Seven Up - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,92

the top-of-the-line hand-carved, lead-lined, mahogany eternity vessel got laid out in room number one.

I left Grandma with Rusty and told her I'd be back at Stiva's in an hour and I'd meet her by the cookie table.

It was a nice night, and I wanted to walk. I wandered down Hamilton and cut into the Burg. It wasn't quite dark. In another month people would be sitting on porches at this time of night. I told myself I was walking to relax, maybe to think about things. But before long I found myself standing in front of Eddie DeChooch's house, and I wasn't feeling relaxed at all. I was feeling annoyed that I hadn't made my capture.

The DeChooch half looked utterly abandoned. The Marguchi half was blasting out a game show. I marched up to Mrs. Marguchi's door and knocked.

"What a nice surprise," she said when she saw me. "I've been wondering how things are going with you and Chooch."

"He's still out there," I said.

Angela made a tsch sound. "He's a wily one."

"Have you seen him? Have you heard any activity next door?"

"It's like he dropped off the face of the earth. I never even hear the phone ringing."

"Maybe I'll just poke around a little."

I walked around the perimeter of the house, looked in the garage, paused at the shed. I had Chooch's house key with one, so I let myself in. There was no sign that DeChooch had visited. A stack of unopened mail sprawled across the kitchen counter.

I knocked on Angela's door again. "Are you taking DeChooch's mail in?"

"Yes. I bring the mail in each day and make sure everything's okay over there. I don't know what else to do. I thought Ronald might have come around to get the mail, but I haven't seen him."

When I got back to Stiva's, Grandma was at the cookie table talking to Mooner and Dougie.

"Dude," Mooner said.

"Are you here to see someone?" I asked.

"Negative. We're here for the cookies."

"The hour just zipped by," Grandma said. "There's lots of people here I didn't get to visit with. Are you in a rush to get home?" she asked me.

"We could take you home," Dougie said to Grandma. "We never leave before nine because that's when Stiva puts out the cookies with the chocolate inside."

I was torn. I didn't want to stay, but I didn't know if I could entrust Grandma to Dougie and Mooner.

I took Dougie aside. "I don't want anybody smoking pot."

"No pot," Dougie said.

"And I don't want Grandma going to strip bars."

"No strip bars."

"I don't want her involved in any hijackings, either."

"Hey, I'm a reformed man," Dougie said.

"Okay," I said, "I'm counting on you."

AT TEN O'CLOCK I got a phone call from my another.

"Where's your grandmother?" she wanted to know. "And why aren't you with her?"

"She was supposed to go home with friends."

"What friends? Have you lost your grandmother again?"

Damn. "I'll get back to you."

I hung up and another call came in. It was Grandma.

"I've got him!" she said.

"Who?"

"Eddie DeChooch. All of a sudden at the funeral parlor I had this brainstorm, and I knew where Choochy would be tonight."

"Where?"

"Picking up his Social Security check. Everybody in the Burg gets their check on the same day. And it was yesterday, only yesterday DeChooch was busy wrecking his car. So I said to myself he's going to wait until it gets dark, and then he's going to ride by and get his check today. And sure enough that's just what he did."

"Where is he now?"

"Well, that's the complicated part. He went into his house to get his mail and when we tried to arrest him he got a gun and we all got scared and ran away. Except Mooner didn't run fast enough and now he has Mooner."

I thunked my head down on the kitchen counter. I thought it might feel good to just keep banging it like that. Thunk, thunk, thunk with my head against the kitchen counter.

"Have you called the police?" I asked.

"We didn't know if that was such a good thing to do, being that Mooner might have some controlled substances on him. I think Dougie mentioned something about a certain package in Mooner's shoe."

Great. "I'll be right there," I said. "Don't do anything until I get there."

I grabbed my bag, ran down the hall and the stairs, out the door, and jumped on the bike. I skidded to a stop in Angela Marguchi's driveway and looked around for Grandma, spotting her and Dougie hiding behind a car on the