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“Anybodydoesn’t try to hold up an armored car,” Mrs. Beedle said.
“Yeah, I didn’t think that one through,” Carpenter said. “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I saw them unloading all that money and I thought, there I was on the corner panhandling for spare change when I could be robbing an armored car.”
“Why don’t you have a job?” Grandma asked.
“I have a job,” Carpenter said. “I panhandle. I was doing okay at it until I got shot in the foot. This will be my first day back at my corner.”
“You don’t just panhandle,” his mother said. “You pick people’s pockets. You’re a disgrace.”
“I only do that on lean days,” Carpenter said. “And I’m selective. I don’t go after senior citizens.”
“He’s a CPA,” Mrs. Beedle said. “He had a good job downtown. He was moving up in the company.”
“I hated that job,” Carpenter said. “It gave me eczema. I spent all day in a cubicle, staring at numbers. Panhandling is better. I’m my own boss and I’m out in the fresh air all day.”
“Good for you for figuring that out,” Grandma said.
“You’re a bum,” his mother said. “And now you’re an armored-car robber.”
“Technically I’m not an armored-car robber,” he said. “I onlyattemptedto rob it.”
“How’d you shoot yourself in the foot?” Grandma asked.
“The guard handed me a bag of money, and it was heavier than I thought it would be. I dropped it on my foot and when I went to pick it up, I guess I squeezed the trigger on the gun.”
“I could see that happening,” Grandma said. “You don’t look like you’ve got a lot of muscle. You should work out when you get sent to the big house.”
“While we’re on the subject,” I said. “You missed your court date. You need to come with us to get rebonded.”
“He never used to miss a date,” Mrs. Beedle said. “He kept a calendar, and he always knew everyone’s birthday. And he was right on time with filing taxes.”
“I’m a new man now,” Carpenter said. “I don’t pay taxes. I don’t make enough money. I lead a simple life.”
“His wife left him, and he snapped,” Mrs. Beedle said.
“Good riddance,” Carpenter said. “She was just one more encumbrance.”
“You might like prison,” Grandma said. “I don’t think you got a lot of encumbrances there as long as you don’t mind being locked up.”
Carpenter pushed back from the table. “This won’t take long, will it?” he asked me. “I don’t want to miss the lunch crowd. I have some regulars at lunchtime.”
“No problem,” I said.
So, here’s the thing about being a bounty hunter. You do a lot of fibbing. Especially to first-time offenders who don’t know anything about the system. If you told them the truth, they might not cooperate. The truth in this case wasn’t good. Carpenter was going to have to sit in jail until Vinnie got back in town. Analternative was to find another bail bondsman. And even worse news, his mother would have to guarantee a new bond and she probably didn’t have a second car.
I left Grandma in the car and walked Carpenter into the municipal building that housed the police department. I handed him over to the desk lieutenant and told him I would have Vinnie get in touch as soon as he got back in town. I left the building and ran into Morelli in the parking lot. On a good day, Morelli is six feet of lean muscle and Italian charm dressed up in a button-down shirt, jeans, and running shoes. This morning he was six feet of bad attitude. His wavy black hair was soaking wet and slicked back. The rest of him was equally wet and splattered with mud. His shirt was in tatters. His face looked like it had been clawed by a panther. His right eye was almost swollen shut.
“Omigod,” I said. “What happened to you? Are you okay?”
“Road rage incident on the Stark Street bridge. I was stuck in traffic, two cars back from the scene. Two women, out of their cars, beating the crap out of each other. I got between them, and they both attacked me. A second motorist came to help, we got the women separated, and one of them jumped off the bridge.”
“So, you jumped in after her?”
“It was more like I dangled and dropped. It was close to the bank on the Trenton side. I grabbed her and dragged her out.”
“Was she all right?”
“She broke her leg. The water was only about ten feet deep. She’s lucky she didn’t go off headfirst.”
