A guy came up to us with plastic cups of beer. “Are you ladies students here?”
“Hell, yeah,” Lula said, taking a cup. “We’re studying all kinds of shit.”
“Anyone want to go upstairs?”
“Mostly we want to go downstairs,” Lula said.
“We’d like to see the cellar,” Connie told him.
“The cellar’s locked,” he said. “Nothing going on down there anyway.”
“Then why is it locked?” I asked.
“We keep the beer down there,” he said.
“I want to see the beer,” Lula said. “I get turned on by beer. Most people want to drink it, but I like looking at it. You can’t imagine what I could do to you if I had enough beer to look at. You’d never be the same. You’d be ruined when I was done with you.”
“Damn,” he said. “I haven’t got a key. Professor Pooka has a key. So what’s it going to be? One or all of you want to make me happy?”
“You’re gonna have to get happy all by yourself,” Lula said. “We don’t make people happy until we know them better. We got standards.”
“How much do your standards cost?” he asked Lula. “What can I get for ten bucks?”
“You can’t get nothin’ for ten bucks,” Lula said. “If I was in that business, which I’m not, I wouldn’t even look at you for ten bucks.”
“How about twenty? I bet I could get a tug from you for twenty.”
“This here’s insulting,” Lula said. “Do you know what you could get for twenty? You could get a snootful of pepper spray. I got some in my purse.”
Lula reached into her purse and pulled out her gun.
His eyes got wide and he jumped away. “Crap! I know who you are. You’re the nut who shot up the balcony.”
Someone yelled, “She’s got a gun! It’s the shooter! Call the police. Run for your lives.”
“I was just lookin’ for my pepper spray,” Lula said.
People were bolting up the stairs and out the front door.
“This isn’t good,” Lula said. “This here’s pandemonium.”
I turned Lula around and pointed her toward the kitchen. “Follow Connie!”
We ran through the deserted kitchen and out the back door. I smacked into Dean Mintner and knocked him flat.
Connie and I picked him up and set him on his feet.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t see you here in the dark.”
“What are you doing out here?” Lula asked him.
“I’m watching. I’m taking down names and collecting evidence.”
“What kind of evidence?”
“I don’t know yet,” Mintner said. “I haven’t figured it out.”
“This is why I’m not going to college,” Lula said. “Everybody’s a goofball.”
We left Mintner and hustled back to the Firebird. Lula put her handicap parking permit into the glove compartment and drove us to the office.
“This was a good girls’ night out,” Lula said. “We should do this more often.”
TWELVE
I WOKE UP to the smell of coffee brewing. On the one hand terrific, and on the other hand terrifying, because it meant someone was in my kitchen. If it was a deranged killer he probably wouldn’t be making coffee. That left Morelli with a key. And Ranger with the ability to magically unlock anything. My money was on Morelli. Ranger would have brought Starbucks coffee in a container. I got out of bed and padded barefoot into the kitchen.
Morelli was lounging against my counter with a coffee mug in his hand. He poured out a mug for me, added cream, and handed it over.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
“I have a phone. I have a doorbell.”
“I tried your doorbell. It isn’t working.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you.”
“Cupcake, your gun is in the cookie jar, and it isn’t loaded.”
I drank some coffee and pushed my hair off my face. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Doug Linken. We’re starting to get toxicology tests back, and he had traces of black gunpowder on the soles of his shoes. Harry Getz had the same gunpowder on his shoes. It’s not something you see every day. You might find it on a gunsmith or collector, but neither Linken or Getz owned a gun.”
“Why are you telling this to me?”
“You’re going to be with Monica Linken tonight. I’ve asked her about the gunpowder, but she had nothing. I thought you might be able to pick up something. Someone passing in front of the casket who might make his own ammo. Maybe a history buff who likes guns.”