“Nice, but you avoided answering my question about the mocking grin.”
He gave my ponytail a playful tug.
“I'm going back to TriBro tomorrow,” I said. “I'll make a pest of myself. Find out about the Internet job search. Talk to coworkers. If it's anything other than a random murder, I should be able to get a lead.”
I decided against the family dinner and instead I stopped at Pino's on the way home. I slid the Pino's pizza box onto my kitchen counter, kicked my shoes off, and got a beer out of the fridge. I punched the message button on my machine and listened to my messages while I ate.
“Stephanie? It's your mother. Hello? Are you there?” Disconnect.
Second message. “Bad news. I'm gonna punk out on lunch tomorrow. The kids are sick.” It was my best friend, Mary Lou. Mary Lou and I grew up together. We went to school together and we were married within months of each other. Mary Lou's marriage stuck and she had a pack of kids. My marriage lasted about twenty minutes and ended in a screaming divorce.
The third message was from Vinnie. “What are you doing at home listening to this dumb machine? Why aren't you out looking for Singh? I'm dying here, for crissake. Do something!”
And my mother again. “I didn't want anything the first time. You don't have to call me back.”
I erased the messages and dropped a tiny piece of pizza into Rex's cage. Rex is my hamster roommate. He lives in a glass aquarium in my kitchen and sleeps in a Campbell's tomato soup can. Rex rushed out of his soup can, shoved the pizza into his cheek pouch, and scurried back to the can. Quality pet time.
I carted the pizza box, the beer, and my purse into the living room, flopped onto the couch, powered up the television, and found a Seinfeld rerun. A couple months ago I entered the computer age and bought myself an Apple iBook. I keep the iBook on my coffee table so I can check my mail and watch television at the same time. Am I a multi-?tasker, or what?
I opened the iBook and signed on. I deleted the junk mail advertising Viagra, mortgage rates, and porn sites. A single message was left. It was from Andrew Cone. If I can be of any further help, don't hesitate to call.
The phone jarred me awake at 7:00 A.M.
“Something just came across my desk that I thought you might want to see,” Morelli said. “I'm at the station and I have a few things to do and then I'll come over.”
I dragged myself out of bed and into the bathroom. I did the shower thing and the hair thing and a half-?assed job at the makeup thing. I got dressed in my usual uniform of T-?shirt and jeans and felt ready to face the day. I made coffee and treated myself to a strawberry Pop Tart, feeling righteous because I'd resisted the S'mores Pop Tart. Best to have fruit for breakfast, right? I gave a corner of the Pop Tart to Rex and sipped my coffee.
I was pouring myself a second cup of coffee when Morelli arrived. He backed me against a wall, made certain there were no spaces between us, and he kissed me. His pager buzzed and he did some inventive cussing.
“Trouble?” I asked.
He looked at the display. “The usual crap.” He stepped back and pulled a folded piece of paper out of his jacket pocket. “I knew there was some sort of mess associated with TriBro, so I ran a search for you. It turned up this newspaper article from two years ago.”
I took the paper from Morelli and read the headline. “Bart Cone Charged in Paressi Slaying.” The article went on to say that hikers had stumbled over the body of Lillian Paressi just hours after Paressi had been killed with a single shot to the head at close range. The murder had occurred in a wooded area just north of Washington's Crossing State Park. Cone had been spotted leaving the scene and police claimed to have physical evidence linking Cone to the murder.
“What happened?” I asked Morelli.
"He was released. The witness who reported Cone fleeing from the scene recanted part of his story. And the physical evidence tested out negative. Cone had been carrying a twenty-?two when the police picked him up for questioning. Paressi had been shot with a twenty-?two, but ballistics ruled out Cones gun as the murder weapon. And there wasn't a DNA match-?up. Paressi had been sexually assaulted after her death and the DNA didn't match to Cone.
“As
I remember, the guys assigned to the case still thought Cone killed Paressi. They just couldn't get anything to stick on him. And the case has never been solved.”
“Was there a motive?”
“No motive. They were never able to develop a connection between Paressi and Cone.”
“Bart Cone isn't exactly Mr. Nice Guy, but it's hard to see him as a killer.”
“Killers come in all sizes,” Morelli said.
THREE
Morelli walked me to my car, gave me a dismissive kiss on the forehead, and told me to be careful. He was driving a Piece Of Shit cop car that was parked next to my Ford. It was a Crown Vic that probably had originally been dark blue, but had now faded to a color that defied description. Paint was scraped off the right rear, and part of the back bumper was ripped away. A Kojak light was rolling around on the floor in the back.
“Nice car,” I said to Morelli.
“Yeah, I had a hard choice to make between this and the Ferrari.” He angled into the Vic, cranked it over, and rolled out of the lot.