She drew stick figures on the napkin, which already featured a frowny face and read J/K!—the abbreviation for just kidding. It was easy to imagine Cindy passing the note as an apology to someone she’d offended with one of her too honest jokes. She held up her diagram. “And we’ll make a human chain like this around the buil—”

  “Cin—”

  “When the landlord’s demo team shows up—”

  “No!”

  She blinked at me. “The human chain’s a bad idea?”

  “The whole thing is a bad idea. We lost this fight for a reason. It’s time to regroup, figure out what’s next for you, and move on.”

  Her jaw fell open, and her pleasant features twisted into fury. “Are you trying to cozy up to that girl?”

  Anger boiled through me. I inhaled and blew it out on the next breath. Thou Shalt Not Murder, and all that.

  “Yes, I was trying to cozy up to her, but that’s not why it’s time for you to throw in the towel.” I fingered a waxy, sallow leaf on her Philodendron. “Cindy—you’re a lousy business woman. You were a better social worker. Hell, you were a better barista.”

  Her lower lip trembled.

  “I’m sorry to have to say it like that, but it’s true.”

  She pointed at the door. “Get out.”

  “Don’t be—”

  “Get out.”

  And so I did. We could discuss it tomorrow, when she was sober, and no longer the proprietor of The Carlos Club.

  Chapter Two

  The next morning, I bounded out of bed, ready to face my day.

  The postage-stamp sized house where I lived behind St. Giles' had originally been built as a shelter after the 1906 earthquake. Once there’d been a whole row of them on a deep, narrow lot that faced Fifteenth Street and ran through the center of the block. Decades back, a developer bought the property from the city to tear them down and build apartments. A history buff on the vestry of St. Giles' put up his own money to save the one nearest to the church for posterity, and to house their beloved bachelor rector at the time.

  The house didn’t have enough windows and was overdue for a kitchen and bathroom remodel, but I loved my little vicarage. Plus, I'd never have made it to 8:30 a.m. Morning Prayer five days a week if I lived half a block further from St. Giles’.

  Even with such proximity, I was known to stumble in at 8:35, and the altar guild no longer begrudged me my mug of gunpowder green tea. Uncaffeinated, I can scare the pants off any fierce old lady, no matter how much she wants to protect the needlepoint pew cushions from spills.

  Freshly showered, my hair still wet, I walked down the path alongside the sanctuary. I rounded the building and ascended the stairs, searching my ring for the big skeleton key to the narthex one handed, while my mug steamed in the other. Before I reached the top step, something appeared in my field of vision. A person in a black coat curled into the fetal position.

  Sometimes transients slept under the overhang. I knew most of them by name and had an individualized strategy for waking each one without inciting profanity or violence. Alice responded best to firm pats on her shoulder. Phil roused most peacefully when I quietly sang “Rise and Shine.” Still, best to keep back several steps from him just in case he shot to his feet, frightened and ready to throw a punch.

  At first glance, I didn't recognize this person. I bent closer and caught sight of purple hair peeking out of a black hood. I knew that dye job, but not from my stoop sleepers.

  “Cindy?”

  She didn’t move. The color of her skin was wrong—not her usually ruddy cheeks, but pallid, almost gray. Then I saw the blood matted in her hair and trailing down her face. I dropped my mug of tea.

  I had no doubt she was dead.

  Cindy, who I’d met in Algebra II class in tenth grade. Who got me stoned the one and only time I’d ever smoked pot. Who kindly got me drunk at her bar many times in the months after Cesar dumped me, whose hand I had held for the last ninety days. Cindy, whom I'd parted with angrily.

  She was dead.

  I dropped to my knees and did what every priest worth the price of her vestments would do when words failed. I recited a prayer, straight from the book.

  “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend your servant Cindy. Acknowledge a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock. Receive her into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.”

  I brushed the hair off her forehead. The blood made it stick to my fingers. Right. Probably shouldn’t be touching her.

  I pulled out my phone. My arm felt a mile long. I dialed the Mission Street police dispatch. I had the number on speed dial for the many nuisances that came with leading a church in the eclectic neighborhood, including when Alice or Phil did not take kindly to being roused from sleep.

  Cindy would never wake up.

  “I’d like to report a dead body.” I heard my voice echo in my ears as if I was outside my skin.

  The sirens sounded moments later, leaving the station four blocks away.

  I answered the dispatcher’s questions—Was I hurt? Was there anyone nearby? All I could think was Cindy. Cindy. Cindy. Today was supposed to be her new start. And someone would have to tell Lynn her wife was dead.

  The black-and-white cars pulled up. Two cops I'd never met gently tugged me away from the body.

  The female officer handed me a tissue. I touched my cheek and found it damp with tears.

  “Is there someplace we can talk?” asked the male officer.

  “I don’t want to leave her. She’s my friend.” And I’d been a lousy one to her last night, storming off in anger. If I’d stayed at the party, helped her close up one last time, would she still be alive?

  The squeal of tires jerked me out of my regret-filled thoughts. A dark Ford SUV U-turned in the middle of the block, cutting off a line of cars in the opposite lane. The unmarked truck parked halfway on the red-curbed sidewalk, facing the oncoming traffic.

  Cesar burst out of the driver’s door in one of his black suits, too well cut to mark him as a homicide detective.

  Relief settled on me, slowed my thoughts, as if some unconscious part of me believed he made everything okay. I hated him for that.

  “Alls?”

  My nickname since the fifth grade. Only he still used it.

  I flung my arm toward where she lay. “It’s Cindy.”

  “Damn.” He breathed the word, glancing over his shoulder at the bar. “Mario said he saw you there last night.”

  “Hey boss,” a third uniformed officer said, “looks like a blow to the head. You can see a trail of blood that leads across the street from the bar. She has her phone on her, with credit cards and cash stuffed in its wallet case.”

  “Block off the street. Get the blood trail photographed pronto.”

  “Yes, sir.” The young man loped off, speaking into the radio.

  Cesar came to my side.

  “I left her.” My breaths were coming fast, too fast. “I shouldn’t have left her. She needed me.”

  He punched my shoulder, hard. “No. You don’t get to do that. Alma Lee does not get hysterical. Unless you hit her over the head yourself, snap out of it and be useful.”

  He was right. I hated him for that, too.

  “I smell smoke.” The officer who’d given me a tissue scanned Cindy as if looking for a bullet wound.

  “It’s my tea. I dropped it when I saw her.” I pointed at my mug, shattered at the bottom of the stairs.

  Cesar snorted.

  “So much for securing the crime scene,” the officer muttered.

  Cesar took hold of my elbow and led me around the corner of the church to the office. I handed him my massive key ring. “Yellow one.”

  He unlocked the door. Soon, my parish administrator would arrive, but at the moment the tidy reception area where she worked was dark. I didn’t need Cesar’s inevitable commentary about my messy office, so I flipped on the lights in the front room and cranked up the thermostat.

  I needed caffeine, and I’d spilled my tea on Cindy… No. Not her. Her corpse…

  The swirling knot of emotions tried to rise up my throat again. I swallowed them to avoid getting punched out of my hysterics a second time. After flipping on the kettle, I spooned tea pellets into a new mug, emblazoned with my seminary seal. I pictured the one shattered on the sidewalk and sniffled. It had read HBIC, short for Head Bitch In Charge, a gift from my pal Jordan. Although whenever a parishioner asked, I said it was from a conference I’d attended.

  “Talk to me.” Cesar perched his big, muscular frame on my neat-freak parish administrator’s immaculate desk. “What got Cindy killed?”

  “You know her.” I jabbed his chest. He couldn’t investigate the death of someone he knew personally, which meant he was just trying to get me talking so I didn’t crumble again before the official detective assigned to the case arrived.

  “Yeah, and in theory the chief would assign somebody else. But we’ve got three guys out on leave, and two working that shooting at the liquor store. Chances are, he won’t take me off, now that I’m here. So spill. Who'd want Cindy dead?”

  “God, I don’t know. Don’t people only want other people dead on TV?” My mom is addicted to cop shows, and the plot lines are about as realistic as The Lord of Rings without elves.

  “If that were true, I wouldn’t have a job.”

  I closed my eyes and pictured Cindy the last time I’d seen her: in her office, red-faced and arguing. Maybe I did know someone with a motive. David, Naomi’s brother, had been furious with her. I’m sure it wouldn’t improve my chances with her to give his name to the cops. But Cindy was dead. A second chance to get Naomi’s number hardly mattered.

  “There was a guy there—the new tenant. Cindy said she didn’t want to give up, wanted to continue fighting to keep the bar. He got mad. I saw them arguing.”

  “Last name?”

  “Beats me. But the landlord is Kevin Kearney, and he’ll be able to tell you.”

  Cesar wrote the name down in the notebook he always carried—no digital notes for him—and slid the pad into his pocket. His calm, efficient manner reminded me that the gangly boy I’d known since childhood had chosen the perfect profession for himself. When we’d been together, I’d wanted to shield him from its demanding darkness. He’d always said, “Somebody’s got to do it.”

  I shuddered. Now, I was glad that somebody was him.

  “You all right?” The kettle whistled. He went to it and poured the hot water over my tea.

  When the heat of the mug soaked into my palms, I answered. “Yeah. I’ll be all right.”

  It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a dead body, and I don’t mean at funerals. I’d found my grandfather shot in the head in his grocery store on Mission Street my sophomore year of high school. Cesar had been with me. Futures had been forged that day—his vocation and mine, and the bond we never could shake.

  “What was going on with Cindy? Relationship trouble? Money problems?”

  “All of the above.” I blew over the surface of my tea, staring into the vacant center of the room. “She had tons of debt, but it wasn’t the sketchy loan-shark kind.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Money problems make people desperate. Bad things can happen. What about relationships?”

  “The trouble with the bar caused problems at home. She was killing herself trying to save it. And the money problems caused them tension, too.”

  “Was she depressed?”

  “Yeah. Until last night when she got completely fired up again.”

  “Alma?” The office door squealed open, and Jenny Wong entered. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded.

  She glanced at Cesar. He nodded too, lying for me. I didn’t hate him for that, although I resented that he knew I’d appreciate it.

  “Jenny, this is Detective Cesar Garza. Cesar, this is—”

  “Supervisor Wong.” He stood and offered his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  It would have been polite if I also stood, but my legs were made of tapioca at the moment.

  “I heard about Cindy.” Jenny’s voice wavered as if she had a lump in her throat to match mine. Before her election, she was a high-profile civil rights lawyer with a focus on housing discrimination. She’d consulted with Cindy and me on legal issues in our fight to save The Carlos Club.

  “Yes. I’m afraid she’s dead.” Cesar stood straight, like he wanted the Supervisor to have a good impression of him. It accentuated his lean height.

  “Oh, my God.” She stroked the skin of her throat. “What happened?”

  I couldn’t say how, but with an invisible sign only my subconscious recognized, Cesar signaled to me to keep quiet. How I found Cindy, the nature of her injuries—it was evidence he needed to keep under wraps.

  He stepped forward. “We’re investigating that right now. I’m just finishing up taking Reverend Lee’s statement.”

  Reverend Lee? His formality stung. Like I hadn’t lost my straight virginity to him. Like he hadn’t refused to come to my ordination because organized religion is a scam. Like we didn’t know each other as well as either of us knew anyone.

  Then again, he said the department was understaffed, and he’d be stuck investigating the death of a fellow member of the Mission High class of 2006. Maybe he needed to maintain the appearance of professional distance.

  Jenny drew a business card from her purse. “Call me if I can be of help. I assisted Cindy with her legal issues, and I can name everyone she’s pissed off.” She leaned closer. “I’d check out that reporter from The City Weekly. His smear campaign felt very personal.”

  No more than Cindy’s smear campaign against her greedy landlord, but pointing out the equivalence felt disloyal to my dead friend.

  My junior warden turned to me. “Shall we skip morning prayer?”

  I almost told her she could go ahead without me. Then I remembered our doorway was a crime scene. “Yes," I choked out. "Let’s skip it today.”

  She grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Take care of yourself. This is a nasty shock.”

  I returned the pressure. “Thanks.”

  When she left, Cesar pulled out his notepad from his seat pocket and perched on the desk again. “What time did you leave the bar?”

  “About ten.”

  He shook his head. “No abouts in a murder investigation.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut against the thought that I was being questioned. When I'd plugged my phone in to charge on my nightstand, I’d checked the time. “I was in bed by 10:26, so I definitely left before ten after. You know me—never scrimping on the oral hygiene—it takes at least six minutes to brush and floss thoroughly.”

  “Can anyone verify that?”

  “My hygiene? I’m sure if you called my dentist—”

  “Alma.” My nickname had apparently gotten lost somewhere between Cindy’s body and my office, even though Jenny had left us to continue our conversation in private.

  “Are you asking if I came home alone?” Damn, if only I’d had a warm and willing Naomi with me to rub in his face.

  “No. Yes.” He grabbed a fistful of his coarse waves, mussing his part. “Not because I suspect you, but because I will need to record everyone’s movements.”

  “I was alone.”

  Did his shoulders just relax an inch? Probably only my imagination. What did he care who I slept with? He’d dropped me and never looked back. Then again, I didn’t give a damn who shared his bed, but I also didn't want any details.

  “I saw that David guy leave with his sister ahead of me, but he could have come back—”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. Lynn, Cindy’s wife. The knot of emotions lodged in my throat again, blocking my words.

  I showed Cesar the screen.

  He’d only met Lynn once, when we’d gone to their wedding as a couple, but he never forgot names.

  “Right. I’ll go break the news.”

  “I’ll go with you.” I braced myself for Cesar’s argument. It didn’t come.

  He was staring out the door, watching the activity.

  “You’re okay with me coming along?”

  He glanced up and shrugged. “She’s going to need a shoulder to cry on.”

  And just like that, we were connected again.

  Outside, Cesar paced the edge of the crime scene, now marked off with that yellow tape. A blanket covered Cindy’s body. A man in a white, plastic clean suit snapped photos in the middle of the street.

  Officers shared information with Cesar. I could have eavesdropped, if only my mind had knocked off its chant, Cindy’s dead. You left her alone.

  Chapter Three

  When I didn’t take her call, Lynn texted me.

  Cindy didn’t make it home. Isn’t picking up. Did she crash on your couch?

  Sleepovers on my sofa had been frequent when we’d been waging Operation Keep Carlos Open. Lynn worked night shifts in the ICU, so she didn’t mind.

  I ignored the message and the bubble of guilt, fear and panic that remained lodged in my throat. The news we brought needed to be said face to face. At the end of this car ride, I would explain that her wife of three years, her hopes of starting a family, the mother of their Dalmatian Fido was dead.

  As Cesar drove across the Bay Bridge, fingers of fog floated over the water. On the new span, the elegant white sweep of the suspension cables shone bright in the morning glare.

  Cesar slammed on the breaks two inches from the red lights ahead of us. Rush hour was a mess, even on the reverse commute to the East Bay.

  “Why the hell do people move to Oakland, anyway?” he grumbled.

  I didn’t bother answering. He knew perfectly well how much cheaper housing was on the other side of the Bay. Thirteen months ago, he and Mario had shared an in-law apartment with rent control, mold, and zero sunlight. They probably still did.

  “Who else will we need to notify? Parents, children, siblings?”

  “Nada. Lynn is—was her only family.”

  “Right.” His exhalation sounded an awful lot like a sigh of relief.

  “So how does this work? Do you make a list of suspects? Search for the murder weapon? Find DNA evidence?” He’d only been a detective a few months when he’d dumped me, and we’d been too busy arguing to talk about our jobs.

 

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