A Plague of Secrets by John Lescroart Read Free Book Online Page B

don’t need it, and now that Dylan’s gone, there’s no real reason…” She shook her head and shrugged.
    “Reason for what?” Schiff asked.
    “I mean, to keep the place. I certainly don’t have the time to go back in there and work it every day. I don’t know what I’m going to do.” By this time her eyes had taken on a brightness and shine-she seemed to be near tears.
    “Mrs. Townshend”-Schiff laid a hand on the couch between them-“we’re trying to get some idea of who might have had a reason to kill Dylan. It’s possible he said something to you, something he was worried about, a staff problem. Did he fire anybody recently, for example?”
    “No. The staff’s very loyal. He didn’t mention anything like that. I really just don’t have any idea. Maybe it was just a random shooting.”
    “Maybe,” Bracco said, “but he wasn’t robbed, so that leaves us scratching for a motive.”
    “If it’s not something to do with the marijuana,” Maya offered, “I just can’t imagine what it would be.”
    “All right, ma’am.” Bracco got to his feet. “One last quick thing. Just for the record, would you mind telling us where you were Saturday morning?”
    Clearly, the question offended Maya, but she recovered. “I went to six-thirty Mass. ”
    “On Saturday?” Bracco asked.
    “I go to Mass most Saturdays. And Sundays too. It’s not too fashionable anymore, I suppose,” she said, “but it brings me a lot of peace.”
    “Well, here’s to peace,” Schiff said. “Can’t have too much of that.” She rose from her own seat, flashed a perfunctory smile. “We may need to speak with you again at some point.”
    “That’d be fine,” Maya said, “if it will help you find whoever shot Dylan.”

    Bracco and Schiff were driving back downtown. They were stopped at a light at Van Ness Avenue, and Bracco was in the passenger seat. Schiff was talking. “So they’re friends from college, and she feels responsible for him and his family, but they don’t see each other socially and still she pays him nearly a hundred grand a year. This sings for you?”
    “Why not?” Bracco said. “You notice her house? Her husband’s doing okay.”
    “So why didn’t she just sell the shop to him? Dylan?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe she hadn’t thought of it. Maybe he didn’t ask. It wasn’t broke, so she didn’t need to fix it.”
    They rode a few blocks in silence. Then Schiff said, “Another thing.”
    “You’re really chewing on this, aren’t you?”
    “Tell me why there’s no reason now to keep the shop. It’s pulling in half a mil a year. She hires another manager, pays him half of what she paid Dylan, it’s still making a half a mil a year. I’m not a business gal, but I don’t see selling something that’s making me half a million dollars a year.”
    “She doesn’t need the money.”
    “Give me a break, Darrel. Half a million dollars to do basically nothing?”
    In the passenger seat Bracco shrugged. “She’ll sell it for five times that and it’s out of her hair forever.”
    “I’ve got to think she owed him something. Dylan.”
    “What?”
    “If she kept it open just to keep him getting paid.”
    “You’re fishing.”
    “I am, but I got a license.” They rode in silence for a half a block.
    Then Bracco looked across at her partner. “I thought you were leaning toward Jansey.”
    “I was, maybe I still am. I like to keep an open mind. But something Robert Tripp said stuck with me.”
    After a couple of seconds Bracco said, “He didn’t give us anything except the alibi.”
    “No. In fact, he did. He said Ben went and woke up his mother Saturday morning, remember?”
    He nodded.
    “Well,” Schiff went on, “we can always double-check-and I intend to-by asking the kid about it, but that’s the kind of detail I don’t see Tripp or anybody else making up. That’s the story as he knew it. And if it’s true, it means Jansey hadn’t left the house early to go down and