Page 21 of The Perfect Accomplice

“Okay,” the nanny said, wiping away her tears.

Jessie pulled out her phone and showed it to Hayley.

“All of these are right as far as I know,” she said. “I’ve seen them all come and go at various times. I recognize the names of the gardener, the dog walker, the masseuse, the personal trainer, the yoga instructor, and the hypnotherapist. I’ve talked to most of them at one point or another. But I know she also has a manicurist come in regularly, and an acupuncturist too. They aren’t on your list. I don’t remember their names but either Marta or Mr. Ashe might. Other folks, like the internet or utilities people listed on here, don’t come by as often, so I couldn’t help you there.”

“That’s all right,” Jessie said. “I think there’s another area where you might be able to help more though.”

“What’s that?” Hayley asked, sounding eager to please.

"We're trying to get a sense of Mrs. Ashe's relationships," Jessie explained. "The kind of stuff that outsiders wouldn't know but that you do. For example, did she mention any conflicts with any of the service providers on that list, or maybe recent arguments with friends, or even with Mr. Ashe?"

Hayley smiled ruefully. “If you knew Mrs. Ashe at all, you’d learn pretty quickly that she was always in one fight or another. I don’t say that to speak ill of her. She was just a really challenging personality. She’d have friends over for afternoon cocktails and half the time, she’d end up storming off because of some little disagreement. Mrs. Ashe was very dramatic.”

“Even with people who worked for her?” Ryan pressed.

“She was very demanding with us,” Hayley said carefully. “If people didn’t do things the way she liked, she let them know in very direct terms. She crushed me more than a few times. But eventually you get calloused to it, or at least I did. Maybe some guy who came in to fix a toilet and got screamed at might not, but if someone worked for her regularly, they knew it came with the territory.”

“What about Mr. Ashe?” Jessie wanted to know, “was her relationship with him volatile too?”

“For sure,” Hayley said. “He’s just as—difficult to please—as she was, so they would really go at it sometimes, butting heads. They didn’t care who was there or how awkward it was for everyone else. But after a while I realized that it was just their communication style. They’d have a blow up and then most of the time, it was forgotten twenty minutes later.”

“Did their fights ever get violent?” Ryan asked.

Hayley shook her head. “Not that I ever saw.”

Jessie wanted to revisit another point.

“You said that ‘most of the time’ their fights were forgotten twenty minutes later. Were there times that someone held onto something?”

Hayley shifted on the couch again, and Jessie knew there was something there.

“I guess,” she finally said. “Mr. Ashe was always getting upset about how much money she spent, and she was always calling him a cheapskate. She’s bring home a Prada bag and he’d be mad because she already had two others. She got angry because he wouldn’t pay for a decent home security system. She complained that he made millions but wouldn’t shell out a few hundred dollars for some cameras.”

“Anything else?” Jessie pressed, sensing that Hayley was holding back.

The nanny glanced down at the floor when she answered that question.

“He also didn’t like her going out to clubs and bars so much.”

“Did she do that a lot?” Jessie asked.

“Some,” Hayley conceded, as if she was the one in trouble. “I think it bothered him that she would always go to this one particular bar and stay out real late.”

Jessie had another question but before she could ask it, a door off the living room shot open, slamming hard against the wall as a man stepped out. Jessie recognized him from the research materials that Beth had sent. It was Gabriel Ashe.

He looked very little like the official photos she'd seen. In those, he was always in a suit and tie, shaved, with his curly, Brillo pad-like hair coiffed as if he'd just been to the stylist. But today, he was in sweatpants and a t-shirt that hugged his ample belly. He had 24 hours' worth of stubble, and his hair was sticking up as if he'd rubbed it against a balloon earlier.

“Marta!” he bellowed, looking in the direction of the kitchen, “I need something to eat, I can feel my blood sugar dropping as I speak. Get me some of those chicken tenders that Alfie is always going on about.”

His demeanor didn't suggest a man who was in mourning, and if Jessie hadn't already known that he had an alibi—he was in a film pre-production meeting yesterday from 9 a.m. until noon—she would have set her sights directly on him. Jamil was currently checking whether the man had made any unusual payments lately that might correspond to a murder-for-hire plot, but for now, he appeared to be in the clear legally, if not morally.

Ashe seemed to sense that there were people watching him and turned in the direction of Jessie, Ryan, and Hayley. His eyes immediately narrowed, and his face turned bright red.

“Anyone want to tell me why there are two goddamn strangers sitting in my goddamn living room like they own the place?”

He stormed over as they got to their feet. Hayley started to explain, but he shut her down.

“Not you, nanny!” he spat before turning his attention to Ryan and Jessie. “Who the hell are you?”

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