The Ladies Killing Circle Anthology 4-Book Bundle. Barbara Fradkin
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abandoned logging road which ran behind the farmhouse. Alice sighed, took off her heavy-rimmed glasses and tucked them into her skirt pocket. She went into the lace-curtained parlour and sat down on the sofa. Folding her gloved hands on her lap, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the events of the previous evening.
“Miss Hartley. I’m here.” Jean Mayhew called from outside the kitchen door.
Alice let her in. “Miss Mayhew. You will join me for a little supper first, won’t you?” She watched Jean’s eyes glance first at the scrubbed wooden table set for two, then alight eagerly on the Tarot cards waiting on the pine dresser.
“I hadn’t really—”
“Please,” Alice interrupted. “I missed lunch and I can’t concentrate when I’m hungry.” She pulled a chair out for Jean and went over to the stove. “I hope you like beef casserole.” Lifting the dish from the oven she carried it to the table. “There. Fresh bread and butter, and a glass of wine.”
Jean Mayhew didn’t argue, but then Alice hadn’t expected her to. Clients never wittingly upset Alice in case it affected her ability to see their future.
Obviously eager to start the session, Jean ate quickly, pausing only to praise the meal. Alice deliberately slowed herself. She needed Jean to drink more wine.
By the time Alice laid down her fork, Jean had finished her second glass and looked ready for more. Three would be too many. “I’m done,” Alice said quickly. “Another spoonful for you?”
“No, no. Quite delicious. Let me help.” Jean stood up and carried the plates and glasses to the sink. She stopped and leaned against the counter. “I…I feel a little funny, Miss Hartley.”
Alice rose and limped over to her. “Perhaps you drank the wine too quickly. Take my arm.” She led Jean back to the table. “Sit down. I’ll fetch the cards.”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t.” Jean shook her head. “It was a mistake coming here. Reverend Stevenson would be so disappointed in me.” She started to rise.
Alice put a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t really need to use the cards, Miss Mayhew.” She put them down on the table. “I can see both your past and your future without them.”
Jean sank back into the chair, staring up at Alice. “What do you mean?” Her eyes held a look of uncertainty.
“I’ll tell you a story, and you’ll see what I mean.” Alice returned to her chair and looked across the table. “There once lived a little girl and her widowed mother. Elizabeth was spoiled and liked to show off, but she wasn’t a bad child. When she was eleven, her mother married a divorced man with a fourteen-year-old daughter. This girl, Leslie, hadn’t had such a soft life. Rejected by her mother, she had come to live with her father in Westing not long before he remarried.”
Jean’s hands clutched the edge of the table.
“I see you recognize the story, Miss Mayhew. Everyone in Westing knew about it. Some thought Ruth Sullivan foolish to marry Eric Mills. She with all that money and he a salesman with a troublesome teenager. Others thought it would be good for Elizabeth to have a father. No one consulted Elizabeth Sullivan or Leslie Mills.
“Elizabeth learned a lot from Leslie. How to shoplift. How to lie convincingly. She experimented with marijuana and she got to know the local criminals. She didn’t become addicted to drugs, but she did become a moody, difficult teenager.”
“Terrible girl. Thought she was so clever.” Jean’s words slurred.
“Yes. You didn’t like her, I know. What did she used to call you? Miss Make Spew.” Alice laughed. “You weren’t alone in your opinion. Most adults found her a pain then, while Leslie…Leslie settled down, grew out of her difficult ways. She became soft-spoken and polite. People thought well of her—except those whom she had blackmailed. No, Jean. May I call you Jean? Don’t try to stand. Your legs won’t hold you.” Alice reached across the table and patted Jean’s hand.
Jean jerked away. “The wine! You put something in it.” She tried again to push herself up from the table. “Let me go.”
Alice watched her struggle. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been wanting to tell you this story for a long time. Sit still and listen.” She leaned forward. “What secret did Leslie discover about you, Westing’s respected librarian?” She waited for an answer. “Not going to tell me? You were lucky Elizabeth and Leslie had that fight the day you went to confront Leslie, weren’t you? All the world heard Elizabeth yelling ‘I’ll fix you for good’ when she slammed out of Leslie’s place.” Alice got up and filled a glass with water. “I’m not used to so much talking.”
Jean didn’t move. Blue veins stood out against the pallor of her skin.
“Back to the story. Naturally, when the body of Leslie was discovered and Miss Mayhew, staunch pillar of the church, claimed to have seen Elizabeth leaving the house at the crucial time, everyone believed her. Especially since you described seeing Elizabeth’s prized possession, her black racing bike, leaning against the hedge. No one believed Elizabeth when she said she’d been asleep in bed. Elizabeth Sullivan in bed before eleven! The police laughed.”
Putting her head on one side, Alice studied Jean. “You killed three people that day,” she said softly. “Leslie, Elizabeth and her mother.”
“No.” Jean swallowed, then licked her lips. “No. Only Leslie. Had to kill her.”
“I can understand you killing Leslie. Blackmail’s despicable. But why blame Elizabeth? Did you think being rude to you, the librarian, warranted a lifetime in jail? Imagine the different path her life might have taken if you had helped her. You had the chance. Remember that? It was before she became so unmanageable.”
If Alice closed her eyes she could see Elizabeth, bright with enthusiasm, skipping up the steps to the old brick library, dark braids bouncing against her back. See her at the desk. “Hi, Miss Mayhew. I need some books on speed cycling. I want to race.” See that brightness fade at the look of distaste on the librarian’s face. “That’s not the sort of thing your mother would like, Elizabeth. Nice girls play tennis and go horseback riding. Anyway, bicycle racing is only for men.”
Alice picked up the cards again. “Racing would have given her a goal, and losing would have been good for her.”
Jean raised her head. “She always wanted to win. Show everyone how clever she was.” Jean spoke like someone whose mouth had been frozen by the dentist. “Anyway, it didn’t stop her. She failed Grade Ten because she skipped classes to ride her bike.”
“That’s true. She loved the freedom, the speed and the feel of the wind in her hair. Did you ever wonder what it felt like to be nineteen and have that freedom taken away? To be sentenced to twenty-five years? Be deprived of a chance to marry and have a family? Would it surprise you to learn Elizabeth became a model prisoner and holds two degrees? It was hard at first, of course…” Alice’s thoughts veered to her turbulent early years in prison and to her saviour, Edie-Rose.
Edie-Rose, staring at her with compassionate brown eyes set in a scarred face.
“Ain’t no use fighting the system, little girl,” she’d said. “We’re all here for a reason. Maybe you didn’t commit no murder, but if’n you’d been a nice p’lite girl no one would’ve fingered you.” She’d stroked the bruises on Elizabeth’s arms. “You make a plan for what you’re gonna do when you get out. Me, I’m gonna do murder, and ain’t no one gonna guess who done it.”
It had been the goad Elizabeth needed. How to take revenge and get away with it? Under the wing of Edie-Rose, her life in prison had changed. Inmates didn’t dare touch her. She was Edie-Rose’s protege. Never a lover, although some thought they were. Edie-Rose had become her mentor, teacher and comforter.
Twenty years they had worked together on plans for the perfect murder. Along with courses in French language and literature, Elizabeth had soaked up Edie-Rose’s knowledge of