Sex, Murder and a Double Latte (6 page)

“Good night, Sophie.” He slipped the card into his back pocket and proceeded up the street.

I watched until he had turned the corner. “Wow, he’s even got a cute butt,” I murmured aloud. I looked to my right where there were still rescue vehicles congregated. The excitement seemed to be around a little garage located on the first floor of an Edwardian apartment building. The dark and the distance made it impossible to see much. The paramedics were loading someone into the back of the ambulance. Was it a body bag? I instantly felt the alcohol I’d drunk begin to lose its grip. I was aching to get a closer look, but it was doubtful that the police would view my credentials as a novelist as enough to let me dig around a crime scene. I wrinkled my nose and went up to my apartment.

“Hey, Mr. Katz, you haven’t been killing the neighbors again, have you?” Mr. Katz didn’t make an immediate appearance. That was odd. He usually liked to greet me in hopes of obtaining a late-night snack. I spotted him hiding under a chair. “What’s wrong, sweetie?” I asked, and tried to coax him out. The only time Mr. Katz acted like this was when strangers were around or when he had done something he knew I would be unhappy about. A horrible thought entered my mind. “You did use your litter box tonight, didn’t you?” Mr. Katz wasn’t owning up to anything, but he also wasn’t coming out from under the chair. Maybe Friskies would be more persuasive.

I got up and noticed my cell phone on the coffee table. Well, at least that mystery was solved. I stepped into the narrow kitchen and immediately saw the source of Mr. Katz’s agitation. One of the glasses I had left by the sink lay shattered on the floor.

“Is that all?” I bent down to collect the pieces. “How the hell did you knock it so far off the counter anyway…
ouch!
Damn it!” I sucked the blood that was dribbling down my finger. For someone who had virtually built a reputation on writing graphic violence, I really was a major wimp. I put my finger under the faucet and watched as the pink water flowed down the drain. Something was off. Why was I having a déjà vu feeling? I shivered a little as a cold wind blew in from the window in front of me. It was half open. Had I left it like that?

I heard the floor make a little creak. Someone was watching me. I slowly lowered my hand into the sink and clasped the dirty knife I had left there. I drew a quick breath and whipped around, knife outstretched, silently praying that whoever was behind me wasn’t holding a more ominous weapon.

But it was only Mr. Katz.

From where I was standing I could see all of the kitchen and most of the living room. Everything was in its place. My gaze rested on the diamond studs I had carelessly left on the counter that divided the two rooms. The overhead light was hitting them in a manner that caused them to cast a faint rainbow on the cream tiles beneath them. They hadn’t been touched. No sign of forced entry, nothing but a window that I had obviously forgotten to close, a broken glass and a cat with a suspiciously guilty look on his face. So why couldn’t I bring myself to lower the knife? And why did this feel so damn familiar? It was like I had seen this scene played out in a movie or read about it in a…

I sucked in more air as the vision of my fingers typing the words flashed before me. I had written this scene. It was from
Sex, Drugs and Murder
. But that was insane. Besides, it wasn’t as if Mr. Katz had never broken anything before. I had been forced to replace the vase on the coffee table three times in the last two years. If it hadn’t been for the phone calls…and the note. Oh God, I had almost forgotten about the note. Could that be connected to this? I spread my feet a little farther apart for better balance. This must be what it’s like to have a bad acid trip. You know that you’ve been given something that messes with your head, so you become unsure if your instincts can be trusted or if they are just the result of drug-induced paranoia.

The sting from the slice in my finger distracted me for a moment and I looked at the blood that had trickled onto the knife’s handle. It was then that Mr. Katz made his move. In one fluid motion he leaped onto the counter, missing a coffee cup by half a millimeter. He proceeded to rub against my arm in a pathetic attempt to redeem himself as I tried to recover from the near heart attack his sudden activity had brought on.

I jerked away from the menacing fur ball and steadied the cup that was on the verge of suffering the same fate as the broken glassware. Culprit identified and caught.

“Stupid cat,” I said, and threw the knife back into the sink. “No Friskies for you.”

CHAPTER 4

“There was no such thing as a slow news day. You could always count on the weirdos of the world to keep things interesting.”

—
Sex, Drugs and Murder

J
ust trying to follow the little black words printed in the next morning’s
Chronicle
seemed to upset my equilibrium. I searched for some mention of what had happened in my neighborhood the night before, but as I expected, whatever took place had happened long after that edition would have gone to press. I might have found something out on the local news, but then I would have had to get up before nine. There was an interesting little article about Alex Tolsky. His daughter, Shannon, was convinced that her father was not capable of suicide and she was trying to lobby the LAPD to reopen the case, but to little avail. Even her mother believed it was a suicide, citing their impending divorce as the motive. That, coupled with the fact that Tolsky had a drinking problem and suffered from clinical depression, was enough to satisfy the police. Still, Shannon Tolsky was adamant.

A little voice inside me told me she was right. I reached past Mr. Katz for the scissors. Molded correctly, it could be a good premise for a future novel.

My eyes traveled to the kitchen window. It was open just a crack—exactly the way I had left it before going to sleep. Of course it was—why would it be otherwise? I had obviously forgotten to close it before going out with Marcus. Still, I would have sworn… I gently massaged my temples. My head hurt enough as it was, I didn’t need to add to my pain by stressing out over nonexistent problems.

I pushed myself into a standing position and went to the bathroom to perform my morning ritual, starting with a marathon shower. Today had “mellow” written all over it. After all, I
had
just completed a book, which meant that I had earned at least a month of laziness. After getting myself cleaned up, I threw some kibble in a bowl for Mr. Katz, put on some dark glasses and went out to search the corner market for more artificial energy which I found in the form of a can of Red Bull. I smiled at the petite Chinese woman behind the register.

“Hi, Alice, just the drink.”

“Did you hear what happened here last night?”

I slipped my sunglasses down my nose a bit to get a better look at the store’s proprietor. She had the flush of someone who had heard something horrible and shocking and now couldn’t wait to shock somebody else with it. “Does this have anything to do with all those cop cars and the ambulance I saw when I got home last night?”

“Yes. It’s really bad.”

I took my glasses off.

“You know Susan Lee?” Alice asked.

“No, I don’t think I do.”

“Oh, you know her. She’s in here all the time. She’s in her twenties, Chinese—she wears DKNY a lot.”

“Oh, right,
Susan.
” I had no idea who Alice was talking about. She had just described half the women in San Francisco.

“They found her body in the Dumpster in her garage last night. She’d been strangled.”

I glared at my hand that had somehow positioned itself dangerously close to the Mon Chère chocolates on the counter. “Any suspects?”

“They didn’t say on the news. They think the body had been lying there for a long time. Hours maybe. Can you believe it? She was such a pretty girl, and someone just threw her in the trash.”

Of course I could believe it. The Dumpster bit was right out of a B movie. Definitely not something I could use in a book.

“They interviewed her brother on TV. He just kept saying the same thing over and over—‘But I just talked to her, I just talked to her.’ It was like he was in a trance. He couldn’t think right.”

I winced. How could I be so heartless? A woman had been killed and the lack of creativity of those who murdered her meant nothing to the people who loved her. All that mattered to them was that someone who was an intricate part of their existence had been taken suddenly from them, without even the chance to say goodbye.

Alice punched the price of the Red Bull into her register at a speed that indicated that she was not done talking. “Andy’s taking it really hard. He’s so sensitive, and I think maybe he had a little crush on her. Usually he won’t take his full lunch break, but today I made him. I told him to walk around the block and get some fresh air. I even offered to give him the day off, but he said no. He never takes a day off. Doesn’t matter if he’s sick. He always comes to work.”

I smiled and gave a slight nod of acknowledgment. I was only half listening. My mind had gone back to my window and the broken glass. But I was being stupid. If there had been a murderer in my apartment last night, why was I still in perfect health? Well, not perfect, but I’d have a hard time pinning my current condition on anyone other than my buddy Smirnoff. I pushed my sunglasses back in place. Nothing like starting off the day with a few paranoid delusions. Maybe I needed a little chocolate to help bring me back to reality. Really…how many calories could be in one Mon Chère?

I silently gestured to Alice that she should add the candy to my purchase before handing her a few crumpled dollar bills and scooping up my items. “Be careful when you’re locking up tonight.”

“Oh, I will,” Alice called after me. “And you be careful too. You never know what this crazy man might do next.”

I gave a little wave over my shoulder in response. I stepped onto the sidewalk, looked down to check that I had zipped my purse, and boom, I had a head-on collision with the Jolly Green Giant. Or at least that’s what I assumed upon impact. In reality it was just Andy. The corners of my mouth curled up.

“We’ve got to stop doing this,” I said.

“Gosh, I’m sorry, Miss Katz!” Andy retrieved my dented beverage from underneath a newspaper stand.

“It was my fault—again. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.” I craned my neck back to meet his gaze. His eyes were even more bloodshot than mine. “Andy, I heard about your friend Susan. I’m really sorry.”

Andy’s face scrunched up to about half its normal size and his breath shortened into little gasps. I impulsively reached my arms out to him. His huge body collapsed against me, and I gently stroked his back. “Shh…it’s okay, Andy. Shh.”

“No, no it’s not okay, I liked her. She wasn’t supposed to die—I liked her.”

“I know, I know. It’s messed up, but she’s in a better place now.”

“Really?” Andy pulled back to use the sleeve of his plaid flannel shirt as a makeshift Kleenex. “You believe that?”

“Really.” Maybe. I gave what I hoped was a reassuring squeeze to the portion of his arm that hadn’t been soiled yet. “The best way we can honor her memory is to do everything we can to improve matters in this world so that things like this won’t happen anymore.”

“I don’t want anything like this to ever happen again. Never.”

It must be wonderful to be that naive. “Well, all we can do is our part, be nice to people, do unto others and all that jazz.”

The two thin blond lines that made up Andy’s eyebrows joined forces as he tried to figure out what the hell I was talking about. I tapped the top of my bloated Red Bull can with my fingernail. “Just be yourself and you’ll be fine.”

Some of the confusion and distress slipped from his countenance. “I can do that!”

“Yeah, you can. Andy, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Okay, Sophie.”

I patted his arm again and started my journey to my Acura, which was parked somewhere near Siberia. As sick as it was, the morning’s drama had actually put me in a better mood. I felt sorry for Andy, but I couldn’t help but feel good about having been able to help him. Hell, the guy had even called me by my first name.

Of course, I would have felt even better if the murder hadn’t happened so close to home.

Free Vibrator With Every Purchase Over $100

I didn’t bother to suppress my laughter when I read the sign perched on Guilty Pleasures’ front display table.

Dena emerged from the back of the store wearing a pair of black boot-cut pants and a Castro long-sleeved shirt. Considering her small size, the bold abstract on her top should have overwhelmed her. It didn’t. She gave me a quick hug before gesturing to the sign.

“What can I say? When you’re right, you’re right.” She shrugged. “So are you here to shop or visit?”

“Visit,” I said absently as I toyed with a penis-shaped water bottle. “Do you have time for a short break?”

“Barbie, I need you to watch the floor while we go in back.”

A Puerto Rican woman with heavy black eyeliner and dressed in a kind of dominatrix-style vinyl outfit looked up from straightening a stack of crotchless panties and gave Dena a cheerful smile.

I followed Dena into a small office connected to her stockroom. “That woman is
not
named Barbie.”

“I don’t care if she wants to be referred to as the Cabbage Patch Kid, that woman knows more about sex toys than any other employee I’ve ever had. It’s like she has a Ph.D. in erotica.” Dena removed a stack of invoices from a padded folding chair before offering it to me and seating herself at her desk. “So what’s up?”

“I met a guy.”

“A guy you want to date?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Glory hallelujah, it’s a miracle! My God, Sophie, if you had gone any longer on this celibacy kick of yours, I would have staged an intervention.”

“I can only imagine what that would have looked like.” I fingered an odd-looking Beanie Baby with five legs that had been left on top of a small filing cabinet. Wait a minute. “Dena…your Beanie Baby seems to be rather…um…excited.”