“Wait!” I said, pulling back. “What’s that sound?”
He stopped and listened. “Rain?”
“It’s raining? How long has it been raining?”
“It started when I pulled into your lot.”
“Is it just a shower?”
“It’s supposed to rain for the rest of the night.”
I jumped away and straightened my T-shirt. “You have to go. The game will be called.”
“And?”
“Disaster!” I pushed him toward the door. “This is a sign,” I told him. “An act of God. I swear I’m going to church tomorrow.”
“That sounds extreme,” Ranger said.
“Morelli wanted to see me tonight but he promised his brother he’d go to the ball game with him. And now it’s raining!”
“Babe,” Ranger said, “you need to make some decisions.”
“I made decisions. I’m just having a hard time sticking to them.”
Ten minutes after Ranger left, Morelli showed up with Bob and a box of hot dogs. He shucked his shoes and his soaking wet windbreaker in the foyer and handed the box to me. “It started raining and they put the hot dogs on sale.”
I took the hot dogs into the kitchen, pulled the six-pack of beer from the fridge, and we stood at the sink and tore into hot dogs and beer. Morelli flipped a hot dog to Bob, who snatched it out of the air and ate it in one gulp.
“Catch any murderers tonight?” Morelli asked me.
“No. But Lula, Grandma, and I got kicked out of the Senior Center.”
Morelli looked over his hot dog at me. “So the night wasn’t a complete bust.”
“True. It’s not like I didn’t accomplish anything. How was the game?”
“Short.”
I debated telling him about Uncle Sunny getting an assful of buckshot, but decided against it. He’d find out soon enough, and he’d probably calm down by the time I saw him again.
Morelli polished off a third hot dog and slung an arm around my shoulders. “Do you know what I’d like now?”
“Ice cream?”
“Not even close.” He kissed my neck.
“Remember I have a broken finger.”
“I can work around it.”
I woke up smelling coffee. I opened my eyes as Morelli was setting a mug on my bedside table.
“How’s your finger?” he asked.
“Okay. How’s your leg?”
“It’s okay. I’m on my way out. I need to walk Bob and take him home. What’s going on with you today? Anything I should know about?”
“Bingo at the firehouse tonight.”
“Another chance to create chaos,” Morelli said. “Go for it.”
He kissed me on the top of my head, Bob gave me a slurp on the cheek, and they left.
I sipped my coffee and thought about my day. Probably it wasn’t going to be great. I took a shower, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and swiped on extra mascara to perk up my mood. I had a leftover hot dog for breakfast and headed for the office. I got the call just as I parked in the bonds office lot.
“Notice how calm I am,” Morelli said. “I’m not yelling, right?”
“Right.”
“You should know it’s costing me. I can feel myself getting a double hernia from keeping it in.”
“I’m supposing you heard something.”
“Everyone heard. It’s stopped just short of the morning news on CNN. What the heck happened?”
“What did you hear?” I asked him.
“I heard that you caught Sunny taking the garbage out for Rita, and you filled him with buckshot.”
“Actually, Rita was the one who shot Sunny. She was trying to shoot me, but she got him by mistake.”
“That doesn’t even make me feel better,” Morelli said.
“Lula, Grandma, and I were doing surveillance, and one thing led to another, and Sunny got a load of buckshot. How is he?”
“He’ll live. My mother said he got a few pellets in his leg and his ass.”
“Your mother said ‘ass’?”
“She said ‘buttock,’ but I feel stupid saying ‘buttock.’ My crazy grandmother is going to be on the rampage.”
“She already condemned me to hell. What’s left?”
“She could send you there sooner rather than later, and I wouldn’t be happy to have a dead girlfriend and a grandmother behind bars.”
“Do you really think she’d shoot me?”
“No. She’d poison you. She’s Sicilian. She’d get you with a meatball.”
I said goodbye on that happy thought and walked myself into the office.
“I’m not driving you anymore,” Lula said to me. “Every time I take you somewhere, people shoot at us.”