“I’d be delighted to try.” In fact, hadn’t I used that very phrase with Jenny just the other day? Still, it seemed odd Tang was so willing to let me meddle.

  Cesar glowered and pointed at the purple stole draped over my arm. “What’s that for?”

  “Confession. Well, technically we call it the Rite of Reconciliation, but it’s the same—”

  “Oh, no. Oh, hell no. If she told you anything it would be—”

  “Yep. Between her, me, and God.”

  “I forbid you from hearing that woman’s confession.”

  “First off, as if you can forbid me anything. Second, your captain asked me to help.” I flapped the stole.

  “Come on, Garza,” Tang said. “You’re a good Catholic boy. You know if the suspect gets right with God, she’ll feel compelled to tell the truth. Let’s give Reverend Lee here a chance.” Captain Tang gallantly took my hand and winked at Cesar. Did he know we'd been an item?

  My boots clapped against the square terra cotta tiles. Pairs of gray desks faced each other, some messy, some tidy, some so bare as to indicate a vacancy in the department. A glass-walled room in the corner housed a rolling white board, busy with a collage of images, Cesar’s scrawled script, and arrows connecting things.

  It had to be the murder room, the evidence gathered in Cindy’s case all on display. Could I slip in there and snap a photo of what they’d discovered with my phone?

  “Don’t even think about it,” a low voice rumbled in my ears.

  “Think about what? I was just admiring the walls. This shade of beige paint really dresses up the cinderblocks. And the maroon trim. Very homicidal. I mean, suitable for the homicide squad.”

  At my side, Captain Tang chuckled. “Is she always like this?”

  “An exhausting twenty-four seven, Sir.”

  Well, if Tang hadn’t known before, Cesar had revealed we used to be together around the clock. If memory served, it was not my meddling that had kept us both awake.

  Suddenly, I realized how close he was, and my back tingled from my scalp to my Achilles heels. Oh, God, please give Naomi a nudge my way so I could stop thinking about this man.

  Captain Tang opened a door, leading into a small dark room. On the wall, a one-way mirror revealed Lynn hunched over a table, her hair a scraggly curtain covering her face. Through that veil, I saw her lips moving like someone reciting fervent prayers.

  “What’s she saying?”

  “She’s talking to Cindy.” Cesar pressed his back to the wall and crossed his arms. “Apparently, you said in your sermon yesterday you talk to her, too.”

  Ah. It suddenly made sense why Tang had agreed to let me in. He believed I’d contributed to her troubled state of mind.

  “Is she having a psychotic break?”

  Cesar frowned. “The social worker doesn’t think so. She’s lucid, but she won’t respond to our questions.”

  “Lawyer?”

  Captain Tang reached for the doorknob. “She doesn’t want a lawyer. Cesar called a public defender, and she told the poor woman to get out. Questioning her when she’s like this won’t hold up in court. So right now, I count you as our best option.

  “Okay. I’ll try.” I stepped into the hallway. Cesar followed, then let me into Lynn’s room. The door clicked shut behind me. I faced the one-way mirror, knowing they observed from the other side.

  When I turned to Lynn, I found her watching me through her hair, smiling eerily. “Hey, look who’s here, Cindy. It’s Alma.”

  She tilted her head expectantly.

  “Hi, Lynn.”

  “Ssh. Cindy’s talking to you.”

  Um. Right. And the social worker had deemed this a normal psychological state? Dear God, compared to what?

  “What’s she saying, Lynn?”

  “She’s saying I didn’t kill her.”

  “Oh. Can she tell us who did?” I had to ask, on the off-chance Lynn was conducting a legit séance in the interview room.

  Lynn shook her head, a quick burst of small movements that would surely rattle her brain. “No. No. That’s not important right now.”

  Cesar might beg to differ, but he stood on the other side of that one-way mirror so his opinion didn’t count.

  “Okay. What is important?”

  “Cindy wants to tell you what she did.” Lynn tipped her head to the left as if pointing to the invisible ghost of her wife.

  Should I pretend I saw her? I tried looking at the spot and giggled.

  Lynn kicked me under the table. “This is no time for laughing.”

  “Ow.” I rubbed my shin. “That hurt.”

  She crossed her arms.

  Fair point—I hadn’t been murdered or held under suspicion of committing murder. My shin stopped smarting. Maybe if I’d brought her some chocolate, she’d have been nicer to me.

  “What does Cindy want to tell me, Lynn?”

  “She wants you to know what she did to make me so mad.”

  I couldn’t help it. I glanced over my shoulder at the one-way mirror. “Lynn, do you want me to put on my stole and make this a formal confession? Then whatever you say is only between you, me, and God.”

  She waved her arm, dismissing my caution. “She wants to tell you she took all our savings and dumped the money I’d saved for fertility treatment into that bottomless shit hole of a bar.”

  My stomach sank. I’d wondered how Cindy was still buying liquor, paying her staff and utilities. Whenever I’d asked, she’d vaguely replied, “loans.”

  “How much money?”

  “All together, one hundred sixty thousand dollars. My entire savings plus my inheritance from my grandmother. All gone.” Lynn’s words came out sharper and more clearly. Her crazy act seemed to recede.

  I restrained myself from whistling at the hefty sum. “What did you do when you found out?”

  “What any sane person would do. I kicked her out and called a lawyer.”

  Damn. Cindy hadn’t told me any of this.

  “But she wasn’t on my couch for most of the last two weeks. You let her come back?”

  Lynn nodded. “We tried to talk it out, but once I’d learned about the money, I couldn’t stuff a single grievance back down. Every hurt I’d tried to forgive and forget suddenly had its own memorial marble statue in my brain.”

  I barked out a hoarse laugh. Lynn sounded far more like herself.

  “That night, she invited me to the closing party, but I didn’t want to step into that place. It was a black hole that had swallowed up my savings and my marriage.” Her voice cracked on the last word. “And I was right. It even took her in the end.”

  “But you left work early, drove across the bridge. Did you go looking for her at the bar?”

  Lynn sniffed. Her angry expression cracked, revealing the grief in her sunken eyes. “We’d fought that afternoon. She wasn’t answering my calls or texts, and I was getting frantic—you know the feeling?—mad and scared shitless at the same time."

  “Yep.” When Cesar had graduated from the academy and worked patrol, I had felt it every time he was a little late and didn’t text.

  “I drove by the bar, but it was dark. I figured she’d gone to your place or out to an all-night club. And I was spitting mad at her for not even telling me which one.” She dropped her forehead to the table, hard. “She was probably already dead on the steps of St. Giles’, and I drove right by, madder than hell and thinking the worst of her.”

  Cindy had stolen Lynn’s savings, her hopes and dreams. She was entitled to think the worst.

  Lynn raised her head and sucked in a gasping breath. “I asked Cesar how she got from the bar to the steps of St. Giles’.”

  “What did he say?”

  “She crawled. There was gravel in her palms, but somehow she made it that far with a fatal head wound.” Lynn’s voice trembled.

  Had she been trying to reach me for help? The friend who’d abandoned her, just across the street, but too far to save her. A surge of yesterday’s nausea rose up in me. I inhaled through my nose and refocused on Lynn.

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “I went to Happy Donuts on Church at 1 a.m. We ate there on our second date. And I paid for my éclair with a credit card.”

  “Did you try calling her?”

  “Like a million times and left that many voicemails, too.”

  Those probably proved nothing, but it made me more inclined to believe her. Had the police accessed Cindy’s phone records and listened to the messages?

  “I’m so glad you came,” she said. “After your sermon, I knew you would understand this guilt I feel. The last things we said to each other were so awful…”

  “And yet, she’s here now to hear you, right?”

  “Well… She is, but only in my imagination.”

  Tension melted from my shoulders. “I’m of the opinion that all human contact with the dead is in our imagination, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real. That’s just how we access God and her dimensions.” I reached across the table for her hands and she clasped mine, hot and firm. “Tell Cindy you’re sorry, and if you’re ready, you can say you forgive her, too.”

  She nodded her head vigorously. “I am.”

  I led her in a prayer—not a confessional one, but one for peace and reconciliation. She stumbled on the words, “I forgive you,” but she repeated them firmly a second time. After our amen, she sat, eyes closed and taking long, steady breaths. I watched the peace settle over her, like something sprinkled from above, changing her very composition.

  “Now, I want you to call a lawyer.”

  The door burst open. “No need for a lawyer. You’re free to go.”

  “What?” Lynn blinked, voicing my question. Nothing she said proved her innocence. Unless…

  “You have another suspect?” One with more than circumstantial proof.

  “Just don’t leave town, Lynn.”

  She pulled back to stand up, but I kept hold of her hands. “When you’re feeling a little better, let’s talk about your mom project. It doesn’t have to cost a hundred thousand dollars.”

  I didn’t possess even a minuscule DNA sequence of maternal instinct, but the Bible had taught me having that particular longing denied could slowly crush a woman. If motherhood called to Lynn, I would help her find a way.

  She squeezed her eyes closed and nodded. At the door to the interview room, she hugged me. “Thank you. And thanks for keeping an eye on Cesar. With you on the case, I’m sure justice will be served.”

  Apparently Lynn also read too many of those detective-priest whodunits. I was proving no help at all. Still, I returned her embrace. “Is your sister still at your place?”

  “Yeah. I can call her to come—”

  “Let’s not put her out. I’ll have someone drive you home.” Captain Tang offered Lynn his arm. He led her to that pert blonde who’d been with Mario the night of the party. She smiled at Lynn, her eyes holding just the right amount of sympathy. If she wasn’t careful to hide that skill, she’d always get slapped with death-notice duty.

  “Well.” I sidestepped around Cesar, “Happy to be of assistance.”

  “Not so fast.” Despite being twice as big as me, the man was fast. He blocked my escape and herded me into the interview room.

  Chapter Thirteen

  My collar felt too tight, and sweat prickled in my armpits. I’ve never owned a car, but I’d slapped many Question Authority bumper stickers onto the outside of BART trains in my rambunctious youth.

  What’s that—I still seem rambunctious to you? Why, thank you. Am I blushing?

  In a split second, with the door slamming closed on the interview room, Cesar ceased to be my oldest friend and ex-lover. He represented Authority with a capital A, and I grew spines.

  Then he propped one hip on the table and opened a folder. He didn’t ask me to sit.

  My spines retracted. Perhaps porcupine-mode had been a bit of an overreaction.

  “That was Naomi Cohen coming to meet you for breakfast, wasn’t it?”

  Okay—best not to lower all my defenses. I may still need the sharp tips of my bristles out.

  “Yes.”

  “How did you meet her?”

  “She’s a rabbi.” Not a lie, just an evasion. “We’re colleagues.”

  “She’s very beautiful.” His coffee-brown eyes cut into me.

  I could say I hadn’t noticed, but demurring probably wouldn’t soften the tension in the cell-sized room.

  “Yes, she is.”

  “Are you seeing her?”

  “Is that a personal or professional question?”

  “Her brother is our number-one suspect. The evidence against Lynn is circumstantial, but we’ve got material stuff on Cohen. I think you should stay away from her until the case is closed.”

  “Why?”

  “Does she know that you know me?”

  I shrugged. “So.”

  “Did it occur to you she might be using you to help her brother?”

  In fact, that had been her goal. But I hadn’t seen it as using, so much as asking, as forming a friendship, one that might develop into something more with the first person I’d wanted since the man not quite interrogating me.

  I glanced at the mirror. Was the captain watching me through the glass? I reached around to the back of my neck and sprung my clerical collar free. Cesar and I exhaled at the same time. He’d never gotten used to the thing. I set it on the table.

  By opening his folder, he’d exposed a photo. In the sepia tones cast by the yellow street lamps at the 16th St. BART Plaza, a camera had captured David Cohen mid-step. He wore a puffy jacket, his long curls blowing high. At the bottom of the print, a time signature in vintage digital-alarm-clock font read TH JUN 1 12:43 AM.

  “Shit.” I picked it up and examined his shoes—were they the missing pair? The print revealed no details other than the color black. But perhaps the digital version would be in higher resolution.

  “Things aren’t looking good for the rabbi’s brother.”

  “He loves kittens.”

  Cesar crossed his arms and tilted his head. “She told you that?”

  My failure to reply was its own answer.

  “Shit, is right, Alls. Her brother’s in deep. Wait until the case is closed, and see if she still wants to have breakfast with you, okay?”

  Genuine concern rumbled in his voice, but it didn’t temper my anger at him. “No, it’s not okay. How about, instead, you mind your own business?”

  “This happens all the time.” His voice remained calm, not even a click louder. “Ask anybody out there.” He flung his arm toward the desks down the hall. “Girls meet a cop at the bar, screw them like crazy, and in the morning ask to get a few parking tickets taken care of.”

  “She’s not some femme fatale, you dummy. She’s new in town, and she needs a friend. We have a lot in common.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Not everybody’s a user, Cesar.”

  “Nope. Not everybody. Some people have savior complexes instead.”

  “Riiiight. But help me out. I’m a little confused whether those wannabe saviors become cops or priests.”

  “Touché.” Cesar chuckled.

  Making him laugh still warmed me from the inside, apparently. It definitely diffused my anger.

  “So, Alma, what did Naomi tell you about her brother?”

  “Oh. Not much. I’m sure it’s nothing a master detective like you hasn’t already figured out.”

  “Try me.”

  “Well, how about you tell me what you've learned, and I’ll add anything else she’s shared?”

  “How about you stop screwing around, Alls? If you withhold evidence, it will be out of my hands. Tang will throw the book at you.”

  Another day, I’d have teased him for using such a cop-show cliché. On this occasion, I had to keep him from noticing how sweaty my palms had gotten. I crammed them into the back pockets of my jeans.

  “She told me his marriage is in trouble and that he’s probably having an affair with a younger woman.”

  “Yeah. Got that already. What else?”

  “He put all his money into getting the bar started. He stood to lose a lot if Cindy refused to vacate.”

  “Yeah, yeah. What else?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What about that night? Did she really not hear anything?

  “That’s what she told me.”

  “Is she a light sleeper?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Come on, Alma. We’re talking about a woman’s life. If he gets away with murder, he’ll do it again.”

  This was it. The moment I could tell the truth about the missing shoes, or I could try to buy Naomi and David more time. But for what? To exonerate him, or so he could disappear to South America forever?

  “What’s your evidence against Cohen?”

  Cesar inflated his cheeks and blew out the breath slowly, glaring at me with narrowed eyes. “Footprint at the scene in his shoe size. In Cindy’s blood.”

  I cringed, even though I already knew. Cesar reached for my shoulder.

  I retreated before he made contact. “And did you find the bloody shoe?”

  Jaw clenched, he jerked his head to the right. “No.”

  “Well, if he’s your man, I guess you better ask yourself where those shoes could be, between the plaza,” I pointed at the photo, “and his flat.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying your uniforms need to search the neighborhood. Unless there's a camera on every block?” I raised my brows, already knowing the answer.

  In spite of what happened to Yeye, my parents are privacy nuts. They hate surveillance cameras in public. Whenever we walk by the BART Plaza, my mother whispers vehemently, El Hermano Mayor está mirando. And she avoids public transportation because of the closed- circuit cameras on municipal busses and trains. No Uber either—then the cell phones and satellites track where you are.

  What my mother thinks Big Brother will catch her doing, I can’t even imagine. Buying contraband raw milk for the grocery store? She’s hardly organizing a revolution—she leaves that to me.

  “There are no city cameras on the streets around his flat.” Cesar’s eyes didn’t relax into their natural, almond shape, and he pursed his lips.

 

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