My sentiments exactly.
The windows were open to bring air into the house, and Morelli's television carried out to the street. He was watching a ball game. I felt the truck hood. Warm. He'd just gotten home. His front door was open like the windows, but the screen door was locked.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Anybody home?”
Morelli padded out barefoot. “That was fast.”
“Didn't seem all that fast to me.”
He relocked the screen and went back to the television.
I don't mind going out to the ballpark. You could sit in the sun and drink beer and eat hot dogs, and the whole thing was an event. Baseball on television put me into a coma. I dug into my pocket, found the twenty and passed it over to Morelli. “I stopped for a soda in north Trenton and got this in change. I thought it'd be fun to check its authenticity.”
Morelli looked up from the game. “Let me get this straight. You bought a soda, and you got a twenty in change. What'd you give her, a fifty?”
“Okay, so I don't want to tell you where I got it right now.”
Morelli examined the bill. “Goddamn,” he said. He turned it over and held it to the light. Then he patted the couch cushion next to him. “We need to talk.”
I sat down with reservation. “It's phony, isn't it?”
“Yep.”
“I had a hunch. Is it easy to tell?”
“Only if you know what to look for. There's a small line in the upper right corner where the plate is scratched. They tell me the paper isn't exactly right, either, but I can't see it. I only know by the scratch mark.”
“Was the guy you tried to bust from north Trenton?”
“No. And I was pretty sure he was working alone. Counterfeiting like this is usually a mom-?and-?pop deal. Very small.” He draped his arm over the back of the couch and stroked the nape of my neck with a single finger. “Now, about the twenty . . .”
Stephanie Plum 4 - Four To Score
Stephanie Plum 4 - Four To Score
Stephanie Plum 4 - Four To Score
13
IT WAS HOPELESS. Morelli was going to worm this out of me.
“The twenty came from Francine Nowicki, Maxine's mother,” I said. “She passed it to a dope dealer yesterday.”
I told him the rest of the story, and when I was done he had a strange expression on his face.
“How do you walk into these things? It's . . . spooky.”
“Maybe I have the eye.”
As soon as I said it I regretted it. The eye was like the monster under the bed. Not something to tempt out of hiding.
“I really thought it was a one-?man operation,” Morelli said. “The guy we were watching fit the profile. We watched him for five months. And we never pegged anyone as being an accomplice.”
“It would explain a lot about Maxine.”
“Yeah, but I still don't get it. During that five-?month period this guy never made physical contact with Kuntz or Maxine.”
“Did you actually see him passing the money?”