Death Turns A Trick (Rebecca Schwartz #1) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series) by Julie Smith

news.
    Your honor may take judicial notice that the witness is prejudiced, but I thought I was terrific.
    * * *
     
    Sunday morning dawned as clear and crisp as the Saturday before it. At least I assumed it did. It was like that when I got up at ten.
    I went downstairs, got the Sunday paper, and threw it on my bed. Then I made myself some bacon, orange juice, coffee, and two poached eggs on toast—done perfectly, if I say so myself. I arranged these delicacies artfully on one of those wicker breakfast-in-bed trays that you get at Gump’s (a gift from my parents) and carried it into the bedroom.
    “Breakfast, Rebecca,” I hollered cheerfully. “Rise and shine. Don’t want your eggs to get cold.”
    “Oh, you sweet thing!” I answered. “You really shouldn’t have. Just look at those eggs!”
    Whoever said living alone is lonely? Gary only made me breakfast in bed on my birthday. Rebecca is
much
more solicitous.
    I got back into bed with my tray and reached for the paper. In San Francisco, the Sunday paper is a kind of hybrid, the result of a merger some years ago between the
Chronicle
and the
Examiner
. The
Chronicle
became a morning paper, and the
Examiner
took the afternoon slot, with Sunday thrown in as a sop; the Sunday news sections, that is. What makes the paper a hybrid is that the
Chronicle
has certain sections in it: the comics, something called “The Sunday Punch,” and a magazine offering.
    You may wonder how I managed to restrain myself from reading the murder story before I made breakfast. I might not have if it hadn’t been for the events of the day before—I mean telling Mrs. Phillips I was Isaac Schwartz’s daughter and failing to tell Frank I wasn’t a prostitute. I did it as a character-strengthening exercise. After those two lapses, I figured I needed it.
    The
Examiner
had managed to dig up a picture of Kandi from somewhere—maybe from San Francisco State—so she smiled out at me from two columns on page one, looking like everybody’s favorite homecoming queen. And guess whose Semitic mug occupied the adjacent two columns? Mine. The caption said, “Discovered body in her apartment,” not “Attorney for the unjustly accused brother.” But you can’t have everything.
    I guess someone took the picture at my al fresco press conference, because I was wearing my white silk blouse and coral necklace. It wasn’t at all bad, and neither was the story, which was written by someone named Silvia Estevez. She got my quotes right and used the ones I cared about. And she didn’t hint that Kandi had been anything other than a wholesome, innocent college student. Thank God for libel laws.
    I perused the rest of the paper only superficially, allowing enough time to pass until I judged it was a decent hour to call Elena. This occurred at 11:45.
    Elena had spent several grim hours with Martinez the day before, and she sounded beaten. “Parker had to tell him who I am,” she said. “So Martinez made me explain about the FDOs and give him the president’s name. I guess he’ll go over the guest list, and I’ll never get any of those people as clients. Not that I have anyplace to entertain them anymore. I’ve closed the house now that the cops know about it. Have to start looking for a new location tomorrow, but you can’t move wallpaper and carpets. All that’s down the drain. I’m still getting calls and parceling out tricks in hotels, if the clients are willing to spring for it, so we still have a little income. But even that makes me nervous. They probably have the phone tapped by now.”
    I murmured something flip about the wages of sin, but luckily Elena didn’t hear it. Luckily because I remembered the whole quote: “The wages of sin is death.” I changed the subject.
    “Listen, Elena, you know that favor you owe me? I’m ready to collect. May I come over and ask you about a zillion questions?”
    “Sure,” she said resignedly. “Stacy’s here—is that okay?”
    I said it