14bis Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich

Plus, there’s the Jersey Dev il. The Pacific Northwest has Sasquatch. Loch Ness has Nessie. And the Pine Barrens has the Jersey Dev il.
    Diesel left the post office, walked to the car, and slid in behind the wheel.
    “Well?” I asked.
    “Gail Scanlon comes in on no fixed schedule and gets her mail. Sometimes she’s in once a week. Sometimes they don’t see her for six months. Her box was emptied yesterday, but no one saw her come in. The post office boxes are around a corner from the counter.”
    “Did you get a description?”
    “Slim, average height, long black hair, early forties, eccentric.”
    “What does ‘eccentric’ mean?”
    “They didn’t elaborate. But she must really be out there for them to call her eccentric. This isn’t exactly the center of sane.”
    “Did they know where she lived?”
    “No. One of the guys said she was a citizen of the world. And the woman next to him said she was a nymphomaniac.”
    “Sounds like your kind of woman.”
    “Yeah, she has potential.”
    “Now what?” I asked.
    “Now we go home and regroup.”
    D IESEL WAS REGROUPING on the couch, watching Seinfeld reruns, and Carl was sitting beside him.
    “This is going too slow,” I said to Diesel. “You’re supposed to be the big-deal super bounty hunter. Why aren’t you doing something?”
    “I am doing something. I’m waiting.”
    “Waiting isn’t good. I hate waiting. Waiting feels like doing nothing.”
    “I have Flash watching the Sky Social Club. And every ten minutes, I go to the window to see if the cloud of doom has rolled over Trenton, signifying Wulf’s presence.”
    “Nothing personal, but I don’t care about Wulf I need to find Martin Munch.”
    “I know how Wulf works. Right now, he’s involved in a project that involves Munch, and they’re joined at the hip. If we find one of them, we’ll find both of them. If we don’t find them until after Munch has served his purpose, we’ll find Munch with his head screwed on backwards.”
    I cracked my knuckles and gnawed on my lower lip. I didn’t want to find Munch with his head screwed on backward. I felt my cell phone buzz at my hip, and I checked the readout. Morelli.
    “I have a problem,” Morelli said.
    “No kidding.”
    “More than that. I just got home, and Anthony is missing, and there’s a naked woman in my bed.”
    “And?”
    “I don’t want to talk about this on the phone. Can you get over here? I need help.”
    “I’m on my way.” I disconnected and grabbed my bag. “Gotta go,” I said to Diesel. “Morelli needs help with a naked woman.”
    “I didn’t know you were into that,” Diesel said.
    “It’s not a party. It’s a problem. I’ll be on my cell if you notice the cloud of doom hanging over my apartment building.”
    Ten minutes later, I walked into the disaster area that used to be Morelli’s living room. It was littered with empty beer cans, fast-food wrappers, and discarded socks, shoes, and underwear. Crumpled pages ripped off a yellow lined pad were scattered across the floor. A rumpled pillow and balled-up quilt were pushed to one end of the couch.
    Morelli smiled when he saw me, and I got warm inside and smiled back. He was still in work clothes. Dark jeans and boots. Cream-colored sweater with the sleeves pushed to his elbows. Gun on his hip. He had a garbage bag in one hand and a can of air freshener in the other.
    “I thought your mother was coming over to clean?” I said to him.
    “She was here this morning. This is afternoon trash.”
    “What’s with all the crumpled pieces of lined paper?”
    “Anthony decided he should write a book about his life.”
    “Because why?” I asked Morelli.
    “He thinks his life is fascinating. He’s calling his book ‘Love Your Inner Jerk.’”
    “What does that mean?”
    “I don’t know,” Morelli said, “but it can’t be good.”
    I helped gather beer cans and food wrappers and stuffed them into the garbage bag. I left the underwear for Morelli. I