Dirty Thirty (Stephanie Plum, #30)(88)

“I don’t think you’re dying,” I said to her. “I don’t see any blood. I think you fainted. It looks to me like he shot your purse.”

“Are you kidding me? Damn him anyways. That’s a Gucci knockoff.”

“Do you have cuffs in there?” I asked her. “I only had one pair with me, and I put them on Frankie.”

Lula sat up and found a pair of cuffs in her bag. The barrel guy’s fingers were starting to twitch, so I used the cuffs on him. I gave the stun gun to Lula and told her to give Martin Plover more volts if he moved. I ran to the SUV, got another set of cuffs and a roll of surgical gauze, and returned to the building. Martin’s wrist was bloody and mangled from Bob’s giant canines, so I wrapped it in gauze and then cuffed him.

Bob was sitting in the middle of the room. He looked dazed and he was drooling. I put my arm around him and gave him a kiss on the top of his head.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t want to shoot anyone, so I went with the flash-bang.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Diggery.

“I think we finally found him,” Diggery said. “The address is a little dicey so I’m hoping you can get here quick.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in a fancy neighborhood. Just look for the big white house on Lasso Way. It’s got one of those circle driveways and my truck is parked one house away. We’re in the backyard. The missus of the house is passed out in bed, like always. The mister is out, and I don’t want to be here when he comes home.”

“Lasso Way sounds familiar,” I said. “Who owns the house?”

“Martin Plover.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “He isn’t coming home any time soon. I’m on my way. Don’t go anywhere.”

I called Morelli.

“Where are you?” I asked him.

“Route 1. I should be home soon. Forty-five minutes, maybe.”

“I have something you need to see. It’s on Lasso Way. I don’t have the exact address but it’s Martin Plover’s house. Can you do a detour?”

“Are you going to be there?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll do a detour.”

The two Plovers and the barrel guy were gaining function, mumbling and rolling around.

“What are we going to do with these idiots?” Lula asked me.

“I don’t want to leave them here,” I said. “And I don’t want to wait for the police to show up. I guess we take them with us.”

“It’s going to be a tight fit in the SUV,” Lula said. “Especially with Nutsy and his big clown feet.”

Nutsy had his head up and his eyes open, looking like he was trying to pull himself together.

“I can call Rangeman and ask them for help,” I said.

“Or I can call Julio,” Lula said. “He isn’t far from here. I could have him bring his truck.”

Fifteen minutes later we had the three men in the back of Julio’s pickup. We walked Nutsy to my SUV and put him in back with Bob.

“What the heck were you thinking?” Lula said to Nutsy. “Who has a party out here?”

“Lots of people,” Nutsy said. “I’ve done parties here before. Mostly at the bounce thing. And besides, there were balloons on the mailbox.”

“That was Frankie’s idea,” Lula said. “He’s real creative that way.”

“He’s a crackhead lunatic,” Nutsy said.

“How’d you get all beat up?” Lula asked him.

“Frankie,” Nutsy said. “He was the only one here when I arrived. He opened the door and sucker punched me. And then I think he hit me over the head with something because I blacked out, and when I came around, I was strapped to the chair. He was trying to get me to tell him where you were and where the jewelry was, but I didn’t know, and I couldn’t think right. Then his father came in and yelled at him and told him to go help with the barrels. Martin didn’t care about where you were. He figured you’d come to him. And he was right.”

“It was lucky that you were living with your mother, and she thought to call Stephanie,” Lula said.

“It was probably Sissy who thought of that,” Nutsy said. “She talked Duncan into coming home. She drove him back yesterday. We’re all hiding at my parents’ house.”

“I can’t see Duncan getting a harsh sentence,” I said. “After the way everything has played out, he might just get community service.”

“Whatever it is, Sissy will be there for him,” Nutsy said.

“That’s nice,” Lula said. “It’s almost a happy ending. It would be good if you had a happy ending now.”

“That’s the best part,” Nutsy said. “A publisher made an offer for a collection of my stories. I didn’t get much money for it, but it’s a start.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE




I led the parade to Martin Plover’s house on Lasso Way. The three men were handcuffed, and Julio had wrapped them in duct tape as a further precaution. We left them in the truck and walked around to the backyard, where Diggery and Snacker were standing guard over an open grave.