“The Admissions people didn’t want to talk, believe me,” I said, not admitting that Dr. Jonathan had helped me.
“I believe you.”
“If I could see the shoes you confiscated, I might be able to tell if they were MarySue’s or the ones Harrington made for his sister,” I said.
“You think so?” he asked raising an eyebrow.
“I know something about footwear,” I said modestly. “I could try.”
When the waitress brought the imperial rolls stuffed with seafood, pork and vegetables, I watched Jack dip his in nuoc mam sauce and wrap it in a lettuce leaf with shredded carrot and noodles. Then I copied what he did and got a mouthful of crunchy rice paper wrapped around spicy ground pork, crab and vegetables.
“Delicious,” I said. “So do we have a deal? I help you ID the shoes and you forget my boss is a possible suspect.”
He shook his head, but he was smiling ruefully at my naïveté. “I don’t make deals, Rita.”
“Oh, sure you do. I read the papers. I watch TV. I know what goes on in big-city crime scenes.”
“If your boss is innocent, she has nothing to worry about,” he said.
I hesitated only a second while I considered the possibility that she wasn’t innocent. “She isn’t worried, I am. Because I’m the one who’s responsible for the shoes.” Dolce was very worried, more about money than anything, but that was none of his business. I paused while the waitress brought steaming bowls of the beef noodle soup they called pho. I watched Jack add bean sprouts, mint leaves, fresh basil and a large dash of hoisin sauce. Then I did the same. “All I’m asking is, what happened after the fashion show?”
“I can’t tell you that,” he said.
“Okay, I understand you have rules to follow, so I’ll tell you what I think happened.” I could only hope his reaction would reveal how close I came to guessing the actual scenario. He shrugged as if I could do whatever I wanted, he wouldn’t stop me, but he wasn’t going to help me either. I leaned forward across the table and looked him in the eye. “You mistook the silver shoes Marsha wore for the real thing. I’m guessing you made a mistake, which you found out when Harrington told you how he’d made the shoes, and I bet he could prove it by showing you, oh I don’t know, stitches or holes or marks on the shoes or maybe his initials carved on the soles. After all, he is an artiste. So you let the suspects go, and you kept the shoes as evidence or as a guide for when you find the real thing. So you don’t really need me to tell you those are copies. But where are the real shoes? That’s the question, isn’t it? Does the person who killed MarySue still have the shoes? Because why kill her if you can’t keep the shoes? That’s what I want to know. Isn’t that what you want to know too?”
He didn’t say anything. He asked for a pot of tea, and we drank it with small dishes of coconut ice cream called che.
After a long silence that wasn’t really uncomfortable considering I didn’t expect him to answer me, I said, “There’s something else I’d like to know and that’s, who put that shoe box in my garbage?”
“Sorry,” Jack said. “No luck on that. Anything else I can help you with?”
As if he would. His job was to keep me in the dark. And my job was to keep bugging him and keep investigating on my own.
“Actually there is something that’s been bothering me. It’s the fortune I got with my Cambodian food the other day. It’s not really a fortune, it’s a puzzle.” I reached into my purse and pulled out the small crumpled printed message. “ ‘You cannot step in the same river twice without getting your feet twice as wet.’ Well?”
He didn’t miss a beat. He said, “It’s obvious what it means. You should forget this investigation. Not only have you stepped in the same river twice, you’ve stepped in it too many times and you’re in danger of getting very wet. Maybe even dangerously wet.”
“As in drowning?” I asked with a little trickle of fear across my scalp. I wrapped my hands around my teacup to warm them.
“That’s right,” he said sternly.
Detective Wall drove me home in his BMW convertible he’d parked in an underground garage. “Are you sure you’re not nervous about staying here alone?” he asked when he pulled up in front of my house.
“Should I be?”
“Just keep out of this investigation. That’s my advice to you. The more distance between the shoes and yourself the better.”
“Whoever put the shoe box in my garbage knows where I live. I wish I knew who that was. Can I assume you’ve ruled out Harrington and his sister as possible suspects?”
“Let me put it this way: you have nothing to fear from them except the possibility of imitation designer shoes and clothes.”
“I appreciate your warning me, but I can’t rest until I locate the real shoes.”
“Rita, forget the shoes.”
“Okay,” I said. Why not let him and everyone think I had given up? That’s what a normal person would do. Forget the shoes, MarySue and her murder. “What about MarySue’s celebration of life next week?” I asked.
“If I were you, I’d stay home,” he said. “With a big crowd like that your absence wouldn’t be noticed.”
“But it’s a party,” I protested. “Aren’t you going?”
“Of course,” he said.
“I’m going to go,” I said. “I have to. If I don’t, it would be admitting that I’m afraid of seeing Jim Jensen, which I am, but I don’t want him to know that. He wouldn’t dare accuse me of murdering his wife again at his own wife’s party, would he?”
“I doubt it,” Jack said. I was hoping he’d say something more forceful like, “He’d better not, or I’ll arrest him,” but he didn’t.
“I’m sure Dolce will close the shop for the afternoon so we can go. Everyone who is anyone will be there.”
“I can’t stop you,” he said. “I can only warn you.”
“Here’s a warning you might laugh at but don’t say I didn’t warn you. There is a theory that MarySue may have been bitten by a vampire, which would explain why you can’t find her attacker.” I paused, expecting him to burst into uncontrollable laughter, but he didn’t.
“Go on,” he said.
“In which case according to legend she won’t stay buried long. Unless of course she’s buried in such a way she can’t find her way out of the grave.”
“And what way would that be?” he asked.
Of course he was humoring me. No way did he believe in vampires. Neither did I. But what harm did it do to speculate? We’d both be singing a different tune if MarySue magically reappeared.
“No point in looking for her killer when she is undead and has been all along.”
“Please, Rita, spare me the folklore,” he said.
“I can’t help it,” I said. “You and I don’t believe in vampires, but some people do. Those people say that one way is to bury the body facedown, then the corpse is confused and can’t find her way out of her coffin. Another way would be to—”
“That’s enough,” he said. “Let me know if you learn anything important.”
I assured him I would even though his definition of “important” was different from mine. After another pointless warning to forget about MarySue’s murder, he walked me to my door and waited until I’d bolted it. After he drove away I went to my closet to look for something to wear to the memorial. I pulled out a black crepe Alberto di Feretti dress with a sleek silhouette and stitch-detailed paneling that Dolce had given me. I took a sleek clutch out of my drawer and slipped on a Lanvin bracelet. If I were going out for cocktails to the Top of the Mark I’d wear sky-high ankle boots, but this was a celebration of life at a neighborhood tavern and I wasn’t allowed to wear sky-high heels anyway. Not yet.