8

So, tell me what happened.” Rashima clicked shut the lid on her laptop and offered me coffee, admitting she wasn’t getting much work done. “Exactly as it happened.”

I settled in to tell her as much as I could about the murder scene, tossing in a few theories. Finally I faltered, telling her I had no clue. “And I need to know. You know?”

“You’re trying to find out who did it, aren’t you?” Eyes wide and eyebrows up. This was Rashima’s concerned face. Why would she assume I was snooping around in some amateur-sleuth way? Well, because she knew me pretty well: I had enjoyed my former job rehashing old true crime cases. I’d been good at it.

I pointed out that given I was the one to discover Anna’s body, I had extra motivation. I didn’t mention that Milo had found my presence on the path that morning to be a concerning coincidence, missing the point that I was always there at about that time of day. If anything, Anna’s workout usually came earlier. I seldom saw her.

I said as much now to Rashima, adding, “I’ve been out walking every day for ages now and I know the regulars who head out when I do. She was not on her usual schedule. She’d been on this health kick for what—a few months?”

Rashima gave the question her most solemn consideration, her fingernails, painted white to match her computer, tapping on the computer lid.

“More,” she said. “Anna had become way more interested in her appearance. She was always a bit like that, though.”

“Vain,” I supplied.

“Vain,” she agreed. “Always shopping, with packages from high-end merchants being delivered to her door almost daily. Always in a new outfit with matching everything. And matchy-matchy is so last year.”

“She was in real estate,” I pointed out. “You can’t show a house in ripped jeans and a T-shirt.”

“True.” Rashima paused. “Exactly how much did you … ? You know—see?”

“Of the body? Not a lot. She was mostly hidden by trees and bushes. Pure chance I saw her at all. Then … I saw enough to see she was dead.”

“Dead, how?”

“Strangled, at a guess. The police were not in a confiding mode. Just by the look of … you know. Her eyes. I think she was strangled with that scarf she wore around her hair when she ran. That boho thing.”

“She must have been so terrified.” Rashima’s slim shoulders moved delicately beneath the shimmering white fabric of her blouse. She was trembling, probably putting herself in Anna’s runners, imagining her fear. That was Rashima all over.

“Must have been,” I said solemnly. “It’s a very—well, personal way to kill someone. You have to really hate them, I guess.” I picked up another sample from the array scattered near her laptop—a salmon-pink eye shadow—and wondered what member of the human race that color would flatter.

“There was a certain manic quality to her behavior recently, I thought. Dhir thinks so, too.”

I put down the eye shadow and looked across at her. “Manic? Manic how?”

Rashima shrugged. “Like there was something big on her horizon? Something that she wanted very badly? Someone in particular she was trying to impress? I don’t know. Anyway, maybe ‘obsessive’ is a better word. She started talking about plastic surgery and she was years away from needing that.”

I nodded my agreement. That porcelain skin. It would be a sacrilege to start cutting into that before time.

“Maybe she had a younger competitor. I don’t mean for Alfie’s attentions—that’s really hard to imagine. He adored her. I mean, a competitor at the office.”

Rashima settled back into her chair, crossed her arms, and said, “Usually, when a woman is feeling insecure about her looks, she wears too much makeup—the worst thing you can do, of course. It ages you. I saw her one day the other week and it just looked ladled on. I told her to stop by, that I had some new samples she could try. I was trying to steer her toward a look that was less Phantom of the Opera, if you know what I mean.”

I thought of one of my last sightings of Anna, outside of our early morning confabs over the recycle bin, when neither of us had anything on our faces but No. 7 night cream on mine and the high-priced spread on hers. She had been dressed for the office in a too-short, pop art wrap dress that showed off her chunky knees and too much black eyeliner, with fake eyelashes. Welcome back, Mary Quant and the swinging sixties.

“I do know what you mean,” I said. “So, did she come over for a consult?”

“No. You know how it is. No one has time to just drop in and chat. Present company excepted.”

The blade on that point was unintentionally sharp. It must have shown in my expression.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’d forgotten for the moment you were out of a job. I’ve been there. It sucks.”

“But you landed on your feet. Overnight, practically.”

“It just looks that way. I’d actually been planning my move for a long time.”

Point taken—don’t let anyone blindside you. Take charge; plan ahead.

She poured us both more coffee as we continued circling over the bones of Anna’s life and death.

“Who would do such a thing?” Rashima asked for probably the twelfth time that morning. She looked as if she might have been crying earlier, and the fine skin around her doe eyes was crinkled with concern. It was not in her philosophy that human beings killed each other, and human beings known to her did not die violent deaths. She was genuinely shocked. Her small hands as she held her coffee trembled.

“I dunno,” I said. “I think it could have been any number of people, don’t you?”

“Oh, Jill, I—”

I waved away her protests. If we were going to get anywhere with this conversation there was no room for hypocrisy, and I told her as much. “I’m sorry to have to say it. But if anyone could provoke jealousy and envy, it was Anna. And it wasn’t accidental or unintentional. She had to know someone was going to get hurt because of her sleeping around. I mean, come on. You know it; I know it. And the police don’t need platitudes from us, not if they’re going to solve her murder.”

“I know. You’re right. Of course you’re right. But still, you should leave this to the police. You didn’t even like her much.”

“You don’t have to like someone to be invested in solving their murder,” I pointed out. “A lot of innocent people may get dragged into this.” Rashima and Dhir in particular. Even though they’d lived in England for ages, they were outsiders, like me. How much would it take to start a witch hunt, I wondered? Not much. “And a killer remains at large in the village. Doesn’t that worry you?”

“God, yes. It freaks me out. Dhir, too, if you want the truth. He’s getting a locksmith over to replace some of the locks.” This idea made her look even more downcast. “But you are so good to be thinking of others like this. You should—”

I cut across this tribute to my goodness. “You caught her act at Racy Macy’s garden party. The fundraiser.”

The Rideouts had held a party for our local MP at their manor house not long after they’d moved in—a housewarming combined with a genteel shakedown for funds. This was, I believe, where Anna had met the candidate for the first time. By some quirk of fate or, more likely, a miscalculation of our net worth on someone’s part—for this party was for the serious money—Will and I had been invited to the same party. That said, Will always got invited places because of his title. I saw the sparks fly between Macy and our man in parliament—no mistaking it.

“Flirting with Colin?” Rashima sighed—a big, penitent sigh at speaking ill of the dead. “Yes, you and I both saw it. It was most indiscrete of us to notice. And of her, of course, to carry on as she did. But then she had had a lot to drink, and—”

“The sparks were flying.” I wanted to stop the flow of excuses I knew she would find for Anna’s inexcusable behavior, as if being dead gave her a free pass. “And Alfie was right there. In fact I saw him watching, sort of hiding behind his drink but peering at them over the top of his glass. He looked gutted. Livid—for Alfie. Who doesn’t really do livid.”

I also had overheard Anna telling the MP that Alfie had said if anything should happen to him, she had his permission “to find love again.” It was absurd. I would have been willing to bet Alfie never said any such thing—it sounded like something out of a telenovela script—but Anna had added that bait to her tackle box, alongside the false eyelashes. In case her intended target had any moral scruples about extramarital affairs, she’d been inching the door open.

If Alfie had said anything that even came close, he’d probably meant she should wait a decent interval before bonking someone else’s spouse. I thought I’d ask Alfie about it one day, not that it mattered. It sounded like the convenient, self-serving sort of lie Anna would tell.

I felt bad tossing Alfie into it like that. The thing was, he was going to be the main murder suspect with or without my help. But this was Rashima I was talking to, not Milo. My plan was to shield Alfie from officialdom—at least for as long as I safely could without getting embroiled myself.

“You don’t think … ?” Rashima began.

“Alfie? Right now I’m keeping an open mind.” Spoken like a true detective. “But he has no alibi for that morning, I’m sure. He was probably just at home. He’s always at home.”

“You are starting to scare me,” she said. The waxed brows over the soulful brown eyes again drew down in concern. “Whoever did this is dangerous—well, obviously. Perhaps mad as a hatter.”

“No worries,” I said. “I was just speculating.”

“No, you weren’t. I mean it, Jane Marple. People have been killed for less. They are killed every day over little things like designer shoes and jackets. We don’t even know what this is about. Maybe she got on the wrong side of some bad people in a business deal. Mafia types. Maybe she cut someone off in traffic. Or maybe some lunatic who thought she looked like his ex-wife happened to see her in that ad—that video you made of her.”

“Maybe it’s an ex-lover,” I said. “Now, there’s a wide-open field for you.”

“Yes, an ex-lover perhaps. A madman so full of hatred he doesn’t even know what he’s doing.”

“Or madwoman. Most of her lovers probably had wives or girlfriends.”

“Well, yes, of course! That is my point. It could be anyone.”

I patted her arm reassuringly.

“No worries,” I said again. “Say—didn’t Anna broker the deal when Macy and Barry sold their old place and moved? I mean, I know she did. But weren’t there some problems along the way?”

“I heard there were,” said Rashima, “but I wasn’t really plugged into all that. What I recall is that their old house sold well before the manor house was ready for them to move into, and Macy was really pissed off about it. It should have been built into the contract that they couldn’t settle the agreement before a certain date—before they had a chance to pack up properly and move. But it wasn’t and the contractor they sold to held their feet to the fire.”

“That’s right,” I said. “They ended up staying in a hotel for six weeks. I guess that would tick me off, too.”

“The added expense, sure. Plus Barry’s dream of carrying his bride into the castle he’d readied for her was derailed, or at least postponed. Yes.”

“And there was some tension over the asking price for their old place—Anna told them it was too high, and it was,” I said. “Barry can be a bit full of himself. But that all got smoothed over. Didn’t it?”

“Beats me. Macy and Barry gradually pulled up the drawbridge after that and I didn’t see them as much. But killing Anna over a slightly botched business deal, if that’s what you’re reaching for? Not possible.”

“Who else is a possibility then?” I asked, noticing that Rashima was getting into the swing of things, speculating right alongside me.

“Anna had been chummy with Heather lately,” she said. “And I only tell you that because I can no more imagine Heather killing someone than I can imagine her, oh, I don’t know. Getting a degree in astrophysics.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think you can bore someone to death. Before you use them for compost, that is.”

Rashima, knowing how I felt about Heather, smiled, but her face soon fell back into frown position: This is no joking matter. “I’m serious, Jillian. We must be serious. And you must be careful if you plan to go around asking questions. You never know when you might be asking the wrong person.”

The Mafia hiding in plain sight in Weycombe, probably holing up in Riverside Park. Right. I nodded and looked her straight in the eye, as if I were planning to take her advice.

“Just don’t corner anyone alone, all right?” she added.

“I’ll be careful. But in your shoes, I’d be thinking what to tell the police, Rash. Your house overlooks hers; you saw Anna’s comings and goings, her packages being delivered. You could even see right into her bedroom half the time, so the police will be asking what you know. It’s probably best to say as little as possible.”

“Well, unless they want to know she overwatered her plants, I’ve got nothing.”

“Good. Okay.” But did she hesitate for a moment? Yes, she did. “I’m not telling you what to do,” I said. “I’m telling you what I would do. That’s different.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not different in the least. You may not plan to tell the police anything but you do plan to insert yourself into this somehow.” The eyebrows settled back into a frown and stayed there. It was Rashima who had introduced me to the mysteries of things like eyebrow threading, not that I bothered to follow her more esoteric advice, but I was always fascinated to be reminded there was a world of women out there who had been born knowing this stuff. It was encoded in their DNA, and when my ancestors surely had been fighting over the last root vegetable in their barren plots of land, theirs had been lounging about harems or dancing with French kings. I envied them but I could never emulate them.

Now she said, “You will be drawing attention to yourself with this … this investigation. And you’ve no idea what might crawl out of that hole you’re digging.”

Okay, okay. “Anna is dead as in murdered. Aren’t you at least a bit curious who did it? If only because there’s a killer out there who for all we know may be randomly targeting women on the path?”

“No, I’m not. Because I agree with Dhir that this wasn’t random. If you’re smart you’ll stay out of what you don’t understand and let the police handle it.”

She did know something, I was sure of it. Or had reason to suspect—something. I looked at her, trying to decide the best way to prize out whatever information resided inside that keen and very private brain of hers.

“Yes, yes, okay,” I said. “Just tell me and I’ll leave you alone: who else crossed Anna’s path, in a bad way?”

Rashima paused, stirring brown sugar into her coffee. “Arty Frannie would know a lot more about what Anna got up to. She was that dog walker in the paper, in case you didn’t know.”

“No, I didn’t know, but I had a hunch. How did you come to find out?”

“Jill, you have got to get out more. She practically held a media conference at her shop this morning. Not with the media but with anyone who stopped by. She probably figured it would be good for business.”

“She was probably right.”

“Arty” Frannie Pope was the one I told you about, the woman who owned a boutique in the village called Serendipity. People made the necessary transposition of letters in her name, putting that F where they liked, as they felt pro or con about Frannie and her shop. Divorced, with dyed black hair skinned back from her brow, she sported a perpetual tan and the wrinkles that went with it. She looked mummified.

She also had a house in Weycombe Court—one of the more expensive units, which I thought impressive for a single woman. I always assumed she’d received a good divorce settlement because it was hard to see how her shop alone supported her lifestyle.

She had a seat on the parish council, and had bonded with Anna over some village fundraising event intended to save whatever was endangered and needed saving that week. Somewhere in her past, Frannie had worked as a professional moneymaker, organizing silent auctions, dances, and golfing events. She was the sort of person who was good at the “ask,” which is the part most people—perhaps most especially British people—balk at. Asking for money is just not done. I wondered idly if she’d been involved in fundraising for our local MP and filed that question away for later.

I knew Anna was one of Frannie’s best customers for the bohemian scarves and jewelry she sold in her shop, goods heavily imbued with a gypsy or Native American vibe. I would bet anything that boho scarf of Anna’s, now stashed in an evidence locker somewhere, came from Serendipity. Frannie also sold a lot of turquoise jewelry she got from a wholesale outfit in Albuquerque, where she traveled once a year on shopping trips. Frannie was as indigenous to New Mexico as I was—which is to say, not at all. I think she was originally Australian. But with her black hair, dark eyes, and the tan, she passed pretty well, even with a last name like Pope.

“And then there’s Heather,” said Rashima. “It’s an odd thing, but I did see Anna over at her house more than once lately.”

“I know, and it is odd. What did those two find to talk about? Subprime mortgages?”

Rashima must have seen my eyes light up. “Be careful, Jill,” she said again.

“You don’t really think Heather … ? You said yourself, she—”

“I don’t know what to think anymore.”