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Grandma and I hurried to the car and locked the doors.
“I’m a terrible person,” Grandma said. “She’s probably right about me burning in hell.”
“Those cookies could be perfectly okay. I’m sure Barbara wouldn’t give you poison cookies.”
“Would you have eaten them?” Grandma asked.
“No way.”
I drove Grandma home and waited until she was in the house and waved to me that all was good. Fifteen minutes later I cruised into my apartment building par
king lot and spotted Morelli’s SUV. I parked next to it and went upstairs. Morelli was in the kitchen, watching Rex run on his wheel.
“Not watching television?” I asked.
“There’s nothing on. I got bored at home, so I thought I’d stop in and see if you wanted to have some wild sex. I was going to make a sandwich while I waited, but you have no food.”
“I have peanut butter and cereal. That covers every meal.”
“Did you ever hear of a vegetable?”
“Pickles. I have two different kinds. Bread and butter and dill.”
“I stand corrected.”
“I might have hot dogs in the freezer.”
Morelli opened the freezer, and his phone dinged with a text message. He checked the message and closed the freezer.
“I have to make a call,” he said. “And I’m going to pass on the hot dogs.”
He placed the call and rummaged through my junk drawer, coming up with a pen and a small sticky notepad. He took a bunch of notes from the person on the other line and hung up.
“That was Fitzgerald,” he said. “He got called out to a shooting, and he thought I’d want to take a look. It’s a couple blocks from here.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Julius Roman. Shot execution style in front of his house. Close range. Single bullet to the head. He was found slumped over the steering wheel of his car.”
My heart skipped a bunch of beats and I was breathless for a moment. “I just saw him. He was at the viewing.”
“Obviously he didn’t stay long. The ME hasn’t gotten there yet, so time of death hasn’t been determined, but it had to be around eight o’clock. Fitzgerald said a neighbor was out walking his dog and noticed Roman. I don’t have a time on that, but the first responders rolled in at eight-thirty. Fitzgerald just got there and realized it was one of the La-Z-Boys.”
“I feel sort of sick.”
“Yeah, you’re a little pale.” Morelli got a cold bottle of beer from the fridge and put it to the back of my neck. “Breathe.”
“This leaves Benny the Skootch, Charlie Shine, and Lou Salgusta,” I said. “I don’t like any of those men. I almost liked Julius Roman. He seemed more conservative than the rest. I thought he might be the voice of reason in the group. And he had an idea who hired Lucca to kidnap Grandma, but he wouldn’t give me a name. He said it was just a suspicion.”
Morelli stopped holding the beer against my neck. He cracked it open and handed it to me. “I have to go. I’ll call when I know more.”
I locked my door after him and chugged half the bottle.
“I hate this,” I said to Rex. “I’m always nauseous. I keep thinking about Lou Salgusta burning his initials into women. It’s so disgusting. And people getting killed over stupid keys. What the heck is that about?”
I drank the rest of the beer and ate some Froot Loops out of the box. I ran a hand through my hair and felt the extensions. I’d forgotten about them. I went into the bathroom and checked them out in the mirror. I flipped my head around to make them move. They were pretty. Something was right in the world. It was a small something, but it was something all the same.
I found a Fred Astaire movie on the old movie channel and watched him dance with Ginger Rogers. Ginger was slim and Fred was slim and instead of talking all the time, sometimes they would sing. And then they would dance for no special reason and they’d be in perfect step without practicing. How cool is this? This is the planet I want to live on.
