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“That’s okay,” Bolan said. “I got something better, anyway. The rest of Stanley Chipotle just turned up at the funeral home on Hamilton.”
We all stood there for a couple beats, trying to pro cess what we’d just heard.
“He turned up?” Morelli finally said.
“Yeah,” Bolan said. “Someone apparently dumped him on the doorstep. So I guess someone should talk to the funeral guy.”
“I guess that someone would be me,” Morelli said. He looked at his watch. “What the hell, the game’s over now, anyway.”
“I need to get back to Rangeman,” Ranger said to me. “If you have an interest in Chipotle, I can send someone with a car for you.”
“Thanks. I don’t usually get excited about seeing headless dead men, but I wouldn’t mind knowing more.”
“I can give her a ride,” Morelli said. “I don’t imagine this will take long.”
SEVENTEEN
EDDIE GAZARRA WAS standing in the funeral home parking lot, waiting for Morelli. Eddie is married to my cousin Shirley-the-Whiner. Eddie is a patrolman by choice. He could have moved up, but he likes being on the street. He says it’s the uniform. No choices to make in the morning. I think it’s the free doughnuts at Tasty Pastry.
“I was the first on the scene,” Gazarra said when we got out of Morelli’s SUV. “The drop was made right after viewing hours. Morton shut the lights off, and ten minutes later, someone rang the doorbell. When Morton came to the door, he found Chipotle stretched out and frozen solid.”
Eli Morton is the current owner of the funeral home. For years, Constantine Stiva owned the place. The business has changed hands a couple times since Stiva left, but everyone still thinks of this as Stiva’s Funeral Home.
“Where is he now?” Morelli asked.
“On the porch. We didn’t move him.”
“Are you sure it’s Chipotle?”
“He didn’t have a head,” Gazarra said. “We sort of put two and two together.”
“No ID?”
“None we could find. Hard to get into his pockets, what with him being a big Popsicle.”
We’d been walking while we were talking, and we’d gotten to the stairs that led to the funeral home’s wide front porch. I recognized Eli Morton at the top of the stairs. He was talking to a couple uniformed cops and an older man in slacks and a dress shirt. A couple guys from the EMT truck were up there, too. The body wasn’t visible.
“Maybe I’ll wait here,” I said. “It’s not so bad,” Gazarra told me. “He’s frozen stiff as a board. All the blood’s frozen, too. And the head was cut off nice and clean.”
I sat down on the bottom step. “I’ll definitely wait here.”
“I’ll get back to you,” Morelli said, walking the rest of the way with Gazarra.
The medical examiner’s truck rolled past and pulled into the lot. It was followed by a TV news truck with a dish. I saw Morelli glance over at the news truck and move a couple of the uniformed guys from the porch to the lot to contain the media.
I sat on the step for about a half hour, watching people come and go. Finally, Morelli came back and sat along-side me.
“How’s it going?” I asked him.
“The forensic photographer just finished, and the ME is doing his thing, and then we’re moving the body inside to a meat locker. He’s starting to defrost.”
“Is he staying here for the funeral?”
“Eventually. The body will have to go to the morgue for an autopsy first, and then it’ll get released for burial. Right now, I need someone to identify the body.”
“Do you think it might not be Chipotle?”
“This is a high-profile case, and there was no identification on the body.”
