Riddle in Bones: An Abishag’s Third Mystery (The Abishag Mysteries)

by Michelle Knowlden

  Since Dèsirèe may not know as much about Star Trek lore as Stanley’s roommates, I explained, “It means that revenge is better, from a criminal’s viewpoint, when it’s exacted years after the triggering event.”

  “In this case, decades later.” Kat said. “Makes no sense to me.”

  I tried not to sound patronizing. “When DiToro confesses, it’ll make sense. You’ll see.”

  Sebastian wandered into the kitchen, asked me in the middle of a yawn, “Aren’t you supposed to be taking a nap?” He looked sadly at the empty coffee pot.

  Dèsirèe handed me a steaming mug of milk lightly sprinkled with nutmeg that I hadn’t seen her make. “I will wake you in time to ready yourself.”

  Hissing at me as I passed her, Kat said, “I’ll do all the talking tonight.”

  As if. My last view of the others, before the darkness of the hall engulfed me, was Dèsirèe abandoning her preparation of appetizers to make coffee for Sebastian, Sebastian rummaging through the refrigerator, and Kat perched on the counter, glued to her iPhone.

  Bypassing my room, I peeked in Henry’s, finding the familiar scene of Dog reading his medical books. As I rounded the corner, afternoon light illuminated Henry’s right hand. Lying palm up, I saw the tips of his fingers calloused from his archeological digs, his palm lines drawn like a relief map.

  I set the steaming mug on the nightstand. “Everything okay?”

  Dog repeated what he had said often for my previous husbands, “Holding steady but still dying.”

  Lifting Henry’s hand, I rubbed it gently against my cheek. Then I studied his bones. His hand felt lighter this afternoon.

  “You look like my great-aunt, a gypsy who reads palms.”

  Dog sounded serious, but I grinned. Men of science don’t believe in such things. “Therapeutic touch is an Abishag’s duty.” I rested my cheek against Henry’s hand again.

  “You are comfortable with him now?”

  I nodded. “He doesn’t seem like Doc T, my employer anymore. He is just Henry.”

  I returned my husband’s hand to the spot still lit by the afternoon sun, this time palm down, hiding the map of his future. I didn’t need to see it. My two previous husbands had prepared me for Henry’s death.

  Dog’s attention drifted back to his medical book as I told Henry about Dèsirèe making appetizers for an old friend of his, about the nap I sorely needed, and how I would read to him from the Camelot book before dinner.

  Thinking about Merlin and wishing I knew how tonight would go, I shifted Henry’s pillow, straightened his sheet, and threw a question to Dog over my shoulder, “What would your great-aunt, the gypsy woman, say about my hand?” Although Dog sat too far away to see my palm clearly, I flashed it at him.

  Sighing, Dog bookmarked his page with his thumb. “She only told fortunes for the old and dying. She said the lines of the young appeared and disappeared haphazardly. Only when the palm lines became more fixed, would she read them.”

  I wondered if he was being poetical. I tried comparing my lines with Henry’s, but mine seemed as fixed, too. I felt a shiver of terrible portents wondering if my future was as attenuated as his, and then shook myself. I was a woman of hard science. I did not believe one could foresee anything but trends and probabilities.

  I wished I could read Henry’s bones as easily as he read his mule bones. If I could, then maybe I’d see how the bones in his hands had once curled around his Guinevere’s, how his leg bones had carried him away from her, and how the rib bones protected his broken heart.

  I could be as poetical as Dog.

  Yawning, I stood. “I’ll sit with Henry again at dinner. I know it’ll be easier with the new aide tomorrow, but I don’t mind eating dinner here. Will Sebastian sit with Henry this afternoon?”

  Dog shook his head. “No, he said that you and Kat were hatching something so he arranged his students to meet him here this afternoon?”

  My eyes widened with consternation, and he laughed. “You two aren’t as devious as you think you are. Now take your nap.”

  I thought about warning Kat but suspected Sebastian had told her by now. Picking up my cooling milk, I shrugged. “The more, the merrier,” and flounced from the room.

  As I shut my bedroom door, I saw a dress hanging on the back of the door. Drinking the milk, I felt a rush of gratitude for Duarte’s wife and her fashion sense. The Neiman Marcus cocktail dress had black lace covering a metallic, champagne-colored sheath, cap sleeves, a fitted, demure bodice, and a floating skirt. I liked its flirty look.

  She included a pair of strappy black sandals, but they were both too narrow and too long for me. I would put the Jimmy Choo embroidered sandals by the coffee table and walk around bare-footed. Maybe the guests would believe I was too distracted with Henry’s impending death to put on shoes.

  Shucking off my clothes, I slipped under the duvet. My last thought before falling into a dreamless sleep was of generals in cocktail dresses readying themselves for war.

  * * *

  “One hour before the guests arrive,” Dèsirèe said. When I opened my eyes, she shut the door.

  I grabbed the dress and headed for Henry’s bathroom, seeing that someone occupied the hall one.

  Swinging the Jimmy Choos around my index finger a half hour later, I stalled at the end of the hall, admiring Dèsirèe’s festive re-setting of the living room into something more intimate. She had dimmed the lights, floated gardenias and candles in shallow bowls, filled tall vases with olive branches and hibiscus flowers, and twisted grapevines around the lamp stands. On the coffee table, white wine cooled on ice and a forest of glasses surrounded a bottle of red.

  The one jarring note was Sebastian lounging in the recliner with a smug look on his face. On the couch, Chris Mayfield and Elaine Didderly sipped wine with dubious enjoyment.

  I dropped the Jimmy Choos next to the wing chair, glowered at Sebastian, and marched into the kitchen. “Why did you let them ruin our plans?”

  In deference to the occasion, Kat had changed into a brightly colored Guatemalan shirt and clean, though frayed, jeans. A beaded headband slightly restrained her blonde dread locks. Putting finishing touches to trays of appetizers, Dèsirèe was better dressed than either of us even with a white apron covering most of her slinky black dress.

  “No worries.” Kat pocketed her iPhone. “I’ll control the room.” She fixed an eye on me. “Remember, you say nothing.”

  I ignored her reminder. “You might control the students, but Sebastian looks like he’s ready for battle. I bet he won’t even let us get a word in edgewise with DiToro.”

  “Me. Let me get a word in, not you. Like I said, I got it handled.”

  The doorbell rang, and Kat rushed to answer it before Sebastian. In a more stately fashion, I followed Dèsirèe who carried a tray of crab rangoons through the dining room and into the living room where Sebastian introduced himself and the two students to Doctor DiToro.

  I checked myself by the piano, watching Kat hover behind DiToro, glowering. Sebastian in charming Crowder fashion, drew the archeologist into the room, settled him in the love seat, and poured him a glass of red wine. The two students huddled at either end of the couch, looking out-of-place and distinctly uncomfortable.

  In person, Frankie DiToro had aged since his book jacket photos. Heavier, his face hung in jowly lines. Hours of fieldwork had turned his skin leathery, but the man had a charisma untouched by age. His eyes sparkled as he took in Dèsirèe and her slinky dress. Lumbering to his feet, he accepted two crab rangoons. “Nice,” he murmured. He wasn’t talking about the rangoons. He didn’t seem to recognize Dèsirèe from their previous encounters.

  I also noticed that his gaze returned to Kat as if keeping track of the women in the room. It wasn’t her hazel eyes he admired. His gaze fixed lower. Although he had greeted both students with an effusive smile, he now ignored them. Apparently Dèsirèe and Kat, the same age as Elaine, somehow triggered his amatory ways.

  Then Di
Toro’s attention lit on me, as I lingered discretely behind the piano. His eyebrows rose as he slowly scanned me from white blonde hair twisted into a French knot, down my Neiman Marcus dress, to my bare legs. His gaze settled on my hand holding a glass of lemonade and the plain gold band on the ring finger. A small smile played on his lips.

  He swept towards me. “Mrs. Henry Telemann, yes?” He captured my right hand, the one without wedding ring and glass of lemonade. He kissed it, retaining my hand afterward longer than necessary.

  “Doctor DiToro,” I acknowledged with a touch of ice and tried tugging my hand from his. He had a fearsome grip, probably due to all his digging in Indian settlements and Egyptian tombs.

  A mock look of dismay crossed his face. “I have offended my dear friend’s wife. What have I done? How may I make amends?”

  Between Kat’s frantic gestures to remain silent, trying to wiggle my fingers from DiToro and wanting to blister him with a few pungent comments, I started to speak. The doorbell rang, suspending imminent social disaster. Nearest to the door, Kat answered and I saw her shoulders sag before I recognized the unexpected guest.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Is Leslie here?” Donovan sounded irritated. Woodenly, Kat moved aside, and he stepped into the entry. When his eyes adjusted, he found me blinking in dismay, my hand still in DiToro’s. He marched on us like a medieval army advancing on Tintagel.

  “What is this?” His chiseled jaw flexed, and an angry flush colored his perfect cheekbones. “You can’t entertain. Who is this man?” He glared at Doctor DiToro. “Really, Leslie, if Florence Harcourt knew about this, she would be incensed.”

  I had to set the lemonade on the piano to extricate my right hand from DiToro’s. Amusement at my predicament finally relaxed his grip.

  “It’s not what it seems.” At Kat’s frantic cutting-her-throat gesture and seeing the heightened interest of Dèsirèe, Sebastian, and the students, I changed my explanation into an introduction. “Doctor DiToro, this is Donavan Reid, a lawyer at the Abishag agency. Donovan, Doctor DiToro is an old friend or more accurately, an old rival of Henry’s.”

  With Donovan’s narrowed gaze still on the archeologist, Sebastian roused himself from what he apparently found an entertaining scene. He poured Donovan a glass of white wine without asking his preference and urged him to sit on the couch between the students.

  Scooping up my Jimmy Choos, I retreated to the wingchair. Dèsirèe offered the professor her tray of mushroom pastries, distracting him momentarily. When she moved to those on the couch, Kat took her place, a determined expression on her face and something tucked under her right arm. Back in the recliner, Sebastian missed her advance as he poured more wine for Mayfield.

  With a genial air of someone accustomed to audiences, DiToro said, “I should correct Mrs. Telemann. Anyone who knows my reputation in the field and extensive bibliography would never consider her husband, although certainly competent by lesser standards, my rival.”

  Sebastian’s face tightened, and I said hastily, “That’s not what I meant.”

  Kat overrode me. “Sir, allow me to resolve this past business before Henry Telemann passes.”

  I subsided in the wing chair, watching DiToro with a jaundiced eye, hoping he was the one who had shot Henry. The crime suspiciously mimicked the shooting of the Idaho college president decades ago. I would take great pleasure turning him over to Detective Jeff Salinger.

  “What past business?” A wary look crossed DiToro’s face. “I thought I was here to discuss my latest book?”

  Kat smiled gently. “We didn’t think you’d meet with us if you knew we wanted to discuss Jennifer Eaton and the shooting of her husband.”

  I heard an intake of breath from the couch. DiToro set his wine glass on the piano so abruptly that it teetered for a few moments before standing still. “That’s none of your business.”

  He started for the door, but Kat planted herself between him and it. She received some unexpected help from Dèsirèe who joined her with a tray of teriyaki skewers. “Chicken, professor?” She raised an urbane eyebrow.

  His eyebrows drew together, but he took a skewer and propped himself against the piano near his wine. I relaxed my hold on the Jimmy Choos. “This will be a short conversation,” he growled.

  Kat said, “We believe Professor Telemann had a relationship with Jennifer Eaton which drove her husband to go to the professor’s house with a gun. Doctor Eaton was shot that night in the same manner Henry Telemann was shot last week.”

  Frankie DiToro flinched. Kat’s eyes narrowed. “What can you tell us about the shooting?”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw the two students on the couch lean forward. His hands clenched on the armrests, Sebastian’s anger was evident. Against DiToro or Kat, I couldn’t tell.

  DiToro ran a hand through his graying hair. “It was in the newspapers. I have nothing to add.”

  Kat prompted him. “There was a struggle. While attempting to wrest the gun from Doctor Eaton, he was shot.”

  “Accidently,” DiToro said hoarsely.

  “The papers didn’t say who struggled with Doctor Eaton. Since it happened at Doctor Telemann’s house, everyone assumed it was him. That Henry had an affair with Jennifer Eaton.”

  The professor didn’t move, but I saw his lip curl. Astonished, I blurted out, “You had an affair with the president’s wife?”

  Breathing heavily, he refused to answer. I added, “And you shot the president?”

  “Wait,” Kat said. “What?”

  I told her, “I thought: Henry? Come on. He isn’t, he wasn’t, the type to have an affair with a married woman, even if she was his Guinevere. And he wouldn’t jump his boss or shoot him.”

  “Henry Telemann was never my rival.” DiToro gaze flicked from Kat to me. “Henry never stepped out of line for anything.”

  He sneered as if doing the right thing was shameful. I fixed the serene Abishag smile on my face. “He wasn’t that sort of man,” I agreed.

  “Wait,” Elaine said. “You mean you had the affair with Jennifer Eaton and shot Richard Eaton? Not Professor Telemann?”

  DiToro shrugged. “What can it matter now? Both Richard and Jennifer are dead now. Laughable to think Jennifer would choose Henry over me.”

  I almost told DiToro that if he were twice as brain dead as Henry, I still wouldn’t be his Abishag wife. Even comatose, Henry was more man than he.

  Kat seemed perplexed and opened the package she had under her arm. “This didn’t go the way I thought it would,” she muttered. More loudly, she said, “I was going to show this picture of Jennifer Eaton and ask the professor why he shot Henry the same way he shot Doctor Eaton.” She stared morosely at him, her hand tearing at the paper around the picture. “But it really was an accident, wasn’t it. The gun went off when you were wrestling him for it. Just like you wouldn’t release Leslie’s hand just now.”

  “Richard tried to kill me.” DiToro whined, his gaze fixed on the framed photograph she held aloft. “He didn’t understand that women can’t help falling for me.”

  I craned my neck to see the picture. “Hey,” I said. “I didn’t know Jennifer was ethnic Asian.”

  Someone screamed: an awful, high-pitched sound. Donovan shrank against the couch, his face stark white. Then I saw the gun in Elaine’s hand.

  I didn’t blame Donovan for screaming or Dèsirèe for freezing in the foyer with a tray of sage cheese and crackers or Doctor DiToro for diving behind my wing chair. None had the experience that the rest of us did with knives, guns, baseball bats, and poison. Hospice work was more dangerous than you’d think.

  Hatred contorted Elaine’s face as she stood, the gun trained on my wing chair, hoping to get a clear shot of Doctor DiToro.

  “Stand up, coward. Because of you, Doctor Eaton lived years as a vegetable. When my mother refused to leave him, did you stay to support her? No, you couldn’t leave town fast enough.”

  Sebastian signaled me to roll out of the chair,
but I stayed put. Elaine didn’t look stable and I figured any movement could result in me being shot.

  Besides, I was shocked that I’d been wrong about Doctor DiToro shooting Henry. Obviously Elaine believed the rumors about Henry having an affair with Jennifer Eaton and who had shot her husband when it had actually been Frankie DiToro. I didn’t know that there had been a daughter bent on revenge.

  “Did you know that the affair produced me?” she shouted. “Is that why you abandoned my mother so quickly?” Then more evenly, even conversationally, “My mother never told me her lover’s name, but I found the old newspaper articles.” She stared at me sadly, her quick cycling of emotions making me breathless. “I wouldn’t have sent that saint’s heel bone to Professor Telemann with the letter, calling him an adulterer. When Doctor Eaton died, I wanted him to feel guilty for shooting him and ruining our lives.”

  Her face wooden, she turned to Sebastian. “I couldn’t let it go. I spent my entire life watching the man I called Dad vegetate in a nursing home, guilt eating my mother like the cancer that finally killed her.”

  She drew a shuddering breath. “So I took the test for Chris. In my answer about the saint’s heel bone, I told Doctor Telemann that he deserved death for seducing a married woman. That was last fall, a month after my mother died.”

  I had been right about hatred rising from broken love, but I’d never considered it poisoning the next generation. It explained why the revenge had taken decades. It hadn’t been Doctor DiToro waiting for the right moment to exact his rival’s death. The adulterer huddled behind my chair, sobbing with fear.

  “This is for you, Mom.” With manic joy, Elaine aimed the gun at the chair, not giving me time to scramble from it. Sebastian launched himself across the coffee table, celery and carrot sticks scattering, the curry raisin dip skidding across the tile.

  I had been right about one thing. The Jimmy Choos platform sandals with five-inch spiked heels made a terrific weapon.

  CHAPTER TWENTY