Chapter Eighteen
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Morelli rang my bell and opened my door at precisely five thirty. I was showered. My hair was washed, dried, and round-brushed. I was wearing my only dress-up outfit: the navy skirt and jacket. I was putting the bow on Aunt Stella’s present.
“Wow,” Morelli said, walking into the living room. “You’ve been busy.”
“Not me. Herbert Slovinski.”
“We went to high school with him,” Morelli said. “He was a year behind me. He played clarinet.”
“You were friends?”
“No. The band was lined up on the side of the field before halftime and I ran for a pass and plowed into him. Knocked him on his ass. Clarinet ended up in the trombone section.”
“I’d forgotten. That was the game with New Brunswick. We lost.”
“Yeah. We lost a lot,” he said. “The band wasn’t very good either.”
“The majorettes were good.”
Morelli grinned. “You were hot in your little costume. You couldn’t twirl a baton for crap, but you could really strut out in a parade.”
“My one talent,” I said. “Strutting.”
“You have other talents. I’d tell you about them, but we’d end up late for the party.” He looked around the room. “What’s your connection to Herbert? As I remember him, he was too weird to even be a geek. He had a couple other weird friends, and they used to play D & D at lunchtime. I think he took his mother to the prom.”
“I ran into him at the Luger viewing, and I can’t get rid of him. He keeps trying to do nice things for me. Like paint my apartment, and get carpet installed, and buy me a television. He always does it when I’m not home. He bribes the super to let him in.”
“Honey, that’s creepy.”
“I thought so in the beginning, but it’s not like he’s a predator. I think he’s just needy. Grandma was here for dinner yesterday, and Herbert popped in. Turned out Grandma knew him, so he got invited for dinner.”
“You made dinner?”
“I helped.”
Another grin from Morelli. The men in my life thought it was amusing that I might attempt to make dinner. I had to admit that the amusement was justified.
I handed my phone to Morelli. “Read the text message. It came in yesterday. It’s from Zoran.”
He read the message and handed the phone back to me. “I talked to Jimmy about Julie Werly. He said it was an odd case. There was a blood trail that started in the living room, led through the house and into the yard. He said it wasn’t a lot of blood. Just steady drips. And then it stopped in the yard. He thought the body had been loaded onto something or into something and dragged across the yard and through the hedge to the sidewalk. It all ended there. It was assumed the killer had a truck or a car parked on the side street, loaded the body into it, and took off. There are a lot of open questions. What was the motive? Why was the body removed? What was the murder weapon?”
“Why was it determined that Julie was killed?”
“The blood, the imprint on the grass, and that something heavy had been dragged through the hedge. It’s six months and she hasn’t surfaced.”
“Julie is one of four women who were associated with Zoran and went missing. One was his wife. The other two were hookers.”
“We’ve had his house under electronic surveillance, and he hasn’t returned,” Morelli said. “We’ve also been watching the uncle and the parents. He hasn’t shown up at either doorstep.”
“You’ve been watching the wrong doorstep. He rang my bell when Grandma and Herbert were in my kitchen. Herbert answered the door and almost messed himself. He said Zoran had a knife raised, like he was going to kill someone, and his mouth was open, and he could see his fangs. And then Zoran hissed at Herbert, and Herbert said he thought Zoran’s eyes were red with flames in them.”
“And?”
“And then Herbert started screaming and Zoran sort of backed up, and Herbert slammed the door shut and locked it. Then Herbert ran into the kitchen and fainted. Crash. Onto the floor.”
“This happened yesterday?”
“Yep.”
“When were you planning on telling me this?”
“I was waiting for the right moment.”
“I’m afraid to even ask you about Bruno Jug.”
“Not a problem there,” I said. “He’s a big sweetie pie. He gives me fruit baskets.”
My sister, Valerie, lives in a large colonial in Hamilton Township. She has four kids, and she’s married to a sweet but clueless lawyer named Albert Kloughn.
Valerie was always the perfect little girl, and I was always the kid who tried to fly off the garage roof and broke her arm. We aren’t sure how we fit into our parents’ perception now. We’re just trying to get through the days as best we can. Valerie very nicely volunteered her house for Stella’s party, and I suspected she was already regretting it. Stella is actually my great -aunt on my father’s side and she’s a couple cans short of a case. She lives in an assisted-living community with her husband, Marty. It’s suspected that Marty might have Alzheimer’s, but for as long as anyone has known Marty, he hasn’t been able to find his keys or figure out how to exit a parking lot. So, it’s difficult to diagnose exactly what’s wrong with Marty. The thing is, now that they’re in their eighties, surely there has to be something wrong with them other than just being annoying.
The driveway was filled with cars, and cars were lined up in front of the house. Morelli parked behind the last car in line and looked at me.
“Do we really want to do this?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “We’ll say happy birthday, give her the present, grab a couple pigs in a blanket, and leave. It’s a big party. No one will notice we’re gone.”
He leaned over and sniffed at me. “You smell like s’mores.”
“It’s smoke damage from the fire.”
“I like it.”
“Me too. It makes me want to go camping.”
“We could go camping on our honeymoon,” Morelli said. “We could get a pop-up tent and sleep under the stars.”
“Not nearly,” I said. “I’m not a tenter. I’m more a motorhomer. The bigger the better. Something with state-of-the-art plumbing and a comfy bed. It should also be bug-and-snake-free.”
“Maybe you’re more a hotel-resort type,” Morelli said.
I was thinking with our schedules we were more of a “no honeymoon at all” type.
We let ourselves in and I took stock of the room. Lots of people I didn’t know. Lots of old people. Valerie’s kid, Mary Alice, galloped past me, toward the kitchen.
“Looks like she still thinks she’s a horse,” Morelli said.
“Not always,” I said. “Sometimes she’s a reindeer.”
I followed Mary Alice and found Valerie in the kitchen.
“Hiding?” I asked her.
“There’s no place to hide in this house. These people are everywhere. Someone is upstairs taking a nap in my bed.”
“Where did they all come from? Are we related to any of these people?”
“I didn’t make up the guest list but I’m sure we’re related to some of them. The rest came in a bus from the senior living complex.”
I set my purse and Stella’s present on the kitchen counter. “That explains a lot. Are Grandma and Grandpa Plum here?”
“No. They’re in Florida,” Valerie said. “They said they’re saving their airplane allowance for when there’s a hurricane. Otherwise, they’re not coming back to Jersey.”
“I guess they really like Florida.”
“They divide their time between the casino and the track. And Grandma Plum said they sunbathe naked in their backyard.”
“Gross!”
“I don’t know,” Valerie said. “It’s kind of sweet that they still get naked together at their age.”
“The last time I saw them was two years ago, just before they moved. They didn’t look that good fully clothed. I don’t want to think about them naked.”
Grandma Mazur came into the kitchen with two shopping bags. “I got the rolls from the bakery and the deli platters from Giovichinni. Your mother is right behind me with the cake.” She set the bags on the kitchen table. “Who let all those old people in? The living room is full of them.”
“They came from senior living,” Valerie said, unpacking the rolls.
“Those old people will go through this food like a swarm of locusts,” Grandma said. “They’ll be filling their pockets with pickles and ham sandwiches.”
My mother came with the cake and my father followed her. My father was in his church suit, wearing his church shoes.
“If I make it to eighty, just give me a can of beer and set me in front of the TV,” my father said.
“Last I saw, Aunt Stella was on the couch with Ginny and Bernard Crosdale,” Valerie said. “Uncle Marty is wandering around somewhere. Someone should check on him. Make sure he doesn’t get out of the house and walk into traffic.”
My father gave a grunt and went off to look for Marty.
I emptied the bags of rolls into a bowl, unwrapped the deli platters, and added them to the casseroles that were already on the dining room table. There was a lot of yelling coming from the backyard. I went to the door and looked out at a bunch of little kids who had Marty tied up and were throwing Nerf balls at him.
“I found Marty,” I said to Valerie.
“As long as he’s in the backyard and the gate is closed,” she said. “Do we need to put more wine out?”
I glanced over at Morelli. He was off to the side, talking on his phone. The expression on his face wasn’t good. It was his cop face. Focused. Unreadable. Serious.
I took a couple bottles of red wine from the case on the floor and put them on the table with the food. Morelli ended the call and motioned for me to come to him.
“You’re wearing your cop face,” I said.
“I have a cop face?”
“Yeah. It’s almost the same as your poker face. What’s up?”
“That was Jimmy on the phone. It looks like there might have been another vampire murder. This one was in your neighborhood. The woman was just found. Jimmy said it looked like she’d been dead for a while. Probably was killed early last night.”
That sucked the air out of me. “That’s terrible. Do you think Zoran didn’t get to kill me, so he found a substitute?”
“It’s possible. It’s also possible that you would have been his second kill of the night. Jimmy made his best guess at time of death. The ME will be more precise. It’s also possible that this wasn’t Zoran’s kill.”
“But Jimmy thought it might have been Zoran?”
“She had bite marks on her neck similar to the woman in the laundromat.”
A wave of nausea curled through my stomach. The laundromat horror was still fresh in my mind. I couldn’t shake it.
“I told Jimmy I’d meet him at the scene,” Morelli said.
“I’ll go with you.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“The alternative is to stay at this party.”
Morelli looked into the living room. There was music playing. “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees. The old folks were trying to dance to it.
Morelli grinned and did the classic “Stayin’ Alive” move, channeling his inner Travolta.
“If you want to give up being a cop, you could have a career with Chippendales,” I said to him.
“Get your purse,” he said. “Jimmy’s waiting.”
The crime scene was about a quarter mile from my apartment building. It was a residential area of single-family houses with yards that were large enough for swing sets and grills. There were lots of mature trees and shrubs. The cop cars, an EMT truck, and a clump of gawkers were clustered around a wooded area between two houses. Morelli angle parked next to a cop car.
He’d said it wasn’t necessary for me to tag along, but from my point of view, it was necessary. This wasn’t something I could walk away from. Even if the memory of the laundromat made me sick, I had to keep working to find the killer. He had to be stopped. It was necessary for me to know that I was doing my best to help stop him.
Jimmy was standing a short distance from the body. He waved when he saw us.
“What have you got?” Morelli asked him.
“She’s wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and running shoes. She was probably out getting exercise. No ID on her. She has a gash on the back of her head. He might have come at her from behind and knocked her down. There’s some blood on the road by the curb. Then it looks like he dragged her into the wooded area. It’s a utility easement. A dog found her. He kept pulling on his leash and barking. The owner finally came to investigate and stumbled onto the woman. He was pretty shook up. He’s with the paramedic.”
“Is there a weapon?”
“No. There are bite marks on her neck. Similar to what we saw in the laundromat. Actually, fang punctures.”
I gagged and Morelli turned to look at me. I waved him away.
“I’m good,” I said.
“The interesting part is that the fang punctures weren’t enough to cause death,” Jimmy said. “Her throat was slit. Again, like the laundromat murder.”
Morelli walked over and looked down at the woman. I kept my distance. Searching for clues by examining the newly dead wasn’t now, and never would be, part of my skill set. The ME and a forensic photographer arrived and went to the body. Everyone stood around, talking, gesturing. The ME and the photographer went to work. Jimmy stayed by the body. Morelli came back to me.
“I’m having a problem with my serial killer hypothesis,” I said to him. “There are four women who had ties to Zoran and disappeared. One left drops of blood. Three just disappeared. Now there are two women dead who were bitten, had their neck slashed, and were not made to disappear. I’m comfortable saying Zoran killed these last two women. I don’t know if I’m comfortable tying him to the four disappearances.”
“You don’t have to be sure with a hypothesis,” Morelli said. “A hypothesis is an idea that needs further investigation. I’ve watched you bumble your way through your bail bonds job with no skills and a partner who wears five-inch stiletto heels to work and is the worst shot in the entire state. I have no idea how you do it, but you manage to track people down and drag their sorry asses back to jail. I think you do it on luck, grit, and instinct. So, if your gut tells you that Zoran is responsible for two murders, maybe more, I’ll go with your gut.”
Wow. That was unexpected. I felt like I had a tennis ball in my throat and there were tears collecting behind my eyes. I choked it all back because Morelli had just told me I was a hard-ass, and I didn’t want to ruin the moment.
“Oh jeez,” he said. “You aren’t going to cry, are you?”
“No.”
He grinned, wrapped an arm around me, and kissed me on the top of my head. “You’re such a cupcake.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Are we done here?”
“Yeah. I’ll get together with Jimmy tomorrow. Do you want to go back to the party?”
“No!”
“I’m starving,” Morelli said, “I need food. And beer. Not necessarily in that order.”
“I’m in the mood for a Pino’s pizza burger.”
“Not only do you have gut instincts, but you can read minds,” Morelli said. “Do you know what else I’m thinking?”
“I have a pretty good idea. We can discuss it at Pino’s.”
Pino’s was packed but we scored a booth. The candle was fake, and the menu was stained with spaghetti sauce. I would have been disappointed if it was any different. I knew the two guys behind the bar, and I knew three of the waitresses. They were all related to Pino. The original Pino had gone to the big pizzeria in the sky ten years ago, and now Pino’s was owned and managed by Little Pino and his extended family. I have a hard time imagining my life without Pino’s. I might eventually learn how to roast a chicken, but there’s no hope that I would ever be able to replicate a Pino’s pizza.
Morelli ordered beer and I asked for a Coke.
“What’s with the Coke?” Morelli asked. “No wine? No exotic drink with a jalape?o in it?”
“I’m trying to clean up my life.”
“That sounds serious.”
“It’s occurred to me that you’ve reached a level of maturity that I envy. You have a respected job that provides you with a stable income. You own a house, and it doesn’t get firebombed. You can scramble an egg and grill a burger. You have your own washer and dryer. You have a dog.”
“You have a hamster,” Morelli said.
“I love Rex, but he doesn’t rush out of his soup can to say hello when I walk into my apartment. I chose to have a hamster because I didn’t think I could manage the responsibility of having a larger pet. You have friends and family and a routine. You play poker with guys you’ve known all your life. You helped your brother put a swing set together. You decided you wanted to get married, and you acted on it. You got rid of your billiard table and bought dining room furniture.”
Morelli studied his half-empty glass of beer for a beat before looking across the table at me. “You’re trying to tell me something.”
“I feel like I need some time to think. I’ve got some things going on in my life right now that I have to straighten out.”
“Can I help?”
“I have to do this myself.”
“Are we breaking up?”
“No! I just want a couple days to get a grip on myself.”
“Okay. What about sex?”
“No sex.”
“Damn. I was hoping the straightening out didn’t mean no sex.”
“But dinner is fine,” I said. “We can have dinner.”
“That’s better than nothing. Can we still fool around?”
“Yes. A little.”
We ordered burgers, fries, onion rings, and slaw.
“I don’t feel good about you staying in your apartment,” Morelli said. “What happens if Zoran shows up on your doorstep again? What happens if he comes after you in the parking lot?”
I pulled the SIG Sauer out of my purse and laid it on the table.
“Whoa,” Morelli said. “When you said you were getting a grip on yourself, you were serious. This is a nice gun. I assume Ranger gave it to you. Can you shoot it?”
I took my certificate out of my purse and handed it to Morelli. “I can shoot it, and I’m certified to carry.”
“I’d like to say this makes me feel better, but I’ve got a knot in my stomach.”
I caught motion in my peripheral vision. It was Herbert.
“This is so cool!” he said. “I came in to get a grilled cheese and here you are. I get a grilled cheese here a lot. Especially when I’m involved in one of my entrepreneurial projects. Usually, I come in late at night, but my mom is at a prayer supper tonight, so I’m on my own. I could have gone to the prayer supper too, but you have to listen to a lot of praying and sermoning before they let you eat. If it goes on too long, I get low blood sugar. And I think Jesus is a good guy and everything, and you can’t go wrong believing in God, but there’s a time and place for everything. Am I right?” He looked at Morelli. “Hey, I know you. You ran into me at the football game. Boy, that was something. I hope you didn’t hurt yourself. I was okay. You haven’t changed much except you’re older.”
Morelli gave me a sidewise glance.
“I heard you’re a cop now,” Herbert said to Morelli. “That’s great. And Stephanie said you guys are engaged. Congrats on that. Gee, here I am talking just like we were in high school again, and you might not even remember me. Herbert Slovinski. I played the clarinet in the band.”
“I remember,” Morelli said. “What are you doing now?”
“I’m an entrepreneur,” Herbert said. “I was seriously thinking about being an undertaker but I’m not so sure anymore. I could also be a spy or a truck driver. Okay, probably not a spy. I say I’d like to be a spy, but that’s just fun talking.” He looked down at my gun, lying on the table. “Holy cow, whose gun is that?”
“It’s mine,” I said, scooping the gun up and returning it to my purse.
“Is it real?”
“Yes.”
“I guess you need a gun in your line of work. Dog the Bounty Hunter carries a gun. He’s awesome. I don’t have a gun. That’s another reason why I can’t be a spy. All the best spies carry guns. Bautista had a whole suitcase full of guns and knives and stuff.”
“Who?”
“Dave Bautista. He won the WWE Championship twice, and the World Heavyweight Championship four times. And he made a movie where he was an undercover spy guy. He totally kicked ass. I could never be a spy like Bautista. He could do everything. He could even ice-skate. He’s even more awesome than Dog.”
Gina Pino brought a bag to Herbert. “Here’s your grilled cheese, and I gave you extra pickles. Make sure you eat it while it’s warm.”
“I’m going to eat it right away,” Herbert said. “And if it cools off, I’ll microwave it. It’s never the same when you microwave it but it’s still good.”
“You take care of yourself, honey,” she said to Herbert.
“You’re welcome to sit with us, if you want,” I said to Herbert.
“Gee, that’s nice of you, but I have to get someplace. I’m doing research on a new entrepreneurial project tonight.”
Morelli waited until Herbert was out the door before leaning in toward me. “There’s something wrong with him.”
“I know, but he sort of grows on you.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t know Bautista,” Morelli said. “He’s a legend. I have a Bautista action figure from WrestleMania. Anthony gave it to me for my birthday. And Bautista was Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy . Drax!”
So here’s the difference between men and women, I thought. Morelli remembers Bautista as Drax and I remember Chris Pratt dancing to “Come and Get Your Love.” Drax isn’t hot. Chris Pratt is smokin’. Enough said.