Mother-Daughter Murder Night(87)

Jack frowned. “Is this supposed to be a pep talk? I thought—”

Lana cut her off. “But I realized, there’s another way to look at this. BATNA.”

“Bat-nuh?”

Lana nodded. “BATNA. Best alternative to a negotiated agreement. It’s a term we use in business deals. When you’re negotiating with someone over a piece of land or lease terms, you ask yourself: If we can’t make a deal here, how bad is it for the other person? What other choices do they have? What’s their best alternative if they walk away?”

She could practically see her granddaughter’s wheels turning.

“Let me see if I got this right,” Jack said. “Let’s say I want to buy a boat. The owner wants to sell it now, but I can’t buy it yet. I need a few more months.”

“That’s a very specific example—”

“So maybe I offer him a higher price if he’ll wait. Therefore his best alternative to selling it to me in a few months is to sell it now but get less money for it.”

“That’s right.” Lana eyed her granddaughter. “Jack?”

“Yes?”

“Are you interested in buying a boat?”

Jack’s eyebrows raised and a small smile appeared on her face. “A sailboat. But, um, I’m not sure my mom will let me.”

“Have you asked her?”

Jack shook her head.

“Then your first negotiation is with her. What’s her best alternative to letting you buy the boat?”

“Prima . . . I don’t think of talking with my mom as a negotiation.”

“But you aren’t sure she’ll say yes,” Lana countered. “So maybe you should.”

“Um, in that case, I guess her best alternative to saying yes is just saying no.”

“And you accepting it?”

“Maybe being grumpy about it. But there’s not a lot more I can do.”

Lana looked at her. “Jack, that’s not true. You could escalate. You could threaten to do something way more reckless if she doesn’t let you buy it.”

“That seems kind of immature.”

“Okay . . . maybe you could show her that the alternative is you being unhappy. Stifled. Not able to be your full self.” Lana could see this was starting to click. “Listen, Jack. Life is a negotiation. With yourself. With others. You can’t sit around waiting for someone else to guess what you want. You have to ask for it, even if it’s scary.” Lana took a sip of her soda. “But yes, you’ve got the concept.”

“And this BATNA stuff has to do with murder how?”

“Well,” said Lana, “all these suspects could have killed Ricardo. But who had to kill Ricardo? For whom was murder the best alternative to whatever was going on?”

Jack stared at the photographs lined up on the wall. “Martin has an alibi for Ricardo’s murder, but he could have killed his dad so he could sell the ranch for money.”

“Is that his best alternative to getting money another way?”

Jack scrunched up her face. “Seems extreme. I mean, he’s a rich white guy who went to MIT. He could probably get investors in Silicon Valley without having to kill his own family.”

Lana nodded, encouraging Jack to keep going.

“But his sister, Lady Di.” Jack’s voice was more confident now. “If she was hooking up with Ricardo and things got messed up there . . .”

“Exactly,” Lana said.

“Couldn’t she just dump him?” Jack asked. “Why would she have to murder him?”

Lana was glad her granddaughter had not yet been so thoroughly let down by a man that she wanted to kill him.

“Maybe Ricardo made some kind of demand of her,” Lana said. “Or a threat. Maybe the night before he died, he told her about Verdadera Libertad, and he pressed her to support it, to give up her claim to the ranch or else he’d tell her husband. I could see how she could feel trapped, like her best alternative might be to kill him.”

Lana looked back at the corkboard. “The same could be true for Victor Morales,” she said. “He had to have the Rhoads ranch for his vision of the land trust stretching from the marina to the hills. There wasn’t some other property that would accomplish that. If Ricardo and Mr. Rhoads had a project in the works that would stop the land trust from getting it . . .”

“Victor’s best alternative would be to kill them both.” Jack looked at Lana. “But how could he get the property donated if Mr. Rhoads was dead?”

“He’d need to convince Diana and Martin. Keep waving around that letter of intent and try to pressure them into following through.”

“Do you think Victor could do that?”

Lana considered it. Even if Diana and Martin couldn’t agree, they at least seemed aligned in their determination to keep the ranch out of the land trust’s control. Maybe if Victor knew about Diana and Ricardo’s affair, he could lean on her . . . but if he held that trump card, he hadn’t pulled it yet. Lana decided she finally had a reason to return one of his many calls.

“I’ll find out,” Lana said. “Maybe Victor was less driven by his desire for the land than by his anger that Ricardo and Mr. Rhoads betrayed him.”

“But that’s not about BATNA. That’s motive. We’re back to where we started.”