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

to say? Miranda Warning? Did I want the entire San Francisco Police Department laughing in my face? I kept my mouth shut and marched; at least I did for about ten steps and, as I marched, a meditative state came over me.
    That and something else. And then a third thing—a really foolproof idea for getting the best of Martinez.
    I dropped back down in the bushes.
    “Miss Schwartz, what are you doing?”
    “I’ll be along in a minute, Inspector.”
    “What are you
doing
, Miss Schwartz? Answer me!” Good. He couldn’t see what I was doing, which was fiddling with my zipper.
    I answered in my sweetest voice: “Relieving my bladder, Inspector.”
    I took my time about it, too. And then I sauntered up the hill, arms swinging casually by my sides. Martinez seemed to have lost his train of thought about my keeping my hands up. Short attention span, I suppose.

3
     
    Martinez and Curry took us to the Hall of Justice, of course, or rather, they let us go in our borrowed van, which meant that we had a few minutes alone, of which Rob took full advantage to rib me about resorting to bathroom jokes. I was the least bit sheepish about it, but the truth was, it had worked. I’d nonplussed that creep Martinez, and I could tell Rob was proud of me, whatever my tactics.
    I had another great moment after I got up the hill, too. Martinez said again, “Who is getting away, Miss Schwartz?”
    Since I’d turned the advantage to myself, when I answered, “Miranda Warning,” he was the one everyone laughed at, not me.
    He got me back at the Hall, though. He made me wait hours while he interviewed the Reverend Mr. Robinson and Rob. (Miranda, of course, had gotten clean away.)
    The man on the cross was definitely dead. He had no identification on him, we learned, and he had been shot in the chest, probably fatally, before he was hoisted up by the rope and nailed to the cross. Martinez deduced the part about the timing because a live person would hardly have stood still for it.
    Martinez managed to keep us around, what with one thing and another, until about the time church was letting out for most Easter worshipers. I was all for falling asleep in the car on the way home, but Rob wanted to talk. What did I make of Miranda Warning? he wanted to know.
    I summoned my meager resources. “From her outfit, I’d guess she lives in the Tenderloin. She was about half drunk—slurring her words some of the time, but not always, which probably meant she could control her speech when she thought about it. Which argues she’s had a lot of practice at it. Which, along with her emaciated appearance and, once again, style of dress, indicates she’s probably an alcoholic and pretty much of a derelict. If I had to look for her, I think I might try a Tenderloin doorway.”
    “Your basic bag lady?”
    I reconsidered. “One step up from that, I think. Maybe not a doorway. A flophouse, perhaps. But here’s something funny—the dead man didn’t look at all like a derelict.”
    “And she said he was her lover.”
    “She didn’t actually say that, but she certainly implied it. Maybe he was a john. Maybe she’s a prostitute.”
    “She wasn’t dressed like one.”
    “No, and the way she talked, the guy didn’t really sound like a john. So scratch that. And me. I’m dead.” I yawned.
    Rob stopped the van in front of my house.
    “I’m setting my alarm for Tuesday,” I said. “Give me a call about then.”
    I went in and fed my fish, silently thanking the God of my people, whom I sometimes invoked when it was really necessary, that Mom and Dad were in Israel. Otherwise, my phone would ring the instant Mom heard about the murder on the radio.
    Instead it rang three hours later, about a day and a half before I felt up to answering it. I reached for it and got a dial tone. The door. It didn’t even sound like the telephone—I must have been in a coma. I staggered to the intercom: “This better be good.”
    “My name is Michael Anthony and I have a check for you—for one million dollars.”
    I sighed and pressed the downstairs buzzer. It was Rob’s voice. “I lied,” he said, as he came in. “Really I represent the William Morris Agency. I’m on a nationwide talent hunt and…”
    “Don’t tell me. They’re remaking
Gone with the Wind
and want me to play Scarlett.”
    “Inherit the Wind
, actually. We thought, what with the feminist movement and all, we’d get a woman to play Clarence Darrow. One of our people caught your act