Luckily heights never bothered me the way closed-in spaces did. The fire escape was at the back of the building, but with all the neighboring buildings stacked so close together, fifty people could’ve seen me if they’d looked out their windows. I made my way down the rungs of the ladder to the second floor and then the first. A drop to the ground, thankfully not cement, but soft dirt neatly planted. Dwayne had already stomped on some of the flowers.
The sight of the large footprints stopped me cold. What if Dwayne was still around? No, that was crazy thinking. He’d have taken off as fast as he could, which was just what I needed to do. I found my way around to the side of the building and tried to look casual when I reached the sidewalk and headed down the hill—like a woman out for a morning walk.
Chapter Three
Once I’d contacted the police, I’d expected to talk to the cops and have to explain a few things, but what was up with having me sit in the cop car outside of Elizabeth’s building just waiting? Not that I wanted to go inside and view the body—again. But Officer Newman, who’d answered the 911 call I’d made from a coffee shop five blocks away, had asked few questions, driven me back to the scene (as he called it), and kept me waiting in the car while he stood around talking to the other cop-types who showed up.
I needed to get my stuff so I could find Jeff and reclaim my money. If I didn’t, I’d be sleeping on a park bench tonight, and the way my side hurt, I wouldn’t be getting much rest on a bench. I felt my ribs tentatively. Pressing on them hurt. Not pressing on them hurt. The only thing that didn’t hurt was holding my breath. Not much of an option.
I scanned the onlookers who’d slowly accumulated since I’d arrived. The cops had herded them onto the sidewalk across the street. I counted seventeen. No, make that sixteen. The woman walking her corgi must’ve decided that she’d seen all there was to see, because she let her dog drag her away. People had come and gone and others had come to take their place, except for five of them—Shaved Head, Anorexic, Green Sneakers, Lies-About-Her-Age, and Truant. They’d hung on the whole time, waiting for something ghoulish to come into view. Like a black body bag. Or a shirtless suspect in handcuffs. Sometimes they swiveled their heads in my direction and quickly looked away if I returned their stares.
I fished a quarter out of my pocket and tried a simple routine of palm and pass, French slip, and thumb palm vanish. Even at half speed, I felt the quiver in my left hand in rhythm to the pain in my side. The third time through the set, the coin slipped from my palm. I shoved it back into my pocket. Street performing had always been my fail-safe backup plan. Until today. What would I do for money if I couldn’t find Jeff?
Elizabeth must have already caught a plane to someplace far away. Not that I could’ve counted on her for a loan, but I’d at least have had a place to sleep tonight. The forty-three dollars in my shoe wouldn’t cover a night in any hotel in San Francisco. And, unless I found a magic healing potion, I wasn’t going to be doing any street performances today. I had to find Jeff. That was all there was to it.
I checked the uniformed gathering in front of the apartment building. Two more cop cars and some official-looking unmarked cars had arrived while I waited. A parade of uniforms and suits had entered the apartment building. Three, including Officer Newman, had stayed outside to keep people away from the building and traffic moving on the street. And maybe to keep me waiting in the car.
I’d had enough of waiting. I reached for the door handle, but before I could open the door, a uniformed policeman emerged from the building. The other cops gathered around him, listening intently but keeping their eyes on the crowd, the street, and me. Officer Newman nodded his head several times in response to whatever the other cop was telling him, turned and hurried to the car, got in and started the engine.
“Where are we going?”
“Just into the garage here.” He drove ten feet into the driveway next to the apartment entrance. The garage door lifted and he steered the car down the slanting driveway. The garage area looked like it filled the entire basement area of the building. We stopped near the elevator on the far wall, where a man, who had to be a cop, stood.
“What’s the rush all of the sudden?”
“I have orders to keep you out of sight.” Newman switched off the engine and got out of the car.
Before he could circle the car to my side, the waiting man came over and opened my door. He was about forty, thick-bodied, his short black hair going gray. He wore khaki pants, a tweed jacket, and a look that said he’d seen it all. “Please step out of the car.”
I got out slowly. After sitting still for so long my bruised muscles had stiffened up, and I had to grab the top edge of the car door to lever myself upright.
The man watched without comment. “May I see some identification?”
“Are you with the police?” Everything about him said “cop,” but the rules stated that he was supposed to identify himself to me first. And I like to go by the rules. I also needed to stall a bit to think, since the issue of identification always created problems for me.
He reached into an inside coat pocket, pulled out a leather holder and flashed a badge at me.
“I’d like to see where it gives your name.”
He flipped the wallet over and held it up so I could read it.
“Inspector Hector Lopez, Homicide Division,” I read out loud. “Okay.” I pulled my own ID holder from my back pocket and held it out to him.
“Please remove your driver’s license.”
“I don’t have a driver’s license.”
“What form of identification do you have?”
I unsnapped the wallet and tilted it. The long plastic strip of cardholders spilled out. I had to raise my arm to keep the end from dragging on the cement floor. People usually laughed when I did this, or at least looked surprised. Lopez’s expression didn’t shift out of deadpan. He hooked the strip with his hand and examined some of the cards.
“You got anything besides expired library cards?”
“The last one is current. The head librarian’s name and phone number is on the back. She’ll vouch for me.”
Lopez released the strip holding my library cards and put his hands on his hips, pushing his jacket back as he settled his hands at belt level. The right hand came to rest just above his black holstered gun. “You don’t want to play around with me. Do you have any current identification?”
“My name is Valentine Hill. I’ve been working in Las Vegas for the last four months. I just got here this morning to see my mother. Instead I find a guy in her apartment. He beat me up and knocked me out. When I came to, there was a dead guy I’d never seen before and a woman pretending to be an FBI agent, who wouldn’t let me call the cops. I had to sneak down a fire escape to get away and call 911. If I weren’t who I said I was, I would’ve just kept walking, right?” I refolded my library cards and pushed the wallet into my back pocket.
“You go by any other name than Valentine Hill?”
“No.”
He shifted his gaze to Officer Newman. “Run the name.”
Newman slid behind the wheel of his car and started punching keys on the computer keyboard.
“What made you think this woman in the apartment was impersonating an officer of the law? Didn’t she show you some identification?”
“You guys and your obsession with identification. She showed me something, but do I know what official FBI identification looks like? I went by the fact that there was this dead man, and she wouldn’t let me call the cops. And besides that, she said my mother was working with her on a case, which is impossible.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because my mother is a front to back, top to bottom, through and through con artist. She’d never do anything to help even an ordinary person, forget the FBI.”
“You work scams with your mother?”
That ga
ve me a jolt. “Absolutely not.” I paused a beat, because it wasn’t totally true. “I mean—I did, but not anymore. I haven’t seen her in nine years.”
“So she could be helping the FBI. You wouldn’t have any way of knowing. Unless you keep in touch?”
“I just told you—I haven’t seen or heard from her in nine years. Look, what’s going on? Why aren’t I down at the police station looking at mug shots? I can give you a complete description of the guy who beat me up and the woman who said she was with the FBI. I mean, you found the body, right? They hadn’t moved it before you got here?”
Officer Newman got out of the squad car and leaned his forearms on the roof. Lopez turned toward him. “There’s nothing in the system for that name,” he said. “Want me to try it with her social?”
Lopez shifted his gaze to me. “How about it? Give us a social security number. Let’s see if your story checks out about not having a sheet.”
I took a step back and bumped against the car. “You’re unbelievable. Don’t you know there’s a dead man upstairs? Don’t you want to find who killed him?”
“I will find who killed him.” Lopez took a step toward me. “One way I’ll do that is by finding out who didn’t kill him. If I’m going to rule you out, I need to know who you really are. So what’s your real name?”
I pushed away from the car. The movement snagged at my broken rib, but I was too angry to pay any attention to pain. “You’re questioning what’s real, Inspector? That’s actually a philosophical question, you know. Or maybe you don’t, if you haven’t spent as many hours in libraries as I have. Take this quarter, for instance.” I held up a quarter between thumb and forefinger. “You see it. It’s real, isn’t it? You know what a quarter looks like. Or do you? Because it’s not a quarter at all.” I took it with the thumb and forefinger of the other hand and displayed it with a flourish. “It’s a half dollar. Now how could you make that mistake?”
I held out the half dollar to him still pinched between thumb and forefinger. He looked at it, but didn’t move. I released the half dollar, let it fall into the palm of my hand and clenched my fingers over it. “But, look, you weren’t mistaken after all.” I uncurled my fingers and showed the quarter lying in my palm. “It really is a quarter.”
I took in my audience. Officer Newman looked gratifyingly startled, but Lopez was definitely not amused. He looked from the coin to my face. “I’m not interested in tricks. I want facts.”
“But that was my point exactly. What you think is a fact, may actually be an illusion. And vice versa. And that’s me. The vice versa. As far as the official world is concerned, I don’t exist. But, as you can see, I do exist. And, what’s more, I’m exactly who I say I am.”
Lopez clenched his jaw. “Stop with the riddles and give me a straight story or I’m taking you in and holding you as a material witness.”
“I don’t have a social security number.”
“What?”
“Elizabeth says that she walked out of the hospital with me, but without paying the bill. So no birth certificate. You can’t get a social security card without a birth certificate or some proof that you were born in the United States.”
“The hospital still has a record of your birth.”
“I’m sure they do, if I knew what hospital, in what city and the day and year I was born.”
“You don’t know when you were born?”
“I’ve been looking for Elizabeth so I could find out. I finally track her down and this happens. By now she’s a thousand miles away.”
“No, she isn’t. The feebs have her.”
“The who?”
He didn’t answer. I heard a whirr and then a clunk from the elevator. He must’ve heard it, too, because he swung around in time to see the doors open and Eugenia “Call Me Phil” Philips step out. Watching her stride toward us gave me a really bad feeling. The “feebs” must be the FBI, and that meant that Phil was who she’d said she was. Or else she was running a con beyond anything I’d ever seen.
She slid her gaze over to me. Lopez kept his expression blank, but Phil’s was steel. My bad feeling mutated into a rotten, stinking feeling. I was in a lot of trouble. “Everything all right, Inspector?”
Lopez regarded her impassively a few seconds before responding. “I’m interviewing the witness.”
I had the distinct impression that he wasn’t exactly happy to see Phil, which was exactly how I felt.
“We need to verify her identity and her home address,” Phil said.
“What she has for identification isn’t much use. No driver’s license. No picture ID. But that’s not a problem, right? You said she looks like the mother. And I suppose the mother can ID her.”
“Yes. But we’ve run the name she gave me, and she’s not in the system as far as I can tell,” Phil said to Lopez while eyeing me.
“She’s got a couple dozen library cards from cities all over the country. You could check with the local PDs.”
“I don’t have a sheet. I’ve never been arrested, and since I’ve been away from Elizabeth, I haven’t done anything to be arrested for.”
“Except for today,” Phil said. “Leaving the scene of a crime against the specific orders of an officer of the law.”
“I thought you were scamming me.”
“I showed you my ID and informed you of the situation.”
I turned to Lopez. “I called the police, and I’m here, aren’t I?”
Lopez looked at Phil. “I’ve got no reason to believe she isn’t who she says she is. Plus she’s as close to an eyewitness we’ll get. I’m not going to bust her chops about her ID at this point in time. I need to finish asking some questions here, then, like I already told you, we have to talk to this Beth Hull that you’ve stowed someplace.”
“Beth Hull’s an alias,” I said. “Her name’s Elizabeth Hill, and she’s the one with a record.”
I would’ve added more, but Lopez made an impatient gesture and kept his gaze on Phil. I clamped my mouth shut and watched. Silence hung between Lopez and Phil like a physical weight. These two might both be on the side of the law, but they weren’t playing on the same team. Lopez hadn’t mentioned what I’d told him about no birth certificate. Just told her she could chase down my library cards. And it sounded like Phil hadn’t agreed to let Lopez talk to Elizabeth.
Neither Lopez or Phil said anything, just looked at each other. A classic standoff, and a giant waste of time as far as I was concerned. I’d bet that the poor dead guy upstairs would agree with me. I leaned against the fender of the police car. “Do you think we could sit down somewhere? My side is killing me.”
They both turned and looked at me as if they’d forgotten I was even there.
Phil blinked twice. “My apartment?”
“Okay.” Before Lopez could say anything, I pushed away from the car and headed for the door next to the elevator marked Stairs.
Lopez fell in step next to me. “Don’t you want to take the elevator?”
I shook my head and opened the door.
“I thought you said your side hurt.”
“It does. My head, too.” I gingerly patted the lump on the side of my head. Touching it, even gently, did nothing to make it feel better. I dropped my hand and walked slowly up the stairs, Phil and Lopez single file behind me.
A few minutes later I sank down into the many patterned pillows on Phil’s sofa. Or the sofa she claimed was hers. I knew it wasn’t, but would keep my mouth shut for now. Phil could take me to Elizabeth. No point in antagonizing her.
Phil disappeared into the kitchen, but Lopez planted himself in one of the upholstered chairs on the other side of the coffee table facing me. He took out a small notebook and pen. “How about you tell me what happened here today?”
So I took him through it, from the lady in the mauve suit letting me into the building to my tr
ip down the fire escape. He let me tell it without interrupting, jotting notes as I talked.
Phil returned to the room, carrying a plate of crackers and cheese in one hand and a couple of cans of soda in the other She put them down on the coffee table with a gesture for me to help myself and settled into the other chair. Maybe she wanted to show me she had no hard feelings, or maybe she just wanted to soften me up.
Lopez ignored her and the refreshments. I ate some cheese and opened a soda.
Lopez leaned forward and rested his forearms on his thighs. “Did you know the man who was killed?”
“No.” I glanced at Phil. Her face was unreadable. Hadn’t she told them she knew the guy?
“He was shot and killed,” Lopez said. “It’s a very serious crime we’re looking at here. We haven’t been given access to the scene yet.” He paused and gave Phil a hard look. “When we do, we hope to find the gun used in the crime. What I need to ask you now, is that when we do find it, is there any way at all that we’re going to find your prints on that gun?”
I opened my mouth to reply. Lopez held up a warning hand. “Wait and think before you say anything. If you tell me now, I might be able to help you. You hold back, and I find out later, then there’ll be no way in hell I or anyone else will be able to do anything for you.”
I straightened. “My Aunt June taught me three rules. Never lie. Never swear—and I’ll thank you not to swear in front of me. And never hit, unless someone hits you first. I promised her I’d live by them, and I have. I never even saw a gun, much less touched it, but I have some idea of what must have happened.”
“You mean, what happened while you were unconscious?” Lopez asked.
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