He stood and tossed a set of keys at me. “No gun on him, but he had these keys in his pocket. See if one of them opens the cab door.”
I opened the passenger side door and searched the map pockets, the glove compartment and under the seat, but I didn't come up with a gun. When I went back to Morelli he was working at the sealed drum with a crowbar.
“No gun up front,” I said.
The lid popped off, and Morelli flicked his flashlight on and looked inside.
“Well?” I asked.
His voice was tight when he answered. “It's Carmen.”
I was hit with another wave of nausea. “You think Carmen's been in Sal's freezer all this time?”
“Looks like it.”
“Why would he keep her around? Wouldn't he be afraid someone would discover her?”
Morelli shrugged. “I suppose he felt safe. Maybe he's done this sort of thing before.
You do something often enough, and you become complacent.”
“You're thinking about those other women who've disappeared from Stark Street.”
“Yeah. Sal was probably just waiting for a convenient time to take Carmen out and dump her at sea.”
“I don't understand Sal's connection.”
Morelli hammered the lid back on. “Me either, but I feel pretty confident Ramirez can be pursuaded to explain it to us.”
He wiped his hands on his pants and left smudges of white.
“What's with all this white stuff?” I asked. “Sal got a thing with baby powder or cleanser or something?”
Morelli looked down at his hands and his pants. “I hadn't noticed.”
“There was powder on the floor of the boat. And now you picked some up from the drum and wiped it on your pants.”
“Jesus,” Morelli said, staring at his hand. “Holy shit.” He flipped the lid off the drum and ran his finger around the inside rim. He put the finger to his mouth and tasted it. “This is dope.”
“Sal doesn't strike me as a crackhead.”
“It's not crack. It's heroin.”
“Are you sure?”
“I've seen a lot of it.”
I could see him smiling in the dark.
“Sweet Pea, I think we've just found ourselves a drop boat,” he said. “All along I've been thinking this was about protecting Ramirez, but now I'm not so sure. I think this might be about drugs.”
“What's a drop boat?”
"It's a small boat that goes out to sea to rendezvous with a larger ship engaged in drug smuggling.
“Most of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma. It's usually routed through northern Africa, then up to Amsterdam or some other European city. In the past, the favored method of entry for the northeast has been to body-pack it through Kennedy. For a year now, we've been getting tips that the stuff is traveling big time on ships coming into Port Newark. The DEA and Customs have been working overtime and coming up empty.” He held his finger in the air for inspection. “I think this could be the reason. By the time the ship sails into Newark, the heroin's already been off loaded.”
“Onto a drop boat,” I said.