Read Online Tourist Trap (Rebecca Schwartz #3) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series) by Julie Smith - Free Book Online Page A

little.”
    “Oh, Rob! I’ll bring you some soup.”
    “Soup!” He whooped. “You sound like your mom.”
    “I didn’t mean chicken soup,” I said, very dignified. “I had in mind some thick and nourishing split pea. In the event of a concussion or broken leg, of course, I’d have offered to grill you a steak. But I thought with a bruised jaw you might not feel like chewing.”
    “I don’t. But I don’t feel like sipping either, thanks. I’m sorry I teased you.”
    “It’s okay. Or will be if you tell me what happened.”
    “I guess I’d better. I sort of lied yesterday.”
    “Oh.” Ouch.
    “It wasn’t that I had to be alone, exactly. I had some work to do.”
    “Is that all? Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “Because I knew you wouldn’t approve. See, I think Miranda Warning is the key to this whole Trapper thing; so I went to find her.”
    “How did you know where to look?”
    “I didn’t. I just went to the Tenderloin and asked around—remember, we thought she must live there?”
    “Did you get anywhere?”
    “Mugged.”
    “Poor baby.”
    “Stupid baby.”
    “No sign of Miranda?”
    “Not a trace.”
    “You’re sure I can’t bring you something?”
    “Positive. I’m about to break the world’s indoor snoring record. How about lunch tomorrow?”
    I didn’t like it at all—I wanted to see him desperately, to make sure he wasn’t maimed or disfigured, or if he was, to tell him I didn’t care, I’d love him anyway. But I realized that this time he probably very much wanted to be alone; I could certainly sympathize. “Okay,” I said. “Lunch by all means.”
    But it wasn’t to be. I’d hardly gotten to the office on Monday when he phoned. “I got another note.”
    “From the Trapper?”
    “Yes. He’s real, Rebecca—I’m sure of it. Shall I read it to you?”
    “Sure.”
    “
‘Dear Mr. Burns: Ever since 1 came here I’ve had nothing but trouble and now the whole city is going to pay. What would this crummy joint be without tourists? Too bad a few of them have to suffer for the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah! But the more people who stay away, the better off they’ll be in the long run. The ones that don’t come here will thank me. Watch me close this hellhole down!’
It’s signed
‘The Trapper.’
”
    “Ecch. Pretty awful—but he didn’t actually say he did the poisonings.”
    “Listen to the P.S.:
‘By the way, I hope the tourists liked the local mussels. I put the good ones in the cabinet in the men’s room.’
”
    “Mussels! They’re quarantined!”
    “Right. The cops were being cagey about the poison to see if the Trapper would ’fess up. They got the hospital and the victims’ families to keep quiet, too. So now there’s absolutely no doubt.”
    “The cops found good mussels in the men’s room?”
    “Uh-huh. When the local mussels are quarantined, all the restaurants use Eastern ones. All the Trapper had to do was substitute a plastic bag of local ones for a bag of the Eastern ones—which he put in the men’s room. That’s why all the poisonings came at once. The restaurant opened the new bag and everyone who ate the first batch out of it got sick.”
    “My God!”
    “Feel a cold wind blowing down your neck, babe? That’s the start of a climate of fear. Listen, I’ve got to cancel lunch. Martinez and Curry are coming and someone from the mayor’s office. We’ve got to hash things out.”
    “What things?”
    “The cops don’t want us to run the note. They’re afraid it’ll cause a panic.”
    “It will. I’m panicked and I’m not even a tourist.”
    “True; it will. But wouldn’t you prefer to know there’s a homicidal maniac on the loose so you could stay off the streets if you felt like it?”
    “I think I would. I wish we could have warned people away from Pier 39.”
    “That’s the way I feel. As it happened, though, he timed it so we couldn’t. He substituted the mussels the same day we got the letter, so at least no one