Page 102 of Now or Never

At six o’clock we were all at the table, and Morelli walked in.

“I don’t want to disturb anything,” he said. “I saw Stephanie’s car parked here, and I need to talk to her.”

“We sat down just this second,” Grandma said. “We got pot roast and mashed potatoes. I’ll get a place setting for you.”

“Thanks, but I need to get home to Bob,” Morelli said.

Grandma was already on her feet. “You can eat and run, and you can take some pot roast for Bob.”

“Who’s Bob?” Herbert asked.

“Morelli’s dog,” I said.

“I don’t have a dog,” Herbert said. “I have a cat. Her name is Miss Fluff. She’s very fluffy. She sleeps with me. Not in a strange way. Like a cat. She could be a show cat but her one eye looks off to the side and she has an overbite. They’re picky about things like that at cat shows.”

Grandma put a plate and some silverware next to me, and Morelli sat down. “Really?” he said to me.

Food was getting passed around. Grandma offered Herbert a glass of red wine and I suggested that might not be a good idea.

“Herbert gave Grandma a ride home from Giovichinni’s,” I said to Morelli. “Grandma is a big fan of the Robin Hoodie videos and she decided to make some videos like Robin Hoodie.”

Morelli cut his eyes to Grandma. “You’re going to steal packages off porches?”

“No. That’s old news,” Grandma said. “Herbert and I are going to make videos about viewings.”

Morelli looked confused.

“Funeral home viewings,” I said to Morelli. “Like at Stiva’s.”

“We could show what dead people look like before and after makeup,” Grandma said. “And we could interview the grieving mourners, but we’d do it in a way that would be fun.”

My father froze with his fork raised, and a piece of pot roast fell out of his mouth.

My mom raised her Big Gulp glass of whiskey. “Dilly dilly.”

Morelli was working hard not to laugh out loud.

“You’re going to get a hernia if you keep holding it in like that,” I told him.

“This is excellent pot roast,” Herbert said. “You must use a good cut of beef to get this flavor.”

“Rump roast,” Grandma said. “We always use rump roast.”

“Gravy,” my father said. “I need more gravy. Who’s holding up the gravy?”

By the time we got to the cookies, Grandma and Herbert had moved on to alien encounters and Grandma’s theory that Zoran wasn’t a vampire but could possibly be an alien.

Morelli looked at his watch at that point and said he needed to check in with his partner and feed Bob dinner. My mom gave Morelli some cookies and a nice portion of pot roast for Bob, and I walked Morelli out to his car.

“You wanted to talk to me,” I said.

“That was quite the bag of goodies you left for me. I especially liked the fingers.”

“They almost got passed up. Lula thought they were sausages.”

“I imagine they’re trophies,” Morelli said. “Three of them. All from different women.”

“I identified four potential victims that were before the laundromat killing. Zoran’s wife. They only recovered part of her. Two hookers that disappeared and were never found. And Julie Werly. If he got a finger from the laundromat and the jogger, he wouldn’t have been able to put it in his freezer without you picking him up on video.”

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