“Or it could be a setup.”
“I’ve considered that, too, obviously.”
He smoothed my hair back from my face. “Brooklyn, darling, this isn’t about you.”
“Mind if I hold you to that?”
“You can hold me to anything you’d like,” he murmured, and kissed my neck.
I stared into his smoldering blue eyes and felt sparks ignite inside me. It continued to amaze me that Derek seemed to have the same reaction to me as I had to him. I hugged him a little tighter, then reluctantly pulled away. There was something wrong about snuggling within a few feet of a dead body.
On the other hand, there was a dead body just a few feet away, so what better time to seek comfort? I rested my head against his chest and he wrapped his arm around my shoulder. We stayed like that for a few minutes while the muted voices of the two officers in the other room wafted toward us. I couldn’t hear what they were saying and didn’t really want to. I just wished Derek and I could walk out the door and go home.
But no such luck. The front door swung open and SFPD Detective Inspector Janice Lee walked inside. “Well, well, if it isn’t my favorite dead-body magnet.”
I cringed. She didn’t mince words. But at least I was her favorite.
“Commander Stone,” she said, greeting Derek in a more respectful tone. He had been, after all, a member of law enforcement.
“Hello, Inspector,” Derek said pleasantly, as I buried my face in the lapel of his thousand-dollar suit. I wasn’t shy; I just didn’t think it would be wise to flash her the dirty look I had on my face in response to her smart-ass comment.
After a few more seconds, I calmed my features, turned, and smiled tightly. “Hi, Inspector. Long time, no see.”
“Not long enough, Wainwright,” she said, smirking, then sobered up and glanced around the front room of Joe’s shop. Janice Lee was a first-generation Chinese American woman who took care of her mom, dressed way too fashionably for a cop, and had the most beautiful hair I’d ever seen. Lately, she was always sucking on a mint, probably to keep from smoking, a habit she’d given up only a few months ago. She was about my age, tall, thin, smart, and snarky, and I liked her a lot. We could’ve been great friends if only I weren’t such a dead-body magnet, as she’d pointed out.
“Figures we’d be surrounded by books,” she muttered, peering around at the bookshelves. “So where’s the body?”
“Right through there,” I said, gesturing toward the antiquarian room.
She pulled her notepad out of the pocket of her gorgeous black Burberry trench coat. I was the furthest thing from a fashion maven, but I knew it was Burberry because I could see the coat’s signature plaid lining when she moved. Forgive my weakness at a moment like this, but I was having trench coat envy.
“Stick around, Brooklyn,” she said. “I’m looking forward to hearing all the gory details on this one.” Then she strolled off down the narrow center aisle to check out the crime scene.
By late afternoon, I’d given Inspector Lee and her partner, Inspector Nathan Jaglom, every ounce of information I could think of, right down to which art-supply stores I’d purchased my own inexpensive, square-bladed shearing knives at. Several uniformed officers had left to canvass the neighborhood for possible witnesses, and the medical examiner had taken Joe’s body away.
After Inspector Lee told us she’d be in touch, Derek walked me to my car. Good thing, too, because I had a flat tire.
“Damn it. This day just gets better and better.” I stomped over to the driver’s side and squatted next to the tire. It wasn’t just flat; it looked like it had been slashed by something sharp. Had I run over something on the way to Joe’s?
“Don’t touch anything,” Derek said abruptly, and yanked me back up. That was when I noticed the object sticking out of the tread. It looked like the handle of a small knife.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, thoroughly disgusted and, yeah, frightened.
“Somebody’s not kidding,” Derek muttered, grabbing my arm and pulling me out of the street, onto the sidewalk. He called Inspector Lee immediately. He caught her just as she was driving away from Joe’s, and she said she’d meet us in less than a minute.
It took Derek exactly thirty seconds to rush over and take pictures of the knife and my tire with his phone. He finished and was standing next to me on the sidewalk by the time Lee dashed up.
“This is getting stupid,” she said.
“Tell me about it.” I rubbed my arms to keep the scaredy-cat chills from overwhelming me.
“You okay?”
“No, I’m taking this all very personally,” I said.
“I kinda don’t blame you,” she said. With her phone in her hand, she also took pictures of my tire and the knife. Then she slipped one rubber glove onto her left hand and eased the knife out of the tire. She walked over and showed it to me, turning it so I could see it from different angles. “Look familiar?”
It was an expensive Japanese paper knife with a beautifully tooled handle. I recognized it because I owned one like it; I’d bought it a few years ago for almost two hundred dollars. The entire knife was about nine inches long, with a fat, curved blade that looked razor-sharp.
I moved closer and studied the Japanese figures that had been carved along the length of the handle. At the pommel, or butt end of the handle, three ornate letters were also carved into the hardwood surface. The knife was old enough that the design was worn smooth, but I knew the letters spelled out
“Max?” I whispered as goose bumps formed on my skin. “Max Adams?”
“Who’d you say?” Inspector Lee demanded.
Alarmed, I shook my head. “Nothing. Nobody. It’s not possible. He’s been dead for years. This knife could belong to anyone.”
“Don’t screw around with me, Brooklyn,” she said, her eyes narrowing.
“I’m not,” I cried. “The only person I know by that name died almost three years ago.”
She gave me a withering look as she dangled the knife in front of me. “Uh-huh. And what’re the odds of another Max owning a knife so much like the one your dead friend owned? Or are you saying this is some kind of sign from the grave?”
I glanced wide-eyed at Derek, whose concern for me showed in his expression. Turning back to Lee, I said, “I didn’t say that. Maybe someone stole the knife from Max’s family or they sold it somewhere. But other than those possibilities, I don’t have a clue how it got here.”
“I think you do, Brooklyn,” she said quietly. “You know these book people; you’re part of that world. And I’m thinking you’ve got a pretty good idea of who might’ve killed Joseph Taylor.”
“I don’t,” I insisted. “I swear it.”
“You can swear all you want, but this connects you to the murder,” she said quietly as she dropped the knife into a plastic Ziploc bag. “You know that, right? Whether you like it or not, you’re in this up to your eyeballs. Again.”
“I don’t like it one bit,” I muttered, glowering at her.
Derek stepped forward. “This is a busy neighborhood. Somebody must’ve seen the person who did it.”
“Good thinking,” I said, flashing him a grateful look. “They would’ve had to have jabbed the tire a bunch of times to shred it so badly. Somebody must’ve noticed.”
“Possibly.” Lee pulled out her cell phone and dialed the police dispatcher. After requesting patrol assistance, she hung up. To us, she said, “We’ll do some canvassing, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for someone to come forward.”
In less than a minute, we heard a siren.
“Can we go now?” I asked.
“Sure, you can go,” she said with an evil grin. “But not in your car. It’s just been turned into a crime scene.”
