One for the Money (26 page)

“Sal's a slob,” I said.

“You sure Louis wasn't in the car with Ramirez?” Morelli asked.

“I have no way of knowing. The car has tinted glass—But it only seats two, so at least one person is left here.”

“And there were no other cars on the road?”

“No.”

“He could have gone in the other direction,” Morelli said.

“He wouldn't have gone far. It dead-ends in a quarter mile.”

The moon was low in the sky, spilling silver dollars of light onto the water. We looked back at the white refrigerator truck. The cooler motor hummed quietly in the darkness.

“Maybe we should take another look at the truck,” Morelli said.

His tone gave me an uneasy feeling, and I didn't want to voice the question that had popped into my head. We'd already determined Louis wasn't in the cab. What was left?

We returned to the truck, and Morelli scanned the outside thermostat controls for the refrigeration unit.

“What's it set at?” I asked.

“Twenty.”

“Why so cold?”

Morelli stepped down and moved to the back door. “Why do you think?”

“Somebody's trying to freeze something?”

“That would be my guess, too.” The back door to the truck was held closed by a heavy-duty bolt and padlock. Morelli weighed the padlock in the palm of his hand. “Could be worse,” he said. He jogged to the van and returned with a small hacksaw.

I nervously looked around the lot. I didn't especially want to get caught hijacking a meat truck. “Isn't there a better way to do this?” I stage whispered over the rasp of the saw. “Can't you just pick the lock?”

“This is faster,” Morelli said. “Just keep your eyes peeled for a night watchman.”

The saw blade lunged through the metal, and the lock swung open. Morelli threw the bolt back and pulled on the thick, insulated door. The interior of the truck was stygian black. Morelli hauled himself up onto the single-step bumper, and I scrambled after him, wrestling my flashlight out of my shoulder bag. The frigid air pressed against me and took my breath away. We both trained our lights on the frost-shrouded walls. Huge, empty meathooks hung from the ceiling. Nearest the door was the large trim barrel I'd seen them roll out earlier in the afternoon. The empty barrel stood nearby, its lid slanted between the barrel and the truck wall.

I slid my spot of light farther to the rear and dropped it lower. My eyes focused, and I sucked in cold air when I realized what I was seeing. Louis was sprawled spread-eagle on his back, his eyes impossibly wide and unblinking, his feet splayed. Snot had run out of his nose and frozen to his cheek. A large urine stain had crystallized on the front of his work pants. He had a large, dark dot in the middle of his forehead. Sal lay next to him with an identical dot and the same dumbstruck expression on his frozen face.

“Shit,” Morelli said. “I'm not having any luck at all.”

The only dead people I'd ever seen had been embalmed and dressed up for church. Their hair had been styled, their cheeks had been rouged, and their eyes had been closed to suggest eternal slumber. None of them had been shot in the forehead. I felt bile rise in my throat and clapped a hand over my mouth.

Morelli yanked me out the door and onto the gravel. “Don't throw up in the truck,” he said. “You'll screw up the crime scene.”

I did some deep breathing and willed my stomach to settle.

Morelli had his hand at the back of my neck. “You going to be okay?”

I nodded violently. “I'm fine. Just t-t-took me b-b-by surprise.”

“I need some stuff from the van. Stay here. Don't go back in the truck and don't touch anything.”

He didn't have to worry about me going back into the truck. Wild horses couldn't drag me back into the truck.

He returned with a crowbar and two pairs of disposable gloves. He gave one pair to me. We snapped the gloves on, and Morelli climbed up the step bumper. “Shine the light on Louis,” he ordered, bending over the body.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm looking for the missing gun.”

He stood and tossed a set of keys at me. “No gun on him, but he had these keys in his pocket. See if one of them opens the cab door.”

I opened the passenger side door and searched the map pockets, the glove compartment and under the seat, but I didn't come up with a gun. When I went back to Morelli he was working at the sealed drum with a crowbar.

“No gun up front,” I said.

The lid popped off, and Morelli flicked his flashlight on and looked inside.

“Well?” I asked.

His voice was tight when he answered. “It's Carmen.”

I was hit with another wave of nausea. “You think Carmen's been in Sal's freezer all this time?”

“Looks like it.”

“Why would he keep her around? Wouldn't he be afraid someone would discover her?”

Morelli shrugged. “I suppose he felt safe. Maybe he's done this sort of thing before. You do something often enough, and you become complacent.”

“You're thinking about those other women who've disappeared from Stark Street.”

“Yeah. Sal was probably just waiting for a convenient time to take Carmen out and dump her at sea.”

“I don't understand Sal's connection.”

Morelli hammered the lid back on. “Me either, but I feel pretty confident Ramirez can be pursuaded to explain it to us.”

He wiped his hands on his pants and left smudges of white.

“What's with all this white stuff?” I asked. “Sal got a thing with baby powder or cleanser or something?”

Morelli looked down at his hands and his pants. “I hadn't noticed.”

“There was powder on the floor of the boat. And now you picked some up from the drum and wiped it on your pants.”

“Jesus,” Morelli said, staring at his hand. “Holy shit.” He flipped the lid off the drum and ran his finger around the inside rim. He put the finger to his mouth and tasted it. “This is dope.”

“Sal doesn't strike me as a crackhead.”

“It's not crack. It's heroin.”

“Are you sure?”

“I've seen a lot of it.”

I could see him smiling in the dark.

“Sweet Pea, I think we've just found ourselves a drop boat,” he said. “All along I've been thinking this was about protecting Ramirez, but now I'm not so sure. I think this might be about drugs.”

“What's a drop boat?”

"It's a small boat that goes out to sea to rendezvous with a larger ship engaged in drug smuggling.

“Most of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma. It's usually routed through northern Africa, then up to Amsterdam or some other European city. In the past, the favored method of entry for the northeast has been to body-pack it through Kennedy. For a year now, we've been getting tips that the stuff is traveling big time on ships coming into Port Newark. The DEA and Customs have been working overtime and coming up empty.” He held his finger in the air for inspection. “I think this could be the reason. By the time the ship sails into Newark, the heroin's already been off loaded.”

“Onto a drop boat,” I said.

"Yeah. The drop boat snags the dope from the mother ship and brings it back to a small marina like this where there are no customs inspectors.

“My guess is they load the stuff into these barrels after it's handed down, and one of the bags broke last time out.”

“Hard to believe someone would be that sloppy about leaving incriminating evidence.”

Morelli grunted. “You work with drugs all the time and they become commonplace. You wouldn't believe what people leave in full view in apartments and garages. Besides, the boat belongs to Sal, and chances are Sal wasn't along for the ride. That way if the boat gets busted, Sal says he loaned it to a friend. He didn't know it was being used for illegal activities.”

“You think this is why there's so much heroin in Trenton?”

“Could be. When you have a drop boat like this you can bring in large quantities and eliminate the couriers, so you have good availability at low overhead. The cost on the street goes down and the purity goes up.”

“And addicts start dying.”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you think Ramirez shot Sal and Louis?”

“Maybe Ramirez had to burn some bridges.”

Morelli played his light over the back corners of the truck. I could barely see him in the dark, but I could hear the scrape of his feet as he moved.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I'm looking for a gun. In case you haven't noticed I'm shit out of luck. My witness is dead. If I can't find Ziggy's missing gun with an intact latent, I'm as good as dead, too.”

“There's always Ramirez.”

“Who may or may not be feeling talkative.”

“I think you're overreacting. I can place Ramirez at the scene of two execution-type killings, and we've uncovered a major drug operation.”

“Possibly this casts some doubt about Ziggy's character, but it doesn't alter the fact that I appeared to have shot an unarmed man.”

“Ranger says you've got to trust in the system.”

“Ranger ignores the system.”

I didn't want to see Morelli in jail for a crime he didn't commit, but I also didn't want him living the life of a fugitive. He was actually a pretty good guy, and as much as I hated to admit it, I'd become fond of him. When the manhunt was over I'd miss the teasing and the latenight companionship. It was true that Morelli still touched a nerve every now and then, but there was a new feeling of partnership that transcended most of my earlier anger. I found it hard to believe he would be sent to jail in light of all the new evidence. Possibly he would lose his job on the force. This seemed like a minor disgrace to me when compared to spending long years in hiding.

“I think we should call the police and let them sort through this,” I said to Morelli. “You can't stay in hiding for the rest of your life. What about your mother? What about your phone bill?”

“My phone bill? Oh shit, Stephanie, you haven't been running up my phone bill, have you?”

“We had an agreement. You were going to let me bring you in when we found the missing witness.”

“I hadn't counted on him being dead.”

“I'll be evicted.”

“Listen, Stephanie, your apartment isn't all that great. Besides, this is wasted talk. We both know you aren't capable of bringing me in by force. The only way you're going to collect your money is by my permission. You're just going to have to sit tight.”

“I don't like your attitude, Morelli.”

The light whirled, and he lunged toward the door. “I don't much care what you think of my attitude. I'm not in a good mood. My witness is dead, and I can't find the damn murder weapon. Probably Ramirez will squeal like a pig, and I'll be exonerated, but until that happens I'm staying hidden.”