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

have a little income. But even that makes me nervous. They probably have the phone tapped by now.”
    I murmured something flip about the wages of sin, but luckily Elena didn’t hear it. Luckily because I remembered the whole quote: “The wages of sin is death.” I changed the subject.
    “Listen, Elena, you know that favor you owe me? I’m ready to collect. May I come over and ask you about a zillion questions?”
    “Sure,” she said resignedly. “Stacy’s here—is that okay?”
    I said it was.
    Elena had left the curtains drawn. Gloom pervaded the house like a miasma. What had seemed so amusing a parody before was now a grisly mockery, in my eyes at least. But I don’t think Elena would have put it quite so dramatically. She was more concerned with financial than aesthetic hardship.
    The kitchen, at least, was still cheerful and was populated by Stacy, with whom I exchanged hellos. She, if you recall, was the tiny one who dressed like a little girl at the FDOs party. She was my client, of course, but I’d never known her well and never especially cared for her. She wasn’t wearing make-up that day, and she looked about twelve—a hard, pinched, colorless twelve, with sharp little teeth.
    Elena had made a pitcher of bloody Marys and we sat around the kitchen table with them.
    “As you know,” I began, “I believe Parker is innocent. That means someone else must have killed Kandi. So the questions I’m going to ask are aimed at trying to find out who it might have been. Can you bear with me?”
    Elena nodded. Stacy let her expression slide from bored to slightly contemptuous.
    “Okay, what happened after I left the party?”
    Stacy shrugged. “It fizzled.”
    “Elena?”
    She ruffled her hair with her mandarin nails. “God, I was furious. As soon as I realized the raid was a phony, I started to worry about those blank shots, which really
could
have brought the police, despite the soundproofing.” She stopped, snapped her fingers, and looked glum.
    “What’s the matter?” I asked.
    “She’s just remembered how much soundproofing cost,” Stacy said. “And now it’s no good to us. Shit!”
    Elena snapped, “Stacy, do you have to talk like a streetwalker in front of Rebecca? Lighten up a little.” She turned back to me. “Anyway, once I realized what those overaged adolescents were up to, all I wanted to do was get them and their tiresome boyish mirth off the premises, but it was only midnight and they’d rented the house till two o’clock. I didn’t want a scene, of course—”
    “Hell, no,” said Stacy. “There was still a chance some of them might want to come back as customers.”
    “That was one reason,” said Elena icily. “So I went to the president and told him I’d be happy to return a portion of the money, but I was sorry, they’d have to go, and would he make an announcement to that effect?”
    “And?”
    “He was a perfect gent.” She looked at me. “He apologized for scaring away the piano player, even though he said he hadn’t known about the prank, and he said the party was kind of dead without music. So he just announced it was over and asked everyone to leave as soon as they’d finished their drinks.”
    “How did the FDOs take it?”
    “They seemed kind of relieved. The raid unnerved them, I think. People started to drift away almost immediately, and everyone had left by a little after twelve-thirty.”
    “Let’s face it, the party was a fiasco,” said Stacy.
    “How long did you and the other hostesses stay?” I asked her.
    “About twenty minutes longer, I guess. As long as it took to pick up glasses and empty ashtrays, anyway. We weren’t getting paid, so naturally everyone wanted to get home as soon as possible.”
    I was puzzled. “What do you mean, you weren’t getting paid?”
    “We—all the co-op members, I mean, which was everybody except Kandi—were going to split the thousand dollar fee for the party.” She snorted. “A big two-fifty apiece! We were so eager to get out, we had the place practically cleaned up by the time the last guest left.”
    “Stacy never liked the idea of the party,” Elena said, as if to explain the friction between the two women. I had an idea it was more than that, though. Stacy was impressing me more by the minute as a grasping little dodo, and I suspected Elena shared the opinion.
    “Did Kandi leave with the others?” I asked.
    “She left with me,” Stacy said. “We found your purse when we were