ponytail and various tats on what I could see of her arms, mostly of the hearts-and-butterflies variety.
She looked at us, but her big brown eyes swung to my partner.
“What can I get for you?” she asked.
“We’re with the SFPD.” Conklin smiled, introduced us, asked the woman for her name.
“Lucinda. Drucker.”
He said, “We have a few questions for you, Ms. Drucker.”
“Questions for me?”
I stepped in and showed her the photo of Denny on my phone. I asked, “Do you know this man?”
She scrutinized the photo, and I swiped the screen, showing more photos from the same set the ATM had shot of the parking lot. Finally she said, “I think that’s Denny.”
“Last name?”
“Lopez.”
I said, “Denny works here?”
“Denny’s my boyfriend. What’s wrong? Why do you need to know?”
I said, “Denny was seen with a vehicle like the one across the street. It was parked near a crime scene. He may have seen something that could help us with our investigation.”
A dark-haired man with a tattoo of a wolf on the side of his neck came out of the kitchen and into the small main room. He wore a stained white apron over his T-shirt and jeans and was drying his hands on a dish towel. This had to be Jose Martinez, the taco shop’s proprietor and owner of the matching SUV.
Conklin and I were both wearing SFPD Windbreakers. Martinez noticed, scowled, and said, “Can I help you?”
Lucinda said, “I got this, Jose. It’s personal. I need to take a smoke break, okay?”
The boss said to me, “This is my shop. Did she do something wrong?”
“We’re doing an investigation, and Lucinda may know a witness who can help us out.”
He was going to go nuts when I told him we were going to impound his vehicle, but I wasn’t ready to disclose that yet. First we needed Lucinda to talk about Denny.
He said to Lucinda, “Your boyfriend get into an accident with my car?”
“No, no, Jose. No, he did not.”
Martinez looked at her, walked to the front window, peered out until he saw the SUV. Then he flapped his dish towel over his shoulder and glared at Lucinda, saying, “Five minutes, Lucy. You gotta help me out here.”
Martinez went to the cash register as the three men stood, balled up their trash, and dunked it into a bin. Lucy ducked under the counter and came around with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
Given Lucinda’s noticeable anxiety, I thought she might refuse to give Denny up. Regardless, I was betting that Carly Myers had left a print or a trace of DNA inside the SUV. Maybe Susan and Adele had also left some trace.
I’d almost forgotten what it was like to be optimistic, but I felt this close to bagging Denny Lopez.
CHAPTER 54
I was high on hope as we followed Lucinda Drucker out to Valencia Street.
I watched and waited as she fumbled with her lighter, lit her cigarette, and took a long drag. She exhaled. Then she said, “I don’t know where Denny is. I called him a couple times today and he didn’t call me back yet.”
Conklin asked for Denny’s number and hers, and she reluctantly complied. He asked, “Under what circumstances did Denny use the company car?”
“He does lunchtime deliveries. Sometimes I let him take it after we’re closed.”
“Martinez is okay with that?”
“Please don’t … look, he’ll fire me.”
Conklin asked, “Do you know where Denny was last Tuesday at about this time?”
“Oh, hell no. I don’t ask him his business.”
She rubbed her shoulder as if she was remembering something that had happened when she’d asked him his business before. She asked, “What kind of crime was he supposed to have seen?”
“Does Denny do other kinds of work?” I asked, sidestepping her question by inserting one of mine.
“I told you, I don’t ask him his business. Here’s what I want to say: I love Denny. He loves me. I dropped out of high school ten years ago, and he was my first boyfriend and my only. I really know him. Understand? He would never do anything wrong.”
I said, “But you don’t ask him his business.”
She scowled, took a drag on her cigarette, flicked ashes.
We weren’t alone on the street.
Traffic came slowly up Valencia, and streetwalkers leaned into cars at the lights. Shopworkers walked to their cars. Bars opened and stores closed.
It was getting dark, but the big white letters on our backs, spelling SFPD, were bright enough to draw attention from passersby. Drucker cast a look up the street, threw her cigarette