Smokin' Seventeen

I reached for the Tums. “You want to have more reason for reflux? I just had dinner with Dave.”

“Again? In that dress?”

“The dress is a whole long, complicated story that has nothing to do with Dave. Except that he told me it was a killer dress.”

“It is,” Morelli said. “It’s a killer dress.”

“He said it like it had special meaning. And he winked at me.”

“Any man in his right mind would wink at you in this dress.”

“He said think about it.”

“I have the feeling I’m missing an important ingredient in this conversation.”

I told him how I watched the video and thought I recognized the killer. And how tonight I had the revelation that it was Dave when I saw him run around the car. And then Dave pretended to choke me at the dinner table.

“Interesting and creepy, but not exactly damning evidence,” Morelli said. “And we need to take into consideration that the man is willing to teach you to cook.”

“You’re not taking this seriously.”

“I’m taking it very seriously. I’ve gone through half a jug of Tums since Gordon Kulicki turned up dead. It’s just that Dave seems an unlikely killer. What’s his motive?”

“Finding out his motive is on your side of the division of labor. I already did my part. I recognized him in the video.”

Morelli nodded. “Recognizing him in the video is good. What was it you saw? A tattoo? A scar? Did you recognize his shoes?”

“It was just a feeling. It was the way he moved.”

“This is like going out in the field with a clairvoyant.”

“Does that ever work?”

“Sometimes,” Morelli said. “How comfortable do you feel with this? On a scale of one to ten with ten being a positive identification … how would you rate this?”

“If I was rating gut instinct it would be a nine. When I temper that with rational thought it goes way down. Maybe to a five or six.”

“Five or six is still pretty strong.”

“I would much rather Nick Alpha turned out to be the killer.”

“I’m not going to discount Alpha, but it wouldn’t hurt to dig around in Dave’s life.”

“How do we begin?”

“There’s no we. This is a police investigation.”

“I didn’t come over here to talk to a cop. I came here to talk to …”

I stopped because I didn’t know what to call Morelli. Friend sounded lame. Boyfriend was too high school. We weren’t engaged, married, or living together.

“I don’t even know what to call you,” I said, hands in the air. “What kind of a relationship is this?”

“It’s a relationship that sucks. Who had the brilliant idea we should be free to date?”

“You did.”

“I don’t think so,” Morelli said.

“I distinctly remember. You said we needed to explore other possibilities.”

Morelli reached for the Tums. He shook out two for himself and two for me.

“How’d it go in south Jersey?” I asked him.

“We found the fifth car. We also found a sixth that had been torched. It looks like there might be the remains of two bodies in the torched car.”

“More poker players?”

“No one else is missing. The guys who only played occasionally are all accounted for.”

“Maybe it’s an unrelated car.”

“Hard to believe. It was found in the same area.”

I held my hand out. “Give me two more Tums for the road. I have to go home.”

“You don’t have to go home.”

“I’m getting a headache. I need to go home and put a pillow over my face.”

“Will that help?”

“It worked this afternoon.”

He gave me the bottle of Tums. “Take the whole bottle. I’ve got more. You know where to find me when the headache goes away.”

• • •