Takedown Twenty(58)
“I guess they could, but I don’t think that happens. Your credit card would just get declined.”
I called Morelli at work.
“The women who were murdered and tossed into the Dumpsters,” I said to Morelli. “Their bank accounts were cleaned out, right?”
“Right.”
“Are we talking about a lot of money?”
“It ranged from fifteen hundred dollars to just under thirty thousand.”
“Do you suppose they could have been paying off gambling debts?”
“Why were they killed if they were paying off debts? Usually you get killed if you don’t pay off.”
“I haven’t got that part figured out.”
“Do you want to do something tonight?” Morelli asked.
“What did you have in mind?”
“Depends. Do we need to have the aborted relationship discussion?”
“No. I had the discussion all by myself and got it all straight.”
“Did you reach any conclusions I should know about?”
“Nope. It’s all good.”
“So I should stop at the drugstore on the way over?”
“Sure, and pick up some ice cream.”
“Should I also pick up dinner?”
“Wouldn’t hurt.”
I hung up, took a deep breath, and told myself it would all work out. Somewhere, out there in the cosmos, there was a plan for me. Someday I’d get my life under control. My fear was that it might not be someday soon.
Lula came out of the storeroom. “Did I hear you talking to Morelli? Are you seeing him tonight? Because I was hoping we could go out under cover of darkness tonight and look for Kevin.”
“Maybe Connie will go out with you.”
“Pass,” Connie said. “I’m taking my mother to a baby shower for Ann Marie Scarelli.”
Connie comes from a big Italian family that has a baby shower or wedding shower every week. And on the odd occasion that there’s not a wedding shower or baby shower, there’s a jewelry party, makeup party, Botox party, or potluck dinner.
“I’m worried about Kevin,” Lula said. “What if he’s laying in the middle of the road starving? I haven’t been leaving him lettuce.”
“I think someone would notice a giraffe in the middle of the road,” I said.
“Yeah, but what if he’s a magic giraffe, and we’re the only ones can see him?”
I didn’t want to consider that possibility. That might indicate insanity. Fortunately Ranger had also seen Kevin, so I would at least have a boyfriend in the loony bin with me.
“We can look for Kevin this morning,” I said to Lula. “I should do a drive-by on Sunny’s properties anyway.”
“I thought you didn’t want to be seen someplace where people wanted to shoot you?”
“That was yesterday.”
“Maybe we should go in disguise,” Lula said. “I was just taking inventory, and we got some wigs back there from when Vinnie bonded out that drag queen what was robbing banks. He’s doing ten to twenty and he never came back for his wigs. The wigs are pretty good, and we sprayed them for cooties when they came in, so they’re even sanitary.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Connie said. “It wouldn’t hurt to look at them.”
Lula went to the storeroom and came back with a box filled with wigs. Blond wigs, red wigs, pink wigs, black wigs, brown wigs. Some were curly, and some were straight, in a variety of lengths.
“I even know which one I want already,” Lula said. “I’m taking the Marilyn wig. It’s just like her hair in The Seven Year Itch. Remember when the air from the subway grate blew her skirt up? It’s what you call a iconic wig.”
I went with a short red wig that had spiky curls and bangs. I tucked my ponytail under the wig and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. I was kind of cute.
“You don’t look like yourself at all,” Lula said to me. “You look like you’d be a lot of fun.”
I cut across town, and stopped at a light on Fifteenth.
“Have you noticed people are looking at us?” Lula said. “I wouldn’t think we be attracting this much attention in this little SUV. It’s a normal car compared to my red Firebird or your big blue Buick.”
“I’m going out on a limb here and suggesting they’re looking at the black woman in the platinum Marilyn wig.”
“Do you think?” Lula flipped the visor down and looked at herself in the mirror. “I am spectacular. I guess I’d have to take a second look at me too. Probably people are wondering if I’m a supermodel or movie star.”
I drove two more blocks and parked at the corner of Fifteenth and Freeman.