I own nothing. Janet owns all these wonderful people.

Note: This is the 'burning of the happy house' night from Joe's perspective. If you have not read the original Night Off, you might want to because you will be really, really confused.

Night Off 2

2:30 pm

I watched Ranger load Steph into his Porsche. Okay, I know it sounds a little callous to feel this way about your girlfriend but I was glad. I had no clue how to explain to her what I was doing there when I was supposed to be off on some secret case. Which in reality is watching Dickie's ass. But when I heard the call go out I had to come see for myself that she was okay. Christ, I can't handle her job.

I saw Marty Gobel walking over. "Jeez, Morelli. Stephanie sure can leave a mark."

"Yeah, I don't want to talk about it."

"You don't have to talk, but I do need you to help us clean this mess up since you're here. There's enough pot here to warrant the DEA and I hate them."

We both glanced at the blazing house. Pot smoke was still billowing out in great clouds all around us. The firemen were desperately trying to put out the flames.

You know, come to think of it, this was kind of funny. I mean, all that pot just floating away. I mean, who the hell named it 'pot' anyway? I started to chuckle.

Marty cut his eyes to me but didn't comment on my giddiness. We walked back toward the house. Police were standing around, watching the show. I wandered over to Carl and Big Dog. "You been here long?"

"Yeah, we were first on the scene." I noticed Carl was talking a little slower than normal, but I didn't comment. Big Dog was shifting around a little bit.

"Man, I'm hungry. Does anybody have any food? I'm really hungry." Now that he mentioned it, I was getting pretty hungry, too.

4:00 pm

Looks like they got the fire out. Apparently the firemen just need to hose it down a little more.

4:30 pm

We finally figured out that some of the firemen were confused on if the fire was out or not. We took away their hoses. The house was now out but there were still pockets that continued to smoke. They were like big, glowing cherries. Nothing but the frame was left. The DEA showed up to begin collecting evidence. You know, Marty's right. I hate the DEA. I mean, I really hate them.

Carl walked over. "I hate the DEA. You know, if we wanted to, we could kick their asses." I couldn't disagree with this. "I think we should fuck with them."

"Tampering with a crime scene is a federal offense, Carl."

"Yeah, I know! Isn't it great?"

"Actually, it is pretty fucking funny. OK, here's what we're gonna do."

6:00 pm

The DEA had finally finished collecting all the evidence that hadn't been burned. After 30 minutes at the scene they were totally into what they were doing and didn't notice Carl, Big Dog and I sneaking around ahead of them. In fact, they didn't notice much of anything. Their superior showed up an hour into the search and had to yell at Jeremy Davis for trying to pee in the living room. Jeremy seemed to be under the impression he needed to write his name in the ash.

6:20 pm

Juniak showed up just as the pizza was arriving. He looked around and shook his head. Everyone was still there. Even the firemen. They had camped out on their trucks, watching the show. Every time someone said the word "shit" they would cheer and blast the siren. We had been trying to come up with different words for it for the last hour and a half.

Juniak looked pissed. "What the hell is going on here? Joe, I need an explanation as to why this is taking so long. Carl, Big Dog- I need you to go check out a possible gas leak over off 44th and Oak. Some woman called in freaking out about gas bubbles in her toilet."

"Hey, man! I am so on that. I am going to go bust the dookey out of that call. If there is gas I'm going to find it and, like, do something with it."

Juniak stared at Carl for a beat. "Shit. Never mind. I think someone else needs to go. Now I know why this is taking so long."

"How come?" I asked. Carl, Big Dog and I waited expectantly for him to tell us.

"You'll figure it out."

He turned to the DEA Superior who was bagging the evidence in zip locks. Juniak stared at their collection.

"Shit! What the hell is going on? Are you seriously telling me this is the shit you collected? And why the hell do you idiots keep blasting the sirens!"

We all walked over to the DEA boys. Carl, big Dog and I were cracking up. They had bagged five Penthouse magazines, a charred digital scale, a clock radio, three Always with wings, a Vanilla Ice CD, a Wiggles sing-and-play guitar and a butt plug. It was the best we could do on short notice.

I eyed Carl. "Where did you get the butt plug, anyway?"

He looked away quickly. "Never mind. It doesn't matter. Hey look! Marty brought ice cream!"

Juniak was fuming. "This is what you collect? One piece of evidence?" As he was yelling, smoke was still wafting around him. "I mean, there is pot everywhere and THIS shit is what you get? WOULD YOU STOP WITH THE SIREN!"

Suddenly, he was gone. One minute he was standing there yelling and the next minute he had disappeared. We all stood there flabbergasted. We looked to the left and Juniak lay six feet away soaking wet where he had been blasted off his feet by a fire hose. We all swung to the right to see a pale looking fireman turning off his hose. "There, I put him out."

"What?!" We all yelled.

"He was yelling so he must have been on fire. That what happens when people are on fire."

We swung back to Juniak who was sitting up. "Holy crap! I was on fire? I had no idea!"

7:55 pm

We had finally cleared the scene and roped everything off. That took a little longer because some of the officers thought we were tying up the DEA guys. We had also started taking turns shooting each other with the fire hoses. Big Dog was the only one that could keep his feet. Eddie lost so bad he has to wear women's shoes to work tomorrow.

Carl, Eddie, Big Dog, Juniak and I were standing around. I didn't want to say anything, but I think Juniak was stoned.

Eddie spoke up. "Man, I don't want to go home yet. I'm not going home until I know for sure the kids are asleep."

"I could go out." Carl said. "Yep" from Big Dog. We turned to Juniak. "Yeah, what the hell, I'm in."

"Okay, but wherever we go, it has to have food." Carl was thinking hard. "Holy shit!" We all cringed and then realized the trucks had gone home 30 minutes ago. "I seriously have it! Let's go to Domino's!"

Juniak looked crestfallen. "I can't go to a strip club. Man, I want to go. I haven't seen boobs in ages."

"I'm not sure I can go, either. My wife would kill me." Eddie said sadly.

"Yeah, Steph freaks out every time I talk to Terry Gilman. I don't think this would work."

We were despondent. We really wanted to go see the boobs.

"You know, there might be a way we could go…." Big Dog spoke up. We looked up hopefully.

"…if we had disguises."

TBC