Seven Up - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,44

fringe. "She's stealing my purse. She caused the accident and now she's stealing my purse. Get the police."

Grandma jumped out of the crowd. "What's going on? I just got here. What's the ruckus about?"

"She stole my purse," the woman said.

"Did not," I said back.

"Did so."

"Did not!"

"Yes you did," the woman said, and she shoved me back with a hand to my shoulder.

"Keep your hands off my granddaughter," Grandma said.

"Yes. And she's my sister," Valerie chimed in.

"Mind your own business," the woman yelled at Grandma and Valerie.

The woman shoved Grandma and Grandma shoved back and next thing they were slapping at each other and Valerie was standing to the side, shrieking.

I stepped forward to stop them and in the confusion of flailing arms and shrill threats someone smacked me in the nose. Little twinkle lights spread across my field of vision and I went down on one knee. Grandma and the old lady stopped slapping at each other and offered me tissues and advice on bow to stop the blood that was dripping from my nose.

"Someone get a paramedic," Valerie shouted. "Call nine-one-one. Get a doctor. Get the undertaker."

Morelli arrived and hauled me to my feet. "I think we can cross boxing off the list of possible alternative professions."

"The old lady started it."

"From the way your nose looks I'd say she also finished it."

"Lucky punch."

"DeChooch passed me going about seventy in the opposite direction," Morelli said. "I couldn't turn in time to go after him."

"That is the story of my life."

WHEN MY NOSE stopped bleeding Morelli loaded Grandma and Valerie and me into my CR-V and followed us to my parents' house. He waved good-bye at that point, not wanting to be around when my mother saw us. I had bloodstains on Valerie's skirt and knit shirt. The skirt had a small tear in it. My knee was skinned and bleeding. And I had the beginning of a black eye. Grandma was in about the same condition but without the black eye and torn skirt. And something had happened to Grandma's hair so that it was standing straight up, making her look like Don King.

Because news travels at the speed of light in the Burg, by the time we got home, my mother had already taken six phone calls on the subject and knew every detail of our brawl. She clamped her mouth shut tight when we walked in and ran to get ice for my eye.

"It wasn't so bad," Valerie said to my mother. "The police got it all straightened out. And the EMT people said they didn't think Stephanie's nose was broken. And they don't do much for a broken nose, anyway, do they, Stephanie? Maybe put a Band-Aid on it." She took the ice pack from my mother and put it on her own head. "Do we have any liquor in the house?"

Mooner ambled over from the television. "Dude," he said. "What's up?"

"Had a little dispute over a parking place."

He nodded his head. "It's all about standing in line, isn't it?" And he went back to the television.

"You're not leaving him here, are you?" my mother asked. "He's not living with me, too, is he?"

"Do you think that would work?" I asked hopefully.

"No!"

"Then I guess I'm not leaving him."

Angie looked around from the television. "Is it true you got hit by an old lady?"

"It was an accident," I told her.

"When a person gets hit in the head the blow makes their brain swell. It kills brain cells and they don't regenerate."

"Isn't it late for you to be watching television?"

"I don't have to go to bed because I don't have to go to school tomorrow," Angie said. "We haven't registered in this new school system. And besides, we're used to staying up late. My father frequently had business dinners, and we were allowed to stay up until he got home."

"Only now he's gone," Mary Alice said. "He left us so he could sleep with the baby-sitter. I saw them kissing once and Daddy had a fork in his pants and it was sticking straight out."

"Forks do that sometimes," Grandma said.

I collected my clothes and Mooner and headed for home. If I was in better shape I would have driven over to The Snake Pit, but that was going to have to wait for another day.

"So tell me again why everyone is looking for this Eddie DeChooch guy," Mooner said.

"I'm looking for him because he failed to appear for a court date. And the police are looking for him because