bath. Three small bedrooms and bath on the second floor. Morelli has slowly been working at making the house his own, but some of Rose remains, and I think that’s nice. Morelli lives there with his big, shaggy, orange dog, Bob, and truth is, Morelli has become surprisingly domesticated . . . although the domestication doesn’t seem to extend to the bedroom.