Excerpt from Nine Days by Minerva Koenig, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Plus sizes are in the back," rasped the pint-size man in bow tie and horn-rims who materialized at my elbow. He was about the same age as the building, narrow-shouldered and wide-hipped, with strands of still-dark hair plastered back over his pale skull.

"Great, another segregationist," I muttered.

The old man scowled and withdrew his left hand from the pocket of his pleated gabardine pants. Only there wasn't any hand there, just the healed-over end of his wrist, which he shoved into my face. "This I lose to the worst racist in history so you can come in here calling me names?"

"I meant the clothes," I said, forcing myself not to flinch. "The bigger sizes are the same styles as all the other stuff, so why do they need their own section?"

He lifted his chin and examined me through the bottoms of his bifocals, pursing his lips. I paused to make sure he wasn't winding up to throw me out, then added, "Nobody likes being shoved to the back of the bus."

He stuck his wrist back in his pocket, still scowling. "Interesting pitch. What line are you with?"

"I'm not a sales rep," I said. "Just an easily annoyed fat broad who's done too much shopping."

He made a dismissive motion with one shoulder, eyeing me thoughtfully, then said, "What suburb of Los Angeles are you from?"

My stomach jumped. "What?"

The old man grinned, like he'd just done a magic trick, and tugged his right earlobe. "Still know my accents!"

"You might want to get a checkup," I told him. "I'm from Boston."

His expression turned skeptical, and I changed the subject before he could ask any more questions. "Listen, the lady who just left, Silvia something. Do you know her?"

Before I'd gotten my teeth back together, he sprang at the rack of clothes behind me, crying, "Those gonif kids!"

He yanked a satin slip off the rack, holding it out to show a long rip in the shiny pink fabric. It had clearly been slashed.

"That's the fourth one this week! What's the point of tearing up my goods and just leaving them here, will you tell me that?" He stalked over to the cash register by the front door, kvetching, "For their trouble, they could just steal the damned things."

"There's not much fence value in clothes," I said before I could stop myself.

He gave me a look, and I added quickly, "I'm a friend of Teresa Hallstedt's. I guess she's kind of rubbed off on me."

I thought it was pretty good for an extemporaneous fake, but his glare intensified, and he came back around the register. "Friends, are you? Then maybe you can make her see some sense."

I learned a long time ago that the best way to keep people talking is to give them room to do it. I showed him my best puzzled face and stayed quiet.

"I know she's against this downtown development project because it was Richard's idea, but we've gotta do something," the old guy said, waving his lone hand at his front window and the boarded-up storefronts beyond it. "People listen to her. If she keeps running it down, the whole thing will go kaput, and then I guess we can all go fly a kite."

My ear hair pricked upright. "What development project?"

"Oh, you know," he said, glancing around his faded business. "Tax incentives and whatnot. There was an article this morning—" He went back behind the register, throwing over his shoulder, "Silvia Molina's one of those Mexican witch doctors. Does her voodoo for the poor people down by the river."

"You mean she's a curandera?"

"Whatever," he grunted, rummaging under the counter. "Don't waste your money. We got a real doctor here, just like the rest of civilization."

The clock on the wall behind him warned that I was ten minutes late for my interview. I told him not to worry about finding the article, and made for the bar.

Excerpted from Nine Days by Minerva Koenig. Copyright © 2014 by Minerva Koenig. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Minotaur. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.