A.J. studied his face. “But still, it’s too much to be a coincidence. That all of these women were connected to the same beauty salon?”
“I agree. Up to a point.”
“That point being?”
“Motive for murder.”
“I’m not following. If all these women are being blackmailed-”
“Honey-A.J. First of all, your mother already admits that she was being blackmailed. So there’s nothing new there.”
“But it’s a blackmail ring. It has to be.”
“Maybe. We haven’t proved that yet. But say you’re right. From the perspective of the DA, that doesn’t clear Elysia. Just the opposite.”
“But it has to throw some doubt. A blackmail ring means that there were other victims. Other women with a motive for wanting Massri out of the way.”
“Not necessarily. An argument could be made that all these women were being blackmailed but your mother is the only one who turned violent. You’ve also yet to prove a connection between Massri and The Salon. Shampoo bottles in the shower aren’t going to hold up in court. You said it yourself: the hair care products could belong to one of his lady friends.”
“But then Massri himself becomes the connection. The fact that he was involved with all these women and the women all went to the same salon? That has to be significant.”
He answered on what appeared to be a tangent. “The other problem I’ve got, from what you’ve managed to uncover, it’s these other women-the victims-who seem to be at risk.” He added quickly, as A.J. opened her mouth, “And from a blackmailer’s perspective, that’s not good business.”
“Maybe it was better business than the alternative. Peggy Graham’s sister says Peggy was aggressively pursuing whoever blackmailed her. Maybe someone was afraid of exposure.”
“Peggy Graham’s sister?” Jake inquired too politely.
“Er, yes. Actually, I was going to tell you about that.” She said quickly, trying to head him off, “Mother is, as I’m sure you could guess, really upset about Maddie’s death and when she remembered that Peggy Graham had a sister-”
Jake interrupted. “She’s snooping. Don’t bother to gift wrap it. She announced to the entire world she’d solve the damn case herself, and that’s exactly what she’s set out to do.”
The assorted stress and strains of the last two weeks got the better of A.J.’s temper, and she snapped, “Well, do you blame her?”
He stared at her for a long, bleak moment. “No,” he said finally. “I don’t blame her. I’d probably try to do the same thing, but she’s liable to get herself deeper in hot water-and drag you in, too.”
This was such an unexpected relenting of Jake’s previous attitude that A.J. didn’t know what to say. He solved that problem by asking her to fill him in on what she and Elysia had learned from Mart Crowley.
Jake heard her out in mostly silence and sipped his coffee. At the end of A.J.’s recital he said, “Okay, so maybe Peggy Graham’s decision to take action against the extortionists made someone nervous and they decided to deal with her. But it wasn’t Massri, obviously, since Graham wasn’t seeing him.”
A.J. bit her lip. “You’re saying it’s a dead end.”
He sighed. “I’m saying… that there does seem to be a connection between these women and The Salon, but it’s not enough. I don’t buy the blackmail angle as sufficient motive for murder. You don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg.”
“Then what do you buy? Because if nothing else, it’s ridiculous to think my mother would shoot someone in her front garden.”
“Listen, you don’t have to convince me. I don’t believe Elysia shot Massri. I admit I initially wondered.” He clarified hastily, “It crossed my mind, that’s all-but having interviewed her several times since the incident, I agree. She’s not our perp. But an argument like that doesn’t get us anywhere. People kill other people all the time in stupid and brutal ways. Murder doesn’t take a mastermind. It takes someone whose self-interest knows no boundaries, be it a brain surgeon in the Hamptons or a junkie in Harlem.”
“Your point being?”
“You’re going to have to come up with a better line of defense.”
“What about the scandal at the SCA?”
“I’m still working that angle. It appears that Massri accepted bribes not to investigate allegations of illegal excavations and the smuggling of antiquities.”
“That sounds promising.”
“Maybe. There’s no question that illegal trade in antiquities is still big money. Unscrupulous collectors, private and public, are always on the lookout for valuable artifacts. High quality relics are freely available on the international market if you know where to look and so long as the interested parties are prepared to pay enormous sums. And Egyptian antiquities are pretty much as popular as ever.”
“Maybe Massri crossed the wrong people?”
“Maybe, but as far as I can tell the people he crossed were the Egyptian government and his colleagues at the SCA. I don’t think either of those entities came gunning for him in Elysia’s front yard.”
“How could Massri get away with that kind of thing?”
“He was in the perfect position to get away with it-he was supposed to be one of the watchdogs.”
“That’s pretty low. Trading in national treasures.”
“It is, but the money being offered for some of these antiquities is mind-boggling. And the people buying aren’t always what you’d think. More than one museum curator has been nailed in the illegal trade of antiquities. Sure, sales at reputable auction houses are supposed to be carefully monitored. I guess they are for the most part. Details of the provenance of objects are supposed to be provided.”
“Provenance?”
“Documented history of the ownership of an object. They’re supposed to get publication details of similar pieces, and a history of the movement of objects through the market. But the system isn’t foolproof. To say the least.”
A.J. nodded. It was getting late and she was getting tired, although she was doing her best to seem bright and cheerful. The last thing she wanted to do was hurry Jake off. For these few hours she could pretend that everything was still good between them. That they were building toward something that might sustain them through all the years to come. Something more than friendship, although she valued Jake’s friendship, too.
He yawned, glanced at his watch.
“Can Dora Beauford’s alibi be broken?” she asked quickly, at random.
“I doubt it. Only her hairdresser knows for sure.”
“Ouch.”
“You asked.” He was grinning at her and she grinned back, warmly conscious of the ever present tug of liking and attraction between them. No, that hadn’t changed.
Jake seemed to recollect himself. He said more seriously, “I’m double-checking that one. But I wouldn’t pin my hopes on it.” He hesitated. “I guess… I ought to get going.”
No you oughtn’t. A.J. opened her mouth. She closed it again. She wasn’t going to put pressure on him. And she sure wasn’t going to beg. Or even ask politely. In case it was misconstrued. This was something Jake had to work out for himself; he knew-could hardly fail to know-how she felt.
“Okay,” she said, rising. “Thanks for stopping by.”
He stared at her for a funny moment, then rose, too.
They walked out together to the front porch.
He seemed to hesitate. “Night.”
“Night,” she murmured as he kissed her cheek.
She watched him walk across the yard, boot heels scraping the flagstone walk. The door slammed as he got in the SUV. He backed up slowly, flashed the headlights at her, and drove away into the night.
Eighteen
Morag was making herself right at home. It was not a pretty sight. The contents of Elysia’s purse were scattered across the kitchen counter and in the sink. The trash bin had been turned over, the contents of the silverware drawer were scattered over the floor-along with less benign tokens of the ferret’s presence.