Passion, Betrayal and Killer Highlights (27 page)

Charlie nodded obediently and gave Marcus a kiss on the cheek before he went off to fetch their treats.

“He’s cute,” I noted. “Kind of subservient, though.”

“Yes, and I’m so the alpha male.” Marcus laughed. “He’s probably nothing more than short-term fling material but he does have some intriguing qualities.”

I eyed Marcus curiously. “Such as?”

“His job at the Gatsby for one. He works in Room Service.” Marcus waved a finger at Leah. “You said that Cheryl and Bob never spoke, but my boy Charlie spotted them at the Tonga Room having a little after-work powwow.”

Now even Anatoly looked interested. “What were they talking about?”

“I’m not entirely sure. What grabbed me was that Charlie said the two of them seemed very nervous and conspiratorial. But I think Charlie had been popping pills shortly before we hooked up, because, out of the blue he went all ‘Age of Aquarius’ on me and I couldn’t make heads or tails out of what he was saying. I figured you and Sophie might get more out of him with your little Sherlock-and-Watson thing.”

“You dragged him over here just because you thought he might know something that could help me?” Leah beamed. “That is so thoughtful of you! Isn’t that thoughtful, Sophie?”

I smiled genuinely at Marcus. “You’re a regular Mother Theresa.”

“Mmm, never been a big fan of hers.” Marcus twisted one of his short dreadlocks. “Sure she helped a lot of kids and stuff, but so did Princess Di and
she
did it in Valentino.” He held his palms up to depict a scale. “Like Charlie said, it’s all about balance.”

Anatoly smiled as Charlie came back to our table. “So, Charlie, Marcus was just telling us that you know Cheryl from the Gatsby.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Charlie gave Marcus one of the two drinks he had purchased and put a scone down in front of his own seat. “Did he tell you the whole Bob story?”

“He started to,” Leah said. “He mentioned you saw them at the Tonga Room.”

Charlie nodded. “They were sitting at the bar together and I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to give Scary Cherie a hard time.”

“Scary Cherie?” Leah asked.

“It’s a little nickname that some of us Gatsby folks gave to your sister-in-law.”

Leah regarded him fondly. Clearly Charlie’s distaste for Cheryl raised her opinion of him considerably.

“Anyhoo, I walked up to them and they were sitting there passing a note—”

“Excuse me?” I leaned forward. “They were doing what?”

“I know, it’s weird. At first I thought Cheryl was the one giving the note, but as soon as I walked up, she pocketed it, so maybe she was on the receiving end.”

“Did you see what it said?” Anatoly asked.

“She was too fast for me to see much, but I did get a glimpse of a name that was written on it—Maria E.Souza.”

Leah wrinkled her brow. “That name means nothing to me.”

“Well, it meant something to me,” Charlie said. “The Souzas are this cute little Brazilian couple with matching parrot tattoos. At the time they were honeymooning at the Gatsby. I should know since I was the one constantly bringing the oysters up to their room.”

“Did you talk to them about the note?” Anatoly asked.

“Yes, Bob said the Souzas were acquaintances of his, and Cheryl was going to deliver a message to them. Of course, I didn’t know what Bob’s relationship was to Cheryl at the time—I just figured he was a poor bloke who suffered from a mental disability.”

“You thought my husband was mentally disabled?”

Charlie shrugged sheepishly. “Why would a mentally sound person have drinks with Cheryl?”

Leah paused. “Good point. Continue.”

“Well, the whole thing was just strange,” Charlie continued. “Why not just call the hotel and talk to the Souzas? But Scary Cherie got all huffy about my intruding on her private time, and she and Bob picked up and left.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” Leah said, pushing her hair behind her ears. “Bob doesn’t know any cute Brazilians. Are you sure they weren’t cute Germans? He knows lots of Germans.”

“Oh, yeah.” Marcus nodded solemnly. “People are always getting those Germans and Brazilians confused.”

“I’m just saying that it doesn’t make sense for Bob to be sending a note to a couple of Brazilians! And ones with parrot tattoos?” Leah rolled her eyes. “There’s just no way he would have befriended people like that.”

Anatoly sat back in his chair. “Other than the parrot tattoo, what did the woman look like?”

“Like I said, she was cute,” Charlie looked at the ceiling as he conjured up the memory. “A little shorter than me—she was really feminine in a hip kind of way.”

Anatoly nodded as if that meant something to him. “Did she spend all her time with the man she came with?”

“Not all of it…I remember seeing her in the restaurant eating alone. But that could have been a one-time deal. I just remember them because I like the sound of Portuguese. Even the name of the language has a certain style to it. Porchegēz.” He rolled the
r
so that he sounded like an exaggerated Ricky Ricardo.

Leah turned to Anatoly. “I know where you’re heading with this and you can stop right now. Bob was not romancing some neglected Portuguese tattooed lady.”

“I never thought of that!” Charlie put his hand on his cheek. “What a little shit.”

“Major understatement,” I muttered.

“But the Souzas seemed like such nice people,” Charlie continued. “They were at the hotel for at least a week, and every time I brought something up to them they took some time to chitchat with me. One night they tipped me fifty bucks—that’s the other reason I remember them.”

“Maybe her wealth was part of the attraction,” I suggested. “That could be the common denominator that we’re overlooking while comparing the women in Bob’s harem.”

“My husband did not have a harem! And he certainly wasn’t some kind of male gold digger. After all, I didn’t come from a lot of wealth, despite the nonsense Cheryl has been spewing.”

I put my elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Maybe his taste for rich chicks is a recent phenomenon.”

“And how would you explain his interest in his secretary?” Leah spat.

“I don’t know…maybe Bob jumped into bed with Erika in order to distract himself from his more important relationships with you and Bianca…maybe he was having a hard time deciding if he should honor his marriage vows or pick Bianca as his new life partner and he was just using Erika as a…a…”

“A filibuster!” Marcus snapped his fingers in the air. “Something to do in order to put off a vote!”

I gave Marcus an appreciative slap on the arm. “That’s good. Do you mind if I use that in one of my books?”

“Hello?” Leah brushed off the comforting hand that Charlie had put on her shoulder and glared at Marcus and me. “Are you two listening to yourselves?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“What she means,” Anatoly said, “is that your theory doesn’t make any sense. People don’t have affairs in order to distract themselves from their other affairs. And Erika isn’t the only hole in your gold-digger theory.”

“Oh, really,” I said defensively. “And what’s the other problem?”

“If Bob was dating women for their money, why did he spend all
his
money on those same women?”

“You got me there.” I looked over at Leah. “Did you guys take out a second mortgage on your house or something? I mean, how the hell was Bob able to buy Bianca a fifty-thousand-dollar bracelet?”

Leah gasped. “
Fifty thousand dollars?
Are you sure?”

“I’m sorry, Leah—I forgot to tell you. Bianca let us know.”

Leah put her head in her hands. “I can’t believe this. No wonder he balked when I said I wanted enhancements for my birthday. He had already spent all his money on Bianca.”

“Enhancements?” Charlie shook his head in confusion, and Marcus just clucked his tongue.

Anatoly finished off the rest of his drink and focused on Charlie. “Do you remember Maria’s husband’s name?”

“Yes, it was Mario, or maybe it was Pablo—I remember it sounded very Latin.”

“Great,” Anatoly muttered. “Do you think you could get me some more information about this Brazilian couple? Like a home address or a phone number?”

Charlie shook his head so hard I thought it might come off. “The Gatsby has very strict rules about protecting the privacy of its guests.”

“Just a hometown, then,” Anatoly coaxed. “No one will ever know.”

“No, no way.”

Charlie started to stand up, but Marcus gently pulled him back down. “You wouldn’t need to break into the computer system,” he said as he brushed a lock of hair away from Charlie’s face. “You could just ask around. You said these Brazilians liked to schmooze with the staff, so they might have mentioned a hometown to someone, and if they were handing out Ulysses S. Grants like they were George Washingtons, people will remember them.”

Charlie looked at Marcus uncertainly. “I guess I could ask around.” He smiled at Leah. “It’s the least I can do for my favorite diva.”

“I can’t tell you how much I would appreciate it.” Leah beamed at him over her drink. “You’re just—” Her voice trailed off as she searched for the vocabulary that would flesh out her diva image. “Fabulous,” she said shyly. “You’re absolutely fabulous!”

Anatoly and I dropped Leah off at my place a half hour before Mama was scheduled to bring Jack back. I suggested that the two of them spend some private mommy-child time together. I pretended that I was only thinking of the best interests of her and her son, but I’m pretty sure everyone saw through that facade. The truth was, I was desperate for some time
away
from my family. Anatoly and I walked down toward North Beach to hash things out.

“Do you think they have DNA evidence that could link Leah to Erika’s death?” A light breeze caused goose bumps to materialize up my arms. “Is that why Lorenzo asked for one of her hairs?”

“If they had that kind of evidence, Lorenzo would have shown up with a warrant.”

“Then why request a hair sample?”

“Either he’s hoping to get that kind of evidence soon or he just wanted to see how she would react to the request.” Anatoly stuffed his hands into his leather jacket.

“So maybe it was just a test.” We paused for a bicycle to go by before crossing the street. “If that’s the case, how do you think she scored?”

“Somewhere in the sixty-percent range.”

“That means she got a
D
.”

Anatoly shrugged. “Possibly a
D+
.”

I stopped walking and looked up at the wispy white clouds that covered the sky. “What do we do now?”

“I still think our best bet is to try to offer the police as many suspects as possible. We need proof that Taylor was sleeping with Bob, and that she had reason to hate him.”

“That’s the nice thing about Bob and his sister,” I said. “They’re both so easy to hate.”

Anatoly laughed. “I can see that.”

“Well, as far as the suspect thing goes, I do have some good news.” I started walking again and Anatoly quickly fell in step. “I tricked Porsha into admitting that Bianca didn’t have an alibi for the night we found Erika. That’s got to be helpful for us.”

Anatoly creased his forehead. “You tricked Porsha? That couldn’t have been easy.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I glared at him. “You think Porsha’s some kind of sexy female Einstein and I’m the frizzy-haired village idiot?”

Anatoly smiled. “No, I don’t think Porsha’s Einstein.”

“Very cute. I’ll have you know that not only did I trick Porsha into giving me the information about Bianca, but she’s still none the wiser for it.” I glanced at the Muni bus that was letting some of its passengers out in front of us. “But if Bianca or Taylor killed Erika, why did they search her place? Were they looking for the disk?”

“That would be my guess, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out what they think is on it,” Anatoly said. “We can’t make that our focus, though. Let’s just get the information that we need to prevent Leah from being arrested and leave the rest be.” He glanced at his watch. “Speaking of which, we should talk to Cheryl again.”

“You think the little tête-à-tête that Charlie walked in on is significant in some way?”

“Only one way to find out. Care to take a ride to Cow Hollow with me?”

“What the hell, I might as well put all my pent-up hostility to good use.” I smiled at Anatoly. “Let’s go nail her ass to the wall.”

CHAPTER 13

“I think I would like children better if they weren’t so incredibly immature.”

—
Words To Die By

U
nemployment didn’t seem to be agreeing with Cheryl. Her hair was stringy and greasy, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She didn’t even bother flirting with Anatoly as she wordlessly allowed us entrance into her apartment. Her place was suffering, too. It had gone from cluttered to downright messy. There were dirty dishes on the coffee table and nylons hanging from her chairs. Either Cheryl was severely depressed, or heroin chic had come back in a big way.

Anatoly and I waited for her to offer us a seat, and when she didn’t, he pushed aside some clothes and made himself comfortable. I remained standing, not wanting to inadvertently sit on a leftover piece of pizza.

“We heard about what happened with your job,” Anatoly said in a voice that oozed sympathy. “You must be incredibly upset.”

Cheryl sank into the armchair behind her. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” Her eyes sparkled with tears.

Anatoly shook his head. “They didn’t actually fire you over those innocent remarks you made about Leah, did they?”

By the blank look on Cheryl’s face one would have thought she was having difficulty understanding the question.

“You think…” She faltered. Then she straightened her posture and used her sleeve to wipe away a tear. “That’s not the reason the Gatsby gave, but yeah. They said I was late three times or something like that, but really it was about Leah. My brother gets killed and then I get fired for insulting his murderer.” Her voice got stronger with each word. “It’s so not fair. She’s the one who killed him, not me. She did it.”