Look Alive Twenty-Five (Stephanie Plum #25)(60)

“I’ve tried.”

“Try harder.”

“What about you? What are you going to be doing?”

“I’ll be watching you.”

“Great. Just what I need. One more man watching my every move. Did you see them take Hal?” I asked Wulf.

“No. I missed that one.”

“Had to be a big helicopter to take him away.”

“Yes,” Wulf said. “Something that could airlift a tank.”

Ranger called just as I was getting ready to leave for laundry drop-off and office check-in.

“The fire marshal has cleared us to get into the deli building,” Ranger said. “I’ll meet you there in half an hour.”

“Do you think it’s necessary for me to walk through?”

“Yes. You’re still the manager.”

I made a quick detour to my parents’ house. I grabbed a cheese Danish from the bakery box on the counter in my mom’s kitchen, filled my travel mug with fresh coffee, and headed for the deli. Ranger was already there.

The sidewalk in front of the deli was still cordoned off with crime scene tape. The debris from the fire hadn’t yet been cleared away. The brick front was stained with black soot, and the windows were boarded up. The front door was open.

I parked and walked over to Ranger. He was wearing black rubber boots and a Rangeman ball cap. He had boots and a hat for me.

“Tell me about Wulf while you change your shoes,” he said.

“The Rangeman guy in the car saw him?”

“No. He got picked up by the camera over your door in the hall.”

“What, no sound?”

“It only picks up sound in the hall.”

I swapped out my shoes for the boots, and put the hat on. “Wulf is after his friend’s kid, Ryan Meier. He was the third manager to get kidnapped. Wulf said the trail goes from Sitz to Skoogie to Victor Waggle. When the deli burned down the trail went cold for him, so he wants me to hang myself out there and go after Waggle. He said he saw the Kulicki kidnapping. Three men in hoodies loaded Kulicki into a stolen van, drove to the top of a parking garage, loaded Kulicki into a helicopter, and took off with him.”

“That sounds overly dramatic. And expensive.”

“It may or may not be true,” I said.

“Anything else from Wulf?”

“Nope. That was it . . . other than mentioning that you’re a bungler.”

“It’s nice to be acknowledged,” Ranger said. “Let’s go inside.” There was light from the open front and back doors, but the kitchen area was in total darkness. Ranger switched on a wide-beam flashlight and swept the beam across the area. I’ve investigated fire scenes before, so I knew what to expect. That didn’t lessen the impact any. The destruction was frightening and depressing. The interior was charred black. Soot-stained water puddled on the floor and streaked across the stainless-steel appliances. A knife survived. Number seventeen on the dinner menu didn’t.

We’d been told to follow the crime scene tape that ran front to back and not to stray. Parts of the floor had been marked as unsafe.

We walked the hall to the back door, looking in at the pantry and the walk-in fridge. We stepped out into the sunshine and sucked in fresh air.

“Did any of your cameras survive the fire?” I asked.

“I have one across the alley, attached to the building on the next street. The rest were destroyed.”

“Did any of them catch a drone?”

“We saw one cross the lot when Hal was taken. It’s probably what lured him out of camera range.”

“Is there a cellar under this building?” I asked.

“No cellar. Just a crawl space with a dirt floor. I’ve already checked it out. Nothing interesting down there.”

“There doesn’t seem to be anything interesting up here either.”

“I didn’t expect there’d be any surprises,” Ranger said. “I’m hoping we get lucky on the second floor.”

“Is it safe to go up there?”

“The second deck is concrete. It’s a fire floor. I’m told the damage upstairs is minimal compared to the deli.”

“How do we get up there?”

“It has its own side entrance. I noticed it when I took the alley to move the car last night.”

I followed Ranger to the side door and waited while he ripped the crime scene tape off and worked his magic on the police-installed padlock.

The stairs were narrow and smelled like wet dog and smoke. Once we were out of the stairwell, the air got better. There were two rooms and a bathroom. The front room had an apartment kitchen at one end. The rest of the room was filled with water-logged furniture, a couple metal file cabinets, soggy rugs that had been rolled, a metal desk and desk chair, and a medium-size safe. The second room was unfurnished, but filled with empty vegetable crates, stacks of chipped plates, a garbage bag filled with soiled napkins, and other assorted treasures.

“Can you get in the safe?” I asked Ranger.

“I’m not a safe expert,” he said. “I’ll text Slick.”

“You have someone working for you named Slick?”

“He’s an independent contractor. He calls himself Slick, and he gets paid in cash. I don’t ask questions.”