“Out:’ Temple noted, “but not inactive. You disappeared, like your brother wanted. Only then you started harassing the corporation. Hiring local thugs to shoot out windows.”
“I had to. Kenny was turning the family business into Medici Inc. Maylords had always employed gay and straight people. Talent was the criterion, but Kenny made it an Usagainst-Them operation. He had no confidence in his management skills. I’d done all that. He needed enforcers who owed him. Everything changed. I was ashamed.”
“So,” Temple said, “you tried to bring down the Evil Empire. Shootings, I can see. They weren’t meant to target anyone, just cost the company. But drug smuggling?”
“I didn’t do it.” Benny fought his luxurious bonds. “I didn’t kill anybody either.”
Temple was not impressed. “You just resented Kenny, and drowned your sorrows in food and drink and eventually realized
e you could pass as Ainsworth when this stor was opened.”
“Who would recognize the Prodigal Brother?” He stared at Amelia, looking sheepish. “And I wasn’t handling foreign accounts. I was ousted. Kenny turned the old man against me for the good things I was doing with the store. Made it sound like I was the problem. Who would believe your brother would do you in for a furniture store?”
“Benny.” Amelia moved toward him. “I thought this was the business you built. I thought you were still involved. I never would have gone out of my way to do this low-end personal appearance, except I honored the break you gave me when I was starting out.”
Kenny Maylord had been looking more and more uneasy during this interlude.
“You’ve got him in custody,” he told Temple. “My sainted brother must have done something wrong.”
“Well, he ran at our Simon Foster double with an upraised letter opener.”
“See!” Kenny looked at Amelia. “He’s the Bad Seed Brother.”
“But he really wasn’t very effective:’ Temple added thoughtfully. “I’d say Benny is capable of hiring the hit men to shoot up the store. He’s capable of ‘going undercover’ and sneaking in and out in the guise of Mark Ainsworth, who everybody on the floor avoided anyway, because he was such a petty, ineffective manager. And he was capable of exploiting the deaths at Maylords to further his revenge and really bring the enterprise down, enough to make a faux attempt on the life of our Simon plant just to stir things up, including bad publicity … but he didn’t actually stab anyone. Now, or then.”
“Then who did?” Amelia Wong was sounding imperial again.
“The person who had a bigger stake than mere revenge in Maylords doings. The person who’d enlisted Beth Blanchard in a major international drug-smuggling scheme, using Maylords and its imported furniture as a conduit. The person who was planning the biggest score of the whole scheme by subverting the Amelia Wong appearance to bring in tons of Asian opium and was mightily miffed that Simon Foster was innocently interfering with the whole plan.”
Of course everyone, from Fontana brothers to Temple’s personal allies like Matt and Danny, to the Wong contingent, was watching her with stupefied expressions.
It was a real shame she knew all about the motive and opportunity, but she just hadn’t figured out the actual perpetrator
yet.
A yowl indicated that Midnight Louie was rising from his resting spot and stretching his jaws in a Mighty Joe Young yawn.
The King Kong of yawns, in fact.
Louie looked around until he was sure that he had everyone’s attention, then sauntered over and with great deliberation used an onlooker’s pant legs, and the flesh beneath them, as a scratching post.
Talk about being “fingered.” The pants so honored belonged to Mark Ainsworth.
Even as the man pulled back, screeching, Fontana brothers bracketed him fore and aft, port and starboard.
Temple turned to Benny Maylord.
“You were passing as Ainsworth in the store. You made sure to duck out of sight when he was around to keep the masquerade going. You saw him kill Simon, and you attempted to implicate him by attacking the ‘new’ Simon working the vignette tonight.”
Benny shrugged. “Petty crime to embarrass my brother, yes. I did it. I used their corrupt management tactics against them. That biker gang they hired to transport drugs would take my money and shoot out their windows before and after. Same difference. It was all cold cash.” Benny shook his head. “This store, this enterprise, used to mean something else to me. Now I’m a loser. Kenny outflanked me so fast I didn’t know what was happening. Revenge seemed the only thing left that I could build into a center in my life. I wouldn’t have stabbed the guy. I wanted to keep the ‘ghost’ rumor going. Anything to piss in Kenny’s soup. It was stupid, but it was all I had left.” “Why kill Beth and Simon?” Temple asked.
Benny shrugged. He didn’t know.
Louie yawned. He didn’t care. He’d nailed the principal perp, what more did anyone want from a feline detective?
Temple took a deep breath, and thought as she spoke.
“Because … it wasn’t just petty picture swapping. It was a code. A signal. Beth was Ainsworth’s accessory. When the pictures were changed, they signaled a delivery or pickup. Andsome days there were both pickups and deliveries, so the prints signaled each phase at various times. I bet some security guy was the conduit to the gang outside. But Simon kept messing up the code, despite Beth’s best efforts to reinstate it. So he had to go. And then … why kill Beth?”
Temple didn’t know honestly.
“Beth got greedy,” said a new voice. Jerome’s. He stepped forward to testify. “She was always asking for ‘a bigger piece’ of something. Now I know what.
“I saw them always hobnobbing. Her and Ainsworth. I knew he was her secret supporter, the reason she dared to walk all over everyone else. And it certainly wasn’t because she was sleeping with him. So I kept my eyes and ears open for why. She treated me like a dog. Carry this. Take that. Eventually she didn’t think I could even hear. I didn’t understand her tete-a- fetes with Ainsworth, but I made sure to overhear them. Now I get it. The security guys were in on it, half of them were the bikers. The Ert�s reversed meant a pickup that night, the other way, a delivery.”
Temple turned to Rafi. “You notice any of this?”
“Some. But it didn’t add up. Until now.” He pulled free the tassels confining Benny Maylord. “Welcome to Schnooks Anonymous.” Raf corralled Mark Ainsworth next. “So this is the real Molina bait.”
“Hook, line, and sinker,” Temple said.
“Hey!” Ainsworth squirmed in Rafi’s seriously intense custody. “I’m just the manager. I had nothing to do with all this. What we’ve got here is a lot of disgruntled employees and ex-employees. Like you. Get your filthy hands off me!”
“They weren’t filthy until I laid them on you, buster,” Rafi said, sounding very Law and Order.
Molina would have been proud … not!
Temple savored the ironies for a moment, then decided. “Let the police ferret out the rest of the gang.”
“Probably to be found in the Biker Babe Revue,” Danny put in with a bawdy laugh. “Are you sure, Temple darling, that you have the ultimate villain that I can truly tap-dance to death?” He eyed Ainsworth with murderous intent. “I wouldn’t go for anything less than a life sentence of dismemberment, you pathetic toad.”
Kenny Maylord was gazing at his brother as if contemplating recommending him for an Extreme Makeover.
“Benny. I thought you were handling our Bali office.”
“Bali outpost, you mean.” The fatter, poorer brother wasn’t about to go quietly. “Head basketweaver for Accessories. Looks like your management-team-cum-secret-society used that to rip you off. Wish I’d thought of it.”
“Family reunions should wait until the police get here,” Temple said. “I’m still wondering where the drugs came from. You