Free There's Nothing to Be Afraid Of by Marcia Muller

know that either. A male Oriental, about Duc Vang’s age. I’ve never see him before.
    She started for the fire door, but I caught her arm. “Don’t go down there, Carolyn. Wait for the police.”
    “But I have to see how—”
    “No, you don’t. You don’t want to.”
    She regarded me for a few seconds, then nodded and came back toward the desk with me. I let go of her arm and set the paper sack—which was beginning to annoy me—next to the tree. Then I leaned back against the ledge to wait. The ends of my hair caught on one of the tree’s branches, but I didn’t bother to free them. A numbness was spreading through me, a counter-reaction to that last spurt of adrenaline that had enabled me to make my call.
    “We should tell Mrs. Zemanek,” Carolyn said after a minute.
    “She’s not here.”
    “She’s always here.”
    “Not tonight. Not when I knocked earlier.”
    “Probably she was watching TV with her headphones on. She does that sometimes.” Carolyn started over there.
    Once more I stopped her. “Don’t. She’ll raise a commotion. They’ll be enough confusion later. Wait for the police.”
    As soon as I’d spoken, two uniformed officers stepped through the street door. They asked who had called. I said I had and showed them where to go. They went down into the basement, came back. One hurried outside. The other came over to Carolyn and me. There were questions to be answered, names and addresses to be given. I felt better, having something to do.
    Then they left us along, huddled against the desk near the Christmas tree. Carolyn said, “The Vangs will be back from their restaurant soon.”
    “Yes.”
    “Who do you suppose that is in the basement?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I should ask to see him. Maybe I can identify him.”
    I said nothing, tired and steeling myself for what lay ahead.
    The uniformed officers returned, followed by another patrolman. Two of them went through the fire door and began knocking on the doors of the apartments off the hall. The other stood watching Carolyn and me. Soon the lab technicians would arrive, and the coroner’s men . . .
    I looked up at the door and then stood up straighter, staring at the tall blond plainclothesman who had just entered. It was my old boyfriend, Lieutenant Gregory Marcus. And for the first time in more than a year and half since we’d broken up, I was glad to see him.

 
    CHAPTER EIGHT

    It was after one in the morning when I let myself into the warehouse off Third Street where Don had his loft. I hurried down the echoing corridor, past a dance studio and a metal sculpture shop, and used a key in a door that was decorated with a single gold star—Don’s concession to the Christmas season. The cavernous room beyond was dark, and I flicked on overhead spotlights that illuminate a baby grand piano, a set of drums, and three walls of stereo equipment, books, and records.
    Don wasn’t there, but I hadn’t expected him to be. He was taping one of his celebrity talk shows tonight, with a band that was in town for a holiday show at the Cow Palace. Musicians being the nocturnal creatures they are, the taping had been arranged for ten o’clock, and afterwards they would all go out someplace for drinks and creative lie-telling. I didn’t expect Don until after the bars closed at two—if then.
    But I hadn’t wanted to go home, not after what had happened at the Globe Hotel. And I knew Don would arrive eventually. Right now it was enough just being there among his treasured possessions. Don is a person who leaves a great deal of himself in any place he inhabits, and I could almost feel his comforting presence. I dropped my coat on a pile of pillows on his big blue rug, then went over to the piano, running my fingers over the keys and striking middle C. The note echoed forlornly in the high-ceilinged space—forlorn, like I felt.
    The murder victim in the basement of the hotel had turned out to be Hoa Dinh, aged sixteen, eldest son of a