Paper Phoenix: A Mystery of San Francisco in the '70s (A Classic Cozy--with Romance!) by Michaela Thompson

fish, Muzak, a supergraphic of jagged orange-and-red lightning on the wall. Under the supergraphic, looking even more doddery than when I had last seen him, stood Pop Lewis, the security-guard-cum-doorman.
    His hand touched the brim of his uniform cap, and he broke into a welcoming smile that revealed more gums than teeth to fill them. He greeted me with, “Mrs. Longstreet! Why haven’t I seen you around lately?”
    Wonderful. Pop’s refusal to turn up his hearing aid must have prevented his getting in on the office gossip about the divorce. Not waiting for an explanation, he pushed the button to call the elevator for me, then nattered on. “You know, Mrs. Longstreet, my wife never stops talking about those fruitcakes you give us at Christmas. She keeps bothering me about can’t I get her your recipe. You know—” The elevator slid open, and I entered gratefully in the full knowledge that Pop wasn’t half as impressed with my fruitcakes as he was with the hefty holiday check Richard had always written to go with them.
    The seventeenth floor looked exactly as it always had. The carpet was the same bastard combination of yellow and green, the walls still lined with drawings showing the neighborhoods Richard and his henchmen had knocked down or planned to. I walked around the corner to the door marked
REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY
in gold and, under that, in smaller letters,
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR
.
    The receptionist was new and easily cowed, so it was only a few minutes before I was in Richard’s suite of offices facing Tabby, his secretary. Tabby was notable for her rhinestone-decorated harlequin glasses, bouffant hairdo, and years-long crush on Richard. She had never liked me. I heard relish in her voice when she said, sweetly, “Mr. Longstreet is in conference at the moment.”
    Tabby had always intimidated me. Now I realized that it no longer mattered whether she liked me or not. “Well, Tabby,” I said, my sweet tone matching hers, “you go tell Mr. Longstreet to get the hell out of conference, because I want to talk to him. It’s an emergency.”
    Her rhinestone-encircled eyes went blank for a moment. Then, with a look at once dignified and murderous, she got up, walked to the closed conference-room door, knocked lightly, and went in.
    Soon, she and Richard emerged. The shock of seeing him again nearly undercut my anger, and I felt my mouth go dry. I could tell by the set of his jaw that he was irritated. He glanced at me and said, “Hello, Maggie. Let’s go in here for a moment, shall we?”
    He was wearing a gray suit and a maroon and gray patterned tie. His hair was a little longer than he used to wear it, and his tan was deeper— probably from hours on the tennis court with his athletic young lady love. Even when tight with displeasure, as it was now, his long, lean face was handsome enough to decorate a carved medieval altarpiece. I had always been willing to forgive him a great deal because of his looks.
    As he ushered me into his private office he said, “This had better be important.”
    “It is.” Richard’s office was the same, too. The massive desk, the rubber tree in the redwood tub, the Picasso imitation that hid the wall safe, and the sweep of windows with an incomparable view of the city hadn’t changed. The only difference I noted was that my photograph was missing from the bookshelves, although Candace’s was still in place.
    “Well?” He neither sat nor offered me a chair.
    “I came to tell you, Richard, that you’d better call off your bloodhounds.”
    His eyes widened. “What?”
    My anger was returning now, giving me energy. “The detective, or whoever it is you’ve got following me. I want it stopped.”
    “Maggie, what are you talking about?” Richard’s tone was excessively patient, the voice he used with waiters when he sent a dish back to the kitchen at a restaurant.
    “I’m talking about the fact that someone is following me. I can’t imagine what you have to gain by