police before I'd passed out. They'd arrived in time to catch Ramirez halfway up my fire escape. Then they'd trundled him off to jail and me off to the hospital. Fortunately, I'd fared better than Alpha. He was dead. I was alive.
Ten thousand dollars had been deposited in my bank account. Not a cent of it had been spent yet. I was slowed down by seventeen stitches in my butt. When the stitches came out I figured I'd do something irresponsible like fly to Martinique for the weekend. Or maybe I'd get a tattoo or dye my hair red.
I jumped at the sound of someone knocking on my door. It was almost seven p.m., and I wasn't expecting company. I cautiously made my way to the foyer and looked out the peephole. I gasped at the sight of Joe Morelli in sports coat and jeans, clean shaven, hair freshly trimmed. He stared directly at the peephole. His smile was smug. He knew I was looking at him, wondering if it would be wise to open the door. He waved, and I was reminded of a time two weeks earlier when our positions had been reversed.
I unlocked the two dead bolts but left the chain in place. I cracked the door. "Yes?"
"Take the chain off," Morelli said.
"Why?"
"Because I brought you a pizza, and if I tip it on end to give it to you the cheese will slide off."
"Is it a Pino's pizza?"
"Of course it's a Pino's pizza."
I shifted my weight to ease my left leg. "Why are you bringing me pizza?"
"I don't know. I just felt like it. Are you going to open the door or what?"
"I haven't decided."
This brought a slow, evil smile. "Are you afraid of me?"
"Uh . . . yes."
The smile stayed fixed in place. "You should be. You locked me in a refrigerator truck with three dead people. Sooner or later, I'm going to get you for it."
"But not tonight?"
"No," he said. "Not tonight."
I closed the door, slid the chain free, and opened the door to him.
He put the white pizza box and a six-pack on the kitchen counter and turned to me. "Looks like you're walking a little slow. How are you feeling?"
"Okay. Fortunately, Alpha's bullet tore through some fat and did most of its damage to the wall in the hallway."
His smile had faded. "How are you really feeling?"
I'm not sure what it is about Morelli, but he never fails to strip my defenses. Even when I'm on guard, being watchful, Morelli can piss me off, turn me on, make me question my judgment, and, in general, provoke inconvenient emotions. Concern pinched the corners of his eyes, and there was a seriousness to his mouth that belied the casual tone of his question.
I bit down hard on my lip, but the tears came anyway, silently spilling down my cheeks.
Morelli gathered me into his arms and held me close He rested his cheek against the top of my head and pressed a kiss into my hair.
We stood like that for a long time, and if it hadn't been for the pain in my butt I might have fallen asleep, finally comforted and at peace, feeling safe in Morelli's arms.
"If I ask you a serious question," Morelli murmured against my ear, "will you give me an honest answer?"
"Maybe."
"Do you remember that time in my father's garage?"
"Vividly."
"And when we went at it in the bakery . . ."
"Un huh."
"Why did you do it? Are my powers of persuasion really that strong?"
I tipped my head back to look at him. "I suspect it had more to do with curiosity and rebellion on my part." Not to mention hormones on the rampage.
"So you're willing to share some of the responsibility?"
"Of course."
The smile had returned to his mouth. "And, if I made love to you here in the kitchen . . . how much of the blame would you be willing to assume?"
"Jesus, Morelli, I've got seventeen stitches in my ass!"
He sighed. "Do you think we could be friends after all these years?"
This from the person who had tossed my keys into a Dumpster. "I suppose it's possible. We wouldn't have to sign a pact and seal it in blood, would we?"
"No, but we could belch over beer."
"My kind of contract."
"Good. Now that we have that settled, there's a ballgame I'd like to see, and you have my television."
"Men always have ulterior motives," I said, carting the pizza into the living room.
Morelli followed with the beer. "How do you manage this sitting business?"
"I have a rubber doughnut. If you make any cracks about it, I'll gas you."
He shrugged out of his jacket and shoulder holster, hung them on the doorknob to my bedroom door, buzzed the TV on, and searched for his channel. "I got some reports for you," he said. "Are you up to it?"
"A half hour ago I might have said no, but now that I have this pizza I'm up to anything."
"It's not the pizza, darlin'. It's my masculine presence."
I raised an eyebrow.
Morelli ignored the eyebrow. "First of all, the medical examiner said you were due for the Robin Hood sharpshooter award. You got Alpha with five rounds to the heart, all within an inch of each other. Pretty amazing, considering you also shot the shit out of your pocketbook."
We both chugged some beer, since neither of us was sure yet how we felt about me killing a man. Pride seemed out of place. Sorrow didn't quite fit. There was definitely regret.
"Do you think it could have ended any other way?" I asked.
"No." Morelli said. "He would have killed you if you hadn't killed him first."
This was true. Jimmy Alpha would have killed me. There was no doubt in my mind.
Morelli leaned forward to see the pitch. Howard Barker struck out. "Shit," Morelli said. He turned his attention back to me. "Now for the good part. I had a recorder attached to the utility pole on the far side of your parking lot. I was using it for back-up when I wasn't around. I could check it at the end of the day and catch up if I'd missed anything. The damn thing was still working when Jimmy dropped in on you. Recorded the whole conversation, the shooting and everything, clear as a bell."
"Dang!"
"Sometimes I'm so slick I scare myself," Morelli said.
"Slick enough not to be locked up in jail."
He selected a piece of pizza, losing some green pepper and onion slices in the process, scooping them back on with his fingers. "I've been cleared of all charges and reinstated in the department, pay retroactive. The gun was in the barrel with Carmen. It had been refrigerated all this time, so the prints were clear, and forensics found traces of blood on it. DNA hasn't come back yet, but preliminary lab tests suggest the blood is Ziggy's, proving Ziggy was armed when I shot him. Apparently, the gun jammed when Ziggy fired at me, just as I'd suspected. When Ziggy hit the floor, the gun fell out of his hand, and Louis picked it up and took it with him. Then Louis must have decided to get rid of it."
I took a deep breath and asked the question that had been uppermost in my mind for the last three days. "What about Ramirez?"
"Ramirez is being held without bail pending psychiatric evaluation. Now that Alpha is out of the picture, several very creditable women have come forward to testify against Ramirez."
The sense of relief was almost painful.
"What are your plans?" Morelli asked. "You going to keep working for Vinnie?"
"I'm not sure." I ate some pizza. "Probably," I said. "Almost definitely probably."
"Just to clear the air," Morelli said. "I'm sorry I wrote that poem about you on the stadium wall when we were in high school."
I felt my heart stutter. "On the stadium wall?"
Silence.
Color rose to Morelli's cheekbones. "I thought you knew."
"I knew about Mario's Sub Shop!"
"Oh."
"Are you telling me you wrote a poem about me on the stadium wall? A poem detailing what transpired behind the éclair case?"
"Would it help any if I told you the poem was flattering?"
I wanted to smack him, but he was on his feet and moving before I could get out of my rubber tube.
"It was years ago," he said, dancing away from me. "Shit, Stephanie, it's unattractive to hold a grudge."
"You are scum, Morelli. Scum."
"Probably," Morelli said, "but I give good . . . pizza."