The Sourdough Wars

“I’m trying to have a cup of coffee and go buy a pink dress, so I can forget I ever heard the word
homicide
, and you are interfering with my desire to repress just about everything I ever heard of.” But I was afraid he’d tell me to go see a shrink. So I started the count-to-ten routine again. Chris came in from court before I’d made it to three.
    “Rebecca, baby, let’s see your poor face.” She came and examined my bruise. “Oh, you pitiful, pitiful peach blossom. It’s going to turn green, I think. Maybe a little Erace.”
    “Chris, you remember Inspectors Martinez and Curry.”
    “Of course I do.” She gave them her warmest smile. “Coffee, gentlemen?”
    Martinez fixed me with an icepick eye. “We’ll be going. See you on the sixth floor, Miss Schwartz.”
    Now that hurt my feelings. I guess I must have shown it, because Chris sat me down as soon as they’d left and got coffee for me. “Hard morning?”
    “A living hell.”
    “Tell Auntie.”
    “Boyfriends. Parents. Secretaries. Cops. I’m going to see my shrink. Maybe you should see one, too. One minute you hate Robert Tosi and next thing, he’s your valentine.”
    “Valentine. That’s where the roses came from.” Alan had stuffed them all into a vase that would have looked nice with three of them in it.
    “You’ve made up with Pigball, then.”
    “No. And quit trying to change the subject.”
    “I wasn’t. Robert Tosi is certainly not my valentine. He’s a loathsome sort from the nineteenth century. He asked me out for a drink, and I thought it might be educational. That’s all.”
    “And was it?”
    “Quite. He told me all about his marriage to Diddly-bop.”
    “Sally.”
    Chris nodded. “It seems the poor fool thought she was happy staying at home and knitting. Then she started working in his bakery and he thought she was happy doing that. It came as a complete surprise that she was cheating on him.”
    “With Peter?”
    “Yes. Naturally, I asked how they’d been getting along and whether she’d ever mentioned any changes she wanted in the marriage—maybe she thought he was working too hard and they didn’t have enough time together, any little things like that. He said, ‘Sure, but I didn’t think it meant anything.’ ”
    “Being liberated women who wouldn’t judge a person on race, sex, or previous condition of servitude, we will not say, ‘Just like a man,’ will we?”
    “Certainly we will. Anyhow, he found out she was cheating on him with Peter, and Bob suddenly remembered how she used to flirt with him at parties—he’d thought she was just being nice because Peter was his friend. Can you beat that?”
    “He sounds a little on the out-to-lunch side. Why did he tell us Peter wasn’t the type to get involved in a triangle?”
    “He doesn’t seem to count that one. He says Sally forced herself on Peter. Also, he still claims Peter dumped her. He just can’t let her have anything. She left him for another man, but he won’t even admit the guy found her attractive—she has to be a whore who stalked Peter and got her just desserts. And that’s not all. He said lots of other awful things about her.”
    “Like what?”
    “Oh, that she’s a liar and you can’t believe a word she says. Nothing specific—just lots of vitriol and machismo.”
    “I’m glad you had such a great time.”
    She made a face.
    “What time did you go out, anyway?”
    “Late. About ten. Why?”
    “The burglary was around nine. When did he call you?”
    “About nine-thirty.”
    “That’s about the time Rob and I would have finished giving the burglar the scenic tour.”
    “So he could have been Bob.” She thought a moment and then pounded the desk with her fist. “He was, dammit! He was! He was using me for an alibi.”
    “Maybe not. He probably just thinks you’re cute.”
    She bronx-cheered, but the unseemly noise was drowned by the worse one of a ringing telephone. I answered before I thought.
    “Peace?” said Rob.
    “I need to be left alone for a while.”
    “No, you don’t. You’ve been through a lot and you need plenty of garlic and basil to steady your nerves.”
    That caught me off guard. It sounded so exactly right I had to keep quiet for fear of saying something friendly.
    “Also white wine and sourdough. Which reminds me. You know the second starter? The one we thought was stolen last night, only it turned out it really wasn’t stolen?”
    “Rob, get to the point.”
    “It’s been