“Hard to say. Did you know Fred fooled around? He had a girlfriend.”
Morelli grinned. “Fred Shutz? Hell, that's encouraging.”
I rolled my eyes.
He took our beer glasses off the bar and motioned to the area set aside for tables. “If I was Mabel I'd be happy Fred was going elsewhere,” he said. “I don't think Fred looks like a lot of fun.”
“Especially since he collects pictures of dismembered bodies.”
“I gave the pictures to Arnie. He didn't look happy. I think he was hoping Fred would turn up hitching a ride down Klockner Boulevard.”
“Is Arnie going to do anything on this?”
“He'll probably go back and talk to Mabel some more. Run the photos through the system to see what comes up.”
“Did you already run them through?”
“Yeah. And I didn't get anything.”
There was nothing fancy about Pino's. At certain times of the day the bar was filled with cops unwinding after their shift. And at other times of the day the tables set aside for diners were filled with hungry Burg families. In between those times, Pino's was home to a few regular drunks, and the kitchen was taken over by cockroaches as big as barn cats. I ate at Pino's in spite of the roach rumor because Anthony Pino made the best pizza in Trenton. Maybe in all of Jersey.
Morelli gave his order and tipped back in his chair. “How friendly are you feeling toward me?”
“What'd you have in mind?”
“A date.”
“I thought this was a date.”
“No. This is dinner, so I can ask you about the date.”
I sipped at my beer. “Must be some date.”
“It's a wedding.”
I sat up straighter in my chair. “It isn't my wedding, is it?”
“Not unless there's something going on in your life that I don't know about.”
I blew out a sigh of relief. “Wow. For a minute there I was worried.”
Morelli looked annoyed. “You mean if I asked you to marry me, that's the reaction I'd get?”
“Well, yeah.”
“I thought you wanted to get married. I thought that was why we stopped sleeping together . . . because you didn't want sex without marriage.”
I leaned forward on the table and cocked a single eyebrow at him. “Do you want to get married?”
“No, I don't want to get married. We've been all through this.”
“Then my reaction doesn't matter, does it?”
“Jesus,” Morelli said. “I need another beer.”
“So what's with the wedding?”
“My cousin Julie's getting married on Saturday, and I need a date.”