Read The Sourdough Wars for Free Online Page B

him up as incompetent. So you know what I did? I let it get in my way. If I’d offered him decent money for the starter, he’d have sold it to me and we’d both have been happy, but I had to control him into the bargain.”
    “Peter mentioned something to that effect.”
    “I
hated
him, Rebecca. But now I’m starting to feel funny inside, sort of empty, like I’ve lost something important.”
    “Well, you have lost the starter.”
    She smiled, apparently relieved at having some subject besides Peter to occupy her. “Maybe that’s it. Incidentally, why do you want to know all this?”
    “I’m looking for anything that might help find the murderer. The real question is why you’ve been so free to talk to me about it—I’m only a former student, after all.”
    “Yes, but you showed great promise. Besides, I needed a tennis partner.”
    “You could have picked one up.”
    “Okay. I needed someone to talk to, I guess. I was feeling odd and not sure why. I wanted to talk to someone who was almost a stranger; otherwise I’d be making myself too vulnerable.”
    “Even to your boyfriend?”
    She nodded. “I’m a very clamped-down person. I want to thank you for this.”
    And she actually shook my hand, in gratitude for letting me ask a lot of impertinent questions.
    While I went home and changed back into my gray suit and silk blouse, I tried to figure her out. She was right about one thing—she
was
a very clamped-down person. Maybe too clamped-down to be having a sudden change of heart about a brother she’d hated for thirty-odd years.
    On the other hand, it’s only human to change your mind about someone who’s dead; she could have killed him and then started to miss him. Except that she had an airtight alibi.

Chapter Six
    After two sets of tennis and a sauna, I felt healthy enough for three people and hungry enough for a dozen. I had no qualms at all about scarfing down an entire frozen pizza before hitting Montgomery Street again.
    “I know,” said Kruzick when I went in. “What a dump, right? Listen, you want a lawyer with a fancy office, see Mel Belli, okay? Don’t complain to me—I only work here.”
    “Alan, I’m warning you—I can get a Kelly girl.”
    “You may go in now, dear. Miss Nicholson’s expecting you.”
    “Maybe not a Kelly girl—maybe a tommy gun.” I whipped past his desk as I said that, with a rustle of skirts and a click of heels. Then I gave him a withering look over my shoulder. But he was already typing, the picture of serenity, as if his conscience were clear as a mountain stream. I was afraid I’d kill him one day—sooner rather than later, probably. But, remembering I had a question for him, I put it off for a few days. “Esteemed employee,” I said.
    “Yes, ma’am, Miss Schwartz, ma’am.”
    “That’s more like it. Was Peter gay?”
    “What do you mean? He was taking Chris out, wasn’t he? Didn’t they… you know…” He made a two-fingered circle and put another finger through it.
    “Alan, you’re disgusting!”
    “Hey, everybody does it—you ought to try it sometime.”
    “What I meant was, was there any gossip about Peter at the theater? Like there was about Nick Dresser, remember? The one who was married to a lady named Carla but always turning up with a cute boy named Bob.”
    “Oh, Nick. He was bi, no question about it. Once he asked if Mickey and I wanted to—”
    “Alan! What about Peter?”
    He was silent for a minute, thinking about it. Then he shrugged. “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem out of the question, does it? But I always thought he was just a loner.”
    “He didn’t go out with women much?”
    “Hardly ever. Hey, I think I see what you’re getting at—you think he had a gay lover, huh? And the guy got jealous of Chris and perpetrated a crime of passion. That’s it, isn’t it?”
    “Don’t be ridiculous.” Once again I whipped past him, doing a fair imitation of an imperious boss putting an upstart in his