Tourist Trap (Rebecca Schwartz #3) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

something for that poor man?” He pointed up at the cross. He practically had to yell to be heard above the approaching sirens.
    “He’s dead,” said the ragamuffin. “Look at him.”
    The sirens stopped suddenly and we could hear running. Mr. Robinson must have realized the belated rescue was better left to the cops. He stepped away, relinquishing authority to the resident newshawk.
    “What’s your name?” Rob asked the ragamuffin.
    “Miranda.”
    “Miranda what?”
    “Miranda Warning.” She cackled as if she’d just delivered the punch line of a knock-knock joke.
    Rob let it go. I knew what he was thinking. He could get her name from the cops, but maybe not her story. He had to work fast. He went for shock tactics, nodding, hard-boiled fashion, toward the cross: “Did you kill him?”
    “Hell, no. I hid in the car; on the floor in the back seat. You know where that two-timing sucker went? The Yellow Parrot. You know it?”
    Rob nodded. “Gay bar.”
    “The sucker was a faggot, all this time. I should have known, the way he treated me.”
    “He went to the Yellow Parrot and then what?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know?” She shrugged. “I fell asleep. I brought a six-pack along just in case. I drank it up, waiting for him, and then got another one. When I woke up, I was still in the car, parked down the hill. I heard a noise and came up here. I thought she killed him”—pointing at me—“so I tried to make a citizen’s arrest.”
    “What’s his name?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “Come on, the cops are going to know in a few minutes, anyway.”
    He was being too hard on her, I thought. I put a hand on his arm, but he shook it off. He walked down the path a little way, trying to get a glimpse of the first cops, hoping to figure out how much time he had, I guess, and then he walked back toward us. “Miss Warning. Why not tell us his name?” He was staring straight at her, trying to fix her with what passed for a steely gaze, but was really sort of a cobalt one, and he was paying no attention to where he was going. Which was how he came to twist his ankle and fall flat on his face.
    I took a step to help him, but caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Miranda was off—off to the side, crashing through the brush. I forgot about Rob and went after her.
    She was better at it than I was and seemed to know a few paths hidden in the bushes. But I was aided by a fall on my tuchus that resulted in a prolonged slide of twenty feet or more. Back on my feet, I dusted myself off and went after her again. I could just see her now. I was definitely gaining.
    “Freeze!” The voice came over a megaphone. “Police! Freeze or we’ll blow your head off!”
    Heads. They should have said heads, I thought. Or could they see only me? Miranda didn’t freeze and neither did I.
    And then there was an awful noise. A noise like a hundred-cannon volley.
    I hit the dirt so fast I got a mouthful of it.
    I heard Rob yelling, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot—it’s Rebecca! Martinez, you jackass—that’s Rebecca down there!” Martinez. Oh, no. My least favorite cop. And now Rob had called him a jackass. Martinez would probably take him in for assaulting an officer—good thing he had his lawyer with him.
    “If you’re down there, Miss Schwartz, stand up and put your hands over your head.”
    Put my hands over my head! Martinez
was
a jackass. Why did he have to treat someone he knew to be an officer of the court like a common criminal? But this was no time to give him a lesson in manners. I stood up and put my hands over my head.
    “Now walk back up the hill.”
    He was doing it just to be a jerk. He could plainly see who I was and now he was making me walk back up the hill with my hands over my head. I wasn’t going to do it, that was all. I lowered my hands.
    “Hands
up
, dammit!”
    It’s a national disgrace that our criminal justice system can’t attract a better class of public servant. I take that back—it does, of course—I have every idea there are literally thousands of fine, dedicated, very intelligent police officers abroad in this great country of ours. I don’t know why I have the bad luck to keep running into Martinez and his lackluster sidekick, Inspector Curry. I put my hands back up and shouted, “She’s getting away!”
    “Who, Miss Schwartz?” Martinez yelled in a tired voice. “Exactly who is getting away?”
    What was I going