Even now they did not seem particularly revealing. The main point of interest from A.J.’s perspective was that Elysia never mentioned Dicky, although he appeared in picture after picture.
Perfectly symmetrical bone structure, a wide, white grin, shining black eyes. No question Dakarai Massri had been a very handsome young man; A.J. had to give him that much.
She tried to cast her memory back to Elysia’s first mention of Dicky. She thought it had been shortly after her mother’s return from Egypt, but that had been a difficult and stressful time—right after Nicole Manning had been killed. A.J.’s memories were fuzzy; she’d had a lot on her mind. She recalled she had commented on the attractive young man who appeared in so many of Elysia’s photos and Elysia had been vague—deliberately so, A.J. realized now. One thing she did remember was that Elysia had mentioned Dicky working for the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
Had he left the SCA after his decision to move to the States or had something happened at the SCA to precipitate that decision?
A.J. initiated a web search. She found the SCA without much trouble. It appeared to be a completely legitimate branch of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture originally established in 1859. Located in Cairo, the SCA was responsible for protecting and managing the cultural heritage of Egypt. That meant everything from restoring historical monuments to the recovery of stolen antiquities; she read an article on the SCA’s attempts to have the Rosetta Stone and the bust of Nefertiti returned from the foreign museums currently housing them.
It sounded like important work. Not the kind of profession a scheming blackmailer would opt for, but perhaps the SCA had merely been his day job.
Locating a phone number at the bottom of the official website for the SCA, A.J. spent the next few hours trying to find someone who knew of Dakarai Massri. Given the six-hour time difference, some long distance problems, and a bit of failure-to-communicate, she didn’t get far beyond verifying that Dicky had indeed been employed by the SCA for a time.
By the time she was finally willing to concede defeat for the day, it was after two o’clock and she was starving. She went next door to see if Lily was back from lunch. Lily had returned but she was upstairs teaching another class.
A.J. decided she could wait to have another unpleasant run-in with her co-manager until Monday. Packing her laptop, she went to the front lobby to tell Emma she would be out for the rest of the week.
As she knew she wouldn’t feel like cooking, she decided to stop for lunch on her way out of town, pulling into the parking lot of the Blue Bridge Pub, a new place she and Jake had talked about trying out.
The pub was surprisingly crowded—although maybe it wasn’t that surprising, as any new restaurant in Stillbrook tended to draw a lot of business for the first few weeks after opening.
A.J. was led to a comfortable high-back, leather-lined booth against the wall. She glanced over the menu, ordered Greek spinach salad with feta cheese and a hot oil dressing, and then studied the artfully placed copper dishes and molds adorning the dark-paneled walls while she waited for her meal.
Her idle gaze fell on a familiar set of shoulders and sleek, dark head. She registered the fact that the shoulders and head belonged to Jake at approximately the same moment she realized that he was having lunch with a slender, attractive young woman about her own age.
It gave her an odd jolt. Not that there was anything wrong with Jake having lunch with someone of the female persuasion. She certainly had male friends who she occasionally lunched with. She tried to think of one and came up with Simon Crider, one of the instructors at the studio. Well, and Andy, her ex-husband. Jake hadn’t objected too much when Andy had spent several weeks with A.J. the previous summer while he was going through a rough patch.
She tried to scrutinize Jake’s companion without appearing to stare.
The woman had wide light eyes and brown hair artfully streaked with blonde. Her smile was very white. She smiled a lot. While she was not pretty exactly, she had a certain wholesome sex appeal.
A.J. watched them for a few seconds with an odd, uneasy sensation. She told herself not to be an idiot, but there was nothing like having been the victim of a cheating husband to hone a woman’s instincts, and even from behind, watching the curve of Jake’s lean cheek crease in a slight smile, watching the attentive tilt of his head as he listened to the woman, A.J. knew this was not a long lost sister or a former partner from his days in uniform.
Of course, what she should do—the normal thing—would be to get up and walk right over there and say hello.
So why wasn’t she doing that?
The waitress arrived with her lunch, and A.J. managed to eat a few bites of salad before her gaze was drawn inexorably back to Jake and his companion. They were laughing. The woman reached over and rested her hand briefly on Jake’s arm.
A wave of cold nausea washed through A.J. She told herself not to overreact, but she knew her instinct was not wrong. There was definitely something between them.
She tried to decide what to do. If the situation between her and Jake were as usual, she would simply go over there and say hello. But with matters strained as they were . . .
As this thought took form in A.J.’s mind, Jake—as though feeling the gaze burning between his shoulder blades—glanced around. He did a double take. And then he rose and came over to A.J.’s table.
A.J. dredged up a smile.
Jake didn’t even try. “I didn’t see you come in,” he said. He didn’t seem guilty, exactly, but he did look uncomfortable.
“You were otherwise occupied.” She winced internally at both the words and the light, cool tone. The last thing she wanted to appear was jealous or insecure. She and Jake did not have a commitment. They didn’t even have an agreement not to see other people.
“I’m having lunch with an old friend.”
A.J. considered and discarded a variety of responses. She settled on the all-purpose, “Oh?”
Belatedly, though only by a second or two, Jake asked, “Would you like to join us for dessert?”
“I don’t think so.” Somehow, despite A.J.’s best intentions, it came out sounding like an action hero’s line seconds before he blew the bad guy away.
She couldn’t read Jake’s expression at all, and he seemed to be having a similar problem with her. He said, “Well, at least let me introduce you.”
“Of course!” It came out far too brightly, but she was oversteering, trying to make up for the snippiness of her earlier response.
Scrubbing her teeth with her tongue in search of any stray bits of spinach, A.J. slipped out of the booth and followed Jake through the crowded tables.
“How is your back?” he asked as an afterthought. “Are you back at work now?”
“It’s better,” she said. There wasn’t time for more as they had reached Jake’s table.
Jake’s companion smiled confidently up at A.J. Her eyes were a strikingly light shade somewhere between green and blue.
“A.J. this is J—” Jake broke off, looking confused, and the woman smiled that frank, white smile and offered her hand.
“Francesca Cox. But everyone calls me ‘Chess.’”
“Nice to meet you, Chess.” Chess? What kind of nickname was “Chess”? Affected was what it was.
“I’ve heard so much about you.” Chess was smiling.
Maybe it was intended as a pleasantry—well, it was almost certainly intended as a pleasantry, what was the matter with her? She was not this insecure. But it did bother A.J. that Chess apparently knew all about her, and she’d had no idea of Chess’s existence until that instant.
A.J. asked with all the cordiality she could muster, “Are you visiting or are you new to Stillbrook?”
“I’ve just moved here, yes.”
“How nice! Welcome to the neighborhood.” Welcome to the neighborhood? Break out the zippered cardigans. A.J. had morphed into Mister Rogers.
“It’s a lovely little town,” Chess said. She smiled at J
ake. He, meanwhile, was doing his best impersonation of one of those Easter Island statues. Why did he look so . . . so stony if everything was on the up and up?
“It is lovely, isn’t it? You should see it in the autumn. Where are you from originally?” A.J. inquired.
Chess’s eyes flickered. “Oh, I move around a lot. I admit that’s one of the charms of a small town like yours. The idea of putting down roots, of getting to know your neighbors, of building a real home: it’s very . . . alluring.”
A.J. heard herself give one of those terse murmur-laughs that sounded uncannily like Elysia when she was displeased and barely trying to hide it.
“What do you do, A.J.?”
Apparently Jake hadn’t shared all the pertinent details if Chess didn’t know something this basic. Then again, she was probably just making conversation. Someone needed to.
A.J. replied, “I run a yoga studio.”
“Really? Now I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
“What do you do, Chess?”
“I’m a travel writer.”
“That sounds like fun,” A.J. said politely.
“It is mostly.”
A.J. checked her wristwatch. “Gosh, is it that time? I’ve got to pay my check and run.”
Literally.
Jake said woodenly, “I’ll walk you out.”
“Nice to meet you, A.J.,” Chess said cordially.
A.J. paid her check and walked out of the dining room with Jake a silent presence behind her.
She knew it was unreasonable to be angry. She reminded herself that they didn’t—did not—have an exclusive arrangement.
As they reached the lobby front door, she said, “Chess seems pleasant. How long have you known her?”
Never one to waste time on polite chitchat, Jake said, “I’ve been meaning to call.”
A.J. couldn’t read anything in his expression. “Well, things are weird right now. I realize that better than anyone.”
“They are, yeah.” He raked an impatient hand through his hair. “Look, we need to talk. Are you going to be home tomorrow night?”
She hadn’t made her mind up about going with Elysia until that very instant, but A.J. suddenly realized how much she did not have the emotional energy for whatever this talk was about. “Actually, I’m going out of town.”
His face tightened. “Come on, A.J.”
“I’m not playing games,” she said. “I’m going out of town with Mother.”
“How far out of town?”
“Sussex County. Andover, to be precise. Don’t worry. She’s not trying to make a break for it. She’s going to stay with a friend for the weekend, that’s all.” She added, “If you want to talk, we can always use the phone.”
She didn’t like the expression that crossed his face. “This might be a little complicated for a phone call.”
“Then I guess I’ll see you when I get back.”
Jake nodded, looked away. Staring into the distance he said tersely, “I’m not enjoying this, you know.”
“I can see it. That makes two of us.”
Ten
A grinning skeleton leaned against the etched glass front of the long-case grandfather clock in the long reception hall of Medea Sutherland’s restored Victorian mansion. The black-flocked velvet walls were lined with horror movie posters with titles like The Devouring, The Girl in the Grave, She-Wolf.
“That’s Wee Geordie,” Medea said cheerfully, following A.J.’s gaze.
“Please tell me you found him on a movie set somewhere.”
Medea—Maddie Sutherland—laughed her unexpectedly raucous laugh. She was tall and mournful looking with gaunt features and black eyes beneath Joan Crawford eyebrows. In her black trousers and black turtleneck, she could have played the dour housekeeper in any number of low-budget scary movies, but in her heyday she had been cast exclusively as demon-possessed vixens or terror-stricken ingénues.
“A.J.’s afraid you dug him up in the garden,” Elysia remarked, and Medea laughed that deep laugh again.
“I’ve found interesting things in the garrrden, but no skeletons so far. Not human ones, anyway!” While most of Medea’s native Scottish accent had been trained out of her, she retained a small but definite Scottish burr, that charming way of rolling the Rs. “Let me take you up to your rooms and then I’ll give you a wee tourrr of the house.”
One thing for sure, Medea seemed in good spirits. If she was aware of Dicky Massri’s death, it clearly wasn’t ruining her day. She led them briskly down the long reception hall adorned with artfully placed fake cobwebs, gilt-framed mirrors with cracked glass, and a huge chandelier with flicker bulbs.
A.J. exchanged a glance with her mother. Elysia seemed to be taking it all in stride. The house was immaculate, so it wasn’t a housekeeping issue, just some very funky ideas about home décor. Medea had to be the oldest goth A.J. had met.
They reached the staircase to the second level and A.J. examined the gallery of old photographs and tintypes. “Are these your family?” she inquired.
“No, no,” Medea replied. “I just like the look of their faces.”
A.J. had no particular response to that, but if she had, it would have been lost as a small, furry creature came sliding down the banister. For a moment she thought it was a rat, although it looked more like a weasel. She let go of the banister and just missed stepping into Elysia, who had stopped on the stairs.
“What on earth?” Elysia stared as the black-and-white creature streaked past. “Was that a skunk?”
Medea chuckled at the very idea of such craziness. “It’s a ferrrret.”
“A ferret?”
“That’s right, hen. Her name is Morrrag.”
Morag the ferrrret had safely reached the lower level and scampered away into the gloom. A.J. and Elysia followed Medea as she continued the trek upstairs. They reached the top landing where the statue of a mournful marble lady weeping into a hanky seemed to be commiserating with A.J. over her weekend plans.
Medea led the way down the hallway to their separate bedrooms.
“You share the bath. It adjoins both bedrooms.” Medea opened the white door leading into the large bathroom, but A.J.’s attention was riveted to the graveyard scene painted across the far wall. No, not painted. The wall was covered in a full-sized decorative vinyl photograph of a mournful graveyard.
“Uh . . .” she began, but she was talking to herself. The other two women had moved down the hallway to the next bedroom. She dropped her carryall with relief. She had insisted on carrying it upstairs, but it hadn’t done her back any good.
The rest of the room was relatively ordinary: forest green walls and white trim, a large canopy bed with bone white draperies, green and white globe lamps, and a large mirror with a dragon frame and candleholder.
A.J. followed her mother and Medea; she was almost looking forward to seeing the next stage set—because that’s what these macabre rooms seemed like: elaborate, tongue-in-cheek movie sets.
Elysia’s room was minus a mural but the gloomy paintings on the gray walls more than made up for it. The bed in her room was lacking a canopy, but it was an enormous, black, iron affair that suggested a torture device or a birdcage—although the fluffy duvet was a cozy touch. There were a couple of gargoyle wall sconces and a table by the bay windows that seemed to be of a gargoyle in the pose of The Thinker. A.J. couldn’t help feeling that anything a gargoyle put that much mental energy into would not be good.
Medea was still talking cheerfully about the repairs and renovations to the mansion, most of which she had done herself.
“Very thrifty, petal,” Elysia remarked, when she could get a word in edgewise. “Er, what’s happened to . . . what’s his name? Your lord and master. Will we meet him this evening?”
Medea’s sharp features darkened. “I told you about that, surely?”
“No. What?”
“I didn’t tell you? I thought I wrote you?”
“I’m sure I’d have remembere
d.”
“I divorrrced him, the villain.”
“Oh dear,” Elysia said mildly. “That was sudden. What happened?”
“It wasn’t nearly sudden enough. Ought to have known better at my age.”
“What happened?” Elysia persisted.
Medea straightened the head of a small, grinning gargoyle wall sconce. “He was nothing but a forrrtune hunter.”
As Elysia made the appropriate noises, her gaze found and held A.J.’s. “That’s terrible. What was his name again? Dick . . . something, wasn’t it? How long did the marriage last?”
But Medea shook her head sharply, the subject seemingly closed. Elysia raised her shoulders in a ghost of a shrug.
Medea, once again in tour guide mode, led them back downstairs pointing out the architectural points of interest in the house as they went. One thing A.J. liked was that nearly every room had bookshelves, mostly filled with works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
“Back in 1890, the house had both electric and gas lighting. Lightbulbs weren’t fully developed, you see, and didnae cast enough illumination to be the primary source of light. You can see the old gas lines all through the house.”
Medea pointed to a place on the hardwood floor where the heating pipes fed the radiator in the parlor.
“Those don’t still work, do they?” Elysia asked, sounding alarmed for the first time.
Medea laughed heartily at the idea. “The old gas lines were disconnected long ago, although I’d have liked to have the old gas lamps working in a few spots. It’d throw a very nice warm light.”
Ah yes. The better to illuminate the fake cobwebs and plastic spiders.
“You don’t have a television?” A.J. inquired.
“Och, I don’t have time for such nonsense! There’s too much work to be done and too many good books to read.”
“Ah,” Elysia said. Once again her gaze met A.J.’s, and once again A.J. knew exactly what her mother was thinking. Assuming they had the right Medea, Maddie was not aware that Dakarai was dead or that Elysia was suspected of killing him—unless Medea had killed him herself and was playing a clever game with them. A.J. didn’t quite rule that out. Medea certainly had a dark and playful side; eccentric was a pallid word for it.
Murder on the Eightfold Path Page 9
