Джанет Иванович - Fortune and Glory

“Was anyone hurt?”

“No. Not seriously. A bunch of people got a contact high from the weed burning and one of the customers slipped going down the stairs and cracked his head.”

Connie’s attention shifted to the door. “Uh oh,” she said. “Morelli’s here, and he doesn’t look happy.”

I’d been dreading this. The Margo fiasco wasn’t going to help smooth things over with us. If anything, it was going to reinforce his position that I was a nut case. Morelli started out as a wild kid and turned into a more or less sane adult. I started out as a more or less normal kid and lately I’ve become a walking disaster.

I gave up a sigh and turned in my seat. “Hey,” I said to Morelli.

He crooked his finger at me. “I’d like to see you outside.”

I did an eye-roll at Connie and joined Morelli on the sidewalk. If you dressed Morelli up in a suit, he looked like a gangster. If he was undercover and required to wear khakis, he looked ridiculous. Today he was wearing his usual outfit of black running shoes, dark jeans, a blue button-down shirt, and a black blazer. Today he was hot cop . He was lean and muscled, with black wavy hair, a constant five o’clock shadow, and testosterone to spare. His father was an abusive, womanizing drunk. His grandmother is batshit crazy. Morelli is none of those things. Morelli is a good cop, and until recently he’d been a good boyfriend.

“I just came from what’s left of the Margo,” Morelli said. “I was told I missed you by a couple minutes.”

I leaned into him a little. “You smell smoky,” I said.

“I smell like burnt weed. Do you want to explain this to me?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Do it anyway,” Morelli said.

“I was pretty sure that Charlie Shine’s car was parked by the Margo, so…”

Morelli went to his eyes-narrowed cop face. Never a good sign.

“If you want me to keep going, you’re going to have to get rid of the scary cop face,” I said.

“Not gonna happen,” Morelli said. “Keep going anyway.”

I went to my own eyes-narrowed, don’t-mess-with-me face. “Fine,” I said. “Whatever. Lula and I went to the Margo to check things out. We opened the basement door and heard someone singing the Hi Ho Hi Ho song.”

“What’s the Hi Ho Hi Ho song?”

“The Seven Dwarfs song.”

I sang the song for him and he cracked a smile. When Morelli smiled it was like puppies and fresh-baked, warm chocolate chip cookies. His brown eyes got soft and dark, and I wanted to snuggle into him. The snuggle was usually followed by the desire to undress him. All things considered, this wasn’t appropriate at the present time and place, so I kept my distance and told myself to get a grip.

“We went down to investigate, and it turned out it was Lou Salgusta singing,” I said. “He got carried away when he saw Lula and me and accidentally set about six bales of weed on fire. The bales were next to some crates labeled EXPLOSIVES, and that was the end of the Margo.”

“You’re lucky it wasn’t the end of you .”

“We were already on our way out when the first explosion went off. Are you assigned to investigate the fire?”

“I’m investigating a homicide that took place at the Margo last week. I wanted to make sure the two incidents were unrelated.”

“And?”

“Now that I’ve spoken to you, I don’t see a connection,” Morelli said.

“Always happy to help the police.”

“If you wanted to help the police, you’d give up this crazy treasure hunt and give the keys to Benny.”

“If the police want to help me , they’d get Salgusta off the streets. Keys, or no keys, he’s convinced Grandma has information that he needs to access the treasure.”

“And?”

“And she doesn’t have that information. It wasn’t passed on to her.”

“Any more bad news?”

“I’m all out of Frosted Flakes.”

“Tragic,” Morelli said.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

“Your intentions are good but misdirected,” he said. “You aren’t helping. You’re meddling. You’re making things more difficult for the professionals.”

“That’s absolutely not true. I’m not meddling in police affairs. I’m pursuing my own investigation, and there is still an outstanding bond on Shine.”

“Okay, let me put it another way. You’re making things more difficult for me . I’m at my desk in the middle of paperwork and I get a call from dispatch that the Margo blew up and you were seen jumping out of a window.”

“It was more of a short drop,” I said. “Still it’s nice to know you were worried about me.”

“Worried doesn’t cover it,” Morelli said. “Mostly, I was really pissed off that I was so freaking worried.”

His phone buzzed and he went into cop mode. “I have to go. Gang shooting in the projects. This is going to be a long day.”

“Do you want me to walk Bob?”

“No.” He took a moment to stare down at his shoe. “Yes,” he said. “Thanks. I won’t get home anytime soon. And besides, he misses you.”

“I miss him, too,” I said.

Morelli looked like he was going in for a kiss. He stopped himself midway and gave his head a shake like he thought he was an idiot. I understood this completely because I thought we were both idiots.

I watched him drive away and I returned to the office.

“I sent you a picture of the white Kia parked by the Margo,” I said to Connie. “The manager said he hadn’t seen Shine, but it would be easy for Shine to walk through the lobby to the cellar door and not be noticed.”

“And the tunnel entrance would be in the cellar,” Connie said.

“Probably in the area where Salgusta was working. Unfortunately, that lead is now a dead end. Were you able to run the Kia plate?”

“It’s a rental. Rented to Lester March. Bogus address and driver’s license with Shine’s picture on it.”

“I don’t suppose you have anything else for me?”

“No, but I’ll keep digging,” Connie said.

I left the office and drove past Rodney Trotter’s house. His van wasn’t parked at the curb, so I kept going. He was undoubtedly trolling neighborhoods, looking for women who wanted bigger butts, keeping an eye out for roadkill he could take home and stuff.

I gave up on Trotter and went to Morelli’s house. It was within minutes of my parents’ house, in a very similar neighborhood. The layout of the house was almost identical to my parents’ house. He’d inherited the house from his Aunt Ruth, and he was gradually making it his own, modernizing the kitchen and swapping out Ruth’s dining room furniture with a billiards table.

I opened the front door and Bob galloped the length of the house and slammed into me. He was a big, shaggy, orange-haired beast with soft brown eyes that were a half-shade lighter than Morelli’s. I gave him a hug and told him he was a good boy.

“So here I am, back again,” I said to him. “Right now, it’s just to take you for a walk, but then we’ll see how it goes.”

I checked out the living room. It was way too neat. No pizza boxes or empty soda cans on the coffee table. No shoes that had obviously been kicked off under the coffee table.

“What’s with this neat house thing?” I asked Bob. “And look at you . Have you been to a groomer? You’re all fluffy and you don’t smell like a dog.”

I marched into the kitchen. No dirty dishes in the sink. No coffee cup rings on the counter. Not that Morelli was a complete slob, but he wasn’t Felix from The Odd Couple, either. I looked in his fridge. No fresh lasagna from his mom, so she hadn’t stopped in to clean his house. And then I saw it. A bottle of Chardonnay. There was only one explanation. The son of a bitch had a new girlfriend. And she was a Chardonnay drinker. Ick! Gross.