Marvia frowned.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Sure you can.” Marvia put her arm around Star Lotus’s shoulders. “Come on, we’ll find someplace quiet. You can talk to me.” So now I’m a social worker, she thought. Or maybe an employment counselor. Well, all in a day’s work.
Caffe Brasil was jammed to the gills, but Marvia Plum’s uniform helped them find a table. The customers were a mix of older students, faculty, working people and shoppers. A few stared at Marvia’s uniform. She ignored them. She was used to it. When the waiter arrived Star Lotus asked for a glass of wine. The waiter looked at Marvia, then asked Star Lotus for ID. She fumbled for a wallet and showed a card. The waiter nodded, looking sheepish. “I have to ask. Joanna’s a real stickler for that. You know, Joanna Moreira, the owner.”
Marvia said, “Cappuccino.” If she didn’t die of caffeine poisoning, she was certainly living by it.
“I wouldn’t do what she told me,” Star Lotus said. Her glass of wine had arrived and to Marvia Plum’s amazement she’d chug-a-lugged it. She looked around frantically, caught the waiter’s eye and waved her empty glass. The waiter disappeared to get her another.
“Take it easy,” Marvia suggested. “Did you eat today? Are you drinking that stuff on an empty stomach?”
“I don’t care.” By the time they entered the café, Star Lotus had stopped crying but now she started again. She used a napkin to dab her eyes and wipe her cheeks. The tears had made tracks there in her makeup. Marvia could see that, under the makeup, she had a serious complexion problem.
Marvia sipped her cappuccino. “You wouldn’t do what Mistress Moonflower wanted, so she fired you?”
Star Lotus nodded. The waiter set her second glass of wine on the table in front of her with one hand, removing the empty with the other. Star Lotus picked up the second glass and took a big sip, but at least she didn’t finish the glass this time. “The—the—I shouldn’t have done it the first time.”
“What did she want you to do?”
“You remember that old lady, that Imaculata?”
“Imaculata Martinez. She the one?”
“She used to sell things to us. Try and sell them. Just junk. She was a trash picker, you know. She used to find things in the trash, broken earrings, junk, you know. And she’d try and sell them to us. At first we used to give her a little money, I felt sorry for her, I guess Moonflower did too. We’d give her a little money for the things she brought in and then we’d throw them away.”
She paused and took another slug of wine.
“Moonflower got tired of it after a while and told her not to come around any more, she was bothering the customers. You know, most of our customers are young kids, they’re embarrassed to be in the store buying incense and rolling papers and condoms and things. And they didn’t like being around Imaculata, so they’d go to another store or whatever. But she kept coming around anyhow, and Moonflower told me—”
Marvia grabbed Star Lotus’s wrist. “Stop!”
Star Lotus jumped. “What’s the matter?”
“Don’t say another word. Listen here.” She unbuttoned the pocket on her uniform shirt and pulled out a Miranda card. She read the lines to Star Lotus. She knew the Miranda warning by heart, but Dorothy Yamura insisted that her people read it anyhow, every time, just to be safe. When she finished she said, “I want you to come with me.”
Star Lotus said, “Where? Don’t make me go back. I’m afraid of her, I don’t want to go back there.”
“To Woodstock West? We’re not going there.”
“Where are we going?”
“Are you carrying a concealed weapon?” Star Lotus shook her head. “Do you want to walk? I’ll call for a unit if you want. Would you rather ride?”
“Ride? Wha—?”
“Will you go with me to police headquarters, Star Lotus? Will you go voluntarily and talk with me there?”
Star Lotus stood up. Marvia Plum dropped another bill on the table. She took Star Lotus by one wrist. She didn’t handcuff her. She started away from the table, Star Lotus in tow. Star Lotus picked up her half-full glass of wine and emptied it before they reached the door. She placed it on the shelf just inside the door before following Marvia Plum back onto Telegraph.
At police headquarters Marvia Plum put Star Lotus in an interrogation room, then fetched Dorothy Yamura. On the way back from Yamura’s office she briefed the lieutenant on Star Lotus’s statement at the cafe. Dorothy Yamura asked if Marvia had mirandized Star Lotus. Even though she had done so, Dorothy Yamura insisted on doing it again, with a tape running and in the presence of both a public defender and an assistant DA.
The PD advised Star Lotus to say nothing until they’d conferred in private, but Star Lotus insisted on telling her story. “She made me,” Star Lotus sobbed. “She said I had to do it.”
The assistant DA laid a sympathetic hand on Star Lotus’s hand. “Do what, dear? Made you do what?”
“She made me take that poor old lady, that Mrs. Martinez, over to What’s Flat and Round with a Hole in the Middle, you know, the big record store. She said I had to take her into the bathroom and stab her. It was the only way to get rid of her. She was ruining our business and we couldn’t get rid of her any other way. We called the police and sometimes they wouldn’t even come at all, and other times they’d say they couldn’t do anything, we were open to the public and she was a member of the public.”
“But I don’t understand,” the assistant DA put in. Star Lotus wiped her eyes and looked up at the woman. Marvia Plum thought, this assistant DA was really good. She was about to unleash the Please help me, dear, ploy, Marvia was certain.
“Please help me, dear,” the assistant DA said, “how could she make you kill someone? You did kill Mrs. Martinez, didn’t you?”
The PD was about to have a hissy-fit, but Star Lotus was clearly in the unburdening mode, and there was no stopping her now.
“I ran away from home. I didn’t have anything. I was getting into a lot of trouble, I knew it. I was hanging around with bad people. I lived in the park for a while myself. Strangers were coming on to me, you know, coming on to me. And everybody was either getting drunk or smoking crack or shooting up, and one person grabbed me one time and tried to take me away and sell me. Sell me!”
She stopped to catch her breath. She asked for a glass of water and Marvia Plum sent a uniform to get it for her.
The assistant DA said, “How did you meet Mistress Moonflower?”
Star Lotus squeezed her eyes shut as if she was looking inside herself for a memory. “I was panhandling. I went into Woodstock West to try and get some money, and she said she wouldn’t give me a handout but I could try out for a job there. She said I was really pretty, and people liked to buy things from you if you were pretty.”
She looked around at all the others, the assistant DA, the PD, Lieutenant Yamura and Sergeant Plum and the uniform who had returned
