Harper asked him: “Could I ask you a question? I saw an old sign that referred to this place as ‘Soren’s Pearl.’ ”
“Yeah, I think that’s the official name. We all just call it the Pearl.”
“Does it have to do with Soren Perles, of the Perles Mansion?”
The waiter shrugged. “Dunno, I figured it had to do withPirates of the Caribbean, like theBlack Pearl. Or that Steinbeck novel,The Pearl, remember that one from school?”
“I do,” said Tariq. “Depressing story.”
The server nodded. “It was grim, all right. But I’m notfrom around here, not really up on the local legends. Get you anything else?”
“Thanks, I’m set,” said Harper.
The waiter nodded and headed back to the bar.
Harper took a sip of her wine and coughed.
“Good stuff?” Tariq asked, amused.
“The best.” The wine she had shared with Ellen last night had spoiled her.
Tariq’s voice dropped. “So, how are you really doing, after…everything?”
She shrugged. “I’m okay.”
His gaze did not waver.
“It’s…Obviously, it was a shock. That poor woman.”
He nodded. “Have the police asked you any more questions?”
“Not so far. You?”
Tariq nodded. “Among other things, Detective Serrano wanted to know more about you and what you study.”
“Because of the witchcraft thing? Or…the buried-alive thing?”
“Possibly the poison thing,” he said with a shrug. “He might well be in touch soon.”
“Thanks for the warning. I take it, then, they haven’t figured out who did it?”
“Said they were still chasing down leads. It’s only been two days. But you know what they say about the first forty-eight hours of a homicide investigation.”
They sat in silence for a moment, sipping their drinks, surrounded by the typical bar cacophony: the clatter of glasses, the hum of conversation, old ’90s jams emanating from the jukebox.
“I don’t think the detective believed you and I are justfriends,” Tariq said as he helped himself to some popcorn. “He kept asking me about ‘our past,’ as he phrased it.”
“That seems strange. Why would that matter?”
“You got me. But it did make me wonder: Why didn’t we ever go out when we were at Berkeley?”
“Well, let’s see…Probably because I was having a lot of sex with Jake at the time, so it didn’t seem proper given that he was your housemate and all. Not to mention you were involved with that cellular biologist, I’m blanking on her name…”
“Angie.”
“Right. She was nice. Whatever happened to her?”
“She landed a good position in Florida at the Department of Fish and Wildlife. We tried the long-distance thing for a while but couldn’t make it work. And after you stomped on his heart, Jake married the next girl he met, and they started having a whole passel of kids.”
