Corpse Pose

by Diana Killian

Elysia flinched. “I’ll try again to convince her to go to the authorities.”

  “Doesn’t she understand—?” A.J. stopped, the truth dawning slowly. “The tie belongs to Chloe, doesn’t?”

  Elysia nodded.

  Twenty-four

  “Nicole Manning on line one,” Suze said over the intercom.

  “Thanks, Suze.” A.J. picked up the handset. “Hello, Nicole. This is A.J. Alexander, Diantha’s niece.”

  “Oh my God,” Nicole exclaimed in a breathy Marilyn Monroe voice. “Oh my God, J.B., I couldn’t believe the news! To think she’s gone! And to think I missed the funeral. I mean, I so wanted to be there for her. If I’d only known!”

  “Thank you,” A.J. said mechanically. She all at once remembered why she hadn’t been sorry when Nicole decided she needed to move her account to a large and prestigious PR firm.

  “I’m serious, you know? Di was more than my teacher. She was my spiritual mentor. I totally owe my success to her. When I was first trying out for the role of Bambi Marciano in Family Business, Di was the one who helped me find my focus. My center.”

  Nicole continued to talk—mostly about Nicole.

  “It’s so sweet of you to have called,” A.J. cooed when she could finally get a word in. It was obvious Nicole didn’t remember her from Adam, which was fine. She didn’t have time or energy to share an International Coffee Moment with Nicole.

  “Well, the thing is,” Nicole said quickly, “Di had asked me for a little favor, and I just wanted to make sure—that is—” She gave a light, artificial laugh. “I was wondering if my package had arrived safely.”

  “What package?” A.J. asked with a sinking feeling.

  “Well, as I’m sure you know, Laurie Avon—who is just fabulous—designs all the gowns on the show, and Di had this treasure of an idea that I could loan one of Laurie’s gowns to Di for one of her little students. Some poor kiddie who needed a dress for a prom or something.”

  “Oh…wow” was all that A.J. could manage.

  “Sooo….” Nicole gave a nervous little laugh. “I just wanted to make sure the gown arrived safely.”

  “Uh, I can check for you. Would you happen to have a tracking number on that,” A.J. asked.

  When she concluded her phone conversation with Nicole, she dropped her face in her hands. She had the most awful feeling that the package destroyed in the fire at Deer Hollow was Nicole Manning’s seventeen-thousand-dollar Laurie Avon original.

  Taking a deep breath, she signed into her laptop and surfed over to the UPS site. With the tracking number Nicole had supplied, she was able to verify that, yep, by some ghastly coincidence, UPS had delivered the designer gown the very afternoon someone had decided to firebomb A.J.’s residence.

  Which created two problems: how to explain to Nicole that the gown she had borrowed on behalf of Diantha had gone up in smoke, and how to come up with a suitable replacement garment for Chloe? On the bright side, if Chloe was in jail, she wouldn’t need a designer ball gown.

  “Mail call!” Suze chirped, depositing a stack of letters, magazines, and a parcel on A.J.’s desk.

  “You are way too cheerful this morning,” A.J. informed her.

  Suze giggled. “Hey, it’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood! Did you see the roster for your class tonight? You’ve got twenty people—and their pooches—signed up for Doga.”

  “You’re kidding,” A.J. said weakly. “Twenty?”

  “Two-oh.”

  A.J. swallowed hard. “I think I need to go home and practice my moves on Monster.”

  Suze giggled another one of those happy giggles and disappeared.

  A.J. examined the parcel. Special delivery from Andy. She dug her letter opener out and cut the tape. There was a note inside. Curiously, she opened it.

  Thank you for ten wonderful years. Thank you for your love and trust and faith. I’m sorry I let you down. I know it’s too soon for you to forgive—and I don’t want you to forget. I want to stay part of your life if you’ll let me. You’ll always be part of mine. Love you.

  Andy

  Tears pricked her eyes. She pulled aside the tissue, absently thinking that it was so like Andy to carefully wrap everything in soft tissue—A.J. would have settled for Ziploc bags.

  Inside the box was her favorite beaded cashmere sweater, the pearls Andy had given her for their wedding—and which she had thrown in his face before she’d walked out of their apartment for the final time—her favorite body lotion, a box of Godiva chocolates, and Bear, the small stuffed teddy she’d had since she was ten.

  She sighed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Well, there were worse ways to end than friends.

  She gathered up everything and put it back in the box, and quickly sorted through the rest of the mail and her phone messages, lingering for a moment over Nicole’s number.

  That was one piece of bad news she could wait to deliver. Of all the terrible luck…

  It had been bad luck, right, that the dress had been delivered on the same day as the fire?

  Except…what was the motive for that fire?

  It couldn’t have been a serious attempt on her life. She hadn’t even been home. Was it a simple case of vandalism? But why target Deer Hollow Farm? The house wasn’t on the main drag, and as far as A.J. knew there had been no previous incidents of vandalism or harassment.

  Could anyone have known the dress was being delivered that day? And even if someone had known, why in the world would someone want to blow up an evening gown?

  Elysia was out when A.J. arrived at Starlight Farm. That was a relief. A.J. wasn’t up to another discussion of how they were going to trap Michael Batz into a confession of murder. By the time they had gone to bed the night before, Elysia had been asking about the feasibility of wiretaps and surveillance cameras. If A.J. told her about Nicole Manning and the destroyed designer gown, the conversation would naturally move to Chloe, and that was practically guaranteed to lead to an argument. She couldn’t risk it. Over the past two weeks she and Elysia had approached something very like friendship. She didn’t want to endanger that.

  Taking out the Doga video tape she’d had FedExed a few days earlier, she headed for her mother’s exercise room, popped it in the DVD/VCR player, and sat down on the floor to watch. She needed to learn all she could, and she didn’t want to educate herself in front of the people who technically worked for her. For the time being she needed to train in private.

  If you could call this training, she thought, watching the woman on the video.

  “Monster, I hope you’re taking notes,” A.J. told the dog sleeping under her feet.

  Diantha had hoped that Lily and A.J. would work together, but A.J. knew with each passing day that she and Lily were never going to be partners. She kept hoping that Lily would reach the same conclusion and leave Sacred Balance. Unfortunately Lily seemed to be using the same strategy on A.J.

  Watching the video twice through, A.J. reassured herself that if she kept a positive attitude and a playful spirit it couldn’t be that hard, right?

  She decided to treat herself to a long, pampering soak. She was finding hot baths and her yoga exercises were paying off in reduced back pain.

  Elysia’s bathroom had all the amenities of a spa, including a sunken whirlpool bath. Soon A.J. was soaking in wonderful lavender and peppermint bath salts, scented candles burning on the ledge next to her while she flipped through a stack of magazines she had brought from the studio. Her aunt had subscribed to everything from Yoga Journal to Natural Curatives.

  It was interesting stuff, but nothing that was going to replace Allure or Cosmopolitan as far as A.J. was concerned. She skimmed an article on nasal irrigation, wrinkling her nose in disgust, moved on to another piece on meditation, found herself unable to focus, and picked up the latest copy of Natural Curatives. Trying not to get the pages soggy, A.J. browsed, pausing over an article about bee venom and arthritis.

  She remembered Aunt Di once saying that there was nothi
ng in the world that couldn’t be put to some productive use. Bees obviously had their uses—her mouth watered thinking of homemade biscuits slathered in real butter and fresh honey—but who would have thought bee venom could ease the suffering of people crippled with arthritis?

  Apparently the anti-inflammatory properties of bee venom were used to treat all kinds of diseases, including multiple sclerosis, tendonitis, and fibromyalgia. The patients interviewed for the article had used live honey bees to sting themselves numerous times to bring relief from their assorted ailments. Unfortunately it sounded like clinical case studies had been few and far between.

  A.J. tossed the magazine aside and pulled the drain plug.

  Dressing in jeans and a T-shirt, she went downstairs and started supper. She had no idea what Elysia’s plans were for the evening, but since A.J. needed to eat light and early, she figured she might as well cook for two.

  Turning on the television for background noise—Elysia seemed to have a TV in every room of the house—she explored Elysia’s immaculate kitchen. Although she couldn’t remember her mother cooking in all the years A.J. had been growing up, Elysia now seemed to own every culinary toy known to man or TV chef, as well as an impressive library of cookbooks. And Elysia was a pretty good cook, A.J. had to admit. Maybe cooking had afforded Elysia a kind of therapy. Or maybe it was simply a hobby. A.J. was beginning to realize that she didn’t know her mother nearly as well as she had imagined.

  The local news came on with the usual morbid focus on death and small-scale disaster. She listened with half an ear as she read through a vegetarian cookbook, which must surely have been a gift from Aunt Di. Elysia was definitely of the carnivore class.

  The buxom and gloating TV anchor woman animatedly gave the latest on a teen shooting in the next county.

  A.J. tuned out the bad news as she found a recipe for vegetable stir-fry that sounded pretty good. As she chopped zucchini and carrots, she realized that she too sort of enjoyed cooking, and that she did feel better when she ate healthy. Not that she was ready to renounce her passion for products labeled “Kraft” and “Nabisco,” but she was willing to cut back a little. In fact, she was actually developing a taste for crisp fresh vegetables and fruit.

  Maybe when the repairs were complete at Deer Hollow she would invite Jake over for dinner one evening.

  A.J. glanced at the television. The news anchor had been replaced by an on-location reporter who was even more buxom and animated. A.J. sighed inwardly. The world seemed to be an increasingly violent place. Even out here in the sticks no one seemed safe from senseless violence.

  She moved around the kitchen, stepping over Monster, who must have been a rug in his previous incarnation. She could tell he still missed Diantha—well, why not? She did, too. She stooped, giving him a quick hug.

  “Are you going to be my yoga buddy tonight?”

  Monster wagged his tail.

  Elysia was still not home by the time A.J. finished preparing supper. She checked her cell phone and found a message from her mother saying she would be dining with Bradley Meagher.

  Now that sounded promising, A.J. thought, serving herself stir-fry. Perhaps they would at last find out what was in that mysterious codicil to Diantha’s will—although it might be moot at this point. A.J. had a strong suspicion that the codicil stipulated that Michael needed to stay drug free in order to inherit.

  She ate her meal, put away the leftovers, tidied up the kitchen, and looked at the clock above the cupboards.

  “Showtime,” she announced, ignoring the butterflies suddenly flitting around her stomach.

  Monster smiled his doggy smile.

  Running upstairs, she changed into her workout gear, found Monster’s leash, and selected a baby blue band for him to wear—which he accepted with bemused grace.

  “Who’s going to be the handsomest dog in class?” she inquired, and Monster tried to lick her chin. She ducked back just in time, laughing.

  The parking lot at Sacred Balance was packed with cars. She wedged the Volvo in next to the Stevensons’ yellow Hummer, which reminded her that she’d never had a chance to talk to Jennifer about paying for the dry cleaning of her Jil Sander coat. It wasn’t the money; it was the principle of the thing. A.J. knew her aunt would not have let such behavior go unchallenged, and if A.J. was going to try to fill Diantha’s shoes, she was going to have to be willing to make herself occasionally unpopular. It was kind of a philosophical shift for a former marketing consultant.

  She squeezed out past the crookedly parked Hummer, wondering why Jennifer was there since there was no Yoga for Young Adults that night.

  Suze was still behind the front desk when she walked in with Monster.

  “You’re still here?”

  Suze smiled self-consciously. “I wanted to see if…I was hoping we could talk about something.”

  Did Suze want a pay raise? How much was A.J. paying her, because Suze’s friendly face was beginning to be worth its weight in gold. She smiled. “How about after class?”

  “Um, okay.” Suze smiled nervously.

  Uh-oh. Hopefully Suze wasn’t about to give notice. Welcome to the joys of management, A.J. reflected.

  On the first floor the Advanced Yoga class was underway. A.J. paused in the doorway to watch the students warm up, making pretzels of their limber bodies. She remembered being that flexible once. And she would be again. It would just take time. And a lot of determination.

  Her nerves tightened watching Lily snapping out orders like a field marshal preparing the troops.

  It was only too easy to picture Lily as a murderess, but if Lily were going to murder someone, she’d probably do it with her bare hands. She wouldn’t have the patience for messing around with hypos and honeybees.

  Lily looked up, caught A.J.’s gaze, and glowered.

  A.J. smiled at her with bright insincerity and than made her way to the second floor to peek in on Yoga for Cops. There were now six students, all of them female. Simon was virtually beaming as the lady law enforcers went through their moves. A.J. bit back a grin. She tried to picture Jake enrolling in a yoga course and failed.

  Glancing at her watch, she realized she was on the verge of being late for teaching her first class. She hurried down the hall. The door to the studio where the Doga class was to be held was closed. Monster began to wag his tail. A.J. pushed open the door and froze.

  The brightly lit room was in pandemonium: dogs barking, people yelling—the racket bounced off the hardwood floors. Monster’s ears flattened and he tried to back out of the room. A.J. couldn’t blame him—escape was her first instinct, too.

  “Come on, we’re a team,” she muttered to Monster, and pulled his leash short. He gave her a doubtful look, but padded obediently beside her as she made her way through the mob to the front of the room.

  She could see Chloe and her overweight beagle, as well as several of the other kids from Yoga for Young Adults—including Jennifer Stevenson. Jennifer had brought along a large, bad-tempered-looking purebred German shepherd—so perhaps this would not be the night to bring up the matter of her dry-cleaning bill. The shepherd snapped at Monster as he walked past.

  Monster scooted out of the way and gave the other dog a look of almost human outrage.

  “Jennifer, control your dog,” A.J. ordered sharply.

  Jennifer merely gave her a brazen smile before turning to her ever-present posse, who obligingly went off into peels of shrill giggles.

  It was going to be a very long class, A.J. thought.

  She took her place at the front of the room. “Okay, everyone. Please line up in three straight rows.”

  The human students obediently began to line up. A.J. took notice of Charlayne Lewis, her old friend Nancy’s daughter. Originally Charlayne had seemed to belong to Jennifer’s inner circle, but now Charlayne, like Chloe, was on the outside. She stayed at the back of the room with Stu Snyder. Stu. A penny dropped for A.J. Stu Snyder must be the Stu—the young man Jennifer had been ca
ught with behind the gymnasium by her former boyfriend Steve, who was now Chloe’s boyfriend.

  Jeez, the place was turning into Dawson’s Creek.

  “Okay.” A.J. tried clapping her hands for attention. “We’re going to try Down Dog,” she announced, which got a few laughs, although she wasn’t trying to be funny: Down Dog was, in fact, a yoga pose. “No, seriously,” she said. She made a lie-down motion, and Monster slowly settled down on all fours with a groan.

  This got more chuckles, and the two-legged students began to try and convince the four-legged students to cooperate.

  It occurred to A.J. that a good prerequisite for Doga would be obedience training because half the dogs in the room—and a number of the humans—had apparently never taken direction before.

  Jennifer’s dog immediately started a snarling match with a silver-haired lady’s Akita.

  “Fritz!” Jennifer yelled ineffectually before dissolving into giggles. Her friends—neither of them girls A.J. could remember seeing previously—began laughing as well.

  “Jennifer!” A.J. called out in annoyance.

  Jennifer yanked on Fritz’s choke chain and turned an expression of total innocence toward A.J.

  A.J. wondered how her aunt had managed to deal with Jennifer. A.J. was already considering banishing her from Sacred Balance. And she could just imagine how that would go over with Lily if she threw the daughter of the town’s most influential family out on her ear.

  On the far side of the room, a schnauzer got into a slanging match with a shih tzu, and a standard poodle decided to take a bite out of a collie; luckily the collie was mostly hair, and no serious damage was done, but suddenly it was like a barroom brawl for canines. Dogs were growling and snapping, and the human students weren’t doing much better.

  A.J. stepped in to try to help sort out the dogs and owners.

  Over the clamor she heard Jennifer’s harsh voice, though she couldn’t make out the words. She did hear Chloe’s shrill, “You had your chance and you blew it! Steve loves me now!”

  A.J. moved toward them in time to hear Jennifer sneer, “Are you sure you’re not still on drugs? Because you are definitely delusional!”