CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Lula was on the sidewalk in front of her apartment when I drove up. I parked the Buick, and Potts and I got out and transferred over to the Firebird.

“I was surprised when you called, ” Lula said. “I thought you’d be taking a day off after the funeral and the car squashing. And it sounded to me like you were at another dead end. ”

I told her about Shine’s two thugs and Gabriela.

“So, you’re ramping up the Shine search? Are you sure you don’t just want to move to Santa Fe? I hear it’s real nice there. You could get some kick-ass snakeskin cowboy boots. ”

“The cowboy boots have some appeal, ” I said, “but I’m a Jersey girl. And Jersey girls always get their man. ”

“Fuckin’ A, ” Lula said. “Let’s do it. Where are we going? ”

I gave Lula the address, she pulled away from the curb, and Potts started his nervous humming. He had a right to be nervous. He’d been punctured, shot at, and kidnapped. And in spite of all that, he was sticking with me. That took guts. There was strength of character buried under all his weirdness. Unfortunately, that didn’t make him any less annoying.

“If you don’t stop humming, you’re gonna have to ride on the roof, ” Lula said to Potts.

“Is this going to be dangerous? ” Potts asked. “I need to prepare myself if it’s going to be dangerous. ”

“How are you going to prepare? ” Lula asked him.

“I might take a pill, ” Potts said. “I have Xanax, Imodium, a multivitamin, Benadryl, lithium, and a couple orange pills that aren’t entirely legal. ”

“I’d go with the multivitamin, ” Lula said. “It’s a good start. ”

“Yep, ” I said. “Definitely the multivitamin. ”

We got to the house and did a slow drive-by. There were no vehicles in the driveway. No activity on the street. Lula parked a couple of houses down and we sat for ten minutes.

“Okay, ” I said. “I’m going to take a look around. ”

“I’ll go with you, ” Lula said.

“Me, too, ” Potts said.

“No. It’ll attract too much attention with all of us creeping around, ” I said. “I’ll signal you if I need backup. ”

“What’s the signal going to be? ” Potts asked. “You could do a special bird whistle. Can you whistle? ”

“I was thinking about waving my hand, ” I said.

“Okay, ” Potts said, “but if this gets made into a movie or a video game, we’ll need something better. ”

I walked down the street to the safe house, went to the door, and rang the bell. No answer. The shades were open on the front windows. No one walking around. No television playing. I went to the backyard and looked in the kitchen window. No mess. No lights on. No dishes in the sink. The back door was locked. I returned to the car.

“It looks empty, ” I said. “I couldn’t see in the garage or in any of the bedrooms, but the downstairs is clean. ”

“I could open a door for you, if you want, ” Lula said. “I’m real good with a screwdriver and a hammer. ”

“You have a screwdriver and a hammer? ” I asked.

“Of course, I have a screwdriver and a hammer, ” Lula said. “Who doesn’t carry a screwdriver and a hammer? Actually, it’s not a big hammer. It’s more like a mini hammer, but it works fine if you put some muscle into it. ”

We left Potts in the car and Lula and I walked around to the back of the house. We banged on the door and when no one answered, Lula did her thing and popped the new door lock open.

“You’re right about it being clean, ” Lula said, looking in the refrigerator. “Nothing much in here. Some mustard and ketchup. ”

We did a fast search of the rest of the house and found nothing. Closets were empty. No car in the garage. Trash had all been taken out.

“They must have had one of those maid services come in here yesterday, ” Lula said. “There’s little points on the toilet paper like you see in a hotel. It doesn’t look like the new guys were staying here. How many houses does Shine have? ”

“Maybe the new guys don’t need a house. Maybe they’re local. Jersey or Pennsylvania. Hopefully Connie gets a hit at one of the hospitals. They got scooped up and tossed into a blue pickup. I didn’t get a chance to check the plate, but it looked like the same truck Shine’s nephew was driving. ”

“Are you sure one of them wasn’t the nephew? ” Lula asked.

I shook my head. “They were new. ”

We returned to the car and Lula drove out of the neighborhood. “Now what? ” she asked.

“The Mole Hole, ” I said.

Potts started humming, caught himself, and stopped.

“Isn’t that like walking into the hornets’ nest? ” Lula asked.

“Yes, ” I said. “That’s exactly what it is. ”

“Okay, ” Lula said. “I’m in. ”

“Me, too, ” Potts said.

There were only a handful of vehicles in the Mole Hole parking lot and none of them was a blue pickup, a white Taurus, a black Escalade, or a Mercedes sports car. It was midafternoon and the dining area was empty when we walked in. The bar was half full and a rhythm-challenged woman was on the pole.

I went to the bar and the bartender came over.

“You again, ” he said.

I nodded. “Nice to see you, too. Guess who I’m looking for? ”

“Someone alive? ”

“Yes. ”

“That eliminates a bunch of people. ”

“Do you know where he is? ”

“I know where he isn’t. He isn’t here. ”

“Suppose I wanted to talk to him. Where would I find him? ”

“I’m a bartender. I don’t know these things. Are you going to order, or what? ”

“Is anyone in the back room? ”

“No. They’re all out extorting money and killing people. ”

“Do you know when they’ll stop by? ”

“When they get hungry. ”

I returned to Lula and Potts, and Morelli called.

“Someone just dumped two bodies behind the bail bonds office, ” he said. “One of them has a broken leg. I thought you might want to take a look at this. ”

“Are they dead? ”

“Yes. ”

“I don’t want to look. ”

“Let me state this another way. I’m the principal on this and I suspect you have information I would want. ”

“Why would you suspect that? ”

“You called a hit-and-run in this morning for two men, one of them having a broken leg. One of these men has a broken leg plus tire tracks on his trousers. ”

Crap.

“I’m out with Lula. I’m about a half hour away. ”

“I’m not going anywhere. This is going to take a while. I’m waiting for the photographer and the medical examiner. ”

“I need to go to a crime scene, ” I said to Lula. “Take me back to the Buick. ”

Potts and I transferred over to the Buick and waved adios to Lula. I dropped Potts off at his parents’ house and drove to the bail bonds office. Morelli was standing inside the yellow tape when I got there. He motioned me over, and I ducked under the tape.

“Sorry I had to make you do this, ” he said. “I need the backstory. They aren’t carrying any ID. ”

Both men were on their backs, sprawled at awkward angles. Shot once in the head and once in the chest. From the lack of blood at the scene I was guessing they were shot somewhere else, and then probably pitched off the pickup.

“They tried to kidnap me this morning when I came out of my apartment building, ” I said. “They said Shine wanted to talk to me. I declined the invitation, they chased me around the neighborhood, and finally they pinned me down when I tried to return to my parking lot. The guy in the suit is named Sanchez. I don’t know any more than that. He got off a shot at me, a car came out of nowhere and ran him over, and then ran the other guy over. The car sped off and I went to my apartment and called 911. I was looking out the window, talking to dispatch, when a blue pickup drove into the lot, scooped both guys up, and drove away with them. ”

The medical examiner arrived, and Morelli and I moved away from the taped-off area.

“This is a classic Shine hit, ” Morelli said. “Once in the head and once in the chest. If we can retrieve a bullet, I’m guessing it’ll match the one we recovered from the dead hooker you found. Alice Smuther. Schmidt interviewed her neighbor across the hall. He said Shine was living with Smuther for a short time. He heard them arguing and he assumed Shine moved out. He didn’t see Smuther after that. ”

“Why would Shine kill her? ”

“I can only speculate, but possibly Shine killed Smuther for the same reason he killed these two. Shine has a reputation for getting rid of loose ends. Dead men tell no tales. They can’t give you up to cop a plea bargain. In the case here, if he hadn’t killed them, they would be getting medical attention. I’m taking a wild guess, but you probably have Connie calling around to find them. And after you had a heart-to-heart with them you would have turned them over to us, right? ”

“Right. ”

“And one more wild guess, ” Morelli said. “You know the driver of the hit-and-run car. ”

“It wasn’t Ranger. ”

“And? ”

“It was moving fast. All I can tell you is that it was black, and it was small. Not an SUV. ”

“That narrows it down, ” Morelli said.

I left Morelli, walked around the block to the front of the building where my car was parked, and I called Connie.

“Your men didn’t check in at any of the clinics or hospitals, ” Connie said.

“That’s because they’re dead, ” I said. “Shot Shine execution-style and dumped behind the office. I’m there now. ”

“A bullet in the head and another in the chest? ” Connie asked.

“Yes. ”

“You’d think Shine would change it up once in a while. ”

“Is your mom home? Did she hear anything helpful? ”

“Jimmy’s sister said Shine is in Atlantic City. He comes to Trenton when he has to, but mostly his crew goes to him. ”

“Did she say where in Atlantic City? ”

“She only knew that he was staying in someone’s home. She said she heard it was one of his buddies from the old days. He was well connected when he was younger, and he had a lot of friends. If you wanted a liquor license or a pizza at three in the morning for your pregnant wife or demanding girlfriend, Shine could make it happen. ”

“Start collecting a list of his friends, ” I said. “You make the phone calls and give me the names. I’ll run the real estate searches. ”

“Do you have those programs? ”

“No. I’m on my way home. Send me links to whatever I need. ”

I was back in the Buick. If Shine’s henchmen came after me, I’d deal with it. If necessary, I could mow them down. If Gabriela could do it in a Mercedes sports car, I could for sure do it with the Buick.

I had a few butterflies in my stomach when I pulled into my parking lot. That’s okay, I thought. It’s a reminder to be cautious. And it’s good to be cautious. It’s not good to be fearful. Fear isn’t a productive emotion.

I found a parking place close to the back door and three minutes later I was in my apartment with the door locked. Cautious but not afraid, I told myself. My new mantra.

I grabbed a granola bar and a bottle of water, took them to the dining room table, and opened my MacBook. I downloaded the search programs from Connie plus three names. I researched the three names and eliminated them. No real estate in Atlantic City. Four more names came in from Connie. I ran them through the system. Nothing.

It was nine o’clock at night when I received the last batch of names from Connie. It was as if she’d downloaded the entire Trenton phone book and sent it to me. Out of all those names, I found two with Atlantic City residences. In both cases they were second residences. One was a condo in a low-rise building. The other was a modest house in Pleasantville. I’d take a road trip in the morning.

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