Died With a Bow Read online

  All dressed up with nowhere to go…

  I put the key in the lock and leaned against the door. To my surprise, it swung open before I’d turned the key. I almost fell into the foyer.

  “Dolce?” I called so as not to startle her into calling the security people. “It’s me.”

  No sound. Nothing. Of course she would be upstairs and not have heard me. Maybe I should just leave the dress and respect her privacy. I gathered up my stuff and took a few steps inside, closing the door behind me. The ridged rubber soles of my slip-ons made no sound as I walked in. That’s when I saw her.

  It was Vienna. She was lying facedown in the entry to the great room. I knew it was her by the huge pink bow on the back of her dress.

  “Vienna,” I said, stopping abruptly just a few feet away. “What are you doing here? Are you okay?”

  What a dumb thing to say. If she was okay, why was she lying there like that? She was not okay. I kneeled down next to her and realized she was not breathing. My heart started hammering. She must have fallen and hurt herself. Badly. I put my hands on her bare shoulders and turned her face to one side. She felt cold. There were ugly red marks on her neck. I stood up and screamed…

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Grace Carroll

  SHOE DONE IT

  DIED WITH A BOW

  Died with

  a Bow

  GRACE CARROLL

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive,

  Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  DIED WITH A BOW

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / September 2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Cover illustration by Jennifer Taylor/Paperdog Studio.

  Cover design by Rita Frangie.

  Interior text design by Tiffany Estreicher.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or

  electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of

  copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-58953-3

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is

  stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the

  author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  This book is for everyone who loves San Francisco as much as I do. I hope I’ve done the city justice with its well-dressed citizens, its beautiful views and its gourmet dining experiences. Come and see for yourself. But whatever you do, don’t call it Frisco!

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Style Tips

  Recipes

  24-Karat Killer

  One

  April in San Francisco is all about layers. Not the layers of fog that blanket the ocean beaches; not the layers of cake that tempt passersby at bakeries like Miette or Tartine. I mean layers of clothing: a sleeveless tunic worn over a polo neck, for example, and paired with leggings and ballerina flats or plain pumps. Under no circumstances should you wear a tight shirt or sweater with your leggings. The overall look must be balanced; the top should be roomy, and the leggings must be fitted. It’s simple really.

  That’s what I’d been telling the customers at Dolce’s, the boutique where I’ve worked for the past year. Because in our city surrounded on three sides by water, chilly fog and a brisk wind can sweep over the town without notice in any month and you have to be prepared for them. Sometimes a burst of brilliant warm sunshine gives way to damp mist or, in winter, a heavy downpour. If you ask me, and many customers do, I would recommend wearing a narrow fitted top under a classic belted trench coat, along with dangling earrings and, in this case, knee-high socks over tights.

  Today I was wearing all gray, which looks softer next to the skin than black or navy and is not as boring as it sounds. With a boyfriend blazer smartly layered over a tank top and thin Alexander Wang sweater I love, I headed out the door, confidently carrying my striped canvas tote. Wide-legged pants and strapped loafers made me feel ready to take on the world, or at least Dolce’s regular customers, the rich and well connected to the city’s social scene.

  One thing I was not ready for was to be greeted by a stranger at the door of the Victorian mansion Dolce Loren, my boss, had converted into an exclusive shop.

  “Hello!” The young woman in satin shorts so full I thought they were bloomers, along with tights, a ribbed long-sleeved T-shirt and patent-leather wedge sling backs invited me inside as if I were a customer and she worked at the boutique. It turned out she did work there.

  “I’m Vienna Fairchild and welcome to Dolce’s,” she said with a dazzling smile. So dazzling her teeth must have recently been laser whitened.

  “Hi, Vienna, I’m Rita. I work here.”

  “Rita,” she said, looking puzzled for a moment while she scratched her head. “Where have I heard that name before?” Which made me wonder, was she kidding or was I not in the right place? Had I landed in an alternate u
niverse? “Oh, I know. Dolce mentioned you.”

  Mentioned me? Me, her right-hand girl? That’s funny, I thought, because she hasn’t mentioned you to me.

  Right away I could tell things were different and I’d only been gone for two days. I’d taken Saturday off to move into a smaller, more affordable apartment, and Sunday the shop was closed. While I was gone, the Accessory section had been moved from the foyer with the jewelry. Racks of new clothes were pushed against the far wall of the great room, and our mannequins wore bright, bold spring outfits that I’d never seen before, and if I had, I would never have worn them or dressed anyone, even a fiberglass model, in them. I knew the theme was citrus colors, but someone had gone way too far. I mean, who wants to look like a grapefruit?

  I surveyed the shop, feeling a chill of apprehension. Vienna was rubbing her slender ringed fingers together and staring at me as I looked around. Was she thinking, why is Rita wearing so much gray today when clearly spring is in the air?

  “How do you like it?” she said. “Don’t you just love, love what I’ve done?”

  “You did this?” I asked.

  She nodded, waiting for me to go off into ecstasy.

  “It’s stunning,” I said. It was. I was stunned. But not in a good way. “So, Vienna, are you…”

  “Working here? Yes, I am. Isn’t it amazing? Last week I was wondering what to do with myself, just out of school with a degree in marketing and nothing to market. I thought I’d be perfect as a personal shopper for celebrities who don’t have time to shop for themselves. Or should I be a buyer for a store like Saks or Nordstrom’s? Then my stepmother—I believe you know Bobbi—suggested I move to the city. Next I land a job here at her favorite boutique. How perfect is that? Works for them and it works for me. I mean the suburbs where my parents and their significant others live are way too quiet for me. Borrring. So I came in for an interview on Friday night, got hired, and Saturday was my first day.” She sighed, no doubt exhausted from this long speech, and spread her well-toned arms out wide. She beamed at me and said, “And here I am.”

  I tried to beam back, but all I could come up with was a weak smile. How on earth was there going to be room for both of us and my boss Dolce in this chic little store? I got my answer before I could say “Diane von Furstenberg” when Dolce came down the stairs from her apartment above the store.

  “Rita, I see you’ve met Vienna.” More beaming, this time from Dolce, who was wearing business casual—a magenta ruffled top with a tweed jacket and some sleek straight pants. “I knew you two girls would get along. And having Vienna here will free you up for some important work I need you to help me with,” she said to me.

  The work she had in mind was unpacking boxes of clothes, pressing them and hanging them on racks. The kind of thing you would ask the new girl to do, I thought. But no, Dolce, ever tactful, said she trusted only me to handle the new merchandise. Which made me feel good for about ten minutes. Then I missed my old job of being out front. The question was, didn’t the customers miss me too?

  As I worked by myself in the back room sorting endless boxes of new clothes and accessories, I could hear the sound of voices out in front. There was laughter and gossip, but I wasn’t part of it anymore. That hurt. How long was I going to have to play the role of the backstage understudy? Once I overheard a customer saying, “Where’s Rita?” I stopped and straightened my shoulders, ready to pop out and say, “Here I am,” but then I heard Vienna say I was busy today and could she help her?

  Of course it was her first day and she was excited and eager to prove herself without me around to show her up. I could understand that. Tomorrow would be different. How, I wasn’t sure. Would Vienna be willing to do this kind of work when the fun of the job was finding the right outfit for the right customer for the right occasion? I suspected the answer was no, she wouldn’t.

  After we’d closed that evening and Vienna had left with her boyfriend Geoffrey, a tall, lanky guy she pointed out to us when he stopped in the street to pick her up on his BMW motorcycle, Dolce explained that Vienna was working on commission only.

  “It’s the only way I could afford to hire her,” Dolce told me. “And why she has to work up front with the customers she promised to bring in. If she isn’t selling anything, she isn’t earning any money. Whereas you…”

  She didn’t have to say more. I had a salary. It wasn’t very much, but it was enough to live on as long as I got a big discount on my designer clothes and didn’t go out to eat unless someone took me. Which hadn’t happened lately. And which used to happen more frequently when I was the new girl in town. There was no guy on an expensive motorcycle waiting outside for me today. No guy at all.

  Only a few months ago I’d been juggling dates with Nick, an athletic Romanian gymnastics instructor; Jonathan, a gorgeous ER doctor; and Detective Jack Wall of the San Francisco Police Department, but my phone had stopped ringing after I helped Jack solve a murder. It seemed to be a case of No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

  Maybe Dr. Jonathan Rhodes was dating one of those attractive nurses I’d seen the last time I was at the hospital to have my sprained ankle examined. They’d have more in common with him than I ever would. I couldn’t discuss sprains or infections in a meaningful way if that’s what he was looking for in a date.

  Maybe Nick the gymnast was busy giving classes in Competitive Trampoline, Introduction to the Balance Beam and so forth. He’d wanted me to sign up for one of his classes, but instead I joined Alto Aquatics, a swim club where I got my exercise swimming laps and learning flotation and water safety techniques from the swim coach. Maybe it’s because I was born under the sign of Aquarius, the water bearer, that I’m more at home in the water than at a gym. What I do know is that I’m a typical Aquarius in that I look good in turquoise and I’m tolerant of others’ viewpoints. To a certain degree.

  It might be time to check up on my favorite police detective, though I knew my aunt Grace strongly disapproved of women chasing men. At age eighty, she’s so with-it, she even has a Facebook page. At the same time, she has such strict rules, she doesn’t approve of calling or texting men unless they contact her first. She definitely wouldn’t approve of going to the neighborhood where a certain man worked and having dinner at his favorite Vietnamese restaurant just in case he dropped in. I could just see her shaking her head, the curls in her bold, blond updo quivering at the very idea.

  It was possible the sexiest cop in the city had been transferred out of town, or he’d gotten disillusioned with law enforcement and quit, or he was wounded in the line of duty or…It was only common courtesy for me to find out if he was okay.

  “Date night?” Dolce asked me hopefully before I left. She’d probably noticed there’d been a drop in the number of men in my life from three to zero, and maybe she guessed I was eager to leave the shop where I didn’t exactly feel important today.

  “Not tonight,” I said brightly, as if every other night was booked. She knew better. She knew I’d tell her if I was going somewhere and that she’d get a kick out of dressing me up for whatever the occasion.

  “You know there’s the Annual Bay to Breakers Bachelor Auction coming up,” she said. “I bought tickets today from Patti for you and me and Vienna. All the money goes to support the San Francisco Art Museum. It’s a black-tie gala at the Palace Hotel. Every eligible bachelor in town will be on stage. We’ll all get dressed up and go ogle the beefsteak,” she said with a youthful gleam in her eye, though she always said she was too old to lust after men.

  I wasn’t too old to lust, but I was too poor to have fun bidding on men I didn’t know. It would be no fun losing out on the good ones because I’d been outbid by women with more money than I had. But it was kind of Dolce to get me a ticket and help me dress up for it.

  I thanked her, said good night and walked outside. Now what? I couldn’t stand the thought of facing an empty flat even though it had a deck and a sliver of a view of the Bay Bridge. After a day of unpacking boxes at work, I
wasn’t in the mood to unpack my own belongings. I also didn’t feel like facing an empty refrigerator in my empty flat. The police district where Jack Wall worked was only a bus ride away. Or I could hop a different bus and drop into the gym where Nick taught classes. But what would be my excuse this time? I’d already observed his class, signed up for lessons that I never took and stopped in for a smoothie at the snack bar. It was his turn to call me.

  There was that voice inside my head that kept repeating, “Don’t pursue men. If they want to see you, they know where to find you.” So I took the bus straight home and called Azerbyjohnnie’s, a gourmet pizzeria recommended by one of our customers.

  The woman who took my phone order had a distinct foreign accent, one that was vaguely familiar. When I gave my name, she said “How are you, Miss Rita? I haven’t seen you since the funeral of that woman who was murdered.”

  “Meera?” I said, recognizing the voice of Nick’s Romanian aunt whom I hadn’t seen since she crashed a “celebration of life” party at a tavern across from the cemetery. Shy she was not. “What are you doing there?”

  “Filling out for a Romanian friend,” she said in her distinctive Eastern European accent. “Who had to return to our country on family business. I didn’t want him to lose his job here. I help out and I get free pizza. And some vodka he promised to bring when he returns.”

  I was surprised that mattered to Meera, a self-proclaimed vampire. Romanian vodka was not a delicacy according to my Romanian professor at college. He called it rot-gut. As for pizza, I thought Meera only ate traditional Romanian specialties like sarmale, salata boeuf and papanasi. “What about your job leading tours?” I’d taken her vampire tour of San Francisco with Nick a few months back, which was interesting as long as you didn’t take seriously Meera’s claims that she was a one-hundred-twenty-seven-year-old vampire herself.

  “Friday and Saturdays only. You must come again. I have some new sites and information to share with you. Bring a friend. Half price because I like you,” she said. I noticed she said nothing at all about her nephew Nick. Did that mean he, like Dr. Rhodes, had another girlfriend? Someone who was in his adult gymnastics class who was more flexible than I was? If he did, I didn’t want to hear about it and I was glad I hadn’t pursued him. But a minute later I heard myself say, “How is your nephew Nick?”