“Where would someone get hold of a Taser?” asked Esmeralda.
“As well as the ones issued to police, there are civilian models used for self-defense,” Paddington explained, “but they don’t come cheap—about five hundred bucks.”
“According to my dad’s notes, the victim was barefoot,” said Amanda. “A pair of shoes was found under the desk, but no socks.”
“He was wandering around with no socks on in the middle of winter?” said Esmeralda.
“His wife Ayani always goes around barefoot. My dad . . . I mean, Deputy Chief Martín, says that Ayani has the feet of a princess. Anyway, none of that matters. There was a damp patch on the rug in Ashton’s study, possibly where a glass of water had been knocked over, although it wasn’t close to the desk.”
“Elementary, my dear friends,” Sherlock reasoned. “Water is an excellent conductor of electricity. The murderer took the victim’s shoes off and wet his socks to electrocute him.”
“I saw something like that in a movie once,” said Amanda. “There was a prisoner being executed by electric chair, they forgot to put the wet sponge on him, and he was practically cooked alive.”
“You shouldn’t be watching films like that!” Kabel interjected.
“It was PG rated—there was no sex in it.”
“I don’t think it would be necessary to wet Ashton’s feet,” said Colonel Paddington, “but maybe the killer didn’t know that. He probably took the socks away to confuse the police and gain some time. Not a bad strategy.”
“He needn’t have bothered,” said Amanda. “The police are wasting a lot of time investigating other leads. Ashton’s study was full of furniture, rugs, drapes, books, and stuff, and it was only cleaned once a week. The maid was under strict instructions not to touch any of his papers. Forensics found so many prints, hairs, skin cells, and fibers that it’ll be almost impossible to tell which ones are relevant.”
“We’ll have to see what the DNA tests say,” said Abatha.
“I talked to my dad about that,” Amanda chimed in. “He said DNA tests are used in less than one percent of cases—it’s an expensive, complex process, and the department has limited resources. Sometimes an insurance company or the heirs will pay for tests, if there’s a good reason.”
“Who’s Ashton’s heir?” asked Esmeralda.
“His wife, Ayani.”
“You don’t have to look far for a motive in murder cases,” said Sherlock Holmes. “Most of the time it’s money.”
“Permission to speak?” asked Kabel.
“Permission granted.”
“Any samples the police take are useless if they have nothing to compare them with. I mean, you have to match samples to the DNA of someone with a police record, someone who’s already in the system. Besides, surely the police are already investigating everyone who’s been in Ashton’s study since the last time it was cleaned.”
“Your homework for next week is to come up with theories about the case,” the games master said before signing off. “You all know the drill: motive, means, opportunity, suspects, method. And don’t forget all the stuff we still have to find out about Ed Staton and the Constantes.”
“Okay,” the other players replied in unison.
Galang stepped into the parlor with the coffee. The tray he was carrying held a coffeepot with a delicately engraved copper handle, two small cups, and a little glass vial like a perfume bottle. He set the tray down on the table and withdrew.
“Rose water?” Ayani Ashton asked Bob Martín, pouring coffee as thick as crude oil into the cups.
Bob, who had never heard of rose water and was used to drinking diluted coffee in half-pint mugs, did not know what to say. Ayani put a few drops from the vial into the cup and handed it to him, explaining that she had taught Galang to make Arabic coffee the way she liked it: boil the coffee with sugar and cardamom pods three times in the copper pot, then wait for the sediment to settle before serving. Bob sipped the sweet, thick brew, thinking about the dose of caffeine he was ingesting and how badly he would sleep that night. Ayani was wearing a black caftan embroidered with gold thread that fell to her feet, revealing only the slim, elegant hands, the gazelle’s neck, and the celebrated face that had haunted Bob’s imagination since the moment he first caught sight of her. Her hair was pinned at her neck with two hair sticks; she wore large gold earrings and an ivory bracelet.
“I’m sorry to bother you again, Ayani.”
“Not at all, Deputy Chief, it’s a pleasure to see you,” she said, sitting in one of the armchairs, cradling her cup.
Not for the first time, Bob admired her graceful feet, the toes adorned with silver rings, perfect despite Ayani’s habit of wandering around barefoot, something he had noticed the first time he saw her in the garden, that memorable Tuesday of Ashton’s death, when she had first stepped into his life. “Stepped into” wasn’t the right phrase, though. That still hadn’t happened: the woman was a mirage.
“Thank you for coming to the house. I have to admit I felt intimidated at the police station, but I suppose everyone does. I’m surprised you’re working today—isn’t it a public holiday?”
“Martin Luther King Day, but I don’t take holidays. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go through a few points in your statement.”
“You think I killed Richard.”
“I didn’t say that. We’ve only just started the investigation—any assumptions would be premature.”
“No need to beat about the bush, Deputy Chief—let’s be honest here, the spouse is always the prime suspect, and it makes all the more sense in this case. I suppose you know that I’m Richard’s sole heir.”
Bob did know. Petra Horr, from whom there were no secrets, had already given him plenty of information about the Ashtons.
Though she still looked twenty-five, Ayani was about to turn forty, and her long career as a model was over; fashion designers and photographers grow tired of seeing the same face all the time. Ayani had lasted longer than most because the public recognized her. As a black woman in a white woman’s profession, she was exotic, different. Bob imagined she would still be the most beautiful woman in the world at seventy. For a time Ayani had been one of the world’s highest-paid models, the toast of the fashion world, but that had ended five or six years ago. Her income had dried up, and she had no savings; she’d spent her money like it was going out of style, as well as continuing to support her family back in their village in Ethiopia. Before she married Ashton, Ayani had juggled credit cards, taking loans from friends and from banks to keep up appearances. She was still expected to dress as she had when designers had given her their clothes for free, to attend parties and nightclubs with A-list celebrities. She duly showed up in a limousine wherever she could be photographed, but lived modestly in a studio apartment at the unfashionable end of Greenwich Village. She had met Richard Ashton at a gala fund-raiser for the Campaign Against Female Genital Mutilation, at which she gave the opening address. This was something she knew a lot about, and she took every opportunity to expose the true horrors of the practice—she herself had been a victim of it in her childhood. Ashton, like everyone else at the gathering, had been moved by Ayani’s beauty, and by her openness in describing her ordeal.
Bob was curious to know what she had seen in Ashton—a boorish, arrogant man with short legs, a potbelly, and the bulging eyes of a toad. The psychiatrist enjoyed a certain sort of fame in his own professional circles, but that was unlikely to impress a woman who rubbed shoulders with real celebrities. Petra Horr thought there was no need to overthink things. The reason was clear: Ashton was as rich as he was ugly.
“I understand that you and your husband met in New York in December 2010 and married a month later. It was his third marriage, and your first. What moved you to take such a step with a man you barely knew?” asked Bob.
“His intellect. He was a brilliant man, Deputy Chief, as anyone will tell you. He invited me to dinner the day after we met, and we spent
four hours in deep conversation. He suggested we write a book together.”
“What sort of book?”
“About female genital mutilation. My role was to tell my experience and conduct a series of interviews with victims, mostly in Africa. He would investigate the physical and psychological consequences of the practice, which affects forty million women worldwide, scars them for life.”
“Did you ever write it?”
“No,” Ayani replied. “We were still planning the book and assembling material when . . . when Richard died.”
“I understand. Dr. Ashton must have had other qualities for you to fall in love with him, aside from the book project,” Bob suggested.
“Fall in love? Let’s be serious, Deputy Chief, I’m not the type of woman who’s a slave to her emotions. Romance and passion are things that happen in movies, not in the life of someone like me. I was born in a village of mud huts, and I spent my childhood carrying water and tending goats. When I was eight, a filthy old woman cut me, and I almost died of hemorrhage and infection. When I was ten, my father started looking for a husband for me among other men of his age. I only escaped a life of backbreaking work and poverty because an American photographer spotted me and paid my father to let me come to the United States. I’m a practical woman: I have no illusions about the world, about humanity, or about my own fate. Still less about love. I married Richard for his money.”
Her frank declaration hit Bob like a punch in the gut. He didn’t want to admit Petra Horr was right.
“And I’ll say it again, Deputy Chief: I married Richard so I could live comfortably and securely.”
“When did Dr. Ashton make his will?”
“The day before the wedding. I made it a condition, on my lawyer’s advice. Our prenup stipulated that in the event of his death, I’d inherit everything, but that if we divorced, I’d only get fifty thousand dollars. Richard would practically tip that amount in a restaurant.”
In his pocket the deputy chief had a list of Ashton’s assets, given to him by Petra: the Pacific Heights mansion, a Paris apartment, a five-bedroom ski chalet in Colorado, three cars, a fifty-five-foot yacht, several million dollars’ worth of investments, and the rights to various books that brought in a modest but steady income, being required reading in the world of psychiatry. In addition, there was a life-insurance policy for a million dollars in Ayani’s name. Richard Ashton’s children from his previous marriages were to receive a token sum of a thousand dollars apiece, and nothing at all if they disputed the terms. Logically, of course, this clause would be invalid if they could prove Ayani responsible for their father’s death.
“I’ll be straight with you, Deputy Chief: becoming a widow was the best thing that could happen to me,” Ayani said finally. “But I didn’t kill my husband. As you know, I won’t see a cent of my inheritance until you find the killer.”
Friday, 20
Blake Jackson arranged his hours at the drugstore so that he could be free on Friday afternoons to fetch his granddaughter from school when class finished, at three o’clock. He took her either to his own house or to Bob Martín’s, and since it was his turn this weekend, he was looking forward to two whole days of indolence and companionship—more than enough time to play Ripper. He saw Amanda step out of the school among the gaggle of girls, trailing her backpack, her hair a mess, looking around for him with the nervous expression he always found so touching. When Amanda was a little girl, Blake would hide just to see the enormous smile of relief on the girl’s face when she found him. He preferred not to think about what life would be like when she flew the nest. Amanda kissed him hello, and together they heaved her backpack, a bag of dirty laundry, her books, and her violin into the trunk of the car.
“I have an idea for your book,” she said.
“Really?”
“A detective novel. You just choose one of the crimes we’re investigating. All you have to do is elaborate a bit, make it really gruesome, throw in some sex, loads of torture, and a few car chases. I’ll help you.”
“It would need a hero. Who would the detective be?”
“Me.”
Back at the house they found Elsa Domínguez—who had brought a chicken casserole—and Indiana, who was laundering sheets and towels from her clinic in her father’s rickety old washing machine, rather than taking them to the laundromat in the basement of the Holistic Clinic like the other tenants in the building. Four years earlier, when Amanda went to boarding school, Elsa had decided to cut her working hours and now only came to clean twice a month, but she still visited Blake often. She would discreetly leave plastic tubs of his favorite dishes in the refrigerator and phone to remind him to cut his hair, take out the trash, or change his sheets—little details that would not occur to Indiana or Amanda.
Whenever Celeste Roko stopped by, Blake would shut himself in the bathroom, phone Elsa, and ask her to come and rescue him. He was terrified at the thought of being left alone with the soothsayer, who, shortly after he was widowed, had informed him that, given that their astral charts were uniquely compatible, and both were single and available, it might not be a bad idea for them to get together. Elsa always came straight away, served tea, and sat in the living room, keeping Blake company until Celeste admitted defeat and left, slamming the door behind her.
At forty-six, Elsa looked sixty. She suffered from chronic back pain, arthritis, and varicose veins, none of which stopped her being cheerful and singing hymns to herself wherever she went. Nobody had ever seen her wear anything but a blouse or a long-sleeved top, because she was ashamed of the machete scars she’d suffered in the attack when soldiers killed her husband and two of her brothers. She had arrived in California at the age of twenty-three, alone, having left four young children in the care of relatives in a border town in Guatemala; she worked around the clock to send money to support them, then brought them to California one by one—riding on train roofs at night, crossing Mexico in trucks, and risking their lives to get over the border along secret roads. She was convinced that if life as an illegal immigrant was hell, staying in her own country was worse. Her oldest son had joined the military in hopes of making a career and getting American citizenship. He was now on his third tour in Iraq and Afghanistan, and had not seen his family in two years, but in the brief phone calls he was allowed, he sounded content. Her two daughters, Alicia and Noemí, had an entrepreneurial streak and had managed to get themselves work permits; Elsa was sure that they would keep making progress, and that if the future was bright and there was an amnesty for immigrants, they would become permanent residents. The two girls ran a cohort of undocumented Latino women who wore pink uniforms and cleaned houses. They drove their employees to work in trucks just as pink, with “Atomic Cinderellas” emblazoned on the bodywork.
Amanda set her bags down in the hallway and kissed her mother and then Elsa—who called her “my angel” and had spoiled the girl to compensate for every moment she had not been able to spend spoiling her own children when they were young. While Elsa and Indiana took clothes from the dryer and folded them, Amanda began calling out moves from the kitchen in a blindfold chess game with her grandfather, who was seated in front of the chessboard in the living room.
“A nightshirt and some bras and panties have disappeared from my wardrobe,” Indiana announced.
“Don’t look at me, Mom,” Amanda shot back. “I’m a size two, and you barely squeeze into a ten. Anyway I’d rather die than wear lace, it’s so itchy.”
“I’m not accusing you, honey. But somebody’s stolen my underwear.”
“Maybe you lost it,” Elsa suggested.
“Where, Elsa? I only take my underwear off in the house.” That wasn’t strictly true, but if she had left it in a room at the Fairmont, she would have realized before she got to the elevator. “I’m missing a pink bra and a black one, two pairs of pink panties, and a sheer nightshirt I never even managed to wear—I was saving it for a special occasion.”
“¡Qué raro, niña
! Your apartment’s always locked.”
“Somebody has been in here, I just know it. And whoever it was moved my aromatherapy bottles, too, but I don’t think they took any.”
“Did they reorganize them?” asked Amanda, suddenly interested.
“They lined them up in alphabetical order, and now I can’t find anything. I’ve got my own order.”
“So they had time to rummage around in your drawers, take some clothes they wanted, and line up your bottles. Did they take anything else? Did you check the locks, Mom?”
“I don’t think they took anything else. The locks are fine.”
“Who’s got keys to your place?”
“A couple people: Elsa, my dad, and you,” Indiana replied.
“And Alan Keller, although he’s hardly going to steal back the ridiculous lingerie he bought you,” muttered Amanda.
“Alan? No, he doesn’t have a key—he never comes around here.”
Blake called out to Amanda from the living room that he had moved a knight. She’d have him in checkmate in three moves, she called back.
“Dad has a key too,” she reminded Indiana.
“Bob? Why would he have one? I don’t have a key to his place!”
“You gave it to him so he could fix the TV when you went to Turkey with Keller.”
“Amanda, how you even think of suspecting your father?” Elsa Domínguez cut in. “Jesus, hija. Your papa ain’t no thief, he’s a policeman.”
Indiana agreed with her in principle, but she had her doubts; Bob could be unpredictable. He often caused her grief—mostly because he routinely broke his promises to Amanda—but in general he treated her with the considerateness and affection of an older brother. He would sometimes surprise her with a grand gesture—like on her last birthday, when he had sent a cake for her to the Holistic Clinic. Her colleagues, led by Matheus Pereira, all came along with champagne and paper cups to toast her and share the cake. As she was cutting the cake with a paper knife, Indiana found a small plastic bag inside containing five hundred-dollar bills, a not insignificant sum for her ex-husband, whose only income was his police salary, and a huge amount for her. But the same man who’d had a cake made for her with hidden treasure in it was also capable of entering her apartment without her permission.