Suddenly, Mr. Patil clutched his heart and began wheezing for breath. They should have brought a doctor, he thought. Damn his arrogance for believing that since Mr. Patil had killed his wife in retribution, no physician would be necessary.
He was at Mr. Patil’s side in a moment. Then a voice from the doorway said, “Move aside. I am a paramedic. I will see to him.” A young woman, heavyset, her thick black hair in a long ponytail, ran to Mr. Patil and pressed a metal canister of medication to his mouth.
Mr. Patil finally sucked in a deep breath.
“He’s having a bronchospasm. For heaven’s sake, what did you say to him? What brought this on?”
“His wife was murdered tonight,” Ben said matter-of-factly to the young woman.
“Aunt Jasmine?
It began again, outrage, disbelief, fury at Mr. Patil’s near-death right here in his own living room at the devastating news brought without warning by the FBI and the WPD.
Savich let it go on for a minute or two, until he was convinced Mr. Patil would be all right. He raised a hand until everyone fell silent.
“Mr. Patil, we are all very sorry about this. Now, I need all of you to listen to us.” Savich nodded to Ben.
Ben said, “I regret to tell you, sir, that we believe your wife was involved in hiring those two people who tried to kill you, posing as robbers. Agent Savich killed one of them and the other is in jail, refusing to say a word. When the first attempt failed, we believe she herself came to the store at closing time and shot you in the back.”
Nandi Patil stared blankly at them, shaking his head back and forth. “No, this cannot be true, it cannot. Jasmine has loved me forever, even more than I loved her, truth be told. She was a vivid light, no, she could not have tried to murder me.”
“I’m very sorry, sir,” Savich said. “When she was murdered tonight, both Detective Raven and I believed you were responsible, that you had found out she’d tried to kill you, and it was your vengeance.”
Nandi Patil gaped at him. “No, no.”
Savich turned to face Krishna Shama. “You and Mrs. Patil were having an affair, Mr. Shama. We are aware of that. Did you want to end it? Why? Because of the closeness of your uncle and Mr. Patil? Because Jasmine was so much older than you were? Why, Mr. Shama?”
Shama looked from Ben Raven back to Savich. “Yes, Jasmine and I were lovers, for nearly a year. I never wanted to end our affair; I never wanted to leave her. I loved her, but now she is dead. I think Mr. Patil killed her.”
Tears rolled down Mr. Patil’s face. He’d been rocked to his soul in the past ten minutes. His eyes looked blank with shock.
Krishna Shama said, “Listen to me. I did not kill Jasmine. I did not know she had tried to murder Mr. Patil. I did not know.”
Savich turned to Mr. Urbi. “You and Nandi have been friends since you were children. You are older, though, aren’t you, sir?”
“By twelve years. A lifetime of difference in our ages,” the old man said. He was sitting perfectly still, not even blinking.
“You love Nandi like a younger brother, don’t you, sir?”
“Yes, of course. He is very important to me. His near death filled me with grief.”
“And then you discovered your nephew and Jasmine Patil were lovers. They had betrayed both you and Nandi. You were furious, weren’t you, sir?”
“That is right. When Detective Raven questioned us after the robbery, he left me with doubts, merely suspicions—glances, phrases that had passed between Jasmine and Krishna that I realized I had chosen to ignore. And when Nandi was shot a second time, it all became clear to me. To be absolutely sure, I paid a large sum of money to that criminal, Mr. Wenkel, through his lawyer, to confirm to me privately that it was Jasmine who had hired him.
“Nandi isn’t of my flesh and blood, but he is my brother in all ways that are important on this benighted earth. He did not realize, could not see what she had become. Had I told him she had betrayed him, that she continued to betray him with my own flesh and blood, this worthless jackal sitting here all proud beside me, Nandi would not have believed me. As you see, he will never believe she tried to have him killed for his money. She and the jackal would have won.” He waved a veiny hand toward his nephew.
The room was utterly silent now. No one seemed to breathe.
Ben said, “You waited until Mr. Patil came home from the hospital, waited until you were certain he could survive the blow, and then you hired someone to kill her, to end it all, to avenge your friend’s betrayal by his wife.”
Mr. Urbi only nodded. He looked up and gave them both a very sweet smile. “I know what your district attorney will want to do with me, but I am too near to death now to worry about that. I am not worth spending the taxpayers’ money on a trial.”
“Uncle, no!”
“Be quiet, Krishna. You have dishonored me; you have dishonored my closest friend in the world. I will never speak to you again. Do you understand that you are nothing now to me? That you are as worthless as dung?”
Krishna Shama bowed his head.
Again, the room was perfectly quiet.
Mr. Patil said, “You, Krishna, how could you do this? I don’t understand. But, then, I am an old man. It is true that I have only the memory of lust and what it leads men and women to do that dishonors them and is so very hurtful to those they supposedly care about. Jasmine, I knew I’d lost her desire, but I did not mind all that much. Your uncle took vengeance, and I am sorry about that.” Mr. Patil turned to his friend. “Amal, I would not have killed Jasmine for betraying me, even for trying to kill me. What I would have done is divorce her, made certain she did not have a single penny, and I would have kicked her out into the street. Honor, Amal? Killing her has brought me back my honor? Hardly. You have brought only death into my house.
“I would like to be alone now, if it is all right with you, Agent Savich and Detective Raven. I would like not to have to look upon either of these men’s faces again. As it is, I will still see them in my dreams, and that is a great pity.”
Savich took Mr. Patil’s hands in his. “I am so sorry about all of this, Mr. Patil.”
Mr. Patil raised pain-deadened eyes to Savich’s face. “I know that you are. You are that kind of man.”
CHAPTER 80
Inspector Vincent Delion was curious but was content to sit back in an elegant wing chair worth more than his son’s used Honda and stare out the huge glass window of Clifford Childs’s living room at the view of San Francisco Bay. And watch Agents Cooper McKnight and Lucy Carlyle both turn their laser intelligence loose on Sentra Bolger.
Sentra Bolger sat on a lovely blue-patterned brocade sofa, her very nice legs crossed, a cup of green tea in her hand. She was wearing very high heels with open toes, showing off her lovely French pedicure. She looked expensive all over, Delion thought, in a long black gown that left one white shoulder bare, her dark hair pulled back in a polished chignon. She also looked like the queen of her kingdom, her consort guarding her back.
Clifford Childs stood behind her, his hand resting possessively on her bare shoulder. Childs said, impatience making his voice sharp as glass, “We agreed to see you on short notice, but we are expected shortly at Davies Hall. The symphony performs Mendelssohn this evening, and Sentra is very fond of Mendelssohn. I would like to know what this is all about, why you wish to speak to her.”
Coop pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. The movement brought only a slight pull in his side, better every
