on a terrace with a hot cop in one of the world’s most beautiful cities. Of course I wouldn’t be worried about fending off murder accusations either, but you can’t have it all, as Aunt Grace would say. So far it was worth the trade- off.
Instead of commenting on the availability of fresh seafood or something more appropriate, he went back to the subject of Dolce. I should have known it was coming.
“Do you have any idea where your boss was the night of the Benefit in the park?” Detective Wall asked.
I shifted my foot and straightened my shoulders. I sighed. I’d almost forgotten why we were here. This was not a date, no matter how much I pretended it was. I was only here to give or take away any alibi for my boss. Which made me wonder, was she really a suspect?
“Why don’t you ask her?” I asked.
“I did. She said she was at home.”
“Then she probably was. The last time I saw her that night was when we closed the shop. I left in a cab. I assume she was upstairs in her apartment.”
When the waiter took away the oyster shells, Detective Wall took out his notepad and wrote something. “She hasn’t been able to verify her whereabouts. Can you?”
“As you know, I was unconscious and in the hospital for most of the night. I didn’t see her again until today. But she wasn’t at the Benefit. I’m sure she wasn’t. She couldn’t have been. She doesn’t do benefits. She dressed half the people there. She was exhausted. Besides, she didn’t have a ticket. They were expensive.”
“How would you describe the relationship between Ms. Loren and MarySue Jensen?”
“Fine until Saturday. Dolce gets along with everyone. She has to. She sells clothes and accessories. Everyone loves her. Just ask them. MarySue had ordered a pair of expensive shoes from Dolce. Dolce wanted MarySue to pay for the shoes on arrival, which is totally reasonable, but MarySue said she didn’t have the money. MarySue was angry. She said she had to have the shoes. Dolce said no, but MarySue took them anyway. Naturally Dolce was upset. MarySue had put a deposit on the shoes but that’s all. Now Dolce was out . . . I don’t know how much money.”
“So you took it upon yourself to retrieve the shoes, is that correct? Or did Ms. Loren ask you to do it?”
“No, in fact she definitely told me to forget about the shoes.”
“Was that because she was dealing with the matter herself ?”
“She said she’d called a repo company.” I paused. “Is this about me or about Dolce or—”
“This is about the murder of MarySue Jensen,” he said, pausing only when the waiter came with the crab cakes and offered me some spicy remoulade sauce.
“I realize that this is all about MarySue,” I said, lowering my voice just in case the waiter was listening. “But I don’t know how I can help you find her murderer.” From out of the blue, I remembered what Dolce had said, that she’d get the shoes back from MarySue if she had to “hunt her down.” But she hadn’t really meant that, had she?
“Just answer my questions,” he said, picking up his fork. As if it was the simplest thing in the world.
“I will if I can,” I assured him. “But . . .”
“Back to the shoes,” he said.
“It’s all about the shoes, isn’t it?” I said. “Speaking of shoes, our supplier, Peter Butinski, was in today.”
“And?”
“I just thought you might want to talk to him. Ask him about the shoes. Any shoes. All shoes. Maybe he knows something we don’t know. He’s an odd one; something about him strikes me as not quite right.”
Jack Wall jotted something down on his notepad. Was it Peter’s name or was it my name with a question mark after it because he thought I was a little too eager to put the blame on someone else, anyone else but me and my boss? I stared at his notepad, wishing I had the X-ray vision of Superman. If only I’d had some practice reading upside-down.
“As for the shoes,” he said, “any idea where they might be at this point in time?”
“At the park?” I asked brightly, hoping he’d get the impression I was being helpful.
“Possibly, since that’s where they were last seen,” he admitted. “Let’s look at it this way. Who wanted the shoes, besides MarySue?”
I chewed my crab cake thoughtfully, trying to look like I was concentrating while I was savoring every bite. “Not Dolce. What good were they to her once they’d been worn? None at all. They were spoiled, used goods. But someone else might have seen them and wanted them—even worn, they were beautiful. It could have been anyone.”
“Could it have been Ms. Jensen’s sister-in-law?”
I shook my head. “Not her style.”
He wrote something on his notepad.
“Her husband Jim?” he asked.
“Why would he want the shoes?”
“To return them?” he asked. “I understand he wasn’t happy about her overspending at Dolce’s.”
“I guess it could have been him. But why didn’t he just wait until she got home that night, take them from her closet and return them to Dolce’s for a refund on Monday?”
“Would Dolce have given it to him?”
“Well, no, since MarySue never paid for them in full and they’d been worn, but he didn’t know that.” I bit my lip. “There is something strange. The night I went to get the shoes back, I saw a ‘For Sale’ sign in front of the Jensens’ house. Today when I called the real estate agent, he said it had been taken off the market.”
The detective raised his eyebrows and made a note of it.
“Do you think it means anything, Detective Wall?” I asked.
“Call me Jack,” he said.
I nodded. “Well, Jack, maybe MarySue wanted to sell, but Jim didn’t. So now he doesn’t have to. Or . . .” I paused to get a breath. “I don’t know if MarySue had life insurance, but if she did and Jim was the benefactor . . .”
“Ramirez is checking on that,” he said. “You’re thinking like a detective, Rita, which is good. It’s all about motives, probability and opportunity.”
Motives, probability and opportunity. If I’d had a notepad myself I would have written the words down so I could ponder them later. I knew they were important in the effort to find the killer, so I tried to burn them into my brain. I was flattered by Wall’s words, but even better, I was glad to shift the emphasis away from Dolce to almost anyone else as long as it wasn’t me. Even better, I was able to shift the emphasis to the clam chowder when it arrived, rich, creamy and chockfull of clams.
“What I’d like to do,” he said, “is concentrate on those who were at the Benefit who had a motive to either steal the shoes or kill MarySue or both.”
I agreed to concentrate, but I was getting tired of playing this game of who killed MarySue. It could have been Jim, it could have been Patti, her sister-in-law, or . . . “It could have been just about anybody but me, of course. MarySue wasn’t a lovable person,” I said. “I don’t even know how she died, how she was murdered, I mean.”
“Her champagne was drugged,” he said.
“Maybe it was an accident,” I suggested. “Maybe the perpetrator, if that’s what you call them, only meant to drug her but gave her an overdose. Would the charge still be murder?”
“Interesting thought—we’ll let the jury decide that,” he said.
I decided to stop making suggestions. The thought of a jury deliberating the case gave me the chills. What if the defendant on the stand was someone I knew? One of our customers? Someone I liked? If it was, I knew what she ought to wear. Something subdued, a suit that didn’t cry out money. Nothing too fashionable. Something from last year’s collection in a neutral color. Jewelry? Maybe a plain gold band on her finger. No diamonds. Unless it was just a pair of diamond studs in her ears. Hair? A tight chignon and no makeup unless it was just a light dusting of a pale powder.
Jack passed on the dessert and I did too, a little reluctantly, but he ordered cafe mochas, my favorite after- lunch drink, for both of us. I breathed a sigh of pure pleasure. If this guy weren’t a cop, he’d be the perfect date. He anticipated my every wish, and he kept up a lively conversation. Too bad it was about murder, but then I was getting used to thinking, talking and speculating about MarySue’s murder wherever I went.
