Free Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich Page A

something and you didn’t have a stapler? Then it would be a stapling emergency.”
    “Somebody put you up to this, right? Martin? Ramon?”
    “No! Cross my heart and hope to die. I came in to catch up on my work, and I had this stapler issue.”
    Diaz looked at me. Not saying anything.
    “Jeez,” I said. And I went back to my cubicle.
    I fiddled around for ten or fifteen minutes, drawing doodles in the margins of the report I’d just done, and Ranger called.
    “This guy isn’t human,” I said to Ranger. “Does he ever talk to anyone?”
    “No more than necessary to be a team member.”
    “I get the feeling he’s been the brunt of some practical jokes.”
    “I’m not supposed to know, but I think there’s a lottery going to see who’s the first to get him to crack a smile.”
    “Why did your cousin divorce him?”
    “She found someone she liked better.”
    “Gee, hard to believe there’s someone better than Mr. Charming here.”
    “He’s a good man,” Ranger said. “He’s steady.”
    “He’s emotionally closed.”
    “There are worse things,” Ranger said. And he disconnected.
    Truth is, Ranger was every bit as silent and unemotional as Diaz. Always in control. Always on guard. What made the difference was an animal intelligence and sexuality that made Ranger mysterious and compelling, while Diaz was simply annoying.
    I ambled down to the second floor and prowled through the stockroom in search of a stapler. I finally found them and selected a small handheld. I took it back to the fifth floor and showed it to Diaz on the way to my desk.
    “Got my stapler,” I said. “Thanks.”
    Diaz nodded and resumed staring at his collection of monitors. I walked around his desk and looked over his shoulder. He was watching multiple locations in the building. No activity at any of them.
    “I thought for sure one of these would be tuned to the Cartoon Network,” I said.
    No response.
    “What’s this computer?” I asked, referring to the code computer. “Why isn’t there anything on the screen?”
    “I don’t need it right now.”
    “What happens if you have to go to the bathroom?”
    “One of the other men will cover. There’s always an extra man in the control room.”
    I stood there for a while, watching Diaz ignore me.
    “This is a little boring,” I finally said to him.
    “I like it,” Diaz said. “It’s quiet. It lets me think.”
    “What do you think about?”
    “Nothing.”
    I found that easy to believe. I returned to my cubicle and my cell phone buzzed.
    “Hey, girlfriend,” Lula said. “Your granny needed a ride to a viewing at the funeral parlor tonight, so after the fire department hosed the tree down, I took her over here to pay respects to some old coot. Anyways, we were just about to leave and who do you think walked in? Junior Turley, your exhibitionist FTA. I didn’t recognize him at first. It was your granny who spotted him. And she said she almost missed him, bein’ he had all his clothes on. She said usually he’s in her backyard waving his winkie at her when she’s at the kitchen window. And she said she wouldn’t mind seeing his winkie up close to make a positive identification, but I thought we should wait until you got here.”
    “Good call. I’m about fifteen minutes away.”
    I grabbed my purse and took the stairs, deciding they were faster than the elevator. I wanted to capture Turley, but even more I didn’t want Grandma trying to make a citizen’s arrest based on identification of Turley’s winkie. I rolled out of the garage and called Ranger.
    “Lula has one of my skips cornered,” I told him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    “Babe,” Ranger said. And he disconnected.

SEVEN

    THE FUNERAL PARLOR is part renovated Victorian and part brick bunker. I found on-street parking and jogged to the front porch. Hours were almost over, but there were still a lot of mourners milling around. A group of men stood to one side on the wraparound porch. They were