“I’m assuming that was a laptop under your raincoat,” he said.
“How did you know?”
“It had corners.”
“If I left it in the apartment, it might have sat in evidence storage without getting opened. I have Melvin here and he was able to plug one of his gizmos into the laptop and get it working.”
“Has he found anything?”
“An email message that said RETRIBUTION and was signed with Oswald’s special mark. Melvin got a similar message, but he wasn’t home when Oswald visited.”
Morelli smiled at me. “Nice work. Not legal, but nice.”
“Melvin’s hacker group is called Baked Potatoes. Out of the seven Potatoes, two are dead with their tongues cut out.”
“What about the other four group members?”
“Melvin only communicates with them online and his ability to do that has been blocked. He doesn’t know where they live or their real names. They could be anywhere on the planet.”
“I can have a search sent out for homicides with the same MO,” Morelli said. “If these murders are connected to hacking, the feds should get involved. They should also get involved if we have a serial killer.”
“Melvin has a record and a business to protect. He might not be a good match-up with the feds.”
We looked through the dining room to the kitchen, where Melvin was back to working at the little table.
“He’s motivated,” I said to Morelli.
“And he won’t leave this house?”
“Grandma’s watching him.”
Melvin shook his head and mumbled something. He got up and walked around his chair and sat down again.
“Is he any good?” Morelli asked.
“He’s good enough to be able to hack the super hacker. Apparently, he’s not smart enough to have seen the downside, which might be death. Melvin said hacking Oswald was like a game to the Baked Potatoes. Melvin’s exact quote was We thought he was a genius. We didn’t know he was a homicidal maniac.”
Melvin was on his feet again, walking around, waving his arms in the air, talking to himself.
“I need to go to my house to feed Bob,” Morelli said. “Are you going to stay here and watch him pace, or are you coming with me?”
“I’ll come with you. I want to be around when you cash in on your fortune cookie luckiness.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
My smartphone alarm went off at 8:00 a.m. and I had a moment of disorientation. The moment passed and I figured it out. I was in Morelli’s bed and the day had started without me. As usual, Morelli had gotten up at the crack of dawn and was already at work.
Bob was sitting beside the bed, watching me.
“Hey,” I said, “how’s it going?”
There was a note on the bedside table that told me Bob had eaten his breakfast and gone for a short walk. If I let him out in the backyard for five minutes, he’d be good.
Forty-five minutes later, I was back at my apartment, showered and dressed in my usual work uniform of jeans and a T-shirt. I ran out of my apartment building with my hair still damp and jumped into the Focus. I hadn’t taken the time to make coffee because I was behind schedule. I wanted to get to the hospital before Andy checked himself out.
I bypassed the reception desk at the hospital and went straight to Andy’s floor. I stopped at the nurses’ station and told them I was there to collect Andy.
“He left last night,” one of the nurses said. “He disconnected his IV, got dressed, and left.”
“How could that happen?” I asked. “That’s not supposed to happen.”
“True,” she said, “but every now and then we get a sneaky old guy who doesn’t want to be here anymore and finds a way to leave. He’s one of those guys.”
“Did he leave anything behind? Like a wallet?”
“No. He took everything. There wasn’t much. Some spare change and a couple books.”
This was my fault. I could have checked him into the locked-down prison ward at the hospital, but I thought he wasn’t a flight risk and he’d be more comfortable on a normal floor.
I returned to the Focus and drove the couple of blocks to the office. Connie and Lula were already there.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” Lula said. “Did you hear about the second tongue murder?”
I waved her away and went straight to the coffee machine. I filled my mug and hit up the doughnut box on Connie’s desk.
“I was there,” I said. “I went with Morelli.”