Mrs. Karwatt on the second floor threw her window open and leaned out. “What's going on out there?”
A shotgun barrel poked from Mr. Weinstein's window. “Whose alarm is that? It's not my Cadillac, is it?”
The only window without a face was mine. I figured that was because Morelli was thundering down the stairs.
I ran to my car with my keys in my hand.
“Stay away from that car, or I'll shoot,” Mr. Weinstein shouted.
“It's my car,” I yelled back.
“The hell it is,” Mr. Weinstein said, squinting at me through his inch-thick trifocals. BOOM! Mr. Weinstein fired and took out the windshield on the car next to me.
I bolted across the grass median into the street and streaked for the houses on the other side. I stopped and looked back. Morelli was pacing under the rear overhang, shouting at Mr. Weinstein, obviously afraid to venture out into the lot for fear of getting shot.
I slipped into the shadows between two houses, hopped a backyard fence and came out onto Elm Street. I crossed Elm and repeated the pattern, bringing me to Hartland. I jogged a block up Hartland, crossed Hamilton and plastered myself against the brick wall of an all-night convenience store.
The previous owner of the store had been Joe Echo. He'd sold it in November, and the new Asian owner, Sam Pei, had changed the name to The American Store. I thought the name was appropriate. The American Store contained a sampling of everything an American might need at four times the price. A box of Fig Newtons for $7.50. No matter that there were only twelve in a box. I guess when you needed a Fig Newton in the middle of the night, you damn well didn't care what it cost.
I pulled a knit cap out of my pocket and tugged it down over my ears. The battery was low on my cell phone, so I searched in my shoulder bag for a quarter, found one, dropped it into the pay phone and dialed my number.
Morelli answered on the fourth ring.
I unclenched my teeth enough to get a few words out. “What the hell are you doing in my apartment?”
“Waiting for you,” Morelli said.
“What were you eating just now?”
“Spice cake. There's still some left, but you'd better hurry.”
I neatly clicked the phone back into the receiver. “Ugh!”
I bought a Snickers from Mr. Pei and ate it while I walked. Time to be realistic. Morelli was a lot better at this cops-and-robbers stuff than I was. It seemed to me that if he wanted to arrest me, he would have done it by now. For that matter, if he was serious about bringing me in for further questioning he would have done it. Probably there was no immediate need for the Kaopectate.
So why was Morelli harassing me? Because he wanted something. What did he want? Information that I might be withholding? Maybe he thought he could worm some missing details out of me better under more casual circumstances. Or maybe he wanted to threaten me without witnesses. Or maybe he wanted to ask me for a date.
I turned the corner at Hartland and decided I should talk to Morelli. This was no longer a simple recovery. Mo was still missing. A man had been killed. I'd been threatened. And there were some details I'd neglected to tell Morelli when I'd been questioned at the station. Not to mention the spice cake.
Everything looked status quo when I got to my parking lot. Lights were on in my apartment. Morelli's car hadn't been moved. A small gathering of people were clustered around the Chrysler Mr. Weinstein had used for target practice. Mr. Weinstein was there with a big piece of plastic bagging and a roll of duct tape in his hand.
“Another minute and he would have been driving off in this car, I'm telling you,” Mr. Weinstein was saying. “Better a broken windshield than a stolen car.”
“Isn't that the truth,” Arty Boyt said. “Good thing you had that gun handy.”
Everyone else nodded. Good thing, they all said.
I slipped into the building and went to the pay phone at the front of the small lobby. I dropped a quarter and called upstairs.
“It's me again,” I said when Morelli answered.
“Where are you?”
“Far away.”
“Liar.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “I saw you cross the parking lot.”
“Why are you stalking me?”