Dirty Thirty (Stephanie Plum, #30)(21)

“Is there anything else that you could tell me about Trundle?” I said. “What kind of car did he drive?”

“He drove my car,” Marjorie said. “I withdrew money from the ATM on Willow Street and when I went to my car, he walked over to me, put a gun to my head, and took my purse with the money in it. It was such a shock that I just stood there. I didn’t shout for the police. I didn’t run. I didn’t do anything. It was like my brain went numb and my heart stopped beating.”

“Understandable,” Lula said. “It’s obvious you’re a refined lady and not used to dealing with scumbags threatening you with deadly force.”

“Yes,” Marjorie said. “I suppose that’s it.”

“Stephanie and me are professionals, and we’re used to these sorts of things,” Lula said.

Marjorie nodded. “After he took my purse, he walked away. Just a couple steps. And then he turned around and pointed the gun at me again and told me to open the trunk. I opened the trunk, and the next thing I knew, I was in the trunk and the car was moving. The car stopped, he opened the trunk and dragged me out. And we were in his backyard. He drove my Mercedes into his backyard. He didn’t have a driveway or anything. It was just dirt.”

“I bet he stun-gunned you,” Lula said. “That’s what I would do if I wanted to get someone into a trunk.”

“Honestly,” Marjorie said. “What’s this world come to? What’s wrong with people that they think it’s okay to throw a woman in the trunk of her Mercedes and drive off with it? People like that should be locked away.”

“I totally agree,” Lula said. “And if you don’t mind my asking, what was it like living in a doghouse?”

“I didn’t live in the doghouse,” she said. “There was a chain attached to a big eye screw that had been screwed into the ground in front of the doghouse. He wrapped the end of the chain around my ankle and padlocked it. He said he was originally just going to rob me, but he got to thinking that anyone who drove a Mercedes and had diamond earrings would be good to ransom. Then he made me give him my earrings and he drove away in my car. As soon as he was out of sight, I started working to get free.”

“How did you do that?” Lula asked. “Did you have a secret cell phone on you?”

“No. The eye screw wasn’t cemented in. I was able to work it loose.”

“Did it take you days to get it loose?” Lula asked.

“No,” Marjorie said. “About twenty minutes, I think. I was motivated to get out of there before he came back.”

“Lucky for you that you had a stupid kidnapper,” Lula said. “He wasn’t smart enough to know that someone with hands instead of paws would be able to get that screw thing out of the ground.”

“I couldn’t get the chain off my ankle, so I carried it with me, and I walked out to the cross street, where I was able to flag someone down,” Marjorie said.

“Awesome,” Lula said. “You’re like your own hero. Did you feel empowered?”

“No,” Marjorie said. “I felt like a ninny. Like a stupid victim. It was terrifying and embarrassing. I was sobbing when the car stopped to help me. Sobbing! It was horrible. Not my finest hour.”

“What was your finest hour?” Lula asked.

“I made popovers for a dinner party once and they were perfect,” Marjorie said.

“Did you get your car and your earrings back?” I asked her.

“My car, yes. Not the earrings. He said he had a girlfriend down the street. He said he was going to trade them off for a good time. That was when he took it out and waved it at me.”

We left Marjorie Katz and returned to my Jeep Cherokee and Bob.

“I expected Marjorie Katz to be an old lady,” Lula said. “She didn’t even look that old. Mostly she looked rich.”

“Seventy-three is the new fifty-three,” I said.

“Does that make thirty the new ten?”

“No. Thirty is the new forty-five,” I said.

I got behind the steering wheel and saw that it had some tooth marks in it.

“What’s with the tooth marks in my steering wheel?” I asked Bob.

Bob played dumb and looked happy to see me.

“No dog treats for you, mister,” I said.

Bob still looked happy to see me, so I pulled a couple dog biscuits out of my bag and gave them to Bob.

“That’s rewarding bad behavior,” Lula said to me. “How’s he gonna learn what’s right and what’s wrong if you keep giving him biscuits?”

“It was a wash because he looked happy to see me.”

“Okay, I get that,” Lula said. “That’s a validating condition.”

“We need to take another look at Carlory Street.”

“Trundle’s girlfriend, right?”

“Right.”





CHAPTER SEVEN




I drove past Trundle’s property and went a quarter mile down the road, heading toward the junkyard. I picked out a black Range Rover parked in a driveway that led to a gray bungalow. I pulled to the side and grabbed Trundle’s file out of my bag. He’d listed his personal vehicle as a black Range Rover. I scanned the file and found Trundle’s license plate. It matched the plate on the SUV in the driveway.