“Like I said, I’ve been removed from the case, but I’ll pass the word along.”
“Thanks, Jake.”
He grunted and disconnected.
A.J. drove to the farmhouse, changed into jeans and a T-shirt, collected Monster, and headed back to Starlight Farm.
“So. To recap.”
A.J. groaned and reached for another piece of toasted bread, scooping bruschetta onto it. “Haven’t we recapped enough for one night?”
They had been at it most of the evening, eating bruschetta and black olive tapenade on toasted French bread while they went over and over their suspects and theories.
“The problem with our recapping,” Elysia retorted, “is that we seem to be closing off avenues of investigation. At this rate, I’m going to believe I’m guilty.”
“Jake is still looking into whether Peggy Graham killed herself or was murdered.”
At least A.J. hoped he was.
“I don’t believe there’s any doubt that she was murdered.”
“Well, there we disagree because I think there’s a lot of doubt. The fact that Peggy didn’t seem like someone who would commit suicide isn’t indicative of anything more than she was a private person who didn’t share her thoughts and feelings-and we already know that from how she reacted to being blackmailed.”
Elysia scowled at her purple sheaf of notes. “Can we at least agree that The Salon seems to be at the center of everything?”
“Yes. The Salon does seem to be the common denominator for every line of query except two: Dora Beauford and this Mabel Chalthoum, whoever she is.”
“And yet I find it very, very coincidental that Dora Beauford’s alibi is that she was at a hair salon at the time of Dicky’s death. A hair salon on Easter morning?”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” A.J. admitted. “That does seem odd. But Jake had to have checked. That’s not something he would miss.”
Elysia looked unconvinced.
“We could check ourselves,” A.J. pointed out. “Mr. Meagher would be able to get the name of the salon for us. Your criminal lawyer has access to all the information uncovered in the police investigation.”
“I’ll follow up on Dora’s alibi,” Elysia said grimly.
“Just stay clear of Dora herself. I get an odd feeling from her.”
Elysia brushed this aside. “We also need to follow up on this Mabel Chalthoum, whoever she might be.”
“Yes, but we need to proceed cautiously there, too,” A.J. warned. “Mabel could very well be our Madame X. Dicky’s unknown jealous lover. She sponsored him so she’s probably someone who stayed involved in his life. He never mentioned her or you never saw any signs of her?”
“Signs? What did you have in mind, pet? Rhino spore in the bedroom? Perhaps the hair products in the bathroom were Mabel’s. Which, again, leads us back to The Salon.”
“He never mentioned her and you never thought to ask about the details of his coming to this country?”
Elysia sighed. “We talked a great deal, but… none of it was really of a practical nature. He did speak of his family and home in Egypt. He was a little homesick, you know. I think we avoided specifics because they would have inevitably reminded us of unpleasant reality.”
“Like the fact he was blackmailing you?”
“Exactly.”
A.J. shook her head. “Okay, well we need to investigate this Mabel. I suppose the easiest thing might be to start at The Salon. If she was a customer there, that simplifies things. What actually do you know about The Salon? The website says they opened in 1990 and that Gloria was a former model and Stewie worked for the studios.”
“She was a catalog model,” Elysia said dismissingly. “Discount clothing and farm equipment.”
“Well, what does that matter? She was a model. What about Stewie?”
“Supposedly he did work for Paramount or something like that. My understanding is that they were friends for years before their careers stalled out and they decided to take their investments and go into business together.”
“How successful is The Salon?”
“Very.”
“Are either of them married?”
“Stewie’s gay.”
“Do the words my ex-husband Andy mean anything to you?”
“As far as I know, Stewie is still playing the field. Gloria… might be married. She’s always been close-mouthed about her private life.”
“Two thoughts occur to me-”
“It’s the quality not the quantity, pumpkin.”
“Ha. The first is that the male and female voices we heard at Dicky’s apartment could have belonged to Gloria and Stewie.”
Elysia’s eyes narrowed as she sought to remember. “Did the voices sound like Gloria or Stewie?”
“I can’t remember. It’s been too long. But so far they’re the only mixed pair we’ve come across. Everyone else we’ve talked to has been pretty much a solo act. But Gloria and Stewie are both connected to The Salon and The Salon does seem to figure in here somewhere.”
“True. What would they have been looking for?”
“I have no idea, but that brings me to my second point, which is if there is some kind of blackmail ring being run out of The Salon, Gloria and Stewie would probably have to be involved in it. They might even be the masterminds.”
“Ah.” Elysia sat back on the sofa, fingers pressed together prayer-style as she seemed to channel her inner master detective. “Yes. I think that’s an excellent point.”
“So if Dicky was working for them as a part of their blackmail scheme, they’d have to scramble to try and find any incriminating evidence-anything that might lead the police back to them. That would be true whether they had anything to do with his death or not.”
“Do you think-?”
“I don’t know. Not necessarily. If Dicky was threatening to quit the operation and go straight, so what? So they would have to replace him. Killing him wouldn’t solve that problem. It would actually make it worse because surely a full-scale homicide investigation would be the last thing they’d want.”
Elysia nodded. “Agreed.”
“And, I might be wrong about this, but I don’t get the impression that Dicky was the kind of person who would consider it necessary to go to the police and make a clean break of everything as part of his going straight process.”
“No.” Elysia smiled faintly. “That would be the last thing he would do. He would be terrified of being chucked out of the country.”
“So I really don’t see that Dicky’s plans to marry you would be a threat to any nefarious business going on at The Salon. I think it’s more likely that one of Dicky’s clients flipped out when she learned she was being blackmailed or used.”
“Madame X,” Elysia said with dark satisfaction.
“Yes. We’ve heard about how Peggy Graham reacted to the threat of blackmail, and we’ve seen how Dora reacted even when she wasn’t being blackmailed, so what if this Mabel Chalthoum, for example, sponsored Dicky into this country and then discovered that she was being used-maybe even blackmailed?”
Elysia’s expression brightened. “Yes. Yes, I see… As the Bard said, hell hath no fury-”
“The Bard didn’t say that,” A.J. interrupted. “I just read that on my box of muesli. It was William Congreve in The Mourning Bride.”
“The point,” Elysia said patiently, “is that a woman scorned is a dangerous and unpredictable creature.”
“Yes. And if Madame X knew about you-as Dora seems to have-that might have made everything worse. That might be the reason Dicky was shot in your front yard and suspicion thrown on you. Not because of your reputation as a sleuth, but because you were a romantic rival.”
Elysia nodded slowly.
A.J. said, “This Mabel may or may not be connected to The Salon, but I think The Salon remains the obvious starting point for us. But we have to proceed carefully. We can’t just barge in there and start asking a bunch of questions. For one thing, if Dicky was killed by a jealous lover, I’m not sure how that connects with Maddie’s death or Peggy Graham’s. For another, we’re both known-you especially-by Stewie and Gloria.”