“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.”
