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“Good decision,” I said.
Nutsy stepped forward. “I guess I’m needed here.”
I looked at Diggery. “Light it up.”
Diggery hit the grave site with his wide-angle Maglite.
“As you can see,” Diggery said, “he’s got on a cross necklace. And there’s a knife lying next to him that I’m thinking fell out of his pocket when they dumped him into the ground. And there’s a clump of gray hair clinging to his skull. Snacker and me think we have a winner here.”
“It’s the wrong cross,” Nutsy said. “That’s not at all how Marcus described it. And there’s not much left of this dead guy but there’s still a lot of his clothes, and it looks like he’s wearing a suit and a tie.”
“Yeah, but he’s got a bunch of bullet holes in him,” Diggery said. “We thought that counted for something.”
Nutsy shook his head. “I don’t think this is Stump.”
“Bummer,” Diggery said. “That’s a big disappointment.”
“It was a good try,” I said to Diggery. “You’re definitely getting closer. Keep looking. I’m sure you’ll find him.”
It was a little after eleven when Bob and I finally got to Rangeman. I parked in one of Ranger’s personal spaces and went directly to his apartment. He was waiting at the door.
Bob brushed past Ranger and trotted to his water bowl in the kitchen.
“Are you hungry?” Ranger asked me.
“Starving.”
He draped an arm around my shoulders and walked me into the kitchen. “Ella left a sandwich tray in the fridge when she heard you were coming back.”
“God bless Ella.”
Ranger took a bottle out of his wine cooler and uncorked it. “I say that a lot.” He poured out two glasses and handed one to me. “I want to know about tonight.”
“What about the sandwiches?”
He pulled out a plastic-wrapped tray of tea sandwiches and a plastic-wrapped tray of sliders. This was followed by a tray of miniature desserts.
I surveyed the sandwiches and didn’t know where to go first. I wanted to eat everything. My first choice was an egg salad tea sandwich. I ate it in one gulp and chose a chicken salad slider next.
Ranger sat back in his chair with his glass of wine. “Tell me about tonight.”
“I went to the Zelinsky viewing with Grandma, and I dropped a few hints about Plover and fake jewelry. And toward the end of the viewing Plover sort of threatened to kill me. Then Diggery called and said he had a good possibility for Stump, so Lula, Nutsy, Bob, and I went to Willow Street Cemetery to check it out.”
“And?”
“Not Stump.”
I laid waste to the sandwiches and sliders and moved on to the desserts.
“How serious was the death threat?” Ranger asked.
I shrugged. “Don’t know. His family has an impeccable reputation in Trenton, but according to Plover, his father and grandfather weren’t nice guys. Sounds like there’s a legacy of cheating and worse. So, I don’t think Plover would have a problem with killing me. He’s killed before. Maybe more people than Stump. His problem is that getting rid of me is the tip of the iceberg. Thereare other people involved. There’s Nutsy, Duncan Dugan, and Homeless Marcus. Does he try to kill all of us? Does he leave town, never to be seen again? He tried to intimidate Nutsy by blowing up his parents’ car, and it worked to some extent but not totally. Maybe Plover would go that route again. That’s a scary possibility because I don’t know who he would target.”
“What was his bottom line with you?”
“He said I had until midnight to give him the jewelry.”
Ranger looked at his watch. “You were finishing up the egg salad sandwiches at midnight. You’ve slowed down with the desserts. It’s almost one o’clock.”
