He waved us out of sight. “That’ll be great. Call me. Do you have my number? You can call anytime. I hardly ever sleep, even.”
Morelli stopped for a light, looked at me, and shook his head.
“Okay, so I’m wet,” I said.
“Albert thinks you’re cute.”
“He just wants to be part of the gang.” I brushed a clump of hair from my face. “How about you? Do you think I’m cute?”
“I think you’re crazy.”
“Yes. But besides that, you think I’m cute, right?” I gave him my Miss America smile and fluttered my lashes.
He glanced over at me, stone-faced.
I was feeling a little like Scarlett O’Hara at the end of
“Life is complicated,” I said to Morelli.
“No shit, cupcake.”
**********************
I WAVED GOOD-BYE to Morelli and dripped through the lobby to my building. I dripped in the elevator, and I dripped down the hall to my next-door neighbor, Mrs. Karwatt. I got my spare key from Mrs. Karwatt and then I dripped into my apartment. I stood in the middle of my kitchen floor and peeled my clothes off. I toweled my hair until it stopped dripping. I checked my messages. None. Rex popped out of his soup can, gave me a startled look, and rushed back into the can. Not the sort of reaction that makes a naked woman feel great… even from a hamster.
An hour later I was dressed in dry clothes, and I was downstairs waiting for Lula.
“Okay, let me get this straight,” Lula said when I settled into her Trans Am. “You need to do surveillance and you don’t got a car.”
I held my hand up to ward off the next question. “Don’t ask.”
“I’m hearing ‘don’t ask’ a lot lately.”
“It was stolen. My car was stolen.”
“
“I’m sure the police will find it. In the meantime, I want to take a look at Dotty Palowski Rheinhold. She’s living in South River.”
“And South River is
“I’ve got a map. Turn left out of the lot.”
South River jug-handles off Route 18. It’s a small town squashed between strip malls and clay pits and has more bars per square mile than any other town in the state. The entrance provides a scenic overlook of the landfill. The exit crosses the river into Sayreville, famous for the great dirt swindle of 1957 and Jon Bon Jovi. Dotty Rheinhold lived in a neighborhood of tract houses built in the sixties. Yards were small. Houses were smaller. Cars were large and plentiful.
“You ever see so many cars?” Lula said. “Every house has at least three cars. They’re everywhere.”
It was an easy neighborhood for surveillance. It had reached an age where houses were filled with teenagers. The teenagers had cars of their own, and the teenagers had friends who had cars. One more car on the street would never be noticed. Even better, this was suburbia. There were no front-porch-stoop sitters. Everyone migrated to the postage stamp-size backyards, which were crammed full of outdoor grills, above-ground pools, and herds of lawn chairs.
Lula parked the Trans Am one house down and across the street from Dotty. “Do you think Annie and her mom are living with Dotty?”
