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

house?”
    “Well, Elena sent her there, so she knew. And Stacy Clayton, who’s one of Elena’s partners, rode partway over with Kandi, so she knew. But anyone could have followed her from the bordello. The police think Parker did.” Mentioning Stacy made me remember something. “Say, Rob,” I said on impulse, “you haven’t heard of a Martin Goodfellow, have you?”
    “Sure. He’s a banker—friend of my publisher’s. Don’t tell me he’s mixed up in this.”
    “Stacy says Kandi may have been blackmailing him.”
    “Oho! That explains why the
Chronicle's
so interested in this story. Didn’t you wonder how I happened to be in front of your house after Jaycocks beat you up?”
    “I assumed you heard me on the police radio.”
    “My dear, I have better things to do at midnight than listen to the scanner. No, the night police reporter heard the broadcast, and it was thought so important that the city editor called me at home and sent me over. The whole staff knows the publisher is hot after this story. But why was Kandi supposed to be blackmailing Goodfellow?”
    “He was a client, and she thought he’d pay to see that nobody found out about it. She may have blackmailed one or two others too, apparently. At least that’s what Stacy and Elena think.”
    “Do you know their names?”
    “Yes, but—no.” I never have been good at lying.
    “You do.”
    “Don’t press me, Rob. There’s only one, anyway.”
    “Okay, for now I won’t press you. But let’s backtrack a little. Are the blackmailees suspects in your mind?”
    “Sure.”
    “But then where does the money come in? I mean, if a guy was giving her money, why would he kill her for money?”
    “He wouldn’t. It doesn’t make sense. If one of the blackmailees killed her, it had to be in a fit of anger, I think. I’m reasonably sure neither of them was at the party, though I can’t be positive because I don’t know what Goodfellow looks like. But assuming he wasn’t, that means that he—or the other one—knew she’d be at the bordello as usual on Friday night, and he waited for her to come out, intending to follow her home for some reason. But she didn’t go home; she went to my house. And he saw her ring the bell, get no answer, and leave a note stuck in the mailbox. So he figured no one else would be there, and he rang the bell and got her to let him in.”
    “It was taking a hell of a risk.”
    “True, but presumably we’re dealing with somebody who was about as mad—and probably afraid—as he could get, and wasn’t thinking clearly. So, okay. So Kandi let him in, first hiding the money, and he had a fight with her and killed her.”
    “And it had nothing to do with the money?”
    “Listen, so far as I am concerned officially, she was killed for that money. That’s what I’m trying to use to get the police to release Parker. But if the case goes to trial, God forbid, I’ll have to use everything I can to convince a jury someone other than Parker killed her. I’ll have to postulate, for instance, that she got the money from blackmailee one and was killed by blackmailee two, who knew nothing about the bundle in the flowerpot.”
    “You’re going to first argue that she was killed for the money, and that’s why your house was ransacked, and then turn around and say no, actually, that wasn’t the case at all? And how are you going to do it? Put the blackmailees—assuming, by the way, Goodfellow and the other poor slob actually
were
blackmailed—put them on the stand? You’re gibbering, Miss Schwartz.”
    I felt a tear pop into each eye and then run down each cheek. He was right, of course; you can’t use that kind of stuff in any court in the country.
    “Hey, come on,” said Rob in a soft voice. “I didn’t mean to cast aspersions on your professional abilities. I thought we were having a friendly discussion in which each person was permitted to speak his mind.”
    “I’m sorry, Rob. It isn’t that. It’s just that I’m terribly upset about something, and I’m not thinking too clearly on the subject.” The subject of Uncle Walter.
    “Oh, wait a minute. I think I’m getting the hang of things—like why you wouldn’t tell me who blackmailee two is. It’s someone you know, isn’t it?”
    I nodded.
    “And you’re not worried about what you’re going to argue in court at all. You’re feeling guilty because you do think one of the blackmailees might have done it, and you’re not willing to tell