“Dom's hiding out somewhere. Do you have any ideas?”
“He's not with his mom?”
“No.”
“Jelly would be dumb enough to take him in. Or maybe he's still seeing Peggy Bargaloski. That's why I divorced him. I found out he was spending a lot of time at Peggy's house.”
I gave her my card and told her to call me if she saw Dom.
I drove around the corner, pulled to the curb, and got addresses from Connie.
Jelly was living in a second-floor apartment two blocks from Dom's mother's house. Peggy was in Cleveland.
I wanted to do a drive-by on Jelly's house, but I was too obvious in the Zook car. There was a car wash minutes away on the corner of Hammond and Baker, but I didn't wan
t to put up with the car wash crew and their comments on my blueness. I know that's chickenshit of me. What can I say? I'm blue, and I'm feeling fragile.
I drove back to Morelli's house, thinking I'd check on Lula and trade my Zookmobile for Morelli's SUV. I let myself into the house and couldn't find anyone. Mooner's laptop was on the coffee table beside Zook's, but there was no Mooner or Zook. I walked to the back of the house and looked out. Mooner and Zook were digging in the backyard with Bob. Lula was standing guard with her gun drawn. A small crowd had formed on the perimeter of the crime scene tape. Gary was sitting on the stoop, watching.
“What the heck is this?” I asked Lula.
“We figured it wouldn't hurt to look. There's still some undisturbed ground here. And if we find it, we'll share it with Morelli.”
“Are you insane? If you find it, you'll hand it over to the authorities! You're looking for stolen money.”
“Hunh,” Lula said. “You sure got a stick up your ass. When did you get so play-by-the-book?”
“I've always been play-by-the-book. You're the one who doesn't play by the book.”
“Well, I knew it was one of us.”
“Anyway, I don't think the money is buried in the backyard.”
“Me, either,” Gary said. “I'm not seeing anything. I told them it was a waste of time, but no one would listen.”
“Yeah, but you might be a nut,” Lula said.
“Hey,” I yelled at Zook and Mooner. “Stop digging. The money isn't in the backyard.”
A murmur went up from the people pressed against the crime scene tape. Two of them had shovels.
“It isn't in the front yard, either,” I told everyone. “Go home!”
Mooner, Zook, Bob, Gary, Lula, and I left the yard and huddled in the kitchen.
I gave everyone an ice cream sandwich, except Bob. Bob got a slice of ham.
“How come you think the money isn't in the yard?” Lula wanted to know.
“People wouldn't be breaking into Morelli's house if the money was in the yard. The only people digging in the yard are idiots who saw Brenda on television.”
Lula peeled the wrapper off her ice cream. “So you think the money's in the house?”
“I'm not sure there is any money. I suspect it was here at one time, but Dom was in prison for almost ten years, and there were a lot of changes. Rose died. Morelli moved into the house. Things were thrown away. Rooms were renovated. For all we know, Rose could have found the money and given it to the church.”
“I don't think so,” Gary said. “I'm getting a sharp pain in my forehead.”
“It's the ice cream,” I told him. “You're getting a brain freeze.” I herded everyone into the living room and found some Saturday morning cartoons on television. “I need to go out again, but I'll be back by noon.”