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

tears started coming. I do okay for a Marin County Jewish princess, but Superwoman I’m not.

Chapter Eight
     
    I blubbered out the story to Mickey, leaving out only the senator’s identity. She was a good listener. A good sister, too. She said anybody would have wanted to go to Elena’s party, and no one could have foreseen it was going to get me involved in a traffic accident and a murder. She also said I acquitted myself handsomely with the cops and she wished she had as much presence of mind. Okay, so I’m bragging, but remember, I also told you I cried.
    Mickey even tried to get my mind off Parker by dragging red herrings across the path. She said maybe Elena killed Kandi.
    “After all,” she argued, “Elena was the only one we know of who actually knew where Kandi was. She could have followed her there and done her in.”
    “But she was home when I called from the Hall,” I reminded her.
    “Okay. Perfect. She could have gone to your place before she went to HYENA headquarters, beaned Kandi, and tore up the place in about ten minutes. Maybe Kandi’d robbed her and she was trying to get the money back. In fact, maybe the $200 she gave the cops came out of the…”
    “Oh, stop. She came in a taxi. The driver’d know she stopped there.”
    Mickey waved a dismissing hand. “Details.”
    She stopped the car in front of the old stucco house where she and Alan shared the first-floor flat. It was furnished Berkeley-style, with bricks and boards for bookcases, cast-off furniture picked up at garage sales, and a stereo that was probably worth as much as the rest of the furniture put together.
    We made up a bed for me on the Goodwill couch, and I got out of my bedraggled finery. I'd forgotten to pack anything, so I used Mickey’s toothbrush, borrowed a T-shirt for pajamas, and turned in. I was nearly asleep when I heard the thud of the morning paper on the porch.
    The next thing I knew somebody was shaking me awake. From the light, it was pretty early morning. “Phone,” said Mickey. “It’s Parker. The cops told him where to find you.” I tumbled out of bed, quick. “Parker. Are you all right?”
    “I’m in jail. Booked for suspicion of murdering my own sister.” He sounded miserable.
    “Oh God, Parker. I’m so sorry.”
    “Thanks. I need a lawyer.”
    “You’d better tell me what happened.”
    “It all happened so fast I hardly know. These guys Martinez and Curry showed up and told me about Carol and asked if she was my sister. Then, before I could even assimilate that, they asked me about my movements last night. I
had
been to your house—I don’t know if you know that.”
    “I gathered. Was your sister there at the time?”
    “I don’t know. No one answered the door, so I went away. Anyway, the cops asked me if I’d take a polygraph test, and I said no. I was nervous, and I didn’t see any point in it. My God, my sister was dead!
    “So then they sent a lab guy to get my fingerprints, and they stayed with me while he went back to the Hall of Justice. After a while, he called and told Martinez something, and Martinez asked me if I’d ever touched that funny statue you have on the coffee table.”
    “I suppose you know that was the murder weapon.”
    “I do now, anyway. I said I couldn’t remember touching it.”
    “But, Parker, you must have. Sometime in my apartment.”
    “I just can’t remember it. But I must have, because they found one of my prints on it. They told me that, and I still couldn’t remember, and the next thing I knew they advised me of my rights and brought me down here.”
    The more miserable he sounded, the stronger I felt, and I didn’t like it. Florence Nightingale Schwartz was back in business.
    “Okay, Parker, two things. First, tell them you’ll take the polygraph.”
    “No!”
    “Why not?”
    “I don’t believe in it. I don’t like it. It’s an invasion of privacy.”
    “But they’re holding you for murder.”
    “Can’t you get me out on bail?”
    “That’s the other thing. I’m horribly afraid you’re going to have to spend the weekend in jail; they can hold you without charging you till Monday, and if they do charge you, they don’t have to arraign you till Tuesday. I’m not at all sure I can get you out before then.”
    “But you’ll try?”
    “Of course. I’ll have to call a judge at home. I’ll do that, and then I’ll come over to City Prison as soon as I can. Try to take it easy, okay?”
    “Thanks, Rebecca.”
    It