Corpse Pose Read online

  Unwanted Stress

  “Is it…a lot of money?” A.J. asked Mr. Meagher.

  “Between the Eriksson real estate, the studio, and its subsidiaries, you’re roughly worth in the neighborhood of eighteen million dollars.”

  A.J. gulped.

  “That’s a lovely neighborhood,” her mother, Elysia remarked. “You’ll enjoy living there.”

  “You’re a very wealthy young woman,” Mr. Meagher said, maybe thinking she had missed the point.

  “I guess so.” She knew she was disappointing Mr. Meagher, but she couldn’t help thinking that this was bound to look like she really did have a motive for murder.

  “Of course, with great wealth comes great responsibility.”

  That’s what I’m afraid of, A.J. thought.

  Mr. Meagher gave another of those polite coughs that seemed to be part of his stage craft.

  “One hesitates to bring up sensitive subjects, but…do you have a will, my dear?”

  Corpse Pose

  Diana Killian

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites on their content.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  CORPSE POSE

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © by Diane Browne.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-0715-4

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Version_2

  To Jacky Sach. Namaste.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Epilogue

  A Few Words About

  Organic Recipes

  Prologue

  There was only one car in the parking lot on Saturday morning when Suze MacDougal’s baby blue Beetle lurched to a stop outside Sacred Balance Studio.

  Quel perfecto, Suze thought as her Volkswagen sputtered and died beside Diantha’s battered Volvo. This was working out even better than she’d planned. It was nearly forty-five minutes before the Sunrise Yoga class, and Diantha was already inside. It was now or never.

  Suze caught her reflection in the rearview mirror, and—remembering Jennifer Stevenson’s crack about looking like Dopey—licked her fingers and tried to paste her cowlick down. She took a couple of deep calming breaths—it wouldn’t do to show up breathless and flushed when she was trying to demonstrate how worthy she was to train others on achieving spiritual insight and tranquility through the ancient discipline of yoga.

  Sliding out from behind the wheel, she grabbed her gym bag and locked the door. The New Jersey September morning air was crisp and invigorating despite the chill. The ancient pine trees leaning precariously over the new building that housed Sacred Balance Studio threw the parking lot in deep shade.

  Diantha Mason had waged a battle to keep those pine trees intact—even threatening to pull out of escrow if the new location for Sacred Balance Studio was going to mean the demise of the evergreen giants. She had not won friends over her tree-hugging stance. That was nothing new. She had won the battle to preserve the surrounding trees. That was nothing new either. Diantha won all her battles. That was one of the things Suze most admired about her.

  She checked as something stirred along the edge of the lot. A fat possum with a long pink tail waddled out of the shadows and headed fearlessly for the trash Dumpster at the far end. It must be an insomniac possum, Suze thought. She had never seen one in the daylight, though she had seen plenty of other critters. Diantha was as fierce a protector of the local fauna as she was the local flora—and her woodland neighbors seemed to know it. On more than one occasion squirrels, rabbits, and even a timber rattlesnake had found their way into the new building on the outskirts of town.

  Chuckling, Suze continued up the front steps. The glass doors were unlocked, which did not surprise her. As more staff and more classes were added, the studio rarely closed. Suze had overheard Diantha telling Lily, her protégé, that the ultimate goal was to turn Sacred Balance into a kind of twenty-four-hour spiritual community center. Lily had been oddly unenthusiastic, but then Lily had not been her usual self for some weeks. In fact, Suze had overheard the two instructors arguing Wednesday evening. Well, if Lily was falling from favor, it just might work to other people’s advantage.

  Inside the building the lights were all on, which did give Suze a moment’s pause. Diantha was very conscious about not wasting natural resources—or money. The entire building had been fitted out in full-spectrum lighting, which made it about ten times more expensive to maintain, so Diantha was kind of a grouch about people leaving lights on after hours.

  “Hello?”

  There was no response. In fact, the building seemed eerily silent. Suze could practically hear the potted plants photosynthesizing. Her eyes flicked to the vintage black-and-white art posters of women frozen in yoga positions—they seemed to be listening, too. It Could Happen read the caption at the bottom of the posters. It was Diantha’s motto, the slogan of the entire staff and all the students.

  Suze shrugged away the flash of unease and kicked off her shoes. She stuffed her bag into one of the empty cubbies.

  Even now Diantha was probably brewing her morning green tea in her office, with one of her soothing James Asher CDs playing softly in the background. Suze tried to visualize Diantha inviting her in for a chat and a cup of tea, but the picture wouldn’t quite come. Still, maybe it would happen once Suze confided her ambition and somehow convinced Diantha that she was serious, that she was ready. Heck, she’d given up fas
t food, hadn’t she? And she’d cut up her credit cards—well, most of them; that had to mean something.

  It could happen.

  She swiped at her cowlick one last time before heading for the stretching room.

  As she passed Diantha’s office, she called out in what she hoped was a serene voice (she didn’t want Diantha to accuse her of screeching again).

  “Hello?”

  No answer.

  The low lights bathed the stretching room in golden luminescence. The wall of mirrors reflected the tawny sheen of the polished hardwood floors. Suze’s eyes took a moment to adjust.

  She froze in the doorway, recognizing Diantha lying spread out in the Corpse position, the final relaxation pose of a good yoga session. Diantha seemed to barely breathe, her body as still as though she were in a trance, unaware of Suze or the outside world. But then no one had the control or focus of Diantha. Back in the 1960s she had studied in India with the most respected of the yogis.

  Careful not to intrude by so much as a stare, Suze tiptoed in a wide arc around Diantha. Across the room she self-consciously seated herself on her mat, folding her legs into the Lotus position. She inhaled slowly, exhaled evenly.

  Inhale. Exhale.

  Inhaaaaaale.

  Exhaaaaale.

  She was doing a lovely job of it, too, breathing deeply in and deeply out—her exhalations were a thing of mint-scented beauty.

  Several minutes of this passed with no comment from Diantha. Could she really be observing Suze, evaluating her performance? Shit. Er, shoot. She’d never had this kind of attention from Diantha before.

  Suze continued to breathe in and out. She began to feel light-headed. Instead of the calm of mind and body she was laboring for, she was tense, waiting for that familiar English drawl to cut the silence. It really wasn’t like Diantha to keep quiet for so long.

  Oh no. What if she had walked out? She moved like a cat; Suze might not have heard her leave.

  She cracked one eye open.

  Diantha lay motionless on her mat.

  Suze’s breathing slowed, she stared. Diantha was so still, her chest didn’t seem to move at all. Her face was turned away.

  Cautiously, Suze got to her feet. She tiptoed a few feet closer to where Diantha lay. Not a flicker of awareness from the older woman. Suze cleared her throat.

  Nothing.

  In the golden light of the stretching room, Diantha’s skin looked as grey as her close cropped hair.

  Reluctantly, Suze stepped forward to see her face.

  What she saw had her sucking in her breath in an unapproved fashion before letting it out in a long, bloodcurdling scream….

  One

  A.J.’s cell phone was ringing….

  But then her cell phone was always ringing. Actually, it was more of a chirp than a ring. It sounded cute and friendly, like she had a pet bird in the pocket of her Versace pantsuit, but lately A. J. Alexander had come to hate the sound of her cell phone.

  Maybe that wasn’t the ideal reaction from an up-and-coming freelance marketing consultant trying to make it in the cut-throat world of big league promotion, but more and more, A.J. found herself resenting the electronic leash, resenting being on call 24–7 to people with more money than talent or good sense. Where had all her energy and enthusiasm gone?

  “Wonderful party!” gushed a woman in a gigantic black hat. Did she think she was at Ascot or a funeral? “I was wondering…could we talk?”

  Ah, a prospective client. Again A.J. was struck by her own lack of eagerness. This was her bread and butter, but she just wasn’t hungry anymore.

  She nodded, still smiling at the woman in black, and reached into her pocket.

  “I just have to…”

  “Oh, of course!” Of course. Everyone understood that people dialing in came before the physically present.

  A.J. flipped open her cell with a practiced flick of the wrist, like one of the world-weary crew of the Starship Enterprise who had been there, done that—and killed whatever got in her way.

  “A.J. here,” she said crisply, offering a fleeting apologetic smile as she turned a shoulder on her perspective client. Why did women kid themselves that baggy clothes were effective camouflage for a weight problem? That dress made the poor thing look like a baby buffalo.

  “Is this Anna Jolie Alexander?” The voice was male and unfamiliar. But what really registered with A.J. was the fact that he knew her full name. Not many people knew her full name—she took a lot of trouble to keep it that way.

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Detective Jake Oberlin of the Stillbrook Police Department.”

  Stillbrook? Aunt Di. This was something to do with Aunt Di.

  “Ma’am, I’ve got some bad news.”

  Yes, the bad news was that she had reached a point in life where men called her “ma’am.” Then his title registered. A detective? A cop? This was not good. Something not good had happened to Aunt Di.

  Please don’t let this not good thing be a really bad thing. Please….

  “What is it?”

  Detective Oberlin’s deep voice seemed to drop another octave or so. A.J. pressed the phone closer to her ear, closing her eyes, trying to focus on the words.

  No. That couldn’t be right. It was hard to hear in the crowded room. She started walking, brushing through the ribbon tails of the balloons pressing against the low ceiling of the room like orange cloud cover.

  A.J. pushed open the nearest glass door and stepped outside onto the rain-slick sidewalk. Cars passed, tires hissing on the wet streets, but the rush of Manhattan traffic was soothing compared to the din inside the restaurant.

  “Sorry. I didn’t hear what you said.”

  There was a pause and the detective said carefully, “I’m afraid I have bad news regarding a Miss Diantha Mason.”

  “Aunt Di?” Miss? Aunt Di would hate that. She always insisted on “Ms.”

  “Your name came up as her next of kin. You and a Mrs. Eliza Alexander. We’ve been unable to reach Mrs. Alexander. Looks like she lives overseas.”

  “Elysia Alexander,” A.J. said. “My mother. Aunt Di’s sister.” She managed to stop herself from explaining that her mum chose to live most of the year in London, only occasionally staying at her New Jersey farm where they had spent most summers when A.J. was growing up. What did this unknown cop care where Elysia lived or what the relationship was? She was just stalling. She was just putting off the inevitable moment when she had to deal with whatever this bad news was. Because somehow she knew what the bad news was. She could feel it in her gut like a lump of cold snow.

  A laughing couple pushed out through the glass doors, and A.J. smiled with bright insincerity in their direction. “So what’s happened?” she said tersely into the phone.

  “There’s been an accident,” Detective Oberlin said slowly and carefully. “I regret to have to tell you that your aunt is dead.”

  She had been bracing herself for something like this, but it still felt as though someone had knocked her down on the sidewalk.

  “That’s not possible,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He said very patiently, which told her that everyone asked this same question, “Yes. I’m sorry, but there’s no mistake.”

  “How did it happen? When did it happen?”

  “We don’t have the coroner’s report yet, but she was found strangled at—” His voice fell away for a moment as though he had turned from the phone.

  “Strangled!”

  Silence.

  “You said it was an accident? How is that an accident? You mean, she was murdered? Is that what you’re trying to say? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  He intoned, “Well, if I could get a word in, that’s pretty much what I would have to say.”

  A.J. held the phone away from her as though trying to see through the lit up screensaver of She-Ra, Princess of Power. This yokel cop dared to be smart-assed ab
out her beloved aunt’s death?

  Thank God. Thank God she could vent her rage on this jerk because that gave her time, time to avoid dealing with pain, with grief, with loss.

  “Who’s in charge there?” she snapped. “I want to talk to someone in charge. Listen, Detective Overload or whatever the hell your name is, maybe this is routine for you. Maybe it never occurred to you that—”

  “I apologize, ma’am,” Detective Oberlin said, his deep, calm voice slicing through her rising hysteria. “I realize that may have sounded insensitive.”

  A.J. opened her mouth, but all that came out was a little croaking sound.

  Just as though she had said something quite intelligent, Detective Oberlin said, “We can talk more once you get here.”

  “Do you know who did this?” she managed finally. “Do you have the person who…killed my aunt?”

  “We haven’t made an arrest.”

  “But you have a suspect?”

  “Like I said, we can talk in depth once you get here.”

  Yes, of course. She would have to drive up to Hicksville to make the…arrangements. She would have to take charge now. She would have to be the adult. She would have to phone her mother.

  Of all the discoveries of the past ten minutes, that was nearly the most shattering of all.

  Her phone began to chirp again as she hailed a passing taxi. Her client, Devorah Volvic, was probably wondering what had happened to her. A.J. let it go to message and climbed inside the cab. She couldn’t deal with Devorah right now. She couldn’t seem to think past the shock of her aunt’s death.

  Not just death. Murder.

  It made the tragedy all the more terrible. Who would do such a thing? Why? It was so unbelievable. It was surreal. Murder did not happen to people like Diantha Mason. It just…didn’t.