Notorious Nineteen

Elwood Pitch.
    “I’m running down a ton of contacts and finding nothing,” Morelli said. “I looked into The Clinic, and on the surface it seems to be legitimate. Franz Sunshine is writing it off as a loss on his taxes.”
    “There’s more going on there than a tax loss.”
    “I agree. From what you’ve told me he has a security guard, a part-time nurse, and a perfectly maintained lab and surgical suite. He’s using that building for something.”
    “Did you go in to take a look?”
    “No. I have no justification for questioning them. I did a drive-by, and it looked locked up and empty.”
    I told him about Susan Cubbin, and I got silence on the other end.
    “Are you still there?” I asked.
    “I’m dumbstruck. A gold bar?”
    “Yeah. In trade for a suitcase full of money.”
    I could hear Morelli laughing. “Just when life can’t get any more insane someone comes along with a gold bar. I hope she kept her pawn ticket because I’m sure she got hosed. Gold is trading high.”
    I wandered into my living room and looked out my newly fixed window. Logan was sitting cross-legged on a small patch of grass at the beginning of my parking lot.
    “I have to go,” I said to Morelli. “I have to see a guy about a thing.”
    I hung up on Morelli, and stuffed a pair of cuffs into the waistband of my denim skirt on the remote possibility that Icould catch Logan. I took the stairs down to the lobby, I stepped out the door, Logan saw me and ran away.
    This whole deal with Logan was dragging. At this rate I was never going to get rid of Tiki. I really should go more proactive, I thought, but I had other stuff on my mind. Like Ranger’s freak. I did a quick scan of the lot to make sure no one was aiming a rocket launcher at me, and I returned to my apartment.
    I went into my bedroom, gathered up my laundry, and headed for my parents’ house. My mom has a washer and dryer that don’t require the insertion of money. Plus I’d get dinner.
    “Look who’s here,” Grandma said when she saw me at the door. “You came on a good night. We got a ham.”
    I threw my laundry into the washer and helped set the table. My dad was asleep in front of the television, and my mom and my grandmother were in the kitchen. It’s not a big kitchen but it gets the job done. Refrigerator with a freezer on the bottom. A four-burner stove with an oven. Small microwave on the counter. A sink and a dishwasher. The dishwasher is a recent addition but my mom and my grandmother rarely use it. They still do dishes by hand while they review the evening meal and gossip about the neighbors.
    The kitchen is like Tiki. It’s an inanimate object that seemsalive. It smelled like apple pie and baked ham today. My mom had the windows open and a fan going, pulling in the scent from the geraniums in her window box. In the winter the windows will be closed and steamy from soup bubbling on the stove. It’s been like this since the day I was born and I can’t imagine it any other way.
    My mom has squeezed a table and four chairs into the kitchen. My sister and I did our homework here. We ate breakfast here. And this is where important announcements were made. Engagements, pregnancies, college choices. This is also where I stomped and fumed over curfews, rolled my eyes at my parents’ antiquated ideas, and plotted how to sneak out when they were asleep. My sister never did any of those things. She was the perfect child.
    I moved out from under my parents’ roof a bunch of years ago and I haven’t been completely successful at re-creating this comforting and stabilizing environment for myself. I’m hopeless in the kitchen, and I never seem to have the time to build my nest. Holidays like Christmas and Easter sneak up on me and fly by before I can decorate my apartment and wrap presents. Maybe if it wasn’t so easy to come back to my parents’ home I’d work harder at building my own. On the plus side I have a hamster and a cookie jar. Okay, so I keep my gun in the cookie jar. But it’s a start, right?
    I sat at the little table across from Grandma and watched her shell peas. I could smell the ham heating in the oven with the brown sugar and mustard glaze, the ham studded withcloves and draped in pineapple rings, and I was ready to gnaw my arm off with hunger. Problem was, I couldn’t stop thinking about Susan Cubbin and the gold bar. She shouted Aha! in her husband’s office and next thing she had a gold bar. No way could I walk away from