Died With a Bow

by Grace Carroll

  “I said, don’t touch anything,” he warned.

  “But why? You don’t imagine…”

  “I don’t get paid to imagine anything. I get paid to keep from contaminating the evidence.”

  “Evidence of what? Dolce had nothing to do with…” I stopped. We both knew that there was a dead girl downstairs—or maybe, hopefully, she’d been removed by now. And my boss was missing. And I’d found the body.

  “And I get paid to bring the suspects down to the station,” he continued. “Let’s go.”

  Four

  Bring the suspects down to the station? Did he mean me? I couldn’t believe I was on my way to the police station with my swimming bag on my lap in the backseat of the police car. The last place I would have imagined myself when I woke up this morning. When we went downstairs, I saw that Vienna’s body was gone, and so were most of the cops.

  Dolce had not returned, and I was weak and strung out like I’d just run a marathon and come in last. Sweat was beading on my forehead and there were goose bumps on my arms. I wanted to go home, but for some reason I was being taken to the police station. Why me? I wasn’t a suspect, so it must be because I happened to find the body. Of course it was. I was not going to just any police station; I was on my way to the main station where Jack Wall was now working.

  “This is a big misunderstanding,” I told Rowley from the backseat of his car.

  “Yeah?” he said without turning to look at me.

  “I’m actually a friend of Detective Wall. We’ve worked together on another case, which I’m guessing is the reason he wants to see me.” I paused, waiting for him to confirm my idea. The cop said nothing. Probably part of their code of silence or something. “He does want to see me, right?”

  He said something that sounded like “Yep” or “Huh.” I tried to chill out by doing a relaxation exercise. First I sat back in the seat and kept my back straight. I put one hand on my stomach and the other on my chest, and breathed in through my nose and exhaled through my mouth—or did I have it backward? I’d once seen this on a cable TV program way before I’d ever dreamed I’d be involved in a murder investigation. If I was. I assumed I was, or why was I being taken to the station? If Jack Wall wanted to see me for any other purpose, he could call me.

  I did my breathing exercises until we turned onto Van Ness. We took Van Ness all the way to Broadway, passing one of Vienna’s father’s dealerships, the showroom filled with expensive imports. Did he give Vienna one of them? If so, why didn’t she drive it to work? More important, did he know about Vienna’s death?

  I leaned forward. “Uh, excuse me,” I said to Rowley. “Have her parents been notified yet?” I replayed my conversation with Bobbi in my mind. What would she say when she heard her spendthrift stepdaughter was dead? What about her father, Lex, who, according to Dolce, supposedly doted on her? Or her mother, Noreen? What a horrible job to inform the relatives of a victim. Was that Jack’s job? Or was there a grief counselor who went to the houses in person like the military did?

  He shrugged. “Guess so,” he said. Obviously not his job to contact the family. What was his job? To walk me through Dolce’s apartment and then escort me to the station? If I’d been at home, I would have continued with my exercises until I’d calmed down. It was hard to calm down in the backseat of a patrol car. At home I would have loosened my clothes, taken off my shoes and gotten comfortable to further improve my technique. But there’s only so much you can do while on your way to see the detective you have a history with.

  The best thing I could say about Central Station was that it was indeed centrally located. When we got inside the big, cold, featureless building, I had a few minutes to study the map of the district on the wall. It covered the financial area, Chinatown, North Beach, Fisherman’s Wharf and three major hills, Nob, Telegraph and Russian Hill. The worst thing I could say about the place was that it had no character the way the neighborhood stations did, or at least the one Jack used to work at did. This one was all function. And the function was to intimidate and frighten suspects, I supposed, or even scare innocent citizens like myself into taking a vow of good behavior. As if I needed to. I felt guilty of something just standing there looking at the pictures of the officers who worked there.

  The formal photo of Jack didn’t do him justice. Maybe it was the uniform, which I’d never seen him in, and the hat that made him look so stern. Or maybe I’d just forgotten that he always looked stern no matter what he was wearing.

  A moment later a policewoman came to get me to have my fingerprints taken. I pictured messy ink, but she said they had live-scan prints these days and I didn’t need to worry. I wasn’t worried about the ink, I was worried that my prints would be found all over Vienna’s body. But maybe so would the murderer’s. I could only hope they could sort them out.

  After my session with the live-scan machine, Jack came out to get me. I was glad to see he was just as good-looking as ever, dressed as usual in top-of-the-line business casual. No uniform for him. In a pair of gray lightweight-wool flat-front trousers, a black cotton-blend sport coat over a dark striped shirt, he looked gorgeous and sophisticated but not really stern. Was this what he normally wore to work on a Sunday, or was he going somewhere afterward and if so, where?

  “Good to see you,” he said pleasantly as he shook my hand. “Appreciate your coming down.” The last time I saw him, some months ago, he’d invited me to dinner as a kind of thank-you for helping him solve the murder of one of our customers. But there’d been no dinner, and I hadn’t heard from him again. Until now. Should I remind him that he owed me? By the expression on his face, I decided, no, I shouldn’t. Not now.

  “Did I have a choice?” I asked.

  “Not really.”

  He opened an office door bearing his name and waved his hand toward a chair. I sat down.

  “Look, about my fingerprints. I know it’s just a formality, I mean I could never kill anyone.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “But I have to tell you my prints will be all over everything. I found Vienna. I touched her. I picked up the hanger. Oh, my God, maybe the hanger is the murder weapon.” I pressed my palm against my head.

  “Don’t worry about it now,” he said.

  “When should I worry about it?”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  I was sure of that. I took a deep breath and looked around the office. “Nice place you’ve got here,” I said. “Big promotion?”

  “More of a lateral move. I’m still a detective.”

  “Specializing in homicides?” I asked.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” he said.

  I shook my head. He was referring to that other murder. The murder with which I really had had nothing to do other than that the victim was a customer and I was the prime suspect, which forced me to take an active role in solving the case. “Look, Jack,” I said. “I had nothing to do with this and not much to do with the Jensen murder for that matter. Other than they both concerned persons connected to my place of work. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Such as in the shop on a Sunday morning. Do you want to tell me what you know about Vienna Fairchild?”

  I knew it was pointless to ask “Do I have a choice?” again, so I didn’t. Instead, I told him how I barely knew Vienna. But it turned out once he started questioning me, I knew quite a bit about her, including her so-called boyfriend, her father, her mother, her stepparents, her taste in clothes and where she was the last evening of her life.

  “By the way,” I said, “you and Vienna and I were all at the same function last night.”

  “That charity thing?” he asked. “Tell me about it.”

  “What can I tell you,” I said, “that you don’t know? You were there too. I saw you.” I’d also seen the woman who bid on him, but if he didn’t bring it up, neither would I.

  “Don’t worry about what I know or I don’t know. I want to know what you know.�
��

  I blinked. I tried to follow, but my brain was getting tired by now. No big surprise after what I’d been through. I started telling him about Vienna’s dress and her bidding at the auction and the last time I saw her in the ladies’ room.”

  “I thought you saw her this morning at your shop,” he said.

  “Yes, but she was dead.”

  “How did you know?” he asked.

  “I didn’t until your officer told me. Although…”

  “Yes?”

  “She didn’t seem to be breathing, and she had those marks on her neck.” I shuddered. When I looked up, he was twisting a pen in his fingers and watching me closely. What had I said? Something incriminating?

  “How would you describe your relationship with Ms. Fairchild?” he asked me as he leaned back in his chair.

  “You mean when she was alive,” I said, shifting from side to side. Why even try to get comfortable? That wasn’t the goal. The goal was to get out of there. Jack’s relaxed posture didn’t fool me. He was trying to get me to speak without thinking, to say things I shouldn’t if I wanted to walk out of here as a regular citizen and not a suspect.

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” he said. “We’ll get to the part about her death later.”

  I glanced at my watch. “Later? How much later? I have a swimming workout scheduled.”

  “On a Sunday?”

  “Your office is open on Sunday, so is my health club. Some of us work during the week and we have Sundays off.” Of course, Jack worked during the week and on Sundays too when he had a homicide on his hands.

  “I’ll try not to keep you much longer. Just a few more questions today.”

  Today? Were there going to be more tomorrow?

  “I’ll be honest,” I said. “Even though I’m not under oath.” Which I hoped he’d appreciate. “I was resentful of Vienna. She came to work for Dolce and took my place. She was a good saleswoman, and she worked on commission only. I got delegated to the stockroom, which I didn’t like. So there you have a motive if you need one. I wanted my job back.” I couldn’t tell from Jack’s stone face if he believed me—part of me was foolishly hoping he was so impressed with how forthcoming I’d been, he’d give me a pat on the back and send me on my way. But what the hell? He would find out sooner or later that Vienna had taken my place. Better he should hear it from me.

  “Detective Wall,” I said, trying to show respect and mindful that we were on his turf, “I think I’ve told you everything I know about Vienna.”

  “Have you?” he asked. “When was the last time you saw Ms. Fairchild?”

  “You mean alive?”

  “Yes, I mean alive.”

  “Last night in the ladies’ room at the hotel. She gave me her winning bid.”

  “Really. Why was that?”

  “Oh, oh, now I remember,” I said as a lightbulb went off over my head. “She said she couldn’t use it because her boyfriend would kill her.” I couldn’t believe I’d almost forgotten that. There, I’d solved the crime for him.

  Jack raised his eyebrows. He was probably thinking the same thing: I can’t believe you forgot to tell me that. Case closed.

  “Do you know who this boyfriend is?” he asked.

  “I asked her that. I said, ‘Do you mean Geoffrey?’ and she said ‘Yeah, Geoffrey,’ but you know, the way she said it, I’m not sure she meant it.”

  “What did she mean?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, getting increasingly impatient. “That’s the last time I saw her.”

  “Because you left the premises?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I went home in a taxi.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about your boss?”

  “She was there when I left.”

  “How did she get along with Ms. Fairchild?”

  “Famously. Dolce thought Vienna was terrific. Ask her.”

  “I intend to,” Jack said. “Can you account for Dolce Loren’s whereabouts for the rest of the evening?”

  “No, I can’t. I left early. She was still there.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I went home.” I couldn’t believe he was grilling me like a suspect. I’d been straightforward with him, though I was beginning to wish I hadn’t been. Why tell him how I felt about Vienna? He didn’t need to know.

  “Alone?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said stiffly. “I went home and I stayed there until this morning about nine.”

  “Did you see anyone last night or this morning, a neighbor perhaps who could verify your presence?”

  I did not like the way this was going. Not at all. “I didn’t see anyone. Of course, you could ask the taxi driver, who would say he dropped me off at around ten last night.” No response. “Do you have any idea what time Vienna was killed?” I asked.

  “I’m asking the questions,” he said.

  “I understand that. I just wondered why Vienna would end up on the floor at Dolce’s.”

  “That would be my question for you,” he said.

  “The answer is I have no idea,” I said. “But I saw this program once where the killer took the body from somewhere to somewhere else to avoid suspicion or to plant suspicion on someone else. Maybe that’s what happened. Someone wanted you to think that either Dolce or I killed Vienna. Or he was just bringing her back to the place where she worked for some reason.” Jack didn’t look impressed, but I continued anyway. “What I mean is, she could have been killed anywhere, like at the auction itself or in some back alley—although her dress looked perfect when I found her. Just the way it was when I saw it earlier that night. So I don’t know,” I admitted. “I assume you’ll be questioning her family. Maybe they know. She was at the auction with them. At least I think she was with them.”

  “I appreciate the suggestion,” he said, with just a tinge of sarcasm. Of course he would be questioning them. As well as Geoffrey. What did he think of my theory about moving the body? He didn’t say.

  “Geoffrey isn’t her only boyfriend,” I said. “I don’t think so because she got picked up after work by different guys in different cars. A Porsche one day, a Lotus another day and an SUV.”

  “I don’t suppose you got any license numbers?”

  “No, why would I? I had no reason to spy on Vienna. That would be an invasion of her privacy and downright creepy.”

  “God forbid you should be creepy. Sorry I asked.”

  “Besides, how many Lotuses are there in town? You should be able to track this one down. And there’s her roommate, Danielle. She might know something.” Like did she kill Vienna for not paying the rent.

  “Thanks, Rita,” he said as he entered something into his computer. Was it the persons or vehicles I’d suggested? Or had he entered some information about me? I’d have given anything to have a look at the screen in front of him.

  “By the way,” he said, “who was Ms. Fairchild’s winning bid for? The one she gave you.”

  “Dr. Rhodes.”

  “Dr. Jonathan Rhodes at San Francisco General Hospital,” he said, glancing down at something on his desk. “Have you contacted him about it?”

  “Not yet. Why, is there some reason I shouldn’t?”

  “Go ahead,” he said. It was almost as if he was daring me. And what was I going to say to Jonathan? I didn’t bid on you because I couldn’t afford it, but Vienna did and she gave me her ticket before she was murdered. How about that?

  He stood to indicate the interview was over.

  “I just have one question,” I said. “Are you sure it was murder?” Why did I ask? I wouldn’t be here if she’d just died from a poisonous snakebite or a heart attack. I’d seen those marks on her neck. I knew.

  “We’re calling it a possible homicide while we wait for the coroner’s report. From what you said about those marks on her neck—”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I appreciate your coming in, Rita,” he said. “You’re
free to go.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief and stood up.

  “Of course, we would appreciate it if you didn’t leave town without notifying us.”

  I sat down again. “Is that usual?” I meant, was that usual for a nonsuspect.

  “It’s customary in a murder investigation.”

  “Then you must have the coroner’s report and you know it was murder.”

  He didn’t bother to confirm or deny it. All he said was, “You’ve been helpful, and we may need to call on you again for some details, names or addresses you may have left out or forgotten.” He looked at a file folder on his desk. “Is your address and phone number the same?”

  “Except I’ve moved to the third floor of the building,” I said.

  “Better view?” he asked. He’d been to my old place during the investigation of the other murder. But I had no idea where he lived, since he never followed through on that dinner invitation.

  “Slightly,” I said. “But a smaller place.”

  Before I left, he instructed Rowley to drive me to the health club as a way of making up for interrupting my Sunday. He also said the site of the incident—he didn’t call it murder this time—had been cleared and was currently available. He handed me a card from a cleaning service that specialized in crime scenes and said we should call them. I said I’d give it to Dolce. I didn’t tell him she was missing. He probably knew. I wanted to ask him if he needed any help solving this crime, but I knew better. I could just see the expression on his face of “Here we go again.” I also realized it was not the time to remind him that he hadn’t followed through on his dinner invitation, so I just said, “Good luck,” and left.