Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn

smile was not returned. “You social workers, then?”
    “No. Just … private citizens.”
    Seeing how badly she was bungling this, Otto stepped forward and tried to establish their credentials. “She was a friend of Alexandra’s. We both were.”
    “Are,” said Shawna, correcting him. She didn’t want to relay news of Alexandra’s death until she was able to do so in a respectful fashion, explaining things in her own words. For all she knew, this woman would call her neighbor as soon as they left.
    “Can’t help you,” the woman said, returning the photo. “You’ll have to come back when he’s home.”
    He, thought Shawna. It’s a man, and he lives there alone.
    “Would that be Mr. Lemke?” she asked. “Is that who we’re looking for?”
    “Come along,” said Otto, slipping his arm around Shawna as if she were a benign lunatic who had strayed too far from the asylum. He was lighthearted about this, but she still found it annoying. She kept her eyes fixed on the neighbor lady. “But you recognize her, right? She used to live here? They were married, weren’t they?”
    The woman went back into her house and closed the door.
    Otto was smirking. “Nice work, Sherlock.”
    “Fuck you.”
    “I believe that was the plan, yes.”
    She began walking across the street. “You can forget that shit.”
    “Aw … dude.”
    “You saw her expression, didn’t you? She recognized Alexandra.”
    “Yeah. The fucked-up junkie who used to live across the street. Wonder why she wasn’t more helpful?”
    “How do you know Alexandra was already fucked up? She could’ve had a grace period. She and her husband could’ve still been … you know …”
    “Honeymooning.”
    “Yeah … in a manner of speaking.” She studied his face for a moment, wondering where he planned to go with that.
    “You’re funny,” he said.
    “Am I?”
    “Yeah. For a ‘grrrl on the loose’ who doesn’t believe in marriage.”
    She gaped at him. “By which you mean … ?”
    “Just that you seem determined for her to have been married. You’ve got one letter … a nice letter, granted … and now you’ve got this whole chick-flick message-in-a-bottle thing going on, and I find it a little strange that you’re doing that, that’s all.”
    “Strange,” she repeated in the most neutral tone she could muster.
    “Not strange. Just … it doesn’t seem like you at all. Is it for your blog or what?”
    She didn’t defend herself, since she had just figured out what he meant: Why can’t you be that way about us? If you can make all this fuss over a dead woman’s romance, why not ours? His big, wounded, monkey-loving heart was fully exposed.
    She picked her words with care. “I want her to have been happy. It’s not about marriage. Yes, it’s partially for the blog … but it’s also about … I dunno. Wouldn’t you like to know that someone had at least been kind to her before the drugs took over?”
    He didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be considering the perils of pursuing this discussion. “Fine. Sure. Why not leave a note, then?”
    “Funny you should say that.” Perhaps a little too jocular now, she reached into her shoulder bag and removed the note she’d composed that morning.
    He asked her what it said.
    “Just that I’m a friend of Alexandra Lemke … who used to live here … and that she died this week at SF General … and to call me if they knew her and want to talk.”
    “That should do it,” he said.
    She slipped the note under the door.
    “It’s certainly worth a shot,” she said.
    “It always is,” he said vaguely.
    She was pretty sure he was talking about them.

Chapter 27
Waiting for Word
    T he worst thing about trimming dead fronds from tree ferns was the itchy brown dust that clung to Jake’s skin every time he tackled the job. If the ferns were tall, like the ones in this particular garden, the nasty shit would fall into his eyes whenever he looked up, or creep down his collar onto his neck, like the needling remnants of a haircut. As pleased as he was about his newly forested forearms, all that hair was a magnet for fern dust, and he would find himself—as he did now—scratching like an addict in withdrawal.
    “You okay?” Michael was stacking the fronds for removal to the truck. “I could spell you for a while.”
    “Nah. I’m good.”
    “You sure?”
    “Yeah.”
    Jake was trying hard to make an extra effort, since he planned, any minute now, to ask a favor of