Mel said nothing.
“I suggest we tackle this case the same way we would any other. First, let’s go upstairs and put Barbara’s cigarettes where they belong. Then let’s go back home and work the case. I’ll interview you the same way I would any other victim.”
“Or suspect,” Mel interjected.
“Victim,” I repeated firmly. “We’ll make a list of everybody who was on that trip with you and find out as much as we can about each of them. And we’ll also check to see exactly what the cops down in Cancún have going for them on this case.”
“What if the killer used my weapon?” Mel asked.
“You had it with you?”
“My back-up Glock,” she said. “We were flying on Anita’s private jet. There wasn’t an issue with security.”
That gave me pause. If forensics ended up linking Mel’s 9-millimeter to Richard Matthews’s death, it was going to be a hell of a lot harder to make all this go away.
“Did you have the Glock with you all the time?”
“Not when I was swimming—or jogging,” she added. “It’s hard to carry a concealed weapon when you’re wearing a bikini.”
“Amen to that!” I said.
She smiled at me then. “Let’s go inside,” she said. “I’m freezing.”
We went back upstairs only long enough to return the cigarettes and lighter to Barbara Galvin’s top desk drawer.
As we headed back to Seattle, Mel sat on the far side of the car, holding the file folder tightly against her chest. “I tried to do some checking on the Matthews case,” she said. “What little I could find was in the El Paso papers.”
“I saw that, too,” I told her.
“So how are you going to find out what the Cancún cops have without leading them straight to me?”
“You don’t know about my secret weapon,” I said. “Whatever Ralph Ames can’t find out isn’t worth knowng.”
“But Ralph’s your attorney,” Mel objected. “Whatever he found out wouldn’t be protected…”
I handed her my phone. “Look under ‘incoming calls,’” I told her. “His number should be one of the last ones that came in. Call him and tell him you’re hiring him and that he should come by the house later this evening and pick up his retainer.”
“But I can’t afford someone like him.”
“This is too serious, Mel,” I said. “You can’t not afford someone like him. We can’t afford it.”
Mel stared at the phone. “What do I tell him about what’s going on?” she wanted to know.
Mel’s state of mind was still too fragile to tell her that I had already run up the flag to Ralph. By now he probably knew more about the case than Mel and me put together.
“Say we have a situation here and that we’re sure you’ll be needing his services.”
“Isn’t that a little vague?” Mel asked.
“Believe me,” I told her, “Ralph can handle vague better than anyone I know.”
So she made the call. Concerned Ralph might inadvertently blow my cover, I was relieved when he didn’t answer and she left him a voice-mail message.
“Who all was at the retreat in Cancún?” I asked.
She rattled off a list of names. “Anita Bowdin, Professor Clark, Destry Hennessey, Rita Davenport, Abigail Rosemont, Justine Maldonado, and me. Seven of us altogether. Then there was Sarah James, Anita’s cook, and the two pilots. The cook stayed at Anita’s place. The pilots went to a hotel. Anita had her own room. The rest of us shared.”
I remembered meeting the first four women Mel mentioned. The others were names only.
“And was there any kind of disagreement among you?” I asked. “Hard feelings of any kind?”
“No. Not at all. We spent a lot of time brainstorming about the upcoming fund-raiser. That was the whole point of the retreat. We were determined to raise more money than last year, and we did—raise more money, that is. But we had fun, too. We walked on the beach. Went into town for shopping. Did the whole tourist thing. And the food was wonderful. Sarah is a marvelous cook.”
“And did any of the women know your story—about what had happened between Sarah Matthews and her father?”
“All of them did,” Mel answered. “Anyone who was on the board, and we all were, would have known about it.”
I tried to quell the sudden flare-up of anger I felt, but it didn’t go away.
“How can that be?” I demanded. “I didn’t find out about any of it until yesterday, when you finally told me. But in the meantime, you’re saying the rest of the world already knew?”