Sex, Murder and a Double Latte (32 page)

Seven seconds exactly. “Sophie, what are you doing?”

Before he could react, I kicked the kitchen stool over and smashed the wine bottle against the counter so that I was in possession of a jagged-edged weapon. I backed up against the window. “I know who you are, you son of a bitch. And I know what you’ve done.”

Anatoly stood there in silence for a beat. Then he slowly reached down to his ankle and pulled a gun out of a hidden holster. I dropped the bottle.

“What the fuck did you do to your shirt and face?”

“Please…please don’t do this. Don’t kill me.” Tears were forming in my swollen eye. How much time would it take the police to get here? A minute? Five?

“You stupid—I’m not going to—”

The front door flew open and two uniformed police officers burst in, their voices shouting out their identity. I heard the gunshot and fell to my knees. I saw blood on the floor but wasn’t immediately sure of where it was coming from. It wasn’t until I saw Anatoly clutching his wounded arm and the police apprehending him that I understood what had happened. A third police officer came in and started asking me questions, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. The room was spinning at a breakneck pace. I leaned over and threw up.

So once again I was answering questions for the police into the wee hours of the night. I told them everything, although I did allow a little poetic license over the evening’s events. I told them that I had been suspicious of Anatoly for some time. I told them about the crimes I thought he had committed and the facts that had led me to believe he had opportunity. I also told them that Anatoly had asked to meet me for drinks and had convinced me that my fears were unfounded. I relented and invited him up to my apartment. But then he got too aggressive for my taste and that’s when things got out of control. He hit me, I managed to call the police and then threw the phone out the window so that he wouldn’t be able to hang it up before they could trace the call…. I must have inadvertently pressed the mute button. He tried to grab me but only succeeded in ripping my shirt. I tried to defend myself with a broken bottle and it was then that he pulled the gun on me.

Okay, so I took a
lot
of poetic license, and I completely forgot to tell them about Dena’s and Marcus’s roles in the whole thing. But they got the important part: Anatoly pulled a gun on me and tried to kill me.

I declined the detective’s suggestions to visit a hospital for my injury, although I did allow them to take pictures of it and my ripped shirt. When I was done at the station I went back to my apartment, collected Mr. Katz (who had been bravely guarding the dust bunnies under the coffee table during the whole ordeal), and left so that the police could collect evidence and dust for prints. It wouldn’t be long before they would be searching Anatoly’s place, as well. I called Dena from my cell phone and asked if I could crash at her place. I had never heard her so beside herself. Within fifteen minutes she was there to pick me up. I put Mr. Katz in back and climbed into the front seat.

“Where the fuck is your head?” she was screaming as she drove toward Noe Valley. “There are risks and then there’s pure stupidity. What if he had raped you? What if he had shot you before the police got there? Did you even consider those possibilities?”

“I didn’t have that luxury. I had to stop him, and this was the only way.”

“Oh, fuck that. We could have come up with
something
else. Anything would have been better than that.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” I asked. I turned and smiled at my annoyed pet, who was loudly protesting through the bars of his cat carrier.

“Only because you are insanely lucky. Jesus, Sophie, when Marcus told me what you were up to I almost had a heart attack and died. Died, Sophie. I haven’t even hit my sexual peak yet.”

“God help us all when that happens.” I gazed at the rows of houses through the thin layer of dust that had settled on the side windows. “You know what’s weird?”

“You, taking cavalier chances with your life?” Dena was changing gears with the force of a race-car driver.

“Anatoly pulled a handgun on me.”

“Yeah, well that part actually makes sense, considering he was trying to kill you.”

“None of the characters in my book was killed with a handgun. Someone in my first book was shot with a hunting rifle, and in my third book a woman was shot with a sawed-off shotgun, but no one was ever killed or even threatened with a handgun.” I adjusted my position so I could take in Dena’s profile. “Anatoly varied from the script.”

“I guess seeing you dead was more important to him than recreating one of your novels.” Her little Toyota groaned in protest as she tried to make it do zero to sixty in three seconds.

“Yeah, but that was his whole M.O., killing people in the manner they described in their entertainment medium.”

“Sophie, you’re not going to get this to make sense. The guy is crazy, and I mean Ted Bundy kind of crazy. Logic and consistency means nothing to people like that.”

“I guess you’re right.” I closed my eyes to the blurred lights of the city. “Besides, I’m tired of trying to figure this all out. By tomorrow afternoon the police will have found the hatchet in his apartment and this will all be over. That’s all I really care about now.”

“Amen, sister.”

The next day I was called into the police station and greeted by Detective Lorenzo, who was cordial if not downright friendly. The first part of the conversation went as I had anticipated. He offered some evasive apologies for not taking me seriously before—enough to partially pacify me, but not enough to get him sued. He politely inquired about my eye and if I had slept well. Then the subject of Anatoly came up.

“We found the murder weapon used in the Barbie Vega case in Darinsky’s apartment. He’s now being charged with that murder, along with the attack he made on you.”

I sniffed at the coffee-like substance that had been offered to me. “Well, I guess you finally have your evidence, then.”

“Hmm.” He took a large gulp from his cup. He seemed to gain an enjoyment from the beverage that, as far as I could tell, was completely unjustified—it wasn’t Starbucks. “We are checking into the possibility that he was involved in Tolsky’s and JJ Money’s deaths, but so far, we don’t have any solids links.”

“You have to find something.” I scooted forward in my chair. “DC Smooth is in jail for one of those murders. You can’t let an innocent man take the wrap for Anatoly.”

Lorenzo put his hand up to stop me. “Don’t worry. If Darinsky is the responsible party in that murder, he’s the one who will do the time for it, assuming of course that he doesn’t get the death penalty, which is a real possibility here.”

I nodded and felt the beginnings of a migraine take up residence in my skull. I was not actively opposed to the death penalty, but the inescapable visual of Anatoly losing his life at the hands of a death-row correctional officer was more than a little unsettling. I sipped from my paper cup, then pressed my lips together so I could suppress the impulse to spit it out.

“I have to say, I never would’ve expected any of this from this guy. He’s had a few minor scuffs with the law in the past but nothing major, and he has a history of being a pretty good P.I. I would have pegged him as one of the good guys.”

I wrinkled my forehead. “P.I.?”

“Yep. That’s his real occupation. He started as an investigator for an insurance firm, and then switched over to representing private citizens a few years ago. Get this, the last person to have hired him was Shannon Tolsky.”

I spilled my coffee down my shirt. “But I talked to Shannon. We even talked a little about Anatoly—she never mentioned that.”

“She says he told her to keep his employment a secret. A few weeks after taking on the assignment she fired him, didn’t think he was making enough progress. I’d say there’s not a lot of love lost between those two. She was more than willing to embrace the possibility that Darinsky is responsible for killing her dad.”

“So, he’s claiming he’s been investigating the Tolsky murder?”

“Uh-huh. He says that after Miss Tolsky fired him, he continued the investigation on his own. He claims he had reason to believe that Tolsky was having an affair with a woman in the city, and he thought that she might somehow be involved in his death. He says he thinks that woman was you.”

“Me?” I lurched forward, spilling more of my drink. This was getting too weird.

“You. In fact, he’s clinging to the story that you set him up, that you staged your own attack, but that’s a little farfetched for us. After all, you couldn’t very well have punched yourself in the face—could you?”

I sat back in my seat. “No, that would be difficult.”

“Plus, by Darinsky’s own admission, you’ve never been up to his place and there doesn’t seem to have been any opportunity for you to have planted that hatchet in the kitchen—so there goes that theory.”

The hatchet had been in the bedroom. I recognized the trap. It was the fact that Lorenzo felt the need to set it that worried me. What would it take to get this man to believe in my innocence? I forced myself to drink what remained in my cup. “I can’t believe he has the audacity to make up accusations about me, but I guess people will do whatever they feel is necessary to save their own skin.”

Lorenzo offered a tight smile. “That they will. They’ll need your testimony to get a conviction. I trust you’ll be a cooperative witness?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then I’ll see you in court.” Lorenzo stood up to indicate that the meeting was over.

I followed suit, smoothing my skirt before reaching out to shake his hand. “Thank you for taking care of this. It’ll be nice to be able to sleep peacefully again.”

He grinned and walked me to the door. “Just don’t invite any more men up to your apartment that you suspect of murder, okay?”

CHAPTER 20

“‘I swear,’ Kittie said with a bored sigh, ‘if I have to go to one more S&M party I’ll scream.’”

—Sex, Drugs and Murder

I
went back to my place, where I had dropped Mr. Katz off earlier. I bent down and scratched him behind the ears. “It’s just you and me again, buddy.” He tolerated my affections for a few minutes before going back to his food bowl.

I went over and checked the answering machine. Eighteen messages. I skipped through the first five from reporters before I got to Leah. She couldn’t believe that I would put off talking to her about her marriage in order to have drinks with a psychotic. There were three messages from my mother. “Millions of nice Jewish boys out there and you had to take up with Bugsy Segal. Did I raise you for this?” Another eight from the press, and then there was one from Marcus.

“Hi, honey. I think a little celebration is in order. Let’s do dinner at my place tonight. Jason’s working, but Donato, Mary Ann and Dena can all make it. We’ll drink, drink and drink some more until the whole thing’s funny. Shall we say seven-thirty? Call me at the salon to confirm.”

I dialed up Ooh-La-La to accept the invitation and to tell him about the information I had gotten at the police station.

“A private dick, huh? I’ve always wanted one of those.”

“It’s not funny, Marcus. In fact, it’s really weird.”

“Why, because you thought all P.I.’s were good guys? There are corrupt cops, so there have got to be a few bad-boy P.I.’s out there.”

“I guess.” I looked over to the spot where he had held me at gunpoint. “But we’re not talking about corrupt. We’re talking about nuts. I mean, what’s the motive here?”

“You’re not having second thoughts about his guilt, are you, honey? He’s been sleeping on a bloody hatchet.”

“Yeah, I know.” I stretched my legs out in front of me. “Obviously he’s guilty. I guess I would just like it if it was wrapped up a little more neatly.”

“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find…”

“Goodbye, Marcus. I’ll see you at seven-thirty.”

“Ciao, Bella.”

I called my mother and spent twenty-five minutes reassuring her before I finally cut her off with some excuse about having an appointment at the police station. I half walked, half crawled to my beckoning sofa. Mr. Katz jumped up on my stomach and curled into a little fur pillow. I smiled and rested my hand on his back.

“So what do you say, sweetie? Are you up for a four-hour catnap?”

At seven-thirty sharp I arrived at Marcus’s. It was Donato who answered the door. “Ah, it’s our heroine.”

I laughed and scooted into the apartment. “I don’t know if I qualify as a heroine. Maybe just a private citizen who isn’t afraid to take stupid chances.”

“Do not minimize what you have done. You have proven yourself to be an exceptionally brave woman.”

Gorgeous and charming. If he was straight, I would’ve jumped him right then. “Thank you. But really it was a case of being forced to rise to the occasion. Where is everyone?”

“Mary Ann and Dena are going to be fifteen minutes late. Marcus is at the store purchasing more wine.”

“More wine, huh?” I removed my jacket and hooked it on the coatrack. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was trying to get me drunk in order to have his way with me. Unfortunately I do know better.”

I started to hang up my purse but my cell phone started doing it’s
“Frère Jacques”
thing. “Hello?”

“This is Mrs. Tolsky. I want you to stop calling me.”

“Oh, gosh, you caught me a little off guard. You don’t have to worry—”

“Both you and that Anatoly person. I spoke to Shannon, and I know exactly what information you want and I’m going to give it to you now, but in exchange you both must stop harassing me immediately.”

“Actually, what I was about to say—”

“My husband
was
having an affair with someone in San Francisco,” she continued, “but much to my humiliation and complete disgust, it was not with a woman but with a man.”

I took in a sharp breath. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I received a video in the mail, without a return address or a note. I can’t tell you how disgusting it was. Alex swore that he didn’t know he was being taped, but that’s not really the point now, is it?”