04 Four to Score (21 page)

They disappeared into their cool, dark house and the door clicked closed. No cake invitation.

Morelli and I went back to the truck.

“So?” I said.

“It would make sense that the note was personal and not from Maxine. It would explain the fact that it wasn't in code.”

“You really believe that?”

Morelli shrugged. “It's possible.”

I stared into the Glick front window. “They're watching us. I can see them standing a few feet back from the window.”

Morelli rolled the engine over. “You have plans?”

“I thought I might visit Mrs. Nowicki.”

“Isn't that a coincidence? I woke up this morning thinking it would be a good day to go to the shore.”

The temperature was in the eighties. The sky was the color of putty. And the humidity was so high I could feel the air lying on my face. It wasn't a good day to go anywhere . . . unless it was out of Jersey.

“You aren't going to play Buddy Holly all the way to Point Pleasant, are you?”

“What's wrong with Buddy Holly?”

I grimaced. He probably liked the Three Stooges, too.

*    *    *    *    *

IT STARTED RAINING when we hit Point Pleasant. A nice steady soaker that chased everyone off the beach. It was the sort of rain farmers liked. Except there weren't any farmers in Point Pleasant—only bummed-out vacationers.

I directed Morelli to the Nowicki house, and we sat outside for a while, watching. There were no cars in the driveway. No lights on inside. No sign of activity.

“Looks a lot like Eddie Kuntz's house,” I said.

“Yeah,” Morelli said. “Let's go take a look.”

We ran for the shelter of the porch and rang the bell. Neither of us expected an answer. When we didn't get one, we snooped in the windows.

“We missed the party,” Morelli said.

The front room was a mess. Lamps knocked over, tables on end, chair cushions askew. Not from Joyce, either. This was a different mess.

I tried the door, but it was locked. We ran around back and crowded onto the small stoop. No luck with that door, either.

“Damn,” I said. “I bet there are clues inside. Maybe even bodies.”

“One way to find out.” Morelli smashed the door window with his gun butt.

I jumped back. “Shit! I don't believe you did that. Didn't you watch the O. J. trial? Cops can't just bust into places.”

Morelli had his arm through the hole in the glass. “It was an accident. And I'm not a cop today. It's my day off.”

“You should team up with Lula. You'd make a great pair.”

MORELLI OPENED THE DOOR, and we carefully picked our way around the broken glass. He looked under the sink, found a pair of rubber gloves, put them on and wiped his prints off the doorknob. “You don't need to worry about prints,” he said. “You were here legitimately two days ago.”

We did a fast walk-through just to make sure there were no bodies, dead or alive. Then we methodically worked our way through the rooms. Closets, drawers, hidden places, garbage bags.

All of their clothes were gone, and as far as I could tell, so were the prizes they'd won. They'd been in a hurry. Beds were unmade. Food had been left in the fridge. There'd been a struggle in the living room, and no one had bothered to make repairs. We didn't find anything that might hint at a new address. No sign of drugs. No bullets embedded in woodwork. No bloodstains.

My only conclusion was that they weren't great housekeepers and were probably going to end up with diverticulitis. They ate a lot of bologna and white bread, smoked a lot of cigarettes, drank a lot of beer and didn't recycle.

“Gone,” Morelli said, snapping the gloves off, returning them to the sink.

“Any ideas?”

“Yeah. Let's get out of here.”

We ran to the truck, and Morelli drove to the boardwalk. “There's a pay phone at the top of the ramp,” he said. “Call the police and tell them you're a neighbor, and you noticed a back window was broken in the house next door. I don't want to leave that house open for vandalism or robbery.”

I took stock of myself and decided I couldn't get much wetter, so I sloshed through the rain to the phone, made the call and sloshed back.

“Everything go okay?” he asked.

“They didn't like that I wouldn't tell them my name.”

“You're supposed to make something up. Cops expect it.”

“Cops are weird,” I said to Morelli.

“Yeah,” he said, “cops scare the hell out of me.”

I took my shoes off and buckled myself in. “You want to hazard a guess on what happened in the living room back there?”

“Someone came after Maxine, chased her around the living room and got hit from behind by a blunt instrument. When he woke up the three women were gone.”

“Maybe that someone was Eddie Kuntz.”

“Maybe. But that doesn't explain why he's still missing.”

*    *    *    *    *

THE RAIN STOPPED halfway home, and Trenton showed no sign of relief from the heat. The hydrocarbon level was high enough to etch glass, and the highways hummed with road rage. Air conditioners were failing, dogs had diarrhea, laundry mildewed in hampers, and sinus cavities felt filled with cement. If the barometric pressure dropped any lower everyone's guts would be sucked through the soles of their feet into the bowels of the earth.

Morelli and I barely noticed any of this, of course, because we were born and raised in Jersey. Life is about survival of the fittest, and Jersey is producing the master race.

We stood dripping in Morelli's foyer, and I couldn't decide what I wanted to do first. I was starving, I was soaked, and I wanted to call and see if Eddie Kuntz had turned up. Morelli prioritized my actions by stripping in the hall.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He'd removed his shoes and socks and shirt and had his thumbs stuck in his shorts. “I don't want to track water all through the house.” A smile tugged at his mouth. “You have a problem with this?”

“No problem at all,” I said. “I'm taking a shower. Does that give you any problems?”

“Only if you use all the hot water.”

He was on the phone when I came downstairs. I was clean, but I couldn't get dry. Morelli didn't have air, and at this time of the day it was possible to work up a sweat doing nothing. I prowled through the refrigerator and decided on a ham-and-cheese sandwich. I slapped it together and ate standing at the counter. Morelli was writing on a pad. He looked up at me, and I decided this was cop business.

When he got off the phone he picked at the deli ham I'd left out. “That case I was working on has just been reopened. Something new turned up. I'm going to take a fast shower, and then I'm going to have to go out. I'm not sure when I'll be back.”

“Today? Tomorrow?”

“Today. I just don't know when.”

I finished my sandwich and straightened the kitchen. Rex had crawled out of his soup can and was looking neglected, so I gave him a small chunk of cheese and a crust of bread. “We're not doing too good here,” I told him. “I keep losing people. Now I can't find the guy I'm working for.”

I tried calling Eddie Kuntz. No answer. I looked up Glick in the phone book and called Betty.

“Have you seen Eddie yet?” I asked.

“No.”

I hung up and did some pacing. Someone knocked on the front door.

It was a little Italian lady.

“I'm Joe's godmother, Tina Ragusto,” she said. “You must be Stephanie. How are you, dear? I just heard. I think it's wonderful.”

I didn't know what she was talking about, and I suspected it was better that way. I made a vague gesture toward the stairs. “Joe's in the shower.”

“I can't stay. I'm on my way to a jewelry party.” She handed me a white shirt box. “I just wanted to drop this off.” She lifted the lid and spread the tissue paper, so I could see what lay beneath. Her round face smoothed with her smile. “You see?” she said. “Joseph's christening outfit.”

Ulk.

She gave me a pat on the cheek. “You're a good Italian girl.”

“Half Italian.”

“And a good Catholic.”

“Umm . . .”

I watched her walk to her car and drive away. She thought I was pregnant. She thought I was marrying Joe Morelli, the man voted “least trustworthy male to date my daughter” by mothers statewide. And she thought I was a good Catholic. How had this happened?

I was standing in the foyer, holding the box, when Joe came down. “Was someone here?”

“Your godmother. She brought me your christening outfit.”

Morelli picked it out of the box and looked at it. “Good grief, it's a dress.”

“What do you want me to do with it?”

“Put it in a closet somewhere, and I'd appreciate it if you kept the dress part quiet.”

I waited until Morelli was out of sight, and then I looked down at my stomach. “No way,” I said. I looked at the christening dress. It was kind of pretty. Old-fashioned. Very Italian. Damn, I was getting all choked up over Morelli's dress. I ran upstairs with the dress, put it on Morelli's bed, ran out of the room and slammed the door closed.

I went to the kitchen and called my best friend, Mary Lou, who had two kids and knew about pregnancy.

“Where are you?” Mary Lou wanted to know.

“I'm at Morelli's.”

“Ommigod! It's true! You're living with Morelli! And you didn't tell me! I'm your best friend. How could you do this to me?”

“I've only been here for three days. And it's no big deal. My apartment burned up, and Morelli had an extra room.”

“You did it with him! I can hear it in your voice! How was it? I want details!”

“I need a favor.”

“Anything!”

“I need one of those pregnancy test things.”

“Ommigod! You're pregnant! Ommigod. Ommigod!”

“Calm down. I'm not pregnant. I just want to make sure. You know, peace of mind. And I don't want to buy one myself, because if anybody sees me it'll be all over.”

“I'll be right there. Don't move.”

Mary Lou lived about a half mile away. Her husband, Lennie, was okay but he had to be careful not to drag his knuckles when he walked. Mary Lou never cared much about intelligence in a man. Mary Lou was more into packaging and stamina.

Mary Lou and I have been friends since the day we were born. I was always the flake, and Mary Lou was always the underachiever. Maybe underachiever isn't the right word. It was more that Mary Lou had simple goals. She wanted to get married and have a family. If she could marry the captain of the football team, even better. And that's exactly what she did. She married Lennie Stankovic, who was captain of the football team, graduated high school and went to work for his father. Stankovic and Sons Plumbing and Heating.

I wanted to marry Aladdin so I'd get to fly on his magic carpet. So you can see that we were coming from different places.

Ten minutes later Mary Lou was at the front door. Mary Lou is four inches shorter than me and five pounds heavier. None of her weight is fat. Mary Lou's solid. Mary Lou's built like a brick shithouse. If I ever do tag team wrestling, Mary Lou's going to be my partner.

“I've got it!” she said, barreling into the foyer, brandishing the test kit. She stopped short and looked around. “So this is Morelli's house!”

This was said in hushed tones of awe usually reserved for Catholic miracles like weeping statues of the Virgin.

“Oh man,” she said. “I always wanted to see the inside of Morelli's house. He isn't home, right?” She took off up the stairs. “I want to see his bedroom!”

“It's the one to the left.”

“This is it!” she shrieked, opening the door. “Ommigod! Did you do it on this bed?”

“Yeah.” And on my bed. And on the couch, the hall floor, the kitchen table, in the shower . . .

“Holy shit,” Mary Lou said, “he's got a carton of condoms. What is he . . . a fucking rabbit?”

I took the little brown bag from her hand and peeked inside. “So this is it?”

“It's simple. All you have to do is pee on the plastic strip and wait for it to change color. Good thing it's summer and you're wearing a T-shirt, because the hard part is not getting your sleeve wet.”

“Darn,” I said. “I don't have to go right now.”

“You need beer,” Mary Lou said. “Beer always works.”

We went to the kitchen, and we each had two beers.

“You know what's missing in this kitchen?” Mary Lou said. “A cookie jar.”

“Yeah, well, you know how it is with men.”

“They don't know anything,” Mary Lou said.

I opened the box and removed the foil packet. “I can't get this open. I'm too nervous.”

Mary Lou took it from me. Mary Lou had nails like razor wire. “We gotta time this. And don't tip the plastic strip. You have to collect the pee in that little indentation.”

“Ick.”

We went upstairs, and Mary Lou waited outside the door while I did the test. Friendship among women does not include viewing each other's urine.

“What's happening?” Mary Lou yelled through the door. “Do you see a plus sign or a negative sign?”

My hand was shaking so badly I was lucky I didn't drop the whole thing in the toilet. “I don't see anything yet.”

“I'm timing,” Mary Lou said. “It takes three minutes max.”

“Three minutes,” Mary Lou yelled again, and she opened the door. “Well?”

Little black dots were dancing in front of my eyes and my lips felt numb. “I'm going to faint.” I sat down hard on the floor and put my head between my knees.

Mary Lou took the test strip. “Negative. Yes!”

“God, that was close. I was really worried. We used condoms every single time, but Bella said—”

“Joe's Grandma Bella?” Mary Lou gasped. “Oh shit! Bella didn't give you the eye, did she? Remember when she put it on Raymond Cone and all his hair fell out?”

“Worse than that, she told me I was pregnant.”

“Then that's it,” Mary Lou said. “The test is wrong.”

“What do you mean the test is wrong? The test isn't wrong. Johnson and Johnson doesn't make mistakes.”

“Bella knows these things.”

I got up off the floor and splashed water on my face. “Bella's a crackpot.” Even as I said it I was mentally doing the sign of the cross.

“How far overdue are you?”