She shook her head. “Too ingrown. Too incestuous. I would think they’d want to meet someone in another line of work.”
“Like fashion?” I asked.
She smiled. “Exactly.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Cafe Henri on Sunday night.”
She raised her well-shaped eyebrows. “We’ll find you something spectacular to wear, understated but elegant, like the cafe.”
Just as I was going to ask her what Peter Butinski had done with the shoes he’d brought, there was a knock on the door.
“Detective Wall to see Rita Jewel,” he said.
I locked eyes with Dolce. I had a feeling she wanted to tell me something or warn me not to say something to the detective. Whatever it was she wanted to communicate, it was too late. He was here. But Dolce knew me well enough to know I wasn’t the type to blab.
Dolce opened the door with a smile and the kind of greeting she reserved for her best customers. Jack Wall looked like the type who’d shop at Dolce’s if we had a men’s section. I noticed, and I’m sure Dolce did too, that he was wearing a J.Crew Ludlow slim-cut suit. After all, fashion was our business and our passion. Even though J.Crew is an all-American brand, the suit had a definite Italian flavor. All that just to take me to a bucolic lunch, or was this his usual official business attire?
I grabbed my crutches and we walked out of the shop. There was a hush that fell over the crowd in the great room. I could just imagine them saying once I was out of sight, “Who’s that with Rita?”
“Sorry to have to take you in a government-issued cop car,” Jack Wall said as he opened the car door for me. “But this is official business.”
“No problem,” I said. At least I hoped there was no problem. It depended on what kind of official business this was going to be.
Before he got in the car, he took off his suit jacket, loosened his tie and rolled up his shirt sleeves. I tried not to stare, but I have a thing for muscular arms. “I hope you like eating outside.”
“Of course,” I said. “As long as there’s room for me to prop up my ankle.”
“I guarantee it.” He drove his so-called cop car to the Embarcadero and stopped at Pier 39, where, fortunately, they had valet parking since the place is always crowded with tourists gawking at the spectacular views of the Alcatraz Island, the Golden Gate Bridge and the sparkling blue waters of San Francisco Bay. Since I’d pictured sitting on the lawn in a public park as befitted a policeman’s picnic, this was a big and welcome surprise.
With his hand under my elbow, Detective Wall helped me climb the steps to the second floor of Neptune’s Bounty Restaurant and out to the deck with a sweeping panorama, where he then asked for a table off to the side and out of earshot from the other customers.
“What a fabulous view,” I said, dazzled by the sun shining on the Bay.
“San Francisco at its best,” he said, pulling out a chair for me and taking my crutches. “I recommend the Hog Island oysters on the half shell, the crab cakes and the clam chowder.”
“You’ve been here before?”
He nodded.
I didn’t even look at the menu. Sometimes it’s good to have someone else make the decisions. Like now. So I said, “Sounds good to me.” They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch. I knew there’d be a price to pay, but at the moment I didn’t care. The sun on my back, my foot resting on the chair next to Jack Wall, the lapping of the waves against the pilings beneath the restaurant and a basket of freshly baked sourdough bread on the table added up to pure heaven. Then there was the suave detective across the table. Just a glance around the deck told me he was the best-looking man in the whole place by a long shot. I would have to remember every detail to tell Dolce.
“How long have you known Ms. Loren?” Jack Wall asked after he’d ordered the items he’d suggested along with a bottle of white wine. The San Francisco police drank on the job? Or wasn’t he on the job? Or didn’t he care? Or did he intend to abstain and get me to talk while under the influence. I told myself to be careful, but it was hard not to relax—the sun, the scene, the food, the undeniably good-looking man across the table. All calculated to make me loosen up and forget to be on my guard? Maybe, but I didn’t care. At the moment I didn’t want to be on my guard. I didn’t care why he’d brought me here. This was the San Francisco I’d dreamed about back in Columbus. This was the kind of life I wanted. Lunch alfresco with a well-dressed professional man who hung on my every word. Why worry? What did I have to hide anyway?
For a moment when he mentioned Dolce, I thought he must be a mind reader. Then I got hold of myself, gave myself a mental shake and reminded myself this was an official interview even though it felt like a social occasion, which I knew it probably wasn’t. Not for him. He probably took his informants out for expensive meals every other day to extract important information from them. No wonder he was so knowledgeable about the menu at this restaurant. I could see how it could work. I hadn’t even had a sip of wine and I was ready to squeal. Most likely he was right now biding his time before he pinned me with the hard questions he had to ask. Anyone who spent this much time and money on lunch was not going to let me off the hook.
“I met Dolce some months ago,” I said. “She’s an old friend of my aunt, so I looked her up when I first came to town and she gave me a job.”
“You had experience in the fashion field?” he asked as he poured some California Pinot Grigio into my glass.
“Not really. Columbus doesn’t actually have a fashion field. But clothes and jewelry have always been my hobby. I was working in an office, doing data processing. Unfortunately no one there appreciated my clothes sense. In fact, I got some pretty strange looks at the office sometimes. And even a few comments like ‘Is it Halloween already?’ So I jumped at the chance to leave.”
Jack Wall glanced at my ribbed top. I hoped there was admiration in his glance, both for my fashion sense as well as my body. But maybe he was just trying to imagine how anything I wore could be considered bizarre or avant-garde in Columbus, Ohio. I had no idea what he really thought, which was probably why he was such a good detective.
“It wasn’t until I arrived in California that I finally felt at home in my clothes, even though I was far from home, if you know what I mean,” I continued. “I can’t believe what people wear out here, I mean every day. Harem pants, watercolor prints, boho jewelry, cropped leather jackets, boots with shorts . . .” I could have gone on and on about how I sometimes felt like I’d landed in a fashion free-for-all wonderland, but maybe the detective wasn’t as interested in the latest trends as I was. Who was besides Dolce? No one I knew.
Interested or not, he nodded politely. Anyone who dressed like he did would know exactly what I meant.
“Are you from around here?” I asked. If we kept talking about clothes and personal stuff, maybe he’d never force me to say anything I didn’t want to. After all, hadn’t we already had a conversation during which he pumped me for information right in my house? What more could I tell him? I took a sip of wine, enjoying the floral, smoky, honey-tinged flavor.
“Oregon,” he said. “I’ve been here for almost ten years. I started a small software company in Silicon Valley, but after it took off I got bored and sold it. Then I went into law enforcement. It’s a new challenge, and I like living and working in the city. Helping people for a change instead of selling them things they don’t need.”
“I like living here too,” I said. I liked helping people too, but I was also guilty of selling them things they didn’t need. I told myself that even if the customers didn’t NEED a new camisole or a trendy fringed bag, they felt better after they bought it and just wearing something new gives a person a psychological lift. Our merchandise, while expensive, was cheaper than therapy, wasn’t it? No wonder he could afford to dress like a dot-com millionaire: that’s probably what he was before he became a cop. It seemed like an unusual background for a detective, but what did I know? I was from Ohio.
When the oysters came, they were briny and smelled fresh from the sea.
“We don’t have these in Columbus,” I said, dipping mine in hot sauce. In fact most of my old friends back in Ohio might have shuddered at the very thought of eating a bivalve, especially if it wasn’t cooked. But I’ve always been a little different, willing to try something new and I was glad I was. Especially today. If I hadn’t been willing to take a chance and move across the country to take a new job, where would I be today? I wouldn’t be having lunch
