I decided to take a nap, and woke up in time to be a good wife and prepare dinner for my husband. Dickie was working on a big case again, but I was hopeful he would at least be home for dinner. I was preparing dinner, aka heating up food I'd lovingly purchased from the deli, when my phone rang. Morelli.

"We have a problem," he told me.

Oh no. There couldn't be a good reason that Morelli was calling so soon.

"Dougie?"

"Well the good news is that there's no one matching his description in the hospitals, and he hasn't floated in on the tide yet. The bad news is that I went over to Eddie DeChooch's house in case he had Dougie tied up in his basement, and I found a dead body in his garden shed."

My heart dropped. "Not Dougie?"

"No, a woman. Not Dougie. But it means that Dougie could be involved in some serious business. I'm getting worried."

Getting worried? A dead body and Morelli isn't fully worried yet? That settles it, I could never be a cop. I worry too quickly.

"What do we do?" I asked him.

"I'm going to ask around and see what I can find out. Let me know if you hear any gossip about what might have happened to Dougie."

"Will do," I said, hanging up. I was so engrossed in my worry over Dougie that I didn't notice that Dickie was home until he leaned over to kiss me hello. I yelped, jumping away.

"Dickie! You scared me! I didn't hear you come home."

"You were on the phone. Who were you talking to?" he asked me.

"Oh, just Morelli. A friend of ours has gone missing and," I started explaining when he cut me off.

"Did he call you or did you call him?"

"What? He called me. Why?"

"I don't like that he's calling you all the time, Steph. Why does he need to call a married woman for? I think he's trying to cause trouble."

I wanted to laugh. Morelli didn't need to try to cause trouble. Morelli and trouble went together in my life.

"He's helping me, Dickie. A friend of mine, Dougie, has gone missing."

"Dougie? Is he the one who sold your Grandma the stolen car?"

"We don't know for sure that it was stolen."

"How do you get mixed up in this stuff, Steph?"

"I don't know, just lucky, I guess," I said flippantly, serving myself up some of the curry I'd heated, and taking more than my fair share of naan bread. If Dickie was going to be such a – well, a dick – then he didn't deserve naan bread.

The next night we were due to have dinner with my parents. Dickie drove there straight from work and managed to beat me there. By the time I got inside, he was sitting in the living room with a glass of wine, trying to chat to my father, who was trying to ignore him and watch TV.

I kissed them both hello, then walked through to the kitchen to say hello to my mother, and noticed an extra place setting at the table.

"Who is coming to dinner?" I asked.

"Your grandmother has invited someone," Mom said. "I don't know who. Probably someone from the seniors centre, but she won't say." I looked over at Grandma and there was a gleam in her eye that I didn't like. Mom finished stirring the gravy and transferred it into a gravy boat at the same time the doorbell rang.

"That'll be my date!" Grandma said, getting up and moving swiftly toward the door.

"Pot roast is ready!" my mother called out, moving the food to the table. My father appeared and sat down at his spot, and Dickie came into the room after him. I started carrying dishes over too, then was nearly knocked down by a fast-moving blonde blur. Bob? What was he doing here?

Then I understood why Grandma had a gleam in her eye. She walked into the room, followed by Morelli.

"I saw Detective Morelli down near the beauty parlour today and he was looking underfed," Grandma announced. "The poor man doesn't have a woman to look after him, so I invited him to dinner as my date. Now I have a hottie as a date too, not just Steph."

My mother looked a bit confused, then I swear that I saw her roll her eyes.

"Detective Morelli," Dickie said, apparently deciding that was enough of a greeting. He did not look happy, even with Grandma referring to him as a hottie, which would normally cheer him up. I put my hand out and squeezed his leg under the table.

"Hi Joe," I said. We all settled down around the table, except for Bob who was banished to a corner of the room. My father looked up, assessed the situation, and helped himself to an extra serve of potatoes.

I was glad that Dickie and Joe were at opposite ends of the table. I wasn't really sure why Joe accepted my grandmother's invitation. I'm not sure if it would be more because it meant he didn't have to cook, or because he knew it would annoy Dickie.

"How is your family, Joseph? Is your mother and grandmother well?" my mother asked.

"They are, thank you. My sister has a new baby, so my mother is busy helping her with the older children," Joe said.

My mother sighed. "I miss Valerie and the girls," she said. "Why don't I have grandchildren living nearby? Steph, when are you going to have children?"

"I've been asking the same thing, Helen. Steph said that she wants to focus on her career first," Dickie said. Disloyal husband. Joe looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

"Career? You design lingerie. You work from home. Why couldn't you do that with a baby?" my mother asked.

"I want to wait until my company is up and running," I explained.

"I said that I would support us, but you know Steph, she's determined to be a career woman," Dickie said.

"Oh!" Grandma said suddenly. "Speaking of Valerie, she called earlier today. But I'm not sure what she said, there was a lot of noise in the background. She called while I was watching the wrestling, so I'd forgotten until now."

I hadn't heard from Val in almost a week, I realised. That wasn't unusual but we'd been a bit better at keeping in touch lately. I made a note to text her after dinner and see how she was.

"How is work?" my mother asked Dickie. Dickie's work was a bit of a touchy subject between us since I found out that his clients included Alexander Ramos, but I'd never found a way to broach the subject properly since finding that out had ended up with me having Ramos in my car. Sometimes I almost managed to convince myself that Ranger was wrong about Dickie working for Ramos. Dickie had political aspirations, and working for Ramos didn't align with that.

Dickie nodded, and put on a confident, charming smile. "It's going well, thank you," he said. He started chatting away, updating everyone on the firm he was working for and their plans for expansion.

My grandmother was staring out the front window. From her seat she had a good view out to the street. My family always kept the front curtains open during dinner, all the better to monitor the neighbourhood comings and goings.

"There's a taxi outside the house," she said. "And how odd, there's someone who looks like Valerie getting out."

"It is Valerie!" my mother said. To be fair, Val went blonde when she moved to California so it was no wonder that Grandma didn't recognise her from a distance. Her two girls looked like miniature Vals although I knew from past experience that Angie was a mini Val personality-wise, Mary Alice had a good dose of her Aunt Steph in her. Mom jumped up and rushed to open the door. Valerie and her girls came inside, with piles of bags. That looked like a lot of bags. Uh oh.

"This is so nice to see you!" my mother said. "I had no idea you were coming. Come in, sit down. We can find some more chairs."

"Didn't Grandma tell you that we were coming?" Val asked.

"No, she forgot. But this is such a lovely surprise. I was just saying how much I missed you," my mother said. "How long can you stay for?"

"Until I find a house, I guess," Val said.

"You're moving back to New Jersey? Did Steve get transferred?" my mother asked. Val burst into tears.

"Steve left us," she said. I jumped up to give her a hug. "Oh Steph," she said. "It's been awful. I just wanted to come home."

My father looked panicked. I could see him assessing the number of people in the house versus the number of toilets and not liking the answer.

"I have my time in the bathroom first thing in the morning," he said firmly. Val looked confused. Mary Alice neighed loudly.

"Come and stay with me," I told Val. "We'd love to have you and the girls stay with us, and we have the room."

Dickie looked like he was trying to telepathically tell me something. Probably something like hey, Steph, we just got rid of your Grandma, what are you doing? One of those kids thinks she's a horse and they're very noisy. I sent him back a look. You wanted kids, now you've got them.

Morelli looked around the table.

"This looks like a family matter," he said, standing up and gesturing for Val to sit down in his chair. "Thank you for having me, I'll see myself out."

"No – wait – I, ah, just," my mother said, clearly having trouble putting thoughts together.

"I'll get you some cake to go," I told Morelli, going into the kitchen and cutting us both a large piece of cake. I walked him to the front door and handed over the cake.

"Let me know if there's anything I can do to help Val out," Morelli said.

"Thanks," I told him, giving Bob a goodbye pat as I ate my cake.

He was walking across the sidewalk to his car when a car slowed, drifted over to the kerb and pulled in just behind Morelli's car. The driver's side door opened and Mooner tumbled out. Bob bounded out into the road and licked Mooner's face.

"Dude!" he said, as Morelli helped him up. "Someone totally shot me!"

In between "Dudes!" and "No way!" we managed to get a story out of Mooner. He'd been at home when a car had driven by, paused outside and shot at the house, hitting Mooner in the head in the process. I wasn't sure if he needed to go to the hospital or not. I didn't have a lot of experience with bullet wounds, but Morelli didn't seem to be concerned.

"Stephanie, what are you doing out there?" Dickie said, coming outside. "It's getting fairly dramatic inside."

"Dickie, this is Mooner, he's Dougie's friend. Dougie is the one who is missing," I said to Dickie.

"Nice to meet you," Dickie said to Mooner.

"Dude," Mooner said in response, holding on to his head.

"We'd better get Mooner out of here before my mother sees him," I told Morelli. "She's got enough going on at the moment."

"Dude. I can't go home. It's not safe," Mooner said. I looked over at Dickie.

"We've already got Val and the kids," he said.

"I've got Bob," Morelli said.

"Bob will love Mooner. He'll be great company for him," I told Morelli. Bob looked happy at that, but Bob looked happy most times people said his name. Bob was a fairly happy dog.

My mother appeared in the doorway.

"Stephanie? What's going on? I thought Joe had left. And who is that with you? Is that Walter Dunphy?"

"Hello Mrs Plum!" Mooner said, waving happily.

"Sorry to worry you, Mrs Plum, we got carried away catching up," Morelli said. Then he sighed, bundled Mooner and Bob into his car, and drove off.