“I think he’s your inspector at the moment,” A.J. said grimly.
Apparently finished speaking with Detective Lennon, Jake glanced around the room, spotted A.J. and Elysia, and made his way over to them.
Elysia said coolly, “Inspector.”
“Endora.”
A.J. covered an inappropriate laugh in a small cough.
“You okay?” Jake asked her, his features softening infinitesimally.
She nodded. It would have been nice if he had folded her in his arms-she could have used a hug right about then. Even a smile would have been welcome. Neither looked likely. Jake appeared tired and somber.
He said shortly, “Next question. What the-what exactly are you doing here?”
“Excuse me,” Elysia said, starting to turn away.
“Not so fast,” Jake said. “You’re part of this equation. Of that, I have no doubt.”
“You’re so wise,” Elysia cooed. “Unfortunately, nature calls and I must obey.” She sauntered away to the downstairs powder room.
Jake turned back to A.J., his expression, if possible, grimmer than before. “Okay, let’s try this again, what are you doing here?”
She definitely didn’t appreciate him using his cop voice with her, but she managed to say evenly, “I told you I was going out of town for the weekend.”
“And out of all the hotels and motels and homes of friends and family you could have picked to visit, you just happened to choose to stay here? At a house where a homicide was due to take place?”
“Naturally we didn’t know about the homicide ahead of time or we’d have booked the Best Western. Or maybe even tried to stop it. Or do you now suspect me, as well as my mother, of murder?”
Jake looked around as though he thought they might be overheard. “Listen to me because I’m only going to say this once more. Despite the fact that I think she’s a nut-case, I don’t believe your mother killed Dakarai Massri. But that’s just my personal belief, and it doesn’t mean a damn thing. I have to do my job. And that job is to investigate Massri’s homicide.”
“Can’t you recuse yourself?”
“I don’t want to recuse myself. I fought like hell to stay on the case!”
“Terrific. And I’m supposed to be, what? Happy about that?”
Jake said between gritted teeth, “I fought to stay on the case to make sure the investigation was thorough and careful and impartial. To make sure that nothing was missed or overlooked. I fought to stay on the case to help your mother.”
A.J. didn’t know what to say. Her idea of helping was such a different thing, but she could see that Jake’s approach was practical and maybe even of more use than blind loyalty.
Into her silence, he said, “So you want to tell me what you’re doing here, because I find this too much of a coincidence to swallow.”
A.J. recognized that the time had come to lay her cards on the table. Well, maybe not the full deck, but then she wasn’t sure that, given recent events, she was playing with a full deck. In either case he wasn’t going to like it, but Jake would like lying even less. She recalled a certain conversation a few months earlier. No, lying was not an option.
“It’s not a coincidence that we’re here, but it might be a coincidence that Maddie is dead.”
“What does that mean?”
“That this might not have anything to do with Maddie’s murder, but… she used to be married to Dicky Massri.”
She had the satisfaction of seeing Jake’s jaw drop. He said at last, “That… hasn’t turned up anywhere yet.”
“They were married in Egypt. There were immigration issues, though-among other things. They divorced nearly two years ago.”
“Go on.”
“That’s basically it. Mother remembered the marriage-” Despite her best intentions, at the last instant A.J. couldn’t admit to breaking and entering Dicky’s apartment. “We thought that there might be a lead here. Something that would, at least, cast doubt on the case you’re-the police-are building.”
“And?”
“I don’t know. Maddie swore she hadn’t stayed in contact with Dicky. Unless she was one heck of an actress, she didn’t even know he was dead. But it’s obvious that she and Mother weren’t the only two women he had romanced with an eye to… um… fleecing.”
“Is that what their generation calls it?” Jake was still dour. “Was Maddie being blackmailed?”
“No. I’m sure she wasn’t. I don’t think she even knew he was in the country. The scam with her was to marry her and then keep asking for money. Eventually she got fed up and divorced him. Like I said, I’m convinced she didn’t even know Dicky was dead.”
“How did she take that news?”
A.J. cast her mind back. “She was shocked. She didn’t shed any tears over him, but she wasn’t gloating either.” She admitted, “In fact Maddie burst out laughing when she learned Mother had been involved with Dicky. Granted, she had a very odd sense of humor.”
“Did she have any theories about who might have popped her ex?”
A.J. shook her head. “No. The last she’d heard he was still in Egypt. But something did happen today, and I think it has to tie in with her death. Anything else is too much of a coincidence.”
“Go on.”
“She found out that a friend of hers, Peggy Graham, had recently committed suicide. Except Maddie didn’t believe it was suicide.”
“No one ever does. What makes you think it ties into her death?”
“She was so shocked at the idea. She even said at one point she thought it might be murder.”
Jake’s green eyes narrowed. “Did she have any grounds for such a claim or was she just talking?”
“I don’t know, but she was killed only a few hours later.”
“Who overheard her say she didn’t believe Graham’s death was an accident?”
Reluctantly, A.J. said, “Just Mother and I, although Maddie was obviously upset when she left the hairdresser’s.”
“That wouldn’t be unexpected. She’d just heard of her friend’s death.”
“There was a phone call while Mother and I were talking in the kitchen after Maddie had gone upstairs to rest.”
“Who called?”
“That’s the thing. The phone only rang once.”
Jake rubbed his forehead. “In other words, someone could have just dialed wrong. So far none of this is getting us anywhere.”
“What if Maddie went upstairs and phoned someone? And that one ring was the person calling her back to arrange a meeting of some kind? If Maddie was waiting for the call, she’d have snatched it up immediately, which would explain why there was only one ring. You could check the phone records, right?”
“Yeah,” Jake said slowly. “So you think this person called Maddie back to arrange a meeting of some kind and then killed her?”
“I think it’s a possibility.”
“And they killed her because she didn’t believe Peggy Graham committed suicide?”
“I don’t know why she was killed. Maybe it’s something else entirely. She was pretty wealthy. Maybe it’s something as mundane as that. But there’s some connection here. I know it.”
Jake looked skeptical. “Did this Graham woman know Massri?”
“I don’t think so. But I don’t know.” A.J. considered this idea more carefully. “It seemed like maybe something had happened between Maddie and Peggy. She said they weren’t as close as they used to be.”
“Wouldn’t she have mentioned it if this Graham woman was seeing her ex?”
“Probably. I know there is one obvious connection.”
He waited. A.J. knew how it was going to sound before she said unwillingly, “They all went to the same hairdresser.”
For what seemed like a very long time Jake didn’t move a muscle. At last he said, without any inflection at all, “Seriously?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said quickly. “I know how it sounds. But there’s something there. I mean, just the fact that Maddie was killed after we went to The Salon. That can’t be a coincidence.”