Diana Killian - Murder On The Eightfold Path

A muffled response.

“How do I know? I don’t want to take the chance of being spotted walking out of here.”

Over the pounding of blood in her ears A.J. could just make out the hurried swing and bang of the kitchen cupboard doors. What were they looking for?

This was very bad. Unless they found what they were looking for in the kitchen-and given how bare the cupboards were, that was unlikely-they would undoubtedly search the bedroom and the closet.

“I think you’re giving him too much credit,” said the same voice irritably.

And then, very distinctly, a female voice said, “His answering machine is missing.”

“The cops will have grabbed it.” The man’s voice was moving away from the bedroom doorway. A temporary reprieve, A.J. knew.

“A.J.” hissed a frantic whisper.

A.J. poked a cautious head out of the closet and saw Elysia at the far wall with the window open. She beckoned frantically and A.J., ignoring the pain in her back, tiptoed as quickly and as silently as she could manage across the room.

Elysia shoved the window screen out of its track and into the shrubbery beneath. “Can you climb?” she mouthed.

A.J. had no idea if she could climb or not, but she was not about to be caught in that room. It had already occurred to her that if the intruders were not the apartment management or Massri’s family, one or both of them might have had something to do with his death.

From down the hall the woman said, “Stop complaining. The faster we do this, the faster we get it over with.”

“You should have been a philosopher.”

The philosopher said something very rude. A kitchen drawer banged hard.

Elysia made a cup with her hands, and A.J., biting her lip against the flare of pain shooting down her hip and leg, stepped into the makeshift step and boosted herself up. Even though she was braced for it, the pain caught her by surprise. She closed her mind to it, and hauled herself out through the wide sliding window and lowered herself to the hedge below. It made for a prickly but reasonably sturdy landing, and she half-rolled, half-wriggled off, landing gracelessly on the walkway in a shower of leaves.

Elysia came scrabbling out the window a moment later, flopped onto the hedge, and dropped to the walk.

“Scarper!” she gasped.

One of her best ideas in a long time, that was A.J.’s opinion as she scuttled after her mother.

They hurried down the path to the parking lot. With all the gratitude of a shipwrecked sailor spotting land, A.J. recognized the blue and white Land Rover right where they had left it.

Elysia used her key fob to unlock the doors while they were still a yard away. They sprinted the last few feet and slammed inside the vehicle.

Hand to her throbbing back, A.J. gasped, “That was too close!”

Elysia smirked-in between pants-and turned the key in the ignition.

“Never again, Mother. I must be insane to have gone along with this. I must be taking way too many pain meds. I must be-”

“Don’t be so poor spirited, pumpkin.”

“If that had been the apartment manager, we’d be on our way to jail right now. In fact that’s probably optimistic. Never mind getting caught, we could have been in real danger. For all we know one of those people was Medea.”

Elysia wrinkled her nose. “I don’t believe so.”

“I didn’t catch any names. Did you?”

Elysia shook her head. There was a dead leaf in her dark hair, which somehow made her certainty all the more annoying.

A.J. demanded, “Well then? Why couldn’t that woman have been Medea?”

Elysia’s wide green eyes met hers. “Because I know who Medea is.”

“Yes?”

They were hurtling down Interstate 80 back toward Stillbrook, Elysia driving pedal-to-the-metal as though the combined law enforcement agencies of New Jersey were in hot pursuit.

She answered absently, “Yes what?”

“Who is she?” A.J. demanded.

“Medea Sutherland.”

A.J. lowered her car seat trying to find some relief for her throbbing back. “Why is that name familiar?”

“You remember Maddie. She’s an old mate of mine.” Elysia sighed reminiscently. “I remember once when she made a guest appearance on 221B Baker Street to help us solve the murder at the Peking Opera-”

“Oh my God,” A.J. exclaimed. “Maddie Sutherland. I remember now. She’s the one who used to make those Hammer Horror films.”

“Yes. Among other things.”

“The crazy one.”

Elysia made a disapproving sound.

“Mother, she invited the National Enquirer into her home to interview the ghosts she thought lived there. That’s pretty crazy by any definition.”

“You do have such a long memory for other people’s… foibles. Anyway, Maddie believed the house was haunted.”

A.J. decided to overlook the “foibles” crack although her tone was crisp as she responded, “Then she should have called an exorcist or whatever they’re called. Because it looked like either a publicity stunt or that she was stark, raving bonkers. Or both.” She examined Elysia’s uncommunicative profile. “What makes you think this Medea is your Medea?”

“When was the last time you met someone named Medea?”

“There must be women around named Medea. Especially in Greek communities.”

“Be serious, pumpkin. Anyway, I recall Medea writing me a few years back to tell me she was getting married. And she does rather fit the profile of the kind of woman Dicky used to… romance.”

“Crazy old ladies?”

“So amusing, Anna,” Elysia murmured, sounding not the least amused.

A.J. considered the ceiling of the Land Rover as they raced along. “Maybe Medea knocked Dicky off when she found out he was two-timing her?”

The Land Rover suddenly reduced speed. “It’s hard to imagine a less violent soul.”

“Even so, the spouse or lover is usually the prime suspect. And your old mate Medea certainly always seemed a little… unpredictable.”

“But I don’t think they were still married.” Elysia’s eyes were in the rearview as a police cruiser drew behind. “Try to act natural, pet,” she said out of the side of her mouth.

“Why?”

“The coppers are after us.”

A.J. gulped. “How much more natural can I act than sitting here?” She did her best to appear to be innocently and leisurely enjoying the spring landscape as it slid by at a much more sedate pace.

She couldn’t help worrying. Had there been some development in the case? Was there now an APB out on Elysia’s car?

Neither had much to say for the next few miles, and then the cruiser suddenly put on his lights and zoomed ahead of them.

Elysia relaxed. “Bloody coppers,” she muttered as the cruiser disappeared in the distance.

“This is such a disaster. Because we were in that apartment illegally I can’t even tell Jake about the other intruders searching it.”

“You could. He’ll probably throw you in the hoosegow, but if you feel it’s your civic duty…”

“Don’t you see that if Jake knew about those two it would take some of the heat off you?”

“I wish that were true. But the fact of the matter is that, given Dicky’s occupation, it’s no surprise that people are attempting to search his apartment. The only surprise is we didn’t run into more people searching it.”

She had a point. A.J. reflected how alarming it would be to find out that someone with access to your deepest, darkest secrets had died-perhaps leaving those secrets where anyone might stumble over them.

She watched unseeing as trees and barns and road signs flashed by. A sign for a winery, a sign for Yards Creek Soaring glider rides, a sign for Yoga Meridian.