Samson's Deal: A Laid-Back Bay Area Mystery (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series) by Shelley Singer Page B

it’s a pretty strange coincidence, a man’s wife gets killed and next thing you know someone’s trying to cook him. This is going to stir them up a little for sure.”
    Her mouth twisted in an ugly grimace. “The police. They would have been just as happy to snoop around a little and let it go at suicide. They’ve got enough to do. But now, oh, hell.” Suddenly there were tears in her eyes. I checked my hand for catsup and reached across the table to grasp her shoulder. The tears didn’t spill. She drained her wineglass and ordered more wine.
    “Look,” I said, “it’s going to be okay. I’m going to clear this thing up, and you and Harley can ride off into the sunset. Hey, what are friends for?”
    “Don’t you mean what is money for?” she shot back at me.
    “Rebecca, I’m on your side.”
    “Terrific. But are you sure you know what you’re doing?” She was close to tears again, but I didn’t touch her. Sure, she was upset, but I was beginning to feel a little cranky, too.
    I let myself go. “Listen, bitch, you want to change your mind about my doing this job, you just let me know. But Harley owes me for the time I’ve already put in.”
    She peered at me as though she’d just realized I was sitting across from her. “No. No, that’s not what I’m saying.” She slumped. “I’m sorry. Of course I want you. I guess I’m just angry with Harley and upset about the fire.” I looked unconvinced, so she added one more trouble for good measure. “I’m feeling a little crazy around business, too. It’s been rough lately. There’s a deal I’ve been trying to close, a contingency thing, I need the money, and it’s dragging on. If I seem irritable, that’s a big part of it.” She sighed, deep and long, and reached her hand across the table to mine. I realized then that the woman was close to the edge. It was all just too much for her. All that and business problems, too. And Harley, far from being a pillar of strength, was adding to the strain, helping to drain her of her stamina. She was trying to hold up both of them, and he wouldn’t even let her close enough to do it right.
    I got the feeling that if I wasn’t careful I’d get the blood sucked right out of me. I wasn’t about to try to do this job with the pair of them wrapped around my neck. I finished my beer and told her I had to get going. She nodded absently.
    “You will tell us, Jake, when you have something definite?”
    “I’ll report directly to Harley, Rebecca,” I said. That wasn’t good enough for her, I could tell. She’d said “us”; I’d said Harley. But she let it go, and I left her sitting there chewing her thumbnail and staring into her wineglass.
    I made a quick stop at home to water my begonias and feed the cats. Rosie still wasn’t there. I put in another call to Debbi Lawton. She was home and invited me to come right over.
    Debbi lived in one of those straight-edged apartment buildings erected in the fifties, the kind that hasn’t aged gracefully. It was pink stucco with six door bells and a carport that seated six. I rang her bell and she buzzed me in the door. She was second floor left rear.
    She showed me into a nearly characterless living room that was saved by human clutter: a pile of magazines in a chair, an unframed poster rolled up and leaning in a corner, dirty ashtrays and rings on the Plexiglas top of the coffee table. The living room windows had a view of the carport roof and the pleasant tree-shaded yard of the house next door.
    Debbi gave me a very bright smile and offered me a drink. I asked for coffee. I was a little muzzy-headed from my encounter with Rebecca and needed to sharpen up. I had plans for the evening.
    “All I have is instant,” she said with a “we bachelor girls are just so flighty” expression on her face. I smiled and said that would be fine. She trotted to the other side of the bar that divided the living room from the tiny kitchen area.
    I’d been right about Debbi.