“I don’t know that I’d be able to think about anything else even if we didn’t,” I admitted. “And if we’re going to be working on it anyway, we might as well get paid for it.”
Zachary whooped. I picked up the envelope and tossed it to Rachel. “Better deposit that.”
She caught it and smiled. “At this rate, we’ll be solvent in another year or two.”
No kidding.
“I will say for her,” Rachel continued, as she dug in her desk drawer for a deposit slip, “she did seem genuinely upset.”
“She did.” I was spinning left and right on my desk chair. “On Saturday, too. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t kill him. She could just be upset because she’s a suspect. Or a very good actress.”
I pulled out my legal pad and a pen. “Let’s think this through. Who, other than our client, had motive, means, and opportunity?”
Zachary sat up straighter, nearly dislodging Edwina, who had curled up next to him on the sofa. “Kenny.”
“Kenny,” I agreed, writing his name down. “He clearly wants Jacquie. He might own a gun, or Daniel might. And we don’t know what he was doing on Friday night. Or at least I don’t. Do you, Rachel? Has he mentioned Jacquie at all? Or has Daniel?”
Rachel shook her head. “Not a word. But I’m not surprised about that. Jacquie was David’s mistress, and David was my boss. Kenny would have known that I’d have opinions about him going after her himself.”
“And Daniel?”
“He hasn’t said anything either, which makes me think Kenny hasn’t told him. If he had, Daniel would have mentioned it to me. He likes to talk.”
“So Kenny’s keeping it to himself,” I said, writing that down. “That’s interesting. If it was just casual interest, you’d think he’d mention it. But if his feelings are strong enough that he’d do something drastic...”
“Like murder Nick to clear the field,” Zachary said with relish.
“Exactly.” I tapped my pen against the pad. “What about Friday night, Rachel? Do you know what Kenny was doing?”
“Working,” Rachel said, “as far as I know. He’s still bartending at that place in Green Hills when he isn’t working on getting his own place ready. But I don’t know when he might have gotten off or whether he had time to go to Bellevue that night.”
There was plenty of time between when Zachary left Nick’s duplex at eleven-thirty and the time I showed up at nine-ish the next morning for anyone to do anything. No matter when Kenny left work, there would have been time for him to drive to Bellevue and shoot Nick.
Of course, the police—or more accurately, the medical examiner—might have determined a more specific time of death, but as far as I was concerned, Kenny was still on the board for the shooting.
“The mob?” I suggested next. “Mendoza said it was Nick’s fault that they started using the Body Shop to launder money. And it must have been either Nick or Sal who involved the police. If the mob found out about that, they could have decided to make an example of him.”
“That would explain the execution-style bullet to the forehead,” Zachary agreed. “It’s got that professional vibe to it.”
I nodded. “So does my door. Except?—”
Rachel nodded. “Except wouldn’t they have used real blood if they were trying to scare you?”
It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t crossed my own mind. However?—
“I can’t imagine it’d be that easy to get a bucket of real blood, can you? And I don’t know why they’d want to scare me in the first place. All I did was find Nick. I have nothing to do with anything else.”
“You followed Abruzzi from the Body Shop to Sambuca,” Zachary pointed out. “And then you ran into the big guy in the back of the restaurant.”
“Yes, but I don’t think I behaved suspiciously on that occasion. And I wasn’t even driving my own car when I followed Gio to Sambuca. I was driving Rachel’s.”
I slanted a look at her. She made a face.
“What about Sal?” Zachary wanted to know. “Nick got his business tangled up with the mob. That’s got to make him angry.”
“You’d think. But you said yourself that they seemed fine on Friday night. If Sal was upset with Nick, surely he wouldn’t spend all that time with him, just the two of them. And Jacquie said Sal was like a father to Nick. Unless you think he was faking?”
“It didn’t look like it,” Zach grumbled, “although what do I know? They were inside and I was in the parking lot.”
