“Suppose it’s police business?” Lula wanted to know. “Like maybe it’s a sting.”

“He’s not working vice anymore. And this isn’t even in Trenton.”

“You aren’t going to do something stupid like beat down the door, are you?”

I parked at the far end of the lot, behind a tan van. “Do you have a better idea?”

“We could sneak around back and listen in. Then if we hear them doing the deed we can beat down the door.”

I’d rather knock and have Morelli answer the door half-dressed than catch Morelli and Gilman in the act. I couldn’t think of too many things that would be more depressing than hearing or seeing Morelli playing hide the salami with someone other than me. On the other hand, I didn’t want to make a false accusation. “Okay,” I said, “we’ll go around back.”

We walked around the side of the motel and began counting off units. Each unit had two windows on the back side. I was guessing one window was in the bathroom and one in the bedroom. There were twelve units in the first building. All were at ground level. A strip of grass hugged the back of the building. Beyond the grass was a chunk of overgrown woods filled with refuse. A plastic milk crate. Soda cans. A torn mattress. I had no idea what was on the other side of the wooded area.

Curtains were drawn on all the units. We listened briefly at each window, hearing nothing. We got to the seventh unit and heard voices. Lula and I pressed closer to the window. The voices were muted, difficult to hear. The back window was closed. The air-conditioner was running in the front window. There was a slight break in the curtain halfway up the back window. Lula tippytoed to the woods and got the milk crate. She put the milk crate under the window and motioned that I should get on the crate and look in the window.

No way was I going to look in the window. I didn’t want to see what was going on inside. I whispered to Lula that she should look.

Lula got up on the milk crate, pressed her nose to the window . . . and her phone rang. Lula grabbed at the phone hooked onto her stretch pants and stopped the ringing, but it was too late. Everyone heard the phone.

Shouting erupted from inside the motel room. A gunshot rang out. And a large man in a tan suit crashed through the window and knocked Lula off the milk crate.

“What the hell?” Lula said, sprawled on the ground in a tangle of curtain, sprinkled with window glass.

I wasn’t sure what any of this was about, but I’d heard the shot and the guy who came through the window wasn’t Joe, so I roundhoused him with my purse and sent him to his knees. I had him at gunpoint when Morelli stuck his head out the broken window.