Smokin' Seventeen (Stephanie Plum 17)

“Yes. I was going to take off for home, but I think I’ll touch base with Connie before I leave.”

“Try not to inhale the fumes coming off the upholstery and don’t eat anything he’s baking.” He pulled me close, kissed me, and whispered a couple innovations he was going to add to the back rub.

• • •

Connie was at her computer, Lula was sitting in a club chair, and Mooner was on the couch, working his way through an app on his cell phone when I swung into the bus.

“I can’t help thinking there was some significance to Lou Dugan getting buried on the bonds office property,” I said to Connie.

“I’ve wondered about that,” Connie said. “But I can’t think of a connection.”

“What about Vinnie? Did Vinnie have something going on with Dugan?”

“Vinnie was a regular at the titty bar before Lucille hooked him up to a leash and a choke collar, but I never got the feeling Vinnie and Dugan were friends or business partners.”

“Harry?”

“Don’t know about Harry,” Connie said. “He’s mostly a silent partner here. He puts the money up, so his son-in-law can be gainfully employed, but he doesn’t take much interest in the business.”

“Maybe Vinnie ran up a tab at the titty bar, and he didn’t want to pay it, so he offed Lou Dugan, and buried him in his backyard,” Lula said.

“It would work for me,” Connie said, “except I can’t see Vinnie digging a hole big enough to plant Dugan. Not a lot of muscle going on in that weaselly body. And Vinnie wouldn’t have left the ring on Dugan’s finger.”

“Maybe the killers were aliens, and they were following instructions from the mother ship,” Mooner said. “Like maybe they needed to do an anal probe. And you know, like, the ring might not have any value in another solar system.”

We all stared openmouthed at Mooner for a moment.

“You gotta cut back on the brownies,” Lula said to Mooner.

Connie made a small grimace and dragged her attention from Mooner to me. “How’d it go with Merlin Brown?”

“We found him but then we lost him,” I said. “No problem. I have a lead. I just need to make a couple phone calls.”

There are two hospitals in Trenton, Helene Fuld and St. Frances. I was guessing Merlin drove himself to one of the hospitals to get his foot patched up. If that was the case he was probably either still waiting, depending on how much he was bleeding, or else he was with a doctor. I called Helene Fuld first and asked for Merlin. They didn’t have anyone checked in by that name, and they didn’t have anyone with a toe amputation.

Connie had been listening. “Toe amputation?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

“You don’t want to know,” I told her.

“Hunh,” Lula said, arms crossed over her chest. “He said I was fat.”

“You’re right,” Connie said. “I don’t want to know. Were there witnesses?”

I shook my head. “No.”

I called St. Frances next and asked for Jenny Christo. I went to high school with Jenny, and now she was an ER nurse.

“Nope,” she said, “no one here named Merlin Brown. No one with a bloody foot.”

“Well?” Lula asked when I got off the phone.

“He wasn’t at either hospital. He must have gone to a clinic or private doctor.”

Unfortunate because if he’d gone to either of the hospitals I could have picked him up when he checked out and left.

The door to the motor coach opened, and Vinnie stumbled up a step. “Cripes, why don’t you turn some lights on,” he said. “I feel like a goddamn mole.”

“All the lights are on,” Connie told him. “Did you re-bond Ziggy?”