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“In Buster’s apartment.”
“Get out!”
“I swear to God. He was in Buster’s apartment. Buster phoned it in.”
“Where was Buster when all this went down?”
“He was at the eye doctor getting his eyes checked. Rock solid alibi. They dilated his eyes, so he had a friend take him and bring him home. They walked into Buster’s apartment and found Poletti sprawled out on the living room rug. A bullet in the head and two in the chest. The rug will never be the same.”
“Buster needs to change his lock.”
“Yeah. And then he needs to get a condo in Panama where the shooter can’t find him, since there are only two poker players left.”
“Have you talked to Silvio Pepper?”
“He’s on my list.”
Morelli fed me a spoonful of chocolate ice cream, kissed me again, stepped away, and checked his phone for messages.
“I have to go,” he said. “Hopefully this won’t take too long. Save me some butter pecan.”
“You got it.”
Grandma Mazur called at seven-thirty.
“I’m at the funeral home,” she said. “I came with Marie Zajak, but she had to leave early on account of she had an irritable bowel attack. I was hoping you could give me a ride home.”
“When do you want to get picked up?”
“The viewing is over in a half hour. I thought it would be good if you waited for me on the side street like last time. I don’t see Bella here, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to sneak out the side door just in case. I heard a rumor that she was waiting at the front door with a pie.”
I parked on the street a couple minutes early, cut the engine, and looked around, on high alert for Vlatko. The sun was setting, and the side yard of the funeral home was in deep shade. People were walking to cars that were parked in the small lot to the front of the building and at the curb on Hamilton Avenue.
I heard a heart-stopping shriek that levitated me off the car seat. The shriek was followed by a lot of yelling and cussing, and then Grandma Mazur stomped into view. She was soaked from head to toe, and water dripped from the tip of her nose. She wrenched the passenger side door open, got in, and slammed the door shut.
“Take me home,” she said.
“What happened?”
“Devil woman turned a hose on me.”
I cranked the engine over and put the car in gear. “Are you sure it was her?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I guess the rumor about the pie was wrong.”
“She tricked me. I tell you, she’s evil.”
I watched to make sure Grandma got into my parents’ house without anything else going wrong, and then I went back to Morelli’s.
A half hour later Morelli came home.
“What’s new?” I asked him.
“An early ballistics report indicates the same weapon was used on Scootch, Ritt, and Poletti.”
“So all you have to do is find the gun.”
