“You don’t want to know.”
“I do!”
“I’ll meet you for coffee,” Morelli said. “There’s a new coffee shop across from the hospital.”
**********************
I GOT A coffee and a croissant, and I sat across from Morelli. “Tell me,” I said.
“Soder was sawed in half.”
“What?”
“Someone used a power saw to cut Soder in half. And then they reassembled him on your couch. The baggy sweater was hiding the fact that they duct-taped Soder back together.”
My lips went numb, and I could feel the coffee cup sliding from my grasp. Morelli reached forward and pushed my head down, between my legs. “Breathe,” he said. The bells stopped clanging in my brain, and the dots went away. I sat up and took a sip of coffee. “I’m better now,” I said.
Morelli did a sigh. “If only I could believe that.”
“Alright, so they cut him in half. Then what?”
“We think they used a couple big duffel bags to bring him in. Hockey bags, maybe. Now that you’ve gotten over the gruesome part, the rest of the story is actually ingenious. Two guys, dressed in costume, carrying duffel bags and balloons, were seen entering the lobby and using the elevator. There were two tenants in the lobby at the tune. They said they assumed someone was getting one of those singing birthday presents. Mr. Kleinschmidt had turned eighty the week before, and someone sent him two strippers.”
“What sort of costume were these guys wearing?”
“One was a bear, and the other was a rabbit. No faces showing. About six foot tall, but hard to tell with the costume. We found the balloons in your closet. They took the bags back with them.”
“Did anyone see them leave?”
“No one in your building. We’re still canvassing the neighborhood. We’re checking on costume rentals, too. So far we haven’t come up with anything.”
“It was Abruzzi. He was the one who left the snakes and the spiders. He was the one who put the cardboard cutout on my fire escape.”
“Can you prove it?”
“No.”
“That’s the problem,” Morelli said. “And probably Abruzzi didn’t personally dirty his hands.”
“There’s a connection between Abruzzi and Soder. Abruzzi was the partner who took over the bar, right?”
“Soder lost his bar to Abruzzi because of a card game. Soder was playing some high stakes guys, and he needed money. He borrowed the money from Ziggy Zimmerli. And Zimmerli is owned by Abruzzi. Soder lost big time at the card game, couldn’t repay the money he borrowed from Zimmerli, and Abruzzi took the bar.”
“So what’s the deal with the bar burning down, and Soder getting shot?”
“I’m not sure. Probably the bar and Soder moved from the asset column to the liability column and were liquidated.”
“Did you pick up any prints in my apartment?”
“None that didn’t belong there. With the exception of Ranger.”
“I work with him.”
“Yeah,” Morelli said. “I know.”
“I’m assuming Evelyn isn’t a suspect,” I said.
