Considering the trouble her sleuthing had occasionally raised between them, A.J. was prepared for Jake to state his disapproval of her helping Lily in no uncertain terms, but he only referred to it obliquely and in passing as he questioned her again about the encounter she had witnessed between Lily and Goode in front of the Happy Cow restaurant.
“On a scale of one to ten, ten being homicidal, she was really only about an eight.”
Jake snorted and took a huge bite out of his sandwich. “Seriously, though, I think there might be people out there with much stronger motives for having wanted Goode out of the way.”
“So you said on the phone. Go on. Tell me what the Snoop Sisters uncovered.”
A.J. laughed unwillingly. “Hey, you! That’s my mother you’re talking about.”
“Believe me, it’s only the thought of having Endora for a mother-in-law—” Jake cut himself off abruptly and took refuge behind another giant bite of sloppy joe.
A.J. pretended not to have heard, but her heart jumped. She launched into a slightly disorganized retelling of Jill Smithy-Powell’s still unsolved murder.
Jake heard her out without comment until she finished her story. “Okay, so let me make sure I’ve got this straight. Goode bore an uncanny resemblance to the missing husband of a murdered Los Angeles socialite. That’s it?”
Put like that, it didn’t seem like a lot.
“I know it doesn’t sound like much to go on, but just consider the implications if it’s true.”
“Sure. But you consider this. What would be the point of Maxwell Powell killing his wife and then disappearing? He obviously didn’t kill her for her money, so what would the motive be in such a case?”
“That’s a whole different situation. How is his motive even relevant?”
“It’s relevant because you’re drawing a correlation between the two. It’s your theory that someone killed Goode in revenge for Smithy-Powell, right?”
A.J. nodded. “Although theory is too strong a word.”
“Whatever you want to call it, it only holds together if Goode can believably be suspected of killing this Smithy-Powell woman.”
“You’re the one always telling me motive is the least important element in building a case.”
“Fair enough. If someone did believe Powell killed his wife, for whatever reason, and that Goode was Powell, then it could be argued there was motive there. But given those two things, why not turn him over to the police? You said the Smithy-Powell case was still open and that a reward had been offered for information on Powell?”
“Right.”
“So why not turn him over and collect the reward?”
A.J. shrugged. “I have no idea, but there’s nothing to be lost by checking Goode’s fingerprints or whatever it is you do, right?”
“No. And we’ll do that. I just don’t want you to pin too much hope on this lead turning into anything substantial.”
“Lily’s convinced Goode’s wife killed him. She says Oriel Goode has been a guest at Yoga Meridian several times, just as she’s been a guest at Sacred Balance. She says Oriel could easily have picked up the pen that killed the reverend at any time.”
Jake conceded, “Okay. It’s possible Oriel inadvertently introduced the murder weapon into the crime scene, but that doesn’t change the fact that she has an alibi.”
“Maybe she also has a partner.”
“You mean a lover?”
“Why not?”
Jake considered it. “There’s no indication of that.”
“But?”
“I didn’t say there was a but. There’s no indication that Oriel Goode was anything but a devoted wife and helpmate. Certainly no indication that she has a lover. It’s not impossible, but that kind of thing usually turns up pretty quickly in a case like this. We’ve heard plenty about David Goode’s extracurricular activities.”
“I’ll bet. My mother and her cronies are convinced Sarah Ray was having an affair with him, though Sarah denied it. But then, she would.”
“Our Sarah? Is that why you were asking about her background?”
“That’s the one. And, for the record, she’s not my Sarah.”
“Oh boy.” Jake’s mouth quirked but he managed to control his amusement. “Sarah hasn’t turned up in our investigation so far. We’ve identified most of Goode’s romantic liaisons. None of them seem too serious.”
“I’m curious how you came to that conclusion.”
“Cached e-mails and old voice messages as well as interviews with the women involved. In most cases the novelty seemed to wear off fast for the ladies.”
“That’s interesting.”
Jake agreed. He finished his sandwich with a final bite and pushed back his plate.
“But all those affairs, however trivial for the women involved, do reaffirm Lily’s belief that no one had better reason to want Goode dead than Mrs. Goode.”
Jake nodded. “Except, and I hate to be a broken record, Oriel Goode has an alibi.”
A.J. made a face. “True.”
“If it cheers you up any, we do know that Goode had been seeing an as-yet-unidentified woman. Whoever she was, she took pains to stay out of the limelight.”
A.J. said eagerly, “It would make sense if that woman was Sarah Ray. Seducing ministers doesn’t mesh with her wholesome image.”
Jake grinned faintly. “I admit it’s always the good girls who surprise you.”
“Good. I like to keep a man on his toes.”
“Is that a yoga thing?”
Meeting his eyes, A.J. laughed.
Ten
There was a message from Andy when A.J. returned to her office. Unfortunately she didn’t have time to return his call just then as she had only enough time to get changed for Beginners Yoga.
“Mocha signed up for the weekend retreat,” Jaci told her as they passed in the hall. “That makes a total of seven students.”
“How’s Mocha doing today? Did she show up for class?”
“Today she does Pilates, but Denise said she was good as gold. It’s a whole different dynamic in that class, though. Most of the students are older.”
“True. Well, we’ll just have to monitor her. The fact that she showed up today is a great sign, and that she signed up for the retreat is even better.”
“I agree.”
They chatted another minute and then A.J. went into the studio where her students waited.
As there were two new students in the day’s session, A.J. took the opportunity to cover the basics again. It was easy to forget some of the first things you learned after you moved on to the more complicated concepts.
“These moves are deceptively simple. They’re not hard to do, but they’ll build your strength and flexibility. They’ll also help focus your inner awareness. It’s really worth taking the time to get them exactly right.”
She stepped into a standing forward stretch. She kept her knees bent as she leaned forward, her chest a few inches above her thighs.
“Keep your elbows relaxed. Don’t clamp them to your sides. This is a terrific stretch for releasing the back muscles. Keep your head relaxed. . . .”
A.J. slowly straightened her legs, letting her arms fall loose against her sides.
“Can you feel that? That release of stress and tension? We’re going to hold the position for a count of ten. That’s ten breaths. Slow and steady breaths—through your nose, if possible. Breathing is key. It may sound funny, but proper breathing requires thought, and if you concentrate properly on breathing while you’re holding these positions, you’ll receive greater benefits of relaxation.”
She fell silent, demonstrating proper breathing.
After ten slow counts she drew back into a standing position. She stretched her arms over her head and pressed her palms together prayer style.
The students followed suit with a few staggers and gasped exhales.
“Very good! Now we’re going to try a standing side stretch. Easy but so effective. St
art in a standing position.”
A.J. raised her arms overhead again, clasping her right wrist with her left hand.
“Inhale. Now exhale as you as you lean to the left, reaching your right arm past your ear, stretch—and hold for ten deep breaths. . . .”
After class ended, A.J. showered and changed quickly. Back in her office, she was dialing Andy to tentatively confirm Thanksgiving when Suze poked her head in. “Did you see that Oriel Goode signed up for the weekend retreat?”
“Seriously? Wouldn’t her husband’s funeral be this weekend?”
Suze lowered her voice. “The police haven’t released his body yet.”
A.J. shivered. “Oh.”
Suze lifted her shoulders. “I guess you can’t blame her for wanting to get away to the woods for a couple of days.”
“I guess not. Although it just seems . . .”
“Weird? I thought so, too.”
“When did she sign up?”
“She phoned this morning.”
“Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”
Suze departed, and instead of telephoning Andy, A.J. dialed the office number for the New Dawn Church. She had no idea if Oriel was taking over any of her husband’s duties, but it seemed as good a starting point for tracking her down as any.
Lance Dally answered the phone in his pleasantly impersonal voice. A.J. asked for Oriel and Lance told her that Mrs. Goode was not there but he would take a message.
“I’d have tried her at home, but I don’t have that number.”
“No,” he agreed. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure she gets your message.”
The problem with sleuthing was it required bad manners. A.J. forged on. After all, this was probably as good an opening as she’d get.
“I realize this is an awful time. You’re probably swamped with calls from the media as well as everything else.”
“Yes,” Lance said coolly. “That’s correct.”
“I’m sorry to push, but a question has arisen over Oriel’s membership.”
“What membership?”
“I’d probably better discuss that with Oriel. At least . . . you’re not her personal assistant, are you? I had the impression that you worked for the church itself.”
“That’s correct. Oriel doesn’t have a PA, although I’m happy to do whatever I can to make things easy for her at this time.”
“Will she be taking over her husband’s ministry?” A.J. threw it out at random. She had no idea what questions to ask, but she felt instinctively that if she just lobbed enough balls, sooner or later Lance was bound to take a swing.
Lance gave a kind but dismissing laugh. “No. No way. Even if she wanted to, no one could take David’s place. He was one of a kind.”
“His death must have been a terrible shock to you, too.”
“Yes.” It was clipped in the extreme. “You’ve no idea.”
“So no one is going to try and assume leadership of the church?” Now that she thought about it, usually a church had some kind of an executive board, didn’t it? Church leaders? Very rarely was it a one-man operation. Even when New Dawn Church had been under the leadership of Kirkland Bath, A.J. recalled seeing photographs of people listed as church elders in what appeared to be other positions of responsibility.
“I’m afraid I can’t answer that at this time,” Lance replied.
“This must be so difficult for you. What will you do now?”
There was a pause. “I’m sorry. I’ve got another call coming in. I’ll make sure Oriel gets your message.”
Lance hung up.
A.J. made a face at the dial tone. So much for that. Now what?
“Night, A.J.,” Simon called, passing her office.
“Night, Simon,” she called back absently.
For lack of any better ideas A.J. returned to reading what information she could find on Jill Smithy-Powell’s murder.
The circumstances of the case were simple. Jill had returned from vacationing with girlfriends in Mexico on Sunday evening, January 20th. Much later that night neighbors had heard the sounds of two people arguing and then a woman screaming. The police had been summoned, and they’d found Jill dead in the bathtub. She’d been strangled with one of her own silk scarves. The door to the house was open. Jill’s husband—and his car—was gone.
That was pretty much it. Most of what A.J. discovered was the same information recycled again and again. Jill had been successful, talented, and well liked. There seemed to be no apparent motive for her murder. She was an only child. Following her death, her parents bequeathed their considerable fortune to a number of charities for victims of violent crime.
“Are you still here?” Suze asked, looking in.
A.J. nodded. She glanced at the clock. It was later than she realized. “Is everyone gone?”
“Emma’s still here and Jaci’s upstairs, I think. Are you bringing Monster to Doga tonight?”
“I don’t think so. It’s been a long week. If we’re going camping this weekend I need to get some things done.”
“See you tomorrow then.”
A.J. replied and returned to reading the laptop screen.
Jill’s husband had naturally—as was typical with spouses in homicide cases—fallen immediately under suspicion. And the suspicion had mounted with his disappearance. But his disappearance was also the confusing element in the story. Max couldn’t inherit if he wasn’t present and accounted for. But then, he couldn’t inherit anyway because the bulk of Jill’s fortune was tied up in trusts. On top of that, she hadn’t yet gotten around to changing her will, so even the money that wasn’t tied up in trust wouldn’t go to her husband.
The best guess of investigators was that Jill and Max had fought for reasons unknown, Max had killed his wife, and then fled. But according to everyone who knew them, Max and Jill never quarreled and loved each other dearly. The friends who had vacationed with Jill had all agreed that Jill was in love with her husband and appeared to be very happy.
Granted, friends and family had agreed that Jill was both a loyal and private person and might not have revealed problems with her marriage.
Reading between the lines of the various interviews and accounts of the murder, A.J. got the impression that Jill’s father had not been overly impressed with Max and that a few of her friends had suspected him of fudging more than a few background details. But was that how people had initially felt or had those feelings been colored by Jill’s murder? Difficult to say.
There was no proof that Jill had argued with Max or that he’d even been home at the time of the murder. According to neighbors, they hadn’t seen him for two or more days. But there was no denying one thing—following Jill’s death, Max was never seen or heard from again.
He seemed to simply drop off the face of the planet.
And that truly was weird. How, in this day and age, did someone disappear? Max’s face had been plastered on television and in newspapers for weeks.
“Are you still here?”
A.J. jumped guiltily at the sound of Emma’s voice. “No. No, this is my astral projection. I’m actually home doing laundry right this very minute.”
Emma snorted. “That’s good. You’ll have something to wear when you have to hightail it back here three hours from now.”
A.J. looked guiltily at the clock. Not quite as bad as Emma was hinting, but poor Monster probably thought he was going to have to make do with dry kibbles again. “I’ll be out of here in just a few minutes.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Night, Emma.”
Of course A.J. could take her laptop home and do her research at Deer Hollow, but living alone in the middle of nowhere made her reluctant to bring murder and violence home with her.
A.J. Googled New Dawn Church again. She searched for the earliest photos of David Goode, squinting at the small and slightly fuzzy images. The earliest picture she could find was in 2003. She began scouring group pictures trying to find him in unlabeled earlier photo
s. Nothing.
But if Goode was Powell, perhaps he had still been wearing the beard when he joined up with the New Dawn Church?
She began studying the photos of young men with beards and decided that there were a few possibilities within the circle of devoted followers. Unfortunately, most of the pictures were thumbnail size, and the more A.J. tried to zoom in on them, the more blurry and distorted they became.
She decided to approach the problem from a different angle and began searching “David Goode,” but that brought up a plethora of the wrong Davids. There was the British organist, the British sculptor, the Australian bank manager, and so on and so on. There were David Goodes on Myspace and Facebook and LinkedIn. There were David Goodes everywhere she looked, but there was no record of a Reverend David Goode before 2003. All references to the Reverend David Goode were in connection with New Dawn Church. In short, the existence of the Reverend David Goode began and ended with New Dawn Church.
Which meant what?
A.J. absently drummed her fingernails on the desk, thinking. If Oriel Goode had been murdered, everything would fit together. But David Goode was the victim. As suspicious as his past—or lack of past—was, it wasn’t necessarily germane. Sure, it was possible that his death was the result of something in his mysterious background, but it was every bit as likely—probably more likely—that he had died because of the enemies he’d made since arriving in Stillbrook.
And he had made enemies. A lot of enemies for a supposed man of God.
Never mind Lily or any of the other irate yoga studio owners. There were other businesses that Goode had criticized and advised his flock to avoid. The owners of those businesses might also have taken a dim view of his continued existence.
And then there were all the women he’d had affairs with. Jake said that by most indications the women had ended the affairs—maybe they were merely flirtations?—but perhaps not in every case. Perhaps there were hurt and bitter feelings.
What about the husbands and boyfriends of these women? Not everyone was a good sport about infidelity. A.J. had not been a good sport. She hadn’t been angry enough to want to kill Andy, but it wouldn’t have broken her heart if something awful had happened to Nick. She was grateful that she had worked past that terrible period in her life. That much anger, that much bitterness, ate you up inside like a canker.
Death in a Difficult Position Page 10
