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“There’s more,” I said.
Morelli nodded. “There’s Ralph Rogers.”
“The guy with the dart stuck in his butt. What about him?”
“He’s dead.”
“He was alive last time I saw him.”
“He went into cardiac arrest at the hospital and they couldn’t revive him. Apparently the dart contained some exotic kind of poison. And it contained a lot of it.”
“Enough to take down a giraffe?”
“The toxicology report didn’t cover that.”
“Shocking.”
“I know I’m going to regret asking, but why the interest in giraffes?”
“Lula and I were following a giraffe when we found Rogers lying in the road.”
“This isn’t a substance abuse issue, is it?”
“No. We really saw a giraffe. Lula was conducting some business with Jimmy Spit, and we saw a giraffe gallop past us and turn at Sixteenth Street. A black Cadillac Escalade with a satellite dish on its roof drove by seconds later, turned at Sixteenth, and there was gunfire. By the time we got to Sixteenth there was no giraffe and no Escalade. And Rogers was lying facedown in the middle of the road.”
“Are you sure it was a giraffe?”
“Skinny legs with knobby knees, yellow with big brown spots, long neck. Yep, I’m pretty sure it was a giraffe. Hasn’t anyone else reported seeing a giraffe in that neighborhood?”
“Not that I’ve heard. I’d ask dispatch, but I’d feel like an idiot.”
“How’s your leg? Are you in pain?”
“No pain at all. I’m loaded up with pain pills. I could set my hair on fire and I wouldn’t feel it.”
“Is it okay for you to be driving?”
“Yeah, they don’t make me drowsy. They just make me nice and numb. Can’t feel my leg. Can’t feel my fingertips or my tongue.”
“Good to know about your fingertips and your tongue. I’m glad we didn’t waste time getting naked in the parking lot.”
Morelli grinned. “I could have managed.”
The waitress brought two meatball subs with extra coleslaw.
“I ordered for both of us when I got here,” Morelli said. “Hope you don’t mind. I’m on a tight schedule. Did Rogers say anything to you?”
I dug into my coleslaw. “No. He was stretched out with a dart in his butt. That’s it.”
“I don’t suppose you got the license plate on the black SUV.”
“Sorry, it flew past me, but how many Escalades have a satellite dish on the roof?”
“Was it a big dish, like for a news station?”
“It was a small dish, like for an idiot drug dealer or a tricked out rapper.”
Morelli took a bite of his sub, and some red sauce leaked out of his mouth and ran down his chin.
