Half an hour later, I got my check back with an apology.
"I'm sorry that took so long," he said. "But maybe it'll be worthwhile. I'll send it to Camden and see what they make of it. I think it's pretty strange. I've never run across anything like this."
We got back to the Porsche and sunk into the leather seats.
"I love this car," Lula said. "I feel like the shit in this car."
I knew exactly what she meant. It was a fantasy car. No matter if it was true, when you drove the car you felt prettier, sexier, braver, and smarter. Ranger was on to something with this broader horizon business. When I drove the Porsche I could see myself with broader horizons.
I put the car in gear and headed for the driveway out of the lot. The lot itself was surrounded by a high chain-link fence. Out-of-use trucks parked to the rear in the lot, and office workers and drivers parked in the front. Double gates opened to the street. Probably at night they closed and locked the gates. During the day the gates were open, and it was wide enough for two trucks to pass.
I rolled to a stop at the open gate, looked left and saw the first garbage truck of the day rumble home. It was a colossus of a truck. A green and white behemoth that shook the earth as it thundered closer, its bulk preceded by the stench of rotting everything, its arrival heralded by descending seagulls.
The truck swung wide to enter the lot, and Lula jumped in her seat. "Holy cats, that guy don't see us. He's taking this turn like he owns the road."
I went into reverse, but it was too late. The truck sideswiped the Porsche, shearing fiberglass off half the car. I leaned on the horn, and the truck driver stopped and looked down at us in amazement.
Lula jumped out of the car in full rant, and I followed after her, climbing over the seat because my side was smushed into the monster garbage truck.
"Jeez, lady," the driver said. "I don't know what happened. I didn't see you until you started blowing your horn."
"That don't cut it," Lula yelled. "This here's a Porsche. You know what she had to do to get this Porsche? Well, actually she hasn't done nothing yet, but I think if she gets lucky, she's gonna have to do plenty. This company better be insured." Lula turned to me. "You need to exchange insurance information. That's always the first thing you do. You got your card?"
"I don't know. I guess all that stuff is in the glove compartment," I said.
"I'll get it," Lula told me. "I can't believe this happened to a Porsche. People should be more careful when they see a Porsche on the road." She leaned into the car, rooted around in the glove compartment, and was back in a heartbeat. "This looks like it," she said, handing the card over to me. "And here's your purse. You might need your license."
"Maybe we should get the guy in the office," the driver said. "He fills out the forms for this kind of thing."
I thought that was a good idea. And while we were at it how about if I just slip away unnoticed and get a one-way ticket to Rio. I didn't want to have to explain this to Ranger.
"Yeah, we should get that office guy," Lula said. "Because I might have whiplash or something. I can feel it coming on. Maybe I need to go in and sit down."
I would have rolled my eyes, but I thought I should save my energy in case Lula suddenly got paralyzed from the half-mile-per-hour impact she'd just sustained.
We all went into the building and had just gotten through the door when there was a loud explosion. We stopped in our tracks and looked at each other. There was a moment of stunned immobility, and then we all scrambled to see what had happened.
We burst out the door and faltered when a second explosion went off and flames shot from the Porsche and licked along the undercarriage of the garbage truck.
"Oh shit," the driver said. "Take cover! I've got a full tank of gas."
"Say what?" Lula said.
And then it blew. Barrroooom! Liftoff. The garbage truck jumped off the pavement. Tires and doors flew off like Frisbees, the truck bounced down with a jolt, listed to one side, and rolled over onto the furiously burning Porsche, turning it into a Porsche pancake.
We flattened ourselves against the building while pieces of scrap metal and shreds of rubber rained down around us.
"Uh-oh," Lula said. "All the king's horses and all the king's men aren't gonna put that Porsche back together again."
"I don't get it," the driver said. "It was only a scratch. I hardly scraped against your car. Why would it explode like that?"
"That's what her cars do," Lula said. "They explode. But I gotta tell you this was the best. This here's the first time she exploded a garbage truck. One time her truck got hit with an antitank missile. That wasn't bad either, but it couldn't compare to this."
I hauled the cell phone out of my bag and dialed Morelli.
12
ONLY ONE FIRE truck was left on the scene, and the remaining firemen were directing the cleanup. A crane had been brought in to move the RGC truck. When they got the truck up and off the Porsche, I'd be able to put the Porsche in my pocket. Connie had picked Lula up and taken her back to work, and most of the returning truck drivers had lost interest and dispersed.
Morelli had arrived seconds after the first fire truck and was now standing threateningly close to me, fist on hip, eyes narrowed, giving me the third degree.
"Tell me again," Morelli said, "why Ranger gave you a Porsche."
"It's a company car. Everyone who works with Ranger drives a black car, and since my car is blue—"
"He gave you a Porsche."
I narrowed my eyes back at him. "Just what is the problem here?"
"I want to know what's going on with you and Ranger is the problem."
"I told you. I'm working with him." And I supposed I was flirting with him, but I didn't think it was necessary to report flirting. Anyway, talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Morelli didn't look satisfied, and he definitely didn't look happy. "I don't suppose you bothered to check the registration number on your Porsche."
"Don't suppose I did." And it was unlikely anyone was going to check it now, being that the Porsche was blown up, and its remnants were only three inches thick.
"You weren't worried that you might be driving a hot car?"
"Ranger wouldn't give me a hot car."
"Ranger would give his mother a hot car," Morelli said. "Where do you think he gets all those cars he gives away? You think he gets them from the car fairy?"
"I'm sure there's an explanation."
"Such as?"
"Such as, I don't know. And anyway there are other things that are more important to me right now. Like why did my car explode?"
"Good question. I think it's unlikely the garbage truck side-swiping you caused the explosion. If you were a normal person I'd be hard-pressed to find an explanation. Since you're who you are . . . my guess is someone planted a bomb."
"Why did it take so long? Why didn't it go off when I started the car?"
"I asked Murphy. He's the demo expert. He thinks it might have been set on a timer, so it would go off when you were on the street, not in the lot."
"So maybe the bomber is someone from the garbage company, and he didn't want the explosion so close to home."
"We looked for Stemper, but he's nowhere."
"Did you check for his car?"
"It's still here."
"Are you kidding me? He's just disappeared?"
Morelli shrugged. "Doesn't mean much. He could have gone out for a drink with a friend. Or he could have gotten fed up with waiting for the lot to get cleared enough to get the cars out and found some other way to go home."
"But you guys are going to look for him, right?"
"Right."
"And he isn't home yet?"
"Not yet."
"I have a theory," I said.
Morelli smiled. "I love this part."
"I think Lipinski was skimming. And maybe Martha Deeter was in on it, or maybe she found out about it, or maybe she was just a pain in the ass. Anyway, I think Lipinski might have been keeping some accounts for himself." I showed Morelli the checks and told him about the banks.