“So about that vodka?”
“I’ll send Hal out for it.”
I disconnected and put my phone back in my purse. “Hal’s going for vodka,” I told her.
“Thank God. Why do they make these rooms so bleak? I mean, look at the television they’ve got here. It’s from 1970.”
I thought it looked a lot like the television I had in my apartment. I checked my watch. I was counting down minutes until the vodka arrived.
A tired-looking man in blue scrubs stuck his head into the room. “Mrs. Linken?” he asked. “I’d like to speak with you.”
“I’m going to step out for a minute,” I said. “I’ll stay close if anyone needs me.”
Ranger was waiting in the hall.
“Did the Linkens have perimeter security cameras?” I asked him.
“No. They didn’t want them.”
“Too bad. They might have gotten the shooter on video.”
“Doug Linken didn’t want some of his visitors caught on camera.”
“Shady business partners?”
“Shady sexual encounters,” Ranger said.
“So where do we go from here?”
“I’ll wait to see if Mrs. Linken needs our help, and then we’ll go home.”
Ten minutes later we had Monica Linken settled into the backseat of a Rangeman SUV. She was chugging vodka out of the bottle, and she was smiling.
“Not exactly a grieving widow,” I said to Ranger, watching the car pull away from the curb.
“Hal will get her locked into the house, and then he’ll hang out in the driveway overnight. I imagine there’s a crime scene crew combing through her backyard. I’ll get in touch with her tomorrow to see if she wants us to continue our service.”
“Do you think she’s in any danger?”
“Yeah. I think she could pass out and never wake up if she drinks that whole bottle of vodka.”
EIGHT
I STEPPED OUT of my apartment at eight A.M. and found a Rangeman guy waiting for me in the hall.
“This is for you,” he said, handing me a Mercedes key. “The paperwork is in the glove box. Ranger said you would understand.”
I took the key and thanked him. Ranger was efficient, as always. We exited the building together, and the Rangeman guy waited for me to find my new car and get behind the wheel before he left.
Ranger had given me a little SUV. I suspected it had originally been a fleet car because it had the ankle restraint loops welded onto the floor of the backseat. It smelled like a new car, and it was immaculately clean.
I drove to the bonds office, parked at the curb, and Lula opened the office door before I got to it.
“Looks to me like Ranger gave you another car,” Lula said. “And this one’s a Mercedes. You must have done somethin’ good to that man.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but no. It was a business deal.”
“I do business all the time, and I don’t get no Mercedes,” Lula said.
Connie looked over at me. “I hear Doug Linken was shot. Was that on your watch?”
“No. They were home. He went outside to smoke and someone shot him.”
I saw their eyes shift from me to the front door, and I turned to look. It was Morelli.
“Here comes Officer Hottie,” Lula said. “I tell you, I wouldn’t mind him putting me in cuffs.”
Morelli hung at the door and crooked his finger at me. “I want to talk to you,” he said. “Outside.”
Crap. Talking to Morelli right now wasn’t high on my list of favorite activities. It came right between stick a fork in my eye and drink Drano. I mean, I really like Morelli. Actually, I love Morelli, but I had no clue what to say or think at this point beyond wanting to punch him in the face.
“Sorry I didn’t call last night,” he said. “It was a busy night. Gangbanger drive-by, and then I pulled the Linken shooting.”
“Lucky you.”
“I had a brief conversation with Mrs. Linken last night just before she passed out. She said you and Ranger were supposed to be protecting them.”
“We escorted them to the Getz viewing, but then we were off duty. When word went out that Doug Linken was shot, Ranger wanted me at the hospital to babysit Monica.”
“Did she need babysitting?”
“Mostly she needed vodka.”
“Did you get anything useful out of her?”
“Her big news was that she didn’t have the perfect marriage, and Doug had a lot of enemies. Do you think she could have shot him?”
“It’s doubtful. It looks like the shooter was twenty to thirty feet away, shooting toward the house.”
“Monica said she didn’t pay attention to the gunshots because she was watching CSI and there was a lot of shooting. I find that hard to believe, but maybe it’s possible. She went to the kitchen during a commercial and noticed the door was open.”