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“Wait for me. I’ll be right over.”
“What’s up?” Lula asked.
“It looks like Pooka is moving stuff out of his apartment.”
“The one with the fleas?”
“I need to get dressed. Put my coffee in a travel mug and give Rex a couple Cheerios. I’ll be right out.”
We took Lula’s car and made good time going across town. Not a lot of traffic on Sunday morning. Pooka’s street was quiet. Gobbles stepped from the side of a building when we parked.
“He hasn’t been back,” Gobbles said. “I went inside to take a look about five minutes ago and his door was locked.”
“How did you break in last time?” I asked him.
“I bumped the lock on the back door. I wouldn’t have done it, but I was hoping Becker was in there. I thought Pooka might have been holding Becker as a hostage. Or I guess I was half-afraid I’d find something awful.”
“What made you suspect Pooka?”
“Becker just had this feeling about Pooka. He spent more time with him than I d
id, and he thought he was creepy. And then when the lock got changed the second time, Becker was convinced there was something bad going on. When he disappeared I figured either he was afraid of Pooka or Pooka did something to him.”
“Let’s do it,” Lula said. “Let’s scope this place out.”
I didn’t totally share her enthusiasm. I was a teensy worried that there’d be fleas jumping around and they’d be shot full of bubonic plague. I was willing to peek inside and see if anybody was home, but at the first sign of a flea I was turning the project over to the hazmat team.
We trudged up to the second floor and knocked on Pooka’s door. No answer. The door was locked.
“Doesn’t look like much of a lock,” Lula said.
She took a screwdriver out of her purse, inserted it into the lock, hit the screwdriver with the butt of her gun, and the door popped open.
We cautiously looked inside.
“Yoo-hoo,” Lula called. “Anybody home?”
Nothing. We crept in and moved through the rooms. I didn’t see any fleas. Not on the floor. Not in aquariums. The aquariums were all gone. No blood or mice in the refrigerator. No dead rats in the sink.
“I don’t think he’s coming back,” Lula said. “On account of he cleaned up. He’s got one of those bags that you see in the hospital holding blood and shit and it’s empty and in the garbage. It’s got writing on it. It says Yersinia pestis. Is that someone’s name?”
I googled it on my iPhone. It was the bacteria responsible for bubonic plague.
“Don’t touch it,” I said. “Everyone out. Now. Don’t stop until you’re on the sidewalk.”
I stomped my feet and checked myself over to make sure I didn’t have any fleas on me, and I called Morelli.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said. “I know it’s Sunday, and you’re not feeling great, but I think you’ll want to see this. And bring a hazmat suit.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
I gave him the address and told him about the empty bag in the garbage.
“I feel itchy all over,” Lula said. “I think I got a flea on me. And what if he’s got some of that Yersinia stuff in him? That can’t be good, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It wouldn’t be good.”
