The Villa

door, sure if he opened it, the neighbor would tumble out, ear first. Instead he knocked. Might as well keep things friendly while he asked more questions.
     
    Alexander Claremont liked French wine, Italian shoes and American blues. He'd grown up in San Francisco, the middle son of solidly middle-class parents who'd worked hard to ensure a good life and good educations for their three boys.
    His older brother was a pediatrician, his younger a professor at Berkeley. Alex Claremont had planned to be a lawyer.
    He'd been born to be a cop.
    The law was a different entity in the hands of a cop than it was in the hands of a lawyer. For a lawyer it was there to be bent, twisted, manipulated and tailored to fit a client's needs.
    He understood that and, on a very basic level, respected that.
    To a cop it was the line.
    It was the line Claremont worshiped.
    Now, barely two hours after walking onto the crime scene, he was thinking about the line.
    "What do you think of the daughter?"
    He didn't answer at first, but his partner was used to that. She was driving because she'd gotten to the car first.
    "Rich," he said at length. "Classy. Tough shell. Didn't say anything she didn't want to say. Thought it, lots of thinking going on, but she watches her words."
    "Big, important family. Big, juicy scandal." Maureen Maguire braked at a light. Tapped her fingers on the wheel.
    She and Claremont were polar opposites, which was, in her opinion, why they'd found their rhythm after the initial bumps three years back, and worked well together.
    She was as white as a white woman could be. Irish and freckled and strawberry-blond with soft blue eyes and a dimple in her left cheek. At thirty-six, she was four years Claremont's senior, comfortably married where he was radically single, cozily suburban where he was uptown urban.
    "Nobody sees the guy go in. No vehicle. We're running the cab companies to see if they had a drop-off here. From the looks of the body, he'd been dead at least thirty-six hours. Key to the place was in his pocket, along with three hundred and change in cash and plenty of plastic. He had a gold Rolex, gold cuff links with pretty little diamonds in them. The apartment had plenty of easily transported items. No robbery."
    He shot her a look. "No kidding."
    "Just crossing off the list. Two glasses of wine, one full, one half-full. Only one with prints—his prints. He got plugged where he sat. No tussle, no signs of struggle. From the angle of the shots, the killer was sitting on the sofa. Nice little wine-and-cheese party and oh, excuse me, bam, bam, bam. You're dead."
    "Guy was divorced and remarried within a day. Romantic interlude gone bad?"
    "Maybe." Maguire pursed her lips. "Hard to say from the scene. Three shots, twenty-five-caliber, I'd say, and close range. Not much of a pop, but it's surprising nobody heard anything in a snazzy building like that."
    She parked, glanced up at the next snazzy building. "Funny, huh, how a new husband doesn't come home and the new bride doesn't report him missing."
    "Let's find out why."
     
    Rene had just gotten in from a three-hour session at her salon. Nothing smoothed her feathers better than a long bout of pampering. Unless it was shopping. But she'd taken care of that as well with a quick foray into Neiman's, where she'd treated herself lavishly.
    Tony, she thought, as she poured herself a small vermouth, was going to pay and pay dearly for this little bout of the sulks.
    He'd gone off like this before, a couple of days at a time, when she'd pressured him over some matter. The good part was, he always came back, always with some very attractive trinket in hand, and naturally agreed to do whatever she'd demanded he do in the first place.
    She didn't mind so much, as it gave her a little time to herself. Besides, now it was all legal and tidy. She lifted her left hand, studied the glitter of her rings. She was Mrs. Anthony Avano, and intended to stay that way.
    Or scalp him bald in a divorce.
    When the bell rang, she smiled. It would be Tony, come crawling back. He knew better than to use his key when he'd been gone. The last time he'd done so, she'd pulled a gun on him.
    One thing about her Tony, he learned fast.
    She opened the door, prepared to make him beg, then frowned at the couple holding up badges.
    "Mrs. Avano?"
    "Yes. What's this about?"
    "Detective Claremont, and my partner, Detective Maguire, San Francisco PD. May we come in?"
    "Why?"
    "Please, Mrs. Avano, may we