Murder on the Eightfold Path (14 page)

But while Medea might have had a macabre sense of interior design, there was nothing wrong with her culinary instincts. Dinner was fabulous.

Barley soup with porcini mushrooms started off the meal, followed by seared scallop salad with asparagus and scallions. The main course was roasted veal loin with mashed potatoes. For dessert there was bittersweet chocolate tart with coffee mascarpone cream.

Between courses A.J. heard abbreviated versions of her mother and Medea’s wild youth as fledgling actresses in the early seventies.

“Och, hen, remember that time you and Dennis Waterman . . . ?”

“And who was being linked with Patrick McNee in the press, petal?”

These recollections were followed by gales of laughter.

“What about Bradley Meagher? Is that old fox still waiting in the wings, then?”

Elysia’s smile faded. “No, no. Actually, we’re just good friends.”

Medea snorted. “Tell me another.” She studied Elysia with an unexpectedly worldly gleam in her dark eyes, but then changed the subject. “D’you ever think of going back on the stage?”

“All the time!”

More hilarity.

A.J. sincerely hoped Medea was not a murderess because the more she saw of her, the more she liked her. Yes, she was an oddball, but some of the most interesting people were.

Quietly sipping her wine, which was also excellent, A.J. observed both women. Medea, still recovering from the shock of learning that Dicky was dead, downed scotch all through dinner, growing progressively more cheerful and bright. Elysia stuck to sparkling mineral water despite the glasses of wine Medea pressed on her. A.J. experienced the usual tension of watching her mother around alcohol, but Elysia showed no sign of struggling against temptation.

Over dessert she skillfully managed to steer the discussion back to Dicky, and Medea, now well and truly lubricated, seemed to let her guard down once and for all.

“No fool like an auld fool!”

She and Elysia shared a giggle over memories A.J. suspected they would regret her overhearing. She tried not to listen too closely, but it wasn’t easy.

“He was a delicious young rascal,” Elysia admitted. “And those back rubs!”

Medea murmured agreement and A.J. resisted the temptation to cover her ears and say “Lalalalalalalala!”

“Hard to believe it’s been two whole years.” Medea sighed. “Sometimes I think . . . well. Water under the bridge.”

“Speaking of water,” Elysia said lightly, “how did you happen to pick that particular cruise?”

Medea shook her head. “I didn’t. I won it. All the arrangements were made for me.”

“That’s an awfully nice prize. What contest was that?”

Medea sketched a broad, vague gesture. “Some sort of sweepstakes thingie.”

A.J. asked Elysia, “You didn’t win your cruise trip in a contest, did you?”

“No. Everyone I knew seemed to have been on a cruise, and I was thinking it might be fun to get away for a time. I think my hairstylist recommended the cruise line.” She said to Medea, “Are you saying the sweepstakes prize covered the cost of everything?”

“It covered the cost of the cruise. I had to pay my own airfare.”

“Was there anything odd about the cruise?” A.J. inquired.

Medea shook her head. “Not that I recall. Other than falling in love and getting married, no.” She sighed nostalgically. “Wonderful nosh.”

“How exactly
did
you happen to fall in love?”

Elysia and Medea exchanged looks. “No sense of romance this younger generation,” Elysia said sadly. “A.J. uses her Palm Berry to schedule her beau.”

“I don’t use a Palm Berry, Mother. Whatever the heck that is. I use my Palm Pre. Anyway, I’m just wondering how Maddie managed to get married in a foreign country when she was only there for a cruise?”

“Eight sunny days and seven starrry nights,” Medea said. “That’s how it happened. After the cruise ended, I stayed on in Egypt until we could be married in a civil ceremony. Then I came home; I was in the middle of renovating the house. Dicky was supposed to follow when his immigration status was resolved.”

“What happened?”

“He continued to come up with excuses for why he couldnae come—meanwhile always asking me for more money. Finally, I had to face facts. The young scoundrel had no intention of joining me here.”

“So you divorced him?”

“Aye.”

“How did he take your decision?” A.J. questioned.

Medea’s mouth twisted. “He tried to talk me out of it. Then he suggested that he fly here for a visit so we could try to work things out.”

“Didn’t you want that?”

“I wanted it. I sent him the airfare, but he never booked the flight. When I taxed him with it, he said he’d had to give it to his mother for an operation.”

“The old ailing mother routine,” Elysia murmured. “He really hadn’t much imagination.”

“Shameless is what he was.” Medea was grim. “So I made my mind up and I divorced him.”

“Did he ever try to blackmail you?” A.J. asked.

Medea looked confused. “Over what?”

Good question. They had been legally married, after all. “I don’t know. Did you ever hear from him again?”

“No. That I never did.” Medea’s expression was bleak.

“Did you want to?” A.J. asked, surprised.

Medea’s gimlet dark eyes studied her. “Aye.” She reached for her scotch.

“I
believe her.” A.J. paused in the doorway adjoining the bathroom and Elysia’s bedroom. She brushed a fake spiderweb out of her face.

Elysia, sitting at the gargoyle table next to the window that looked over the back garden, briskly laid playing cards across the marble tabletop. “About what, pumpkin?”

“I don’t think Maddie killed Dicky.”

Elysia made a small, dismissive sound and set the remaining cards in the deck aside. “Of course she didn’t kill Dicky.”

“There’s no ‘of course’ about it, Mother. She certainly had motive. A much better motive than you. And she’s eccentric. She makes you look like a solid citizen.”

Elysia sniffed and turned a card over.

“It’s possible that she caught sight of him one day, realized that he had moved to this country after all—and was up to his old tricks—and in the shock of the moment, killed him.”

“In my front garden?”

“It’s possible.”

“I thought you said you believed her?”

“I do.”

“You saw the way she reacted when I told her Dicky was dead. It was obvious the news came as a complete bombshell.”

“Maybe. But she’s an actress, after all.”

“She was never
that
good an actress,” Elysia stated with ruthless candor.

A.J. shrugged, stuck her toothbrush back in her mouth, and returned to the sink to finish cleaning her teeth.

“What are you doing, anyway?” she called after she had rinsed, spat, and dried her face.

“Playing solitaire.”

“Why?”

“I often play solitaire when I can’t sleep.”

A.J. returned to her mother’s bedroom door. “Do you often have trouble sleeping?”

Elysia shrugged a bony shoulder and scooped up a couple of cards.

A.J. studied her, troubled. There were so many things about her mother that she still didn’t know after all this time. But then they had been strangers to each other for nearly thirty years.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked.

Elysia raised her brows, her attention still apparently on the cards.

“When you and Daddy split up for that year and we stayed in Stillbrook . . . what happened?”

Elysia’s hand froze on the card she was selecting. Then she picked it up, checked it, and laid it back down. “You know what happened. We decided that we had made a mistake and we reconciled.” She added firmly, “And we lived happily ever after.”

A.J. checked this against her adolescent memories. It was true that no matter how miserable her parents were, they had always been more miserable apart.

Her recollection of that particular time was especially vague. She had been the usual gawky, self-absorbed, and insecure teen—and that year had been hell on earth. Stillbrook had been the place her family came to vacation; living there, attending school there, was a very different thing. Without her father’s stabilizing presence the only person she’d had to rely on was Aunt Diantha.

But there was no point dragging up these dreary memories. The past was just that; she was committed to living in the moment.

So A.J. was surprised to hear herself ask, “What happened between you and Stella Borin?”

Elysia continued to check cards and turn them back over. At last, she said evenly, “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Your father had an affair with her.”

“With
Stella
?”

It was like being told you were related to Porky Pig—absolutely and ludicrously beyond the realm of possibility. But one look at her mother’s face told her it was not a joke.

“With the Stella Borin who lives down the road from me?” As though her mother might have confused her Stella Borins.

Elysia reaffirmed crisply, “Your father had an affair with Stella Borin.”

“How?”

Even Elysia was thrown by that one. “
How
? All the usual ways, I suppose.” She sighed. “Your father owned Starlight Farm before we married. His family used to come up for the summer when he was a boy, and when he became successful he bought Starlight Farm. That’s how we met. I was on holiday, staying with Di.” A faint reminiscent smile touched her mouth.

A.J. said tentatively, “And he knew Stella from . . . before?”

“Yes.” Elysia made a face. “I can only imagine she was very different in those days.”

Maybe. Maybe not. Stella might not have been a beauty queen, but she was kind and loyal and direct. She was also refreshingly uncomplicated, and that alone had probably held charm for A.J.’s father. Not that A.J. was foolish enough to say so.

What she did say was, “And you think they had an affair?”

“I know they did.”

“Daddy admitted it?”

“Of course not.”

“Stella admitted it?”

“Not on your life.”

“Then . . .”

“My hunches are never wrong.” That seemed to be the Master Detective’s final word on the subject. Elysia went back to cheating at solitaire. But as A.J. turned to her own room, Elysia said levelly, “I forgave your father because I knew that I—or more precisely, my drinking—was to blame. I never had any doubt that he loved me, but I was not . . . easy to live with.”

That was putting it mildly. Still, it was a shock to think of her father . . . in fact it seemed wiser to set that aside for later examination. A.J. had asked. Now she knew. It certainly explained that while Elysia could forgive A.J.’s father, she still felt strong enmity for Stella. Elysia had never been of the forgive and forget philosophy.

“Good night, Mother.”

“Nightie-night, lovie.”

Returning to her bedroom, A.J. lay down on the large canopied bed and cautiously attempted her evening asanas. She did some very careful stretching, then, tucking her knees into her chest in Happy Baby pose, she inhaled and spread her knees, gently pulling her flexed legs toward her underarms. She could feel the tug on her lower back and across her shoulders but there was no pain, just slight discomfort.

Shins perpendicular to the mattress, A.J. contracted her feet, pulling gently and creating resistance as she drew her knees toward the sheets. So far, so good.

Pressing her buttocks into the mattress, A.J. lengthened her spine. She relaxed her neck and the base of her skull. Holding the pose, she breathed deeply and evenly for one full minute.

When A.J. finally relaxed in the sheets, she felt triumphant. She’d done it. She had finally managed to successfully complete a full series of asanas for the first time since injuring her back. Yes, these were by far the easiest of the asanas, but she
was
healing. All her previous work had not been in vain. It was simply a matter of patience and care. Body and mind at peace, she closed her eyes and let herself drift to sleep.

 

“ Wake
up
!” a voice hissed against her ear. A.J.’s eyes jerked open. She was confusedly aware that she was in an unfamiliar bedroom, that it was very late, and that her mother was whispering to her.

“Wha—?”

“Shhhh! There’s someone in the garden!”

A.J. sat up fast, biting back the exclamation of pain at her unwary movement. Elysia was already over at the window, peering through a crack in the heavy draperies.

A.J. joined her, her own eyes searching the wooded darkness below. “Is he still there?”

“I think so.” Elysia shifted so that A.J. could peer out, too.

“Where?”

“By that far wall.”

A.J. stared but it was impossible to discern one distinct shadow among so many. “Are you sure?”