Page 98 of Now or Never

“I’m having lunch with Morelli,” I told Lula. “I need to talk to him about Robin Hoodie. I’ll meet you at the office after lunch.”

I walked out of the municipal lot just as Morelli was leaving the gated cop lot.

“This was good timing,” Morelli said. “Bob will be happy to see you. I’m happy to see you too. Especially in that top.”

“It’s new. Do you like it?”

“Yeah. I’d spend more time looking at it, but I’m afraid I’d run up on the curb.”

Imagine if he’d seen me with the toilet paper.

“Eugene Fleck has a court appearance on Friday. He claims he’s not Robin Hoodie, and I believe him. Mostly.”

“Only mostly?”

“Almost completely. Are there any other persons of interest?”

“There were the usual suspects in the beginning. There are a bunch of porch pirates operating in Trenton. We run them down when we have time. Sometimes we recognize a repeat offender from a Ring camera. We didn’t pick up Eugene on any of the Rings. When he hijacked the UPS truck it took it to another level, and we found his fingerprints on the steering wheel, gearshift, door handle.The only other prints belonged to the UPS driver, and there were some on the inside of the back door from UPS loaders.”

“What about all the other Hoodie events?”

“Lots of prints. None belonging to Eugene and the others were meaningless. Stores and food trucks have lots of random prints. We’ve looked at hours of video and it’s inconclusive. Hoodie has the same build and is about the same height as Eugene. He could easily be Eugene.”

“I’m surprised that no one in the homeless community has turned him in.”

“He wears a mask. He goes in at night when it’s dark. He’s deep in his hoodie. He wears gloves. And everyone loves him. No one wants him to stop.”

“I’m sure the food trucks want him to stop.”

“That’s the genius of it. They’re all begging to be the next hit. You get on the Hoodie blog and you’re an instant smash success. People are lined up to buy your hot dogs, tacos, sneakers, Band-Aids. No one will press charges. They write off the initial hit and more than make up for it when the post goes viral.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. ‘Wow’ about sums it up. So far, we have one case against Eugene: the UPS truck. Even if he confessed to being Robin Hoodie, we wouldn’t have any more. We’d have to talk one of his victims into charging him, and they aren’t going to do it because it would ruin their business.”

“Suppose you set a trap. Get your own food truck and beg Hoodie to hijack it. Put a GPS tracker on it.”

“We haven’t got a budget for that kind of sting operation. It’s not like Hoodie is selling drugs.”

“Isn’t it an embarrassment to Trenton PD that Hoodie keeps operating?”

“Most of the guys are enjoying it. And if you’re a cop with a wife or a girlfriend, you better not touch Hoodie or there’ll be hell to pay at home. Women love this guy. He’s a hero.”

“He isn’t a hero,” I said. “He’s letting an innocent man get sent to jail. That’s horrible.”

“You’re assuming that Eugene isn’t Hoodie. How do you explain the fingerprints?”

“I can’t,” I said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Bob did his usual happy dance when he saw us. He got some hugs and a bunch ofgood boys, and Morelli hooked him up to a leash. Sometimes Morelli takes Bob to the park to run, but mostly Bob gets walked around a couple blocks. Today was a “couple blocks” day.

“Are there any new developments on Zoran?” I asked Morelli.

“Toxicology came back from the woman in the laundromat. She had GHB in her system. And Ecstasy. She was probably drugged before being attacked. And the big thing is that we might have DNA from last night. The victim had a couple strands of hair and some skin cells under her nails. The blow to her head didn’t kill her. At some point, she must have put up a fight.”

“Did you find a match?”

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