church and I’d eaten Vietnamese food with Jack. No wonder he knew his way around, where to eat and where to volunteer. This was his beat. One not many others would want, but definitely where the action was if that’s what you were interested in.
He was sitting at a desk behind a glass partition, which I assumed was bulletproof. He stood and gave me a long look as if he couldn’t remember who I was or why I was there. Or maybe he was just trying to decide if I was wearing Tahari or Jil Sander, both known for exceptional pantsuits. Finally he pressed a buzzer that allowed me to walk in. He thanked me for coming. I said I was always glad to help the police. He didn’t mention my hiding behind a mask, and I didn’t say anything about his lack of a social life. We went into a small room lined with files and boxes. He took a box from a shelf and lifted the lid. There they were, a pair of silver stilettos gleaming in the rays of the overhead light. For a moment I wasn’t sure. Were they or weren’t they? What was wrong with me? Had I lost my keen sense of real versus fake?
“Can I touch them?”
He held out a pair of rubber gloves. I put them on. Then I picked up the shoes one at a time and looked at them, ran my fingers over the leather and tapped the heels lightly with my knuckles. All the while Jack was watching me. What he thought, I had no idea. Maybe he thought I was faking it. That I didn’t know anything. But I did. My confidence was returning. I knew my shoes and I knew I knew them.
“Well,” he said after I’d done the same with both shoes and put them back in their box.
“Fake,” I said.
“How can you be sure?” he said.
I picked up a shoe and held it up to the light. “A slanted, easily breakable heel, faux leather, and studs instead of diamonds,” I said.
“Can anyone tell the difference?” he asked. “Or just you?”
I didn’t want to brag, but I had to be honest. “No, they can’t and even if they can, it may be worth it to buy the fake for forty-six dollars if the real thing is over a thousand or many thousands.”
He whistled softly.
“I don’t mean to put down Harrington’s work,” I said. “If he made these. It can’t be easy to make a pair of shoes. Marsha looked stunning in them, didn’t you think?”
He shrugged. “I’m not big on orange dresses and silver shoes.”
“Tangerine,” I corrected. “I still don’t understand where that dress came from. It was not Dolce’s. So now what? Will you give the shoes back to Marsha?”
“I will, but I’d like to find the originals,” he said.
“Because they will lead you to the killer, am I right?” I held my breath. If he was true to form, he wouldn’t tell me anything.
Instead of answering my question, he asked, “If you wanted to buy a pair of knockoffs, where would you look?”
“Online. There are dozens of outlets.”
“Would you ever buy a knockoff?” he asked, leaning back in his chair and flipping a pen from one hand to the other.
“I have. Some designers don’t mind. They take knockoffs as a compliment. If they make beautiful shoes or dresses or whatever. They’re confident that the copies just don’t compare. Like those shoes.” I glanced at Marsha’s silver shoes. “They don’t have the same feel or the same texture, and they certainly can’t fit as well as the originals. But other designers hate being copied. They want to see us have a fashion copyright law like they have for books, music, films or art. They feel ripped off by the counterfeiters. As for Harrington making one copy for his sister or a costume for his play, I hardly think anyone could complain about that.”
“You convinced me,” Jack said. “I’ll give her back her shoes.”
“And the real shoes, the ones I brought from Miami, the ones MarySue was wearing?” I asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” he said.
I didn’t believe that for a minute. I believed he had a very good guess who had them and where they were, but he didn’t have enough evidence to pounce or get a search warrant. It was maddening.
“Are you sure MarySue was wearing the shoes at the Benefit?” he asked. “You weren’t there, were you?”
I wondered if he was trying to trick me into confessing that I was actually at the Benefit and I’d killed MarySue to get the shoes back.
“No, I wasn’t there,” I said. “I can’t be sure about the shoes, but why would MarySue steal them and then not wear them? It doesn’t make sense. Everyone who was there says she was wearing silver shoes. There are only two pairs, Harrington’s and the real ones. Unless there are more knockoffs out there we don’t know about.” I suddenly had a horrible vision of boatloads of silver stilettos being unloaded from faraway countries where little children worked for pennies a day. I buried my head in my hands.
I heard Jack scrape his chair across the floor. When I looked up, he was standing. He was obviously tired of talking about and hearing about these shoes, and who could blame him? He must have other problems, other cases on his desk.
“Well,” I said, “I have to go to work. Perhaps I’ll see you at the memorial Jim is hosting at MarySue’s favorite hot spot.” I wanted him to know I had no intention of staying away.
He looked like he wanted to warn me, but after a moment, he said, “I’ll be there,” and he walked out to the front door with me.
Portnoy’s Tavern was supposed to be closed to anyone who wasn’t with the Jensen funeral. I’d never been there before, and I had to give Jim credit or whoever planned it for booking a historic saloon across the street from the cemetery. Of course, they’d chosen it because it was MarySue’s favorite hangout. I just hoped I could continue to avoid running into Jim in case he still held a grudge.
The other person I would have liked to avoid was Nick’s aunt, Meera. But there she was standing at the bar. “What’s she doing here?” I muttered. “I thought this was a private party.”
“Who?” Dolce said, handing me a pisco punch.
“Meera, the one-hundred-year-old-plus so-called vampire who is Nick’s aunt.”
“Maybe she hangs out at cemeteries just in case—”
“In case she locates another undead vampire on their way back to earth? Right.” I took a sip of my punch hoping I wouldn’t have to speak to her. “Delicious,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the woman approaching.
“I see you’ve found me in my home away from home,” she said, greeting me with air kisses as if we were old friends. “Good choice,” she said, either referring to my glass or the tavern itself. “I’ve been coming here for ages. The place is almost as old as I am,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. Knowing her, I was sure this was either a hint for Dolce to ask how old she was or an attempt to bring the conversation around to the topic of her vampire status. I nudged Dolce to keep quiet so I wouldn’t have to hear her story again.
“You know,” she continued, “I’ve been coming here since the days of the Barbary Coast, speakeasies, Prohibition. You name it, I’ve seen it all.” She turned to Dolce. “Who’s your friend?”
“Dolce is my boss. Dolce, this is Nick’s aunt, Meera.”
“You’re both in style,” she said, giving us each a once-over. I had the distinct feeling she didn’t approve of our choices of funeral attire. “In style” but not stylish enough? Not funereal enough? “How interesting. Call me old- fashioned, but I think once you’ve found your style you should stick to it even if times change, do you agree?”
It was obvious what era she’d chosen. She was wearing a bonnet, a cape and a long full skirt. I’d hardly ever seen Dolce at a loss for words, especially when the subject was fashion, but at that moment she just stood there staring at Meera, a vision in a turn-of-the-century costume who could have stepped out of a museum. For all I knew, she had.
“Where do you get your clothes?” Dolce said at last.
“I have them made for me,” Meera said, smoothing her bouffant skirt with her hand, “by my tailor. And I don’t mean my friend Mr. Levi Strauss.”
“You knew the man who made the first blue jeans?” I asked. I should have known since Meera had been telling us she’d been around for a long time.
“Of course,” she said, twirling her parasol. “In those days San Francisco was a small city. We all knew each
