Fifteen minutes later Morelli had run through the list. No one meeting Dougie's description had checked into St. Francis, Helen Fuld, or the morgue. I called Mooner and told him our findings.
“Hey man,” Mooner said, “it's getting scary. It's not just Dougie. Now my clothes are gone.”
“Don't worry about your clothes. I've got your clothes.”
“Boy, you're good,” Mooner said. “You're really good.”
I did some mental eye rolling and hung up.
Morelli patted the seat next to him. “Sit down and let's talk about Eddie DeChooch.”
“What about DeChooch?”
“He's not a nice guy.”
A sigh inadvertently escaped from my lips.
Morelli ignored the sigh. “Costanza said you got to talk to DeChooch before he took off.”
“DeChooch is depressed.”
“I don't suppose he mentioned Loretta Ricci?”
“Nope, not a word about Loretta. I found Loretta all by myself.”
“Tom Bell's primary on the case. I ran into him after work, and he said Ricci was already dead when she was shot.”
“What?”
“He won't know the cause of death until after the autopsy.”
“Why would someone shoot a dead person?”
Morelli did a palms-up.
Great. “Do you have anything else to give me?”
Morelli looked at me and grinned.
“Besides that,” I said.
I WAS ASLEEP, and in my sleep I was suffocating. There was a terrible weight on my chest and I couldn't breathe. Usually I don't have dreams about suffocating. I have dreams about elevators shooting out the tops of buildings with me trapped inside. I have dreams of bulls stampeding down the street after me. And I have dreams of forgetting to get dressed and going to a shopping center naked. But I never have dreams of suffocating. Until now. I dragged myself awake and opened my eyes. Bob was sleeping next to me with his big dog head and front paws on my chest. The rest of the bed was empty. Morelli was gone. He'd tippy-toed out at the crack of dawn, and he'd left Bob with me.
“Okay, big guy,” I said, “if you get off me I'll feed you.”
Bob might not understand all the words, but Bob almost never missed the intent when it came to food. His ears perked up and his eyes got bright and he was off the bed in an instant, dancing around all happy-faced.
I poured out a caldron of dog crunchies and looked in vain for people food. No Pop-Tarts, no pretzels, no Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries. My mother always sends me home with a bag of food, but my mind had been on Loretta Ricci when I left my parents' house, and the food bag had been forgotten, left on the kitchen table.
“Look at this,” I said to Bob. “I'm a domestic failure.”
Bob gave me a look that said, Hey lady, you fed me, so how bad could you be?
I stepped into Levi's and boots, threw a denim jacket on over my nightshirt, and hooked Bob up to his leash. Then I hustled Bob down the stairs and into my car so I could drive him to my archenemy Joyce Barnhardt's house to poop. This way I didn't have to do the pooper-scooper thing, and I felt like I was accomplishing something. Years ago I'd caught Joyce boinking my husband (now my ex-husband) on my dining room table, and once in a while I like to repay her kindness.
Joyce lives just a quarter mile away, but that's enough distance for the world to change. Joyce has gotten nice settlements from her ex-husbands. In fact, husband number three was so eager to get Joyce out of his life he deeded her their house, free and clear. It's a big house set on a small lot in a neighborhood of upwardly mobile professionals. The house is red brick with fancy white columns supporting a roof over the front door. Sort of like the Parthenon meets Practical Pig. The neighborhood has a strict pooper-scooper law, so Bob and I only visit Joyce under cover of darkness. Or in this case, early in the morning before the street awakens.
I parked half a block from Joyce. Bob and I quietly skulked to her front yard, Bob did his business, we skulked back to the car, and zipped off for McDonald's. No good deed goes unrewarded. I had an Egg McMuffin and coffee, and Bob had an Egg McMuffin and a vanilla milkshake.