Look Alive Twenty-Five (Stephanie Plum #25)(32)

Angie took a small portion of everything, and Mary Alice sat with her arms crossed over her chest. “There’s no hay,” she said. “What am I supposed to eat? Horses eat hay.”

“You’re not a horse,” Grandma said, sitting Lisa in the high chair. “Have some ham.”

“I don’t like ham,” Mary Alice said. “I like hay.”

Grandma looked at Valerie. “Are you feeding this child hay?”

“Of course not,” Valerie said. “She has a wonderful imagination.”

“Well, she better imagine she likes ham or she’s not getting birthday cake,” Grandma said.

“Albert and I don’t threaten the children with punishment when they’re simply expressing their preferences,” Valerie said. “We try to show them alternative solutions.” Valerie turned to Mary Alice. “You could pretend that the ham is hay. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Mary Alice kept her arms crossed and looked at Valerie like she had corn growing out of her ears.

My father had ham and potatoes and macaroni piled on his plate. “Gravy!” he said.

Morelli passed the gravy, and my mother joined us at the table. She had a tumbler of dark amber liquid that she passed off as iced tea, but we all knew was whiskey. She was in survival mode.

Lisa had been given mashed potatoes, small pieces of ham, and applesauce. She dumped it all onto her high chair tray and smeared it around. She threw her spoon across the table, and mashed a handful of glop into her hair.

Valerie smiled serenely at Lisa, and it occurred to me that Valerie’s mood might be helped along by some form of controlled substance now that she was no longer breastfeeding.

Morelli had his arm draped across the back of my chair. He was calmly sipping wine and smiling. This was low stress for him. His family was even crazier than mine. His brother has been divorced twice and married three times. All to the same woman. They have so many kids I lost count. And that’s just the tip of the Morelli family iceberg. His Grandma Bella dresses in black like she’s an extra in a Sicilian mob movie, and she gives people the eye. If you annoy her you run the risk of getting boils and having your hair fall out. Stan Malinowski said Bella gave him the eye, and he had penis shrinkage.

Kloughn was wearing his lawyer uniform of chinos, a wrinkled white dress shirt, and a red and blue striped tie. He poured red gravy over his ham and potatoes, leaned across the table to get the salt, and the tip of his tie dragged across the gravy. He dabbed at his tie with his napkin.

“No problem,” Kloughn said. “Valerie buys my ties on the cheap off the Internet, don’t you, cuddleumpkins? They look just like real ties except they’re made in China and you don’t want to get too close to a flame.”

My mother slurped down iced tea, and Valerie poured herself a glass of wine. My father had his head down, shoveling in ham.

“What’s going on with the shoe snatcher?” Grandma asked Morelli. “Any new developments?”

“No new developments,” Morelli said.

“Are you talking about the deli manager disappearances?” Kloughn asked. “Do you know what people are saying? They’re saying it’s aliens.”

“That’s what I figured!” Grandma said. “They’re beaming up managers. Probably need them for some intergalactic resort.”

“I never met the man who owns the deli,” Kloughn said, “but I represented his Aunt Sissy in a lawsuit. If you ask me the whole family is screwy.”

“Did you win the case?” Grandma asked.

“Not exactly,” Kloughn said. “Sissy drove off a bridge on her way to my office one day and killed herself. I think it was accidental, but I guess there’s no way to know for sure. She might have had a few drinky-poos before getting behind the wheel.” Kloughn tucked his tie into his shirt and carefully cut his ham. “She was ninety-three when she died.”

“Imagine that,” Grandma said. “Only ninety-three.”

The ham was dripping with gravy, and Kloughn leaned close to his plate to eat. “She had a lot of things to say about her nephew, Ernie. She said he was a weird kid, like he wanted to be emperor of the universe. Personally, I don’t think that’s so weird. I mean, lots of people want to be emperor of the universe, right? Anyway, I guess he always had a lot of schemes going while he was on his path to world domination. Sissy said he would always do anything to make money. When he was in seventh grade he sold his little sister to one of his classmates.”

“How did that work out?” Morelli asked.

“Sissy didn’t say,” Kloughn said, “but I know they aren’t on good terms. He might have tried to sell her a second time in high school. And he had aspirations of being a movie star. He has a bunch of movies he made on YouTube.”

“Real movies?” Grandma asked.

“They’re like homemade movies,” Kloughn said. “Some of them are a little s-e-x-y.”

“Daddy watches sexy movies,” Angie said to her mother. “Is he a perv?”

“No,” Valerie said. “He’s a Taurus.”

When we were done eating, I helped my mom clear the dishes. We brought the cake to the table, sang “Happy Birthday” to Valerie, and she opened her presents. I was the only one to give her a BeDazzler kit.