He took my shoes from me, holding both of them tentatively with his thumb and finger. Saying nothing, he jutted his chin in the direction of the front door. I got the message and left the shop.
In my thin socks, I walked gingerly over to the sweet little wrought-iron table and chairs and sat down. I tried to appreciate that I was surrounded by beautiful plants, but my thoughts mainly centered on how long I would be stuck here. I hated to feel callous. I was truly sorry Vera was dead. She had been sweet and funny, maybe a little bit of a dingbat, but determined to get what she wanted. I had liked her, but I hadn’t known her well and there didn’t seem to be much point to my hanging around.
On the other hand, I was intimately familiar with the horrible man who had threatened to kill her. So I pulled a book from my bag and tried to read while I waited. It was useless. My mind was filled with images and thoughts of death and pain. And shoes.
Before I left the crime scene, I needed to remind the detectives to return my shoes. I’d bought them specifically for my television appearances so I was hoping they wouldn’t keep them too long. Not that the camera had ever panned all the way down to my feet, but it could happen, right? The home audience might be dying to admire my girlish size-eight Ferragamo flats. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.
I felt more and more conspicuous as passersby stared at me. I didn’t make eye contact, but it was clear that some of them were dying to find out what had happened. The two police officers had split up to carry out the procedures that went along with the discovery of a dead body. One was wrapping crime-scene tape across the front of the shop. The other cop walked down the street and stopped at each store to question the owners, in the hope that they had witnessed something crucial.
I turned away from the scene and absently studied the aged brick front of Vera’s store. Hearty ivy vines grew from planters at the base and clung to the wall, making the storefront look like a charming country garden wall. It reminded me of the front cover of The Secret Garden and made me wonder how much of a coincidence it had been that Vera had been drawn to buy the book.
A crowd had begun to gather a few yards away. The cop with the roll of yellow crime-scene tape turned and studied the group but didn’t approach them.
After a few more minutes, I glanced down the street and saw Homicide Detective Inspector Janice Lee heading my way. As usual, she was dressed more stylishly than your average San Francisco homicide cop and her gorgeous, straight dark hair was wrapped up in some kind of French twist. She wore the trim, black Burberry trench coat I’d coveted for months. She was Asian American, a year or two older than me, tall, thin, and pretty, an ex-smoker with a husky voice and a snarky attitude.
When she got close enough to realize it was me sitting there, she stopped and shook her head in resignation. “Doesn’t it just figure?”
“It does,” I said lightly, “seeing as how I asked the dispatcher to call you directly.”
“I’m touched.”
“It wouldn’t be the same without you.”
Her lips twisted and I could tell she was holding back a chuckle as she fumbled in her pocket for her notepad and pen. “Seriously, Wainwright, we’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
“I’m pretty sure you’ve used that line a time or two before.”
“Probably so, since I always seem to run into you at crime scenes.” Her tone was laced with suspicion. “Funny how often that happens.”
“You should be used to it by now,” I grumbled. She was taking a jab at my disturbing tendency to stumble across dead bodies on a regular basis. Didn’t she realize it bothered me, too? I had been involved in so many murders, I probably could have been forgiven for losing track of the exact number. But I hadn’t lost track.
How could I? You didn’t forget the blood, the cruelty, the faces of the people whose lives had been snuffed out so viciously and irrevocably. And you never forgot the tear-stained faces of their loved ones, who would grieve and suffer for the rest of their lives.
“Are you working alone?” I asked, wondering where her partner was. Inspector Nathan Jaglom had a much sunnier disposition than his partner, along with a laid-back style that camouflaged his whip-smart instincts. With his frizzy gray hair and kind smile, he usually played the good cop to Lee’s bad—or, at least, snarky—cop.
The two of them had worked together on almost all of the murder cases in which I’d been involved.
“Yeah,” she said. “Nate got tapped to cover the mayor’s detail for a few weeks.”
“I heard there were some threats on his life.” I frowned. “I hope the inspector will be safe.”
“Me, too,” she said, then flashed a quick grin. “If he gets killed, his wife and I’ll both kill him.” She jerked her head toward the door to Vera’s shop. “You might as well come in with me.”