Justine spoke up. “I assume not, but was anything taken from the house?”

“Only Shelby ’s life.”

“Were either of them dealing?” Del Rio asked. “Sorry, Jack. The questions have to be asked. You know that.”

I told him no. The Cushmans didn’t use drugs and they certainly didn’t sell. I knew that Andy made enough money as a hedge fund manager to keep him and Shelby very comfortable. I was certain of that much. Andy ran some of my money, and his investing had helped me open offices all around the world, including New York and, most recently, our shop in San Diego.

“Okay, assuming Shelby’s jewelry is real, the room was trashed for effect,” Justine said. “The shot to the breasts would appear to be the mark of a sexual sadist. The other shot says ‘execution.’ So why was Shelby a target?”

“Maybe the whole point was to set Andy up as the killer,” Emilio Cruz said.

I nodded. “If that’s what the killer was trying to do, it worked.”

I told the group what Chief Fescoe had told me. The LAPD’s working theory was that Shelby’s death was a crime of passion, that Andy shot her and then called me as a cover story-a pretty good one, I had to admit.

“You’re sure he didn’t do it?” Emilio asked.

“I’m sure. I know some of you have no sympathy for Andy, but he was in love with Shelby. And now he’s our client. LAPD says there’s no match to the slugs the ME removed from Shelby’s body, and before the killer left the premises he polished the surfaces to a high shine.”

I asked Sci to reach out to the LAPD crime lab and report back on anything he could get out of them. I told Cruz to take another investigator with him to the Cushman house, canvass the neighbors, see if anything had been overlooked by the police. We were a lot better than they were, and we didn’t have to follow their procedures and rules. Plus, I could put more people on the case.