April had a feeling that the hair under her hat was dyed red and she vibrated with excitement.
'Do you think I have any recourse?' Jo Ellen was saying.
'I'm here to talk to you about something far more serious than surveillance in your workplace.'
'But I love my work. I've increased the business over a hundred and fifty percent since my aunt passed on. The acquisition was a robbery, a terrible thing. And no one cares.'
'Maybe I can help you with it,' April suggested.
'Oh, would you? That would be such a blessing. It's so hard to work with people spying down your neck. I can't even set my own salary anymore. They cut my commissions in half—just the opposite of everything they promised. My aunt thought we'd be able to keep the house, but her death taxes took it all. I don't know what I'm going to do.' She drummed her fists on the arms of her chairs.
'What is your agreement with Hunter?' April asked. The way the woman looked and acted, it was surprising they'd kept her on for a single day.
'They said I could stay as long as I wanted, but now they're asking me to leave by Labor Day. Do you think I'd have an age discrimination case?'
April shook her head. She didn't know if Jo Ellen Anderson had any case. 'I'm here to find the person who killed Maddy Wilson and Alison Perkins.'
'Well, I know a lot about them,' she acknowledged, 'but how would I know who killed them?'
'I think you may know something about it.'
She looked wary. 'Why would you think that?'
'You live in the neighborhood. You talk to people every day. You may have seen, or possibly even know, the killer.'
'Impossible.'
'What time did you come into the office?'
'Oh, my, which day? I have a memory deficit about these things. I'm not sure, Monday— sometime between eight thirty and nine. That's my usual time. Does that help?'
'Alison Perkins lived across the street from you—'
'Yes, she came to tea at my house. She was going to help me with my book.'
'Your book?'
'Yes, I'm an author. My book is about all the people I've helped in my time. You may not know that Princess Diana was an au pair over here. I placed her with her family, so of course she invited me to her wedding. My book is going to be a big best seller.'
'I'm sure it is. But right now we're looking for a
killer. Alison Perkins called you yesterday morning. What did she want?'
Jo Ellen clicked her tongue. 'Oh, they were leaving for the Vineyard soon. She needed to change girls.'
'Why did she need to change girls?' April watched the brim of the hat tip up to the ceiling.
'Why is the sky blue? Because Alison was never satisfied. She wanted the perfect girl. No girl is the perfect girl. You can try to train them to suit the households, but you can't train the households to keep them. People like Alison change their staff because they can. I've been very successful in this business because I come from quality myself; I know how wealthy people think. I try to pass this knowledge on to my girls, but it doesn't always help them.'
'Your notes on Remy and Lynn seem unusually detailed. Were they a problem?'
'I told you, I work with them on their improvement.'
'And it sounds like you enjoy moving them around. Don't you get double fees if they have to be replaced?'
'Oh, that doesn't mean anything to my clients. They can afford it. I know what their needs are. I can always fix whatever goes wrong in their houses,' she said airily.
'It sounds like you may have had a hand in making things go wrong,' April said.
'No, no. Don't try that. I've never had a complaint about my services. I know how to handle things,' she retorted angrily. 'Are you here to make trouble for me?'
'Your employees were telling you what was going on in the houses, and you exploited that information to encourage turnover,' April said straight out.
'They told me a little, here and there, but I never exploited anybody. I have a great sensitivity to my insider position. Knowledge is power, you know, and you have to be careful with power.' Jo Ellen adjusted her hat.
'Somebody killed your clients,' April said angrily.
'Yes, I could put it in my book.' Jo Ellen looked pleased. She didn't seem to get the gravity of the situation.
'Let's start with the hiring history of Mrs. Wilson,' April told her, settling in for a long interview.
'You mean everyone who worked for them? That's a lot of people.' She made a face.
'Did anyone work for both Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Perkins—a cleaning lady, somebody who had keys to both houses?' April watched her face.
'Oh, I don't know. They have to return the keys when they leave. That's a rule,' Jo Ellen said flatly.
'To you?' April asked.
She put her finger to her lips. 'I do have some keys,' she admitted.
April glanced at Woody. 'Does anybody else have access to them?'
'No, of course not,' she said indignantly. 'I'm very careful.'
April let that pass. 'Is it unusual that Remy and Lynn were both fired at the same time?'
'In this business anything can happen. Sometimes there's a stealing issue.' Jo Ellen screwed up her puffy face some more. 'My high-net-worth clients have so many possessions, they can't keep track of them all. They buy a dozen sweaters and leave six in the bag. They shop at Tiffany and don't remember what they bought. They misplace cash and think it's stolen. 1 get calls all the time. 1 have to calm them down, but sometimes the staff gets blamed anyway. It's a vicious cycle. People get hired; people get fired. It's all part of the game.'
'But Remy was fired because of her relationship with Mr. Wilson,' April reminded her.
'Well, yes. That's another reason. Girls these days.' She shook her head and looked sad.
For someone who had been so keenly interested in every intimate detail of Maddy's and Alison's lives, Jo Ellen was remarkably uninterested in their deaths. She was not connecting. April changed the subject.
'What was the incident that caused Hunter to put in surveillance cameras?' she asked finally.
Jo Ellen stared at nothing for a moment. 'I have no idea.' Then she changed her mind. Her face deflated a little. 'I believe someone was assaulted,' she said slowly. 'But 1 can explain everything.'
April turned the page in her notebook. Now she was getting somewhere. 'Who was assaulted?' April asked Jo Ellen.
'One of the women. She was in late. 1 don't remember the details.'
'I'd like to talk to her.'
'Well, you can't talk to her. She isn't with us anymore,' said airily.
'Do you have a telephone number for her?'
'I really couldn't answer that.'
April gestured to Woody. He nodded and left the room to start grilling the employees. Twenty minutes into the interview and already armed with a number of Jo Ellen's conflicting statements about several key questions, April began to zero in on the difference between accepting gifts from clients and stealing from them. And meddling in their lives so she could restaff their houses again and again for the fees. Jo Ellen didn't seem to understand what was wrong about it.
'The Duchess of Windsor was one of my best friends, rest her soul,' she said. 'She gave me one of her own bracelets as a token of her appreciation for everything 1 did for her.'
'I'd like to see it,' April said, and she planned to do that very soon. Her cell phone rang, and she picked it out of her pocket. 'Lieutenant Woo Sanchez.''
'It's Barry Queue. 1 have the warrant,' he told her.
She glanced at her watch. 'I'm on my way. What do you say, twenty minutes?'
'The traffic's bad. Call it thirty. 1 called Sergeant Gelo. She isn't picking up.'
'Well, it doesn't matter. She can stay at the shop for now,' April assured him.
'She's not at the shop,' he said.
