Going Rogue by Janet Evanovich Chapters 13-16 | Members Only (2024)

It was Monday morning, and I woke up in Morelli’s bed thinking life was good. It had been days since anyone tried to stun gun me. Connie was back home. And so far, none of Bella’s threats about boils and incontinence had come true. Morelli had left for work a couple hours ago, but his big goofy dog Bob had taken Morelli’s place next to me.

“This is going to be a perfect day,” I said to Bob. “It feels like all my stars are finally in alignment.”

I didn’t want to say it out loud to Bob, but I was having serious thoughts about Morelli. It had been a really good weekend. Comfortably intimate. Pleasantly relaxing. Especially nice not to have a lot of drama after the chaos of last week. I thought I would like to have more weekends like this. Maybe I wanted it full-time. Maybe I wanted to get married.

“That’s sort of a scary thought,” I said to Bob. “What do you think?”

Bob didn’t look like he thought much about marriage. Bob was chill this morning. If Bob thought about anything it would be breakfast.

+++

Connie was at her desk when I got to the office. The box of doughnuts was on the desk, and the office smelled like fresh brewed coffee. Never underestimate the joy of normal, I thought. And never take normal for granted.

A single Boston cream was still in the box, but I was in a magnanimous mood, so I left it for Lula. An hour later, Lula bustled in.

“I wanted to get here early but I overslept,” Lula said. “Did I miss anything? What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on,” I said.

“I didn’t see the Rangeman car out front,” Lula said.

“It was a quiet weekend, so Ranger switched to electronic surveillance.”

Morelli called. “I have a problem,” he said. “Bella is supposed to be confined to the house, but a neighbor called and said Bella just got picked up by an airport limo service. I called the service and Bella told them she was going to Italy.”

“Can she do that?”

“Maybe. She has a credit card. I don’t know about a passport.” “Didn’t your mom stop her?”

“My mom isn’t home. She’s at the hospital with my Aunt Bitsy.”

“What’s wrong with Bitsy?”

“I don’t know. There’s always something wrong with Bitsy. I can’t keep up with it. My sister-in-law was supposed to be keeping an eye on Bella, but I can’t reach her. She’s not picking up when I call her.”

“Which sister-in-law?”

“Marylou.”

I was getting a queasy feeling in my stomach. “Why are you calling me?”

“I was hoping you’d go to the airport and get Bella.”

“No. No, no, no, no.”

“I can’t go. I’m in the middle of a double murder.”

“What about Anthony?”

“I’ve called everybody I know. Every relative. No one will go,” Morelli said.

“Why don’t you just let her go to Italy?”

“Yeah, that would be tempting, but I don’t think we have any relatives left in Italy, and I’d be the one who would have to go find her and bring her back.”

“Why don’t you tell the car company to turn around and drive her home?”

“They’ve already dropped her off at Newark.”

“She’s going to make a scene. She’s not going to want to come home with me.”

“Yes, but you have a legitimate reason for wrangling her out of the airport. You have a bail bond agreement and she’s a flight risk.”

So much for the perfect day. “Text me the flight information. I assume you know where she is in the airport.”

“I don’t know exactly. I think she might be flying American.”

I hung up and grabbed my messenger bag. “Come on,” I said to Lula. “We’re going to Newark airport.”

“I was only hearing half of that conversation,” Lula said, “but it didn’t sound good.”

“Bella is at the airport, and we’re going to get her and bring her home.”

“There’s no we. I’m not doing that. She’ll put the eye on me, and my hair will all fall out. I don’t want that to happen. I like my hair.”

Her hair was currently pulled back into a massive puffball of pink frizz.

“There’s no such thing as the eye,” I told her.

“Are you sure?”

“Mostly,” I said. “Anyway, I’m going. You don’t have to go with me. I totally understand.”

“Well, I can’t let you go by yourself,” Lula said. “Especially after you left me the Boston cream. Not many people would do a thing like that.”

I took I-95 to the Jersey Turnpike and didn’t hit traffic until the exit to the airport. That was disappointing. If I’d hit traffic sooner Bella might already have boarded by the time I got to the gate.

I parked and Lula and I walked into Departures. There was a line of people in front of the American ticketing counter, and a clump of uniformed police and airline employees at the desk.

“The nightmare has begun,” I said to Lula.

“It don’t look good,” she said. “That’s a Bella cluster if I ever saw one.”

I waded into the uniforms and came in behind Bella.

“You know nothing,” Bella said to one of the cops. “If you don’t watch your step, I fix you good.”

“What’s the problem?” I asked the ticket agent.

Bella turned and narrowed her already narrow eyes at me. “slu*t! What you doing here.”

“Your grandson sent me to bring you home.”

“I’m not going home. I’m going to Italy.”

“She doesn’t have a passport,” the ticket agent said to me.

“I don’t need passport,” Bella said. “I’m old lady. I’m American citizen. We go where we want. I have credit card and money. Money talks, eh?”

“Let’s go home and look for your passport,” I said to Bella. “You can come back tomorrow.”

“You big liar,” Bella said. “God will strike you down.”

“Hey,” Lula said. “You can’t talk to Stephanie like that.”

“That’s it for you,” Bella said to Lula. “I’m giving you the eye.”

“For Pete’s sake,” I said to Bella. “That’s enough with the eye.”

“I give you one too,” Bella said.

“Okay,” I said, “how about if I put you in handcuffs.”

Bella held her arms out. “Look at this. This is how sick old ladies are treated. Handcuffed. Somebody take a picture.”

“You can’t handcuff her,” one of the cops said.

I pulled Bella’s papers out of my messenger bag. “I can handcuff her and forcibly remove her. She has an active bail bond and she’s obviously a flight risk.”

“Thank goodness,” the desk clerk said.

One of the cops scanned the papers and looked over at me. “Are you Stephanie Plum?”

“Yes,” I said.

He looked at the two cops behind him. “It’s Stephanie Plum!” he said.

Everyone was smiling.

“You’re the one who burned the funeral home down,” he said. “And last year you jumped out of the window of that hooker hotel. I saw your picture in the paper.”

I put the cuffs on Bella. “The funeral home wasn’t my fault,” I said. “It was an accident. And only part of it burned down.”

“Can I get a selfie?” the cop asked.

“Sure,” I said.

Everyone crowded in, several pictures were taken, and Lula and I escorted Bella out of the building.

“I don’t want to go to Italy anyway,” Bella said when we got to the car. “Everybody is dead there. Italy isn’t what it used to be.”

I got Bella secured in the backseat and I texted Morelli that I was bringing her home.

“You!” Bella said. “The fat one. Why your hair is big bushy pink.”

“First off, I’m not fat,” Lula said. “I’ve got an abundance of voluptuousness.”

“You look fat to me,” Bella said. “What about the hair?”

“I regard hair as a fashion accessory. I think hair should be fun.”

“So, you make it pink? I think you don’t know how to have fun.” “How do you have fun?” Lula asked her.

“I drink and I smoke. I like weed,” Bella said.

“f*ckin’ A,” Lula said.

“You got dirty mouth,” Bella said. “I give you the eye.”

“I think giving people the eye is how you have fun,” Lula said.

“It my job,” Bella said.

+++

I parked in the Morelli driveway and got Bella out of the car. I took the cuffs off her and walked her to the door.

“This is good,” Bella said. “Go away.”

I tried the door. Not locked. A red RAV4 was parked at the curb. Probably the sister-in-law was here. I opened the door and followed Bella inside.

“Go away or I give you the eye,” Bella said.

Lula was behind me. “There’s something wrong in this house,” Lula said. “I hear something thumping.”

“Water heater,” Bella said. “No good.”

I stopped and listened. “I hear it too,” I said. “I get it fixed tomorrow,” Bella said.

I followed the thumping to the kitchen. “It’s louder here. It’s coming from the door next to the refrigerator. What’s behind the door?” I asked Bella.

“Nothing,” Bella said. “Closet with mop.”

“Help!” someone yelled behind the door. Thump, thump, thump. “Let me out!”

An old-fashioned skeleton key was stuck in the lock. I unlocked the door and Marylou crashed the door open and lunged out into the kitchen. She was red-faced and sweating.

“Thank God you showed up,” she said to me. “This crazy old hag locked me in the cellar. She said there was something wrong with the water heater and when I went down to look, she locked me in. It’s just a crawl space down there with about a million spiders.”

“We heard you banging on the door,” Lula said.

Marylou shoved some hair off her face and turned to me wild-eyed. “Do not marry into this family. They’re all nuts.” She whirled around and jabbed her finger at Bella. “You are a horrible, evil person. You aren’t even a person. You’re a . . . fruitcake!” Marylou snatched her purse off the kitchen counter and stomped off to the front door. “I’m out of here. I’m done. I don’t care if she burns the house down.”

“Good riddance,” Bella said. “She knows nothing.”

I called Morelli. “I brought Bella home,” I said.

“Is Marylou there?”

“No. Bella locked her in the cellar. We heard her banging on the door, and when we let her out, she left.”

“If you could just stay with her until four o’clock, I can take over. And then my mom will be home.”

“Have you tried taking her to a doctor?”

“We did that. Bella gave him the eye and he got shingles. I have to go. I’m treading water here.”

Maybe Marylou was right. Marriage to Morelli might not be a good idea.

“I’m supposed to stay with you until Joe gets off work,” I said to Bella.”

“Good,” Bella said. “You can make me lunch and wash the floor.”

Connie called. “We just got an alert on Zane Walburg. He didn’t show for court this morning and Vinnie is freaked out. It’s a super-high bond.”

“The name sounds familiar.”

“He got a lot of publicity when he was arrested. He makes bombs on demand. His big seller is the retro pressure cooker bomb. Vinnie wants you to drop everything and find this guy before he seriously disappears. I have the paperwork ready for you to pick up.”

“I’m hung up until four o’clock.”

“That’s okay,” Connie said. “I’ll see you at four.”

I could hear Vinnie ranting in the background. “Four o’clock isn’t okay. What the hell is she doing? She’s supposed to be working. This guy is going to run.”

“I have to go to the office,” I said to Lula. “Can you stay with Bella?”

“Not now. Not ever,” Lula said.

“Then we’re all going to the office. Everybody out to the car.” “What about my lunch,” Bella said.

“I might be getting a migraine,” Lula said.

I locked the door to the house and went to the car. Lula and Bella were arguing about who should get the front seat.

“Your head is too big,” Bella said to Lula. “I can’t see anything from the backseat.”

“You’re supposed to look out the side window,” Lula said.

“You sat in front last time,” Bella said.

“That’s because you were a prisoner,” Lula said. “Handcuffed prisoners always sit in the backseat. Everybody knows that.”

“I’m not handcuffed now,” Bella said. “I’m senior citizen. I deserve front seat.”

“Let her have the front seat,” I said to Lula. “You can have the front seat next time.”

“It’s because of my pink hair, isn’t it?” Lula said to me. “You don’t want me in the front because of my pink hair.”

“That’s ridiculous. You sat in the front this morning, didn’t you? Was your hair pink?”

“Nobody cares your hair is pink,” Bella said, getting into the front passenger seat. “It’s your head is too big. Now you take your big head and sit in the back.”

I drove to the office and parked, being sure to take the key with me. I dashed inside, grabbed the papers, and went back to the car. I handed the papers to Lula.

“Where are we going?” I said to Lula.

“Hamilton Township. Curly Tree Gardens. Looks like an apartment complex.”

“I’ve been there,” I said. “It’s by the pet cemetery.”

“What is this?” Bella asked. “What we doing?”

“I’m doing my job,” I said. “A man failed to appear for his court appearance, and I need to find him and bring him back to the court to get rescheduled.”

“Why? What he do?”

“He builds and sells bombs.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Bella asked.

“It’s illegal,” I said.

“This country have too many rules,” Bella said.

“Remember when Salvatore Perroni’s Cadillac got bombed and Sal lost four fingers on his hand? That’s why bombs are illegal,” I said.

“I didn’t like that,” Bella said. “That was bad bomb. Sal couldn’t hold cards to play poker. Only had a thumb.”

+++

Curly Tree Gardens was a large complex of three-story cinder-block and stucco buildings that looked like they were built by the Russian army. Number 126 was a garden-level apartment without the benefit of a garden.

It had two parking spaces allotted to it. One space was occupied by a Hyundai. I took the remaining space.

“You stay here,” I said to Bella.

“Take the key and crack the window for her,” Lula said.

“Hunh,” Bella said. “Fat head.”

Lula and I walked to the door, and I rang the bell. In my peripheral vision I caught a dark shadow scuttling toward us. Bella.

The door opened and a guy who looked like a twenty-six-year-old, chubby Harry Potter peered out at us.

“Zane Walburg?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “What’s up?”

“I represent Vincent Plum. You missed your court date this morning.”

“No biggie,” he said. “I’ll go some other time.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “I came to take you downtown to reschedule.”

“Okay, but not now. I got a rush order last night.” He looked past me at Lula and Bella. “Did they miss a court date, too?”

“No,” I said. “They’re with me. It’s a long story. You don’t want to hear it.”

“Do you build bombs?” Bella asked him.

“Yep,” he said. “Bombs R Me. That’s my website.”

“I want to see one,” Bella said.

“Do you want to buy one?”

“Maybe,” Bella said.

“I don’t have a lot of inventory,” he said. “Mostly I build on demand, but I have a classic pressure cooker bomb that was never picked up. I could give you a good price on it.”

“We aren’t buying bombs today,” I said to him. “And I know you’re busy but you’re going to have to take a half hour out to go to the courthouse with me to reschedule.”

“No,” he said. “Not now. I have work to do.”

“You became a felon when you missed your court date,” I said, taking cuffs out of my back pocket. “I’m going to have to insist that you come with me.”

“I’ll cut a deal with you,” he said. “I’ll give you the pressure cooker bomb in exchange for you going away and never coming back.”

“I don’t need a pressure cooker bomb.”

“How about a firebomb? Everyone should have a firebomb. I could put one together for you in a couple minutes.”

“You aren’t paying attention,” Lula said to Walburg. “You need to get your chubby behind out to our car. It happens that I don’t have a lot of patience and I’m getting cranky.”

Walburg adjusted his round Harry Potter lenses. “It happens that you don’t know who you’re dealing with,” he said. “I’m the bomb maker. I could blow you to smithereens at the touch of a button.”

Bella shoved Lula aside. “Too much talk,” she said. “You do what the slu*t say, or I put the eye on you.”

“What’s the eye?” Walburg asked.

“It’s a curse,” Lula said. “She does this thing with her eye and bad things happen to you.”

Walburg looked at me. “Are you people serious?”

I shrugged.

“Go ahead,” Walburg said to Bella. “Put the eye on me. Give it your best shot.”

“I go easy on you first time,” Bella said. “I make you poop your pants.”

Walburg burst out laughing and then . . . BRRRUP. He stopped laughing.

“Holy crap,” Lula said, stepping farther away from Walburg.

Bella gave a soft chuckle. “Heh, heh, heh. Good one, eh?” She looked at Walburg. “You coming to car now?”

“That was coincidence,” he said. “I get irritable bowel sometimes.”

“Okay, here goes,” Bella said. “This time I make your pee-pee swell up like watermelon. Maybe I give it big boils. I have good luck with boils curse.”

“No!” he said. “No boils. Look, I’m going to the door. This won’t take long, right?”

“Right,” I said.

“Is this your car?” he said. “I’m getting in. You want me in the back, right? Let’s go.”

Bella started to get in the front and Lula stopped her. “My turn to sit up front,” Lula said. “We made a deal.”

“Deal is off,” Bella said.

“No way,” Lula said.

“I give you the eye,” Bella said.

“I’ll squash you like a bug,” Lula said.

“I don’t want to sit up front anyway,” Bella said.

We all got in and I backed out of the driveway.

“It don’t smell good back here,” Bella said.

“It don’t smell all that good up front either,” Lula said. “It’s coming from Walburg. We should have put him in the shower before putting him in the car. Maybe we should go back to his apartment.”

“Ignore it,” I said. “I’m not turning around.”

“Stop the car,” Bella said. “I’m getting out.”

I hit the child lock button and opened all the windows. “No one’s getting out until we’re at the municipal building.”

“It’s all your fault anyway,” Lula said to Bella. “You made him poop his pants.”

“Seemed like good idea,” Bella said. “I was tired of standing there. I wanted lunch. I didn’t think ahead to sitting in backseat.”

Twenty minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot for the municipal building, and everyone jumped out of the car. I cuffed Walburg, walked him across the street to the police station, and apologized to the desk cop.

“Sorry about the smell,” I said. “Not my bad.”

Lula and Bella were standing at a distance from my car when I got back to the parking lot.

“Anyone still want lunch?” I asked.

“We should go to Cluck-in-a-Bucket and get takeout,” Lula said. “That way we can replace the Walburg smell with fried- chicken-and-onion-rings smell.”

I cut through town to Hamilton Avenue and got buckets of fried chicken, onion rings, fries, and coleslaw. We took it to the office and set it all on Connie’s desk.

Vinnie popped out of his office, spied Bella, and instantly retreated, slamming his door shut and locking it.

“Va fancul,” Bella said to the closed door, hand gesture included.

“Amen to that,” Lula said.

We pulled chairs up to Connie’s desk and dug into the food.

“I got good stuff,” Bella said, taking a flask out of her pocketbook. “Who want some?”

“I’ll take a hit,” Lula said, pouring out a shot glass of hooch. She threw it back and gasped. “Fire,” she said. “I’m on fire. That’s one hundred percent grain alcohol.”

“Amateur,” Bella said to Lula, chugging some down.

Connie and I passed.

“Why was Walburg considered a flight risk?” I asked Connie.

“He has clients who value his expertise and would prefer not to see him come to trial,” Connie said. “They have the ability to relocate him.”

“Or terminate him?” Lula said.

“It’s possible but not likely. I hear he’s very clever. A bomb savant,” Connie said.

Bella ate two pieces of chicken and drained her flask. “I’m done,” Bella said. “What now? You got any more job to do?”

“Not today,” I said.

“Okay. Take me home.”

I was half a block away from the Morelli house when I saw Joe’s mom pull into her driveway. Hooray! I turned Bella over to Joe’s mom and drove the short distance to my parents’ house. I’d promised to take Grandma shopping for a new pocketbook.

“This is just in time,” Grandma said, getting into my car. “I’m going to bingo tonight and I want to look nice. Mort Blankowski is calling numbers. He’s a cutie and his wife just died so he’s up for grabs.”

I cruised out of the Burg and headed for Route 1.

“This car smells bad,” Grandma said. “It smells like fried chicken and doody.”

I opened the windows. “It’s been a hard day.”

“You should take some probiotic pills,” Grandma said. “They say yogurt is good too.”

“I’m not the one who had a problem. I brought an FTA in today and he had an accident.”

“Must have been a beauty.”

“I don’t know the details. I have air freshener in the glove compartment.”

Grandma sprayed the air freshener around and stuck her head out the window. When we rolled into the mall parking lot and she pulled her head back in, her hair looked like it had been spray varnished in a wind tunnel. She looked at herself in the visor mirror.

“I could be in one of those punk rock bands,” she said. “I might leave it like this for bingo. Morty is ten years younger than me. He might appreciate this look. There’s going to be a lot of competition for him. I’m going to have to up my game.”

An hour later we returned to the car with Grandma’s new pocketbook and the car smelled worse than ever.

“Now it smells like fried chicken, doody, and lavender air freshener,” Grandma said. “I’m grateful for the ride, but when I get home, I’m going to have to throw my clothes away and take a shower.”

I didn’t throw my clothes away when I got home but I took a shower and washed my hair twice. I had a meatball sandwich on white bread for dinner and washed it down with a bottle of beer.

I shut the television off at ten o’clock and I went into the kitchen to say good night to Rex.

“It wasn’t such a bad day,” I said. “It ended pretty good except for the smell in my car.”

I gave him a peanut, turned to go, and my apartment was rattled by an explosion in the parking lot. I ran to a living room window and looked down at smoke and mangled car parts where my Honda used to be parked. It didn’t take a lot of thought to come up with an explanation. Somebody put up the bail bond for Walburg. I returned to the kitchen and ate a celebratory Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpet. The odor issue was solved.

I lowered the lights and watched the action outside. Police, fire trucks, gawkers. The Rangeman SUV arrived seconds after the first fire truck. Ranger called minutes later.

“I’m okay,” I said. “I captured an FTA bomber today and obviously someone immediately bailed him out.”

“And he bombed your car.”

“I’m guessing.”

“Zane Walburg?”

“Yep.”

“He makes a decent bomb, but he has some delusions-of-grandeur issues,” Ranger said. “Do you need a car?”

“No, but thanks for the offer.”

“Babe,” he said. And he was gone.

I strolled downstairs to the parking lot. I got there just as Morelli rolled in. He parked behind a fire truck and walked over to me. We were standing near a shredded tire.

“Your car?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said.

“Good thing you weren’t in it.”

“He was making a point. He didn’t want to kill me.”

“He?” Morelli asked.

“Zane Walburg was FTA and I brought him in for rescheduling today. I’m guessing someone bonded him out.”

“He’s good,” Morelli said. “For instance, notice the way your car is completely destroyed, but very little damage has occurred to the cars surrounding it. That takes talent.”

“It sounds like you’ve had previous dealings with him.”

“Not personally,” Morelli said. “Walburg is a local celebrity

in the law-enforcement community. He’s been building bombs for several years and has always been able to avoid prosecution.”

“Until now,” I said.

“Last month he shipped a bomb using his own name and got caught.”

“Ranger said Walburg has delusions of grandeur.”

“From what I hear, he’s on the spectrum.”

The crowd dispersed. The fire trucks left. I answered all necessary questions. A flatbed tow truck arrived and started to scoop up what remained of my Honda.

Morelli wrapped an arm around me and steered me toward my building’s back door. “I have to be on the road early tomorrow,” he said.

“Does that imply that you’re staying over?”

“I thought you would need comforting after this traumatic experience.”

It was a win-win. I got rid of the smelly car and now I was going to get comforted. Lucky me.