Smokin' Seventeen (Stephanie Plum 17)

I pulled into the funeral home lot, but there were no spaces left. I let Grandma out and found a parking place a block away. Everyone was here to see Lou Dugan. I walked back to the funeral home and made my way through the crush of people on the porch, through the open doors, and into the lobby. I worked my way through the crowd, head down to minimize social contact, breathing shallow to minimize the smell of funeral flowers and senior citizens.

Someone snagged my elbow, and I was forced to pick my head up. It was Mrs. Gooley. I went to school with her daughter Grace.

“Stephanie Plum!” she said. “I haven’t seen you in years, but I read about you in the paper. Remember when you burned this funeral home down? That was something.”

“It was an accident.”

“I hear you were the one to discover poor Lou, God rest his soul.”

“Actually he was dug up by a backhoe. I got there a little later.”

“Is it true he was reaching up, trying to get out of his grave?”

“You’ll have to excuse me,” I said, easing away. “I’m trying to find Grandma.”

A sign advertised the Dugan viewing in slumber room number one. This was big time. Not everyone got to have a viewing in slumber room number one. It was the largest room and was located directly off the lobby.

I inched my way through the mob to slumber room one and was stopped at the door by two women I didn’t recognize.

“Omigosh,” the one said. “You’re Stephanie Plum. You were right there when Lou tried to climb out of his grave. What was it like?”

“He didn’t try to climb out of his grave,” I said.

An older woman joined the group. “Are you Stephanie Plum?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“You look a little like the picture on the bus, except for your chest.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” I said.

THIRTY-TWO

I PUSHED INTO the funeral home viewing room and took a position on the back wall. I couldn’t see Grandma, but I knew she would be working her way up to the casket. And when she finally got up there she’d be in a snit because it was closed. It didn’t matter what was left of the deceased, Grandma wanted to see it. She figured if she made the effort to come out and got all dressed up, she at least deserved a peek.

I’d hoped to find Nick Alpha here, or at least someone who might be associated with him, but people were too smashed together. It was impossible to circulate through the room, and I couldn’t see over the heads of the people standing in front of me. My hope was that it would clear out a little toward the end of the viewing time.

There were no chairs and standing in the heels was getting old. Temperature in the room had to be hovering around ninety, and I could feel my hair frizzing. I checked my iPhone for text messages. One from Connie telling me she was waiting for a reply from Alpha’s parole officer. Mr. Mikowitz came over to tell me he thought I looked good on the bus. His nose was red, he smelled heavily of Jim Beam, and his pink scalp was sweating under his five-strand comb-over. I thanked him for the compliment, and he moved on.

I could hear a disturbance going on in the front of the room by the casket, and a funeral home attendant in a black suit moved toward it. I assumed this was Grandma trying to get the lid up. I’d been through this before, and I wasn’t stepping in unless a free-for-all broke out, or I heard gunshot.

Someone jostled against me, I looked around, and I locked eyes with Nick Alpha.

“The whole time I was in prison I lived for the day when I’d get out and set things right for Jimmy,” he said, leaning in close, talking low. “I’m going to kill you just like you killed my little brother, but I’m going to let you worry about it for a while. Not too much longer, but for a while. It won’t be the first time I’ve had to kill someone, but it’s going to be the most enjoyable.”

His eyes were cold and his mouth was set hard. He stepped back and disappeared into the sea of mourners, snoops, and partygoers.

Sometimes you want to be careful what you wish for because you might get it. I’d wanted to talk to Nick Alpha, and now not so much. At least he wanted me to worry a little. That meant he probably wouldn’t kill me on my way out of the funeral home, so everything was good. And if he was the guy who was killing everyone else, he’d choke me first. I liked my odds with that better than getting shot. In my mind I played out a scenario where I stabbed the assailant in the leg with my nail file and was able to foil the choking.

The black-suited funeral director moved people out of his way, and escorted Grandma over to me. “Take her home,” he said. “Please.”

“I’m not going until I get a cookie,” Grandma said. “I always like to have a cookie after I’ve paid my respects.”

The funeral director gave me a five-dollar bill. “Buy her a cookie. Buy her a whole box of cookies. Just get her out of here.”

“You better be nice to me,” Grandma said to the director. “I’m old, and I’m going to die soon, and I got my eye on the deluxe slumber bed with the mahogany carvings. I’m going out first class.”

The director sagged a little. “I’d like to count on that, but life is cruel, and I can’t imagine you leaving us anytime in the near future.”