Chapter 9
~Who Cleft The Devil's Foot~
Unpleasant memories flood back to Stephanie the moment she looks down at the motionless man on the floor. Joe Morelli. The notorious neighborhood bad boy who lived four blocks away down the street from her childhood home. The infamous womanizer who used to write obscene poems about all the girls he conquered on public bathroom walls. The youngest son of a local Italian family that produces a long line of mean drunkards, wife-beaters and cheaters. The sly boy who tried to lure Stephanie into his father neglected garage on a hot summer day when she was but 6. The smug 18-year-old young man who tried to make her yield herself to him inside Tasty Bakery one evening 10 years later. Stephanie recalls their two encounters clearly. She turned and ran as fast as she could back into the safety of her home that hot summer day and immediately threw up. Both her parents weren't home. Valerie, her 11-year-old elder sister, then gathered her friends and beat Joe Morelli up. And somehow the nervous and frightened 16-year-old Stephanie bravely grabbed hold of a broom, swung it and hit a leering Morelli right in his face as he started advancing on her. Old Mrs. Caraway, the owner of Tasty Bakery, came out of the storage room upon hearing the noise and was about to call the police when he ran out of the store without a backward glance. Morelli left to join the Navy at the first ray of dawn the next morning. And Stephanie hasn't seen him again. Until now.
Stephanie takes a deep breath to calm herself and tries hard not to throw up in public as she remembers Joe Morelli's touch on her shoulder. Most people will not hesitate to describe this dark-haired and olive-skinned man as handsome. And though he does have the classic Italian facial features and a lean muscular body, the way he looks at Stephanie always makes her so nauseous that she so wants to claw out those deep brown eyes and flush them down the nearest toilet. She can't help wondering what Joe Morelli is doing here at the police station. A suspect of a crime? Or a newly released detainee? Hopefully they won't cross paths ever again in the future.
"Stephanie, are you alright?"
She looks up into her good friend and cousin-in-law Eddie Gazarra's face, gives him a tight smile and a small nod. She knows she must look like Hell right now. Puffy eyes, reddened nose and a ghost-pale face, the 3 main element of a perfect "crazy—if not ugly—woman" look. But she believes good old Eddie, a proud member of Trenton's Finest, is quite used to it now. He's been married to her cousin Shirley-the-Whiner for almost 8 years. And everyone in the family knows what Shirley looks like when she gets out of bed in the morning.
"What brings you here, Stephanie?" Carl Costanza, another friend of hers and another member of TPD, casually toes Morelli with his shoe and mischievously grins as the unmoving man remains unconscious. "Are you here to deliver the surprise welcome gift to Detective Morelli, newly transferred—or rather kicked out by LAPD as rumour has it?"
Stephanie gapes at her two smiling friends and feels faint. Joe Morelli? A police detective? Is this a joke or something? The semi-criminal who himself is a danger and threat to the society is going to upholding the law? To serve the people? To protect the public? Just when she becomes a bounty hunter?
What the Hell?