To kill someone by stomping her to death was a very personal crime. Gina’s face had been so bloodied when she was discovered that her friends weren’t sure it was her. Her face had been covered with her own Windbreaker. Detectives theorized that one of the GIs had obviously followed her back to the hostel, come on strong, and Gina ended up dead. But thorough questioning of all witnesses led nowhere.

Finally out of options, the detectives floated a new theory. After going over all the statements, they’d noticed several discrepancies in Nancy’s story. Nancy said that when she left Gina, Gina was still wearing her bra and panties. But police had found her jeans in a heap on the bathroom floor with her underwear inside them, indicating they’d been taken off together.

Nancy also changed her story several times about when they’d left the club. The police began to think Nancy was the killer. They thought Gina had made some sort of lesbian overture and Nancy had become so enraged that she slammed Gina’s head against the tiles in the bathroom, and then dragged her into the main room to stomp her to death. As the investigation went on, they assembled facts to support their theory and Nancy confessed to the murder.

I knew the network brass would love this. A lesbian encounter? Lesbians always did big numbers; The L Word was doing great for Showtime. We could promote the show as a “snatched from today’s headlines” event.

My thoughts of lesbians were interrupted by the bartender, a model-actor whatever—“Hey, are you writing a script?” he asked.

“Umm, no,” I said. “I’m just making some notes.”

“Oh, cool, okay. For a second I thought you were the woman of my dreams. Beautiful and a successful screenwriter.”

I smiled tightly. “Sorry to disappoint you. I’ll take the check.”

After two glasses of afternoon chardonnay, I buzzed my way to the main event on the first floor. Neiman Marcus had the best shoe selection of any store in LA: Christian Louboutin, Prada, and a huge Manolos section. I worked my way from one end of the department to the other. After carefully picking up every shoe in the place, I settled on four different pairs to try: an impossibly high pair of pink Louboutins, two pairs of Prada pumps, and a crocodile sandal from YSL. The guy waiting on me couldn’t have cared less about helping me. I saw his eyes graze my ringless left hand. Because I wore no makeup and had no ring, he probably thought I was a lesbian, maybe a stomping, murdering lesbian. He dumped the shoeboxes at my feet and split for greener pastures in the Manolos section. I wasn’t going to dwell on the slight. I slipped each pair on and strutted around the department, pivoting and checking out the angles in the different mirrors.