Just for kicks I drove by Morelli's house. Sort of testdriving the pickup. Morelli's car was parked at the curb, and lights were on inside the house. I eased up behind the 4x4 and cut the engine. I checked myself out in the rearview mirror. When a person has orange hair it's best to appraise it in the dark.
“Well, what the hell,” I said.
By the time I knocked on Morelli's front door my heart was doing little flutter things in my chest.
Morelli opened the door and grimaced. “If you have another dead guy in your car I don't want to hear about it.”
“This is a social call.”
“Even worse.”
The chest flutterings stopped. “What kind of a crack is that?”
“It's nothing. Forget it. You look frozen. Where's your coat?”
I stepped into the foyer. “I didn't wear a coat. It was warmer when I started out this afternoon.”
I followed Morelli back to the kitchen and watched while he filled a cordial glass with amber liquid.
“Here,” he said, handing the glass over. “Fastest way to get warm.”
I took a sniff. “What is it?”
“Schnapps. My uncle Lou makes it in his cellar.”
I tried a teeny taste and my tongue went numb. “I don't know . . .”
Morelli raised eyebrows. “Chicken?”
“I don't see you drinking this stuff.”
Morelli took the glass from my hand and tossed the contents down his throat. He refilled the glass and gave it back to me. “Your turn, cupcake.”
“To the pope,” I said and drained the glass.
“Well?” Morelli asked. “What do you think?”
I did some coughing and openmouthed wheezing. My throat burned, and liquid fire roiled in my stomach and shot through to every extremity. My scalp started to sweat, and my vagina went into spasm. “Pretty good,” I finally said to Morelli.
“Want another?”
I shook my finger in a no motion. “Maybe later.”
“What's with the suit?”
I told him about Ranger's car, and about my second trip to speak to Mrs. Steeger. I told him about Dorothy Rostowski and Mrs. Bartle.
“People are nuts,” Morelli said. “Freaking nuts.”
“So why don't you want this to be a social visit?”
“Forget it.”
“It's the hair, isn't it?”
“It's not the hair.”
“You're secretly married?”