One for the Money Page 0,13

cards. I stuck one of the cards between the screen and the molding. Then I drove the short distance back to my parents' house and used their phone to call my cousin Francie, who knew everything about everyone.

He's long gone, Francie had said. He's a smart guy and he's probably wearing a fake mustache by now. He was a cop. He has contacts. He knows how to get a new social security number and start over far away. Give it up, Francie had said. You'll never find him.

Intuition and desperation told me otherwise, so I called Eddie Gazarra, who was a Trenton cop and had been one of my very best friends since the day I was born. Not only was he a good friend, but he was married to my cousin, Shirley the Whiner. Why Gazarra had married Shirley was beyond my comprehension, but they'd been married for eleven years so I suppose they had something going between them.

I didn't bother with chitchat when I got Gazarra. I went right to the heart of the matter, telling him about my job with Vinnie and asking what he knew about the Morelli shooting.

"I know it's nothing you want to get involved in," Gazarra said. "You want to work for Vinnie? Fine. Get him to give you some other case."

"Too late. I'm doing this one."

"This one has a real bad odor."

"Everything in New Jersey has a bad odor. It's one of the few things a person can count on."

Gazarra lowered his voice. "When a cop gets charged with murder, it's serious shit. Everybody gets touchy. And this murder was especially ugly because the physical evidence was so strong against Morelli. He was apprehended at the scene with the gun still warm in his hand. He claimed Ziggy was armed, but there was no weapon found, no bullet discharged into the opposite wall or floor or ceiling, no powder residue on Ziggy's hand or shirt. The grand jury had no choice but to indict Morelli. And then if things aren't bad enough . . . Morelli goes Failure To Appear. This is a black eye to the department and fucking embarrassing. You mention Morelli in the halls and everybody suddenly remembers they've got something to do. Nobody's going to be happy about you sticking your nose in this. You go after Morelli and you're gonna be swinging on a broken branch, high off the gound, all alone."

"If I bring him in, I get $10,000."

"Buy lottery tickets. Your chances will be better."

"It's my understanding that Morelli went to see Carmen Sanchez, but that Sanchez wasn't there when he arrived."

"Not only wasn't she on the scene, but she's disappeared off the face of the earth."

"Still?"

"Still. And don't think we haven't looked for her."

"What about the guy Morelli says was in the apartment with Ziggy. The mystery witness?"

"Vanished."

I felt my nose wrinkle in disbelief. "Do you think this is odd?"

"I think it's odder than odd."

"Maybe Morelli went bad."

I could feel Gazarra shrug over the phone line. "All I know is my cop intuition tells me something doesn't add up."

"You think Morelli'll join the Foreign Legion?"

"I think he'll stick around and work to improve his odds on longevity . . . or die trying."

I was relieved to hear my opinion reinforced. "You have any suggestions?"

"None you want to hear."

"Come on, Eddie. I need help."

Another sigh. "You're not going to find him hiding out with a relative or a friend. He's smarter than that. The only thing I can think of is to look for Carmen Sanchez and the guy Morelli said was in the apartment with Ziggy. If I was Morelli, I'd want to get those two missing persons, either to prove my innocence, or to make sure they couldn't prove my guilt. I haven't a clue how you do this. We can't find them and chances are you can't find them either."

I thanked Gazarra and hung up. Looking for the witnesses sounded like a good idea. I didn't necessarily care that it was an impossible mission. What I cared about was that if I started running down leads on Carmen Sanchez, I might be following the same route as Morelli and maybe our paths would cross again.

Where to begin? Carmen's apartment building. I could talk to her neighbors, maybe get a line on her friends and family. What else? Talk to the boxer, Benito Ramirez. If Ramirez and Ziggy were all that close, maybe Ramirez knew Carmen Sanchez. Maybe he even had some ideas about