“I found this box in your garbage,” she said, her eyes gleaming. “Recognize it?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” I said as calmly as I possibly could while my mind spun in circles. After all it wasn’t necessarily the shoe box I’d brought on the plane. Though the resemblance was striking. It was brown with an abstract ink drawing and the name of the shop stamped on the top. I squinted and held out my hands to have a closer look. But Detective Ramirez had no intention of letting me put my prints on the box.
“Come now, Ms. Jewel,” she said, holding the box away from me as if she was afraid I would contaminate the evidence. “Tell the truth. Did you or did you not transport this box and the shoes inside it across the country last Friday?”
“The shoes are inside the box?” I asked eagerly.
“I’m asking the questions,” she said curtly.
I glanced at Detective Wall. Where did he stand in this confrontation between his cohort and myself? He was inscrutable as usual, watching the dialog play out as if the two of us women were actors in some existential drama.
“I transported a shoe box and a pair of shoes across country, that is correct,” I said brusquely. “Whether that is the box or not, I can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” I said weakly, leaning back on the couch, “I’m feeling faint, and since I’m under a doctor’s care who has prescribed rest and ice packs for the next few days, I’ll have to stop now and . . .” I closed my eyes as if it was all too much for me to handle in my current weakened state. When no one said anything, I opened my eyes again. “I’m so sorry. Really. But my memory isn’t very good right now. Not unusual in these cases. I’m afraid I’ll have to postpone our conversation, as interesting as it is.”
Ramirez was not unaware of how sarcastic my comment was. She glared at me. “We are not here to converse with you,” she said. “We are here to investigate a murder.”
“I understand that,” I said, “but your questions are upsetting me. Exactly what my doctor warned me about. No agitation. No commotion, no excitement. Or there may be complications,” I warned. I stared at Detective Ramirez, daring her to continue. After knowing what the risk was. I paused to let the significance of complications sink in.
“I hardly think a few questions . . .” she said, obviously unwilling to give up and go away just because I was suffering the effects of a fall from a two-story building into a tree.
“I would love to answer however many questions you have at some later date when my head clears. Right now I’m at risk for a relapse, and I know you wouldn’t want to be responsible for it.” Besides, I thought I saw the Angkor Wat delivery truck outside and I was eager to get rid of these two.
Ramirez darted a glance at Wall, who shook his head, and she bit her lip. Probably furious and frustrated she couldn’t nail me. Did she really think that after I stole MarySue’s shoes and killed her, or killed her and then stole her shoes, that I would then check into the hospital with a concussion and a sprained ankle, return home and toss the shoe box in my garbage can? It boggled the mind.
“Of course, if you’d care to look in my closet for the silver shoes before you leave . . .” I cocked my head in the direction of my bedroom, knowing she’d decline.
Again she looked at her partner, who again shook his head. It was too bad in a way because I would have liked to show off my shoe collection. I had no silver shoes, but I was proud of my taste in footwear, ranging from sporty two-tone brogues to a pair of brand-new leather t-straps and everything in between. It seemed to me that choosing the right footwear was almost the most important decision a girl could make. Did Ramirez want to see my shoe collection just out of curiosity or did she think she’d find the silver shoes in my closet, arrest me and get a promotion? I’d like to see her face when she came up empty.
“No?” I said when she didn’t respond to my offer. “I can only assume that the shoes are back in their box safe and sound.”
If looks could kill I would have been dead meat. We all remained where we were, frozen in place for thirty seconds at least. The delivery van was looking for a parking spot. Detective Ramirez was staring at me with the unopened box in her hands, Detective Wall was standing in the middle of my living room looking like he wanted to be somewhere else, and I was still sitting on the couch, leaning back, my head cushioned on a pillow.
Finally Jack Wall took the shoe box from his assistant detective and opened it. It was empty. Just as we thought.
“Believe me,” I said to Wall, “I have as much reason to find the shoes as you do. Maybe more so. My boss Dolce entrusted them to me. MarySue snatched them out of my hands without paying for them so she could wear them to the Benefit and now they’re gone. As soon as I recover”—I glanced at my swollen, bandaged ankle—“and I will recover, God willing, then I will recover the shoes. If I don’t, my job, my boss, our shop . . . we’re all in trouble.”
“We appreciate your help,” Jack Wall said and maybe he meant it. I hoped so. “But recovering stolen property is the job of the police. When amateurs attempt to circumvent the appropriate procedures, accidents can and will happen.” That’s when he looked pointedly at my ankle. Did he know? And if so, how? “If it wouldn’t upset you too much, we would like to hear how the shoe box got into your garbage can,” he continued.
“You’d like to hear? I’d like to hear too,” I said. “But if I were in law enforcement instead of a simple salesgirl, I’d say that whoever did steal the shoes put it there to frame me for the theft and maybe even the murder. Which is crazy because I was in the hospital when the crimes were committed.”
There, I’d given them the motive for the placement of the shoe box, and I’d included my alibi so they could narrow their search and quit wasting their time and mine. But not a word of thanks did I get. What I got instead was a scolding for trying to recover the shoes on my own. The odd couple didn’t even seem slightly grateful. I mean, what more did they want? It was so obvious what had happened. All they had to do was dust the box for fingerprints and presto—they’d have the answers they were looking for. Did I dare suggest it? No, I didn’t. Let them fumble their way to solving this crime.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” I said with a glance out the window. “I do hope you’ll keep in touch, but it’s time for my medicine.” And my dinner. Or was it lunch? My inner clock was seriously screwed up. I looked anxiously at my watch as if I might lapse into a coma without my medication. Not to mention the harassment I was getting from these two. That was enough to set me back days in my recovery program.
Before they left, Detective Wall handed me his card. “If you have any more information for me, give me a call. Anytime. When you’re better, of course, and thinking more clearly. That’s my cell phone number on the back. We’re anxious to get this high-profile society-type story solved and off of the front page and let the community know about the good works we’re doing.”
With the delivery man coming up the walk, my stomach rumbled, and I wanted them to leave in the worst way, but I couldn’t resist seeing if he could back up his claim, by asking, “Which good works are those?”
“The Wilderness Program for City Kids, the Celebrity Tennis Tournament Fund-Raiser, Saint Anthony’s Dining Room . . .”
He must have noticed that my forehead was furrowed as I tried to picture this suave detective serving the homeless at St. Anthony’s in the crime-ridden Tenderloin district.