04 Four to Score (11 page)

I entered the store and caught the end of the conversation.

“Irresponsible,” the older man was saying. “No excuse for it.”

I wandered to the back and looked around. Sure enough. Helen wasn't here.

“Excuse me,” I said to the clerk. “I thought Helen Badijian would be working tonight.”

The clerk nervously looked from me to the man. “She had to leave early.”

“It's important that I speak to her. Do you know where she can be reached?”

“Girlie, that's the hundred-dollar question,” the older man said.

I extended my hand. “Stephanie Plum.”

“Arnold Kyle. I own this place. I got a call about an hour ago from the cops telling me my store was unattended. Your friend Helen just walked out of here. No notice. No nothing. Didn't even have the decency to lock up. Some guy came in to buy cigarettes and called the cops when he figured out there was no one here.”

I had a real bad feeling in my stomach. “Was Helen unhappy with her job?”

“Never said anything to me,” Arnold said.

“Maybe she got sick and didn't have time to leave a note.”

“I called her house. Nobody's seen her. I called the hospital. She isn't there.”

“Have you looked everywhere in the store? A storage room? The cellar? Bathroom?”

“Checked all that out.”

“Does she drive to work? Is her car still here?”

Arnold looked to the young guy.

“It's still here,” the young guy said. “I parked next to it when I came in. It's a blue Nova.”

“Must have gone off with one of her friends,” Arnold said. “You can't trust anyone these days. No sense of responsibility. A good time comes along, and they kiss you good-bye.”

I turned my attention to the clerk. “Any money missing?”

He shook his head no.

“Any sign of struggle? Anything knocked over?”

“I got here first,” Arnold said. “And there wasn't anything. It looked like she just waltzed out of here.”

I gave them my card and explained my relationship with Helen. We did a brief behind-the-counter search for a possible note, but nothing turned up. I thanked Arnold and the clerk and asked them to call if they heard from Helen. I had my hands on the counter, and I looked down and saw it. A book of matches from the Parrot Bar in Point Pleasant.

“Are these yours?” I asked the clerk.

“Nope,” he said. “I don't smoke.”

I looked at Arnold. “Not mine,” he said.

“Do you mind if I snitch them?”

“Knock yourself out,” Arnold said.

At the risk of seeming paranoid I checked my rearview mirror about sixty times on the way home. Not so much for Joyce, but for the guys who might have spooked or snatched Helen Badijian. A week ago, I'd have drawn the same conclusion as Arnold . . . that Helen took off. Now that I knew about chopped-off fingers and scalpings I took a more extreme view of events.

I parked in my lot, did a fast look around, inhaled a deep breath and bolted from my car. Across the lot, through the rear entrance, up the stairs to my apartment. The hate message was still on my door. I was breathing hard, and my hand was shaking so that it took concentration to get the key in the lock.

This is stupid, I told myself. Get a grip! But I didn't have a grip, so I locked myself in and checked under the bed, in the closets and behind the shower curtain. When I was convinced I was safe I ate the Entenmann's coffee cake to calm myself down.

When I was done with the cake I called Morelli and told him about Helen and asked him to check on her.

“Just exactly what did you have in mind?”

“I don't know. Maybe you could see if she's in the morgue. Or in the hospital, getting some missing body part sewed back on. Maybe you could ask some of your friends to keep an eye out for her.”

“Probably Arnold's right,” Morelli said. “Probably she's at a bar with a couple friends.”

“You really think so?”

“No,” Morelli said. “I was just saying that to get you off the phone. I'm watching a ball game.”

“There's something that really bothers me here that I didn't tell you.”

“Oh boy.”

“Eddie Kuntz was the only one who knew I was going to see Helen Badijian.”

“And you think he got to her first.”

“It's crossed my mind.”

“You know there was a time when I'd say to myself . . . How does she do it? How does she get mixed up with these weirdos? But now I don't even question it. In fact, I've come to expect such things of you.”

“So are you going to help me, or what?”

I DIDN'T LIKE the idea that I might be responsible for Helen's disappearance. Morelli had agreed to make a few phone calls, but I still felt unsatisfied. I pulled the Parrot Bar matches out of my pocket and examined them. No hastily scribbled messages on the inside flap. For that matter, nothing to identify them as Maxine's. Nevertheless, first thing in the morning, I'd be on my way to Point Pleasant.

I went to the phone book and looked up Badijian. Three of them. No Helen. Two were in Hamilton Township. One was in Trenton. I called the Trenton number. A woman answered and told me Helen wasn't home from work yet. Easy. But not the right answer. I wanted Helen to be home.

Okay, I thought, maybe what I needed to do was go see for myself. Take a look in Kuntz's windows and see if he had Helen tied to a kitchen chair. I strapped on my black web utility belt and filled the pockets. Pepper spray, stun gun, handcuffs, flashlight, .38 Special. I thought about loading the .38 and decided against it. Guns creeped me out.

I shrugged into a navy windbreaker and scooped my hair up under my hat.

Mrs. Zuppa was coming in from bingo just as I was leaving the building. “Looks like you're going to work,” she said, leaning heavily on her cane. “What are you packin'?”

“A thirty-eight.”

“I like a nine-millimeter myself.”

“A nine's good.”

“Easier to use a semiautomatic after you've had hip replacement and you walk with a cane,” she said.

One of those useful pieces of information to file away and resurrect when I turn eighty-three.

Traffic was light at this time of night. A few cars on Olden. No cars on Muffet. I parked around the corner on Cherry Street, a block down from Kuntz, and walked to his house. Downstairs lights were on in both halves. Shades were up. I stood on the sidewalk and snooped. Leo and Betty were feet up in side-by-side recliners watching Bruce Willis bleed on TV.

Next door, Eddie was talking on the phone. It was a portable, and I could see him pacing in his kitchen in the back of the house.

Neighboring houses were dark. Lights were on across the street, but there was no activity. I slipped between the houses, avoiding the squares of light thrown onto the grass from open windows, and crept in shadow to the back of Kuntz's house. Snatches of conversation drifted out to me. Yes, he loved her, Kuntz said. And yes, he thought she was sexy. I stood in deep shade and looked through the window. His back was to me. He was alone, and there were no whacked-off body parts lying on his kitchen table. No Helen chained to the stove. No unearthly screams coming from his cellar. The whole thing was damn disappointing.

Of course, Jeffrey Dahmer kept his trophies in his refrigerator. Maybe what I should do is go around front, knock on the door, tell Kuntz I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop in for that drink. Then I could look in his refrigerator when he went for ice.

I was debating this plan when a hand clamped over my mouth and I was dragged backward and pressed hard into the side of the house. I kicked out with my feet, and my heart was pounding in my chest. I got a hand loose and went for the pepper spray, and I heard a familiar voice whisper in my ear.

“If you're looking to grab something, I can do better than pepper spray.”

“Morelli!”

“What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“I'm investigating. What does it look like I'm doing?”

“It looks like you're invading Eddie Kuntz's privacy.” He pushed my jacket aside and stared down at my gun belt. “No grenades?”

“Very funny.”

“You need to get out of here.”

“I' m not done.”

“Yes, you are,” Morelli said. “You're done. I found Helen.”

“Tell me.”

“Not here.” He took my hand and tugged me forward, toward the street.

The light over Eddie's back stoop went on, and the back screen door creaked open. “Somebody out here?”

Morelli and I froze against the side of the house.

A second door opened. “What is it?” Leo said. “What's going on?”

“Somebody's creeping around the house. I heard voices.”

“Betty,” Leo yelled, “bring the flashlight. Turn on the porch light.”

Morelli gave me a shove. “Go for your car.”

Keeping to the shadows, I ran around the neighboring duplex, cut back through the driveway and scuttled across yards, heading for Cherry. I scrambled over a four-foot-high chain-link fence, caught my foot on the cross section and sprawled facedown on the grass.

Morelli hoisted me up by my gun belt and set me in motion.

His pickup was directly behind my CRX. We both jumped in our cars and sped away. I didn't stop until I was safely in my own parking lot.

I slid from behind the wheel, locked my car and assumed what I hoped was a casual pose, leaning against the CRX, ignoring the fact that my knees were scraped and I had grass stains the entire length of my body.

Morelli sauntered over and stood back on his heels, hands in his pockets. “People like you give cops nightmares,” he said.

“What about Helen?”

“Dead.”

My breath caught in my chest. “That's terrible!”

“She was found in an alley four blocks from the Seven-Eleven. I don't know much except it looks like there was a struggle.”

“How was she killed?”

“Won't know for sure until they do the autopsy, but there were bruises on her neck.”

“Someone choked her to death?”

“That's what it sounds like.” Morelli paused. “There's something else. And this is not public information. I'm telling you this so you'll be careful. Someone chopped her finger off.”

Nausea rolled through my stomach, and I tried to pull in some oxygen. There was a monster out there . . . someone with a sick, twisted mind. And I'd unleashed him on Helen Badijian by involving her in my case.

“I hate this job,” I said to Morelli. “I hate the bad people, and the ugly crimes, and the human suffering they cause. And I hate the fear. In the beginning, I was too stupid to be afraid. Now it seems like I'm always afraid. And if all that isn't bad enough, I've killed Helen Badijian.”

“You didn't kill Helen Badijian,” Morelli said. “You can't hold yourself responsible for that.”

“How do you get through it? How do you go to work every day, dealing with all the bottom feeders?”

“Most people are good. I keep that in front of me so I don't lose perspective. It's like having a basket of peaches. Somewhere in the middle of the basket is a rotten peach. You find it and remove it. And you think to yourself, Well, that's just the way it is with peaches . . . good thing I was around to stop the rot from spreading.”

“What about the fear?”

“Concentrate on doing the job, not on the fear.”

Easy to say, hard to do, I thought. “I assume you came to Kuntz's house looking for me?”

“I called to give you the news,” Morelli said, “and you weren't home. I asked myself if you'd be dumb enough to go after Kuntz, and the answer was yes.”

“You think Kuntz killed Helen?”

“Hard to say. He's clean. Has no record. The fact that he knew you were seeing Helen might have no bearing on this at all. There could be someone out there working entirely independently, turning up the same leads you're turning up.”

“Whoever they are, they're ahead of me now. They got to Helen.”

“Helen might not have known much.”

That was possible. Maybe all she had were the matches.

Morelli locked eyes with me. “You aren't going back after Kuntz, are you?”

“Not tonight.”

*    *    *    *    *

SALLY CALLED while I was waiting for my morning coffee to finish dripping.

“The code was fun, but the message is boring,” Sally said. “ 'The next clue is in a box marked with a big red X.' ”

“That's it? No directions to find the box?”

“Just what I read. You want the paper? It's sort of a mess. Sugar tidied the kitchen this morning and accidentally tossed the clue in the trash masher. I was lucky to find it.”

“Is he still mad?”

“No. He's on one of his cleaning, cooking, interior decorating benders. He got up this morning and made scratch waffles, sausage patties, fresh squeezed orange juice, a mushroom omelet, put a coffee cake in the oven, scoured the kitchen to within an inch of its life and took off to buy new throw cushions for the couch.”

“Dang. I was afraid he might be upset because I borrowed the wig.”

“Nope. He was all Mr. Congeniality this morning. Said you could borrow the wig anytime you wanted.”

“What a guy.”

“Yeah, and he makes a bitchin' waffle. I have rehearsal at ten in Hamilton Township. I can stop on my way and give you the clue.”

I poured a mug of coffee and called Eddie Kuntz.

“She was here,” he said. “The bitch was spying on me last night. I was on the phone, and I heard someone talking outside, so I ran out to look, but she got away. There were two of them. Maxine and someone else. Probably one of her wacky girlfriends.”

“You sure it was Maxine?”

“Who else would it be?”

Me, that's who, you big dumb jerk. “I got the pie clue worked out. The next clue is coming in a box with a big red X on it. You have any boxes like that sitting on your lawn?”

“No. I'm looking out my front window, and I don't see any boxes.”

“How about in back?”

“This is stupid. Clues and boxes and . . . Shit, I found the box. It's on my back stoop. What should I do?”

“Open the box.”

“No way. I'm not opening this box. There could be a bomb in it.”

“There's no bomb.”

“How do you know?”

“It's not Maxine's style.”

“Let me tell you about Maxine. Maxine has no style. Maxine's a nut case. You feel so confident about this box, you come over and open it.”