Shoe Done It

by Grace Carroll

  After our shift ended at seven o’clock, my ankle hurt as well as both of my feet. I dropped my apron and hairnet in a bin in the dressing room and rushed out to catch Jack before he escaped without me. For a moment I thought he’d run off, but when I looked around, I saw him standing on the sidewalk checking his watch. I had no doubt he was giving me a certain allotted time to show up and then he was out of there. Maybe he had a date. How would I know? He wasn’t the type to talk about his social life, if he had one.

  “Thanks for waiting,” I said breathlessly. “Aren’t you hungry after working so hard ? I’m starving. Can I buy you dinner? I owe you.” Taking cabs and buying dinner for a man. It was like I was rolling in money when my boss was worried about the financial state of her store. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to afford to pay me much longer. Maybe I should be worried too. I would worry later, I told myself, just like Scarlett O’Hara.

  “You think you can bribe me?” he asked as we walked down the street, passing an occasional homeless person pushing a grocery cart loaded with his belongings.

  “It’s worth a try,” I said. “All I want is a little information.” I remembered reading about a Vietnamese restaurant in the area that had gotten some rave reviews online.

  “Do you like Vietnamese food?” I asked.

  He looked surprised. “Do you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never had any.”

  “If you like Angkor Wat, I think you’ll like Little Saigon too. It’s very good.”

  So he remembered I’d ordered Cambodian. “I pretty much like all kinds of food. And serving food to others makes me hungry.”

  “What doesn’t?” he asked.

  I frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “I had lunch with you two weeks ago, and I have to say it’s rare to find a woman with a healthy appetite. So many are on diets. You never know.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said. “You could have said ‘big appetite’ instead of healthy. Unless you think I should be on a diet. I know one thing, I’m glad I’m not a professional model who has to squeeze into size twos. I was raised in the Midwest. Where I come from, there are lots of steak houses and German restaurants. So when someone took me out for Cambodian food when I first got here, I was hooked. It was so different, so exotic, I was blown away.”

  “Prepare to be blown away again tonight,” he said. “If you’re serious about Vietnamese food, tonight you’ll have to try the green papaya salad and the lettuce wraps. And of course the pho.”

  I didn’t mention how I was looking forward to being blown away by whatever he agreed to tell me about the present case at hand. I was just grateful we’d gotten this far.

  After we were seated in the restaurant with the purple walls covered with black and white photographs of Vietnam, I let Jack order since he’d been there before. Just like he’d done at lunch that day. He also ordered a large bottle of Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale, which he said went well with the food. Even though this was my idea, he quickly took over. What else did I expect from a former dot-com millionaire turned city cop?

  The lovely slender young waitress greeted Jack warmly and took our order.

  “Do you come here often?” I asked.

  “It’s a high-crime area,” he said. “So I’m around a lot. Eating here is one of the perks of my job.”

  “Like wearing designer clothes is for me. Or shoes.”

  He poured beer into my glass and set the bottle down. “Let’s get it out of the way. You want to know what happened to the silver shoes.”

  “Of course. I not only want to talk about them, I want to see them. I think I have the right. Who else knows as much as I do about those shoes? I brought the shoes from Florida. It was me MarySue snatched them from. I’m the one she tried to kill. Oh, by the way, I found out it was MarySue who took me to the hospital that night.”

  He looked surprised. “How do you know that?”

  “I, uh, an inside source.” I didn’t want to get my doctor in trouble.

  “I thought they weren’t allowed to divulge that information. You must have pulled strings.” I thought I detected a hint of respect in his voice, or maybe that was anger that someone at the hospital had broken the rules. If by chance it was respect, maybe I could capitalize on it to get him to share information with me.

  “The Admissions people didn’t want to talk, believe me,” I said, not admitting that Dr. Jonathan had helped me.

  “I believe you.”

  “If I could see the shoes you confiscated, I might be able to tell if they were MarySue’s or the ones Harrington made for his sister,” I said.

  “You think so?” he asked raising an eyebrow.

  “I know something about footwear,” I said modestly. “I could try.”

  When the waitress brought the imperial rolls stuffed with seafood, pork and vegetables, I watched Jack dip his in nuoc mam sauce and wrap it in a lettuce leaf with shredded carrot and noodles. Then I copied what he did and got a mouthful of crunchy rice paper wrapped around spicy ground pork, crab and vegetables.

  “Delicious,” I said. “So do we have a deal? I help you ID the shoes and you forget my boss is a possible suspect.”

  He shook his head, but he was smiling ruefully at my naïveté. “I don’t make deals, Rita.”

  “Oh, sure you do. I read the papers. I watch TV. I know what goes on in big-city crime scenes.”

  “If your boss is innocent, she has nothing to worry about,” he said.

  I hesitated only a second while I considered the possibility that she wasn’t innocent. “She isn’t worried, I am. Because I’m the one who’s responsible for the shoes.” Dolce was very worried, more about money than anything, but that was none of his business. I paused while the waitress brought steaming bowls of the beef noodle soup they called pho. I watched Jack add bean sprouts, mint leaves, fresh basil and a large dash of hoisin sauce. Then I did the same. “All I’m asking is, what happened after the fashion show?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” he said.

  “Okay, I understand you have rules to follow, so I’ll tell you what I think happened.” I could only hope his reaction would reveal how close I came to guessing the actual scenario. He shrugged as if I could do whatever I wanted, he wouldn’t stop me, but he wasn’t going to help me either. I leaned forward across the table and looked him in the eye. “You mistook the silver shoes Marsha wore for the real thing. I’m guessing you made a mistake, which you found out when Harrington told you how he’d made the shoes, and I bet he could prove it by showing you, oh I don’t know, stitches or holes or marks on the shoes or maybe his initials carved on the soles. After all, he is an artiste. So you let the suspects go, and you kept the shoes as evidence or as a guide for when you find the real thing. So you don’t really need me to tell you those are copies. But where are the real shoes? That’s the question, isn’t it? Does the person who killed MarySue still have the shoes? Because why kill her if you can’t keep the shoes? That’s what I want to know. Isn’t that what you want to know too?”

  He didn’t say anything. He asked for a pot of tea, and we drank it with small dishes of coconut ice cream called che.

  After a long silence that wasn’t really uncomfortable considering I didn’t expect him to answer me, I said, “There’s something else I’d like to know and that’s, who put that shoe box in my garbage?”

  “Sorry,” Jack said. “No luck on that. Anything else I can help you with?”

  As if he would. His job was to keep me in the dark. And my job was to keep bugging him and keep investigating on my own.

  “Actually there is something that’s been bothering me. It’s the fortune I got with my Cambodian food the other day. It’s not really a fortune, it’s a puzzle.” I reached into my purse and pulled out the small crumpled printed message. “ ‘You cannot step in the same river twice without getting your feet twice as wet.’ Well?”

  He didn’t miss a beat. He said, “It’s
obvious what it means. You should forget this investigation. Not only have you stepped in the same river twice, you’ve stepped in it too many times and you’re in danger of getting very wet. Maybe even dangerously wet.”

  “As in drowning?” I asked with a little trickle of fear across my scalp. I wrapped my hands around my teacup to warm them.

  “That’s right,” he said sternly.

  Detective Wall drove me home in his BMW convertible he’d parked in an underground garage. “Are you sure you’re not nervous about staying here alone?” he asked when he pulled up in front of my house.

  “Should I be?”

  “Just keep out of this investigation. That’s my advice to you. The more distance between the shoes and yourself the better.”

  “Whoever put the shoe box in my garbage knows where I live. I wish I knew who that was. Can I assume you’ve ruled out Harrington and his sister as possible suspects?”

  “Let me put it this way: you have nothing to fear from them except the possibility of imitation designer shoes and clothes.”

  “I appreciate your warning me, but I can’t rest until I locate the real shoes.”

  “Rita, forget the shoes.”

  “Okay,” I said. Why not let him and everyone think I had given up? That’s what a normal person would do. Forget the shoes, MarySue and her murder. “What about MarySue’s celebration of life next week?” I asked.

  “If I were you, I’d stay home,” he said. “With a big crowd like that your absence wouldn’t be noticed.”

  “But it’s a party,” I protested. “Aren’t you going?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “I’m going to go,” I said. “I have to. If I don’t, it would be admitting that I’m afraid of seeing Jim Jensen, which I am, but I don’t want him to know that. He wouldn’t dare accuse me of murdering his wife again at his own wife’s party, would he?”

  “I doubt it,” Jack said. I was hoping he’d say something more forceful like, “He’d better not, or I’ll arrest him,” but he didn’t.

  “I’m sure Dolce will close the shop for the afternoon so we can go. Everyone who is anyone will be there.”

  “I can’t stop you,” he said. “I can only warn you.”

  “Here’s a warning you might laugh at but don’t say I didn’t warn you. There is a theory that MarySue may have been bitten by a vampire, which would explain why you can’t find her attacker.” I paused, expecting him to burst into uncontrollable laughter, but he didn’t.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “In which case according to legend she won’t stay buried long. Unless of course she’s buried in such a way she can’t find her way out of the grave.”

  “And what way would that be?” he asked.

  Of course he was humoring me. No way did he believe in vampires. Neither did I. But what harm did it do to speculate? We’d both be singing a different tune if MarySue magically reappeared.

  “No point in looking for her killer when she is undead and has been all along.”

  “Please, Rita, spare me the folklore,” he said.

  “I can’t help it,” I said. “You and I don’t believe in vampires, but some people do. Those people say that one way is to bury the body facedown, then the corpse is confused and can’t find her way out of her coffin. Another way would be to—”

  “That’s enough,” he said. “Let me know if you learn anything important.”

  I assured him I would even though his definition of “important” was different from mine. After another pointless warning to forget about MarySue’s murder, he walked me to my door and waited until I’d bolted it. After he drove away I went to my closet to look for something to wear to the memorial. I pulled out a black crepe Alberto di Feretti dress with a sleek silhouette and stitch-detailed paneling that Dolce had given me. I took a sleek clutch out of my drawer and slipped on a Lanvin bracelet. If I were going out for cocktails to the Top of the Mark I’d wear sky-high ankle boots, but this was a celebration of life at a neighborhood tavern and I wasn’t allowed to wear sky-high heels anyway. Not yet.

  I knew that at MarySue’s memorial party as well as everywhere I went, I represented Dolce and our shop and I owed it to her to look my best. So what about shoes? I sat down on a bench and tried on a pair of flat ankle boots with my dress, but they were too casual. Next, strappy sandals in glossy patent with a pair of opaque tights. Better but not perfect. Maybe glossy wasn’t subdued enough for this occasion, although MarySue would have appreciated them. I kept the tights and tried a pair of black suede peep toes. Yes. My ankle was still a little weak, but I couldn’t baby it forever.

  When I got up the next morning, the air was crisp and the sun was shining. Seeing as I hadn’t been to kung fu for weeks, I decided I needed some exercise, so I joined a group of people practicing tai chi in Golden Gate Park. My kung fu instructor had recommended it to us because he had a reciprocal arrangement with the instructor. I’d observed them previously, and I was impressed by their fluid, seemingly effortless movements. Just my kind of exercise, I thought. I just hoped Nick didn’t walk by and ask me why I didn’t take his class instead of that one.

  I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but sometimes it’s nice to exercise anonymously. Before the MarySue shoe episode, I did everything anonymously; now it seemed as though every time I left the house, I ran into someone I knew. Just in case I did, I was wearing a pair of stretch leggings that were comfortable as well as stylish with a high-performance racer-back tank and a black training jacket. On my feet were a pair of MBT sneakers, which as everyone who exercises seriously knows can activate neglected muscles and tone and shape the entire body. MBT stands for Masai Barefoot Technology, of course. Since the Masai tribes are the best runners in the world, I had no doubt their shoes would help me run faster if I needed to.

  When I arrived at the meadow where the tai chi instructor held his class, he smiled and beckoned to me to take a place in the front row, but I stuck to the back so I could watch the others and copy their movements. I quickly found it was harder than I’d thought it would be to achieve that fluid movement I’d admired. I knew it involved deep breathing and mental focus, but today I was happy just to be waving my arms around slowly and inhaling the fresh air, and feeling proud of myself for making the effort while other fashionistas were still in bed. The focus would come later, I hoped. I wanted to focus just enough to forget the scene that had almost torpedoed Dolce’s fashion show.

  After the class I felt refreshed and invigorated, so I wandered around the park, into the area called Chain of Lakes, enjoying the feeling of being away from the hustle and bustle of cars and tourists and screaming children flying kites or kicking balls in the field. I walked around the misty lake, drinking in the atmosphere and hearing the wind in the trees.

  As fate would have it, there was a food, art and music festival going on in the concourse, so I stopped for a Korean taco stuffed with seasoned rice, kalbi short ribs and kimchee salsa folded into Japanese and Korean toasted seaweeds. It was so good I would have ordered another, but I had to get back and get ready for my date with Jonathan. I hadn’t even decided what to wear yet.

  Layers. That was all I could think of. I started with my new skinny jeans, tossing my old boyfriend jeans aside. They were so torn up and dated I could barely believe I was ever tempted to buy them.

  Next, shoes. Knee-high boots or loafers with argyle socks? The boots looked great with the jeans tucked in, but since I’d be with Dr. Jonathan, I decided to be sensible and go with the loafers. I chose a silky top and a black hooded cashmere sweater over it. Slim fitting and luxurious, it felt soft and warm. That way I’d be comfortable on the boat and on shore and in the prison and wherever we went afterward.

  When Jonathan picked me up, he gave me an approving look right down to my loafers. I would have looked even better if I’d had Marsha do my hair, but I ironed it myself and it looked pretty sleek, I thought.

  He told me last night had been busy at the ER.


  “Like most every Saturday night, I imagine,” I said. “I’m fortunate I came through with only minor injuries. So just another typical Saturday night in the ER.”

  “That’s right. Gunshot wounds, overdoses, car crashes, you name it, we’ve got it.”

  “But no society women poisoned by their husbands.”

  “Not that I noticed,” he said with one of his dazzling smiles as if I’d been joking. I was, but only partly.

  “One of the nurses told me you specialize in sports medicine.”

  “I did a rotation in sports medicine. It was interesting. Saw a lot of tendonitis, arthritis, bursitis and some fractures. But to me the ER is more exciting.”

  “All those gunshot wounds.”

  “And accidents like yours. You never told me how you landed in a tree that night the woman in the silver shoes brought you in. Or is that none of my business?”

  “It’s a long story. Maybe later,” I said. Or maybe never. I just didn’t want to talk about it now. I wanted to hop on a boat and set sail for an island. Which we did. We stood at the railing and the wind whipped my sleek shiny hair around, but I didn’t care. I was on a date with a gorgeous doctor far from the society scene where everyone knew more than they wanted to about everyone else. I should never have gone to Marsha to have my hair done. I needed to break away from the Dolce crowd. Like today.

  “I took a tai chi class today,” I said. “Have you ever done it?”

  “No, but I’ve read the literature, and I hear from patients that it helps with chronic pain and stress reduction. I’m interested in all kinds of alternative medicine. Acupuncture, herbs, meditation, I’m open to anything that works.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that. Although I can’t complain about the traditional medicine you treated me with. I feel fine.”

  “You look fine too,” he said with an appreciative gleam in his blue eyes.

  I felt a flutter in the pit of my stomach. It could have been a twinge of seasickness, but it was more likely the proximity of the gorgeous and brilliant doctor I was with. Who would have thought a few weeks ago I’d be on a boat in the Bay admiring a spectacular view of the city with a man who was not only a skillful, highly trained ER physician, but also a sexy straight guy with fashion sense. I sighed happily as the white buildings in the city receded in the distance and we approached the island. All my worries about Dolce, the shop and the murder faded along with the city we’d left behind.