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I WALKED THROUGH THE front door of the Laughing Lotus yoga studio anticipating a serene warmup of gentle stretches and sighing background music, followed by a low impact but rigorous workout, with the scent of smoldering joss sticks drifting in from the meditation room. I was not expecting Sharla to intercept us the minute we were past the reception desk, physically blocking our progress and accosting me with cries of, “Hey, you. Business professor.”
Sharla held a worn wooden box. It had a slit carved into the top and was fastened shut with a small brass padlock. The sides of the box were decoupaged with mandalas, Tibetan suns, and yin-yang symbols.
“She’s talking to you,” Emma said.
“Hi, Sharla. Guilty as charged. What’s up? Isn’t that the money box?”
It turned out Sharla wanted to get some free business consulting from me. Money continued to disappear from the Laughing Lotus, and could I step into her office for just a minute to talk about it? Emma managed to slip away to the class, leaving me to deal with the assertive Bostonian by myself.
“Sharla.” I followed her to the back. “Loss prevention isn’t really my specialty. And Heaven knows, I’m not an accountant. Why not just get rid of the box, and make sure people pay at the front desk?”
She paused at a door and produced a ring of keys. “We can’t do that.”
“I understand. You want to have an honor system. It conveys an atmosphere of trust.”
Sharla opened the door and waved me inside. Her office didn’t particularly look like it belonged in a yoga studio. With its putty-colored file cabinets and its secondhand faux-walnut-and-chrome desk, it could’ve fit right in at an insurance agent’s, a real estate office, or any small business. The stale cigarette stench and the small black plastic notched ashtray on Sharla’s desk gave the office a retro feel.
“I can’t afford to cover the front desk all the time. But sure, what you said about having trust? That too.”
“Sharla, this is really not my specialty at all. I can ask around when I get into the office today—”
“Tell you what, hon. Gimme a half hour right now, and I’ll trade you for a free class session, any time you want.”
“A half hour? Sharla, you said a minute. And I don’t need a free class session. I’ve already pre-paid for six months of classes.”
“I’ll stick an extra week on the end of your contract. You could really help me out here, Molly. Me and my sister. I love Sharon to death, but honest to—she can be such an airhead sometimes.”
I wasn’t even sure the Laughing Lotus was going to be in business six months from now, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell Sharla no. Emma was right. I really could be a schlemiel sometimes.
Sharla closed the door, sat down, and lighted a cigarette. She caught my expression, rolled her eyes, and stubbed it out in the ashtray. “Here’s the thing, I think it’s an inside job. I don’t think it’s someone who’s just wandering in off the street. It’s happening too regularly. Gotta be an employee or a regular customer.”
“Have you notified the police? I know they’d rather handle these things themselves. I get the feeling they don’t care for amateurs doing police work.”
“I don’t have anything to tell the police.”
“Do you even have a suspect?”
“I haven’t narrowed it down to just one.”
I wondered whether her sister Sharon was the likely thief, and if so, whether Sharla was hoping to prove it was really someone else. People say they want to know the truth, but they’re not always happy when they get it.
“I’m thinking of setting up some kinda surveillance,” she said. “Like a computer with a camera in it. You know how I can get started with something like that? I wanna buy something high quality enough that it’s not gonna break, but I don’t wanna get ripped off.”
“I thought you said you don’t want to pay someone to watch the counter. A surveillance system is probably going to be even more expensive.”
This kind of hit a nerve with me. At Mahina State, we never had enough money to replace faculty members who left, yet our administration could always find funding for some new computer system to automate advising or grading.
“Since you asked my opinion, Sharla, I don’t like the idea of replacing people with computers.”
“I’d rather deal with a computer than a person. A computer’s not gonna call in sick when it’s a nice day out, or come in and steal my money out from under my nose, or freak out and have a big hissy fit when I accidentally call it the wrong name.”
“Computers can crash, or get hacked. If you don’t have anyone you trust, maybe you and Sharon should split desk duty and keep the money box in sight at all times. In my opinion...what do you mean a hissy fit? Who had a hissy fit?”
“Oh.” Sharla massaged her sun-browned forehead with one hand. “Princess Crystal Phoenix does not answer to her real name.”
“What’s her real name?”
“Christine Roach. Which she hates, FYI. I accidentally called her by her name one time, and man. I thought her head was gonna explode.”
“Crystal is working under an assumed name?”
“It’s not too unusual. I see it a lot in this business. People go through some hard times, they find yoga, and they reinvent themselves. It’s a good thing, mostly. Like Primo Nordmann. Primo wasn’t his real name either.”
“I know. When he was my student, I knew him as Harold. So how do you know peoples’ real names?”
“I do a background check on all our employ—contractors.”
“Right. You’d need the social security number for taxes, worker’s comp, all of that.”
“What? Oh, yeah, sure.” Sharla picked her stubbed-out cigarette from the ashtray and put it down again.
“Well, as a customer of your yoga studio, I’m happy all of your instructors have passed rigorous background checks.”
“Don’t get too excited. Ten bucks an hour, you’re not exactly getting Mary Poppins.”
Sharla finally freed me, but of course, the class was over.
“So, you have a good workout?” I asked Emma as we drove back to her house.
“You took long enough. I hope you got a big consulting contract out of it.”
“Not exactly, but I have a pretty good idea who might have burned down Donnie’s house.”
I told Emma what Sharla had told me, how touchy Crystal Phoenix—nee Roach—was about her birth name.
“Oh, and Davison busted out that cock-a-roach costume. Crystal musta thought he found out her real name and was doing it on purpose to make fun of her.”
“Exactly. How much you want to bet that the mysterious kindling substance on the front porch is a papier-mâché cockroach costume? I heard Donnie scolding Davison for forgetting to lock the door. I bet Crystal just walked right in when no one was at home.”
“Well, we maybe didn’t solve any murders this morning,” Emma said, “but it looks like we figured out an arson. Should I call the police, or do you wanna do it?”
“Let me tell Donnie first.”
Donnie was sitting at the kitchen counter when I got back to my house, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the latest copy of Island Business.
“Where’s Davison? Aren’t we taking him to the airport?”
“He wanted to get a workout in this morning. He’s going to be sitting on that plane for hours.”
“I have some interesting news for you. I think you’ll be happy to hear it. Or at least relieved.”
Donnie was not relieved, as it turned out, and certainly not happy. In his mind, I was trying to put the blame for the fire on his beloved son.
“It’s not what I’m saying at all, Donnie. I’m blaming Crystal. She’s the one who set the fire. At least, it’s a possibility. The cockroach costume was an unfortunate coincidence. Who could have guessed Crystal’s real last name was Roach? Or that she was so sensitive about it?”
Donnie removed his reading glasses. “You don’t know what really happened. And the insurance company might try to say the fire was Davison’s fault. Davison invited Crystal into our house. He did something to make her angry, and he forgot to bring the propane tanks in after I asked him to.”
“What are you telling the insurance company?” I asked.
“I’m answering all of their questions truthfully.” Donnie swiveled away from me and back to his magazine.
“So you don’t want to tell Medeiros about this.”
“There’s nothing to tell him.”
“We could ask him to test the burned patch where the fire started—”
Donnie swiveled back around to face me. “Molly, what would be the point? You want this young girl in prison for arson? And what if it wasn’t her? What if your theory is wrong? Anyway, Davison’s leaving today. If it really was Crystal, she’s not going to bother us again.”
I glanced up at my Felix the Cat wall clock. “Speaking of which, isn’t Davison supposed to be here by now? When is his flight?”
“He’s supposed to be back any minute.”
“I thought he was looking forward to going back to school and seeing his friends again. He’s not trying to miss his flight or anything, is he?” I pulled down a coffee mug from the cabinet and brewed myself a cup of coffee, not that I needed the caffeine. I was pretty worked up about Donnie’s unfair and wet blanket-y dismissal of my brilliant sleuthing.
“Of course, he doesn’t want to miss his flight. Relax. It’s probably just taking him longer to walk back from the gym than he expected.”
“I’m not comfortable waiting until the last minute. Donnie, maybe we should go down to the gym and get him. So he doesn’t miss his plane. We can take my car. It’s blocking yours in.”
Donnie checked his watch. “Good idea. I’ll get his bag and his boarding pass. We might have to go to the airport straight from there.”
“Call the gym,” I said as we buckled ourselves in. “Ask them to check on Davison, make sure he’s okay.”
“You think something’s wrong?” Donnie asked.
“I don’t have a good feeling about this.”