He disappeared behind the elevator doors, and I retreated into my apartment.
Hooray I told myself. But I didn't actually feel like hooray. I felt like someone had thrown a party, and I hadn't been included on the guest list. I puzzled on this, trying to determine the cause for my discomfort. The obvious reason, of course, was that I was jealous. I didn't like the obvious reason, so I kept working for another. Finally I gave up in defeat. Truth is, there was unfinished business between Morelli and me. A couple months ago we'd had Buick interruptus, and as much as I hated to admit it, I'd been thinking of him in torrid terms ever since.
And then there was the house move, which seemed so out of character for Morelli the bachelor. But suppose Morelli was thinking of cohabitating? My God, suppose Morelli was thinking of marriage?
I didn't at all like the idea of Morelli getting married. It would wreck my fantasy life, and it would put added pressure on me. My mother would be saying to me . . . Look! Even Joe Morelli is married!
I dropped onto the couch and punched up the television, but there wasn't anything worth seeing. I cleaned the beer cans and pizza off the coffee table. I plugged the telephone back into the wall and reset the answering machine. I tried the television again.
I had a third beer, and when that was done I felt slightly buzzed. Damn Morelli, I thought. He has a lot of nerve getting involved with some other woman.
The more I thought about it, the more annoyed I became. Who was this woman, anyway?
I called Sue Ann Grebek and discreetly asked who the hell Morelli was boffing, but Sue Ann didn't know. I called Mary Lou and my cousin Jeanine, but they didn't know either.
Well, that settles it, I decided. I'll find out for myself. After all, I'm some sort of investigator. I'll simply investigate.
Trouble was, the events of the last two days had me pretty much freaked out. I wasn't afraid of the dark, but I wasn't in love with it either. Well, okay, I was afraid of the dark. So I called Mary Lou back and asked her if she wanted to spy on Morelli with me.
“Sure,” Mary Lou said. “Last time we spied on Morelli we were twelve years old. We're due.”
I laced up my running shoes, pulled a hooded sweatshirt over the sweatshirt I was wearing and shoved my hair under a black knit cap. I trucked down the hall, down the stairs, and ran into Dillon Ruddick in the lobby. Dillon was the building super and an all-around nice guy.
“I'll give you five dollars if you'll walk me to my car,” I said to Dillon.
“I'll walk you for free,” Dillon said. “I was just taking the garbage out.”
Another advantage to parking by the Dumpster.
Dillon paused at the Buick. “This is a humdinger of a car,” he said.
I couldn't argue with that.
Mary Lou was waiting at the curb when I pulled up to her house. She was wearing tight black jeans, a black leather motorcycle jacket, black high-heeled ankle boots and big gold hoop earrings. Evening wear for the well-dressed burg peeper.
“You ever tell anybody I did this, and I'll deny it. And then I'll hire Manny Russo to shoot you in the knee,” Mary Lou said.
“I just want to see if he has a woman with him.”
“Why?”
I looked over at her.
“Okay,” she said. “I know why.”
Morelli's car was parked in front. The living room lights were out in his house, but the kitchen light was on, just as it had been earlier in the evening.
A figure moved through the house, up the stairs. A light blinked on in one of the upstairs rooms. The figure returned to the kitchen.
Mary Lou giggled. And then I giggled. Then we slapped ourselves so we'd stop giggling.
“I'm a mother,” Mary Lou said. “I'm not supposed to be doing stuff like this. I'm too old.”
“A woman's never too old to make an idiot of herself. It goes along with equality of the sexes and potty parity.”
“Suppose we find him in the kitchen with a sock on his dick?”
“In your dreams.”