Obsession, Deceit and Really Dark Chocolate (26 page)

I looked at him for the first time in hours. “Anatoly, if I see you anywhere near that restaurant I will write your address and phone number on the bathroom wall of every gay biker bar in the city.”

Anatoly winced. “That’s actually an effective threat. I’ll let you handle this one alone.”

“Yes, why don’t you
let
me do that?”

Anatoly opened his mouth to say something before changing his mind and walking out. I smiled to myself. Anatoly was tough, but there wasn’t a straight man alive who wasn’t intimidated by a burly gay guy in chaps.

I arrived at the St. Francis twenty minutes early and waited in the lobby for Tiff to arrive. The only reason I had been able to get the reservation on such short notice was because the floor manager was a fan of my novels. When she still hadn’t arrived five minutes after our reservation, I lied to the maître d’ and told him that my companion was in the restroom. It was the only way they were going to seat me, and if I didn’t get seated soon our table would be given to someone else.

Tiff finally arrived at six-fifteen. Her hair was curled and sprayed and her crossing-guard-orange cotton-Lycra skirt was ankle length with a slit high enough to ensure that her legs received a little more attention than they deserved. She had topped the whole thing off with an unmistakable polyester blouse with a wide ruff led neckline that exposed her broad shoulders. Put a basket of fruit on her head and she could have been Carmen Miranda. Still, her skin looked fabulous despite (or perhaps because of ) her minimalist approach to makeup.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said breathlessly, apparently oblivious to the looks she was getting from the other more conservatively dressed patrons. “My car’s out of commission and I had to take the bus. You know what that’s like after five.”

I waved off her apology. “The perpetual tardiness of the Muni buses is one of the things that define this city. Just think what San Francisco would be like if it had reliable public transportation, it’d be…well, it’d be a poor man’s Manhattan. Nobody wants that.”

Tiff laughed softly as the busboy filled her water glass. “I don’t usually mind waiting for the bus, I just didn’t want to keep you waiting.”

“I’ll give you a ride home,” I offered. “Are you hungry? If so, you should consider the three-course prix fixe menu. It’s been over a year since I’ve tasted their ricotta tortellini and yet I still dream about it.”

Tiff laughed again, but her giggles soon turned into a coughing fit when she looked at the menu. “I can’t get that! The prix fixe is eighty-eight dollars per person!”

“My treat, remember?”

“But…”

“Please, Tiff, I really want to.”

You could tell by the rose in her cheeks that she was flustered by the idea of taking a gourmet handout, but her hunger must have won out and she started studying the menu in earnest.

I looked down at my menu as well, but I was having a hard time focusing on the words. I had decided to tell Tiff the truth about everything. I had told way too many lies in the past few weeks and they were getting hard to keep track of. So tonight I would confess to inventing a dead sister for the sole purpose of getting her to open up about her dead brother. There was no way that was going to go over well. I had actually recommended the prix fixe dinner because I was hoping she would choose the foie gras as her first course. I would feel a little less guilty if I knew that Tiff was the kind of person who contributed to the pain and suffering of innocent geese.

The waiter came to the table. “Would you like to start with a bottle of wine?”

“Absolutely.” I lifted the wine list and pointed out an expensive bottle of Austrian riesling. When he offered to take the list from me I asked if I could keep it a little longer. I sensed that alcohol could be the deciding factor on how well the night played out.

When the waiter disappeared, Tiff glanced at the list out of curiosity. “Whoa! They’re charging thirty-six dollars a glass for some of that stuff!”

“Some of their wines are very rare,” I said. “Have you decided what you want?”

“Um…I guess I
will
get the three-course meal. I think I’ll start with the tempura langoustine and chilled ceviche.”

“Not the foie gras? I hear it’s wonderful.”

“No, I could never support that kind of treatment of a goose.”

Well, shoot.

Eventually we ordered, and for the first two courses I allowed her to direct the conversation. She detailed all the labor laws that the proprietor of Mojo routinely broke and told me about the increasing demand for male Brazilian waxes. It wasn’t until dessert that she finally started talking about her family, and that’s when I broke in with my confession.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you about my sister,” I hedged.

Tiff nodded, almost enthusiastically. “I was reading one of those psychology self-help books and it said that when we lose someone who was important to us we change our memory of them in a way that makes the loss more bearable. So if you lost a husband to divorce all you remember are the bad things about him because that makes it okay to let him go. If someone you love dies, you remember all the good things so you can take comfort in a bunch of warm, fuzzy feelings. Make sense?”

“Yeah, but, well the things I lied about are kind of…different. For instance, my sister isn’t older, she’s younger.”

Tiff cast me a puzzled look. “That
is
kind of an odd thing to lie about.”

“I guess. But perhaps the weirdest part of the lie is that she’s, um…she’s not exactly resting in peace. In fact, she hasn’t rested peacefully since the birth of my nephew.”

“Excuse me?”

“I only have one sister, Tiff. Her name is Leah and I seriously doubt that she’s ever considered suicide. Narcissists rarely do. The girl I told you about? Susie? She doesn’t exist.”

Tiff put her fork down. She blinked her eyes rapidly as if trying to wake herself up from a particularly bizarre and disturbing dream. “Why…why would you do that?”

“I have this friend…her name’s Melanie and she needed my help. Her husband was killed in a drive-by shooting and she’s been trying to figure out who did it and why. She found a letter from your brother in her husband’s home office and neither of us could figure out what it meant but it seemed like it might be relevant.” I shrugged sheepishly. “I took it upon myself to go undercover. I made up Susie because I thought that if I told you I had lost a sibling to suicide then you would tell me a little bit more about Peter.”

“That’s sick,” Tiff whispered.

“I know.” I looked down at my half-eaten peanut butter pudding cake and wondered how many of them I’d have to eat to make the empty feeling in the pit of my stomach go away.

Tiff pushed her chair back. “I have to go.”

“She’s dead, Tiff.”

“Who?” Tiff asked coldly. “One of your imaginary family members?”

“Melanie. They found her body yesterday. I don’t know exactly how it happened but I do know it was murder.” I looked up and met her eyes. “I’ve been really awful to you. You’d be crazy if you had any urge to help me, but that’s what I need you to do. I need you to help me get justice for my friend.”

Tiff didn’t scoot her chair back in but she didn’t get up, either. “What did my brother’s letter say?”

I reached into my handbag and took out the photocopy of the letter Anatoly had given me.

Tiff snatched it from me and read it over. “This doesn’t make sense,” she said, the edge in her voice beginning to dull.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “I was hoping that it would.”

“‘Political careers are going to be ruined and so is my life?’” Tiff read the quote while running one finger across the line that contained it. “This is way too melodramatic for my brother.”

“Is it his handwriting?”

Tiff squinted her eyes. “It’s a photocopy so it’s a little hard to tell but…yeah, that’s his writing. But it still doesn’t make sense. What had he gotten himself into?”

“You said before that you didn’t think he would have an affair with Anne Brooke or anyone else he worked with, but is it possible that you were wrong? Brooke has an impressive track record when it comes to adultery, and her new husband thinks she’s up to her old tricks. Could your brother have been her latest conquest?”

“I almost wish that were true,” Tiff said, her eyes still scanning the letter. “That would make him a little more normal. But like I said, my brother never dated.” Tiff put the letter in her lap and let her chin drop to her chest. “He was in trouble. He was in trouble and he didn’t trust me enough to tell me about it.”

“Tiff, you can’t shoulder the blame for your brother’s inability to cope.”

“Then who can I blame?” she snapped. “Can I blame this Eugene guy? Because from this letter he certainly seems culpable.”

“Maybe he was,” I admitted.

Tiff swallowed hard, and she put the end of a bright pink acrylic nail in her mouth. “I need to look through his apartment.”

“Excuse me?”

Tiff looked up, and although her expression didn’t exactly convey forgiveness, she didn’t seem livid, either. “When Peter died my parents asked if I would be the one who went through his apartment. It wasn’t just because I was the one who lived the closest to Danville. They said it would just be too painful for them. But it’s painful for me, too. I’ve picked Peter up at his place before but I’ve never actually gone inside, and for some reason the thought of going in there now that he’s dead…” Tiff shook her head in defeat. “I ended up calling his landlord and he agreed to let me pay him a fraction of my brother’s rent until his lease came up in a few months. He thinks I’ve been slowly clearing the place out, but I haven’t even stepped inside the door. I just couldn’t deal with it.”

“Are you saying that no one has been inside your brother’s place since he died two months ago?”

Tiff smiled weakly. “I hope he had baking soda in the refrigerator.”

“Tiff, we have to go there.”

“We?” she asked incredulously. “Are you suggesting that I take
you
along?”

I toyed with the remainder of my dessert, somewhat appalled by the audacity of my own request. “I’m not suggesting,” I said carefully. “I’m asking. It would seem that whatever Eugene knew about your brother was upsetting enough to make him suicidal. But Eugene died a month
after
your brother did, and you still don’t know what Peter was hiding, so obviously Eugene didn’t rat him out. Maybe someone else was involved in that secret. Maybe that person was not only responsible for both Eugene’s and Melanie’s deaths but was also responsible for getting your brother involved in something that pushed him to suicide. If you let me come with you while you look through Peter’s apartment, then together we might be able to find the clues we need to get justice for all three victims.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said. I could tell by the way her lips were pressed together that this was not the time to push. She glanced at her Swatch. “I’d like you to take me home now.”

I nodded and slipped my credit card into the bill our waiter had left for us. If Tiff’s judgment was as bad as her fashion sense then there was a chance that she might come to trust me again.

Tiff lived in the Richmond district in a cozy little cottage with a front lawn surrounded by a white picket fence. At least that’s how a real estate agent would describe it. I would say that it was a run-down converted earthquake shelter whose only boasting right was a front lawn that doubled as a parking spot for her VW Bug. By the looks of it the picket fence hadn’t been white for at least a decade.

One of the nice things about that area of Richmond is that parking isn’t just a pipe dream. I pulled my car up right in front and turned off the music that had previously been masking the silent treatment Tiff was giving me. “Thank you for letting me take you out to dinner,” I said lamely. “If you decide to allow me to come with you to Peter’s place, just give me a ring, okay?”

“Okay.” Tiff didn’t look at me when she responded but she didn’t get out of the car, either.

“Tiff? You okay?”

Silence.

“Tiff?”

“I’m…I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of what?” Tiff scoffed. “You just told me that two people have been murdered and that their deaths are all somehow connected to what happened to my brother.
My brother!
That’s scary!”

“I see your point.”

“Aren’t you scared?”

I thought about that for a moment. “You know how some people bring out the worst in others? Well apparently I make them homicidal. In the past few years I’ve found two dead bodies and been threatened by two different killers on different occasions for totally different reasons. I’m fairly sure that’s not normal.”

“I’m fairly sure you’re right.”

“But it does give some credence to the whole what-doesn’t-kill-you-makes-you-stronger cliché. At this very moment nobody is trying to kill me and I actually find that comforting. So no, I’m not scared. I’m just a little sad and seriously angry.”

“You are so weird.”

I smiled wryly. “You should meet my friends.”

“That’s okay. Walk me to my door?”

“You got it.” I took this last request as a good sign. There were two gates, one big enough for her VW to pass through should it ever become mobile again, and one just big enough for people to pass through single file. We went through the latter and climbed the two slightly uneven steps that led to her front door.

“Just stay until I get the lights on.”

I nodded and waited as she very, very carefully opened the front door, and even then she only opened it a quarter of the way. She slipped inside and I started to follow her in when she yelled, “No, Chica!”

I jumped back outside. “What! What did I do?”

“Not
you.
” A light went on and I stepped inside again. Tiff was standing in the middle of the living room with a little Taco Bell dog in her arms. “This is Chica,” she explained. “She gets a little excited whenever I walk through that door and I didn’t want her getting her dirty paws all over this skirt.”

As if anything could make that skirt more hideous.
“Looks like you stopped her in time.”