22 Caliber - A Stephanie Plum-inspired Story

Chapter Twelve

We decided to see Alex first. On the way to Alex's apartment I phoned Morelli. He asked me how I was feeling.

"Better", I replied. "The antibiotics are definitely working."

"I tried calling you at your place last night. I guess you were sleeping."

"No", I replied, "I ended up crashing on Ranger's couch again last night." I could see the corners of Ranger's mouth twitch into a smile. I lightly punched him on the shoulder and gave him a mock glare. "He didn't have the heart to wake me up." I heard the steam rising from Joe's head. There was a silence on the phone as he got himself under control. "Are you going to yell?" I asked.

"No. I'm not. I'm trying to be thankful he was there to take care of you when you were sick and I was busy with this attempted murder. I'm trying to be understanding. Am I succeeding?"

"Yes. Thank you for trusting me."

"Oh, I trust you. It's Ranger I don't trust."

I got off the phone before Joe had the chance to ask about Mario. "For the record, Babe, if you were my girlfriend I wouldn't be so understanding", said Ranger.

Something else to think about.

We drove to the other side of Trenton to get to the apartment where Alex Lipinski lived. It was early in the morning and traffic was light. We got to the apartment in record time.

Lipinski lived in an apartment building located in a sketchy neighborhood. No landscaping, no balconies, no fire escapes, no security system, no elevator. Four floors high and surrounded by cracked asphalt stained from years of leaking car oil. Alex lived on the third floor. Ranger and I climbed up the stairs to his floor and walked down a hallway that still smelled of stale cooking odors from the night before. We knocked on Lipinski's door. The door whipped open. It was Lipinski, dressed in a stained t-shirt and jeans too tight for him. The button at his waist was undone and he smelled of day-old beer. "Yeah?" he asked. "What can I do you for?" He smiled an oily grin, reached down and scratched his privates.

Ranger introduced us. "Oh, yeah, I know you", Alex said to me. "You're that chick Joe's banging, aren't you?"

Ranger continued. He outlined how Mario was coming up for his court date and the family was getting worried since they hadn't seen him in a few weeks. And how the family had asked us to find Mario to see if he needed any help getting to court on Monday.

Alex started to get agitated. "Don't look for him too hard", he said. "Mario has plans and those plans don't involve going to jail."

"Do these plans involve sending blackmail threats?" Ranger asked.

Alex turned white. "What do you know about sending any emails?" Alex demanded. "I didn't send any emails."

"What about Mario? Did he send any emails?"

"No, I don't think he sent any emails. I wouldn't know for sure, of course, since I haven't seen him, but I'm sure he didn't send any threats." He smiled his oily grin at us again. His eyes shifted from side to side as he looked back and forth between Ranger and me. He was nervous and we could almost smell the fear emanating from his beer-soaked pores.

'That's funny. Because we have it on video the two of you did send emails from the same location as the blackmail threats originated, at the exact same time as the two blackmail threats were sent. Using security footage, I think we could prove very easily that Mario was the person who sent the first of the blackmail threats and you were the person who sent the second of the threats. And when we prove that, Mario will have a lot more to worry about than simple charges for theft." Ranger looked at Alex for a minute. He then said, "please pass that message on to Mario for us."