Death Turns A Trick (Rebecca Schwartz #1) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series) (18 page)

“About what?”

“I do know someone who had a motive to kill Kandi. Two people.”

If I’d been a Victorian lady, I’d have called for the smelling salts. If I’d been a Buddhist, I’d have figured my Karma had just done an about-face. But I was a Jewish feminist lawyer, so I just sat there smiling and nodding, with my heart doing ninety in a residential neighborhood.

“I mean I didn’t exactly lie; I sort of forgot at the time,” Stacy continued. “Elena brought it up later at a co-op meeting. In fact, she specifically asked all of us not to tell you.”

She showed me those sharp little teeth of hers, meaning to be friendly I guess, but the woman simply could not smile without looking malicious. She should see a dentist.

I had so many questions it was tough to know which one to go with. I decided on something low-key. “So why are you telling me?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I guess I don’t see prostitution as an honorable profession with a code of ethics and all that crap. It’s a living, sure, but for Christ’s sake, on the off chance your client”—she sneered the word—“is innocent after all, he ought to get a break. Also, I figure I can trust you to use the names wisely.”

“It’s the two guys Kandi was blackmailing, isn’t it?”

“We don’t know for sure she was blackmailing them.”

Oh God, when was she going to come to the point? I couldn’t take it much longer. “I can promise to be discreet,” I said. Was that me talking? That stuffy simp?

“Good. Okay then.”

I waited. I even reached for a pencil and a piece of paper to scribble the names down.

“Martin Goodfellow,” she said. I scribbled. “And Walter Berman.” I kept scribbling, hoping Stacy wouldn’t see that I wasn’t writing down the second name at all, but making crazy little loops and circles to give myself something to do so I could stay in control. Because the worst had happened. My uncle Walter had just become a murder suspect.

Those loops and circles helped, though. I was bearing down so hard I broke my pencil point, but I kept my cool. “Know anything about them?” I asked casually.

She shrugged. “I’ve seen them a dozen times, and they look rich. That’s about all.”

“I appreciate your telling me this, Stacy.”

“I thought I ought to. See you later—I've got a date.”

And she was gone. I turned my chair to the window and looked out to think. I had to admit Elena was right about her; she wasn’t a bad sort underneath that malicious smile and defensive exterior.

“Who was that?” Chris was standing in my doorway, looking like a fashion model in a black silk blouse and slender camel skirt. Even in the state I was in, I wished I had her figure.

“Stacy. Sit down.”

“Uh oh. You sound like we is in a heap o’shit.”

“I’m glad you said ‘we.’ But it’s me, really. Listen, let me pose a hypothetical ethical problem. Suppose a lawyer’s gentleman friend is accused of murder and he hires her to save his pretty ass. So the lawyer tries to find out who else might have had a motive for killing the victim and, because a prostitute with a sense of civic duty shoots off her mouth, the lawyer discovers the victim was blackmailing two men.”

“Go on.”

“And one of the men is the lawyer’s favorite uncle.” I spoke fast so I could get the words out before they got stuck somewhere on the way.

Chris’s nose quivered. She sprawled back in her chair. “Oh, my poor peach blossom.”

“Keep it hypothetical. We Schwartzes don’t like to tell family secrets.”

Chris sat up, all business, like I knew she would. She could deal with a hypothesis a lot better than she could deal with a friend in trouble. With her friends, her natural inclination was to soothe any way she could, even if it meant saying what they wanted to hear when it wasn’t necessarily the truth.

“The lawyer would have to decide whether she has a diddleybop.”

“Conflict, yes.”

She rubbed the side of her long nose with an equally long finger. If she were a man and the tales were true, she would probably have a long penis. “At this point, I think whether she had a conflict would depend on her emotional state.”

“How do you mean?”

“If she felt she had to protect her uncle at her client’s expense, well, yes, she should withdraw from the case. But investigating a murder is not normally a lawyer’s job, and unless she had evidence that the uncle was
actually
the murderer, and not merely a person with a motive, she wouldn’t be obligated to tell the police. In fact, her professional status would
only
be affected if that were the case—I mean if she had hard evidence—or if she felt she couldn’t adequately represent her client.”

She was right. I could see it instantly. I nodded.

“Just for the sake of interest,” she asked “what
is
the hypothetical lawyer’s state of mind?”

“Screw the hypothesis. I’m all right. I can do it. You know what? I love being a lawyer.”

“Oh, stop dribbling all over yourself.”

“I do, really. I love the way things fit together so tidily and there’s a reason for everything, except you always have to weigh everything, and it’s like a constant tug-of-war.” “Some say it has nothing to do with justice.”

“Well, certain specific legal questions don’t, of course; I mean, certain things aren’t
right
, but they
are
the law, and I even like that part of it.”

“So much that you’re willing to give up smoking marijuana?”

“Of course not. You have to work to change bad laws, but the code we do have is so manageable and organized and—safe.”

“Cozy as a flea on a cat in a feather bed,” said Chris. “Want to have lunch?”

“Can’t. Got a date, as Stacy would say.”

“Ah, yes. Mr. Pigball of the
Chronicle
. Give him all the news that fits.”

He wasn’t the only one I had news for, so I got on the phone again and continued my campaign of ruthless media manipulation.

Rob was a fashionable twenty minutes late. He wore the corduroy jacket reporters seem to consider a uniform, had a bunch of daisies in one hand, and had the other arm in a sling.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he said, extending the daisies. “I wish they were roses. No, diamonds.”

“Purple’s one of my best colors,” I said. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Voila!” He slipped the arm out of the sling, wiggled the hand to show me it worked, and used it to take my hand and bring it to his lips.

“Hey, cut it out.” I was annoyed at being fooled. “What’s the point of the sling?”

“It’s for you, my dear. Misery loves company.”

Well, sure I laughed. Who could help it? Then I put the daisies in a vase.

“Listen, this thing you have to tell me,” he said. “It’s top-secret stuff, right?”

“I’ve already told half your brethren in the broadcast media.”

“I mean we shouldn’t be overheard talking about it.”

“I suppose not,” I said, not sure what he was getting at.

“Good, then we can’t go to a restaurant. Come with me.”

I did—first to get a bottle of wine, a loaf of sourdough French bread, and two kinds of paté from Marcel and Henri on Union Street, and then to Fort Point for a picnic. Now Fort Point is not a picnic area, but simply a lovely spot almost directly under the Golden Gate Bridge where teenagers go to park and tourists go to look at the view. But we went there to picnic. Rob’s first plan was to spread things out on the hood of his car and climb up on it, but it was too windy for that. We ate in the car.

It was a gorgeous day for it. Windy, but clear and crisp, so that persons of the leisure class were out on the bay providing a show in their sailboats, and persons of other boating classes were going about their appointed rounds as well. The bridge was right above us, just to the left, and the hills of Marin were right in front of us, making a spectacular background for the folks in the water show. Blame it on the wine, but I got about as relaxed and content as a lawyer with a purple face, a client in jail, and an uncle in trouble can get.

I told Rob about the money, flinching a little when I got to the part about leaving it home to go to my parents’ party, but he had the decency to say he’d have probably done the same thing himself.

“Do you think she was killed for the money?” he asked when I was done.

“Yes. Do you?”

“I don’t see any other way to interpret it. The question is, where’d she get it and who knew she had it? Oh yeah, and who knew she was going to be at your house?”

“Well, Elena sent her there, so she knew. And Stacy Clayton, who’s one of Elena’s partners, rode partway over with Kandi, so she knew. But anyone could have followed her from the bordello. The police think Parker did.” Mentioning Stacy made me remember something. “Say, Rob,” I said on impulse, “you haven’t heard of a Martin Goodfellow, have you?”

“Sure. He’s a banker—friend of my publisher’s. Don’t tell me he’s mixed up in this.”

“Stacy says Kandi may have been blackmailing him.”

“Oho! That explains why the
Chronicle's
so interested in this story. Didn’t you wonder how I happened to be in front of your house after Jaycocks beat you up?”

“I assumed you heard me on the police radio.”

“My dear, I have better things to do at midnight than listen to the scanner. No, the night police reporter heard the broadcast, and it was thought so important that the city editor called me at home and sent me over. The whole staff knows the publisher is hot after this story. But why was Kandi supposed to be blackmailing Goodfellow?”

“He was a client, and she thought he’d pay to see that nobody found out about it. She may have blackmailed one or two others too, apparently. At least that’s what Stacy and Elena think.”

“Do you know their names?”

“Yes, but—no.” I never have been good at lying.

“You do.”

“Don’t press me, Rob. There’s only one, anyway.”

“Okay, for now I won’t press you. But let’s backtrack a little. Are the blackmailees suspects in your mind?”

“Sure.”

“But then where does the money come in? I mean, if a guy was giving her money, why would he kill her for money?”

“He wouldn’t. It doesn’t make sense. If one of the blackmailees killed her, it had to be in a fit of anger, I think. I’m reasonably sure neither of them was at the party, though I can’t be positive because I don’t know what Goodfellow looks like. But assuming he wasn’t, that means that he—or the other one—knew she’d be at the bordello as usual on Friday night, and he waited for her to come out, intending to follow her home for some reason. But she didn’t go home; she went to my house. And he saw her ring the bell, get no answer, and leave a note stuck in the mailbox. So he figured no one else would be there, and he rang the bell and got her to let him in.”

“It was taking a hell of a risk.”

“True, but presumably we’re dealing with somebody who was about as mad—and probably afraid—as he could get, and wasn’t thinking clearly. So, okay. So Kandi let him in, first hiding the money, and he had a fight with her and killed her.”

“And it had nothing to do with the money?”

“Listen, so far as I am concerned officially, she was killed for that money. That’s what I’m trying to use to get the police to release Parker. But if the case goes to trial, God forbid, I’ll have to use everything I can to convince a jury someone other than Parker killed her. I’ll have to postulate, for instance, that she got the money from blackmailee one and was killed by blackmailee two, who knew nothing about the bundle in the flowerpot.”

“You’re going to first argue that she was killed for the money, and that’s why your house was ransacked, and then turn around and say no, actually, that wasn’t the case at all? And how are you going to do it? Put the blackmailees—assuming, by the way, Goodfellow and the other poor slob actually
were
blackmailed—put them on the stand? You’re gibbering, Miss Schwartz.”

I felt a tear pop into each eye and then run down each cheek. He was right, of course; you can’t use that kind of stuff in any court in the country.

“Hey, come on,” said Rob in a soft voice. “I didn’t mean to cast aspersions on your professional abilities. I thought we were having a friendly discussion in which each person was permitted to speak his mind.”

“I’m sorry, Rob. It isn’t that. It’s just that I’m terribly upset about something, and I’m not thinking too clearly on the subject.” The subject of Uncle Walter.

“Oh, wait a minute. I think I’m getting the hang of things—like why you wouldn’t tell me who blackmailee two is. It’s someone you know, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

“And you’re not worried about what you’re going to argue in court at all. You’re feeling guilty because you do think one of the blackmailees might have done it, and you’re not willing to tell the police about them.”

He’d hit it on the nose, all right. More tears came, and then outright sobs. Rob pulled me close and let me cry on his shoulder. “Okay, listen,” he said. “If one of the blackmailees killed her, why did he follow her home—to your house, I mean?” I kept sobbing. “If that’s what happened, you know, he probably didn’t do it in a fit of anger. He probably meant to kill her. Do you think your friend, or whoever he is, could commit premeditated murder?”

I sat up. “No! Or any other kind.”

“Come on, now.” He pulled out a handkerchief and began to apply it to my face. “Come on, look; if it’ll make you feel any better, I’m willing to go in with you on a little amateur detective work. I could ask some discreet questions and find out what Goodfellow was up to Friday night—if he has an alibi, I mean. If he does, you can eliminate him. If he doesn’t”—he shrugged—“you can do what you like with the information. But you have to do a little work, too. Can you find out if your friend had an alibi?”

Despair swept over me like a tsunami. “What would be the point?” I said.

“Well, several points. One, to assuage your guilt. Two, to give you another suspect if Goodfellow is in the running. Three, to give you a chance to clear your friend in your own head.” He stopped and spoke in a very gentle voice: “I guess that’s mostly the point. To get you to go to him and reassure yourself that he didn’t do it—because you do believe he didn’t do it, don’t you?”