22 Caliber - A Stephanie Plum-inspired Story

Chapter Fourteen

After breakfasting, showering and changing into the spare clothes I kept at Joe's, I took black garbage bags over to my apartment. Boards had been put up over the hole in the bedroom window. The devastation in the apartment struck me anew. Someone had to have a lot of rage to effect that kind of destruction.

I went into the bedroom and sorted clothes into a "ruined" pile and a "needs to be washed" pile. I put the "ruined" pile in a garbage bag and the "needs to be washed" pile into a laundry hamper. I then cleaned up the food in the kitchen and put the whole mess into another garbage bag. I tried to clean up the bathroom toiletries with limited success. I would have to come back to clean up the rest, but at least I had clothes and the food wouldn't rot and stink up the place.

I carried out the garbage bags and put them in the dumpster. As I grabbed the laundry hamper full of dirty clothes, I locked up my apartment and drove to my parents' house. My grandmother was waiting at the front door.

"Is it true your apartment was vandalized? I heard it was a real mess. Jamie Green's son was one of the responders. We heard about it all afternoon yesterday", Grandma asked in way of greeting.

"Yes, it's true. Is mom ironing?"

"Yes, she ironed all afternoon yesterday. There's nothing left to iron. Is that a pile of clothes to wash?" I confirmed it was. "Good. That will give her some more clothes to iron. Yesterday she ironed the same shirt six times because she ran out of clothes."

"Does this mean she will iron my underwear again?"

"Probably", Grandma answered.

"Damn." I didn't think the apartment destruction was worth underwear ironing. After all, I have been in much worse scrapes.

We went into the kitchen. Mom was making breakfast for her and Grandma. She offered to put some more bacon in the pan and asked me how I would like my eggs. I asked for scrambled. Preliminaries now aside, she started in. "Millie Myowski's daughter doesn't have vandals attacking her apartment. Why do I have a daughter with a ransacked apartment? And why would they do such a thing?"

"I don't know", I said. "I'm not even sure who vandalized the place. I'm just glad Rex was okay."

"Rex was okay!" Mom gave a half-sob and looked towards the cabinet where the liquor is kept. As she decided it was too early in the day, she gave herself a little shake and continued. "I'm just glad you weren't there! You might not have been okay."

"I'm glad I wasn't there, too." My mom piled crispy bacon and scrambled eggs onto my plate and added a couple of pieces of toast. After missing dinner the night before and having an early start to the day, I was hungry. I spread jam on the toast and started to eat.

After breakfast I sorted my laundry into piles. "If you leave your laundry here, I will do it", my mom said. I was thankful. I had a lot to do.

I got to the office at nine o'clock, just before Lula. That gave me the chance to look over Robin Hood's file. Roberto Mendez had four children. Three were still living. Two lived in the same neighborhood as Roberto while the third lived in Hamilton Township. I decided we would go visit the one in Hamilton Township first, followed by the two in Trenton proper. Lula came into the office.

"I don't know what the world is coming to these days! My rental car has a cheap-ass sound system in it. You crank it up and you can hear a whine in the music. How is anyone supposed to appreciate music with a whine in it?" Lula exclaimed. "I'm going shopping for a car this weekend. I'm not putting up with this whining shit any longer. There should be a law against it." She said "hi" to Connie and asked me whether I was ready to go. "Can we take your car? You've got the Rangeman vehicle and I bet Ranger puts good stereos into his cars. I can't see him putting up with no whine." I couldn't see Ranger putting up with a whine either, but I also couldn't see Ranger putting money into upgrading stereos in his fleet so staff could listen to the stereo cranked. He discouraged the use of a stereo at all in his staff cars, the better to listen to the police band and any radio communications from the control room.