Explosive Eighteen (Stephanie Plum 18)

“And you say you’re the only one who knows what he looks like?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know where this guy lives?”

“I don’t know anything about him.”

“This makes you real special,” Lula said. “It’s like you’re a reality show, all by yourself.”

Lula finished her sandwich and her tub of potato salad, and we looked over my list of skips.

“I’m just not excited about any of this,” Lula said. “Now that I’m gonna be operating at Ranger level, I need more of a challenge. Where’s the killers and the serial rapists? How come we don’t have any of them? The best we got is Joyce, and she’s not looking so difficult. If she’s not dead, she’s out there with only one shoe and no driver’s license.”

Joyce was weighing on me. She wasn’t my favorite person, but I didn’t like thinking she’d been crushed and discarded. No one should be crushed and discarded. I punched Morelli’s number into my phone.

Morelli answered with a sigh.

“Is that you?” I asked him.

“Yup.”

“Are you busy?”

“I’m up to my knees in blood and paperwork. I don’t know which is worse. What did you have in mind?”

“Have you heard the rumor about Joyce Barnhardt getting compacted?”

Nothing for a beat. “No.”

“Well, there’s a rumor. It originated with Andy Kulicki. He works at the junkyard. I was just there, and Andy said the crusher shook loose a woman’s high heel shoe, a lipstick, and Joyce’s driver’s license. You might want to go over there with a cadaver dog.”

“Boy, I’m really happy to hear that, because I was hoping for another murder.”

“I thought it was my civic duty to pass it on.”

“You give me heartburn,” Morelli said. And he disconnected.

“Well?” Lula’s eyebrow raised.

“He said I gave him heartburn.”

“That’s not real romantic.”

“He has a hard job.”

“Me, too,” Lula said. “I got heartburn, too.”

“You have heartburn because you ate at the Rat Café.”

“You could be right. It tasted okay, but it’s not sitting so good in my stomach. Maybe I just need more soda.” Lula drank more soda and burped. “Oh yeah,” she said, “that’s better.”

“I’m going to take another shot at Lewis Bugkowski,” I said. “This time, I’ll use my stun gun and Flexi-Cuffs.”

Actually, stun guns are illegal in New Jersey as well as Hawaii, but like carrying concealed, Trenton is pretty much unofficially exempt.

“WHAM!” Lula said. “Let’s do it. Where’s he live?”

“Pulling Street.”