Drayco yawned and looked at an online cookbook. Who knew there were so many types of omelets? Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, French, Southwestern. He found his target, a recipe for a tarragon omelet, but his hopes of making one to shock the hell out of Sarg were cooked as soon as he read the instructions. He flipped off the monitor. McBreakfast to the rescue.
The meeting with Benny last evening had turned out to be more of the same rah-rah legal coaching session. But despite Benny’s outward show of confidence, Drayco had known Benny long enough to sense the attorney was worried and not just about the upcoming board hearing. Benny’s first meeting with Maura McCune was about as enlightening as Drayco’s. She was angry; she didn’t kill him. No info on why she was there or why she was upset with Jerold.
Benny was already considering a plea of involuntary manslaughter. More than ever before, Benny was counting on Drayco’s ability to hunt down witnesses, evidence, anything he could use to defend his client.
After dropping some melatonin last night, Drayco felt a little better rested this morning. He briefly entertained the idea of stopping by O’Greavy’s for one of their gourmet omelets as a substitute brag fodder for Sarg the next time he saw him, but he didn’t have the stomach for it. He couldn’t remember the last time he was truly hungry.
After his drive-through breakfast, he headed to the Rebekah Hasendahl House, one of the oldest buildings still standing in Fairfax County. The original log-cabin school, later remodeled and expanded, now served as a shelter for battered women.
It was also, as he’d learned, Ashley Zamorra’s “day job.” For once, he wanted to get Ashley alone, apart from Edwin or Gogo. Of all the possible suspects so far, she alone had the strongest motive and greatest access to her murdered father.
She was surprised to see him but welcomed him in. He’d only taken a few steps inside the place when someone lunged at him from the left. His instincts kicking in, he twisted away to the other side, and that’s when he saw he was facing a woman holding a kitchen knife. Her voice was as cold as the Potomac waters in February. “I told you I’d cut you if I ever saw you again.”
Before he could react a second time, Ashley slid in front of him, putting herself between him and the woman. She said slowly and calmly, “Belinda, this is Mr. Scott Drayco.” She sounded out his name again, slower this time. “Scott Drayco. This isn’t Tomás. Mr. Drayco is our guest, and he won’t hurt you.”
Belinda blinked her eyes, lowered the knife to her side and whispered, “Sorry. So sorry.” Dropping the knife, she ran off toward the back. Ashley nodded at another staffer who retrieved the knife and hurried after Belinda.
Ashley ushered Drayco into a small side room with soothingly bland, blue walls where they could talk in private. “Belinda ran away from home when she was twelve. It’s been one abuser after another, although Tomás was the worst. Guess you reminded her of him. That’s the thing about sexual violence. Never leaves you alone as long as you live.”
Drayco nodded. He’d seen it all too well in other people before. He looked around, taking note of the frayed edges of the camel-tan carpet and the cracked window blind. Funds for the shelter must be tight.
Ashley settled into a brown metal folding chair that squeaked when she sat down, and he sat across from her. She wore the same neon-red lipstick as when he last saw her and the same earrings that he could now tell were astrology symbols. Scorpio, to be exact—the scorpion.
She studied him with a look of suspicion in her eyes. “Why are you here? Uncle Edwin and I told you everything we know.”
“I just had a few more questions.”
“Couldn’t it have waited until after work? Belinda was doing so much better, and I hope her little relapse won’t set her back.”
“If you’d like me to meet you later—”
“You’re already here. We’ll just have to make the best of it.” She fiddled with the ends of her French-braided hair. “Although this will have to serve as my break.”
He softened his tone. “I apologize for the interruption. How long have you worked here?”
“Only a year, but I enjoy it. Most of the time. I feel like I’m helping these women, if in a small way.” Her voice grew quieter. “Guess personal experience helps.”
Personal experience. Now that was unexpected. “Are you referring to Gogo or did your father abuse you?”
She inhaled a sharp breath. “Gogo? Despite the martial arts thing, he’s a teddy bear. No, it was my ex. And my father never hit me. He did hit my mother, but she could give as well as she got. I grew up in a very dramatic family, Mr. Drayco.”
“You indicated you were close to your mother, isn’t that correct?”
She bit her lip. “I miss her every day. She wasn’t just my Mom, we were best friends.”
Maybe it meant more to daughters to have a mother they could count on. Drayco thought of the photos in Edwin’s home of mother and daughter together, laughing. Right next to the photos of Edwin and Ashley’s mother standing so close—intimately close—together.
He almost hated to ask, but he had to know. “Ashley, was your mother in love with your Uncle Edwin?”
She stared at the camel carpet for a few moments without replying. She didn’t raise her head when she finally said, “I often think how different it would have been if she’d married him instead of Dad. They both pursued her, but Dad won.”
When she looked up at Drayco, her eyes were soft with pain. “I admit I wondered, more than once, if Uncle Edwin and Mom had an affair. Maybe part of Mom’s constant fighting with Dad was because she’d realized she made a mistake. Should have married Uncle Edwin.”
Drayco studied Ashley, comparing her to Jerold and Edwin. The brothers shared a strong family resemblance, so it wasn’t easy just by looking to tell if Ashley was Jerold’s daughter or Edwin’s. But it would explain why Edwin was protective of her.
“What can you tell me about your parents and their habits or routines? Or even hobbies.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand why you’d ask about that. What does this have to do with that woman they arrested?”
“Sometimes connecting the dots takes you into some strange territory. Motives aren’t always straight-forward.”
She sighed. “Well, they were pretty boring. At least, to me. Mom was kinda OCD about her business. Spent long hours on it. Lots of satisfied customers.” Drayco knew this himself, having checked with some of her former clients and consumer complaint agencies last evening.
“Dad had his quartet, as you know. He also liked to play golf at the East Potomac Park course. He was bitter he wasn’t a high enough mucky muck to bypass the long waiting list at the Washington Golf and Country Club.”
“Do you recall your mother’s behavior changing at all before her murder?”
Ashley blinked her eyes several times and got up to grab a tissue from a box on a counter. “Sorry. It’s bad enough to remember she’s dead. But thinking about how she died ...” She dabbed at her eyes and clutched the tissue in her hands. “She seemed normal to me. Happier, even, after she got divorced from Dad.”
“Was your father happier, too? You said you thought he cheated on your mother. Maybe he was in a new relationship with his affair partner or someone else.”
“As I said, I hadn’t seen him in a year or so. Just to take over his things that one day.”
A young woman dressed in faded jeans and a red sweater two sizes too big for her opened the door and stepped a foot in. “Everything okay, Miss Ashley?”
Tendrils of the woman’s dark hair fell in curtains across the right side of her face but couldn’t completely hide the yellow-green-purple skin peeking through. She glared at Drayco.
“I’m fine, Tanya. Just chatting with a friend.”
The woman huffed but withdrew and closed the door.
“Most of the women here, like Tanya, are victims of domestic violence. They’re understandably suspicious of men. One reason we don’t allow many men in here.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to upset your residents.” He thought of Rena Quentin and her sexual harassment case and how much difference money and clout can make.
“It’s why I brought you in here where we could be out of sight.”
“Nor did I want to upset you. I have a feeling Gogo would have something to say about that—he seems very protective of you.”
She sat in silence before adding slowly, “Gogo and me, we have our ups and downs. Nothing major, mostly lots of little things. He loves to haunt all those tacky dollar stores run by Chinese in strip malls. You know, the ones filled with cheap, flimsy trinkets. And I hate Chinese food. Tried to get him to go vegan like me, but he’s into all that animal protein stuff for his training, whey, egg, even fish protein. But I love him.”
“It seems mutual.”
She gave him the first smile he’d seen from her. “Now, if we can get his parents on board, we’ll be all set. First, my parents were against him, then his parents against me. It’s so twentieth century.”
“I knew your father disapproved, but your mother too?”
“My father wasn’t the one who disapproved that much of Gogo. Well, he did at first. Before he got to know him better in the quartet. They didn’t get along, but it wasn’t that. Mom was dead set against us dating.”
“Did she give any reason?”
“Not really. Just protective, I guess. He’s eight years older than me.” She rubbed her forehead. “The ironic thing is I never told her I’d married once before. One of those quickie Vegas weddings to a man twenty years older. The day after our ‘honeymoon,’ he started hitting me. And come to find out he was already married but hadn’t bothered to get a divorce.”
“You got it annulled?”
“Faster than you can say fraud.” Ashley clutched the crumpled tissue in her hand even tighter.
“Why didn’t you tell your parents?”
“The same reason you didn’t tell your parents about every stupid thing you did.”
Drayco had to agree with her there. A guilt sandwich wrapped in shame washed down by a lecture. Not exactly a happy meal. “Sounds like your parents cared. That’s a lot rarer than you’d think.”
He got up to get her another tissue. “I need to ask you more about the days before your mother’s death. Did she seem afraid or mention any stalkers? Or perhaps she had problems with one of her customers?”
“Zilch on all counts. That’s why I know my father killed her. Who else hated her that much?”
“The police think it was a random robbery.”
“You don’t?”
“Maybe. I don’t think your father’s murder was random, however. It was someone with an ax to grind. Or who stood to gain from his death.”
“You still think I killed him? For his money?”
He took a deep breath and chose his words carefully. “I believe you hated him. But if everyone killed the people they hated, half the population on the planet would die each year.”
“Meaning you haven’t decided yet.”
Score one for Ashley being smarter and more perceptive than he’d first thought. It was a reminder he had to push past any feelings of sympathy for her and remain objective—cold, calculating killers were often terrific actors.
Still, without knowing more about his own mother’s past, Ashley’s motivations might pale in comparison with Maura’s. It was time he did something about that knowledge gap.