“Did you notice anything odd going on?” I asked as I came to stand behind him. “Anyone with a gun?”
He laughed and shook his head. “If someone had whipped out a gun, I would have bounced. It was a group of liquored-up socialites—women in full makeup, a lot of them in high heels—none of whom knew what they were doing. The whole thing was pretty surreal, to tell you the truth.”
Zachary put the pictures on a slide show setting, stood, and insisted that I take the desk chair. He then hovered over me, one hand on the back of the chair, the other leaning on the desk. His forearm was sinewy but strong-looking. I caught a whiff of Ivory soap.
“I even took a few with my tiny camera, to get candid shots. People don’t even realize I’m shooting them when I use it.”
I turned my attention to the pictures, not knowing what I was looking for. I noticed the wallboard hanging oddly in one photo, the lacy red bra in the foreground. Could the wallboard have been hung to hide the box Graham and I had found? I clicked through several pictures of Matt and Kenneth clowning around.
Kenneth held an electric drill in one hand, while Matt held the nail gun. My heart caught in my throat.
“Which of these are you going to print?”
“None of them. Kenneth hired me, after all, and I’m not really a paparazzi type. I was just there for the human interest story—no need to rat out the celebs’ wild parties. Especially after what happened.”
“A journalist with a conscience?”
“I’m not a journalist. I’m a photographer. There’s a difference.”
“Ah,” I said, not sure what to make of the young Zachary Malinski. “How is it that you didn’t hear about what happened there? It looks like you keep up with the news,” I said, gesturing to the stacks of newspapers all over the apartment.
“I read international stuff, the
Guardian
,
Le Monde
. I never pay attention to local. My bad.”
I flipped through the rest of the photos. I recognized Jason, and Vincent from next door. And the restaurateur who had made a splash last year with his trendy new spot in North Beach—Rory Abrams.
Most disturbing, though, was a picture of Brice Lehner. Homicide Inspector Brice Lehner. What was he doing at Matt and Kenneth’s Do-It-Yourself Demo party, and why hadn’t this come up at any point in the investigation?
Or maybe it had. I didn’t exactly have sources in the police department. Maybe it was an entirely innocent association, he had informed his superiors, and they decided he should stay on the case. Or maybe there really was something fishy going on. How could I find out?
“Do you know this guy?” I asked.
“Met him at the party, briefly. But I was working, not socializing.”
As the photos continued to appear, I saw that several were marred by what looked like tiny white starbursts or light smudges.
“Did you notice that several of these photos seem to have little light streaks, like this?” I asked, pointing one out.
“It’s not that unusual. You get that many people together in an area, lots of activity, light glints off of all sorts of things.”
I nodded.
“Either that or the place is full of ghosts, and those are their orbs, or energy traces.”
Startled, I looked up at him.
He was grinning. “I’m
kidding
. Speaking of ghosts, you look like you’ve just seen one.”
Embarrassed, I turned back to the photos, but there wasn’t much else to see. No obvious murderers lurking in the background, no blood trails or sinister faces in the shadows.
“Thank you for showing these to me,” I said, getting up. Zachary didn’t back up, so as I stood I essentially thrust myself right into the circle of his arms.
He looked down at me, smiled, and stepped back . . . slowly.
“You want to, you know, get a cup of coffee sometime?” he asked. “Or better yet, I could help you with your case.”
“It’s not a case,” I said, flustered. Did he just ask me
out
? “I mean, I’m not a private detective or anything. I was just asking a few questions.”
“Where were you going to ask questions next?”
Only when he asked me did I realize that, indeed, I had planned my next move.
“I wanted to talk to the bouncer at the party. Do you know him?”
“Sure do. Robbie. I recommended him to Kenneth. He works over at the Vixen’s Lair.”
“Where?”
“Tell you what, I’ll take you,” Zach said, grabbing the leather jacket that had been hanging on a nearby coat-rack. His manner was utterly relaxed, and yet when he moved he did so with unexpected speed.
“I don’t really need company. . . .”
“Have you ever been to the Vixen’s Lair?”
“No . . . I mean, I’ve heard of it. But I’ve never exactly gone in. I don’t think I’m their target audience.”
Malinski grinned. “Are you kidding me? Strip joints love it when women come in.”
“In any case, I don’t need an escort.”
“I wouldn’t let you go there alone.”
“I don’t—”
“Look, I know these guys—they’re a lot more likely to talk to me than to you. Besides, you’d be doing me a favor. I’m going nuts in here. I don’t have nearly enough work to keep me busy lately, and I’ve read all my newspapers. I might have to resort to the local news soon, and you
know
that’s scraping the bottom of the old barrel.”
Chapter Twenty
“H
ow do you know this place so well?”I asked as I pulled into a spot at the curb not two blocks from our destination, near the corner of Columbus and Broadway. I was pretty excited about the miraculous spot—North Beach was famous for impossible parking. Maybe Malinski brought me good parking karma.
“I do their glamour shots.”
“Ah.”
“Whatever it takes to pay the rent.”
“I’ll bet.”
“It beats working in fast food.”
“On so many levels.”
He grinned. “It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it.”
Outside of the Vixen’s Lair, blocking the doorway, stood a tall man with a belly so big he looked pregnant. His black embroidered shirt was worn loose, his head was shaved, and a dark goatee defined the broad planes of his face. As he smoked, gold chains glinted on his chunky wrist. He reminded me of one of Nico’s many jumbo-sized nephews. I imagined any one of them could play for the NFL.
He was speaking to a pretty Asian woman, half his size, wearing a red corset over a frilly white dress reminiscent of Victorian undergarments.
“Zach, sweetie, where you been?” The woman gave my companion a hug before standing back and looking me up and down. I had the sense she was sizing me up. . . . I just wasn’t sure what for.
“Heya, Tam, Robbie, what’s up?” Zachary nodded to them both.
“Who’s this?” Tam asked, a slight frown marring her smooth forehead. “I like the dress, but she’s too old to dance.”
“She’s not here to dance,” Zach said with a laugh. “This is a friend of mine, Melanie Turner.”
“Call me Mel,” I said.
“We need to ask Robbie a couple of questions,” Zach said.
“Don’t take too long,” she said, displeased, turning toward the door. “Bad enough we got cops coming by lately. It’s like a doughnut shop, but with naked girls.”
“So, Robbie,” Zach began, “did you see anything strange the other night at the party, anything at all?”
Robbie shook his head, his gaze skittering nervously up and down the street. He started literally wringing his large, mittlike hands.
“I heard about this on the news. But Kenneth was fine when I left—I can’t believe this happened.”
“Have the police talked to you?” I asked.
He finally looked up at me, a flicker of alarm in his flat hazel eyes. He shook his head.
“Do I gotta talk to the police?” he asked, a note of petulance in his voice. “That sort of thing don’t work out so well for me.”
“You might be able to give the police some information they could use, even if it doesn’t seem useful to you.”
On the other hand, Matt had already told the police who was at the party. If they weren’t knocking on doors and talking to people, was it up to potential witnesses to track down the investigating officers?
Besides, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like Kenneth must have been hurt the morning
after
the party. He couldn’t have survived otherwise. So maybe none of these questions were relevant.
“I did see one thing,” Robbie said. “Some of them, like that Rory Abrams guy—you know him? He’s a real foodie—and the next-door neighbor, they were ripping down walls, going at the lath and plaster pretty good, like, opening up the holes and crawling back in there.”
“Like they were looking for something?” I asked.
“Maybe.” He shrugged his meaty shoulders. “Probably just having fun.”
Tam poked her head out of the black curtains that shielded the door. “You guys done yet? Bad for business, folks just hanging around. Either come in or go away.”
“We’re going,” said Zach. “Thanks, Robbie. See you later, Tam.”
It was late afternoon, but already North Beach’s famous nightlife was starting to ratchet up. Tourists and locals alike filled the sidewalks, in search of great Italian food, fun bars, good music, and girlie shows.
“How about I take you to dinner?” Zach suggested as we walked away from the Vixen’s Lair.
I hadn’t been asked out in ages. And now, within a few days, Vincent Hutchins and Zachary Malinski were both asking me out? Meanwhile a man had been killed, Nico had been attacked, my storage unit had been broken into, Graham had a black eye, a ghost was following me around. . . . Coincidence, or could this all be connected?
My stomach clenched. I hated the thought of interpreting any attraction a man might feel toward me as part of some kind of malignant behavior . . . but since everything that had happened with my ex-husband, I was more than a little cynical about hidden motivations and their seemingly close association with Y chromosomes. Since I wasn’t going to make it to Paris in the foreseeable future, at the very least I should shy away from male-induced craziness here at home.
And it hadn’t escaped my notice that there were now any number of suspects in Kenneth’s death. No wonder the police weren’t asking more questions. They probably figured they’d just stick with the first suspicious character and call it a day.
“Earth to Mel . . .” Zach said with a smile. “It was meant to be a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question.”
“I’m sorry; you took me aback. If you don’t mind my asking, how old are you?”
“How old do I look?”
“You look young.”
Zach fell in step beside me as I started walking up the hill.
“I’m not that young.”
“You’re a lot younger than I am. You’re barely older than my stepson.”
“How old is he?”
“Fifteen.”
“I’m nearly
twice
your stepson’s age.”
“It’s not that big a gap.”
“How old are
you
?” he asked.
“Thirty-eight.”
“Aha! I got you. You’re only nine years older than I am.”
“They’re a long nine years. Important. Formative, even.”
“I’m sensing the age thing is a problem for you. Tell you what, we won’t call it a date. At least let me help you with this case.”
“As I said before, it’s not a ‘case.’ I’m just a contractor who seems to have a hard time keeping her nose out of things.”
“Awesome. I’ll help. Where’re we headed?” Zach asked with the upbeat tone of a kid going to an arcade parlor.
“I want to talk to that restaurant owner Robbie mentioned. It’s right up the street.”
“Rory Abrams? Perfect. Great food.”
And just that easily I gave in. The last thing I really wanted to do was to show up at a chic restaurant solo, dressed in my usual inappropriate attire, to try to talk with a “real foodie” about whether he might have killed Kenneth Kostow because he found out Kenneth had sold the house with the intent to abscond with all the money. Or whether, perhaps, he thought there was something valuable in the walls at Matt’s house, and he had been willing to maim and kill to get to it.
“On the way,” said Zach, “let’s play a game I call Who the heck
are
these people? And what are they doing on Columbus Avenue in broad daylight? Don’t they have
jobs
?”
I couldn’t help but smile at Zach’s enthusiasm. Besides, this was a question that often occurred to me as I drove around on my daily tasks.
“This guy, for example,” Zach said in a low, confidential tone as we passed a tall, preppy-looking young man. “Trust fund, Dartmouth education, sang in an a cappella group and is just beginning to admit to himself that he misses his fellow frat boys more than his perfect size-two blond girlfriend. Give him two weeks here, and he’ll find his way to the Castro and realize that, deep down, he’s cut out to be a leather daddy.”
I chuckled.
“And this one.” He nodded subtly toward a thin, long-haired young woman in a tie-dyed T-shirt. “Born Stacy Roop in Bitterwater, Wisconsin, is looking for either Haight Street or Berkeley, and will soon change her name to Willow.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Nature names are
so
last century. The young ones are all named after Celtic goddesses.”
Zach favored me with his crooked grin. “Now you’re getting it. Epona, then.”
“Morrigan.”
“Arianrhod.”
“And this one”—I leaned in to Zach and whispered as we passed a thin, goateed young man with a composition book stuck under his arm—“is under the mistaken impression that Jack Kerouac still lives.”
“Next alley over,” Zach said aloud to the presumed poet. He pointed toward the tiny mural-decorated alley named after the famous beatnik writer. “Right between Vesuvio’s and City Lights bookstore.”
He and I shared a smile.
“We’re here,” Zach said.