Springing an Introduction

It's spring, or so the calendar tells me.  The weather hasn't made up its mind yet.  Such is life in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

I'm sharing an excerpt of the detective story I've been intermittently writing with my fantasy series.  This story takes place in present day, has no portals to magical worlds, and is currently titleless.

Here is an introduction of something different.  From the first page:

Rain pattered Zia’s umbrella while the cold, spring air made her arm ache.  She thought nothing could be worse than Pittsburgh’s winter for her mending bicep.  Then, Pittsburgh’s spring came.  Tucking the umbrella’s rod between her neck and shoulder, she rubbed her upper arm.  Her pace increased as she peered at the six story red brick building—the only legally occupied building in one of the forgotten, dilapidated sections of the city.  She hurried inside, hoping its warmth would ease the pain.

An original to the building, out of commission, peeling paint metal elevator greeted her.  She climbed the squarely spiraled side staircase.  Her feet stepped in the stairs’ worn divots until cast metal showing through green paint indicated the fifth floor.

Halfway down the hallway, Zia paused in front of an old half wooden and half frosted glass door.  Her gaze rested on black block letters indicating Beauregard Investigations.  She turned the handle.  A distant bell rang when she entered.  “Be right with you,” called a muffled voice.

She felt as though she walked back in time to a Forties’ film noir.  The simple office held a utilitarian wooden desk with two uncomfortable looking chairs facing it.  Behind the low back, true to era, swivel chair, raindrops wept between the blinds through which streetlamps would cast lined light.  The window showed a view of metal brackets that probably, at some point, held a neon sign.  A metal filing cabinet futilely hid a couch that knew too many nights spent at the office.

“You must be Vincenzia Divalderi.”  A tall man entered the office from a room opposite the filing cabinet, closing the paneled door behind him.  His white shirt pulled around his pudgy belly as he slipped his arms into a navy sports coat.  “I am Isaiah Beauregard,” he said, covering his thinning light brown hair with a peak cap.  “Of course, you knew that already.”  He crossed to the corner where he grabbed a trench coat.  After throwing it on, he pulled a set of keys from his pocket.  “Ready?  We have an appointment at the Dorcester’s.”