Takedown Twenty (Stephanie Plum 20)
I stopped in at my parents’ house after mass. My grandmother was at the kitchen table doing a Jumble, and my mother was ironing.
“Now what?” I asked my mother. “Why are you ironing?”
“Since when can’t a person iron?” my mother said.
“You iron on Thursdays after you do the laundry. Ironing on Sunday is mental health ironing. You probably ironed this same shirt ten times.”
“It’s breast cancer, isn’t it? You found a lump. It’s from those sports bras you wear.”
“I don’t have breast cancer.”
“Then why did you go to church? Harriet Chumsky called and said she saw you at mass.”
“I just felt like going to mass.”
“Omigosh,” my mother said. “You’re pregnant.”
“I’m not pregnant.”
“There’s something,” my mother said. “You don’t just go to mass. Are you sure it’s not cancer?”
“It’s not cancer!” I helped myself to a cup of coffee and added cream. “How did the date go last night?” I asked Grandma.
“It was pretty good. We went to the diner for rice pudding, only thing is he had car troubles when we came out, and he had to call his nephew to come get the engine started. He said he’s thinking about buying a new car. I wouldn’t mind that on account of his car right now is gray. If I’m going out with a guy who’s shorter than me and has asthma, I think he should at least have a red car.”
“I don’t trust him,” my mother said. “He’s too happy. And he’s not from the Burg. What do we know about him? Where does he live?”
“He’s got an apartment in one of those buildings by the DMV,” Grandma said. “I haven’t been there yet. It turns out he isn’t as hot as people said.”
“Melvina Gillian was talking about a new boyfriend just before she was killed,” I said to Grandma. “Do you know if any of the other women had boyfriends?”
“Not that I heard.”
“How about your friends now? Is there anyone talking about having a new boyfriend?”
“You mean besides me?”
“Yes.”
“I haven’t heard anything,” Grandma said. “It’s hard to get a boyfriend when you’re a certain age. All the good ones are dead. Do you think there’s some Don Juan going around sweettalking the ladies and then throwing them into a Dumpster?”
I took a cookie out of the cookie jar and dunked it in my coffee. “It’s possible.”
And if you wanted to stretch your imagination the Don Juan could be Gordon, I thought. Or maybe Gordon and an accomplice.
“Wouldn’t that be something,” Grandma said. “Sometimes life is like a television show. I wouldn’t mind seeing this Don Juan. I bet he’s got a red car. Or maybe it’s not some Don Juan. Maybe it’s some mob guy. It came to me last night that these women could have owed the wrong people money. What if they were gambling, and they couldn’t pay up?”
“What kind of gambling?” I asked her. “Off-track betting? Late-night poker?”
“Online Bingo,” Grandma said.
“What makes you think they were gambling online?” I asked Grandma.
“I tried playing a couple times. It’s real cutthroat Bingo. You got to pay to play, and you could sink a lot of money into it if you keep playing and don’t win anything.”
“Did all the murdered women play?”
“I don’t know about all of them, but I know Bitsy Muddle was on all the time. And I was playing once when Lois was playing. I knew it was them because I knew their handles. Bitsy was ‘Little Bit,’ and Lois was ‘Hotsy Totsie.’ ”