Dial Om for Murder Read online

  “I’m not trying to rob you!” But A.J. was speaking to the door as it slammed shut in Lily’s wake.

  A . J . was surprised at how much she enjoyed working with the youngest students at Sacred Balance. She liked kids but had never experienced any burning desire for children of her own. Ironically, Andy had been the one who had been most interested in beginning a family.

  But as A.J. observed her pint-sized practitioners hissing enthusiastically as they assumed cobra pose, she found herself laughing, the tension of the morning’s unpleasant encounter with Lily evaporating like a popped bubble.

  Lily, of course, disapproved of A.J. teaching any courses—even suggesting that the Doga courses were pushing A.J.’s limits—despite the fact that A.J. had completed her accreditation with flying colors. And A.J. had to admit, gazing over the class of little yogis—some of whom were now attempting to slither snakelike across the slick floor and bite each other—that the class might on the surface seem to lack a certain seriousness or structure. But the truth was that yoga had many benefits for children beyond the obvious physical ones of increased strength, flexibility, and coordination. Yoga helped children improve their concentration and focus, even helped reduce their stress.

  In fact, until A.J. had begun teaching Yoga for Kids and Itsy Bitsy Yoga, she’d had no idea of how stress-filled some of these tots’ lives were. It probably made sense, given their parents’ stress levels. Now more aware, A.J. had developed a relaxed and fluid teaching style, no longer insisting on perfect alignment—even occasionally letting the kids make up their own poses. She used songs to help teach breathing, and a number of props, including books and toys, to gently instruct her students in yoga’s philosophy. The response from parents had been terrific so far—and the response from the young students even better.

  She wouldn’t have dared admit it to Lily, but she sometimes felt the kids were teaching her as much about yoga as she was teaching them. Either way, A.J. was convinced she was bringing something needed, something valuable to Sacred Balance. She felt sure she was doing what her aunt would have wanted, that she was taking Sacred Balance in a direction Diantha would have approved, despite Lily’s equal conviction that she was on the wrong path and endangering everything already achieved. Still, A.J. couldn’t shake the feeling that her inability to work with Lily was a failure. True, the failure wasn’t hers alone, but that didn’t lessen the fact that it was failure.

  She wondered if there was any possible way to start over with Lily. It seemed unlikely given Lily’s personality. In fact, the only real question seemed to be what form Lily’s inevitable retaliation would take.

  Several fashion magazines and a hardcover book featuring a smug-looking koala sat next to a yellow bowl of violets on the polished table in Nicole Manning’s elegant living room. The scent of lemons mingled with the fragrance of freshly mown grass drifting through the open window.

  “It’s lovely of you to see us on such short notice,” Elysia was saying, using her fork to break off a small bite of almond cheesecake. She directed a pointed look A.J.’s way, and A.J.—caught with her mouth full—murmured assent. Her mother had somehow wrangled this impromptu meeting with J.W., and A.J. had reluctantly abandoned the stack of resumes on her desk and in her e-mail to provide “backup.”

  “No,” J.W. Young replied, gazing at his own cheesecake without appetite. “ This place is like a mausoleum without Nikki. I’m grateful for some company.”

  “J.W., don’t forget you’ve got a conference call with Margaret Sciorra of Lazarus Films at three thirty,” Bryn said, sticking her head around the doorway.

  J.W. waved thanks, and Bryn ducked back out again. J.W. picked up his coffee cup.

  Again, A.J. was struck by his ordinary attractiveness. He was tall and lean, with a neatly trimmed beard and intelligent eyes. There was nothing particularly Hollywood about J.W. In fact, his jeans and plaid flannel shirt seemed a little out of place in this room with its silk brocade upholstery and marble fireplace. The living room was very much a woman’s room—a woman with an expensive interior decorator—but then the house was very much Nicole’s house.

  “Is Bryn staying on then?” Elysia asked, and A.J. studiously avoided looking her way. Subtlety had never been Elysia’s strong point.

  But J.W. answered easily enough. “For now. God knows, I’m grateful for her help in winding everything up.”

  “She seemed devoted to Nicole,” A.J. said.

  “Yeah.” He sipped his coffee, swallowed. “She is. Was. But she has her own life, and I’ve asked her to put it on hold long enough.”

  At Elysia and A.J.’s inquiring looks, he said, “Bryn’s supposed to be getting married next month. She’s engaged to a great guy. He’s a Navy SEAL just home from Iraq. Anyway, from what I understand they’re planning this giant wedding. Last week was supposed to be her last, but Bryn’s been kind enough to stay on and help me sort through . . . everything.”

  He fell silent, staring out the window at the rolling green meadow.

  There was a strange, awkward break. To A.J.’s surprise, her mother gracefully filled it.

  “You mustn’t feel guilty,” Elysia said warmly. “I know you’re telling yourself that if you’d been here—”

  J.W. drew in a harsh breath. He looked at Elysia and then looked away. “Yeah. You got that right. It’s still so hard to believe.”

  A.J. stared as her mother continued in that sincere, frank way, “Jane is such a sweet girl. I worked with her a few years ago in London, you know.”

  “Jane didn’t have anything to do with it.” J.W. gave A.J. a hard look.

  “No, of course not,” Elysia agreed. “No one who met Jane could possibly think any such thing. A delightful girl.” And she, too, couldn’t resist directing A.J. a look.

  A.J. asserted, “I’m not trying to cause trouble for Jane. I wasn’t the only one who saw her leaving here that day.”

  However A.J. was the only one who had been able to identify the fleeing woman as Jane Peters, and they all knew it.

  J.W. sighed. “I know. It’s just . . .”

  Elysia reached across and patted his hand. “We understand. How did Jane and Nicole get along?”

  “ They didn’t.” J.W. grimaced. “Nikki was jealous as hell, and Jane . . . well, no way was Jane ever going to forgive me or forget the way I treated her. I don’t think she blamed Nikki, though. It’s just . . . they wouldn’t have had anything in common other than me.”

  “Ah,” Elysia said wisely. “And when did you and Jane get divorced?”

  J.W.’s gaze fell. “Well, to be honest, we’re not divorced. Not officially. It’s just a technicality, of course.”

  “Of course,” A.J. said shortly, wondering how Nicole had felt about that little technicality. She knew how she’d feel.

  There was another one of those pensive pauses.

  J.W. drew a deep breath and said with an attempt at briskness, “So what is it that I can do for you ladies?”

  A.J. had almost forgotten their cover story. “Oh! Well, I wanted to talk to you about the possibility of you doing some kind of a piece on Sacred Balance.”

  His brows drew together. “I really don’t do commercial—”

  “I was thinking more of a documentary. As you know my aunt was a legend in the yoga world, and I was hoping that there might be a way to combine a biography of her life—and work—with a film about the studio.”

  “So this would be for promotional purposes?”

  “Yes. Er . . . sort of.” What was the right answer? A.J. had no idea. Elysia moved to the rescue.

  “I’m afraid I put the idea in her mind,” she apologized charmingly. “I’m such a great admirer of your work. That PBS documentary on those Illinois death row pardons was brilliant.” She shivered. “Utterly chilling.”

  J.W.’s tanned cheek creased in a smile. “ Thanks.”

  “And you were filming in Mexico . . . recently?”

  “I’ve been working on a documentary
about the 2006 teacher’s strike in Oaxaca.” He paused inquiringly. Both A.J. and Elysia looked blank.

  “It’s an amazing story—and a precursor of things yet to come in Mexico.”

  “One can only imagine.” Elysia—apparently channeling Barbara Walters—inquired, “Now would you consider reality TV a form of documentary?”

  “God no.”

  Elysia looked at A.J. “You see, pet. You’re perfectly right to stick to your guns.” J.W. looked a question, and Elysia explained, “A.J. recently butted heads with one of her celebrity clients. A rather awful woman by the name of Barbie Sargasso.”

  “Siragusa,” murmured A.J.

  Elysia nodded distractedly. They both stared hard at their host while trying to look casual.

  “ That bimbo.” J.W. was dismissive, nothing more, and surely if he was aware of the rumors surrounding Barbie’s son and Nicole he would sound more than politely interested. Was it possible he didn’t know about the illicit relationship? Just how buried in his work had he been?

  A.J. said, “Barbie wanted to film a segment of her reality show at Sacred Balance. When I refused she blamed Nicole for my decision.”

  “Really?” J.W. seemed genuinely puzzled. “I know there was some suggestion she might have had it in for Nikki because she knew the character of Bambi Marciano was loosely based on her, but I didn’t get the feeling the cops took that very seriously.”

  He really didn’t seem to know.

  A.J. and Elysia exchanged looks.

  Elysia said, “I suppose it was difficult for Nicole—so far away from her Hollywood friends. What were her plans now that her television show was ended? Was she considering new projects?”

  J.W. put his coffee cup down hard in its china saucer. “Yeah. In fact, we were planning on starting our own production company.”

  “Really? How exciting. What was the first project to be?”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose hard, then managed a strained smile. “We were still turning over the possibilities.”

  “Such a tragedy,” Elysia remarked sadly. “I suppose you’ve gone over and over it in your mind. You must have your own theory on who might have done such a monstrous thing.”

  “None,” J.W. said curtly. “It’s not something I care to speculate on.”

  That was clear enough. Even Elysia couldn’t seem to figure a way to storm that barricade. They chatted briefly about the pretend documentary A.J. wanted made and then Bryn summoned J.W. to his conference call.

  “Verrrry interesting,” Elysia remarked as the white colonial mansion grew smaller and smaller in the Land Rover’s rearview mirror.

  “But not particularly helpful.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

  A.J. eyed her mother skeptically. Elysia was smiling enigmatically to herself, apparently going for the All-knowing Master Detective thing, but A.J. wasn’t buying it. J.W. Young never had been high on their list of suspects—nor had he volunteered any information that offered any particular insight into anyone else’s possible motives. He believed implicitly in Jane Peters’s innocence, but that wasn’t proof.

  Elysia dropped A.J. off at the studio and headed into town for a late lunch with Mr. Meagher.

  A.J. settled down to work in her office. She had been looking into purchasing a software program along the lines of Yoga Sage, something that might prove useful for generating operational and strategic reports. Naturally Lily had objected to the idea, claiming that A.J. wanted to implement software to manage the studio long-distance.

  “Dr. Lewis on line five,” Suze said over the intercom.

  “ Thanks, Suze.” A.J. picked up the phone and greeted one of her oldest friends in Stillbrook. “Hey, Nancy!”

  “I cannot apologize enough to you,” Nancy said without preliminary. “If I could practice retroactive birth control, I would, but your mother would just find me out and turn me over to the police.”

  A.J. laughed. “It’s okay. I know Charlayne was bored working at the studio.”

  “In fairness to my daughter, she is carrying a heavy class load this semester. I know that doesn’t excuse the way she’s left you in the lurch.”

  “It’s alright,” A.J. said again. But a thought occurred to her as she glanced down at the notes she had made earlier that day when she had been sifting through the confusing pages upon pages of medical information on MS. “Although , if you really want to make it up to me, you could meet me for lunch. I’d like to consult you—informally—about a friend.”

  “A friend?” Nancy said doubtfully. “Well, how about tomorrow? I’m free then.”

  They made plans to meet and said good-bye. A.J. got back to work, but a few minutes later Suze interrupted again.

  “Your four o’clock is here.”

  “My four o’clock?”

  “Your four o’clock interview,” Suze clarified. “Emma Rice.”

  “Crap,” A.J. muttered, shuffling quickly the papers stacked on her desk. If there was a resume from Emma Rice, she didn’t seem to have it.

  Well, maybe that was a blessing in disguise. Sooner or later she had to hire someone, and maybe no resume would give Ms. Rice a better shot.

  “Send her in,” she told Suze, and a few moments later there was a brisk rap on her office door.

  “Come in,” A.J. called, rising.

  The door opened to a short, slender, elderly black woman. A.J.’s heart sank. Emma Rice’s hair was gray and cropped close; her shoes were sensible. It was difficult to determine exactly how old she might be—but it a safe guess she was anywhere between sixty-five and a well-preserved eighty.

  “Ms. Rice,” A.J. said, offering her hand. “Won’t you sit down?”

  She was already consigning Ms. Rice to the also-rans pile. It wasn’t anything personal, but Sacred Balance had a certain image, and the geriatric Ms. Rice in her sensible shoes and pince-nez eyeglasses just wasn’t going to cut it.

  “How do you do?” Ms. Rice asked, taking A.J.’s hand in what felt like a stevedore’s grip. “Or maybe I shouldn’t ask.” And she laughed heartily and sat down in the chair next to A.J.’s desk.

  “I’m sorry?” said A.J.

  “Honey, you’re a little shorthanded, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “I . . .” A.J. began sifting through papers again. “I don’t seem to have your application.”

  “Is that so?” Ms. Rice sounded unsurprised and slightly amused. “What would you like to know? I taught high school English for thirty years, I’m a widow with two grown children, and I am sound in hoof and wind.”

  A.J. controlled her expression with difficulty. Sound in hoof and wind? And yet . . . and yet there was something about the cool, collected way that Emma Rice sat there watching A.J. with those alert, intelligent eyes. . . .

  She thought of the questions she typically asked during an interview: What are your long-range goals and objectives? What historical figure do you admire and why? How do you work under pressure? Where do you see yourself in ten years time?

  She settled for, “Why do you want to work here?”

  “I like to keep busy,” Ms. Rice said. “I like to work with young people. I like to be needed.” She studied A.J. over the top of her specs. “And I’ve never worked for a detective before.”

  “I’m not a detective, Ms. Rice,” A.J. said.

  Ms. Rice raised her eyebrows. “Honey,” she said, “call me Emma.”

  Fourteen

  “She’s kind of like a cross between Shaft and Mary Pop-pins,” A.J. told Andy later that evening.

  “Sounds promising. Does she have references?”

  “Impeccable professional references. Although I don’t know how relevant they are. Personal references . . . she’s supposed to be a great pal of Stella’s.”

  Stella Borin was A.J.’s nearest neighbor. She had been Aunt Di’s tenant and friend for many years, and had inherited Little Peavy Farm after Diantha’s death. In addition to farming, Stella was a psychic. According to
local gossip, she was supposed to be a very good one, although it was hard to imagine a psychic being in high demand in a small, rural community like Stillbrook.

  Andy looked up. “Stella . . . as in Stella your mother’s arch enemy?”

  A.J. nodded. She could see from where she sat at the kitchen table that the phone machine light was blinking again.

  “There’s a recommendation.” Andy was combining bacon, bell pepper, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, green onion, and the leftover cornbread in a large bowl.

  “You know, my mother is not an infallible judge of character.”

  “I can’t say I’ve noticed that.”

  A.J. snorted. “I wonder what the problem is between Mother and Stella.”

  “Have you ever bothered to ask either of them?”

  “Yep. They both change the subject. Quickly.” She picked up Lula Mae, who suffered her attentions for a much-tried few seconds before Monster rose from the rug to come and investigate, whereupon she took a swipe at his black nose. “Hey!” A.J. held the cat away.

  “What’s he doing to her?” Andy frowned at the mournful-looking Lab.

  “I hate to tell you, daddy, but your little girl is a thug.” She let Lula Mae go and the cat bounded lightly across the table and curled up in the broad windowsill where she proceeded to hurl insults at Monster.

  “Hm.” Andy picked up another bowl and stirred ranch salad dressing into mayonnaise and sour cream. “You have to admit, Stella Borin is a nut.”

  “She’s a little eccentric,” A.J. admitted. “And so, I have a feeling, is Emma Rice.”

  “Did you hire her?”

  “I did.”

  Andy looked up and laughed.

  “Hey. It’s not like I have a lot of options. You should see the candidates I’ve interviewed this week. It’s just a receptionist position.”

  “Your receptionist is the first impression anyone gets of your business.”

  “ Thanks a bunch. Speaking of answering phones, who called?”

  His attention apparently on selecting exactly the right spoon for mixing, Andy answered, “Nick.”