Death Turns A Trick (Rebecca Schwartz #1) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series) (6 page)

When that was done, I asked Tony if I could use the bathroom and Marilyn if she had a hairbrush I could borrow. They both said yes.

Alone, I took off Elena’s turban and my make-up and brushed my hair into its accustomed professional do.

“That’s better,” Tony said. “You looked like a ten-dollar hooker. Where have you been, anyway?”

“Playing the piano in a whorehouse.”

“Okay, be snotty.”

“Honest. The dead woman worked there.”

“No kidding? She’s a hooker?”

“No and yes.”

“Who killed her?”

“I don’t know. I got no idea how I’m going to explain any of this to the cops, much less to my mom. Or where I’m going to sleep tonight.” I shivered. “Not over there.”

“I could give you the key to my apartment,” said Marilyn. “I’m going to stay with Tony.”

“No thanks. I think I need company. I’d better call my sister.”

I dialed Mickey’s number in Berkeley. Her nogoodnik boyfriend answered, “Whaddaya want?” But he wasn’t being rude because it was 3 a.m. He always answers like that, the way some people say, “Kelly’s Brickyard.”

I said, “Mickey. Now.”

“She ain’t here.”

“Alan, I am in no mood for jokes. Now.” He put her on.

“You tell El Creepo,” I said, “that when someone calls at three a.m., it is undoubtedly an emergency and no time to play games.”

“What emergency?”

“A lady of doubtful virtue is dead on my Flokati rug, and I would like you to get your shapely tush across the Bay Bridge fifteen minutes ago.”

“Shall I bring a vat of acid to dispose of the body?”

“Mickey, I’m serious.”

“Christ. One of your clients?”

“Yes.” This wasn’t strictly true, but it was close enough.

“Do Mom and Dad know?”

Tony’s buzzer went off. “Mickey, the cops just got here. Will you get on the stick? And leave Kruzick where he is.” She hung up without saying good-bye.

The cops were not homicide inspectors but uniformed officers from a radio car, come to make a “preliminary investigation.” It seems the police never take your word for anything. They looked at Kandi without touching her—so maybe I really didn’t do wrong by failing to take her pulse—and called an ambulance. One of them stayed with the body, and the other one took me back to Tony’s.

“Look,” I asked him, “how long is this going to take?” I was worried about imposing on Tony and Marilyn.

“Can’t say. An hour or two, probably. Maybe more.”

“Can I go back to my apartment, then?”

“Afraid not.”

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 prostitute 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.”