The front door banged open, and Joyce Barnhardt stalked in. She was still in black leather, wearing the stiletto-heeled black leather boots and the skin-tight, low-slung black leather pants and black leather bustier with her boobs squishing out the top. Her red hair was teased, her long artificial nails were polished and sharpened, her glossy red lips looked about to explode.
'I've got it! I've got the death certificate,' she said. She let the paper float down onto Connie's desk and she turned her attention to Meri. 'Who's this?'
'New BEA,' Connie said.
'You look like a cop,' Joyce said to Meri. 'Did you used to be a cop?'
'No,' Meri said. 'But my father was a cop.'
Joyce turned back to Connie. 'I want my money. This is as good as a body receipt, right?'
Connie wrote Joyce a check, and Joyce tucked the check into the pocket on her black leather pants.
'Aren't those pants hot?' Meri asked Joyce.
'Gotta look the part,' Joyce said. 'And nothing says bounty hunter like black leather. Toodles, ladies, I've got a date with a bad guy.'
'Maybe that's my problem,' Lula said when Joyce left the office. 'I don't look like a bounty hunter. But hell, I'd sweat like a pig in those pants.'
'I have things to do,' I told everyone. 'I just wanted to ch
eck in. I'll be back in an hour or so, and then we should go after Charles Chin.'
Lula walked me to my car. 'It was the Ranger nut who sent you those flowers, wasn't it?' she asked.
'Yes. And he left a message on my phone this morning.'
'And what about the funeral home? We left out the back door, but Meri said she was there, and you fainted, and then they locked all the doors and let people out one at a time. They were checking for the Ranger nut, weren't they?'
'He got behind me in the lobby somehow. We had a short conversation, and then he stun-gunned me.'
'You saw him?'
'Yes. It's strange. For a second, when you first see this guy you think Ranger. But then when you actually look at him you know it's not Ranger. And apparently he doesn't look like Ranger from the back or the side. Morelli and Tank weren't that far from me and didn't pick him out.'
'You be careful,' Lula said. 'You sure you want to go off on your own? I could ride with you.'
'Thanks, but I've got RangeMan surveillance. I'll be okay.'
Lula went back into the office; I locked myself into the Mini and called Morelli on my own cell phone.
'How's it going?' I asked him.
'Bob misses you.'
'I bet. What's on your dance card for today?'
'I'm doing a follow-up on a gang slaying. Between the feds and RangeMan and the maverick bounty hunters, there are so many people working the Carmen Manoso murder I get lost in the crowd.'
'The maverick bounty hunters are a problem. They're clutter.'
'Rangerman is working to get rid of them,' Morelli said, 'but they're like lemmings. You push a bunch off a cliff, and there are twice as many behind them.'
'I got a call from an old boyfriend this morning. I wasn't home when he called, so he left a message on the machine. And then he sent flowers to the office.'
'You're not going out with him, are you?'
'I don't have any plans at the moment. If I change my mind you'll be the first to know.'