Blue dye exploded out of the attache case.
No one moved. No one spoke. No one blinked. We all just stood there, dripping blue dye.
“What happened?” Brenda wanted to know. “Am I okay? Was it a bomb?”
I looked at the dye on my hands and shirt. “Gratelli booby-trapped his briefcase.”
“He's lucky he's dead,” Lula said. “I'm wearing leather. Somebody's gotta be responsible for this dry-cleaning bill.”
The cameraman looked at his blue lens. “I'm done for the day.”
I closed the attache case and snatched it off the hood of Gratelli's car. “I'm taking this with me. I'll give it to Morelli to check out.”
“It's in my hair, isn't it?” Brenda asked. “I feel so funky.” She looked down at herself. “I have blue boobies.”
Lula carefully eased herself into the Firebird and drove away. Brenda and the camera crew took off in the van. And I walked to Morelli's house.
Mooner answered the door. “Far out,” he said. “Off the chain.”
I had no idea what “off the chain” meant, and I didn't care. I was blue. I walked through the living room, and Zook never looked up from the computer screen. I got to the kitchen, where Morelli was stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce, and I dropped the attache case onto the kitchen table.
Morelli gaped at me with the spoon in his hand. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Booby-trapped attache case.”
“Have you seen yourself?”
“No. Is it bad?”
“How do you feel about blue?”
I stepped into the powder room, switched the light on, and stifled a sob. Blue hair, blue eyebrows, blue eyelashes, blue lips, blue face. I soaked a hand towel and dabbed at my cheek. Nothing happened.
Morelli was behind me, smiling. “You look like a Smurf. I think I'm getting turned on.”
“Everything turns you on.”
“Not everything. Remember the time you fell off the fire escape and rolled in the dog diarrhea?”
“I took the briefcase out of Gratelli's car. There's a chance it contains directions for finding the money from the robbery.”
Morelli went to the attache case and flipped the locks. “Guess I don't have to worry about a dye bomb,” he said. He raised the lid and looked inside.
Everything was soaked in blue dye.
“Gratelli didn't get the memo telling him to put his important papers in plastic pouches,” Morelli said. “If there were directions in here, they're gone.”
I got a spoon out of the silverware drawer and tasted the spaghetti sauce.
“Yum,” I said.
“It needs to simmer,” Morelli said. “I like to let the r sausage soak in the gravy It's for tomorrow. We're supposed to have dinner at your parents' house tonight.”
I put the spoon in the dishwasher. “I bet I know where the money is hidden. I bet it's in your basement.”
“I've looked in the basement.”
“I bet it's buried. I bet it's under your floor.”