Death Turns A Trick (Rebecca Schwartz #1) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

I’d forgotten the number.
    I reeled off the whole
megillah
, leaving out the address, the “raid,” and the senator’s name. I stuck to my earlier story about leaving the party to take a sick friend to the hospital. Only the way I told it this time, I made the friend just a party guest whose name I didn’t know, saying I was doing Elena a favor. That much was true, anyway. Martinez came right out and asked if the “sick” person were having a drug reaction. I said I didn’t know, but that was my guess.
    “Okay,” said Martinez. “Do you know what time the victim left the party?”
    “You’ll have to ask Elena. I was a guest of the San Francisco Police at the time.”
    “How did you know Kandi was inside the apartment?”
    “Elena said she would be. Besides, she’d left me a note in the mailbox.”
    “May I see it?”
    I’d forgotten all about it, and it took me a minute to remember where I’d put it. Since I hadn’t had my purse, there was only one choice. Mildly embarrassed, I fished it out of my bosom.
    “Is this some kind of code?” asked Martinez.
    “I don’t think so. I assumed it meant ‘upstairs with purse.’”
    “Is it possible the P is a person’s initial?”
    “Not so far as I know. Especially since it’s lower case.”
    “But the ‘u’ and the ‘s’ are upper case.”
    “Yes. I thought that was meant to show it wasn’t the word ‘us.’ She could have used small letters with periods after them, but that would have been more confusing because they were part of the same word instead of two separate words.”
    “I’ll never understand how women’s minds work.”
    I flared. “I don’t have to take that kind of stuff. I’m trying to be as helpful as I can, even though I flinch every time someone else puts black powder on my nice walls, and even though I found the body of a woman I hardly know on my living room floor, and even though my house is full of strangers and…”
    “Okay, okay.” He held up a hand.
    “I’m sorry about the fingerprint powder,” he said, picking the least of the problems, like the classic lady with a broken leg wailing about a run in her nylons. “But I’m afraid we’ll have to do the whole apartment, since it’s been ransacked. Who do you think did that?”
    I must have looked at him like he’d gone
meshugge
. “The murderer, I suppose.”
    “Not Kandi?”
    “I don’t see why she would have. If she wanted to rob me, she’d have just gone through my bureau for money and jewelry. But since she’d announced herself with a note in my mailbox, it wouldn’t have been very smart.”
    “So why should the murderer? If he was a burglar that Kandi surprised, why wouldn’t he just go through your bureau? Why look under the sofa pillows and behind the books in the bookcase?”
    “I don’t know.” I thought about it. “Maybe he knew Kandi. Maybe he thought she’d hidden something here.”
    “Any idea what it might have been?”
    “No.”
    “How do you suppose he got in?”
    “Either he broke in before Kandi got here, or she let him in.”
    “Or they arrived together and his initial was ‘P.’ Think. Did you and Kandi have any mutual acquaintances with that initial?”
    “So far as I know, Elena was our only mutual acquaintance.”
    Inspector Curry came back in. “Anything?” asked Martinez.
    “Yeah. Nobody saw anybody who didn’t belong here except a couple on the third floor who got in about 1:45. A fellow walked up as they were unlocking the downstairs gate and said he was on his way to see Miss Schwartz. So they let him in. No one saw the deceased enter the building, and no one heard anything.”
    “Miss Schwartz’s caller—what’d he look like?”
    “Tall, brown hair, tweed jacket, yellow turtleneck.”
    “Miss Schwartz?”
    “Parker!” I blurted.
    “P as in Parker. Now that’s very interesting, Miss Schwartz. Who might Parker be?”
    “He was my date for the party. We got separated. I suppose he came by to make sure I got home all right.”
    “What’s his last name?”
    “Phillips.”
    “Now that’s even more interesting. Considering that was the victim’s last name. Did you look at her driver’s license?”
    “No.”
    “I did. Her full name was Carol Phillips.”
    Things I hadn’t put together came back to me in a rush.
    Parker had a sister, Carol, who was a student at San Francisco State. Parker had left the party without a word to me and then come back and talked to Kandi angrily. Was Kandi