Page 84 of Now or Never

“I guess they really like Florida.”

“They divide their time between the casino and the track. And Grandma Plum said they sunbathe naked in their backyard.”

“Gross!”

“I don’t know,” Valerie said. “It’s kind of sweet that they still get naked together at their age.”

“The last time I saw them was two years ago, just before they moved. They didn’t look that good fully clothed. I don’t want to think about them naked.”

Grandma Mazur came into the kitchen with two shopping bags. “I got the rolls from the bakery and the deli platters from Giovichinni. Your mother is right behind me with the cake.” She set the bags on the kitchen table. “Who let all those old people in? The living room is full of them.”

“They came from senior living,” Valerie said, unpacking the rolls.

“Those old people will go through this food like a swarm of locusts,” Grandma said. “They’ll be filling their pockets with pickles and ham sandwiches.”

My mother came with the cake and my father followed her. My father was in his church suit, wearing his church shoes.

“If I make it to eighty, just give me a can of beer and set me in front of the TV,” my father said.

“Last I saw, Aunt Stella was on the couch with Ginny and Bernard Crosdale,” Valerie said. “Uncle Marty is wandering around somewhere. Someone should check on him. Make sure he doesn’t get out of the house and walk into traffic.”

My father gave a grunt and went off to look for Marty.

I emptied the bags of rolls into a bowl, unwrapped the deli platters, and added them to the casseroles that were already on the dining room table. There was a lot of yelling coming from thebackyard. I went to the door and looked out at a bunch of little kids who had Marty tied up and were throwing Nerf balls at him.

“I found Marty,” I said to Valerie.

“As long as he’s in the backyard and the gate is closed,” she said. “Do we need to put more wine out?”

I glanced over at Morelli. He was off to the side, talking on his phone. The expression on his face wasn’t good. It was his cop face. Focused. Unreadable. Serious.

I took a couple bottles of red wine from the case on the floor and put them on the table with the food. Morelli ended the call and motioned for me to come to him.

“You’re wearing your cop face,” I said.

“I have a cop face?”

“Yeah. It’s almost the same as your poker face. What’s up?”

“That was Jimmy on the phone. It looks like there might have been another vampire murder. This one was in your neighborhood. The woman was just found. Jimmy said it looked like she’d been dead for a while. Probably was killed early last night.”

That sucked the air out of me. “That’s terrible. Do you think Zoran didn’t get to kill me, so he found a substitute?”

“It’s possible. It’s also possible that you would have been his second kill of the night. Jimmy made his best guess at time of death. The ME will be more precise. It’s also possible that this wasn’t Zoran’s kill.”

“But Jimmy thought it might have been Zoran?”

“She had bite marks on her neck similar to the woman in the laundromat.”

A wave of nausea curled through my stomach. The laundromat horror was still fresh in my mind. I couldn’t shake it.

“I told Jimmy I’d meet him at the scene,” Morelli said.

“I’ll go with you.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“The alternative is to stay at this party.”

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