like he'd had another one of those days. Probably I should have waited for a better time to ask him about the truck, but I had to be at my mother's in an hour for dinner. Maybe I should try a different approach. I ran my fingertip across his sweat-soaked T-shirt and leaned very close. "You look . . . hot."
"Honey, I'm about as hot as a man can get."
"I might be able to do something about that."
His eyes narrowed. "Let me get this straight. Are you offering sex for the use of my truck?"
"Well, no, not exactly."
"Then what are you offering?"
I didn't know what I was offering. I'd intended this to be sort of playful, but Morelli wasn't playing.
"I need a beer," Morelli said. "I've had a really long day, and it's going to be even longer. I have to relieve Grossman in an hour."
"Anything new turn up on Kuntz's car?"
"Nothing. "
"Anything happen at the Seven-Eleven?"
"Nothing." He pulled on his beer. "How was your day?"
"Slow. Not a lot going on."
"Who you want to watch?"
"Mrs. Nowicki. She moved back into her house. I went in to talk to her, and she was packing."
"Doesn't mean she's going to take you to Maxine," Morelli said.
I shrugged. "It's all I've got."
"No, it's not," Morelli said. "You're sitting on something."
I raised an eyebrow. It said, Oh yeah?
Morelli chucked the empty beer bottle into the recycling bin. "This better not have to do with the counterfeiting case I'm on. I'd hate to think you were withholding evidence."
"Who me?"
He took a step closer and pinned me to the counter. "So, how bad do you want my truck?"
"Pretty bad."
His gaze dropped to my mouth. "How bad?"
"Not that bad."
Morelli gave a disgusted sigh and backed off. "Women."
Sally was watching MTV, singing along with the groups, doing his head-banger thing.
"Jesus," Morelli said, looking into the living room, "it's a wonder he doesn't shake something loose."
"I CAN'T loan you my car," my father said. "It's gotta go in to get serviced tomorrow. I got an appointment. What's wrong with the Buick you're driving?"
"The Buick is no good for surveillance," I said. "People stare at it."
We were at the table, and my mother was serving out stuffed cabbage. Plop, onto my plate, four cabbage rolls. I opened the button on my shorts and reached for my fork.
"I need a new car," I said. "Where's my insurance money?"
"You need a steady job," my mother said. "Something that pays benefits. You're not getting any younger, you know. How long can you go chasing hoodlums all over Trenton? If you had a steady job you could finance a car."
"Most of the time my job is steady. I just got stuck with a lemon of a case here."
"You live from hand to mouth."
What could I say; she was right.
"I could get you a job driving a school bus," my father said, digging into his dinner. "I know the guy does the hiring. You make good money driving a school bus."
"One of them daytime shows did a thing on school bus drivers," Grandma said. "And two of the drivers got bleeding hemorrhoids on account of the seats weren't any good."
My eye had started to twitch again. I put my finger to it to make it stop.
"What's wrong with your eye?" my mother asked. "Do you have that twitch back?"
"Oh, I almost forgot," Grandma said. "One of your friends came looking for you today. I said you were out working, and she gave me a note for you."
"Mary Lou?"
"No, not Mary Lou. Someone I didn't know. Real pretty. Must have been one of those makeup ladies at the mall, because she was wearing a ton of makeup."
"Not Joyce!"
"No. I'm telling you it was someone I didn't know. The note's in the kitchen. I left it on the counter by the phone."
I pushed away from the table and went to get the note. It was in a small, sealed envelope. "STEPHANIE" had been printed in neat block letters on the face of the envelope. It looked like an invitation to a shower or a birthday party. I opened the envelope and put a hand to the counter to steady myself. The message was simple. "DIE BITCH." And in smaller script it said when I least suspected it he'd make his move. It was written on a recipe card.
What was even more disturbing than the message in the note was the fact that Sugar had waltzed right into my parents' house and handed the envelope to Grandma.