“Chihuahuas. Mindy and Killer.”
Hal was built like a rhinoceros and was the size of a stegosaurus. He barely fit in the Explorer. Hal walking down the street with a Chihuahua on a leash would stop traffic. It would cause chaos. There would be laughter-induced medical emergencies.
“Chihuahuas are small dogs but they have big personalities,” Hal said.
“That’s so true,” I said.
Ranger put the Porsche in gear and took off.
“I guess you aren’t a dog person,” I said to Ranger.
Ranger cut a sidewise glance at me and turned onto Hamilton Avenue. “I like dogs,” he said. “It’s people I’m not so sure about.”
We parked in front of the Manley house and sat for a couple minutes, making sure the house was vacant. Lights were off. The white Corolla wasn’t visible.
“Let’s do it,” Ranger said.
We got out of the car, walked to the front door, and Ranger took thirty seconds doing something with the lock to get us in. We shut the door and a herd of cats rushed over. They were meowing and rubbing against us, and a large tabby tried to climb up Ranger’s leg.
“This wasn’t in my briefing,” Ranger said.
“Andy’s mom is a foster cat mother for the humane society. And I think she has some of her own.”
“If you get the fat one off my leg, I’ll do something nice for you later tonight.”
Oh boy. I had a pretty good idea what my reward would be.
I pried the tabby off his leg and set it on the floor. “Are you flirting with me?”
“I don’t flirt,” Ranger said. “I make promises that I’m very good at keeping.”
So, here’s what Morelli was talking about when he said this would be his worst nightmare. Ranger is walking and talking sex. He’s totally ripped. He’s Cuban-American with some Spanish ancestry. He’s perfectly put together and is skilled in combat and foreplay. He’s also smart, and I like him. I might even love him. Trouble is I also love Morelli, and at the moment, I’m supposed to be committed to him. Since I don’t want to be labeled a slut, I’m going to try to honor that commitment. Ranger doesn’t make it easy.
We moved through the house to the kitchen. Ranger found a bag of cat kibble and poured some on the floor, and the cats abandoned us for the kibble. We finished searching the lower level and moved upstairs to Andy’s room. It was easy to find. It was the room with the photographs of clowns, mimes, and women who were mostly naked. The sign on his door said STAY OUT! DISASTER ZONE!!
The bed was a rumpled mess. Clothes were scattered across the floor. There were two empty bags of chips and two empty beer cans on his nightstand. There was a small wooden desk under the one window in the room. There was a large monitor and a Nintendo Switch with controllers on the desk but no computer or tablet.
Ranger went through the desk drawers, and I went through the dresser drawers. There was a small bathroom en suite. We both looked in at it. Bath towel on the floor. Toothpaste globs in the sink. The necessities of civilized life were all in place. Deodorant, razor, toothbrush, and floss.
“How old is this guy?” Ranger asked.
“He’s my age. We graduated from high school at the same time.”
“It’s like he’s frozen at fourteen.”
“He was always unique. Did your room look like this when you were fourteen?” I asked him.
“No. I had pictures of soccer players on my walls, and I had to hide the pictures of naked women. If I’d left my clothes on the floor my mother would have given them away to the church and I would have had nothing to wear.”
“It looks to me like Andy left in a hurry. He took his computer but left everything else. I don’t see anything missing in the bathroom. Did you find anything in his desk?”
“A USB flash drive and a lot of candy wrappers. He likes Snickers bars.”
“The flash drive could be good.”
“Did you find anything in the dresser?” Ranger asked.
“Nothing I would ever want to remember.”
We left Andy’s room and went downstairs. The cats were everywhere. Sitting on end tables, perched on chair backs, climbing up the fake tree in the foyer, sprawled out on the foyer rug.
“Looks like the cats ran out of kibble,” I said. “Be careful when you open the door. If any of them escape, we have to retrieve them. They aren’t outside cats.”
“Do you have any ideas on cat containment?”
“I’ll sneak out while you keep the cats away and then you can get out while I keep watch.”
I slipped out and there was a lot of cat screeching and growling. Ranger came out and closed the door.
“Pepper spray?” I asked him.
“Water from the vase on the foyer table.”
“They rushed you, right? It was self-defense?”
Ranger grabbed the front of my sweatshirt and pulled me flat against him. “If you breathe a word of this to anyone, I’ll round those cats up and dump them in your apartment.”
I looked up at him. “That would be really rotten.”
Ranger loosened his grip on my sweatshirt, stared into my eyes for a beat, and kissed me.
“My lips are sealed,” I said.
“I noticed,” Ranger said.
“It’s Morelli.”
“Babe,” Ranger said.
The inflection was the equivalent of an eye roll. Ranger had respect for Morelli as a cop, but he wasn’t impressed with him as a boyfriend. Possibly because he’d never slept with him or watched a hockey game with him or scarfed down Morelli’s mother’s lasagna.
“Anyway,” I said, “this isn’t a good place to… you know.”
“Kiss you?”
“Yeah.”
“Babe, that barely counted as a kiss.” He wrapped his hand around my wrist and tugged me forward, toward his car. “I want to see what’s on the flash drive. I’ll call to have Bob brought to your apartment and we can use your computer to access the drive.”
Fifteen minutes later Ranger parked in my building’s lot and a Rangeman car pulled up next to us. Hal got out and handed Bob over to me.
“Thanks for Bob-sitting,” I said to Hal.
“No problem,” Hal said. “He was great.”
“He ate my hat,” Rodriguez said from behind the wheel.
“We took our dinner break at Joey’s BBQ,” Hal said. “Rod sat in front of the smoker and his hat smelled like cooked cow. If Bob hadn’t eaten it, I would have ripped it off his head and thrown it out the window.”
I walked Bob around the parking lot until I thought he was empty and then the three of us went upstairs. I said hello to Rex and gave him half of a Ritz cracker. I gave a whole Ritz cracker to Bob. I gave a bottle of water to Ranger.
I went to the dining room table and opened my laptop. Ranger pulled a chair up next to me and inserted the flash drive, and a list of files appeared on the screen.
The first file was titled “Big Below.” It was a short story by someone named Emmett. There were a few other short stories and two screenplays, also by Emmett. The last three files were storylines for a video game.
“At first glance it doesn’t seem like we got a lot out of this night,” I said.