Ben asked, “Where is Officer Warrans?”
“Ah, the dear man is in the kitchen, eating some of Cook’s delicious naan, fresh out of the oven. She is famous for her naan.”
Ben said, “I am very sorry to tell you this, sir, but your wife was shot to death an hour ago at your store in Georgetown.”
His shock was tangible, Savich thought, thick and hard and sour. Then came disbelief, heartbreak, questions, fury—the whole gamut of emotions.
Savich looked at no one except Nandi Patil. He would have sworn, as would Ben, that Mrs. Patil was the one who’d tried to murder her husband, and that he had retaliated.
But it wasn’t so, Savich thought. No, not Mr. Patil, not this man who was suffering, his eyes blurred over with tears.
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? Murdered? What is going on in this freaking family!”
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.