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“No facial hair, nothing like that?” Arnett asked.
“No, not that I remember.”
Jo glanced around at each of them. “Anything else? Even if it seemed insignificant at the time? Did Naomie have any enemies? Anyone with a grudge?”
They all shook their heads. “Naomie spent her life helping people,” Chris said. “There wasn’t any reason for anybody to be upset with her.”
Jo had yet to meet the person who had no enemies, whether known to them or not. “No employees she had to fire, or business competitors?”
Chris turned to Julia, who shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“Any recent stresses at work or elsewhere?” she asked.
Chris’s eyes scoured the table. “Work was always stressful, but nothing in particular. In fact, yesterday she put her work mostly aside to arrange the memorial for Madison.”
“A memorial service? When?” Jo shot a quick look at Bob, distracted from the bomb she was about to drop. A memorial service would be an excellent opportunity for them to do some surveying; killers sometimes came to such gatherings and might well do so here.
“Tomorrow evening, isn’t it?” He glanced at Chelsea and Julia for confirmation.
“Yes. She decided to hold it in the classroom at Triple-B,” Chelsea said.
“I know this is a strange request, but is there any way you can still hold it?” Jo asked. “We’ll want to attend so we can watch who comes and what they do, and we’ll send a tech in beforehand to install some hidden security cameras.”
Julia answered, voice thick. “From what she told me, all the arrangements have been made. We can use it to honor both of them.”
Chelsea wiped away two new tears. “If you have a spare key to the classroom, I can be there to oversee the setup.”
“I don’t,” Julia said. “But I can make sure someone lets you in.”
As Arnett jotted the details, Jo returned to the main subject. “Naomie left me a message earlier about a problem at work. Some money that had been fraudulently paid out.”
Julia stiffened, and shifted forward. “What money?”
Jo carefully considered her wording. “She claimed Madison applied twice for a grant she was only entitled to receive once. There was some missing paperwork that led her to believe the disbursement wasn’t accidental.”
Julia’s face clouded over. “I can’t believe Madison would do something like that. How much?”
“Two grants of a thousand dollars each.”
“There’sno wayshe’d do that,” Chelsea cried out.
“Madison needed money badly,” Jo said.
“That doesn’t mean she’d steal.” Chelsea’s face screwed up indignantly. “And two thousand dollars? How could that possibly be related to their deaths? Who would kill over two thousand dollars?”
Julia shot Chelsea a scathing glance. “For a lot of people, two thousand dollars is the difference between life and death.”
Chris looked alarmed at the news. “And if someone killed them because of it, it’s not because of the money, it’s because they don’t want to be caught and sent to jail.”
Jo continued to watch their faces carefully as she continued. “Were you aware Madison was working several nights a week at a strip club called The Velvet Volcano?”
Chelsea appeared genuinely stunned by this news. Chris looked confused. Julia’s face went blank.
Jo zeroed in on Julia’s reaction. “Did you know?”
She shook her head stiffly. “I didn’t. But it makes sense, given her mother’s medical needs.”
“But she was pregnant,” Chelsea said, expression stunned.
