Death Turns A Trick (Rebecca Schwartz #1) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

by Julie Smith

  Tony and Marilyn looked at each other. “We could go to your house,” Tony said to her, but his heart wasn’t in it.

  Marilyn shook her head. “Let’s stay with Rebecca, at least till Mickey gets here.” It was nice of them to stay with me, but I think there was an element besides altruism in their decision: They didn’t want to miss anything, and I can’t say I blamed them. It’s pretty awful to find a corpse in your apartment, but you can’t help being curious if it’s safely next door. Pretty soon the ambulance came, and I went back home to see what the medic did. He listened for a heart and pulse beat and told the officers to call the coroner and homicide department. Kandi was now officially dead.

  At the time, I didn’t understand why they just didn’t send homicide inspectors in the beginning, but I’ve since learned it was because they were “on call” at home asleep. So the officers called “communications,” which phoned the inspectors on call, and presumably the photo lab and crime lab as well, because their myrmidons arrived about the same time as Inspectors Phil Martinez and Leo Curry, who were wearing brown suits and looking like you would if somebody woke you up in the middle of the night and said come to work.

  They all went into my apartment, leaving one of the cops from the radio car with me and sending the other out to question the neighbors. He started with Tony and Marilyn, who hadn’t seen or heard anything.

  My sister Mickey arrived just after the coroner’s wagon. In fact, my apartment door was open for the fellows from that office when Mickey walked by on her way to Tony’s, and I was sorry she had to see what it looked like in there. Especially when she collapsed in my arms.

  Mickey is twenty-four and a graduate student in psychology. Her name is actually Michaela, but “Mickey” fits her better for now. In a few years, she’ll grow into three syllables.

  She is the “pretty one” in the family—more slender and darker than I am, with long, wavy brown hair. Her taste in men runs to unemployed actors, but otherwise she’s a good kid.

  Tony and Marilyn gave her some brandy, but I couldn’t have any, on orders of the San Francisco Police Department. Cops feel more secure with sober witnesses.

  Right after Mickey got there, the cops sent for me. There was fingerprint powder everywhere. “Which of this property is yours?” asked Martinez.

  “Everything except that purse and its contents,” I told him, pointing to Kandi’s things. He let me go back. By now it was well after three o’clock, and Tony and Marilyn had had enough. They went to Marilyn’s, leaving me Tony’s extra key to lock up with.

  Then came the catechism.

  Martinez left Curry hovering about the body and made himself comfortable with Mickey and me. I was faced with a dilemma. I didn’t want to tell him Elena ran a bordello, or that Kandi worked there, but I’d have to say where I’d been. If I told them Elena’s address, they might go there to question her—and one look at the place, along with Elena’s rap sheet, would give her game away. This was not my problem, of course, and as an officer of the court, I was supposed to be against law-breaking, which Elena was engaged in, but she was a friend. Even if she had sent me out in the rain with Senator Cuckoo and caused me to spend two hours in the bucket.

  I decided to give the street, but say I’d forgotten the number.

  I reeled off the whole megillah, leaving out the address, the “raid,” and the senator’s name. I stuck to my earlier story about leaving the party to take a sick friend to the hospital. Only the way I told it this time, I made the friend just a party guest whose name I didn’t know, saying I was doing Elena a favor. That much was true, anyway. Martinez came right out and asked if the “sick” person were having a drug reaction. I said I didn’t know, but that was my guess.

  “Okay,” said Martinez. “Do you know what time the victim left the party?”

  “You’ll have to ask Elena. I was a guest of the San Francisco Police at the time.”

  “How did you know Kandi was inside the apartment?”

  “Elena said she would be. Besides, she’d left me a note in the mailbox.”

  “May I see it?”

  I’d forgotten all about it, and it took me a minute to remember where I’d put it. Since I hadn’t had my purse, there was only one choice. Mildly embarrassed, I fished it out of my bosom.

  “Is this some kind of code?” asked Martinez.

  “I don’t think so. I assumed it meant ‘upstairs with purse.’”

  “Is it possible the P is a person’s initial?”

  “Not so far as I know. Especially since it’s lower case.”

  “But the ‘u’ and the ‘s’ are upper case.”

  “Yes. I thought that was meant to show it wasn’t the word ‘us.’ She could have used small letters with periods after them, but that would have been more confusing because they were part of the same word instead of two separate words.”

  “I’ll never understand how women’s minds work.”

  I flared. “I don’t have to take that kind of stuff. I’m trying to be as helpful as I can, even though I flinch every time someone else puts black powder on my nice walls, and even though I found the body of a woman I hardly know on my living room floor, and even though my house is full of strangers and…”

  “Okay, okay.” He held up a hand.

  “I’m sorry about the fingerprint powder,” he said, picking the least of the problems, like the classic lady with a broken leg wailing about a run in her nylons. “But I’m afraid we’ll have to do the whole apartment, since it’s been ransacked. Who do you think did that?”

  I must have looked at him like he’d gone meshugge. “The murderer, I suppose.”

  “Not Kandi?”

  “I don’t see why she would have. If she wanted to rob me, she’d have just gone through my bureau for money and jewelry. But since she’d announced herself with a note in my mailbox, it wouldn’t have been very smart.”

  “So why should the murderer? If he was a burglar that Kandi surprised, why wouldn’t he just go through your bureau? Why look under the sofa pillows and behind the books in the bookcase?”

  “I don’t know.” I thought about it. “Maybe he knew Kandi. Maybe he thought she’d hidden something here.”

  “Any idea what it might have been?”

  “No.”

  “How do you suppose he got in?”

  “Either he broke in before Kandi got here, or she let him in.”

  “Or they arrived together and his initial was ‘P.’ Think. Did you and Kandi have any mutual acquaintances with that initial?”

  “So far as I know, Elena was our only mutual acquaintance.”

  Inspector Curry came back in. “Anything?” asked Martinez.

  “Yeah. Nobody saw anybody who didn’t belong here except a couple on the third floor who got in about 1:45. A fellow walked up as they were unlocking the downstairs gate and said he was on his way to see Miss Schwartz. So they let him in. No one saw the deceased enter the building, and no one heard anything.”

  “Miss Schwartz’s caller—what’d he look like?”

  “Tall, brown hair, tweed jacket, yellow turtleneck.”

  “Miss Schwartz?”

  “Parker!” I blurted.

  “P as in Parker. Now that’s very interesting, Miss Schwartz. Who might Parker be?”

  “He was my date for the party. We got separated. I suppose he came by to make sure I got home all right.”

  “What’s his last name?”

  “Phillips.”

  “Now that’s even more interesting. Considering that was the victim’s last name. Did you look at her driver’s license?”

  “No.”

  “I did. Her full name was Carol Phillips.”

  Things I hadn’t put together came back to me in a rush.

  Parker had a sister, Carol, who was a student at San Francisco State. Parker had left the party without a word to me and then come back and talked to Kandi angrily. Was Kandi that Carol Phillips? Could the elegant Parker have a prostitut
e for a sister?

  I suppose I must have reacted somehow, because Martinez said, “That name mean anything to you?”

  “Parker has a sister named that. But I’ve never seen her. I don’t know if Kandi was she.”

  “How well do you know Parker?”

  “I’ve known him about three weeks. I met him at my law partner’s house.”

  “I said how well.”

  “None of your business.”

  “Okay, Miss Schwartz. I guess that’s enough for now. What’s his address and phone number?”

  “You’re crazy.”

  Martinez picked up my phone and dialed directory assistance. He asked for Elena’s number as well as Parker’s, but she wasn’t listed. Martinez asked me for her number.

  “I’ve forgotten it.”

  “Well, you’ve got till tomorrow to remember. We’ll keep in touch.”

  Everybody had cleared out now except Martinez and Curry. “Are you through in my apartment?”

  “For tonight,” said Martinez. “But we’ll have to seal it overnight and have the lab people go over it inch by inch in the morning. Are you planning to stay with your sister?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’d better give me the phone number. I may need you.”

  I gave it to him. “When can I come home tomorrow?”

  “Probably around ten o’clock. Eleven to be safe. I’d like to ask you to do one last thing before you go, though. Will you come over and take a look to see if anything’s missing?” “Okay.”

  Martinez showed me around my own apartment and I took a cursory look, which was the best I could do without touching anything.

  When we got to the bedroom, he pointed to the rubber gloves on the bed. “Those yours?”

  “They look like mine. I keep them under the sink.”

  We looked there; my gloves were gone. “He must have worn them to avoid leaving fingerprints.”

  Martinez didn’t answer.

  “Nothing’s missing that I can see,” I said. “But did your fellows find anything that—well—that looked like it didn’t belong here?”

  “You mean the mythical object the murderer was looking for? No, Miss Schwartz, they didn’t. Sometimes, you know, a murderer will ransack a place as a cover-up—to make it look like an interrupted burglary.”

  I went back to Tony’s while Martinez and Curry locked up. Mickey, who had sat there like a scared statue while those apes were there, came to life with a shudder. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Not quite yet. I have to think a minute.”

  I thought: I could call Parker and warn him, but what good would that do? If Kandi had been his sister, I’d have to break the news that she was dead. An unpleasant prospect. Or if he’d killed her, I’d be tipping him off, and that would be obstructing justice. I put the thought out of my mind. We didn’t know each other very well, but I was sure he wouldn’t kill his own sister. At least I told myself I was. I decided not to call.

  I could call Mom and Dad, but that would just frighten them. The murder had been discovered too late to make the morning papers, so I had plenty of time to let them know before the media did.

  There was only one call I couldn’t avoid making. I had lied to the police on Elena’s account, which put me in the position of having to make sure our stories jibed. Besides, if I had her call the police instead of just letting them come around, it might save her the embarrassment of having them pay a call at an awkward moment.

  I dialed and explained the situation. “Jesus!” she said. “Kandi was a rotten little bitch, but who'd want to murder—”

  “Listen, Elena, you’re in a bad spot. You’re going to have to talk to the police. If you call them first thing in the morning, maybe you can avoid having them drop in.”

  “I see what you mean. Omigod. This probably means I’m going to have to close down.”

  “It’s about time you went straight anyhow. Look, I recognized Senator Handley, but I didn’t tell the cops who he was. I gave them some story about a sick friend, but the truth is going to have to come out, I’m afraid. Kandi knew the senator, and I suppose he might have killed her for some reason. Get in touch with him and tell him to tell the cops he was at the party.”

  “Oh, Rebecca, I can’t—”

  “You’ve got to. If he doesn’t tell them, I will.”

  “I see. Okay, I’ll talk to him. ” She sighed and said goodbye.

  Mickey and I turned off the lights, locked Tony’s place, and left. The minute we were in her car, the tears started coming. I do okay for a Marin County Jewish princess, but Superwoman I’m not.

  Chapter Eight

  I blubbered out the story to Mickey, leaving out only the senator’s identity. She was a good listener. A good sister, too. She said anybody would have wanted to go to Elena’s party, and no one could have foreseen it was going to get me involved in a traffic accident and a murder. She also said I acquitted myself handsomely with the cops and she wished she had as much presence of mind. Okay, so I’m bragging, but remember, I also told you I cried.

  Mickey even tried to get my mind off Parker by dragging red herrings across the path. She said maybe Elena killed Kandi.

  “After all,” she argued, “Elena was the only one we know of who actually knew where Kandi was. She could have followed her there and done her in.”

  “But she was home when I called from the Hall,” I reminded her.

  “Okay. Perfect. She could have gone to your place before she went to HYENA headquarters, beaned Kandi, and tore up the place in about ten minutes. Maybe Kandi’d robbed her and she was trying to get the money back. In fact, maybe the $200 she gave the cops came out of the…”

  “Oh, stop. She came in a taxi. The driver’d know she stopped there.”

  Mickey waved a dismissing hand. “Details.”

  She stopped the car in front of the old stucco house where she and Alan shared the first-floor flat. It was furnished Berkeley-style, with bricks and boards for bookcases, cast-off furniture picked up at garage sales, and a stereo that was probably worth as much as the rest of the furniture put together.

  We made up a bed for me on the Goodwill couch, and I got out of my bedraggled finery. I'd forgotten to pack anything, so I used Mickey’s toothbrush, borrowed a T-shirt for pajamas, and turned in. I was nearly asleep when I heard the thud of the morning paper on the porch.

  The next thing I knew somebody was shaking me awake. From the light, it was pretty early morning. “Phone,” said Mickey. “It’s Parker. The cops told him where to find you.” I tumbled out of bed, quick. “Parker. Are you all right?”

  “I’m in jail. Booked for suspicion of murdering my own sister.” He sounded miserable.

  “Oh God, Parker. I’m so sorry.”

  “Thanks. I need a lawyer.”

  “You’d better tell me what happened.”

  “It all happened so fast I hardly know. These guys Martinez and Curry showed up and told me about Carol and asked if she was my sister. Then, before I could even assimilate that, they asked me about my movements last night. I had been to your house—I don’t know if you know that.”

  “I gathered. Was your sister there at the time?”

  “I don’t know. No one answered the door, so I went away. Anyway, the cops asked me if I’d take a polygraph test, and I said no. I was nervous, and I didn’t see any point in it. My God, my sister was dead!

  “So then they sent a lab guy to get my fingerprints, and they stayed with me while he went back to the Hall of Justice. After a while, he called and told Martinez something, and Martinez asked me if I’d ever touched that funny statue you have on the coffee table.”

  “I suppose you know that was the murder weapon.”

  “I do now, anyway. I said I couldn’t remember touching it.”

  “But, Parker, you must have. Sometime in my apartment.”

  “I just can’t remember it. But I must have, because they found one of my prints on it. They told me that, and I
still couldn’t remember, and the next thing I knew they advised me of my rights and brought me down here.”

  The more miserable he sounded, the stronger I felt, and I didn’t like it. Florence Nightingale Schwartz was back in business.

  “Okay, Parker, two things. First, tell them you’ll take the polygraph.”

  “No!”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t believe in it. I don’t like it. It’s an invasion of privacy.”

  “But they’re holding you for murder.”

  “Can’t you get me out on bail?”

  “That’s the other thing. I’m horribly afraid you’re going to have to spend the weekend in jail; they can hold you without charging you till Monday, and if they do charge you, they don’t have to arraign you till Tuesday. I’m not at all sure I can get you out before then.”

  “But you’ll try?”

  “Of course. I’ll have to call a judge at home. I’ll do that, and then I’ll come over to City Prison as soon as I can. Try to take it easy, okay?”

  “Thanks, Rebecca.”

  It was seven o’clock—I’d never get Parker bailed out if I called a judge at that hour. Mickey had gone back to bed, and I had no alarm to set, so I just lay down again, hoping I’d wake up about nine.

  I did, mostly because Alan was playing the stereo in the bedroom.

  Since I had no idea what judge was on call for the weekend, I called the cops and flung myself on the mercy of the desk sergeant. Luckily, I got a nice one; he said it was Judge Rinaldo.

  I extolled Parker’s virtues at some length for Rinaldo’s benefit, but he said he’d have to call homicide and get back to me.

  Depressed, I knocked on the bedroom door to beg for one of Mickey’s robes. Mickey had gone out for a minute, so Alan made the loan. Then he hovered while I made coffee. Instead of helping with the coffee, he offered conversation that made my teeth itch:

  “What’s it like to find a stiff in your living room?”

  “She was a human being, Alan.”

  “Now she’s a piece of meat.”

  “Haven’t you got any compassion?”

  “Not for some doxie I never met. I’m saving it all for my poor, traumatized, old-maid sister-in-law. Must have been kind of tough on you, huh?”