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'No. I'll borrow the Buick.'
When my Great Uncle Sandor went into the nursing home, he gave his '53 powder blue-and-white Buick Roadmaster to
Grandma Mazur. Since Grandma Mazur doesn't drive (at least not legally), the car mostly sits in my father's garage. It gets five miles to a gallon of gas. It drives like a refrigerator on wheels. And it doesn't fit my self-image. I see myself more as a Lexus SC430. My budget sees me as a secondhand Honda Civic. My bank was willing to stretch to a Ford Escape.
That was Joe,' I told everyone. 'I have to meet him at the police station. They think they might have the guy who set fire to my car.'
'Will you be back for the chicken?' my mother wanted to know.
'And what about dessert?'
'Don't wait dinner. I'll get back if I can, and if not I'll take leftovers.' I turned to Grandma. `I'm going to have to commandeer the Buick until I can replace the Escape.'
'Help yourself,' Grandma said. 'And I'll ride with you to the police station. I could use to get out of the house. And on the way home we could stop at Stiva's to see if they got the lid up for the evening viewing. I'd hate to miss out on seeing Lorraine.'
Twenty minutes later, Grandma and I cruised into the public parking lot across the street from the cop shop. The Tr
enton police are housed in a no-nonsense chunk of brick and mortar in a no nonsense part of town that gives the cops easy access to crime. The building is half cop shop and half courthouse. The courthouse half has a guard and a metal detector. The cop half has an elevator decorated with bullet holes.
I looked at Grandmas big black patent leather purse. Grandma was known to, from time to time, carry a.45 long barrel. 'You don't have a gun in there, do you?' I asked.
'Who, me?'
If they catch you taking a concealed weapon into the building they'll lock you up and throw the key away.'
'How would they know I got a concealed weapon if it's concealed? They better not search me. I'm an old lady. I got certain rights.'
'Carrying a concealed weapon isn't one of them.'
Grandma pulled the gun out of her purse and shoved it under her seat. 'I don't know what this country's coming to when an old lady can't keep a gun in her purse. We got a rule for everything these days. What about the bill of health? It says I can bear arms!'
'That's the Bill of Rights, and I don't think it specifically addresses guns in purses.' I locked the Buick and called Joe on my cell. 'I'm across the street,' I told him. 'And I've got Grandma with me.'
'She isn't armed, is she?'
'Not anymore.'
I could feel Joe smile across the phone line. `I'll meet you downstairs.'
Civilian traffic in the building was minimal at this time of day.
The courts were closed, and police business was shifting from front-door inquiries to back-door arrests. A lone cop sat in a bulletproof cage at the end of the hall, struggling to stay awake on his shift.
Morelli stepped out of the elevator just as Grandma and I swung through the front-entrance doors.
Grandma looked at Morelli and gave a snort. 'He's wearing a gun,' she said.
'He's a cop.'
'Maybe I should be a cop,' Grandma said. 'Do you think I'm too short?'
Thirty minutes later, Grandma and I were back in the Buick.
'That didn't take long,' Grandma said. 'I hardly had a chance to look around.'
'I couldn't make an ID. They picked up a guy who was carrying the backpack, but it wasn't the guy who ran out of the store. He said he found the backpack discarded in an alley.'
'Bummer. This doesn't mean we're going to have to go back to the house, does it? I can't take any more of the galloping and the baby talk.'
