'Did a drive-by. The lights were out. Didn't see the car. We can talk to her after we talk to Leo.'
The photographer was finished and the paramedics went to work, trundling the body into a bag, hefting it onto a stretcher. The stretcher clattered as it rolled over the doorstep, the bag jiggling with its dead weight.
The doughnut sat heavy in my stomach. I didn't know the victim, but I felt his loss all the same. Vicarious grief.
There were two homicide detectives on the scene, looking professional in trench coats. Under the trench coats they wore suits and ties. Morelli was wearing a navy T-shirt, Levi's, a tweed sport coat, and running shoes. A fine mist had settled on his hair.
'You don't look like the other guys,' I said. 'Where's your suit?'
'You ever see me in a suit? I look like a casino pit boss. I have special dispensation never to wear a suit.' He took his keys from his pocket and gestured to one of the detectives that he was leaving. The detective nodded acknowledgment.
Morelli was driving a city car. It was an old tan Fairlane sedan with an antenna wired from the trunk and a hula doll stuck in the back window. It looked like it couldn't do 30 going uphill. It was dented and rusted and grime- coated.
'You ever wash this thing?' I asked.
'Never. I'm afraid to see what's under the dirt.'
'Trenton likes to make law enforcement a challenge.'
'Yeah,' he said. 'Wouldn't want it to be too easy. Take all the fun out of it.' Leo Morelli lived with his parents in the burg. He was the same age as Kenny, and he worked for the Turnpike Authority, like his father.
A blue-and-white was parked in their driveway, and the whole family was outside talking to a uniform when we pulled up.
'Someone stole Leo's car,' Mrs. Morelli said. 'Can you imagine? What's this world coming to? These things never used to happen in the burg. Now look.' These things never happened in the burg because it was like a retirement village for the mob. Years ago when Trenton rioted no one even considered sending a squad car in to protect the burg. Every old soldier and capo was up in his attic getting out his tommy gun.
'When did you notice it gone?' Morelli asked.
'This morning,' Leo said. 'When I came out to go to work. It wasn't here.'
'When did you see it last?'
'Last night. When I came home from work at six o'clock.'
'When was the last time you saw Kenny?'
Everybody blinked.
'Kenny?' Leo's mother said. 'What's Kenny got to do with this?' Morelli was back on his heels with his hands in his pockets. 'Maybe Kenny needed a car.' No one said anything.
Morelli repeated it. 'So, when was the last time anybody talked to Kenny?'
'Christ,' Leo's father said to Leo. 'Tell me you didn't let that asshole idiot have your car.'
'He promised me he'd bring it right back,' Leo said. 'How was I to know?'
'Shit for brains,' Leo's father said. 'That's what you got . . . shit for brains.' We explained to Leo how he'd been aiding and abetting a felon, and how a judge might look askance at such an activity. And then we explained how if he ever saw or heard from Kenny again he should right away rat on him to his cousin Joe or Joe's good friend Stephanie Plum.
'Do you think he'll call us if he hears from Kenny?' I asked when we were alone in the car. Morelli stopped for a light. 'No. I think Leo will beat the crap out of Kenny with a tire iron.'
'It's the Morelli way.'
'Something like that.'
