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

a lot.”
    “It’s the Lord’s will,” she said. She looked straight at Lou. “I don’t bear no one any ill feeling.”
    “Thank you, Mrs. Baskett,” said Dad, having, through some magic he did with those blue eyes of his, evoked what amounted to a plea of leniency from the state’s star witness.
    But leniency would be poor comfort to an innocent man. Even Dad’s good work with Hallie Baskett and Alice Jones wouldn’t offset the horror of their testimony. We were still getting killed.
    Liz rose and said, “The prosecution rests.”
    The ball was in our court.

19
     
    I couldn’t bring myself to go home. My apartment is uncluttered because I relax better when my surroundings are simple. My office is exactly the opposite: It’s busy, and I catch its mood. So I went there and sat staring out the window, trying to think of something—anything, no matter how outlandish—that would help me salvage the case.
    About nine o’clock, Chris came in. I heard her go into her office and rummage in her desk. Then she came into mine with a bottle of bourbon in one hand and two coffee mugs in the other. She knows I don’t drink bourbon, but she poured two stiff ones, straight up, into the mugs and thrust one at me.
    I started to shake my head, but she took my hand and curled the fingers around the mug handle. “Auntie says drink.”
    I lifted the mug and sipped. For once, the bourbon didn’t taste too bad.
    “Old Weller,” said Chris. “I do my best thinking on it, which doesn’t happen often because it costs too much, but this is a clear emergency.”
    I took another sip. “Makes you want to holler ‘hidey-ho.’ ”
    “Sip slowly, now. The point is not to drown sorrows, but to plot strategy.”
    “Does that mean you’ve got an idea?”
    “Not yet. But I feel one coming on. We’re desperate, right?”
    “What do you mean, ‘we’?”
    “We’re partners, aren’t we?”
    “Yes, but—”
    “I mean we. Now. Are we desperate?”
    “Unquestionably.”
    Chris touched a long elegant finger to her long, aristocratic schnoz. Which meant she was feeling creative. I felt better already.
    She said, “So desperate measures are called for.”
    “If I could think of any, I’d have already taken them. The only possible way out is to find Les. Or at least Miranda. And we’ve already tried everything.”
    “Everything normal people would try. But don’t forget—we are two desperate women, solely responsible for saving an innocent man from a cruelly unjust fate.”
    “I think you’ve had enough Old Weller.”
    She took a mammoth gulp. “Nonsense. We’ve got to loosen up our minds and make them do somersaults. We can’t think like lawyers. We’ve got to have innocence. We’ve got to be two kids who haven’t yet learned the word ‘impossible.’”
    I sighed and sipped. “Okay. Let’s go over what we’ve already done. First Rob, a trained reporter, went to the Tenderloin to find Miranda. He got mugged. Next we hired a pro to find her. He struck out. So what’s left?”
    Chris’s nostrils quivered, as they did when she was upset. She was silent and so was I, which made the sudden ringing of the telephone all the more strident. Chris looked at her watch. “Nearly ten o’clock—who’d call this late?”
    “Probably a wrong number.”
    “Maybe it’s your dad—he might have had an idea.” Sighing, I picked up the phone. Rob said, “Rebecca. Thank God.”
    “Rob! You’re alive.”
    “For heaven’s sake. You sound like your mother. Listen, I’ve found Miranda.”
    “You’re kidding!”
    “You know what I did? I got this idea—I got mugged the first time I went to the Tenderloin, and our private eye couldn’t get anywhere, so I decided to make a last-ditch effort. I mean things were going so badly and I felt so helpless. I decided to dress like a bum and kind of move into the Tenderloin, live there for a few days. I checked into a flophouse and started hanging out in bars. I wasn’t picking up anything, so I just started exploring—you know, dirty book shops and whatever there was. Anyway, I finally found Miranda working in this place where you can talk to a naked woman for a buck. I followed her to her hotel—I’m calling from there now—but this guy went in there with her and I had to wait for him to leave. Which took five hours.”
    “What did you get out of her?”
    “Nothing yet. She’s dead drunk—passed out and I can’t wake her up. I need your help.”
    “Where