He didn’t answer. I felt his eyes on me. I sensed he was waiting to hear something more. He was waiting for me to say something he could wrap his inquisitive mind around. But I didn’t know what. Until I came to the last picture. It was a woman in a black dress looking like any number of fashionistas we’d dressed who was holding a drink in her hand and talking to someone. Someone I knew quite well. Someone I had no idea was at the Benefit.
“Recognize her?” Jack Wall asked.
“That’s my boss, Dolce.”
“You sound surprised,” he said.
“Not at all. Why should I be?”
“Because you didn’t think she’d gone to the Benefit.”
“Her social life is none of my business,” I said stiffly.
“Uh huh.”
I didn’t like his tone.
“Why do you think she was there?” he asked.
“I couldn’t say.”
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?” he asked. “You didn’t know she was there, did you? I believe you assured me she doesn’t do benefits. Yet here we have evidence she made an exception to her rule. Can you tell me why?”
“No,” I snapped. What could I say? I couldn’t believe she was there. Why would Dolce have gone to the Benefit without telling me? If she was there, why hadn’t the detective found out sooner from another guest? And of course the big question, why had she gone? She always said by the time she’d dressed everyone else she had barely enough energy to climb the stairs to her apartment and crash. Not to mention the fact that the tickets were prohibitively expensive. I’d seen her the night of the Benefit before I left for the Jensen house. She looked exhausted. The only reason I could think of for her to leave the house was to retrieve the shoes.
“Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it’s someone who looks like her,” I suggested hopefully.
“I think it is her. I think your employer attended this function for the sole reason of stealing back the shoes.”
“It wouldn’t be stealing,” I insisted. I was so wrought up by this accusation I felt my face mask crack. Now I’d have to start my facial all over again when the detective left. “Since MarySue hadn’t paid for them in full, technically they still belonged to Dolce. So if that is Dolce, either she was just an innocent last-minute guest of one of our customers, or she’d gone there to get the shoes back. Either way, what she did was no crime.” Surely I didn’t have to tell an officer what was a crime and what wasn’t.
“Murder is a crime,” he said sternly.
“Dolce is not a murderer,” I said firmly.
“You’ll be glad to know she says the same about you.”
“You asked her if I’d killed MarySue?” I felt a chill go up my spine. I was incredulous that I was still a suspect. After all we’d been through, the detective and I.
“You were at the Jensen house. You wanted the shoes. It’s not rocket science to assume that the shoes and the murder are connected.”
“But I told you I was unconscious. You can ask my doctor.”
“We have.”
“What? You’ve questioned Dr. Rhodes?” Oh, fine, now he’d think he had a date with a homicidal maniac. My face was feeling hot. I began to worry. How much longer was this going on?
“He was extremely cooperative. He verified your story at least between certain hours.”
“Then I’m no longer a suspect?”
“I would describe you as a person of interest.”
“Which is why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“I’m here to encourage you to be more forthcoming. If you have information, I expect you to come forward with it.”
“I do. I did. I told you about Jim Jensen threatening me, didn’t I?”
“Have you seen him lately?” he asked.
“Not since the funeral. Have you?”
“Yes, I have. He’s cooperating with our investigation, and he’s recuperating at home. Still planning to have his big celebration for his wife.”
“Really? I don’t suppose I’m invited,” I said. Invited or not, I was determined to go. How else could I continue to investigate this murder? I needed to see who else showed up, what they said, how they looked, how they acted and of course, what they wore. I couldn’t tell Jack that. He thought I was a self-centered female who spent Sunday afternoons wearing a mud mask. But I would show him.
“Knowing you, I’m assuming you’ll go anyway,” he said.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want him to tell me not to. I was afraid that Jim would try to keep the time and date a secret, at least from me. But I was sure Dolce and I would find out and yes, we’d be there. She was just as determined as I was to get to the bottom of this crime. We needed to clear our names and the only way to do that was to catch the real killer. I’d bet anything, even my Manolo black alligator boots he or she would be there at the so-called celebration.
“Are you sure you haven’t spoken to him since your encounter at your store?” Jack asked.
“Of course I’m sure. What did you think? That I’d harass him at his own home?” The look on Wall’s face told me that’s exactly what he thought. He thought I had no sympathy for Jim Jensen and he was partly right. “Meetings with Jim Jensen are hard to forget. Just ask his wife. No, you can’t do that, can you?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he stood up, indicating the interview was over, at least I hoped so. My face felt like it was covered with cement. He thanked me for my time. “Sorry to bother you on a Sunday. When you are obviously in the midst of some sort of process.”
“It’s a facial mask,” I explained tightly, even though I didn’t owe him an explanation.
“I have a theory about people who wear masks,” he said. “They usually have something to hide.”
Despite my sore ankle, I stood and faced him. “I have a theory about people who work on Sundays. They should get a life.”
A slight smile crossed his lips. Then he let himself out. After I watched his car disappear down the street, I breathed a sigh of relief. I rushed to the bathroom and peeled the old mask off using a stiff brush and started my facial all over again, taking care not to mess my hair. Gel cleanser, scrub, the whole bit until I’d washed away acres of dry skin and wrinkles. But I couldn’t wash away the picture of Dolce with MarySue at the Benefit.
Dr. Rhodes, I mean Jonathan, came to pick me up at seven in a black Porsche 911 Carrera. “You look much better,” he said after he’d taken in my filmy skirt, my classic blazer and my clear, well-hydrated skin and the tendrils framing my face. So it was all worth it. Just for that comment—
I lifted my skirt to give him a good view of my foot, and he bent down, tapped my anklebone and smiled his approval. “I’m glad to see you’re wearing flat shoes. Some women are slaves to fashion when your health is what it’s all about.”
I smiled in total agreement, though I saw that Jonathan was dressed in an outfit that could easily have appeared in one of Dolce’s magazines, with Jonathan himself as the model. Instead of the white lab coat he was forced to wear on the job, he’d gone completely in the other direction with a black slim-cut shirt and a green and black striped tie. His narrow pants were also black, as were his loafers. On anyone else it might have been too much, but with his tanned skin and his surfer-dude sun-bleached hair, it was stunning. I couldn’t wait to tell Dolce every detail. I held my breath expecting him to ask why a detective had asked him about me. But he didn’t. Maybe being in the ER, he was accustomed to the police coming by to ask about his patients, soliciting his opinion on cause and time of death or injury and what weapon was used.
“Great place you’ve got here,” he said, looking out my back windows at the view of the Bay. “I’m trying to decide where to locate. Telegraph Hill, the Marina, Pacific Heights, or something out at the beach where I can catch a wave on my days off. Right now I’m bunking with a buddy from med school in a flat near the ballpark. In fact, I almost caught a foul ball from our roof yesterday. Do you like baseball?”
Baseball? He wanted to discuss baseball instead of my criminal activities? That was fine with me. So I said yes. I didn’t want to come across as being negative. For all I knew, he had season tickets to the San Francisco
