“Yeah. It’s just like on CSI.”

  “There’s no need for sarcasm.”

  He didn’t bother to apologize. “You realize that in addition to notifying Lynn about Cindy’s death, I’ll need to question her.”

  My shoulder muscles bunched. I had not in fact realized this was his plan, but it made sense. She might know something useful. “Yeah. Of course.”

  “Spouses are prime suspects.”

  Oh, that kind of questioning. I dug my fingernails into my knees.

  “Lynn didn’t do it.” She couldn’t murder anyone.

  “I’m not going to argue with you. Just stay out of the way while I question her. I promise I’ll be sensitive to her loss.”

  I snorted. “Sensitive to her loss? Was that the title of some in-service training you had—Five steps to appearing sensitive while secretly interrogating a suspect?”

  I lowered the volume on his classic rock station.

  He raised it again.

  I dialed the nob to public radio.

  He pressed the power button, leaving us in thick silence.

  “If there’s a trail of blood across Fourteenth Street, does that mean she crossed the road after she’d been hit?”

  I watched his face and saw a telltale flinch.

  “She was trying to get to me. For—” I choked on the word help.

  “Maybe. Or just trying to run. We can’t be sure.”

  He was hoping to make me feel better. It wasn’t working.

  “What did you find in the bar?”

  “Booze. Stools. A jukebox.”

  I shot him a bird right next to his razor sharp cheekbone, so he didn’t miss it with his gaze glued to the bridge. “Can you tell where she was attacked?”

  “Alls, this is an active murder investigation. I can’t reveal details.” He flipped on the blinker and exited the highway. His GPS showed an ETA of nine minutes—the final countdown until I had to break the news to Lynn.

  I flipped down the sun visor. “Have you done a death notification before?”

  “Yeah. But never somebody I knew. I’m glad you’re here.” He slid his hand off the wheel and brushed my outer thigh with his knuckles. Under different circumstances, the touch might have been flirtatious. Instead, it was chastely reassuring—a familiar caress to remind us both we were there for each other.

  It took four rings of an emphatic doorbell before Lynn came to the front door in pink plaid pajamas, her sandy hair hanging in a loose ponytail. She looked from me to Cesar and back, a crease deepening between her brows. “What’s going on?”

  “Do you remember Cesar?”

  She nodded, retreating into the dark house.

  “Let’s sit.” I followed her in, steered her to a couch where Fido lay curled at one end.

  She spoke as she lowered herself. “She’s hurt isn’t she? Was it a car accident?”

  I crouched before her and locked onto her gaze. “She’s dead, sweetie.”

  Lynn’s cry sliced through the quiet room. Fido jumped off the couch and clawed for purchase on the hardwood floor.

  I took the spot next to her as she cried and the dog whimpered.

  Cesar remained straight and still in the doorway.

  I stroked Lynn’s back, feeling my grief seep out of me to join hers.

  She gasped out a question. “What happened?”

  “I fo—”

  “Lynn, I promise I will do everything I can to find out.”

  She blinked at him. “You mean?”

  “Cindy was murdered.”

  In my arms, she stiffened. A clock ticked in the next room. “A robbery?”

  I shook my head. “No—”

  “Everything is under investigation,” Cesar said. “And I’ll need to ask you some questions.”

  I shot eye darts at him.

  He cleared his throat. “When you’re ready, of course.”

  His phone rang, belting out a guitar riff and half the chorus of Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” before he silenced it.

  Oh, sweet baby Jesus, had he skipped the class in detective school about silencing your ringer on the death notification? I was going to wring his neck when we got back into his car.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, retreating from my crazy-mad laser eyes. “I’ll just take this in the kitchen and leave you two alone.”

  “I don’t understand.” Lynn sniffed, wiping her nose on her pink sleeve. “Who would want to kill Cindy?”

  “I don’t know.” And I'd gotten the message that I wasn’t supposed to reveal the details I knew.

  “Are you helping him?”

  I squeezed her hand. “I wanted to be here when you found out.” Also, I apparently needed to convince him she was innocent.

  She rose unsteadily and walked to a bar cart. She unscrewed a bottle of bourbon and poured some of its contents into a glass. I checked my watch. 9:45 a.m. But hey, it's five o'clock everywhere when you find out your wife has been murdered.

  She downed the glass in one quick gulp. “Want one?”

  My mind raced with memories of last night and this morning. An ounce of whatever she was pouring would calm my thoughts, but what if I missed something Cesar needed me to remember? “No thanks.”

  “You don’t trust him, do you?” She’d dropped her voice to a whisper, barely audible over Cesar’s side of a phone conversation in her kitchen.

  Actually, I trusted him with pretty much anything aside from my heart and remembering to put his phone on vibrate. It had played “Highway to Hell” the one and only time he ever came to hear me preach and “Living on a Prayer” during Mario’s police academy graduation ceremony.

  “He’s a hater, Alma. Have you forgotten the things he said to you? Total homophobe. He doesn’t care about people like us.”

  Cesar was neither a hater nor a homophobe. He’d just taken issue with the fact that his girlfriend preferred to hang out in the dyke bar when she wasn’t with him. I’d always been more than he could handle and had refused to shrink down to a simpler version of myself so he could accept me.

  “Promise me you’ll stick to him. Make sure he does right by Cindy.”

  “He will.” Cesar was very by-the-book, one of our many problems as a couple.

  Open relationship—no.

  Domestic partnership instead of marriage—no.

  That had been our first breakup. We’d been so young, right out of college. I'd sown some wild oats, Cesar tried to find a girl much nicer and more ordinary than me.

  The next time we got together, gay marriage was legal, I heartily approved of the institution, and I'd learned that as much as I’d tried to be otherwise—I was a one-human girl, a monogamist by nature. Even my newfound conventionality hadn’t been enough to make us work.

  Cesar’s low voice rumbled in the kitchen. “David Cohen. 135 Abbey. Got it. I’m headed straight there.”

  So suspect numero uno lived on a mid-block alley, the other side of Dolores from St. Giles’ and The Carlos Club. If I wanted to track down Naomi, I'd have to start at his place.

  Did I want to, if her brother had murdered my friend?

  Lynn drew her knees up onto the couch, a barrier between us. “Cindy told me you argued last night.”

  I jerked my gaze to hers. “I thought you didn’t talk to her.”

  “That was the last time. A little after ten. I was on a break at work. She was spitting mad that you were giving up.”

  “I know. But it was time, Lynn.”

  “It was time a year ago. Two even. If she’d quit on The Carlos Club, we’d still have some savings. Maybe we’d have a baby by now. And she wouldn’t be…”

  The word hung in the air. Fido whimpered again. Whoever said Dalmatians are a dumb breed hadn’t recognized their gift for subtext.

  Lynn scratched him under his chin, tears streaming down her face. “I know, boy. I know.”

  Apparently, this was the moment for voicing regrets. “I shouldn’t have left her last night. I should have stayed. Seen the party to its end. Tucked her in on my sofa so she could sleep off her rum and cokes.”

  “Had she drunk a lot of those?” Cesar had slinked into the room, quiet as a panther, and I hadn’t even noticed.

  I drew my feet up under me, still laced up past my ankles in my burgundy combat boots. At the moment shoes on the sofa were the least of Lynn’s concern, and it took forever to untie the damn things. Next time, I was buying a pair with zippers.

  “I don’t know how many she’d had, but she wasn’t very steady on her feet when she climbed atop the bar to give a speech. And booze tends… tended to shorten her fuse.”

  Cesar glanced at Lynn, who nodded in confirmation.

  “Would this be a good time to ask you some questions?” Cesar had his notebook ready, like a waiter anticipating an order.

  Lynn's reply dripped acid. “What do you think?”

  He flinched—not that anyone who hadn’t spent hours admiring his features would have noticed. Poor Cesar. He’d had to trek across the Bay Bridge—a journey San Franciscans loathed like a redeye to New Jersey—to get sassed by an uncooperative widow he was trying to help.

  I laid my hand on one of her socked feet. “I don’t think it will ever feel like a good time. But anything you can tell Cesar now will help while the trail is fresh.”

  I raised my brows, silently asking him if that last part was true, or a cliché I'd picked up from Mama’s cop shows.

  He scowled but nodded. I could practically hear his thoughts. She thinks she knows how to do my job from watching TV.

  So far, so true. I grinned.

  “Alma mentioned Cindy got in money trouble over the bar.”

  “She spent everything and borrowed tons.” Eyes closed, Lynn stroked Fido’s head. Her hollow tone was neither sad nor angry, which seemed odd. Shouldn’t she be one or the other?

  “Standard business loans from the bank or personal loans?” Cesar asked.

  Lynn opened her eyes, frowning at him. “As far as I know, all totally legit.”

  “Would you say she had any enemies?”

  “She and the landlord have been at each other’s throats, and that reporter at The City Weekly was fanning the flames. If Kearney got what he was asking for the place from the new tenant, he’ll make another sixty K next year.”

  Sixty thousand was a lot of money to Cindy, but it was a drop in Kevin Kearney's deep bucket. He owned commercial real estate all over the city. The fight had been ideological to him as much as it had been for Cindy and me.

  Still, Cesar was scribbling notes, not ruling him out as a suspect, so I added him to my mental list. Thinking about who had done it and why quelled the choking, guilty panic trying to rise up my throat.

  He glanced up at her again. “Did she drive to the city last night?”

  “No. Her transmission died last month and we can’t afford to fix it. I picked her up when I wasn’t working. Or she slept at Alma’s. Or she took the Transbay bus.”

  “And last night?”

  “I expected her to stay at Alma’s, until she told me they’d argued. That’s the only reason I was surprised when I got home from work and she wasn’t here.”

  “What time was that?”

  “7:20 or so. I work the seven to seven shift.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “Tate Heights Medical Center. I’m an ICU nurse.”

  Cesar put his pencil behind his ear, which somehow only made him look sexy, when ninety-nine percent of people would have looked like a big ol’ geek accessorized like that.

  “Thanks, Lynn. I appreciate you answering these questions right now. It helps a lot. Alma will stay here to keep you company while I hit the pavement.”

  What? He was dumping me in the East Bay? That would leave me with a sixty-dollar taxi fare or two hours on public transportation. On a different day, I might have said, over my dead body.

  But it was Cindy’s dead body in question, and she wouldn’t have been dead if I’d been a better friend. The only thing I could do for Lynn and Fido was to make sure Cesar found her murderer, and he certainly wouldn’t let me tag along to interview David Cohen. I may as well ditch him and find my own way to corner suspect numero uno. At least Cesar seemed less suspicious of Lynn.

  “See you later.” I wriggled into the cushion next to the widow and her dog like I planned to stay there for a long time.

  He narrowed his eyes at me. Damn. I must seem too compliant. I shot him a bird for good measure.

  His shoulders relaxed, and he made for the door. “Lynn, I'm sorry about Cindy.”

  “Thanks, Cesar. That means a lot.” She flipped him off, too.

  He sighed and, chuckling, showed himself out.

  I sat with Lynn as she called her parents, then her sister Marie in L.A. Marie began packing while they talked, preparing to make the drive.

  After Lynn's telephone calls, she closed her eyes and dropped her head to rest on the back of the sofa. “What’s next?”

  “When the coroner releases the body, I’ll help you with the arrangements. Do you think she would have wanted a service?”

  “Yes. She’d want you to do it.”

  “Okay. Then we’ll take care of that, too. But right now—”

  “I want to pop a Valium and sit here.”

  “Personally, I’m a big believer in the comfort of binge-watching television. Did you know you can stream all eight seasons of Will and Grace?”

  This was a point of contention between Jordan, my friend from seminary, and me. When she'd been heartbroken, knocked up, and dumped, I’d forced her into a Vicar of Dibley marathon. Somehow it had earned me a reputation for callous pastoral care.

  Clearly, Jordan underestimated the healing power of T.V. in general and cheesy sitcoms in particular.

  Lynn, however, did not. “Oh my God, please turn that on and make sure it won’t stop until my sister gets here.”

  I complied. She put her head on my shoulder, and I stroked her hair until she dozed on the couch. As I watched the sitcom, my thoughts snagged on her odd tone when she’d told Cesar about Cindy accruing debt. Had Lynn been lying about something, or trying to lead us in a certain direction?

  Perhaps she’d just gone numb. Too bad Cesar had left and taken his expertise with him. I had no clue what counted as normal for someone in Lynn’s situation.

  Mom called me around lunchtime. She’d heard the news. She and Dad only lived six blocks from St. Giles'. I took the call in the kitchen.

  “Are you okay, mija?”

  Was I? The lump in my throat hadn’t budged all morning. But Cesar had been right. Alma Lee is not allowed to get hysterical.

  “Yeah, Mom, estoy bien.”

  “I’m so sorry about your friend. I always liked her hair.”

  I laughed, then swallowed it quickly so Lynn wouldn’t hear.

  “Are her parents still in the neighborhood? Your father and I would like to send a basket.” Mom was the genius behind Lee’s Gourmet Gift Baskets, which she now shipped nation-wide.

  Her offer filled my chest with warmth, making me aware of just how cold I’d been.

  “No. Growing up, it was only her dad. He died a few years ago. But thanks for the thought. You could send one to her wife.” I gave Mom Lynn’s address and begged off the phone.

  “Take care, mija.”

  “You too, Mama.” I ended the call.

  Chapter Four

  I stayed with Lynn, forcing her to drink water and eat chocolate until her sister arrived from L.A. In the late afternoon, I greeted Marie and handed over the care of my friend.

  It was 4:00 p.m. Surely Cesar had been and gone from David Cohen’s house by then. I took BART back to the Mission.

  On the train, the businessman across from me held the print edition of the Chronicle open. The cover featured a photo of Jenny Wong in a shimmering blue sequined dress accepting a thick glass ornament. Rising political star Wong accepts the ‘Friend of Families Award’ at Charity Gala, read the headline.

  I hadn’t found Cindy’s body early enough for her murder to make print. Would it be Saturday’s lead story?

  Would Cesar have solved the case by then? Perhaps David had left a bloody fingerprint at the crime scene.

  Or maybe Lynn had, said the devil’s advocate who lived in my brain and happened to sound exactly like Cesar.

  Impossible. She was at work. It had to be David.

  When I came up from the station, I texted Cesar. Any news?

  Not for nosy members of the public.

  But I’m a friend of the victim.

  He sent me a middle finger emoji, which was no less than I deserved for flashing the same at him earlier in the flesh. He’d taken the time to choose the brown one that best matched his complexion. Good for him.

  I made straight for Abbey Street and climbed the steps to a baby blue Victorian with two units. The entry on the right read 135. I rang the bell, just under a mezuzah nailed to the doorframe.

  Footsteps alerted me someone approached from the other side. The door opened to reveal Naomi, paler than she’d been last night. She pressed her lips tight before she spoke. “What are you doing here?”

  Shit. I had a plan to confront David, and it didn’t start this way.

  “Is your brother here?”

  “They took him down to the station for questioning.” Tears filled her lower lids, then spilled down her cheeks.

  My stomach twisted.

  She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry about your friend, but David would never do that. He couldn’t. And he was here all night after we got home.”

  A thousand questions sprang to mind, like I was a natural-born interrogator. But more loudly my lizard brain screamed, Pretty girl crying! Hug her! After a moment of confusion, I determined it was time to make and then implement Plan B by harnessing both of these powerful instincts.

  “You must be worried. Can I come in, so you can tell me all about it?”

  Her lips pursed, but her shoulders fell. A little more persuasion, and she’d be swinging the door wide open.

  “I’ve known Cindy since high school. She was one of my oldest friends.”

 

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