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Jessie had never been on Rodeo Drive at this hour.

It was almost 7 p.m., and the street was quieter than usual. Other than a couple of restaurants, most of the businesses were closed. There was minimal traffic, and the sidewalks were virtually empty.

Jessie and Susannah were able to park right in front of the shop, which was dark, save for one light in the very back. As they got out of the car, Jessie glanced down the street. Somehow, the glamour of the street was slightly diminished by the darkened signs for nearby stores, Ferragamo, Prada, and Dior for Men.

The sign for Marcel DuBois’s place, Belle of the Ball, was also hidden in shadows. Compared to some of the other shops, the space was tiny. They reached the front door and Susannah rapped on it loudly, just as she would have in any other neighborhood.

Jessie smiled to herself at her partner’s style, which didn’t vary depending on where she was or who she was dealing with. Susannah Valentine was a bit of a loose cannon, but she was a straight shooter, and to Jessie, it was a fair trade-off.

It didn’t take long for a diminutive man in his sixties to appear, shuffling quickly toward them. He was wearing tan slacks, a white dress shirt, and a navy sport coat. He had the wispy remnants of hair atop his head and was deeply, perhaps artificially, tan.

As he got closer, Jessie noted that he looked tired, perhaps from his long flight. But his eyes, though they were tinged with red, were darting around nervously.

“We’re closed,” he said, apparently not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

“We’re with the LAPD,” Susannah told him, holding up her badge and ID. “We’re here to discuss your masks, Mr. DuBois.”

The man nodded curtly and unlocked the door.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered for no apparent reason, “I just have to be careful.”

“Why?” Susannah asked bluntly as she stepped inside, “do mask stores get a lot of break-ins by women in their thirties on Sunday nights?”

“My merchandise is quite pricey,” DuBois said huffily, his French accent now more apparent, “and my security guard isn’t here. Forgive me for taking precautions.”

Jessie groaned to herself. Not the best start to an interview. She tried to change the dynamic as best she could.

“Thank you for meeting with us here, Mr. DuBois,” she said, “we know you had a long flight. We just have a few questions for you. The more forthright you are, the quicker we can leave you.”

“Of course, I will be forthright,” he said, still sounding aggrieved.

“That’s great,” Jessie said, losing a bit of patience herself and deciding to use it to her advantage. “I just wanted to be sure because you seem kind of nervous, even after we identified who we are. Why is that?”

“I am not nervous,” he insisted. “I just don’t know what this is regarding.”

“Here’s what it’s regarding,” Susannah said, holding up images of the two masks taken after they’d been removed from the victims’ faces. “These masks belonged to Richard and Cynthia Hartley. What can you tell us about how they got them?”

DuBois peered closely at the masks for several seconds before returning his attention to his interrogators.

“I don’t know the names you mentioned,” he said, “but I think I know the origin of the purchase. May I check my computer?”

They followed him back to his office, passing glassed display cases of masks lining the walls. The back office was tiny, and they had to stand in the doorway while he typed away for a bit.

“As I suspected,” he announced proudly, as if he was Sherlock Holmes about to crack the case for them. “Those masks were purchased as part of a bulk order.”

When he didn’t elaborate, Jessie pressed him.

“Who placed the order and what was it for?” she asked.

“I’d rather not say.”

“You don’t get to ‘rather not say,’” Susannah said sharply.

The man, despite her warning, still looked torn.

“Please understand, those masks together were worth nearly $20,000. The entire order they were a part of, which included eight other masks, was worth over $215,000. I’m reluctant to alienate such a lucrative client by sending the police to harass them.”

Jessie felt Susannah stiffen next to her and jumped in before her partner blew up entirely.

“Mr. DuBois,” she said, keeping her tone aggressively polite, “did our researcher tell you what this was all about?”

She knew the answer to that question but wanted to lead the man down her preferred path slowly.

“No,” he said, “she was unwilling to provide details.”

“There was a good reason for that,” Jessie said, “But I’m going to tell you now. Your masks were found on the faces of two dead bodies earlier today.”

He gasped. She pressed ahead, ignoring it.

“So you can see why we’re interested,” she said. “We deal with lots of dead bodies in our job, but very few of them are wearing expensive masquerade ball masks. Now, that could just be a coincidence, but I kind of doubt it. So we’re going to pursue this issue. Now, you can continue to be difficult, in which case we’ll have to get a court order to check your sales records. That may require us to shut down your shop for a while. And in the end, we’ll get the information we need and end up speaking to your client anyway. Or you can cooperate, avoid putting me and my partner in a worse mood than we are already, and perhaps we’ll take your help into account when we speak to them. With that in mind, would you care to share the identity of the client who ordered those masks?”

DuBois didn’t think about it for long. He grabbed a business card from his desk and scribbled on it.

“Her name is Valentina Russo,” he said, almost mournfully, as she handed over the card. “She’s an event planner for a company called Arresting Affairs. I don’t know what events the masks are for. I asked once and she wasn’t forthcoming, so I decided not to pursue it again. I was just happy for the business.”

“Does she purchase masks regularly?” Susannah asked, taking the card.

“This is her third order in the last eighteen months,” he said. “The previous one was for a dozen masks, but the first one was much larger, for twenty-five. As they’re all hand-crafted by artists, mostly in Europe, it took some time to secure them all.”

“And she never said a word about why she purchased almost fifty super-expensive masks?” Susannah reconfirmed.

“Not once,” DuBois said. “I found that quite notable.”

“How did she pay for them?” Jessie wondered, though she had an idea.

“Always with cash,” he answered. “She arrived in a big SUV with two armed security guards. One placed the masks in a large travel trunk and then in their vehicle while the other kept watch. It was more than a little intimidating.”

“Thank you, Mr. DuBois,” Jessie said. “We’ll do our best not to upend your relationship with your client as long as they’re above board as well. Let me ask you this though, if you had to guess what these cash-bought, hand-made, jewelry-encrusted masks were for, what you say?”

“If it’s alright with you,” he said, looking rattled by the question. “I’d just a soon not guess.”

Jessie understood his reticence. His business was caught up in a murder investigation, and one of his clients seemed pretty sketchy. He might not be willing to venture a guess, but Jessie had a few ideas. And she was anxious to pay Valentina Russo a visit to get some answer