Free Bodice of Evidence by Nancy J. Parra

stopped at the hip. Under that was a white turtleneck with tiny red flowers and mom jeans. Her hair was cut in a short shag and dyed blond with lowlights underneath. Her face was thin and pinched, and her eyes were red rimmed.
    â€œI told that kid this would happen,” he growled. “I’ve got a mind to let him sit in there and rot. Might teach him a lesson.”
    â€œI don’t think that’s how it works,” the woman said softly.
    â€œHow the heck would you know how it works?” he asked her.
    I decided I had heard enough of their conversation and moved to the opposite side of the room. There were five chairs lined up by the remaining wall. At one end of the row was a teenage boy with his pants around his thighs. He wore a black T-shirt with a picture of some young singer bent over and sticking her tongue out. He was absorbed in his cell phone.
    Sitting down at the opposite end of the row, I dug my own cell phone out and saw that, true to his word, Gage had sent me the name and number of a contact at MusicBox Theatre. Which reminded me, I wanted to contact Jimmy, the gate security guy at the executive airport with a sweet tooth, and ask him whom I should contact to find the best place to produce Alexander’s parachute proposal. I was calling it Project Jump.
    Looking up from my phone, I noticed a copy of today’s
Daily Herald
on the seat next to the kid. “Excuse me, is that yours?” I asked him, pointing to the paper.
    He scowled at me for the interruption and shook his head, then went back to his game. I took the paper and found the picture. Mary had been right. I was in the photo just outside the crime-scene tape. The photographer caught me heading back inside the doorway from the alley to the shop. The paper said that the article was on page three.
    I flipped the pages to find it. “Woman Found Dead in Alley” was the title of the article. The woman was not yet identified when the paper went to print. At least no one mentioned who had found her. Seriously, I needed to keep my name out of these things. Romance and murder did not mix. It was bad for business.
    â€œPepper?”
    Detective Murphy stuck his head out the door that led to the back. He was a solid figure of a man. Nice looking for a guy who was my dad’s age. We might have our differences, but I liked him and, even better, I trusted him.
    â€œI’m here.” I stood and folded the paper and tucked it under my arm, before hitching my purse over my shoulder and heading his way.
    â€œThanks for coming down,” he said as he escorted medown the hall and into the area that opened up into cubicles and rows of desks. The space smelled of old aftershave and even older coffee. Detective Murphy’s office was all the way in the back. He had glass walls so that everyone could see into his office and he could see out. Inside was a wide desk and a row of filing cabinets, and across from the desk, two more uncomfortable plastic chairs. “Have a seat.”
    I sat in the chair closest to the door. His desktop was neat with a black plastic stackable in/out box, a desk calendar, and pictures of his daughter and his wife. He had a big old computer monitor that looked like it was from the 1990s and a keyboard and mouse. “I saw the article in the paper.” I put the folded paper down on top of his desk. “Did you identify her? I feel terrible that I didn’t even know her name.”
    â€œYes.” He said and ran a hand over his face. “Her name is Eva Svetkovska. Is that who your appointment was with?”
    â€œOh, my goodness, yes. I called and talked to Eva. She was who our appointment was with. Was she a sales girl?”
    â€œNo, she was the owner of Bridal Dreams.” He leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk. “I’d like to go over the details with you again. You and your mother and sister were at the store because . . .”
    â€œWe were