Looking for Yesterday Read Free Page A

tea. I took the opportunity to look around.
    The ceiling was water-stained, the walls victims of bad patch jobs. But the Oriental rugs were of good quality, the sofa and chairs somewhat worn but durable. A flat-screen TV—maybe thirty-five inches—dominated one wall, and art glass knickknacks were positioned on the end tables. When Warrick returned she carried a silver tray containing a blue Wedgwood tea set.
    She might have been living in a damp garage apartment, but her possessions affirmed that she had once been an affluent woman.
    “I’m so glad you’ve agreed to take my case,” she said as she poured.
    “Before we proceed, I’ll need your signature on our standard contract.” I handed her the document I’d drawn up before leaving the office.
    She read it over, signed it, said she’d give me a cashier’s check for the retainer the next day. I put the contract into my bag, then took a piece of lemon from a little plate and squeezed it into my cup. I don’t really care for tea unless it’s iced, but lemon makes it palatable.
    “Do you mind if I record our conversation?” I asked.
    “Of course not.”
    I set my voice-activated machine on the table between us. “First I’d like some background about your life before the murder. Where you were born, how you grew up, that sort of thing.”
    “I’m sure that’s all on record.”
    “But not in your own words.”
    “I see.” She looked down at her folded hands for a moment. “I was born here in the city. At home, in the big house my parents used to own in the Marina. They had to sell it to help pay for my defense—even public defenders run up expenses. Now they live down the Peninsula in a tacky apartment complex in Millbrae and don’t speak to me. Neither does my brother Rob or my sister Patty. They blame me for their losing the family fortune—such as it was. It’s not fair: I didn’t ask my parents for financial help.”
    She looked at me as if she wanted some sort of approval. I nodded. “Go on.”
    “Well, as I said, we lived in the Marina. I was the second child. We all got along pretty well—no sibling rivalries, no parental neglect or conflict. But then my older brother Rob accidentally shot our baby sister, Marissa. After that Mom and Dad were guilt-ridden and pulled away from us and each other.”
    “Did they become abusive?”
    “No. We weren’t that kind of family. Everybody just wanted the…incident to never have happened. We hardly even mentioned Marissa after the funeral. Mom and Dad threw themselves into their careers—she as an interior decorator, he as a financial planner. We kids threw ourselves into our schoolwork. Rob and Patty went to public schools, but after sixth grade I went to a private one—Miss Harrison’s. I had special needs.”
    “Such as?”
    “I’m dyslexic. And I used to have seizures.”
    “Do you know what caused them?”
    “None of the doctors could figure it out.”
    “You say you used to. When did they stop?”
    “I’m not sure. They just…stopped. One day I realized I hadn’t had one in quite a while.”
    “How old were you then?”
    “Nineteen? Twenty? Somewhere around that age.”
    “So after Miss Harrison’s…?”
    “I went to City College for a year, but I wasn’t much of a student. After that I worked as a model through the Ames Agency. Did a lot of ads for Macy’s. Maybe you saw them?”
    I didn’t remember them, but I nodded.
    “That was where I met Amelia. She modeled too. Not because she needed the money, but because she enjoyed seeing her picture in the paper and on billboards. She’d just gotten her first TV work when she…died.”
    “Your relationship with Amelia—how would you describe it?”
    “Close girlfriends. We’d go clubbing together, pick up guys. Do other silly stuff—you know.”
    “Such as?”
    “Take the last ferry to Sausalito and sleep on the dock until morning. Roller-skate around the neighborhood in the middle of the night. Go looking for the