Chapter 3: Chapter 3

Joe Morelli was not a happy man. In the past few hours his day had gone from trying to get through it to utterly disgusting. Even he had been surprised at how crappy his day had turned out to be. But if there was one thing he'd learned from being a cop, it was that the word "satisfaction" was never to be used to describe anything pertaining to his job. Captain Targa had called him into his office as he was on his way out to check up on a lead. Targa was seated behind his desk when Joe had walked in. He gestured for him to sit down.

"I'm sure you heard about the eviscerated body found floating near the Elizabeth Port this morning." Targa had started by way of greeting.

Joe nodded. "I heard."

"It seemed two weeks ago three bodies with the same type of injuries were found floating in waters off of the coast near Brooklyn."

Joe nodded gain. "I read it in the paper." Where was Targa going with this?

"Then you'd also know that the Strike Force has been investigating this since the bodies were packed with drugs. Because of this new development at the port, the FBI is sending two of their agents down here to collect evidence, and evaluate the possibilities that this new corpse is linked to the ones they found in New York."

"And you're telling me this because?"

Targa gave him a tight smile. "You're going to be their liaison."

"S'cuse me?" This was so not fucking happening, Joe thought.

"The TPD and the FBI Newark Field office are working closely on this case, and since you're one of my best detectives we have on hand I nominated you to represent the department."

Joe stared stoically at him. "Captain, no disrespect, but you want me to be a fucking babysitter to these feds? You've got to be kidding me."

Targa had expected this reaction. "Look Morelli, I know this is not how you thought your day was going to be spent, and I would prefer that you were out on the street, but Juniak insists that we show the feds that we're a competent and efficient department. This is all purely bureaucratical mind you. But in order for Juniak to get us the funding we need to run this department for the next budget year, all of us are stuck with doing crap-ass jobs from time to time."

Joe's head dropped dejectedly to his chest and he huffed out a dramatic sigh. "What about Rupp? He loves this kind of thing."

Targa was not in the mood to be swayed. "Arnie has enough on his plate right now with the rise in the homicide rates these past few months."

Joe shook his head. "What about..."

"No." Targa interjected sharply. "And that's the end of this discussion. You're the primary on this assignment and that's final. It's not a request Morelli, it's an order."

"Shit!" Joe breathed. There went his whole fucking day. "How long are they going to be here?"

"Until the end of the week."

Joe grimaced. That was four days away. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

"Who's going to take over my cases? I have informants and leads to follow up on."

Targa sighed. "Why are you busting my balls Morelli?" He handed him a post-it. "Here are the names of the agents. They'll be staying at the Marriott. Their phone numbers are on there. They should get there in the next forty-five minutes."

Joe looked at the paper. Agent Carter and Agent Anderson. He was sure they were Agent Pain-in-the-Asses too.

Targa picked up a file folder and opened it. "Get out of my office Morelli. I've got enough on my plate to sit here and listen to you whine."

"But..."

"Out!"

When he came out Phil Pancheck was leaning against his desk, trying to hide his smirk behind his coffee mug.

"Well, well, Morelli. Looks like you got the babysitting job. Good luck with that."

Joe gave him his favorite Italian one fingered salute as he stomped toward his desk on the far side of the room.

"Tsk, tsk. Such a bad temper." Pancheck said. "Clearly indicative of a man who hasn't been laid in months."

Brian Simon came bustling towards the photocopying machine. "What's going on?"

"Our boy Morelli here got saddle-bagged with the feds daycare position." Pancheck said with a grin.

Brian shot a sympathetic look at Joe, then turned to Pancheck and they both busted out in raucous laughter.

"Wait, you fuckers knew they were looking for someone to hang this shit on?" Joe seethed as he violently pulled an accordion file from his desk drawer.

More laughter.

"Of course we knew." Brian said as his laughter died down. "How'd you think you got picked for the job? We all nominated you."

At that moment Joe wished he had Grandma Bella's eye. But then again, maybe it ran in the family. He squinted menacingly at Pancheck and Simon. Nothing. Great. He could just add this to the list of things on his already messed up day. He took a deep breath and tried to get his anger under control. Why was he even riled up about this? It wasn't like the feds would need him for the entire time they were there. All he had to do was drive them to the crime scene, let them document and fiddle with whatever they wanted, answer random questions and then drop them off again. Easy.

A harsh chuckle erupted from him. Maybe Pancheck was right. Maybe all he needed was to get laid to stop stressing out like this. Since he and Stephanie had broken up a couple of months ago, he had thrown himself into working every possible homicide he could get in on as a way of distracting himself from thinking about her. This however had proven to be a catch-22, as she was usually linked to some of the homicides he had gotten called in to investigate. Leave it to Steph to find a dead body without even trying. She was a magnet for these occurrences. The woman had a strange gift. She also had a gift of attracting psychos.

The most dangerous and persistent one being Carlos "Ranger" Manoso. The man was a nut case. With his black cars, black clothes and dark persona, he irked Joe in more ways than one. He was also one of the reasons he and Stephanie had broken up. Not like Joe couldn't see the break-up coming. He and Steph had been fighting constantly the weeks prior to them going their separate ways. It was the same ole fight, with the same ole arguments and the same ole man in the middle of it all.

Joe knew that there was more going on between them than just bounty hunters working together. And for a while he was willing to accept the fact that she needed Ranger in some twisted, relevant way. But as time went on the lingering touches, late nights and amative stares left Joe feeling like there was more between them than they showed in public. It began to eat away at him. He began to question everything she told him, her whereabouts, even her absences. They were heading down a destructive path that came to a head the night she came to his house, after a distraction job with Ranger, without her underwear and kiss-swollen lips.

Joe never knew his anger could reach such limits. And after a screaming match, which was probably heard from Trenton to Philadelphia, Joe knew that he could no longer stay with Stephanie without losing a part of himself along with his sanity. He loved her, and he knew that she loved him. But they weren't good for each other. Their unhealthy relationship pattern was taking a toll on both of them. When all was said and done, Joe offered to look like the bad guy and take the blame for ending the relationship. He couldn't let Steph be subjected to Burg gossip and her mother's disappointment. She had gone through enough with Dickie. So he kissed her on the cheek, told her he would always love her, picked up the shards of his heart and went to a bar.

The alcohol dulled his senses, but not his pain. And when he stumbled home later that night and found Steph's laundry basket gone, reality came crashing violently into him. He had called out sick to work for two days and wallowed in his self-pity. On the third day Carl Costanza came knocking on his door. He took one look at Joe, shook his head and ordered him to go take a shower and shave. Joe was in no mood to have someone telling him what to do, and he told Carl this with a string of curse words mixed in.

"Contrary to the gossip going around the Burg right now Morelli, I don't believe you were the asshole everyone is saying you are. If you were, you wouldn't be looking like a piece of shit right now."

Joe glared at him.

Carl just stared back at him, and then whipped out his cell phone.

"Go take the fucking shower or else I'm calling your mother and telling her to come over here."

They stood glaring at each other before Joe finally turned and made his way upstairs to the bathroom. Twenty minutes later, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, he came down to find Gus Chianni, his friend and drinking buddy, sitting in his living room watching ESPN Sports News with Carl.

"What the fuck is this?" Joe hissed.

"We're just here to make sure you don't go back to Joe Morelli, Pathetic Asshole." Gus said. "We're hoping you're better than that. So we're gonna stick around, call in for some Chinese food, and saturate your mind with stories about our own sad and pathetic woman tales."

Joe was touched. His boys had come through for him. He sat down on the couch next to Gus and reveled in the companionship. Four hours later, when Gus and Carl walked out his front door, Joe was feeling almost like his old self again. He went back to work the next day, prepared to close at least one of his open cases, but ending up fielding calls from his mother, Grandma Bella, Stephanie's mother and a string of cousins who'd heard the news. He didn't think anything could be worse than that, until now.

He looked at the post-it again. Carter and Anderson. Even their names sounded snotty. His experience with the feds was one based on professional advocacy. They knew they were the lead agency and their attitudes portrayed it. This had often led to the local police feeling more like intruders than partners in the legal process. He stuffed the post-it in his back pocket and looked at his watch. He had twenty minutes to get to the hotel. Just enough time to stop off and get some lunch, or maybe a stiff drink. But he knew either one was not going to be enough to get him through the rest of the day.

Marissa opened her hotel room door and came face to face with a weary looking, disturbingly sexy, Joe Morelli.

"Morelli? Is that you? My God you look fantastic." She broke out in a smile.

Joe stared at the woman before him. "Marissa Carter? What the hell?" He hadn't seen her since she fell in his lap at the Sly Dog Bar three years ago. She was the "Agent Carter"? Nice.

He barely had time to react when she threw her arms around him and gave him a tight hug.

"When I found out we were going to be working together I practically ran out the office." she said as she pulled back.

Joe smiled and let the compliment wash over him. "You look different."

"It's the hair." Marissa said as she ran a hand over her straight, shoulder-length hair. "The last time you saw me I had a head full of curls."

"Why the change?"

"I did an undercover job a while back and had to switch up my look. I like it though. Less time consuming, and easier to pile into a messy bun when I'm running late for work."

"It looks good on you."

She smiled at him "Thanks."

He noticed the faint bruise across her cheek and frowned. "What happened to your face?"

"Work."

A door opened across the hall and a tall, lightly tanned, dark-haired man stood in the doorway assessing Joe with hard, grey eyes.

"Joe Morelli I'd like you to meet my partner Bryan Anderson."

Bryan walked over with his hand extended. "Nice to meet you." He clasped Joe's hand in a firm handshake. "My partner talked about you the whole way here."

"Anything good?" Joe asked.

"Not really. Just her usual antagonistic view on the male species."

Marissa gasped. "Pay him no attention Morelli. I happen to like men still, even if I've got a partner like this."

Joe felt at ease in the small group they made outside Marissa's hotel room door. He had resigned himself to thinking that the next few days were going to be filled with exasperating moments. But now, knowing that he would be working with Marissa and her partner eased some of the tension out of him.

He liked her. She was easy going, funny, intelligent, and from what he could tell by her khaki-colored cargos and blue FBI polo shirt, she still filled out clothes in all the right places.

Marissa was trying to get over the fact, that the handsomely intriguing man that was standing in front of her was the Joseph Morelli she had met a few years ago. She had thought he was cute back then, and had mildly flirted with him when they shared a desk during a joint task force operation. But the man before her now had an air about him that suggested he could do a woman a lot of good...for hours on end. But it wasn't his tall, muscular body that unnerved her and made her belly tighten with phantom anticipation, nor was it his handsome face that encapsulated his good Italian genes. No, it wasn't any of those things. It was his eyes. When she had opened the door they were hooded and weary, and filled with suspicion. Then, when he recognized her, they had melted into warm, inviting pools of chocolate brown. In her experience as an agent people's eyes told the story of their lives, and what she had read in Joe's eyes had her trying to tamp down the sliver of arousal that zinged through her when she had hugged him. She shook her head. What was she thinking? She wasn't here for that. She was here to work. She was here to do her job, because there were other people relying on her information in order to do their job. It was bad enough she was in Carlos' town. Shit! She smacked her hand against her head. She had forgotten to tell him she was coming.

"Something wrong?" Joe asked as he frowned at her.

"I forgot to call someone." She looked at her watch. She would have to do it from the car.

"You guys ready?" Joe asked.

"Let me just grab my purse." Marissa said as she disappeared into her room.

Bryan turned to Joe. "Not to distract from what we're here to do, but where are all the good strip clubs here?"

Joe laughed. He liked Bryan. He could tell that he was protective of Marissa, and exuded an invisible, lethal air about him. Joe knew military when he saw it, and Bryan Anderson was wearing it well.

"Domino's on Third Street is pretty good." Joe offered.

"You go there a lot?"

"Not lately. But I'm due." Boy was he due.

Marissa emerged at the door with her coat and handbag. "Let's go." she said as she pulled the door closed behind her.

"Where to?" Joe asked as they walked to the elevator.

"The Medical Examiner's Office. I want to take a look at the body. Plus Bruno Wolf, from the Newark Field Office is meeting us there. He's going to update us on the DEA report."

"Great." Bryan said as he pushed the button to the Lobby. "Nothing like looking over an organless corpse on a Monday afternoon."

"Quit your whining Anderson." Marissa said as they piled into the elevator. "It was all you could talk about on the drive down here."

"See? I knew you weren't paying attention. I was telling you about the pantyless secretary that just started on the twenty-sixth floor."

"Are you sure? Cause I swore you said something about her being lifeless at one point."

The elevator doors swished open and they walked out to the exit.

Bryan shook his head, and then sighed dramatically. "I was telling you about her state after I got done putting The Beast on her. And the word I used was boneless."

Joe looked at Marissa for clarification.

"The Beast is his dick. And since I've never seen it, or plan on seeing it I can't confirm that it is or isn't a beast. All I know is that one day it might just fall off in the toilet when he goes to pee in the morning."

Joe chuckled. These two were walking comedy.

"Don't jinx it Carter. It's not my fault you have penis envy." Bryan said.

"Trust me when I say Anderson that when it comes to your penis envy is not the word I think about."

Joe held the glass door opened for Marissa. "What word would you use?"

"Any word from the medical dictionary listed under STDs." she answered as she brushed by him.

Yep, Joe thought as a smile broke out on his face, this week wasn't going to be so bad after all.