I grabbed my crutches and we walked out of the shop. There was a hush that fell over the crowd in the great room. I could just imagine them saying once I was out of sight, “Who’s that with Rita?”
“Sorry to have to take you in a government-issued cop car,” Jack Wall said as he opened the car door for me. “But this is official business.”
“No problem,” I said. At least I hoped there was no problem. It depended on what kind of official business this was going to be.
Before he got in the car, he took off his suit jacket, loosened his tie and rolled up his shirt sleeves. I tried not to stare, but I have a thing for muscular arms. “I hope you like eating outside.”
“Of course,” I said. “As long as there’s room for me to prop up my ankle.”
“I guarantee it.” He drove his so-called cop car to the Embarcadero and stopped at Pier 39, where, fortunately, they had valet parking since the place is always crowded with tourists gawking at the spectacular views of the Alcatraz Island, the Golden Gate Bridge and the sparkling blue waters of San Francisco Bay. Since I’d pictured sitting on the lawn in a public park as befitted a policeman’s picnic, this was a big and welcome surprise.
With his hand under my elbow, Detective Wall helped me climb the steps to the second floor of Neptune’s Bounty Restaurant and out to the deck with a sweeping panorama, where he then asked for a table off to the side and out of earshot from the other customers.
“What a fabulous view,” I said, dazzled by the sun shining on the Bay.
“San Francisco at its best,” he said, pulling out a chair for me and taking my crutches. “I recommend the Hog Island oysters on the half shell, the crab cakes and the clam chowder.”
“You’ve been here before?”
He nodded.
I didn’t even look at the menu. Sometimes it’s good to have someone else make the decisions. Like now. So I said, “Sounds good to me.” They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch. I knew there’d be a price to pay, but at the moment I didn’t care. The sun on my back, my foot resting on the chair next to Jack Wall, the lapping of the waves against the pilings beneath the restaurant and a basket of freshly baked sourdough bread on the table added up to pure heaven. Then there was the suave detective across the table. Just a glance around the deck told me he was the best-looking man in the whole place by a long shot. I would have to remember every detail to tell Dolce.
“How long have you known Ms. Loren?” Jack Wall asked after he’d ordered the items he’d suggested along with a bottle of white wine. The San Francisco police drank on the job? Or wasn’t he on the job? Or didn’t he care? Or did he intend to abstain and get me to talk while under the influence. I told myself to be careful, but it was hard not to relax—the sun, the scene, the food, the undeniably good-looking man across the table. All calculated to make me loosen up and forget to be on my guard? Maybe, but I didn’t care. At the moment I didn’t want to be on my guard. I didn’t care why he’d brought me here. This was the San Francisco I’d dreamed about back in Columbus. This was the kind of life I wanted. Lunch alfresco with a well-dressed professional man who hung on my every word. Why worry? What did I have to hide anyway?
For a moment when he mentioned Dolce, I thought he must be a mind reader. Then I got hold of myself, gave myself a mental shake and reminded myself this was an official interview even though it felt like a social occasion, which I knew it probably wasn’t. Not for him. He probably took his informants out for expensive meals every other day to extract important information from them. No wonder he was so knowledgeable about the menu at this restaurant. I could see how it could work. I hadn’t even had a sip of wine and I was ready to squeal. Most likely he was right now biding his time before he pinned me with the hard questions he had to ask. Anyone who spent this much time and money on lunch was not going to let me off the hook.
“I met Dolce some months ago,” I said. “She’s an old friend of my aunt, so I looked her up when I first came to town and she gave me a job.”
“You had experience in the fashion field?” he asked as he poured some California Pinot Grigio into my glass.
“Not really. Columbus doesn’t actually have a fashion field. But clothes and jewelry have always been my hobby. I was working in an office, doing data processing. Unfortunately no one there appreciated my clothes sense. In fact, I got some pretty strange looks at the office sometimes. And even a few comments like ‘Is it Halloween already?’ So I jumped at the chance to leave.”
Jack Wall glanced at my ribbed top. I hoped there was admiration in his glance, both for my fashion sense as well as my body. But maybe he was just trying to imagine how anything I wore could be considered bizarre or avant-garde in Columbus, Ohio. I had no idea what he really thought, which was probably why he was such a good detective.
“It wasn’t until I arrived in California that I finally felt at home in my clothes, even though I was far from home, if you know what I mean,” I continued. “I can’t believe what people wear out here, I mean every day. Harem pants, watercolor prints, boho jewelry, cropped leather jackets, boots with shorts . . .” I could have gone on and on about how I sometimes felt like I’d landed in a fashion free-for-all wonderland, but maybe the detective wasn’t as interested in the latest trends as I was. Who was besides Dolce? No one I knew.
Interested or not, he nodded politely. Anyone who dressed like he did would know exactly what I meant.
“Are you from around here?” I asked. If we kept talking about clothes and personal stuff, maybe he’d never force me to say anything I didn’t want to. After all, hadn’t we already had a conversation during which he pumped me for information right in my house? What more could I tell him? I took a sip of wine, enjoying the floral, smoky, honey-tinged flavor.
“Oregon,” he said. “I’ve been here for almost ten years. I started a small software company in Silicon Valley, but after it took off I got bored and sold it. Then I went into law enforcement. It’s a new challenge, and I like living and working in the city. Helping people for a change instead of selling them things they don’t need.”
“I like living here too,” I said. I liked helping people too, but I was also guilty of selling them things they didn’t need. I told myself that even if the customers didn’t NEED a new camisole or a trendy fringed bag, they felt better after they bought it and just wearing something new gives a person a psychological lift. Our merchandise, while expensive, was cheaper than therapy, wasn’t it? No wonder he could afford to dress like a dot-com millionaire: that’s probably what he was before he became a cop. It seemed like an unusual background for a detective, but what did I know? I was from Ohio.
When the oysters came, they were briny and smelled fresh from the sea.
“We don’t have these in Columbus,” I said, dipping mine in hot sauce. In fact most of my old friends back in Ohio might have shuddered at the very thought of eating a bivalve, especially if it wasn’t cooked. But I’ve always been a little different, willing to try something new and I was glad I was. Especially today. If I hadn’t been willing to take a chance and move across the country to take a new job, where would I be today? I wouldn’t be having lunch on a terrace with a hot cop in one of the world’s most beautiful cities. Of course I wouldn’t be worried about fending off murder accusations either, but you can’t have it all, as Aunt Grace would say. So far it was worth the trade-off.
Instead of commenting on the availability of fresh seafood or something more appropriate, he went back to the subject of Dolce. I should have known it was coming.
“Do you have any idea where your boss was the night of the Benefit in the park?” Detective Wall asked.
I shifted my foot and straightened my shoulders. I sighed. I’d almost forgotten why we were here. This was not a date, no matter how much I pretended it was. I was only here to give or take away any alibi for my boss. Which made me wonder, was she really a suspect?
“Why don’t you ask her?” I asked.
“I
did. She said she was at home.”
“Then she probably was. The last time I saw her that night was when we closed the shop. I left in a cab. I assume she was upstairs in her apartment.”
When the waiter took away the oyster shells, Detective Wall took out his notepad and wrote something. “She hasn’t been able to verify her whereabouts. Can you?”
“As you know, I was unconscious and in the hospital for most of the night. I didn’t see her again until today. But she wasn’t at the Benefit. I’m sure she wasn’t. She couldn’t have been. She doesn’t do benefits. She dressed half the people there. She was exhausted. Besides, she didn’t have a ticket. They were expensive.”
“How would you describe the relationship between Ms. Loren and MarySue Jensen?”
“Fine until Saturday. Dolce gets along with everyone. She has to. She sells clothes and accessories. Everyone loves her. Just ask them. MarySue had ordered a pair of expensive shoes from Dolce. Dolce wanted MarySue to pay for the shoes on arrival, which is totally reasonable, but MarySue said she didn’t have the money. MarySue was angry. She said she had to have the shoes. Dolce said no, but MarySue took them anyway. Naturally Dolce was upset. MarySue had put a deposit on the shoes but that’s all. Now Dolce was out . . . I don’t know how much money.”
“So you took it upon yourself to retrieve the shoes, is that correct? Or did Ms. Loren ask you to do it?”
“No, in fact she definitely told me to forget about the shoes.”
“Was that because she was dealing with the matter herself ?”
“She said she’d called a repo company.” I paused. “Is this about me or about Dolce or—”
“This is about the murder of MarySue Jensen,” he said, pausing only when the waiter came with the crab cakes and offered me some spicy remoulade sauce.
“I realize that this is all about MarySue,” I said, lowering my voice just in case the waiter was listening. “But I don’t know how I can help you find her murderer.” From out of the blue, I remembered what Dolce had said, that she’d get the shoes back from MarySue if she had to “hunt her down.” But she hadn’t really meant that, had she?
“Just answer my questions,” he said, picking up his fork. As if it was the simplest thing in the world.
“I will if I can,” I assured him. “But . . .”
“Back to the shoes,” he said.
“It’s all about the shoes, isn’t it?” I said. “Speaking of shoes, our supplier, Peter Butinski, was in today.”
“And?”
“I just thought you might want to talk to him. Ask him about the shoes. Any shoes. All shoes. Maybe he knows something we don’t know. He’s an odd one; something about him strikes me as not quite right.”
Jack Wall jotted something down on his notepad. Was it Peter’s name or was it my name with a question mark after it because he thought I was a little too eager to put the blame on someone else, anyone else but me and my boss? I stared at his notepad, wishing I had the X-ray vision of Superman. If only I’d had some practice reading upside-down.
“As for the shoes,” he said, “any idea where they might be at this point in time?”
“At the park?” I asked brightly, hoping he’d get the impression I was being helpful.
“Possibly, since that’s where they were last seen,” he admitted. “Let’s look at it this way. Who wanted the shoes, besides MarySue?”
I chewed my crab cake thoughtfully, trying to look like I was concentrating while I was savoring every bite. “Not Dolce. What good were they to her once they’d been worn? None at all. They were spoiled, used goods. But someone else might have seen them and wanted them—even worn, they were beautiful. It could have been anyone.”
“Could it have been Ms. Jensen’s sister-in-law?”
I shook my head. “Not her style.”
He wrote something on his notepad.
“Her husband Jim?” he asked.
“Why would he want the shoes?”
“To return them?” he asked. “I understand he wasn’t happy about her overspending at Dolce’s.”
“I guess it could have been him. But why didn’t he just wait until she got home that night, take them from her closet and return them to Dolce’s for a refund on Monday?”
“Would Dolce have given it to him?”
“Well, no, since MarySue never paid for them in full and they’d been worn, but he didn’t know that.” I bit my lip. “There is something strange. The night I went to get the shoes back, I saw a ‘For Sale’ sign in front of the Jensens’ house. Today when I called the real estate agent, he said it had been taken off the market.”
The detective raised his eyebrows and made a note of it.
“Do you think it means anything, Detective Wall?” I asked.
“Call me Jack,” he said.
I nodded. “Well, Jack, maybe MarySue wanted to sell, but Jim didn’t. So now he doesn’t have to. Or . . .” I paused to get a breath. “I don’t know if MarySue had life insurance, but if she did and Jim was the benefactor . . .”
“Ramirez is checking on that,” he said. “You’re thinking like a detective, Rita, which is good. It’s all about motives, probability and opportunity.”
Motives, probability and opportunity. If I’d had a notepad myself I would have written the words down so I could ponder them later. I knew they were important in the effort to find the killer, so I tried to burn them into my brain. I was flattered by Wall’s words, but even better, I was glad to shift the emphasis away from Dolce to almost anyone else as long as it wasn’t me. Even better, I was able to shift the emphasis to the clam chowder when it arrived, rich, creamy and chockfull of clams.
“What I’d like to do,” he said, “is concentrate on those who were at the Benefit who had a motive to either steal the shoes or kill MarySue or both.”
I agreed to concentrate, but I was getting tired of playing this game of who killed MarySue. It could have been Jim, it could have been Patti, her sister-in-law, or . . . “It could have been just about anybody but me, of course. MarySue wasn’t a lovable person,” I said. “I don’t even know how she died, how she was murdered, I mean.”
“Her champagne was drugged,” he said.
“Maybe it was an accident,” I suggested. “Maybe the perpetrator, if that’s what you call them, only meant to drug her but gave her an overdose. Would the charge still be murder?”
“Interesting thought—we’ll let the jury decide that,” he said.
I decided to stop making suggestions. The thought of a jury deliberating the case gave me the chills. What if the defendant on the stand was someone I knew? One of our customers? Someone I liked? If it was, I knew what she ought to wear. Something subdued, a suit that didn’t cry out money. Nothing too fashionable. Something from last year’s collection in a neutral color. Jewelry? Maybe a plain gold band on her finger. No diamonds. Unless it was just a pair of diamond studs in her ears. Hair? A tight chignon and no makeup unless it was just a light dusting of a pale powder.
Jack passed on the dessert and I did too, a little reluctantly, but he ordered café mochas, my favorite after-lunch drink, for both of us. I breathed a sigh of pure pleasure. If this guy weren’t a cop, he’d be the perfect date. He anticipated my every wish, and he kept up a lively conversation. Too bad it was about murder, but then I was getting used to thinking, talking and speculating about MarySue’s murder wherever I went.
The lunch was winding down, I hadn’t given away any secrets that I knew about, and in a few minutes we’d be drinking espresso coffee laced with chocolate syrup, steamed milk and whipped cream. But when I glanced up, I was shocked to see Patti French at a table across the room.
“Oh my God,” I said under my breath. “It’s Patti, MarySue’s sister-in-law. Having lunch with some man. I don’t think that’s her husband, although . . .” I knew I’d vowed to stop speculating, but I couldn’t help it. “What if she’s having an affair? What if MarySue threatened to tell her brother about it, and Patt
i killed her and dumped her shoes in the duck pond? Or what if she’s having an affair with Jim, and they killed MarySue so they could be together? She sees me. She’s getting up and coming over here. Do you know her? Who shall I say you are?”
“I haven’t met her yet. But I think it would be helpful if I did. Introduce me as Jack Wall.”
“Good to see you, Patti,” I said when she stopped at our table. My gaze rapidly took in her Louis Vuitton blazer over a silk halter wrap dress, both of which were top-of-the-line and I knew had come from Dolce’s.
“Rita, what are you doing here?” she asked, plainly surprised to see me out of the shop with what appeared to be a date. “I heard you hurt your ankle.”
“That’s right, but I’m feeling better. Patti, this is Jack Wall. Jack, Patti French.”
Patti positively beamed at Jack. Sooner or later she was going to find out he was not my date. He was the detective on the MarySue case, and then what would she say? “Rita, you should have told me”? But how could I? And why should I? If she had something to hide, it was time to bring it out into the open.
We exchanged a few more remarks before she said it was good to see me.
Then I said, “Love your shoes,” and she blushed. Why? Because they cost an arm and a leg? Because she didn’t get them at Dolce’s? Then she said, “Good-bye,” and turned and headed for the door before I could ask where she got them. I watched her go, my eyes fastened on her feet as she walked away in her silver Jimmy Choo sandals and a pair of striped stockings I’d never seen before. Silver shoes seemed to be the hot item this season. But then Patti and MarySue had always been rivals. Anything one had, the other had to outdo her. Was that what this was about?
Jack Wall was studying me over his coffee with narrowed eyes. “Well?” he said. “You’ve made quite a case against Ms. French.”
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