High Five

I turned to see who put the purr in Terry's voice and wasn't all that surprised. It was Morelli.

He draped a proprietary arm around my shoulders and smiled at Terry. 'How's it going?'

'Can't complain,' Terry said.

Morelli cut his eyes to the casket at the end of the room. 'You know Martha?'

'Sure,' Terry said. 'We go way back.'

Morelli smiled some more.

'I think I'll go find Grandma,' I said.

Morelli tightened his hold on me. 'Not yet. I need to talk to you.' He nodded at Terry. 'Will you excuse us?'

'I need to be moving on anyway,' Terry said. She sent Joe a smoochy air kiss and went off in search of the Deeters.

Joe dragged me out to the lobby.

'That was very friendly back there,' I said, trying hard not to narrow my eyes and grind my teeth.

'We have a lot in common,' Morelli said. 'We both work in vice.'

'Hmm.'

'You know, you're kind of cute when you're jealous.'

'I'm not jealous.'

'Liar.'

Now my eyes were definitely narrowed, but I was secretly thinking it'd be nice if he'd kiss me. 'Did you want to discuss something?'

'Yeah. I want to know what the hell went on today. Did you really beat the shit out of that poor little Briggs guy?'

'No! He fell down the stairs.'

'Oh boy,' Morelli said.

'He did!'

'Honey, I say that all the time, and it's never true.'

'There were witnesses.'

Morelli was trying to look serious, but I could see the grin twitching at the corners of his mouth. 'Costanza said you tried to shoot the lock off, and when that didn't work you took an axe to the door.'

'That's totally wrong . . . it was a tire iron.'

'Christ,' Morelli said. 'Is it that time of the month?'

I pressed my lips together.

He tucked a clump of hair behind my ear and trailed a fingertip down my cheek.

'Guess I'll find out tomorrow.'

'Oh?'

'A woman's always an easy mark at a wedding,' Morelli said. I thought about the tire iron. It'd be really satisfying to clonk Morelli on the head with it. 'Is that why you invited me?'

Morelli grinned.

Yep. He definitely deserved to get smacked with the tire iron. Then after I smacked him I'd kiss him. Run my hand down his chest to his flat hard stomach to his nice hard . . .

Grandma materialized at my elbow. 'How nice to see you,' she said to Morelli. 'Hope this means you're going to start paying attention to my granddaughter again. Things are pretty dull since you got cut out of the scene.'

'She broke my heart,' Morelli said.

Grandma shook her head. 'She don't know much.'

Morelli looked pleased.

'Well, I'm ready to go,' Grandma said. 'Nothing to see here. They've got the lid nailed down. Besides, there's a Jackie Chan movie coming on at nine o'clock, and I don't want to miss it. Eeeya!' she said, making a kung fu-type move. 'You could come over to watch it with us,' Grandma said to Morelli. 'We've got some pie left from dessert, too.'

'Sounds good,' Morelli said, 'but I'm going to have to take a rain check. I'm working tonight. I have to relieve someone on a stakeout.'

*    *    *    *    *

 BUNCHY WAS NOWHERE in sight when we came out of the funeral home. So maybe the way to get rid of him was to feed him. I dropped Grandma off and continued on to my apartment. I circled the parking lot once, looking between cars, making sure Ramirez wasn't waiting for me.

Rex was running on his wheel when I came in. He stopped and twitched his whiskers at me when I flicked the light on.