Page 15 of In the Line of Ire

"Eightthousand dollars?" spat Garrett. "That's a lot ofmoney."

"Wedon't know the scale of this ring. It could be many times that," Iadded.

Garrettmade another note, then looked up. "It could also be the motivationfor murder," he said.

"Do youthink she stumbled across someone actually switching the purses?" Iasked.

"Maybe,or maybe she was in on it and someone didn't want her blabbing.Either way, she probably knew something and that’s what got herpopped. Listen," Garrett said, drawing us away from the store asthe uniformed cops hovered by the entrance. "I'll keep your namesout of it for as long as I can but no guarantees. The crime scenetechs will swab for prints. Are we likely to find any ofyours?"

"We allwore gloves," said Solomon.

"Good toknow. You can go home now. We'll handle things fromhere."

"But..."I started to protest but Solomon shook his head, almostimperceptibly so I closed my mouth and followed him and Delgado.Garrett turned and walked back to the store. "What?" Iasked.

"We'relucky he didn't arrest us," said Solomon. "No point antagonizinghim any further tonight."

"He'sright," agreed Delgado, "if only for the sake of familypeace."

"You twoare obviously newcomers to this family thing," Igrumbled.

"Iprefer not to tell my wife that her brother arrested me," saidDelgado. "Let's get out of here before Garrett changes his mind anddecides we contaminated his crime scene."

"Serenamight not be so pissed if you tell her you were investigating herpurse." I glanced over at Samantha and she caught my eye. She saidsomething to Garrett and he nodded. "I think we're wanted by ourclient," I told them.

"There'sreally a body in there?" asked Samantha, her eyes darting to thestore and back to us. "They said it's Alison Shore."

"That'swhat Lieutenant Graves told us too," I said. "I'm sorry. Did youknow her?"

"Yes.But not very well. Just to say hello to her. Occasionally, she'dstand in for Heavenly Handbags manager, Sherri, if Sherri couldn'tattend meetings, but otherwise our paths didn't cross very often.To think that she was killed? It's just awful!"

"We havemore bad news," said Solomon. "Before the body was found, Lexidiscovered more counterfeit purses inside the store."

Samantha's face dropped. "Oh, no! Are you sure?"

"Ninety-five percent positive," I said. "I noticed adiscrepancy in the packaging that made me think the bags wereunwrapped, replaced, and rewrapped again here."

"If thathappened to this store, it could have happened at the other onetoo. Oh, this is terrible! And now Alison is dead." Samantha turnedher panic-stricken eyes on Solomon. "Can you find out who killedher?"

"Thepolice have already taken over the investigation," explainedSolomon.

"Butthey don't care about the reputation of the mall! That is, Ibelieve they will do everything they can to find out who killedpoor Alison and that's good; but I need someone to look out for themall. We can't have counterfeiters and murderers running aroundlike they own the place! Will you help me? I'll talk it over withthe board but I'm sure they'll be happy to pay for your servicesunder the circumstances."

"Let methink it over," said Solomon.

"Whatshould I do until then? Do the police know about the counterfeitpurses?" Samantha darted a glance towards Garrett. His notepad wastucked into his jacket pocket and he nodded toward the uniforms ashe stepped into the store. The medical examiner walked over to him,shaking his head.

"We toldLieutenant Graves," I said. "The thefts combined with the moneycomponent could be a motive. We couldn't withhold that kind ofinformation from a murder case."

"Maybethe police will find the counterfeiter too? If they get scared offbecause of this, we might never identify the perpetrators or everrecover the stolen purses," said Samantha, her shouldersslumping.

"For thepurposes of our case, it's probably a good thing that the policeknow the reason we’re here. If the two cases are connected, thecounterfeiter might think that even if the police figure out whyshe was killed, they might consider Alison Shore responsible andfalsely believe that their operation hasn't been foiled," I said."There's a chance that this store's cover is blown for thecounterfeiting purposes but they don't know that we know abouttheir other operations yet."

"MaybeAlison was involved in some way," said Solomon. "She might havebeen in on it. Maybe she got jumpy, or demanded more money, and herpartner decided they had to kill her. We also don't know if sheinnocently stumbled onto something and was killed as a result. Weshouldn’t jump to any conclusions yet."

"Thisjust gets worse," muttered Samantha. We watched several people inwhite overalls and booties entering the store with crime scenekits. "I really hope she wasn't involved. Alison seemed like such anice girl."

"Thepurse over her head suggests someone thought otherwise," saidSolomon. "That seems so personal to me. We should go. Samantha,I'll call you in the morning and we can discuss the case and ournext moves. Does that give you enough time to talk to theboard?"

---