“Not anymore,” Detective Inspector Bill Fenner said, stepping out of the shadows. How long he had been standing there, I didn’t know. At five foot nine, or ten, and about fifteen pounds overweight, he didn’t look to be in as good a physical condition as Frank, but he had a sharpness in his eyes akin to Frank’s. He focused those eyes on me now, and I felt a little uncomfortable under the intensity of them. He was as unshaven as the first time I’d met him when he was still coming up in the ranks. That time he’d been working around the clock, filling in for officers out on sick leave. This time it was because he’d been awakened in the middle of the night by the mess I was in. He didn’t look any happier than Frank.
“You’re being released under Chief Thompson’s reconnaissance.” He went on. “The paperwork is being done now. Instead of going home and back to bed, I have to return to the theater and deal with the fallout of this beheading. Two ushers quit. Several people fainted. One man had a mild heart attack. He’s going to be all right, but his wife is talking about suing the theater. And the press is having a field day. It led the eleven o’clock news on six channels.”
“Oh, wow,” I said lamely.
“Oh, wow? Oh, wow? That’s what you have to say?”
“How about, yo soy innocente?”
“You’re innocent? So, you say. But for now,” he thundered, “you will return to your home in Palo Alto, and then in three days’ time, you will drive back to San Francisco, where Chief Thompson will present you to the judge in chambers for an eleven a.m. hearing. And for the record, I had to call in every favor owed me to get the charges against Lila and Richard dropped. For Bobby’s sake.”
“Thank you, Fenner,” I said, trying to be friendly. “This is really nothing more than a horrifying—”
“That’s Inspector Fenner, deputy chief of investigations, to you,” he interrupted with a snarl.
So much for being friendly. I have discovered the longer someone’s title is, and the more they throw it in your face, the madder they are. I would say on the one-to-ten scale, Inspector Fenner, deputy chief of investigations, was a twelve. So, I said nothing. Don’t Poke the Bear; that’s my motto.
“Come Wednesday, you will explain yourself to Judge Plenca, and if you’re lucky, she will let you post bail, pending further investigation. If not, you’ll be right back where you are now, facing murder charges. First-degree murder charges. Well, I think that’s it for now.” He turned to leave, paused, and wheeled around to face me again. “I trust I will not be seeing any more of you tonight. I have enough to deal with. Go home!”
I watched him stride away in the scant lighting of the jail’s hallway. Then I turned to my godfather. “Frank, he acts like he thinks I did it. I didn’t kill the man. You know I didn’t.”
“Of course, I know that. That’s why I’m sticking my neck out for you,” he stated. He gestured to an older, seasoned officer standing a few feet away, who was probably counting the minutes until retirement.
The old duffer stepped forward, holding a set of keys and looked at me with disdain. I surveyed the disaster that was me and tried to give him a winning smile. Shafts of feathers found their way into my mouth and down my throat again. I started to cough. A look of fear came to his face. He raised the N95 mask from around his neck, covering his nose and mouth with it.
“Step back,” he ordered.
“Listen,” I said, still hacking, “it’s just the plume. I don’t have—”
“Step back!” he said again, louder and with more authority. He rested his free hand on the billy club at his side.
“Better do as he says, Lee,” Frank said evenly.
“Stepping back,” I said, raising my hands to a surrender position.
My godfather and I have a complicated relationship. He thinks of me almost as his youngest daughter, meaning I should do as he says without asking questions. Medicine was the first profession Frank tried to push me into. Then he wanted me to pursue my childhood dream, that of becoming a ballerina. He didn’t care, as long as it wasn’t anything like what he or my dad did. Even when Dad opened the family-owned detective business, Discretionary Investigations Inc., Frank thought I was meant for other things.
But the fates conspired against him. My Latin sucked, so medicine was out. And even though I lived for ballet, I wasn’t a good enough dancer to be anything more than in the chorus of a second-rate dance company. But what I seemed to excel at was finding evidence and piecing things together, long after the fact. So, I wound up following in Dad’s footsteps, much to Frank’s never-ending disappointment.
While waiting for the cell door to be opened, I yanked the offending plume off my head, taking bobby pins and a clump of brunette hair with it. My eyes watered from the pain, but I looked at Frank with hope. “So, you’re really getting us out of here?”
“I will probably rue the day, but yes.” He paused. “I also managed to borrow a coat from lost and found for you to wear, given how you’re dressed.” He reached behind him for a tan coat two sizes too big and not my color at all, but beggars can’t be choosers. “Put it on, grab Lila, and let’s get out of here, Lee.”
“Thank you, Frank!”
Relief flooded through me. Spending the night in jail, especially with a mother who was the queen of I-told-you-so’s, was not something I was looking forward to. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: being a private investigator is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Chapter Two
By the time the paperwork was done, and Mom, Richard, and I had piled into Frank’s car—Mom’s Jaguar having been impounded—we arrived in Palo Alto around 3 a.m. Not much was said on the drive home that I can remember, but I fell asleep shortly after sliding into the back seat of the car.
Once home, the three of us stumbled out of Frank’s car. As he pulled away, he said, “I’ll be back tomorrow around eleven. We can talk then.”
For an instant I watched the red of his taillights disappearing into the night, then turned to look at the house. Tío was waiting at the front door with Vicki, Richard’s wife.
Even at this hour, Tío looked elegant in his black-and-white-striped pajamas and matching robe. With silver hair and aquiline features on his trim six-foot frame, he could have joined Frank as one of the more mature models on the cover of GQ. In actuality, he’s made the cover of many a foodie mag but as the executive chef of Las Mañanitas, a well-known gourmet Mexican restaurant in San Jose.
Since he retired, and wasn’t cooking for his family, or meals for a women’s shelter, he made special dietary food for rescue animals. He was the busiest man I knew. When he wasn’t down with the flu.
“I have made the chamomile tea,” Tío said as we trouped into the kitchen. He handed Richard and me a full mug of steaming tea. I undid the belt on the coat and took a sip of chamomile.
“Thank you, Tío,” Richard said. “I could use some after tonight.” My brother crossed to the kitchen table, dropped into a chair, and swallowed huge gulps of tea. Vicki sat down beside him, and the two of them began to nuzzle and whisper to one another.
“The tea is spiked with something, I hope, Tío,” I said, drinking half the cup down. “It sure tastes like it.”
“Como no,” he said with a wink. “I make with the golden rum.”
I studied his face, a face I loved with my heart and soul. His eyes were clear, and he no longer looked feverish.
“You’re feeling better, Tío. I can see. But please don’t do things too fast. We don’t want a relapse.”
“I only do what I am capable of doing. It is for you that I worry.” He turned to Mom. “Lila, I have the chamomile tea without the rum, as well.”
“Thank you, but I’ll pass on tea, Mateo,” Mom said, using his given name and stressing several words in the sentence as usual. “What I need is a good soak, then off to bed. Good night, everyone.” But instead of leaving, she turned to me. “Liana, you look dead on your feet.”
Mom reached out, and without saying anything, drew me into a quick mother-daughter hug. She pushed me away immediately, though, once she got a whiff of my dirt-caked body. Looking down at the bodice of her gown, she brushed off a few specks of schmutz.
“And you need to shower immediately. And just look at the condition of your nails. Disreputable. I’ll call Anita and make an appointment for you to have them done. The coat Francis borrowed for you to wear needs to be dry-cleaned before it’s returned. But I’ll take care of that, too. But first, you need some sleep. Then you need to concentrate on what happened tonight and how it impacts you.”
I was trying to keep up with the orders, but said, “I would say it impacts me a lot, Mom.”
“We’ll have a meeting tomorrow morning to discuss it, as Francis says. Be here precisely at eleven.”
“Sounds good. And Mom,” I confessed, “I’m sorry about all this. I mean, ruining the fundraiser and everything.”
“Liana, please be mindful that you did not deliberately set out to ruin the fundraiser. In fact, if you had anything to do with what happened, I would be very much surprised.”
Relieved and pleased, I said, “Thank you, Mom. I—”
“And as for fundraisers,” she went on over my words, “the dates of them can be altered. True, the event becomes more work, but we can do it.”
“Thank you, Mom. I—”
“However, we will continue this conversation at a later time. At the moment, all five of my senses are suggesting that you recently returned from wallowing in a sewer.”
“Image-worthy. Got it. Shower.”
“And Liana—”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I am sorry you’ve had to experience something so… unsettling.”
“Thank you, Mom. But I think Tío’s spiked tea is going to help.” I drank down the last of my tea.
With a nod to everyone in the room, Mom turned on her Jimmy Chu’s and was gone.
I watched her depart, wondering—and not for the first time—how anyone could say so many of the right words and yet leave the recipient of those words, feeling as if their slip were still showing.
