couldn’t exactly say I’d blame him.”
She all but blushed. “You’re sweet, Jim. That’s a sweet thing to say.”
“I’m a sweet old fart all right. But the point is Mick’s on your side. We all are.”
She let out a deep sigh. “I can’t tell you what a relief that is, Jim. Especially after what Ellen… what she did in there. I can’t have Mickey thinking I did this too. I didn’t. I really didn’t. You’ll tell him that, won’t you? And he’s got to believe me and you, too, then, right? To stand between me and the police. You see that, don’t you?”
“ ’Course I do, darling. Even a blind man could see it.”
“Well, all right then.” Taking another breath, she picked up Parr’s hand and kissed it. “Now let’s get you home,” she said.
She pulled out into the traffic lane, got up a couple of blocks to California Street, and hung a left, heading west.
“You know, if you don’t mind,” Parr said after a moment, “it’s out of the way, but maybe you could drop me out at Sutter.”
“What for?”
“I thought I’d talk to some people, see who’s hanging around, who knows what.”
“Mickey said he was going to be out there talking to Al Carter.”
Parr scratched at his cheek. “That’s Mickey and Al, and Al’s back there at the memorial. So I don’t think I’ll be in anybody’s way, not for a little while, at least.”
“So what are you looking for?”
“I don’t know exactly, except I’ll know it if I see it or hear it. Somebody always knows something, you know, even if they don’t know what it is. And what else am I doing with my time anyway? That is, if you don’t mind the drive.”
“The drive’s nothing. Driving’s what I do. I’ll be happy to take you out there.”
“Even you,” he said after a bit.
She shot a glance over to him. “Even me what?”
“You drove Dominic that Tuesday morning, didn’t you?”
She nodded.
“How long? Four hours? Five?”
“Something like that. Why?”
“You think hard enough, I bet you can remember something he said that would give you an idea about who he was meeting that night. ’Specially if you two were close, like you say. You talk about anything important with Dominic that morning? Anything unusual?”
Her hands were again tight on the wheel, her eyes straight ahead, her brow creased in concentration or worry. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t think so. Nothing I can remember, anyway.”
Linda Colores, heretofore the Hang-up Lady, tried to make herself comfortable on the one wooden chair that Tamara had set up across from her reception station in the outer office. But it didn’t seem to be working.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Ms. Colores, perhaps twenty-two years old, was a thin and stylishly dressed woman. She flashed a quick and apologetic smile, then raised a hand to her right temple. “I’m sorry. My head…”
Tamara had already opened her desk drawer. “I’ve got some ibuprofen, if…”
But Ms. Colores waved that off. “No. I’m sorry, but I know what it is. Food.”
“Did you eat something that disagreed with you?”
“No. Not food that way. I shouldn’t say food. I should say no food.” She stole a quick glance at her watch. “Is that the real time, eleven-fifteen?”
Tamara checked her own watch, then the corner of her computer, saw that it was, and nodded. “Eleven- fifteen,” she said.
Ms. Colores swallowed. “I’m so stupid. I’m out of bed at seven, I run five miles, I get ready for my appointment with you before I have to go and work all day, and I just forget one little thing. Actually, two. The first one is that I’m hypoglycemic. I don’t eat, my head explodes, and other things. The second thing I then forget is to actually put some food in my mouth.”
Tamara eyed her with some suspicion. “Are you sure you didn’t talk to my boss or my brother? No, I’m kidding. But both of them are always on me to eat, eat, eat.” She paused for a second. “Maybe we should go out and have a little bite. Would you like to do that?”
“I think I have to. I’m sorry.”
Tamara pushed her chair back and stood up. “No more apologizing, okay? We go get something to eat, we talk about what you heard the other night. Good?”
“Yes, good,” Ms. Colores said. “Thank you.”
Fortuitously, Hunt’s office was close to Belden Alley, just a block away. Mickey often said that Belden Alley alone, one short block in length, if it were the only street in the city, might make San Francisco qualify as a better- than-average-destination restaurant town, and then he’d list its restaurants like a carnival barker: “Brindisi Cucina di Mare, Voda, Taverna, B44, Plouf, Cafe Tiramisu, Cafe Bastille, and Sam’s Grill.”
Partially guided by expense, although none of the places would bust even Tamara’s budget, she convinced Linda that Brindisi was what they wanted. Fifteen minutes later, during which they made small talk mostly about food and their brothers (Linda had two, both older), the waiter delivered Tamara’s rigatoni with lamb ragout and artichokes, and Linda’s grilled salmon sandwich on ciabatti with lobster mayonnaise, salad, and fries.
“So,” Tamara began, a few bites into her lunch, “what happened that Tuesday night?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Linda said, then paused for a moment. “I feel really bad that I didn’t do more, I mean when it happened. But then, I know it sounds bad to say I didn’t want to get involved, but at the time it just seemed like a fight, and all I wanted to do was get away from it. And then at the store, they were talking about how they found the body right near where I’d been. And then at first I wasn’t even sure it was Tuesday. I mean, I really didn’t think about it at all as maybe connected to Mr. Como’s murder until I heard about the reward-I know that sounds a little crass…”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“Still. I just thought about what if it might have actually been important. You know?”
“It’s fine, Linda. That’s why they put out a reward. Get people thinking about things that otherwise they might not really have registered. But now you’re pretty sure it was Tuesday?”
“No. I’m completely sure.” She dabbed a napkin at her mouth. “I have this little calendar book-I know this is pretty Type-A, but welcome to Linda Land, as my brothers say. Anyway, I kind of use it as a shorthand diary for everything I do every day-how much I ran, hours I worked, where I ate, who I went out with, movies, books. It’s probably a disease, and I’ve definitely got it.” She shrugged. “In any event, I checked back and realized it had been payday and Cheryl-she’s my friend from work-and I decided to go wait at the A16 bar and have dinner there. Which, of course, took about three hours.”
“For dinner?”
“Well, one and a half for the wait-totally worth it, by the way-then about the same for dinner. But the point is that I probably got out around ten, ten- fifteen, said good- bye to Cheryl, and then-remember, it was that warm week?-I was stuffed so I decided it was so nice out I’d walk some of the food off, so I headed down to the Palace of Fine Arts, which I love at night.”
“Go on.”
“So then I’m down by the lagoon, just really strolling, enjoying the night, and I get down to the parking lot by the Exploratorium and I hear these voices, a man and a woman, so I stop. It’s not like I was trying to eavesdrop. Just ahead of me the trail turned and they must have been around the bend.”
“You didn’t see them?’
“No. Even if I had, it would probably have been too dark to recognize them. But anyway, it was obviously a fight, I mean just from the sound, but then I’m standing there and the woman goes, ‘God damn you!’ and I hear this, like, slap. And then she’s all ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean that.’ ”
Clearly getting caught up in the emotion of her retelling, Linda Colores blew at a few of her hairs that had fallen in front of her face, then brushed them from her forehead. “So now I’m thinking,” she continued, “I’ve got to
