“She gave it to me.”
“Alyssa?”
“Alyssa,” said Leone.
“Alyssa,” said Big Ed. He’d just killed the fly on the table and the name, her name, got his attention, brought him back. Her beautiful name. Soft and feminine, like her. He wanted to smile. It was so hard to smile.
Hy looked at him, surrounded by the photographs of women. Ed saw where she was looking.
“My women.” Ed finally achieved the smile he’d been working on.
Hy smiled back.
“All your women?”
He looked confused.
They were – and they weren’t. There was one other thing Big Ed lost in Vietnam, and he didn’t get back. His fame, looks, and money lured the women, but it was Leone who had them while Ed watched.
“Our women,” said Leone. He was Ed’s eyes and ears, hands and legs, and…
Ed kept grinning. “Our women,” he agreed. “All but one.”
“All but one,” said Leone.
There was no photograph of Alyssa.
“Alyssa,” Big Ed called out.
“Alyssa.” It stuck there in Leone’s throat, and he had to say it again to get it out.
“Alyssa.”
Like a broken record, thought Hy. Alyssa. These two men wanted her. So had Lord. That scrawny mean-spirited mouse with three men lusting after her. What was her secret?
“Why did she give the ring to you?”
“She didn’t want it. She threw it away.”
“Threw it away?”
“Tossed it across the room.”
“When?”
“When she found out Lord had married Suki.”
“But she kept her wedding ring.”
He shrugged. “I know, but she didn’t want the engagement ring. She said it was cheap and she had never liked it.”
“And you did?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He shrugged again.
“Love,” said Ed. Was it a moment of clarity? His blank eyes said it wasn’t. He was still in some dream about Alyssa that had nothing to do with their conversation.
“He’s right,” said Leone. “Love. She had worn it, so I kept it with me always on a chain around my neck, to have her near me.”
“Then how,” Hy returned to her original question, “did it land up on the shore next to Lord’s body?”
Leone repeated his original answer.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Because you don’t know? Or is it something you can’t say?”
“I can’t tell you,” he said again.
“Is it your secret – or someone else’s?”
He didn’t answer.
The fog did not clear off early, as Harold MacLean had predicted it would.
It hung over The Shores, and most of the rest of Red Island, in a thick grey curtain with a layer of lighter wisps trailing across it. The surf was no longer pounding at the causeway, and it might have been crossed, if a driver could have seen where it was.
Nathan claimed he could. He couldn’t see it, but he knew where it was, and was prepared to prove he could put his mind over matter and cross it today.
“It’s a straight line,” he said. “I can do it.”
“No, you will not.” Lili was the only one he would listen to. Besides, there was no reason to cross the causeway, and every reason to stay here with her, in their cosy love nest. That is what the big rambling old house felt like with the touches Lili had given it. Candles on the living room table, which shone with a paste wax polish. Pretty bits of material – found, Nathan knew not where – draped across the old, worn couch.
Lili was twirling the five-hundred-pound barbell in her delicate hands, not a muscle visible in her slender arms.
Nathan came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist. With another towel, thick, white, freshly laundered that morning by Lili, he was rubbing his hair dry. She’d slipped out of bed and gone all domestic on him. His jeans and t-shirts were stacked neatly on the dresser in the bedroom. He finished drying his hair and dropped the towel to the floor. His hair, short and stuck up all over, was ready to face the day. So was he, with a big grin, and a warm feeling all over him from the night before.
Lili stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. He leaned his head down and nuzzled her neck. She was still holding on to the five-hundred-pound weight in one hand. He took it from her, and tossed it on the floor. He pulled Lili to him, the towel around his waist fell off, and he was ready now, not for the day, but to begin last night all over again.
The front door opened.
“Nathan?” Her call echoed through the house.
His mother.
Leone stood there, looking sorrowful, Hy thought.
She had thought him menacing on the dance floor, but now he appeared a pathetic creature.
“If you need to talk, need to tell someone, something…”
He looked up with a half-smile, gratitude in his eyes. No one had ever offered him anything. He was the giver; Ed and Alyssa the takers.
Hy shrugged, turned, and left. Ed was still smiling, reluctant to let the expression go once he’d managed it. Leone was in turmoil. What he had done he had done for her – and still she did not love him. Not him, not Ed, not Lord. The knowledge did not stop him from loving her and believing that she would come to love him. He dreamed nightly of the day they would be together, the day she would realize they were meant to be. Just the two of them. Ed was the carrot. A rotting carrot, but, nonetheless, the lure that would capture Alyssa.
Leone was convinced she had healed his damaged heart the day he met her. That was when it had begun to beat, truly beat.
They were on the television set for the first infomercial for Mind Over Muscle. Big Ed, in robust health, but for the loss of his limbs, sat behind a desk and talked of the miracle of his survival in Vietnam, a war hero selling a system based on his own miraculous recovery. A sure seller. Only there was the problem of the missing legs, which no one could mention, because Ed’s mind could feel that the legs were there, but would not allow him to see that they were not. The prosthetics he considered merely braces to give him strength. The producer was happy to show close-ups of Ed’s head – front and back – with the wound slicing down the middle, where only white hair grew, making him look like a skunk from behind. The producer didn’t mind showing Ed’s torso either – but wanted full-body shots. It was a muscle-building system after all.
Enter Lance Lord, out of work and in great shape, hired as a body double.
Enter Lord’s wife Alyssa. The men on the set couldn’t take their eyes off her. She’d floated in, a vision, her smile caressing each man individually, her eyes lighting on and lighting up theirs. That she was small, mousey, insignificant, they didn’t see. She projected a different physicality when there were men around. No longer insubstantial, but transformed into every man’s dream of a woman, no longer skinny, but achingly slender; her hair not a frizzy mass, but a golden halo; her eyes not glinting with purpose, but shining with possibility. It wasn’t easy to do. She reserved it for entrances and exits and special moments. It was her own private version of Mind over Muscle, having nothing to do with muscle, but everything with appearances. It was so effective, men rarely noticed she wasn’t good-looking.
While she and Leone watched the taping from the sidelines, Leone gave her his heart. She collected it up along with Lord’s, and added Big Ed to the trio by the time they finished the first day’s taping.
It was always good, thought Alyssa, to have an extra man in your pocket. Now she had two. She was content with Lord at present as he made no demands on her. She wasn’t sure what Ed was or wasn’t capable of, but she would find out if she needed to know. As for Leone, there were two strikes against him. He wasn’t rich like Ed was or comfor
tably off like Lord. And he exuded sexuality. That she didn’t like.
Jamieson pulled the covers off her head and squinted out the window at the thick grey fog. What a godforsaken place this was – The Shores, the whole island. She tried to sit up, and was walloped by pain across the back and then the front of her head. The migraine. She slipped back down on the cot, pain on both ends, her ankle throbbing and a deep buzzing in her brain.
She called for Murdo. Her voice was weak, the effort of making even such a slight sound stabbed at her head.
There was no response. He was fast asleep and, curiously, not snoring. In his dreams, he was eating April’s white cake with the rich butter icing.
“Show me.”
Nathan and Lili were at the kitchen table, having vacuumed up the better part of the fresh loaf of bread that Annabelle had brought them.
She was unloading a shopping bag full of groceries. Her homemade jam and other preserves. Beets. Pickles. Chester Gallant’s cheese. Tomatoes. Her garden in back of the house was exploding with them – and carrots, lettuce, potatoes. She’d even dared to bring a zucchini. She wouldn’t have for Nathan, but she expected Lili would like it.
She’d known there would be next to nothing in Nathan’s fridge, except maybe a bottle of Gatorade and some left-over fast food. She’d been right. She wrinkled her nose as she removed food past its best-before date and loaded in the fresh stuff.
“All organic,” she announced as she closed the door and put the jars in the cupboards.
Lili smiled thanks. She’d made tea. Organic green tea. Annabelle had coffee with Nathan.
The pair had hurriedly pulled on some clothes when Annabelle arrived, and come down to the kitchen before she could come up. Their cheeks were flushed. It was obvious what they’d been up to.
The three ate and drank – and then the young lovers began to argue. Their first argument. It was all nothing, really. How nothing could move mountains. All about Mind Over Muscle. It was what had kept Lili awake all night.
“There’s something to it,” she said.
“It’s a bunch of bunk,” said Nathan. “A scam.”
“But look at Ed Bullock’s life. Look what he did.” Annabelle refilled their mugs, poured more tea for Lili.
Nathan stared into his mug, as if he might find the answer there.
“Yeah, it was pretty crazy what he did. What he was able to do. I just don’t believe that.” He jerked his head up the stairs, the five-hundred-pound barbell poised at the top.
“Do you suppose if it rolled down, it could kill someone?” asked Annabelle, with a grin, so like her son’s that it startled Lili.
Lili’s response was as serious as the look in her eyes.
“Maybe,” she said. “You never know. If that rolled down the stairs at someone – and that person believed it weighed five hundred pounds, then, yes, they could die.”
“From being hit by something as light as a feather?” Nathan looked at her in disbelief.
Lili sipped her tea and nodded her head. “If they believed.”
Annabelle stirred more cream into her cup. “Mind over matter.”
“Yes. I think it works both ways.”
And then Lili said she could move objects with her mind.
That’s when Nathan said, “Show me.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Alyssa was packing. She wasn’t planning to leave today – not in this fog, the causeway obscured, the ferry not running. But soon. All this would come to a head soon. She knew it would. Leone would admit to it. He’d said he would. And even if he didn’t, she was sure they’d find him guilty. All the evidence was there.
As soon as they figured that out, and it would be soon, she’d leave The Shores.
She’d promised to take care of Ed. She hadn’t mentioned that she planned to marry him, then put him away. Leone didn’t need to know that. He’d be in jail, and it would be finished. When she left in a day or two, she would not return. When the legalities were sorted out, she would be free of Lord, Leone, and Big Ed, and their bothersome declarations of love. And she’d have Ed’s millions. So many more millions than Lance, with no other wife laying claim.
There was only one person Alyssa loved wholly and completely. Herself.
“You said you could move a table.”
Lili laughed. “Not this one. I don’t think I could move this one. It’s too big.”
“Matter is matter. Why should it matter how big?”
“I think it does. And as long as I think so, I won’t be able to do it.”
Nathan shrugged. “Fair enough.”
They got up from the big oak table and drifted into the living room. Annabelle cleared the dishes, rinsed a few, and followed them in.
“There.” Lili pointed at a side table by the couch. But when she touched it, she shook her head.
“What’s wrong?” Annabelle was wiping her hands dry on a dishcloth. It felt clean, not greasy. She looked at it, puzzled. Then smiled. Lili. Good for Nathan in more ways than one.
“Plastic. I’m not sure it would work with plastic.”
“It matters what matter it is?” Nathan enjoyed poking fun at her. She didn’t mind.
It seemed to Annabelle that Lili had been a very serious girl a day ago, but was opening up in the glow of Nathan’s love. Comments that might have made Lili bristle a day ago, today just made her smile.
She smiled now, a calm smile, indulgent.
“This will do,” she said, picking up a wooden tray from the coffee table.
“But it’s only a tray.”
“It’s wood. And if I move it with my mind, does it matter that it’s a tray?”
He shrugged, reluctant. “I guess not.”
“Now, I want you to sit down on the floor.”
That was, Gus would say, “easier said than done” in Nathan’s case. He didn’t quite know what to do with his long, gangly legs. He couldn’t pretzel himself like Lili. She was down on the floor and all wrapped up in the lotus position in an instant, as if it were her natural state. Annabelle was not so spry, but after yesterday’s yoga session she made a respectable descent.
“Now place your fingertips on the tray. Hands high, as if you were going to play the piano. Touch lightly. No pressure. Just barely touch it.”
Annabelle and Nathan did as she said. Both pairs of hands poised over the tray, fingertips skimming its surface. Lili placed just the tip of her baby finger on the tray.
“Shut your eyes. We’re going to concentrate on sliding the tray away from me, so it would be impossible for me to be physically pushing it. You’ll be able to feel it move with your fingertips, but remember, no pressure.
“Try to concentrate with me, and move the tray to the left.”
Lili emptied her mind. Filled it with the tray. Saw its movement in her mind. Willed it to move.
So did Annabelle.
So did Nathan, in his way.
The tray didn’t budge.
If anyone from the village had walked in on them, they’d have thought they were nuts. Annabelle thought that Lili had already accomplished a miracle just by getting Nathan to be still for more than a minute. They continued to sit, all three of them silent, eyes closed, concentrating on moving the tray.
The tray did not budge.
Annabelle’s concentration began to wane. She wondered if Nathan was able to concentrate. Lili was struggling, struggling. She’d only done it a few times before, with like-minded people. It hadn’t been this hard. Why was it now? She closed her eyes tighter, concentrated harder.
The tray shifted.
“Wow!” Nathan’s eyes popped open.
“It moved.” Annabelle’s eyes were open, too.
Lili just smiled, her small smile, calm and confident.
“Of course,” she said. “I told you it would
. But it wasn’t easy. Show me your left hand, Nathan.”
He lifted his right hand.
“That’s why it was difficult,” she said.
Nathan looked puzzled. Knowledge shone suddenly in Annabelle’s eyes.
“I said move the tray to the left,” Lili explained. “But you don’t know your right from your left. That means you were concentrating on moving it to the right. Annabelle and I had to struggle to make it go in the correct direction.” Triumph lit up her eyes. “But it did.”
Mischief lit up Nathan’s. “Does that mean you’re stronger than me?”
“Mentally, yes,” said Annabelle. Mother and son grinned at each other.
Annabelle was still smiling when she left the house. She’d been impressed by the experiment, but mother love had her thinking, not about that, but about Nathan and Lili. Seeing them together, it was obvious they were a match.
Not physically. He so tall. She, half his size.
As she got in her car, Annabelle thought, she’s the one. That it had taken less than twenty-four hours for the bond to happen neither surprised her, nor disturbed her, as it might some mothers. She understood. She understood that it had been instant, the way it had been with her and Ben.
Nathan and Lili would always be together. Joined at the hip.
But not, she thought, as she pulled out of the driveway into the thick fog, able to run a three-legged race.
Annabelle’s car crawled along the Way. The fog lights only seemed to make visibility worse. She pulled in at Hy’s to take a break and told her what Lili and Nathan had been up to.
Hy looked down at the old steamer trunk that was her coffee table. On it, were pages Ian had googled and printed about Mind Over Muscle.
“Mind Over Muscle,” she mumbled, reading half to herself. She looked up, sharply, grabbed Annabelle’s arm so hard she winced.
“What?”
“Mind over muscle.”
Their eyes caught hold. Of course.
“Anyone could have done it,” said Hy. “Anyone, no matter how small, crippled – mentally or physically – could have killed Lord.”
“That’s not exactly a solution.”
“But it is an approach,” said Hy, hauling Annabelle from the couch. She was triumphant, believing she held the key that would unlock the case. “We’ve got to go see Jamieson.”
Mind Over Mussels Page 23
