Passion, Betrayal and Killer Highlights (30 page)

There was a moment of silence before Marcus finally responded. “Honey, I’ve spent time with Jack. The only thing that’s going to keep that child quiet is duct tape.”

I stamped my foot so hard that Jack turned away from the television. I held my breath until he turned back. “Are you going to help me or not?”

“Of course I’m going to help you. When do we rendezvous?”

“Immediately.” I hung up and glared at Jack. “If you blow this for me, there’ll be no more lipstick for a month!”

Jack blinked at me, smiled and shouted, “Piss off!”

Marcus, Jack and I got to The Ramp before Anatoly and Porsha. We settled down at an inside table near the bar that had a perfect view of the outdoor dining area where I assumed they would eventually be seated. Marcus was bouncing Jack up and down on his lap. My eyes were glued to the outside entrance when I heard something sweet and gurgling. My head snapped in Marcus’s direction.

“What?” Marcus asked, noting my expression of shock and disbelief.

“Did Jack just…laugh?”

“Yes, he did—didn’t you, cutie?”

“Sooo, he likes you?”

“Mmm-hmm. Jack and I are shopping girlfriends. He helped Dena and me pick out his mommy’s new leather skirt.” He turned his attention back to Jack, “Didn’t you, sweet cakes…didn’t you help Mommy look like a hottie?”

I watched the two of them in awe. “Would you like to keep him? Leah will probably want him back eventually, but I’d say you’d have a good month before that happens.”

“Sorry, but if I had to change a diaper I would never be able to look at a butt in the same way again. And you can imagine how devastating that would be to a gay man’s social life. Speaking of social lives—” Marcus scooted a little closer to me “—I didn’t want to drill you with Leah there, but what was all that talk yesterday about Bob making boom-boom with his gal Friday?”

“Ugh, you don’t know the half of it.” I spent the next few minutes filling Marcus in on everything I had learned about Taylor. “And then today I found a piece of paper with a woman’s name and partial phone number on it.”

“Partial?”

“The paper was ripped up.”

“My, my, give him a pipe and some satin pj’s and Bob could be the next Hefner.”

Jack pointed to a Bloody Mary being held by a woman at a neighboring table. “Jack want.”

“Good eye.” I waved the waitress over. “Can I get a Bloody Mary?”

“Um, Sophie?” Marcus leaned in closer to me. “He’s
eighteen months old
.”

“I know that. It’s for me.” I smiled at the waitress. “My nephew will have a virgin.”

Marcus shook his head at the waitress. “Change the Virgin Mary to a Bloody one and give it to me. The child will have straight apple juice.” He gave me a pointed look. “I don’t do virgins.”

The waitress giggled and jotted down our order. “Anything else?”

“Chips and guacamole would be great,” I said.

“So,” Marcus said, picking up where we had left off. “Do you think Bianca found out about all this and decided that she’d rather kill Bob than live with him?”

“Stranger things have happened. And of course Taylor had motive… Oh! Oh! They’re here!”

I scooted down in my chair and held the appetizer menu in front of my face so that only my eyes were visible. Marcus was considerably less discreet and craned his neck so he could have a better view when the hostess seated them at one of the outside tables.

“So that’s the other woman.” Marcus clucked his tongue. “I can see why you’re worried. Girlfriend’s got great hair. Are you sure you don’t want me to set her up with Vladimir?”

“
Please,
I’m not that petty.” I sat up a little straighter now that they were seated and less likely to spot us. “Do you see those long drop earrings? Those are so last year.”

“Yeah, you’re not petty at all.” Marcus smiled at Jack. “Jack, can you say ‘catty’? Come on boy, you can do it—cat-tee.”

Jack smiled and tried to duplicate the sound. “Khaki.”

Marcus gasped. “Did you hear that? He named the color of my shirt, and he didn’t even call it tan, he called it khaki. He’s like a budding Mizrahi!”

“Yeah, that’s great, Marcus. What do you think they’re talking about?”

“I don’t know, piña coladas? Walks in the rain? Making love at midnight?”

“Are you trying to tick me off?”

“Of course not. Trying and succeeding are two very different things.” Marcus gently placed Jack in his high chair. “They’re probably talking about Bob and his murderer.”

“You think this is a business lunch?”

“Well, it’s not like they’re making out at the table.”

I shook my head dismissively. “The fact that they didn’t start making out the minute they were seated doesn’t mean it’s not a date. It just means that neither of them is you.” I leaned back in my seat as our waitress brought our order.

Marcus took a sip of his cocktail. “For the sake of argument, if Anatoly
was
talking about the case, why would he need to talk to Blondie?”

“I don’t know—I guess he could be confirming what I told him about Bianca not having an alibi for the night Erika was killed.”

Marcus froze. “Come again?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you—” I took a long sip of my drink “—somebody went and offed gal Friday.”

“What?” Marcus screeched, then covered his mouth and scooted down so that Anatoly and Porsha wouldn’t join some of the other patrons in staring at him.

I smacked his leg under the table. “They’re too far away to hear, but be more careful next time.” I popped a chip in my mouth and swallowed it before continuing. “It wasn’t in the papers. Officially she died of an overdose, but I don’t buy it—and I don’t think the police do, either.”

“What do they say she OD’d on?” Marcus asked.

“Cocaine. Not a good drug for someone who is already shooting up insulin for her diabetes and has a severe heart murmur.”

“Huh.” Marcus toyed with one of his locks. “Any chance it was suicide?”

“You could make a good case for that. She was grieving over Bob, and the revelation that he had planned on leaving Leah for a woman who wasn’t her didn’t exactly improve her mood.” I watched Jack stick his fingers into the bowl of guacamole and then proceed to paint his face green. “Erika was very much the ingenue. I can see her trying to stage a Romeo and Juliet–like ending, but I don’t think her weapon of choice would be cocaine.”

“I see,” said Marcus thoughtfully. “And what are ingenues killing themselves with these days? Daggers with pearl handles?”

“I’m just saying that Erika wasn’t the type to go to Hunter’s Point to buy a vial of coke. Besides, if she were trying to kill herself, snorting cocaine seems like a very imprecise way of going about it. What if she hadn’t died? She could have just ended up in some hospital bed with a state-appointed twelve-step sponsor.”

“But you just said that she wasn’t the cokehead type,” Marcus replied. “Maybe she didn’t know the odds. Maybe she
did
want to do the Romeo and Juliet ending but the local drug dealer was fresh out of hemlock.”

I was suddenly distracted. Anatoly must have said something clever, because Porsha had just burst out laughing. Bitch.

“One thing I don’t get,” Marcus said. “If Erika’s death wasn’t in the papers, how do you know about it?”

“She ordered calamari instead of a salad.”

“I’m not following.”

“The waiter just put a plate of calamari in front of Porsha. You know what this means, don’t you?”

“That she’s not allergic to shellfish?”

“It means she’s trying to impress him. Look at her. She’s totally the green-salad type, but she didn’t order the green salad because if the lettuce isn’t cut into perfect little pieces, it can be a disastrous first-date faux pas. Stuff falls off your fork, it gets stuck in your teeth—it’s just a mess. So she ordered the more caloric but neater calamari.”

“My God, you’re right. Now if she orders scallops for her entrée, we’re cooked!”

“It’s not funny.”

“Sophie, it’s insane. Now how do you know about Erika?”

“The police came over and questioned Leah and me about it.”

“What? Why? Do they think you forced Erika to ‘just say yes’?”

“I have no idea what they think. I don’t even know if they suspect that Erika was sleeping with Bob. All I know is that either Detective Lorenzo is lying to me or he walked into a very different scene than Leah and I did.”

“Come again?”

“Oh, did I forget to mention that Leah and I are the ones who originally found the body?”

“What!”

“Yeah, but that’s kind of a secret so
shh
.” I held a finger up to my lips.

“Oh. My. God. Do you and Leah ever get tired of discovering dead bodies?”

“Absolutely not. Nothing makes my day like a good corpse sighting.” I sucked the alcohol off the celery stick in my drink before handing it over to Jack.

Marcus jabbed his finger into my arm. “Porsha’s getting up. Oh my God, Sophie, I think she’s going to the ladies room.”

I turned and cast a desperate glance at the restrooms, which were less than fifteen feet away from our table. “We need bigger menus to hide behind!” I squealed.

Porsha turned and started walking in our direction. Without another thought, I ducked under the table. Jack started giggling uncontrollably as I tried to curl my body into an invisible little ball. I watched Porsha’s Stuart Weitzmans walk past and disappear behind the door with the little figure of a woman on it, then sighed with relief.

“God, that was close.” I climbed back up into my seat and came face-to-face with Anatoly.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t notice you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Marcus and I just came here for lunch. I didn’t even know you were here.”

“Then why were you under the table?”

“I…wanted to see Marcus’s shoes.”

“His shoes.”

Marcus kicked a foot out for Anatoly’s examination. “They’re Prada. I bought them for less than half price on Fashionbliss.com.”

Anatoly barely glanced at the shoes. “Can I see you for a minute, Sophie?”

I grimaced and followed Anatoly out to the patio.

“How did you know I was going to be here?” he asked.

“I told you, I didn’t—”

“Sophie.”

“I called Bianca.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to see if I could make her violently angry.”

Anatoly released a heavy sigh. “Why?”

“Well, you have to be violent in order to commit murder…”

“So you figured if she murdered you it would move her farther up the suspect list.” Anatoly shook his head. “What’s more frightening—that you thought that was a good idea, or that I’m not surprised?”

“Look, this conversation isn’t really relevant because I barely had a chance to say hello before Bianca told me you had just taken off with her sister. So you’re the one who needs to explain himself.”

“Remind me—why do I owe you an explanation?”

“Because Porsha is related to one of the major players in this case. It’s a conflict of interest.”

“First of all, I’m not a police officer. If I want to dine with the sister of a suspect I can. Second, I would think you would be happy about this. You were the one who first decided to pump Porsha for information.”

“
Me,
not you! Under no circumstance should you be pumping Porsha—!”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

We turned to see Porsha glaring at me.

“I was hungry?” I looked at Anatoly and wondered if he would challenge me in front of Porsha, but he just shrugged and looked out at the bay.

“Really?” Porsha asked. “I find it rather curious that of all the restaurants in San Francisco we both chose the same one at the same time.”

“It’s just a coincidence,” Anatoly said firmly. “Sophie comes here all the time. I just didn’t predict that she would come here today.”

He covered for me! I felt my deviant heart flutter. But my cell phone started ringing in my purse before I had the chance to throw myself at him.

“Hello?”

“You’ve kidnapped my child,” Leah said.

“Are you kidding me? I’m trying to give him away!”

“Very funny. Can you two come home now? I need…” Leah’s voice trailed off, and when she spoke again her voice was much softer. “I need Jack. I just need to hold him.”

“Leah, what’s going on?”

“Lorenzo just left. He had a warrant, Sophie.”

There was a tightening in my chest. I pivoted and walked away from Anatoly and Porsha. “A warrant for what? Are you under arrest?” I jumped as a hand closed around my shoulder. I turned to see Anatoly’s concerned eyes looking down at me. One glance told me that Porsha was back at their table, pouting.

“No, not yet…but Sophie—” Leah’s voice broke off and I listened to her attempts to control her ragged breathing. “He took…he took a strand of my hair. I think they may have found something to link me to Erika’s death.”

CHAPTER 15

“Jerry brought home some of that edible chocolate body paint in hopes of spicing up our sex life,” Carol said with a sigh. “Unfortunately I was PMSing that night so I ended up eating everything in the container before we had a chance to get our clothes off.”

—
Words To Die By

A
natoly made up some excuse for Porsha and offered up Marcus as a means for her to get home, so that he could follow Jack and me to my place. Normally I would have been thrilled that he was so willing to ditch my rival, but at that moment I had bigger things to think about. Since the Harley made parking a two-minute dilemma versus the twenty-minute headache that I was faced with, Anatoly beat me to my apartment. When Jack and I entered, Anatoly was seated at the dining table looking over notes that he had presumably just taken, and Leah was curled into an upright version of the fetal position. When she saw me she leaped off the couch and took Jack from my arms.

“Hi, sweetie. Mommy missed you! Did you miss Mommy?”

“Khaki.”

Leah looked at me quizzically. I shrugged, grateful that of all the new words he had learned that day he had chosen
khaki
to share with his mom.