“No. That was part of the problem. Everything we had on him was circumstantial and coincidence.”
“Then why did you move?”
“It was the Feds' call. There were events that led us to believe he was printing.”
“But he wasn't.”
“No. Not money, anyway.” Morelli looked at the twenty again. “It's very possible there are just a bunch of these twenties floating around, and Nowicki's mother inadvertently passed one on.”
There was a knock on the door, and Morelli went to get it.
It was Sally.
“He's bananas!” Sally said. “He tried to kill me! The poor dumb sonnovabitch tried to fucking kill me.”
Sally looked like an overgrown, demented, testosterone-?gone-?berserk schoolgirl. Plaid pleated skirt, crisp white blouse, grungy sweat socks and beatup Reeboks. No makeup, no wig, two-?day beard, hairy chest peeking out the top of the blouse.
“Who's trying to kill you?” I asked. I assumed it was his roomie, but with the way Sally was dressed it could be most anyone.
“Sugar. He's freaked out. Stormed out of the club after the gig on Sunday night and didn't come home until about an hour ago. Walked in the door with a gallon of gasoline and a Bic lighter and said he was going to torch the place, claiming he was in love with me. Can you believe it?”
“Go figure.”
“He was ranting on about how everything was fine until you showed up, and then I stopped paying attention to him.”
“Doesn't he know you're not gay?”
“He said if you hadn't interfered I would have developed an attraction for him.” Sally ran his hand through his Wild Man of Borneo hair. “My luck, someone goes fucking gonzo over me, and it's a guy.”
“Could have something to do with the way you dress.”
Sally looked down at his skirt. “I was trying this on when he barged in. I'm thinking of changing my image to wholesome.”
Morelli and I both bit into our lower lips.
“So what happened?” Morelli asked. “Did he set fire to the apartment?”
“No. I wrestled the gas can out of his hands and threw it out the window. He tried to set fire to the rug with his Bic, but the rug wouldn't burn. All he did was make big black melt spots and stink the place up. Synthetic fibers, you know. Finally he gave up and ran away to get more gas. I decided I wasn't going to wait around to get turned into a briquette, so I stuffed a bunch of clothes into a couple of garbage bags and took off.”
Morelli had a grim expression on his face. “And you came here.”
“Yeah. I thought with the way you handled him in the club, and with you being a cop and all, this was a safe place to stay.” He held up his hands. “Just for a couple days! I don't want to impose.”
“Shit,” Morelli said. “What does this look like, a halfway house for potential victims of homicidal maniacs?”
“It might not be such a bad idea,” I said. “If Sally let it be known he was living here, we might draw Sugar in.”
Truth is, I was enormously relieved to know the identity of the firebomber. And I was sort of relieved to find it was Sugar. Better than the mob. And better than the guy who cuts off fingers.
“Two things wrong with that,” Morelli said. “Number one, I can't get excited about my house being turned into an inferno. Number two, grabbing Sugar won't do much good if we can't convict him of a crime.”
“No problem there,” Sally said. “He told me about how he firebombed Stephanie's apartment and how he tried to burn down this house, too.”
“You willing to testify to that?”
“I can do better than testify. I've got his diary out in the car. It's filled with juicy details.”
Morelli leaned against the counter, arms crossed over his chest. “The only way I'll agree to this is if neither of you actually stays here. You put the word out that you're living with me, and twice a day you go in and out the front door, so it looks real. Then I put you in a safe house for the night.”