Lily called in sick on Friday morning and A.J.’s sleuthing had to take a backseat to the scramble of trying to cover the Number One Instructor’s classes.
“She’s flexing her muscles,” Emma remarked as A.J. glanced over Lily’s calendar. “She really doesn’t think this place could survive without her. Do you know she hasn’t taken a vacation of more than two days in a row in over five years?”
“I know she hasn’t taken one in the last year.”
“Five years,” Emma said doggedly. “This studio is her life.”
“She probably heard from Mara Allen yesterday that I’m not going to sell Sacred Balance.”
Emma looked relieved. “I can see that might make her feel a mite queasy.”
A.J. studied Lily’s schedule and decided they could manage without trying to call Denise Farber in from her day off. “If Suze can take Lily’s Teens class and Simon can take the Teacher Training class and her Yin Yoga we can do this. It’s my heavy day, but I can take her Vinyasa and still catch my Restorative evening class.”
“Don’t go throwing your back out after you’ve just got on your feet again.”
“I won’t. I think these months of yoga are to thank for my being back on my feet so quickly. The last time my back went out I was out of action for six weeks.”
“Just don’t overdo it.”
A.J. looked up, smiling. “I think this might work pretty well, actually. I’m going to hold a mini staff meeting before the evening sessions start. I want to put to bed the rumor that I’m selling once and for all.”
“I think that’s a wise move,” Emma said.
A.J. went back to her office and ordered pizzas to be delivered for lunch. It was clearly going to be one of those days.
From that moment on it felt like she never stopped moving. When she had finally had a free moment late in the morning, she phoned Jake.
He didn’t pick up. The most likely explanation was that he was busy and it wasn’t convenient, but with their changed relationship, A.J. was finding an unexpected streak of paranoia within herself.
“Hey there, it’s me,” she said pleasantly as she left a message for him. “I have a… well, maybe not a lead, but Dora Beauford mentioned that she’d sicced the Department of Homeland Security on Massri. She wanted him thrown out of the country. Since that never happened, she assumed the DHS never acted on her call. I’m wondering if that’s true. She believed he’d entered the country illegally. If he didn’t enter illegally, that could be a lead. Immigrants still have to be sponsored or married to a US citizen, as far as I know.”
She hung up and waited for a few minutes but she didn’t really expect him to call back this quickly. It wasn’t an emergency after all. She left her office and went to cover the Yoga for Teens class.
The pizza delivery was a big success and the rest of the afternoon passed relatively quickly despite numerous complaints about having eaten way too much to possibly do yoga.
At the end of the afternoon during the two-hour break between the day and evening sessions, A.J. held a quick and informal staff meeting.
“It’s come to my attention that there are some rumors flying around. Rumors about my personal plans and my plans for Sacred Balance. Some of you may even have heard that I met with Mara Allen of Yoga Meridian yesterday for lunch.”
No one said anything, but judging by the shifting in chairs, clearing of throats, and shifting of gazes, she’d hit the nail right on its head.
“This isn’t going to be a very long meeting because the fact is my plans for Sacred Balance remain absolutely unchanged. I did meet with Mara yesterday; she did indicate she and her investors would be interested in acquiring Sacred Balance. I told her exactly what I’m now telling you. It’s true that I took on the responsibility of Sacred Balance because that was the wish of my aunt, but this place-and all of you-have come to mean so much more to me. Rediscovering yoga has changed my life, given it focus and balance. As far as I’m concerned that journey has just begun, and I have no intention of leaving this path for another.”
Simon Crider, one of the senior instructors and one of Diantha’s original staff asked, “I know I’m speaking for most of us when I say that’s excellent news. But what about the rumors we keep hearing that financially we’re barely keeping our head above water?”
“It’s not true. I can tell you why I think that rumor began circulating in the first place and who I believe is behind it, but that’s not productive. We’re doing very well. We currently generate a pretax profit margin of twenty-five percent. Sacred Balance is not only supporting itself, it’s making a profit.”
There was a round of applause.
“And because you’re all a part of that success, it’s only right that you should share in the rewards. Lily and I have talked about paying annual bonuses based on meeting the goals we set together as a team. We’d discussed implementing that for next year, but I think we’ve got a tough few months ahead of us. Yoga Meridian definitely has us in their sights. We need everyone on board and focused, and as an incentive, we’re going to start looking at performance bonuses for everything from increasing student enrollment to broadening your own training and expertise. I’ll have more details on that later. Right now I just want to thank you for all you’ve done to make Sacred Balance everything it is. We’re taking this journey together. I promise you that I will be with you every step of the way.”
A.J. was surprised at the applause she got for that one, but perhaps it was as Suze said when she dropped by her office afterward. “Nobody wants to leave. But if the studio is folding, then no one wants to be the last one out the door either.”
“We’re not folding. We’re doing fine.”
“I believe you. I think everyone in that meeting believed you.” Suze rolled her big blue eyes. “But I don’t think Lily’s going to be happy when she hears the news.”
“It shouldn’t be news to Lily. She sees the financial reports. She knows we’re doing fine.”
“Just don’t be surprised if she needs another sick day.”
“She can have all the sick days she wants,” A.J. said. “I’m planning on figuring a way to make her take a full-blown vacation.”
“I hear Nepal is nice this time of year.”
Of course the fact was that if Lily really did take off for a month they would be stretched perilously thin, but A.J. was tempted to believe the positives would outweigh the negatives. She felt that she and Lily were fast reaching their own personal China Syndrome and that the continuing conflict between them was creating an increasingly toxic environment for staff and students alike.
Per the terms of her aunt’s will the only way to end their odd-couple partnership would be if one of them relinquished her position as co-manager. Or died.
Now there was a gruesome thought, but given how much of A.J.’s attention these days seemed to be on crime and murder investigations, maybe it wasn’t surprising. It was definitely a challenge trying to feel her way along the spiritual eightfold path while a murder investigation proceeded around her.
By the time A.J. completed the final Restorative course of the day and bade her students good night, she was genuinely exhausted. Her back was pain free and holding up to the challenge of teaching again, but she was looking forward to lying down and putting her feet up-seeing that her other options for Friday evening entertainment were severely limited.
Jake had not returned her call and, although she tried to stay optimistic and not read anything into that unusual silence, she was disheartened.
Her cell phone rang as she was pulling in the drive. A glance informed her that it was Elysia, and her spirits dropped more.
“Hi!” she said as cheerfully as she could.
“Why don’t you come by for dinner and we’ll review the case again.”
A.J. groaned inwardly. “Mother, I was thinking maybe a hot bath and an early night.”
“We can’t afford to let any grass grow under our feet. I’ve been on the phone to my contacts-”
“Your contacts?”
“Yes, and I’m putting together a profile of our suspects. I think you’ll be very interested in what I’ve discovered.”
“Maybe tomorrow? I’m really beat tonight.”
“The clock is ticking on me, pumpkin. Right now that bloody swine of a district attorney is weaving the rope to put around my neck-”
“All right! I’m on my way.” A.J. clicked off. Her phone immediately rang and she answered automatically. “Twenty minutes, Mother. I have to pick Monster up.”
“It’s me,” Jake said gruffly.
“Oh.” A.J.’s heart skipped a beat. “Hi.”
“Hi. Sorry I couldn’t get back to you earlier. I was tracking down a robbery suspect in Phillipsburgh.”
“A robbery suspect? Aren’t you still investigating Massri’s death?’
“It’s been forcibly pointed out to me that the DA’s already brought charges against your mother. I’m not going to be part of any further investigation involving Elysia.”
“What happened?”
“Pretty much what you’d expect. Someone noticed I appeared to be playing for the wrong team. Anyway I’m looking into a rash of Texaco Fast Fares robberies.”
“Gas prices are pretty high.”
“Funny.”
A.J. said guiltily. “I’m sorry if-”
“Nah. Don’t sweat it. It’s nothing I can’t handle. Look, I did some checking into this complaint Dora Beauford filed against Massri with the DHS.”
Could there be anything more heartwarming than one’s possibly ex-boyfriend utilizing all the resources at his command on one’s behalf?
“Why didn’t they prosecute? Or did they?”
“They didn’t prosecute because Massri was in this country legally. He had a sponsor. A Mabel G. Chalthoum.”
“Who’s Mabel G. Chalthoum?”
“I have no idea. But she guaranteed that Massri would have a place to live and be gainfully employed. He got his visa and his green card.”
“If he was supposed to be guaranteed employment, what was he employed as?”
“Sales rep.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. There seemed to be some confusion on that point. Hey, I’ve got to go, A.J. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Wait! Just one thing. Two things.”
He didn’t speak.
“Did you have a chance to look into whether Peggy Graham’s death was suicide or not?”
“No, I didn’t.”
That was blunt enough. A.J. didn’t dare push it.
“Did you-could you-did you check into Mr. Meagher’s movements the morning Massri was killed?”
“Bradley Meagher?”
Jake sounded astonished. Not a usual state for him.
“Yes.”
“No,” he said slowly. “We had no reason to consider him a suspect. Is there reason?”
“I… don’t know.” A.J. felt horrible for even making the suggestion. But if it came down to a choice between her mother and Mr. Meagher, then as fond as she was of Mr. Meagher, there was no choice. Not if he had committed murder. “I think it might be worth looking into.”
“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.”
Elysia’s face took on the grim expression it had worn in many a thrilling episode of 221B Baker Street. “If your theory is correct,” she said darkly, “those blighters are going to pay.”
A.J. murmured noncommittally. She agreed with the sentiment, but they were still a long way from being able to prove any of this.
Elysia sat up. “Why, it’s so simple. I should have thought of it sooner. We’ll set up a sting operation!”
“Mother-”
A.J. might as well have saved her breath.
“What we have to do is get them to blackmail one of us.”
“Uh, they’re already blackmailing you. Or were. And even if Dicky was running his own extortion sideline, that’s still not going to work for the reasons I’ve just said. They already know both of us.”
Elysia subsided, scowling into some bleak distance. Then her face lit up. “Andy.”
“No,” A.J. said firmly. “Absolutely not. Nick will have both our heads if we drag Andy into another murder investigation. Besides, Andy’s not blackmailable. He’s out. And even if he wasn’t, this ring targets women. Women of a certain age and income bracket. Whoever is behind it, the focus is fine-tuned to the clientele of The Salon. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
Elysia subsided, frowning. She sipped her tea. “Who else do we know?”
A.J. shook her head. “It needs to be someone-”
“Expendable.”
“What? No, not expendable! It needs to be someone under the radar, but also of the right age and income bracket.”
Elysia said nothing, continuing to stare off bleakly into space.
“I don’t know anyone like that. She’d have to be willing to go along with us, for one thing…” Her voice trailed as she uneasily absorbed Elysia’s expression.
Elysia was smiling, but it was the kind of smile that generally had the minions of evil overlords quivering in their pointy-toed boots.
“Mother,” warned A.J.
“I have just the person in mind.” Elysia practically purred the words. “Yes. Yes, she’ll do perfectly. In fact it couldn’t happen to a nicer person.”
“Mother…?”
“Let’s ask Stella Borin.” Elysia’s eyes were glinting like a hunting cat’s in the night. “I believe she owes me one.”