Read Online Samson's Deal: A Laid-Back Bay Area Mystery (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series) by Shelley Singer - Free Book Online

Work no one knew existed by a fine, lost artist.” Alana was a nice woman. She liked my attitude.
    “I don’t know. Let me think.”
    “Did you ever see her doing any drawing?”
    “No, that wasn’t it.” She closed her eyes. “She used to carry this big canvas bag around with her. About this big.” She indicated an object about the size of an airline bag. “It had a shoulder strap.” I nodded encouragingly. “I remember once we were going to meet at the beginning of the week and she wanted my phone number. She pulled a whole lot of pencils out of the bag—maybe they were drawing pencils—and then fished around until she came up with a little notebook to write the number in. It just seems to me I remember seeing a larger notebook or drawing pad or something in the bag, too.” She shrugged. “I can’t be sure. But the pencils, that I’m sure of.” She looked up at me over the rim of her glass. “Does that help?”
    “It’s interesting to speculate,” I said vaguely and mysteriously. She looked at me skeptically and I abandoned mystery. “What do you think about the way she died?”
    Alana cooled again perceptibly and gazed casually around the room. “What do you mean?” she murmured from an aloof profile.
    “I mean do you think she might have killed herself?” I realized I was being pretty straightforward, but she was being so damned oblique and discreet I was ready to scream.
    She turned to me, even cooler. “Of course not.” But she wouldn’t meet my eyes. Not that I have much faith in eye contact as an indicator of honesty.
    I pressed on. “Did she seem reasonably happy?” I reflected that no one ever said “happy” all by itself anymore.
    “Look Jake, she was my friend.”
    “That’s very nice. But her death wasn’t very nice, and I’ve told you I’m writing a friendly piece, so why won’t you just talk to me?”
    She thought about what I’d said while she finished her glass of wine. I poured her another and refilled my own glass.
    “All right,” she said abruptly. “I’m going to trust you not to damage her memory. Actually, I don’t really know very much.”
    I settled back in my chair. Was she going to unwrap a little?
    “When I first met her, about three months ago, she seemed depressed. She didn’t talk about her personal life, but everything she said about everything was, well, colored by depression. Sometimes she would drink more wine than might have been wise. Sometimes she would pick people out in the bar or restaurant and make up stories about them, sad or peculiar stories. I assumed that those stories had something to do with her life, but it was as though she were telling me secrets somehow, and I tended to push them out of my mind later.”
    “Did she ever talk about marriage or art or lovers—”
    She flapped her hand impatiently. “I’ll get back to that, Jake. Just let me follow this process, all right?” I agreed, irritated. “For the past month or so, though, she’s seemed happier. I even commented on it, making some remark about her cheerful mood, and she said something about having direction and purpose. She didn’t talk about it any more than that and I didn’t ask. Now, to get back to your question. I got the impression she had pretty strong ideas about marriage. I’d been talking about my own divorce, five years ago, and she said she didn’t really approve of divorce. I told her my husband had been a philandering lout. That made her angry in a righteous way, but she still wasn’t sure I should have left him. She was an odd mixture, you know? Conventional about some things, like divorce, and unconventional about others.” She stopped and looked confused. “But is that so?” she asked wonderingly. “Isn’t it conventional now to get divorced?” She shook her head. “I’ve lost track, I think, of…”
    I took a chance on interrupting her again and being chastised. “How did she feel about lovers? Did you ever talk about things like