“He thought she looked familiar, but he couldn’t place her.”
“Of course she would look familiar to a guy,” I said cynically. “She looks like a well-aged Angelina Jolie.”
“That’s not why,” he said, grinning wryly. “I simply thought it was suspicious that she showed up so soon after Robin ran into trouble.”
“Everything is suspicious to you,” I grumbled.
He shrugged but said nothing, confirming my statement.
I sighed. “I guess I should be glad about that, seeing as how you’re usually right. But I still can’t believe Shiva would deliberately put her own daughter in jeopardy. I also don’t believe she’s capable of murder, for God’s sake. There has to be some logical reason for all of this. Maybe her friend Rajiv instigated the whole thing.”
“Maybe.”
But then something hit me. I told him the full conversation I’d just finished with Robin, specifically the part where Shiva had gone out walking late last night. Derek listened without commenting, but it was clear what he was thinking.
Galina was killed sometime last night.
It was quarter to twelve when Derek found a place to park. Before leaving the car, he called Inspector Jaglom and told him his suspicions. He asked if they knew Galina’s time of death. “Sometime around two o’clock this morning?” he repeated for my benefit.
My shoulders slumped. That was around the time Shiva had been out “walking around,” or so she’d told her daughter.
“This is all circumstantial and may lead nowhere,” Derek warned Jaglom near the end of their brief conversation. “But I’d appreciate some police presence.”
A moment later, he ended the call. Reaching across me and into his glove compartment, he pulled out his gun and checked that the bullet thingie was good to go.
“What is that thing called?” I asked, morbidly fascinated.
“This is a magazine,” he said, holding it up. “It contains bullets. It goes right in here.” He shoved it into the handle. Then he pulled out a cylindrical piece of metal. “This is a suppressor. We don’t want to cause a panic with any loud gunshots.”
“Oh, hell, no,” I said, rolling my eyes. But then I put my hand on his knee to get his attention. “Derek, you’re not actually planning on using that in this crowd, are you?”
He touched my arm. “Darling, you know I would never endanger an innocent bystander.”
I met his gaze. “I know you wouldn’t. Just had to, you know, check. Guess I’m a little freaked out.”
“With good reason.” He slipped the gun into the holster he wore under his jacket, shoved the suppressor in his pants pocket, then winked at me. “Let’s go to the fair.”
Because of the mass of people, it took us more than fifteen minutes to make it to Falafel Eddie’s halfway down Castro Street, right in the heart of the fair. As we walked, Derek used his cell to call Inspector Jaglom and tell him what was going on, letting him know that we would be at the performance-art platform within the hour.
Robin was standing on the sidewalk, using both hands to finish one of Eddie’s specials. “Sorry. I was starving, so I went ahead and ate.”
“Where’s your mom?” I said.
She glanced around. “She went to make a phone call. I guess she’s calling Rajiv.”
Derek and I peered through the crowd, trying to find Shiva, but she was nowhere in the area.
“Oh.” Robin laughed in delight. “We ran into Jeremy, by the way. He looks great!”
“You did? Was he wearing the scarf? Did your mother see it? What happened?”
“Easy, girl,” Robin said, after polishing off her meal. “Yeah, she saw the scarf. I think she was a little miffed that I gave it away, but I tried to explain that I only loaned it to him. So please don’t mention that I thought it was butt-ugly.”
“I won’t.” I looked at Derek. “We have to find her.”
“What’s going on with you two?” Robin tossed the falafel wrappings in a nearby waste bin. “You’re both acting weird. You said you knew who killed Alex. Tell me.”
“We need to find Jeremy,” Derek said, taking hold of her arm gently. “Where is he performing?”
Robin frowned at him, but pointed in the direction of Market Street. “He said he’d be down at that end of the street. There’s some kind of performance stage.”
As we walked, I wondered why they bothered with an actual stage when there was a performance every few feet along the way. At one point, we passed a stunning man wearing nothing but a black leather studded G-string and work boots. He was dancing with a sailor who looked perfectly normal except that a strategic section of the backside of his sailor pants was missing.
I told Robin what our thoughts were, being careful not to accuse Shiva of anything. The woman might not be my favorite person, but she was my best friend’s mom, and I didn’t want to hurt Robin any more than she’d already been hurt. I ended up casting the blame for everything on Rajiv.
“Mom’s usually not that gullible,” Robin said, contemplating everything I’d just said. “Rajiv must’ve really done a number to trick her into sending the book home with me.”
“Must’ve,” I echoed.
“Oh, my God,” Robin said suddenly. “Do you think Rajiv’s the one who killed Alex?”
“We don’t know,” I said. That was my honest answer. Because even if Shiva had been responsible for sending the flash drive with Robin, she wasn’t in the country when Alex was killed. And besides, Shiva wasn’t a killer. She might’ve been a pain in the ass and a bit of a narcissist, but she was a humanitarian. She’d always been devoted to peace and love. So someone else had to be responsible for the deaths of all the Ukrainians and the Russian man who died in my apartment.
But why would Shiva go for a walk late last night, around the same time Galina was killed? It was all too coincidental, and I’d learned during the last few murder cases I’d been involved with that nothing was coincidental.
“Oh, there’s Jeremy,” Robin cried.
I saw him at the same moment. He stood on a wide pedestal at least four feet off the ground and he was loving life. Painted white from head to toe and wearing only a jaunty loincloth and the motley scarf, he would’ve looked like an alabaster statue except he was waving his arms and moving his stomach like he was some kind of belly dancer. Was this really his homage to the homeless? It looked more like his homage to the funky chicken. But maybe I was just a peasant when it came to performance art.
The whiteface looked cool, though. And Shiva’s scarf stood out in colorful, sparkly contrast to his pasty white head.
“We’re going to have to interrupt his performance,” Derek said in a businesslike tone.
“Oh, too bad,” Robin said. “He looks so happy.”
I glanced at Derek. “We’ve got to get that thing now.”
“Oh, there’s Mom,” Robin declared, pointing toward Jeremy’s stage. I turned and saw Shiva, looking smart in a crisp white blouse, black stretch pants, and boots, climbing the steps leading to the wide platform where Jeremy was performing.
Robin took off jogging in that direction.
“Run!” Derek shouted, and I tore after him. We reached the stage just as Robin began to climb up after Shiva.
“Mother!” she cried. “Jeez, I’ll get the scarf back! Leave him alone.”
Shiva hit the top step and rushed toward Jeremy.
“What’s she doing?” I cried.
A gunshot cracked the air and a few people in the crowd screamed. Most didn’t even seem to recognize the sound. Maybe they thought it was a firecracker, but I knew what it was.
“Look,” Derek said, pointing at the stage.
I turned and saw Shiva clutch her shoulder as blood began to seep through her fingers. Someone had shot her!
I scanned the crowd as some people scattered. I didn’t see any police, but I didn’t see a gunman either.