“No way. I’m not talking to him. You can call him.”

“I don’t know him like you know him.”

“I don’t know him that way anymore. I’m done with him. He’s a jerk.”

“All men are jerks,” Lula said. “That don’t mean they aren’t good for some things. And Morelli’s a hot jerk. He could be a movie star or a underwear model if he wasn’t a cop. He got all that wavy black hair and dreamy brown bedroom eyes. He’s kind of puny compared to some men I know, but he’s hot all the same.”

Morelli was actually six foot tall and solid muscle, but Lula used to be engaged to a guy who was a cross between an Army tank and Sasquatch, so I suppose by comparison Morelli might measure up short.

“I’ll call Morelli,” Connie said. “He’s a cop, for crying out loud. You don’t need a complicated relationship to call a cop.”

I was halfway to the door. “I’m leaving. Things to do. And I don’t want to see Morelli.”

“Oh no,” Lula said. “You get your boney ass back here. We’re in this together. Through thick and through thin.”

“Since when?”

“Since now. And before that, too. Remember when I rescued you from that big snake in the mobile home? And what about when we were lost in the Pine Barrens?”

“You ran screaming like a little girl when you thought you saw the snake. And Ranger found us in the Pine Barrens.”

“Yeah, but if he hadn’t found us, I would have got us out.”

“You were up to your armpits in a cranberry bog.”

“I don’t never want to see another cranberry, neither,” Lula said.

Twenty minutes later, Morelli sauntered in to the bonds office. He was dressed in jeans and running shoes, a blue button-down shirt that was open at the neck, and a navy blazer. He looked entirely edible and a little wary.