Turbo Twenty-Three (Stephanie Plum #23)(3)

“You’re supposed to ask to see her license and registration,” Jimmy said.

“My license is in my purse, which is in my car, which has been stolen,” Lula said. “And what you’re doing here is impeding the progress of justice.”

“You know this truck was hijacked, right?” Eddie asked me.

“Not exactly,” I said. “Lula and I were staking out Virgil’s garage, and he pulled up in this truck. One thing led to another and here we are.”

“Are we going to arrest them?” Jimmy asked, still grinning.

“No, we aren’t going to arrest them,” Eddie said. “Her grandmother would make my life a living hell.”

“What do you want to do about the car?” Jimmy asked Eddie.

“Get a tow truck out here. And report the Firebird to dispatch.”

“It’s red,” Lula told the partner. “And it’s got a one-of-a-kind bedazzled purse in it.”

I swung down out of the cab. “If it’s okay with you I’ll call for a ride.”

“You calling Morelli?” Eddie asked.

Joe Morelli is a Trenton plainclothes cop working crimes against persons. He’s also my boyfriend.

“No,” I said to Eddie. “I’ll grab a ride on one of Ranger’s patrol cars. And I can get him to check with the chop shop to make sure they don’t take Lula’s car apart.”

Ranger is a former Special Forces operative now turned businessman and security expert. He’s six feet of perfectly toned muscle. He’s my age, but he’s years beyond me in life experience and street smarts. His coloring and heritage are Latino. He’s single and intends to stay that way. He owns Rangeman, an exclusive security firm housed in a stealth building in downtown Trenton.

“Sounds like a plan,” Eddie said. He hitched a thumb in Lula’s direction. “You’re taking her with you?”

“I guess.”

“She’s going to have to come in and file an accident report tomorrow. I imagine by then you’ll have come up with an explanation.”

“Yeah. I owe you.”

“Good,” Eddie said, “because I need a babysitter next Saturday.”

I squelched a grimace. Eddie’s kids were monsters. “I’ll be there,” I told him.

I made a short call to Ranger and joined Lula and Eddie at the side of the truck.

“This is a freezer truck,” Lula said. “What do you suppose Larry Virgil was gonna do with it? You think he has a big-ass freezer in his garage? How was he gonna store all the frozen stuff until he could turn it around?”

“Maybe it’s empty,” I said. “Maybe he already off-loaded the cargo somewhere.”

“This was reported stolen by Bogart Ice Cream,” Eddie said. “The compressor is running, so it’s probably still full of ice cream.” He walked to the back door. “No security seal. It’s just padlocked.”

“I could shoot the padlock off, and then we could see what we got in here,” Lula said.

Eddie cut his eyes to Lula.

“That would be if I had a gun,” Lula said, thinking twice about her offer since she didn’t have a permit to carry concealed.

“Hey, Jimmy,” Eddie yelled. “Look in the cab and see if you can find the key to the padlock on the back door.”

Jimmy climbed into the cab and swung down with the key. Eddie took the key, opened the door to the freezer truck, and a body fell out. We all jumped back.

“What the hell?” Jimmy said.

It was a chocolate-covered man, sprinkled with chopped pecans, totally frozen. Hard to tell if it was a real corpse or a solid chocolate novelty item.

We all looked down at it.

“That better not be a dead person,” Lula said. “On account of you know how I feel about dead people. I’m not in favor of them.”

“Could just be a big Popsicle,” Jimmy said, toeing the chocolate guy.

“I don’t think so,” Lula said. “It don’t got no stick up its hoo-hoo.”

“Call it in,” Eddie said to Jimmy. “And tell them to get CSI out here before he melts.”

“Maybe we should put him back in the freezer truck,” I said to Eddie.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “I guess we could do that.”

No one made a move to pick up the chocolate guy.

“Or we could leave him here,” I said.

“That got my vote,” Lula said. “I’m not touching him, in case he got the dead cooties.”

“Keep your eye on him,” Eddie said to me. “I’m going to see if I can get the trunk open on the squad car so I can get some crime scene tape and rubber gloves.”

Lula looked into the trailer. “They had him jammed up next to the back door,” she said. “The rest of the truck is filled with cartons of Bogart ice cream. Somebody’s gonna be real disappointed in the morning if they don’t get their ice cream delivery. Personally I’m a Mo Morris ice cream person as opposed to a Bogart ice cream person. Not that I’d turn my nose up at a carton of this here ice cream if it accidentally fell out of the truck.”

“That would be tampering with evidence,” Jimmy said.

“Just sayin’.”