Claire and I were sipping our beers, trying to keep it to a single drink. Yuki Castellano, however, was already on her second margarita, and I saw her signal Lorraine, our favorite waitress, for a third. Very slick.
I turned to Yuki and said, “Those aren’t part of a two-for-one deal, you know.”
“I’m willing to pay the price.” She lifted the glass and took a giant swig. “The remaining defendants in my trial decided to roll the dice. The judge gave us a day’s postponement. This is my lastmoment of anything but complete immersion in a very stressful, stupid trial. Give me a break.”
Claire said, “Wow, you’re usually so confident about kicking ass. I take this as a bad sign.”
Just then Cindy made it to our booth. Without asking, she picked up Yuki’s glass and took a swig herself. Then she set it down and said, “Mango?”
Yuki said, “It’s the special. What are you complaining about?”
“Not a complaint. I just didn’t expect it.” Cindy reached down and snatched up the glass again. She took another big gulp. Then she waved to Lorraine and pointed at Yuki’s drink, signaling she’d take one herself. “What the hell.”
Once Cindy sat down, Claire looked around at the crowd and said, “I had a very nice chat with Hope this morning.”
Cindy asked, “What’s the story with her?”
“Apparently, she hasn’t stabbed anyone.”
“Wait, what?”
Claire laughed and said, “That’s exactly what I said.”
I looked over at Cindy and said, “What took you so long?”
“Surveillance.”
I was a little surprised. “What were you doing?”
“Work stuff—no big deal.” She left it at that.
Claire asked me, “Any breaks on either of the bodies that are sitting in my morgue?”
“Nothing yet. We’re looking at the guy who came to your party, Eric Snaff, as one potential suspect. We know he was here in San Francisco the night Tina Barnes was murdered in Golden Gate Park. The cops in San Julio believe he’s a good suspect in his own daughter’s disappearance.”
Yuki, who was starting to slur her words just a tad, said, “That’s sick. But if he’s involved in his daughter’s disappearance, why does he want Cindy to write about it?”
Cindy said, “Apparently there’ve been a number of instances where parents were involved in their children’s disappearances. The fact that he came to me might mean it’s some form of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. He could be looking for attention.”
I decided this was Cindy’s thing; I didn’t need to voice my idea that Eric Snaff might not be a weird, potentially dangerous nutcase.
CHAPTER35
SASHA TERNS SATon the steps of the Asian Art Museum on Larkin Street, not far from the Tenderloin neighborhood. Banners above the doors of the museum advertised a special exhibit opening tomorrow. She’d been sitting there since the sun set. Few other people were around, but she’d glimpsed movement inside the place, probably a security guard.
She ate a day-old Taco Bell burrito as she looked out over the patches of open green in Civic Center Plaza and took a sip from the bottle of water she’d been given earlier by some nice lady in a minivan. The food and water did nothing for her terrible mood. Things had not been going well for the seventeen-year-old. A few months ago, she’d left her home in Denver to follow a boy to San Francisco. He’d told her she could be a model, with her kinky, dark hair and creamy brown complexion, courtesy of her Venezuelan mother and Black father. Sasha had always felt ignored in Denver, and he’d just seemed so convincing.
About three weeks after they moved, the boy got tired of living in cheap motels and crashing on couches. He left abruptly, saying hewas going to Alaska to find work on a fishing boat. Sasha had decided to stay. She didn’t think she’d fit in with the people of Alaska.
Now she was trying to figure a way back to Denver, where she was pretty sure she could find a job in the surging cannabis industry. Unless she got some money to clean up and some decent clothes—not to mention a portfolio with good headshots—her dream of becoming a model was all but over.
Sasha took another bite of her Taco Bell burrito, then tried to wash the taste out of her mouth with a gulp of water. She wasn’t terribly successful. Looking straight out from the steps of the museum, she noticed a white SUV drive by slowly. Had it already driven past once before? Something told her to keep an eye on the car.
A few minutes later, Sasha watched the same SUV turn onto the block again. It pulled into a handicap parking spot directly in front of the museum steps. Maybe the SUV had a handicap placard somewhere, but she couldn’t see it.
Sasha watched as a man and a woman slipped out of the SUV and came directly toward her. They approached at a businesslike pace. She groaned, thinking they were some kind of social workers. She didn’t feel like explaining her situation to anyone.
As the couple came closer, she noticed the woman was attractive, with straight, dark hair. The man was tall and very good-looking. They started climbing the museum stairs toward where Sasha was sitting but stopped about a dozen feet away.
