Dial Om for Murder (22 page)

“Mother—”

“I’ll see you tonight—at the head of the posse, I suppose.”

“Mother!”

Elysia slammed the Volvo door and stalked away, heels crunching on the white gravel walk.

Eighteen

Andy
was leaving Sacred Balance when A.J. arrived at the studio after dropping Elysia off at Starlight Farm.

Dressed in gray sweats and wearing a T-shirt with a towel draped around his neck, he was climbing into his rental car as A.J. pulled up next to him. She rolled her window down.

“Hi! What are you doing here?”

He looked sheepish. “Taking a beginning yoga course. I thought about what you were saying last night. And you’re right. The better the shape I’m in, the better I’ll be able to handle . . . whatever is coming.”

“How did it go?”

He laughed. “I’ve stretched parts of my body that I don’t believe God intended to bend.”

“But you feel all right?”

“Tired. But I’m always tired, so that’s okay.” He climbed into the sedan and said, “I’ll see you tonight?”

A.J. nodded. She waited till he’d backed out and driven away, then got out of her car and went briskly up the walkway past the gardeners who were planting pink and lavender annuals in front of the stone wall bearing the bronze plaque with the scripted words
Sacred Balance
. Students bearing gym bags and dressed in yoga togs passed her going to and from the parking lot and building.

Even on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, the lobby was reasonably crowded, and A.J. felt a surge of satisfaction. She spotted Bryn Tierney by the front desk speaking to Emma Rice. From their expressions, it looked fairly serious. Emma looked up and noticed A.J.

“Honey, here’s Ms. Alexander. Why don’t you tell her what you’ve told me?”

Bryn turned. She wore a crisp yellow-checked sundress and her hair was faultlessly French braided. She looked, as always, neat and cool and competent.

“A.J., I’ve come to clear Nicole’s things out of her locker.”

Taken off guard, A.J. said, “I didn’t realize . . . not everyone keeps a locker here.”

“Nicole did,” Bryn said confidently.

A.J. thought it over. “Okay. Well, let’s have a look.” She went behind the counter and unlocked the key box, finding the correct key to the locker assigned to Nicole.

“You won’t need that. Nicole used her own padlock.” Bryn held up a key.

A.J. happened to catch the expression on Emma Rice’s face. She had a feeling it mirrored her own. “Right,” she said coolly. “Lead on.”

Bryn turned and marched upstairs, A.J. following. Nicole’s PA went straight to the showers and pointed out the bank of lockers.

“Second from the left on the top.” She handed the key over to A.J.

A.J. opened the locker and Bryn began to lift out Nicole’s belongings, putting them into a brightly designed yoga bag: Nicole’s yoga mat, a baby blue sweatshirt, an iPod . . .

“I think,” A.J. said slowly, “we’d better bring this all down to my office so I can inventory it.”

Bryn stared at her. “Why?”

A.J. shook her head. “We’ve never really had a situation like this before. If something turns up missing later, I don’t want there to be any confusion of whether it was lost at the studio or not.”

Bryn seemed to think it over, and then she shrugged, handing the bag over to A.J.

“How are you holding up?” she asked Bryn as they headed down the staircase again.

“I’m okay. I mean, I miss Nikki, naturally. It’s J.W. I’m worried about. He’s really having a hard time with this.”

“I guess that’s not surprising.”

“No.”

“Any idea of when the funeral will be held?”

“Tomorrow evening. The police have finally released Nikki’s body.”

That was a conversation killer if there ever was one. Un-speaking, they carried the items into A.J.’s office and A.J. emptied out the yoga bag and made notes on a legal pad as they went through everything again. It didn’t take long.

“Poor Nikki,” Bryn said absently, folding the pastel sweatshirt. “She could be . . . well, you know. But she . . . meant well. She really did have a kind heart.”

“I know,” A.J. said. “Last year she donated a designer dress to one of our financially disadvantaged students for the prom, and she always contributed generously whenever the kids had a charity drive—I mean, I’m pretty sure Nicole wasn’t actually eating all those candy bars or reading all those magazines.”

Bryn laughed. “No. She was good about that stuff, and great about making time for her fans. She did a lot of appearances—benefits and that kind of thing. Especially anything to do with animals. She felt very strongly about animal rights.”

“How long were you her PA?”

“Four months.” Bryn smiled. “She tended to go through personal assistants pretty quickly.”

“J.W. said congratulations were in order.”

Bryn looked puzzled.

“You’re leaving to get married?”

“Oh!” Bryn blushed. “Yes. Well, with Nikki gone . . . I’d be leaving in any case now.”

A.J. nodded. “I guess it will be hard for J.W. without you.”

“He’s a sweetie. I wish . . .”

A.J. looked inquiring.

“Nothing,” Bryn said hastily. They both looked down as a velvet jewelry box, rolled up in the yoga mat, fell to the floor.

Bryn knelt, picked the case up, and opened it. It was a tennis bracelet; over thirty stones glittered like stars against a blue velvet sky.

“Oh my God,” whispered Bryn.

“Those don’t look like cubic zirconium.”

“No, I think they’re real.”

A.J. stooped to pick up the small card that had fallen to the floor with the box.

Bryn couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from the card. A.J. asked softly, “Did J.W. know about the affair?”

“
No
.”

“You sound pretty sure about that. Everybody else seems to know.”

Bryn looked up, but she didn’t appear to see A.J. “J.W. is obsessed with his work.”

“How did Nicole feel about that?”

Bryn said sourly, “She had an affair. That’s all this is about.” She nodded dismissingly at the bracelet. “Nikki felt neglected. It wasn’t serious.”

“Maybe not on Nicole’s part, but it looks like Oz Siragusa had invested something in it.”

Bryn reached for the card, but A.J. shook her head. “You know I have to hand this over to the police.”

Bryn bit off an exclamation. “All this is going to do is hurt J.W.”

“I have zero wish to hurt J.W. Or anyone. But someone killed Nicole.”

“And you think this gives J.W. a motive?” Bryn’s eyes were hard.

“Actually,” A.J. said, “I was thinking more about Oz Siragusa’s motive. He seemed pretty besotted with Nicole, and she dumped him. Not everyone takes being dumped graciously.”

Oz Siragusa had not exactly looked prostrate with grief the two times A.J. had seen him. Of course people dealt with bereavement differently.

“Is J.W. pretty broken up over Nicole?”

“Of course,” Bryn said without any great conviction. She continued to stare at the tennis bracelet as though she wanted to snatch it away. “He’s burying himself in his work; that’s how he deals with it.”

“I guess that’s how a lot of us deal with tragedy.”

Bryn said nothing, continuing to look angry and troubled.

An idea occurred to A.J. “Did you ever meet Lydia Thorne?”

If possible, Bryn’s frown deepened. “Lydia Thorne? The woman who used to run Nicole’s fan club?” Her expression changed, grew speculative. “Is that what you’re thinking? Yes . . . I could see that. I’m surprised the police haven’t looked a little closer there. I was working for Nicole when Lydia turned on her. Like a mad dog.”

“What do you think happened?”

Bryn said promptly, “I think Lydia expected Nicole to help her get started in Hollywood.”

“You mean she wanted to act?”

“She wanted to be a screenwriter. She wrote a script for Nicole.”

“Was it any good?”

“I don’t think so. It was called
Interstice
or something.”

“Catchy.”

“Yes. Anyway, Nicole wasn’t interested in the script, and she wasn’t interested in referring Lydia to her agent or anyone else in Hollywood. And . . . unfortunately she wasn’t very tactful about it.”

“And so Lydia began writing all those awful reviews?”

Bryn nodded. “That was only part of it. She started cyber-stalking Nicole. She would send all these horrible anonymous e-mails, but they were usually from the same IP address—and they all had the same . . .
voice
. And anywhere that Nicole’s name was mentioned on the web or one of her films reviewed, Lydia would post some nasty comment. She was obsessed. Her entire life revolved around Nicole.”

“Did she ever make any specific threats against Nicole?”

“You mean like threaten to kill her? No.”

“Did the police ask you about her?”

“Not really.” Bryn looked vague. “It’s hard to know what to tell the police. A few facts and they begin twisting everything.”

A.J. finished noting the last of Nicole’s belongings and let Bryn take everything but the bracelet and note. Those she put with the list of Nicole’s locker’s contents in her desk drawer.

She was tempted to call Jake then and there, but if she called him, she would have to tell him about Jane Peters, and her relations were strained enough with Elysia. She had promised to hold off until the evening, and she would keep that promise. It would be better to make the phone call from Starlight Farm. Better all around if it looked like everyone was cooperating. And a couple of hours were unlikely to make any real difference to the investigation.

Her reluctance to be on her mother’s bad side surprised A.J. given how often she deplored Elysia’s unrealistic approach to the world.

She locked her desk, locked her office, and left for Deer Hollow.

 

 

A.J.
let herself quietly in the house. If Andy was sleeping, she didn’t want to wake him. Monster greeted her with a full body wag, his air that of a shipwreck victim sighting the rescue planes.

“Has Lula Mae been picking on you again?” she sympathized, kneeling down to fuss over him. She could hear Andy on the phone, and even from down the hall she picked up the tension in his tone. To give him a moment, she stayed in the hallway, gently tugging Monster’s ears. The dog panted up at her.

“I’m not blaming you,” Andy was saying. “It’s no one’s fault. We just made a mistake. It happens. We might as well be civilized about it.”

A rather lengthy silence while the other person on the phone gave Andy an earful.

“I just don’t see the point,” Andy said. “I don’t want to haggle over stuff. If there’s something in particular you want—”

Another silence.

Andy said, “I’m not angry. Nick, I’ve already agreed it isn’t anybody’s fault. Okay? We
both
made a mistake. I’m . . . glad that we’ve admitted it and can deal with it. I just don’t want to drag it out.”

“What’s he doing?” A.J. whispered, and then recoiled as Monster licked her face. “You need breath mints,” she informed him. Not offended, Monster tried to lick her again. “And a girlfriend,” A.J. added.

“Look,” Andy said shortly—and A.J. heard the uncharacteristic anger in his voice. “I’ve said I’m sorry. I meant it, but I can’t do more than apologize. I know you’re angry. Apparently there’s no point trying to work out the details until you’ve had time to cool off.”

Another considerable silence.

“Now you’re being ridiculous,” Andy said. “I’ll give you a call next week.”

A.J. heard the phone slam down on the receiver. She rose and went into the kitchen where Andy was lowering himself into a chair by the table. He jumped and then seemed to force himself to relax.

“I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I just got home. What was that about?”

“Loose ends.”

“
Loose ends?
I guess I should be grateful. At least you had the courage to deal with our loose ends in person.”

Andy raised his head and his expression shut her up. She’d never seen so much pain on the face of someone who wasn’t actively dying. It seemed to her that the struggle to contain all that pain and grief was worse than if he’d let it out in one long primal howl.

She dropped into the chair across from him. “
Andy
.”

“Don’t,” he said tersely. “I can’t take sympathy right now.”

“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“In sickness and in health,” A.J. reminded him.

Andy’s face twisted. “It wasn’t working for us before this happened. I don’t see my getting sick helping anything. Anyway, it’s done. It’s over. I don’t want to talk about it. My mind is made up.”

“Oh, well great. Did
he
get to have his say?”