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

tried to be cagey, but ultimately Liz would have got what she wanted. I spat it out: “She looked bedraggled and rather unhealthy. Her clothes were very poor. And she reeked of alcohol.”
    “Alcohol!”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you get the impression she was a derelict?”
    “Objection—counsel is calling for a conclusion.”
    “Sustained.”
    “No further questions.”
    I was shaking when I left the stand. Rob was to be the next witness and the plan had been that I’d cross-examine him, but Dad took one look at me and said he’d do it. Things had gone no worse than we expected, but then we’d expected the worst. The only good thing that had happened was that Dad had made the jury love him; but he always did that. On the down side: They probably weren’t too fond of me even though I was the daughter of their hero, and I was sure they hated Miranda. I realized that when our turn came, we could call the Reverend Ovid Robinson to confirm my testimony, and we could have Lou testify that he had no girlfriend and no car, but there wasn’t a chance in hell the jury’d believe him. Also, once we got him on the stand, if he made just the tiniest reference to having been in prison, if any little inkling of it slipped out, we were done for. My morning was off to a completely lousy start.
    Liz called Rob. He told about chasing someone down the hill after we heard the ladder fall, and then admitted getting the first Trapper note when he wrote the story about Sanchez. Liz introduced the note as People’s Exhibit A.
    “After getting that note, Mr. Burns, did you then go to Pier 39?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did anything unusual happen while you were there?” She really had us: first me describing the grisly sight of a man on the cross at Mount Davidson, and now Rob on the subject of mass poisoning at Pier 39.
    “I heard sirens, and followed the noise to Full Fathom Five.”
    “And what did you see there?”
    “I saw paramedics remove some people on stretchers.”
    “Could you see any of the peoples’ faces?”
    “Yes.”
    “Were any of them speaking, or making any kind of noise at all?”
    “Some of them were trying to catch their breath.”
    “Would it be fair to say, from looking at their faces and hearing them trying to catch their breath, that these people were suffering horribly?”
    “Objection!” Dad and I shouted together. I’d forgotten he was supposed to be taking over.
    “Very well; I withdraw the question. Mr. Burns, did you later get another letter signed ‘Tourist Trapper’?”
    “It was just signed ‘The Trapper’.”
    “Is this it?” She produced Exhibit B.
    “It seems to be.”
    “Will you read it for us, please?”
    She was unbelievably tricky—you can’t have a witness read something he didn’t write. “Objection,” I said, trying to sound as world-weary as Dad. “Hearsay.”
    “Sustained.”
    “Very well, Mr. Burns. Can you tell us in your own words what the note said?”
    “It said the writer had had nothing but trouble since he’d come to San Francisco and the whole city was going to pay. Then I think it said something like, ‘What would this crummy joint be without tourists? Too bad a few of them have to suffer for the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah.’ And then it said that the people who stayed away would be better off in the long run, and that they’d thank him. And the last line was something about closing the city down.”
    “Would you like to look at the note to refresh your recollection?”
    Rob flushed. He’d spoken almost in a monotone, keeping it as low-key as possible, and he’d paraphrased as well as he could. But of course he knew the note by heart. “No, thanks,” he said. “I remember. The last line was, ‘Watch me close this hellhole down.’”
    A literal gasp went around the room. I’d heard about courtrooms being electrified, but I hadn’t seen it before. Probably most of the jurors and spectators had read the note in the paper, but hearing those words like that gave you that same sickish feeling in the viscera as a fingernail on a blackboard.
    “Was there a postscript?” asked Liz.
    “Yes. The writer said he hoped the tourists liked the local mussels and noted that he had put what he called ‘the good ones’ in the cabinet in the men’s room.”
    “And how was the note signed?”
    “The Trapper.” Rob’s voice was very low.
    Liz left it there. She’d played Rob like a violin—like a kazoo, really; it had taken no skill at all. She was