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

the police about them.”
    He’d hit it on the nose, all right. More tears came, and then outright sobs. Rob pulled me close and let me cry on his shoulder. “Okay, listen,” he said. “If one of the blackmailees killed her, why did he follow her home—to your house, I mean?” I kept sobbing. “If that’s what happened, you know, he probably didn’t do it in a fit of anger. He probably meant to kill her. Do you think your friend, or whoever he is, could commit premeditated murder?”
    I sat up. “No! Or any other kind.”
    “Come on, now.” He pulled out a handkerchief and began to apply it to my face. “Come on, look; if it’ll make you feel any better, I’m willing to go in with you on a little amateur detective work. I could ask some discreet questions and find out what Goodfellow was up to Friday night—if he has an alibi, I mean. If he does, you can eliminate him. If he doesn’t”—he shrugged—“you can do what you like with the information. But you have to do a little work, too. Can you find out if your friend had an alibi?”
    Despair swept over me like a tsunami. “What would be the point?” I said.
    “Well, several points. One, to assuage your guilt. Two, to give you another suspect if Goodfellow is in the running. Three, to give you a chance to clear your friend in your own head.” He stopped and spoke in a very gentle voice: “I guess that’s mostly the point. To get you to go to him and reassure yourself that he didn’t do it—because you do believe he didn’t do it, don’t you?”
    “Yes, but—” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
    “But what if he did? If he did, Rebecca, I’m afraid that makes him a murderer.”

Chapter Nineteen
     
    I said I’d think about Rob’s proposal, which of course meant I hoped he would do his half of it even if I didn’t do mine. But I knew he was right; I had to talk to Uncle Walter.
    For the time being, though, I pushed the whole thing to the back of my mind, just as I’d been doing all along, and concentrated on other things. First I called the district attorney’s office. Parker had been charged with the murder of Carol Phillips and was scheduled to be arraigned at nine the next morning. That depressed me so badly I called Mickey and Alan and invited them to dinner. Alan had a rehearsal, but Mickey accepted.
    I still didn’t feel any better.
    So I devoted myself once again to my media campaign, and rather enjoyed it, I might say, except for a slight blow to my personal vanity; greater love hath no lawyer than to oblige her client by doing TV tapings with a face like a week-old eggplant.
    By the time I was done, no listener or reader or viewer in the Bay Area could fail to know that a police search had overlooked $25,000 hidden in my apartment by Kandi Phillips, who was killed for the money, in my opinion, and that in spite of all that, my hapless client—Miss Phillips’ devoted brother—had been charged with the murder. Eat that, Martinez!
    I’d tried like crazy to keep myself from thinking about Uncle Walter, but something must have been going on in the muck underneath my skull. At some time that afternoon I must have reached a decision. Because at four o’clock, just in time to catch Uncle Walter before he left his office, I found I was headed toward it in the Volvo.
    Unlike Daddy, Uncle Walter has no juries to impress, so he can be as ostentatious as he pleases. And is, to my mother’s embarrassment. It seems none of the men in her life can hit middle ground in matters of taste.
    Uncle Walter’s office is big enough that you hardly notice his desk, which is the size of three normal ones. The carpets are about knee-deep, and he has views to put a humble Telegraph Hill dweller to shame. And telescopes he could use to spy on Mickey in Berkeley.
    Now Uncle Walter is a big man, perfectly capable of filling up that office, but he wasn’t doing it that Monday. His big shoulders sloped downward, giving the impression of a much smaller person.
    His secretary had phoned the message that I was on my way in, but he wasn’t exactly aglow with avuncular anticipation. He was sitting with his chin in his hands, staring at nothing. He didn’t even get up to kiss me.
    “Hello, darling,” he said, but there was no life in the words. The phrase was a thud in the gloomy office.
    Murder or no murder, I didn’t like my own uncle behaving like that. I decided to confront it directly. “Hi, Uncle Walter,” I said, almost as gloomily.