“What?”
She looked up at me, narrowing her eyes and giving me a look that warned I was about to be dickless.
I quickly waved my hands. “Just making polite conversation. I’m gay. I don’t want to date you.” I winced and started to rephrase the statement so it didn’t sound like I was insulting her.
To my surprise Ann laughed. “Oh thank God. I get asked at least once a week. I hate men sometimes.”
I nodded. “So do I.”
She held up a bare hand. “I can’t wear my wedding ring when I cook, you know?” She sighed and shook her head while placing the completed sushi on a long narrow plate. “I’d rather have no tip than be hit on.”
“Well, I promise not to make any moves, and I’ll tip before I leave.”
“Best customer all day.”
“You flatter me,” I replied.
She looked up as she started forming the next sushi in her hands. “So are you a secret agent or something?”
“The glasses? No, nothing cool. I have a light sensitivity.”
She hummed quietly and nodded.
I watched as she finished the next sushi. She was liable to walk away and see to another customer once done with my meal. I didn’t have a lot of time. “I heard what happened here,” I said quietly. “What was it, like a week or two ago?”
Ann looked up, pausing from placing the ebi on the rice. “Here?”
“Well, upstairs.”
“What happened—oh.” She looked grave. “Yeah… God.” She shook her head and made a funny sound while shivering in an exaggerated manner.
“That bad?”
“I didn’t see anything exactly. I don’t want you to lose your appetite.”
“I’ll be okay,” I insisted.
She narrowed her eyes again, giving me a once-over like she would be able to tell if I were the squeamish sort. “Some lady upstairs was murdered,” she whispered, leaning close. “I liked her. She got takeout here a lot.”
“I heard from—er, my neighbor that it was pretty gruesome,” I said, trying to get Ann to keep talking.
She nodded. “That’s what I heard too. Hiro, the head chef here, said he saw the paramedics bring her down. That’s how I know who she was.” Ann finished the last pieces of sushi.
“But it was never in the papers, was it?”
“Hmm… I don’t know. We had to stay closed for two days. I think the police are trying to keep it quiet.” She picked up the plate and handed it over to me. “Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered while leaning close, “but Hiro told us he overheard one of the paramedics saying, ‘They wrote on the walls in her blood.’”
I wasn’t hungry anymore.
MAYBE Ididn’t have the stomach for this detective work.
I stood at one of my bank’s branches after hours, depositing checks into the ATM and trying not to think too much about a murder where something had beenwrittenin the victim’s blood.
I still had no way to know if I was chasing something even remotely connected to Mike’s murder. I didn’t know the woman, nor the details of her passing. All I knew was that hers and Mike’s deaths were both terrible.
Would you like another transaction?
I reached into my pockets, checking to make sure I’d deposited all of my checks. My fingers brushed a folded envelope, and I pulled out the late letter that Daphne had dropped off. Max must have stuck it into the check pile for me, and I grabbed it without noticing.
