Top Secret Twenty-One: A Stephanie Plum Novel(24)

“The funeral is tomorrow morning,” Grandma said to me. “Are you going?”

“Maybe.”

“I hear there’s going to be undercover cops there in case Jimmy shows up. There might even be a shootout. I’m thinking I might wear my flak vest just in case.”

“You have a flak vest?”

“I got it a while ago from one of them home shopping shows on television. I thought you never know when you might need one. It’s navy, and it would look good with my navy pantsuit.”

I loaded Briggs into the Buick and drove him back to my apartment.

“Honestly,” I said. “Did you have to eat all the cake?”

“I got carried away. I was hungry.”

“I have things to do at the office. I’m going to drop you off so you can get cleaned up, and I’m going to pick you up later. I’m going to trust you to behave yourself.”

“I might take a nap. The cake made me sort of sick.”

“Do not take a nap in my bed.”

“I’ll take a shower first.”

“No! You can sleep on the couch. If I find any evidence, a single new wrinkle in my sheets, you’ll be sleeping in the parking lot.”

“Boy, you’d think I had cooties or something.”

“I’m sure you have cooties.”

I watched Briggs amble through the back door of my apartment building, gave a shudder, and headed for the office.

“Where’s half pint?” Lula asked when I walked in.

“I left him home. He was tired this morning.”

“I thought you didn’t trust him alone in your apartment.”

“I don’t, but I can’t keep babysitting him every minute.”

Connie waved a file at me. “I just got a new FTA. It’s not worth a lot of money, but it should be easy to clear. It’s Stanley Kulicky.”

“I know Stanley,” I said. “I went to school with him. What’s his problem?”

“He broke into the Sunshine Diner and stole a couple five-gallon jugs of rice pudding. I guess he was high and he got the munchies for rice pudding. The diner was closed so he helped himself.”

“That don’t sound like much of a crime,” Lula said.

“After he got the rice pudding strapped into his backseat, he went back in and tried to make himself a burger and fries and ended up setting the kitchen on fire. He panicked and took off, and on the way out of the parking lot he rammed a cop car. No one was hurt, but the cop car was trashed. Kulicky said he didn’t see it. Said it jumped out at him from nowhere.”

I looked at the file. “Unemployed and living with his parents.” I flipped the page to his photo. “Whoa! What happened to him?”

Lula looked over my shoulder. “He’s fat,” Lula said. “I don’t use that term a lot on account of it could be derogatory, but there’s no other way to describe him. He’s all swelled up.”

“He was a skinny guy in high school,” I said.

“Maybe he got a glandular thing going,” Lula said.

I thought it was more likely a rice pudding thing.

I dropped the file into my messenger bag and took a donut from the box on Connie’s desk. “I’m on it,” I said.

“Me too,” Lula said. “You might need help.”

“I called him earlier,” Connie said. “His parents are at work, but he’s at home. He sounded cooperative. He said he forgot about the court date.”

“They all say that,” Lula said. “Then they shoot at you.”

Stanley’s parents lived just outside the Burg on Cobb Street. The house was a small bungalow with a long narrow backyard and a detached single-car garage at the back of the property. Stanley was sitting on the garage roof. And he was naked.

“This might not be a good time,” Lula said, looking the length of the driveway.

“At least we know he’s not armed.”

We walked back to the garage and stood, hands on hips, staring up at Stanley.

“How’s it going?” I said to him.

“Pretty good. How’s with you?”

“Not bad. What are you doing on the roof?”

“I like it up here. It’s peaceful. I have a nice view of the yard. And I can look in Mrs. Zahn’s bedroom window. Sometimes she’s naked.”

“Is that why you’re naked?”

“No. I’m doing the laundry, and I didn’t have anything to wear.”

“Do you have any of that rice pudding left?” Lula asked.

“No,” he said. “I didn’t get to keep it. The cops took it.”

“Case closed,” Lula said. “I’m thinking we’re out of here.”

Fortunately, I had the keys to the car. And I wasn’t ready to leave just yet. I wasn’t leaving without Stanley.

“I need to take you downtown to get your court date rescheduled,” I said to Stanley.

“I don’t want to do that. They’ll put me in jail again.”

“Only for a little while, until you get rebonded.”

“No.”

“You told Connie you’d cooperate.”

“I changed my mind.”