“It’s Detective Brody, ma’am. Do you know why someone might have been in his room? Was there something here—valuables, maybe?”
Señora Lester bit her lip and did a good impression of thinking. “Everything of value is in the safe downstairs, in Roy’s office. He keeps cash in it, and my jewelry. Only Roy knows the combination...” She put her hands over her face. “Oh! I just can’t believe he’s gone.” She started whimpering again.
Grant Manchester stepped forward. “That’s enough, Detective. Can’t you see she’s distraught?”
Brody nodded like he expected as much. “Of course. We can talk again when the shock has worn off. Will you be staying here at the estate?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t. Not now. Not ever.”
“Mrs. Lester will be staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel—” Grant Manchester spoke for her—“and the estate will be sold as soon as possible.”
Oscar jerked to attention, panic rising. So soon? “Señora,” he sputtered, “What about us? You will still need help, at least until—”
“The estate will be closed immediately.” Grant Manchester didn’t look at Oscar but addressed himself to Brody. “Mrs. Lester no longer requires the services of the help. In fact, if you’re looking for suspects, I’d look no further than those in Mr. Lester’s employ. I never did understand why he hired those people. And Victoria... she never trusted them.”
The injustice. Why would any of them kill the man who paid their wages? “But our back pay,” Oscar kept at it. “And what we are owed for last night’s work—”
Señora Lester buried her face in Grant Manchester’s lapel andlet out a sob worthy of an actress with twice her talent. “I can’t—Grant, please. Oh, it’s just too much.”
Grant turned to Oscar with a glare, his mouth pinched under a thin line of mustache. “She just lost her husband and you people are badgering her over a few dollars.” He put his arms around the weeping woman and led her out of the room. Oscar clenched his jaw hard, wishing he could teach thatgringoa lesson. A few dollars might mean nothing to him, but to Oscar and the Garcias, it meant a roof over their heads and food on the table. He rubbed a hand over his face and turned back to Brody, who gave him a sympathetic look.
“Not much to go on,” Brody said.
“It’s as plain as the nose on your face, boss,” Adams disagreed. “Robbery gone wrong, as you can see. Somebody thought they’d get some dough. Lester caught them and put up a fight. He lost. Whoever it was went out the window.”
Brody stroked his mustache, looking unconvinced. “And left the wallet full of cash?”
Adams shrugged. “Some people aren’t too smart.” He looked at Oscar like he wassome people. Oscar’s heart jumped in his chest.
Brody stepped toward Lester’s body. “Let me see if I follow.” Brody held out a hand and counted off his fingers. “Somebody comes up here to rob the place, thinking Lester’s downstairs carousing. He gets a surprise when Lester comes in.” He pointed to the weapons display. “They fight. Whoever it is grabs that knife from the wall and stabs Lester, then runs. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I’d bet my last dollar on it,” Adams insisted.
It was Adams who wasn’t too smart. Oscar surveyed the disarray of the bedroom. In Spanish, he muttered to Francesca, “Whoever killed him was looking for something, but not the money.”
Brody turned his gray eyes on him. “What was that, son?”
Oscar could have kicked himself. He repeated his comment in English.
Brody’s eyebrows twitched.
Adams turned on Oscar. “Look who thinks he’s Sherlock stinking Holmes.”
Oscar sealed his mouth shut. He didn’t need to draw attention when he was hiding his own secrets.
Brody didn’t comment at all but turned back to Francesca. “Anything else you can tell us, Señora?”
Oscar repeated the question in Spanish. Francesca shifted from one foot to the other, looking uncertain.
“What is it?” Even as he said it, he hoped it wasn’t something bad. Something that would get them arrested.
She hesitated, then turned abruptly and left the room. Oscar exchanged a glance with Brody, and they followed her down the stairs, her pace quick this time. She led them to the doors of Lester’s office, not far off the main ballroom. “I found it like this,” she said to Oscar as she opened the doors and stood back for them to enter.
Oscar had been in the office one time, the day Padre Ramirez had sent him for the gardening job. It looked exactly the same as it had then. Sunlight seeped through slatted blinds, throwing bars of dark and light over floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. A jewel-toned floor lamp cast colored light over a mahogany desk the size of a grand piano.
Oscar turned to Francesca, still standing in the doorway.“Qué?”
She threw up her hands. “Do you have eyes? It is a mess.” She motioned to the desk. “See this?” A cigar box was tipped over on the desk, spilling a few fat cigars. “And here?” The drawers, a few slightly open, ruffles of papers peeking out. “And see?” She went to the wall of leather-bound books. “All crooked. And thewood—someone has put fingerprints all over. I just polished it yesterday, before the party.”
