“That floor is poured concrete.”
“And?”
Morelli partially covered his sauce. “I'm not going to take a jackhammer to my basement floor.”
We trooped downstairs and stared at the floor. It had just been professionally steam-cleaned to remove the bloodstains.
“This is an old house,” I said. “The floor down here looks pretty new.”
“I had it put in two years ago. It used to be dirt.”
“Omigod!”
“I'm going to forget we had this conversation,” Morelli said. “I don't care if there's a fortune buried here. It's not like the money would be mine. It's bank money.”
“The bank would be happy to see it.”
“The bank would think it was a pain in the ass. They've already collected the insurance.”
“What about the insurance company?”
“Screw the insurance company,” Morelli said.
“You would let nine million dollars sit under this concrete?”
“Yeah.” He toed the concrete. “I like my floor. The guys did a good job on it. It's nice and smooth.”
“If we got married, and you died, I'd have this floor up before your body got cold.”
“As long as you don't slit my throat while I'm sleeping.” He looked down at me. “You wouldn't, would you?”
“Not for money.”
A HALF HOUR later, I was fresh out of the shower and I was still blue. I got dressed in a clean T-shirt and a pair of Morelli's sweats, and I padded downstairs.
“Help,” I said to Morelli.
“I have some turpentine in the garage,” he said. “Maybe that'll work.”
He opened his back door to go to the garage, and there were two people digging in his yard. They looked up and saw Morelli and took off, leaving their shovels behind.
“Anyone you know?” Morelli asked me.
“Nope.”
My cell phone rang. It was Grandma Mazur, and she was excited. “I just saw you on television,” she said. “You were on the early evening news. They were doing a report on the murder in Morelli's basement and they said it was believed it was tied to that bank robbery that happened years ago. And then there was this part where Brenda found a briefcase in the dead man's car and it had directions about where the money was buried. And some lady said she was pretty sure Dominic Rizzi gave the money to his Aunt Rose and Rose hid it somewhere before she died. Just think-Morelli could have hidden treasure in his backyard!”
I glanced out the kitchen window at the hole the two diggers had started. “And they said all that on television?”
“Yep. It was a pip of a report.”
I hung up and passed the news on to Morelli.
“There might be money buried in my basement,” Morelli said. “But I'm pretty sure the only thing anyone is going to find in my yard has been left there by Bob.”
Morelli jogged across his backyard to his garage and returned with a small can of turpentine. We dabbed it on my hand and rubbed and nothing happened.
“I'll call the crime lab and see if they have a suggestion,” Morelli said.