The Book Stops Here (12 page)

I stepped around the front counter and almost tripped over a pair of fake leopard-skin stiletto heels with bright red soles.

I recognized those flashy shoes. They belonged to Vera. And she was still wearing them.

I shuddered in horror and disbelief.

Vera lay curled on the cold cement floor, her back pressed up against the counter. Her glamorous black bouffant hairdo was indeed a wig and it had been yanked halfway off her head, revealing thin, stringy gray hair scraped away from her forehead and pulled into a messy ponytail.

Vera would have hated to be found like this. I had to physically stop myself from adjusting the wig to fit her properly.

Her left arm extended awkwardly across the floor and her elbow was smeared with the blood that had pooled beneath her. Dark red blood stained her white blouse, too, where a pair of English cutting shears protruded from her stomach.

Vera was dead.

Chapter Seven

I had found another body.

I let that thought go, temporarily ignoring the ugly reality and its emotional effect on my psyche. Instead, all business, I briskly called the police to report the murder. Then I telephoned Derek.

“Vera?” he said. “The woman from the television show?”

“Yes. I came by her shop to pick up a check and found her on the floor.” I sounded calm, even to myself. Was I actually getting
accustomed
to finding dead bodies? “She’s been stabbed.”

I refused to think of all the blood she’d lost because I didn’t want to faint and end up on the floor beside her. Murder was one thing, but blood was something else entirely, and I doubted I’d ever get used to it.

“Where is her shop?” he wanted to know.

“Derek, you don’t have to—”

“Give me the address.”

So I did.

“I’m finishing something up here,” he said, “so it’ll take me at least a half hour, perhaps longer. But I’ll be there.”

I knew he wouldn’t take no for an answer, no matter how
much I protested. Of course, I didn’t protest much at all since things were always a little better when Derek was around.

It wasn’t as if I needed him here to take care of me. I didn’t. Really. But he and I were partners. We worked well together, especially when it came to deciphering the puzzle, fleshing out the motives, and getting to the truth of why someone had been killed. It wasn’t like we were trying to play detectives, but it was a horrible thing to have one’s life touched by violent crime and even worse to be considered a suspect by the police.

Unfortunately, I knew the feeling. I’d been a murder suspect more than once and so had several people I loved. It was always a devastating and confusing and frightening time. So it was especially nice to have Derek around to help figure out what had happened and where to go from there. It also helped that he had an extensive background in law enforcement and security.

And I wasn’t ashamed to admit that I just wanted my boyfriend there with me.

After giving him the address, I hung up and called the studio to tell them what had happened. Tom came on the line and assured me they would adjust the schedule so I could tape my segments later that afternoon.

Two police officers arrived within minutes. After questioning me briefly, they ordered me to wait outside on the sidewalk until the homicide detectives arrived to interrogate me further. I knew the drill, so before leaving the shop, I took off my shoes and handed them to one of the officers. “You’ll want to check these for evidence since I almost stumbled over her. But I’d like them back as soon as possible, please.”

He blinked a few times.

“The detectives always want to take my shoes,” I explained.

His eyebrow rose in suspicion. “Always?”

“I’ve been present at a few crime scenes,” I said, trying for nonchalance. From the way he goggled at me, I was guessing I
didn’t pull it off. “Anyway, this time I came pretty close to tripping over the victim, so your investigators might find some blood or other evidence on my shoes. And they’ll also need to use them to eliminate my footprints from the others on your list of suspects.”

He took my shoes from me, holding both of them tentatively with his thumb and finger. Saying nothing, he jutted his chin in the direction of the front door. I got the message and left the shop.

In my thin socks, I walked gingerly over to the sweet little wrought-iron table and chairs and sat down. I tried to appreciate that I was surrounded by beautiful plants, but my thoughts mainly centered on how long I would be stuck here. I hated to feel callous. I was truly sorry Vera was dead. She had been sweet and funny, maybe a little bit of a dingbat, but determined to get what she wanted. I had liked her, but I hadn’t known her well and there didn’t seem to be much point to my hanging around.

On the other hand, I was intimately familiar with the horrible man who had threatened to kill her. So I pulled a book from my bag and tried to read while I waited. It was useless. My mind was filled with images and thoughts of death and pain. And shoes.

Before I left the crime scene, I needed to remind the detectives to return my shoes. I’d bought them specifically for my television appearances so I was hoping they wouldn’t keep them too long. Not that the camera had ever panned all the way down to my feet, but it could happen, right? The home audience might be dying to admire my girlish size-eight Ferragamo flats. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.

I felt more and more conspicuous as passersby stared at me. I didn’t make eye contact, but it was clear that some of them were dying to find out what had happened. The two police officers had split up to carry out the procedures that went along with the discovery of a dead body. One was wrapping crime-scene tape across the front of the shop. The other cop walked down the street and
stopped at each store to question the owners, in the hope that they had witnessed something crucial.

I turned away from the scene and absently studied the aged brick front of Vera’s store. Hearty ivy vines grew from planters at the base and clung to the wall, making the storefront look like a charming country garden wall. It reminded me of the front cover of
The Secret Garden
and made me wonder how much of a coincidence it had been that Vera had been drawn to buy the book.

A crowd had begun to gather a few yards away. The cop with the roll of yellow crime-scene tape turned and studied the group but didn’t approach them.

After a few more minutes, I glanced down the street and saw Homicide Detective Inspector Janice Lee heading my way. As usual, she was dressed more stylishly than your average San Francisco homicide cop and her gorgeous, straight dark hair was wrapped up in some kind of French twist. She wore the trim, black Burberry trench coat I’d coveted for months. She was Asian American, a year or two older than me, tall, thin, and pretty, an ex-smoker with a husky voice and a snarky attitude.

When she got close enough to realize it was me sitting there, she stopped and shook her head in resignation. “Doesn’t it just figure?”

“It does,” I said lightly, “seeing as how I asked the dispatcher to call you directly.”

“I’m touched.”

“It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

Her lips twisted and I could tell she was holding back a chuckle as she fumbled in her pocket for her notepad and pen. “Seriously, Wainwright, we’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve used that line a time or two before.”

“Probably so, since I always seem to run into you at crime scenes.” Her tone was laced with suspicion. “Funny how often that happens.”

“You should be used to it by now,” I grumbled. She was taking a jab at my disturbing tendency to stumble across dead bodies on a regular basis. Didn’t she realize it bothered me, too? I had been involved in so many murders, I probably could have been forgiven for losing track of the exact number. But I hadn’t lost track.

How could I? You didn’t forget the blood, the cruelty, the faces of the people whose lives had been snuffed out so viciously and irrevocably. And you never forgot the tear-stained faces of their loved ones, who would grieve and suffer for the rest of their lives.

“Are you working alone?” I asked, wondering where her partner was. Inspector Nathan Jaglom had a much sunnier disposition than his partner, along with a laid-back style that camouflaged his whip-smart instincts. With his frizzy gray hair and kind smile, he usually played the good cop to Lee’s bad—or, at least, snarky—cop.

The two of them had worked together on almost all of the murder cases in which I’d been involved.

“Yeah,” she said. “Nate got tapped to cover the mayor’s detail for a few weeks.”

“I heard there were some threats on his life.” I frowned. “I hope the inspector will be safe.”

“Me, too,” she said, then flashed a quick grin. “If he gets killed, his wife and I’ll both kill him.” She jerked her head toward the door to Vera’s shop. “You might as well come in with me.”

I jumped up and followed her. It was a lot better than sitting outside alone, being stared at by the looky-loos who had gathered to find out what all the hubbub was about.

It was silent as Inspector Lee took a slow turn around the shop. She jotted down notes of everything she saw, but stopped writing when she reached Vera’s body. She set the pen and notepad on the counter and stared at Vera for at least two minutes.

Watching her, I got a little emotional. I appreciated her taking the time to simply absorb that image of the poor woman.

Finally, she grabbed her pen and pad and began writing notes again.

Glancing out the window, I saw the two police officers approach the people in the crowd, probably trying to find anyone who might have seen something relevant to the murder.

When I turned back to Inspector Lee, she was gazing steadily at me. “What time did you get here and find the body?”

“I walked in around ten thirty,” I said. “I waited for Vera to show up, but she never did. After a while, I decided to check the back room and that’s when I saw the body.”

“After a while?” she repeated. “How long a while?”

I knew exactly how long because I’d checked my watch repeatedly. “It was eight minutes before I stepped around the counter and found her.”

She stared at me as if I were a space alien. “You’re telling me you stood in this shop for almost ten flipping minutes before you ever saw the body?”

“Eight minutes, not ten,” I said, wrapping my arms tightly around my stomach. “And even though it sounds strange to you, I didn’t see the body at first.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because,” I said, my voice rising, “I’m a courteous customer, that’s why.” Not that I was a customer of Vera’s, exactly, although I had been planning to buy those turtles.

Lee stood at the end of the counter closest to Vera’s head, careful to avoid stepping anywhere near the body and thus destroying possible evidence. She was scribbling rapidly in her notebook, probably noting what a dolt I was. I didn’t care. Well, I did, but I would get over it.

I liked Detective Inspector Janice Lee. Sometimes I wished we could be friends and I’d even invited her over to my house for a
glass of wine a few times, but true friendship would probably never happen between us. Not when I was always the one finding a dead body and she was always the one showing up, taking one look at me, and wondering what the hell kind of murder magnet she was dealing with. It wasn’t a great basis for a long-lasting friendship.

“I don’t generally trespass beyond the front counter when I’m in a store,” I explained more calmly. “But after waiting a few minutes, I saw those turtles and wanted to take a closer look.”

Inspector Lee glanced down at the bottom shelf to see what I was pointing at. “Hey, those are fun.”

“I thought so,” I muttered. “I was thinking my mom might like them.”

A thought flashed through my mind:
Why in the world were we talking about the turtles?
But it wasn’t that odd, really. In the midst of a tragedy, we humans were inclined to cling to the most simple and mundane aspects of life.

“Sorry to disappoint you and your mom,” Lee said, “but those turtles are officially a part of my crime scene now.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.”

Lee moved over and stood next to me at the counter, where Vera’s customers would normally stand. She set her pad and pen down on the counter and stared straight ahead for a long, nerve-racking moment. She glanced to her left and took in the wrapping table, then turned right to gaze at the shelves of pots and knickknacks. Finally, she nodded. “Yeah, I guess it’s possible. I can’t see her from here, either.”

I tried not to let on how important it was that she had just validated my own actions.

But she wasn’t quite ready to let up on me. “So, what were you doing here for eight minutes while you waited for her to show up?”

“I was looking at stuff,” I explained. “The turtles. The pots. The gnomes. Did you see all those arrangements in the
refrigerator case? They’re beautiful. It’s a nice shop, don’t you think? Everything is so cheerful and pretty.”

“Except for that pesky corpse, right?”

I sighed. “Right.”

Once again she grabbed her notepad and pen and started in with more questions. “So, what were you doing here in the first place, Wainwright?”

I gave her a brief rundown of my new job on
This Old Attic
and how I’d appraised Vera’s book and how she wanted me to restore it so she could make more money selling it.

“So, you’re like a celebrity now,” she kidded. “If I watch the show tonight, will I see you on there?”

“These San Francisco shows haven’t started airing yet. But they did feature a portion of my segment with Vera on the news the other night. You should watch it.”

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that.” She kept writing.

“No, you should watch it right away.” I knew she was only half listening to what I was saying, so I repeated myself. “I’m not kidding. You need to get a copy of that segment and watch it as soon as possible.”

She glanced up at me and sighed. “And why is that?”

“Because that little bit they showed on the news is what motivated Vera’s killer to come after her.”