Silence Of The Hams

people’s personal freedoms.
    His causes also made him highly visible. Which, the more Jane thought about it, could have been the basic motivation. Maybe his real desire was simply to show off and garner lots of attention. Of course, Jane’s view of him now was highly colored by knowing about his nasty secret file cabinet. She simply couldn’t believe that somebody who was basically immoral could sincerely espouse moral causes.
    Trying to be fair, if only in her own mind, Jane reminded herself that there was no proof that Stonecipher had ever made use of the files. But even if he hadn’t used them yet, why would a person keep such things if he didn’t intend to gain from them eventually?
    Emma certainly hadn’t hesitated once Stonecipher was dead. Maybe Stonecipher kept the files just because he liked “having things“ on people. Like the miser counting his coins. But Emma had almost instantly seen a way to invest those coins and turn them into more capital. But just how successful could that have been? If Jane’s own file was an example, Em-ma’s ploy would have failed. Stonecipher had speculated that the Jeffry pharmacies might be involved in some sort of fraud, but he’d been wrong, so there was no blackmail potential in it.
    If Emma hadn’t died and Jane had met with her, Jane would have been offended, but definitely wouldn’t have parted with a penny. But she certainly hated having a file of any sort being batted around as part of a murder investigation. Maybe Emma had better (or worse, depending on your viewpoint) things about the other people she’d intended to get her hooks into. That might have accounted for why she was content to see Jane late in the day.
    The phone rang. “What are you doing?“ Shelley asked.
    “Looking at the rain. Thinking about things I should be doing and don’t want to.“
    “Paul’s taken the kids to the movies and I’m rattling around by myself. Want some company?”
    She arrived a few minutes later with a plate full of iced sugar cookies. “I’m here in self-defense,“ she said. “I’d have eaten them all by myself if I’d stayed home.”
    Mike came in as they were settling down with coffee and cookies and helped get rid of quite a few of them. He went upstairs, taking a couple more to Katie and Todd. “See how easy it was to solve that problem?“ Jane asked, looking at the decimated plate.
    “Not really,“ Shelley said. “There are another two dozen at home. I got carried away and tripled the recipe. Speaking of problems, I’ve been thinking about Emma. And money.“
    “Oh?“
    “We’ve been obsessing on the blackmail thing. Assuming that if she was blackmailing someone, that was why she was killed.“
    “Sounds like a good assumption to me,“ Jane said.
    “It is. But it’s not necessarily the only possible reason. Look at how many people had an interest in the money the law firm generated. Stonecipher, his wife, his partner, his assistant. Even Patsy is involved in a peripheral way since she handled the billing. Now two of those people are dead. One from natural causes but under very odd circumstances, and one was murdered.“
    “Yes,“ Jane said, “but what does this lead to?“
    “I’m not sure. I’m just thinking out loud. The talk is that the Stoneciphers paid too much for their house. You can tell to look at it that they invested a fortune into it. And now it looks like Rhonda is trying to get her hooks into Tony Belton—the remaining lawyer in the firm—and he’s resisting. So, couldn’t there be a big money problem? Suppose, for example, that the firm was bringing in huge amounts, but Tony Belton was really generating all the business instead of Robert. If Rhonda was already sick and tired of her husband, it might account for her filing for divorce, then trying to grab on to Tony.“
    “Right. But what would any of this have to do with Emma?“
    “I’m not sure, except that she’d apparently been Stonecipher’s mistress for years. She must have had dirt on Rhonda. And she would have been bright enough to know who was the real source of the firm’s income. Maybe she wanted to latch on to Tony, too. Couldn’t Rhonda have been afraid of Emma wrecking her plans?“
    “So Rhonda killed her to get rid of the competition?“ Jane asked.
    “It’s possible, isn’t it?“ Shelley took a cookie and munched for a moment before adding, “Unlikely. But possible.“
    “I’d vote for unlikely, if not downright impossible.