Read Murder on the Eightfold Path for Free Online Page A

Elysia.”
    “I have asked her. She always brushes it off.”
    “There you go,” Stella said. “Nothing to worry about then.”
    “Was it something to do with Aunt Di? With her leaving you Little Peavy Farm?” That was hard to imagine. Elysia enjoyed her worldly goods as much as the next material girl, but her infamous acting career had left her comfortably off in addition to the bundle she had inherited from A.J.’s father, a successful business entrepreneur. But perhaps Elysia felt that Stella had somehow taken advantage of Diantha’s generosity? Or spiritual beliefs? Although that was also hard to imagine because Aunt Di had been nobody’s fool.
    “Noooo,” Stella said thoughtfully. “Nothing like that.”
    A.J. sipped her tea and frowned over it, but although it was hard to accept, perhaps it wasn’t any of her business. She changed the subject and said, “Did you happen to know this young man she’s accused of shooting?”
    “Elysia and I don’t travel in the same social circles.”
    “I’m not sure Mother and this Dicky Massri traveled in the same circles.”
    Stella made a sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh.
    “I think he was younger than me ,” A.J. said. “Aunt Di did the same thing—started a relationship with someone young enough to be her son. I don’t understand it.”
    Stella eyed her thoughtfully. “That’s because you’ve never been lonely.”
    “I’ve been divorced, that’s pretty lonely.”
    “I mean years of being lonely.”
    Stella spoke so matter-of-factly that A.J. barely registered what she was saying. When she did, it was with a sharp tug of sympathy that she felt instinctively would make Stella uncomfortable. She hated to think of Stella being lonely, and she hated even more to think of her mother being lonely.
    But surely there was a medium ground between senior bingo nights and Egyptian gigolos?
    “I just don’t understand why she couldn’t have found someone more her own age. She wouldn’t be in this mess now.”
    Stella said patiently, “Because falling in love is scary. Hot sex with a man toy is just tiring.”
    A.J. blinked at the idea of Stella having hot sex with anything, let alone with tiresome man toys. She said at random, “Mr. Meagher is really worried. He seems to think the police might be able to build a strong enough case to go to trial.”
    Stella selected another cookie, crunched in that same meditative way—like a thoughtful squirrel—and said, “I guess it’s occurred to you that your ma really might have killed him?”

Five

    A.J. inhaled cookie crumbs and spent an agonized couple of seconds coughing before she managed a hoarse, “I’m sorry?”
    Stella said, “Elysia’s got a temper when she’s riled.”
    “She’s not violent.” She closed off memories of her mother hurling glasses, plates, and, on one memorable occasion, a brass paperweight at her father during some of their livelier arguments. That had been back in the bad old days when alcohol had formed the foundation of Elysia’s daily food pyramid.
    Stella, unmoved, said, “She’s always had her own ideas about the law.”
    “What does that mean?”
    Stella shrugged. “I think Elysia believes laws are for other people.”
    A.J. knew her instinctive rejection of this statement was illogical. Certainly Elysia did often behave as though the laws of the land did not apply to her. Sometimes that zany attitude was sort of charming—and sometimes it wasn’t.
    “We’re not discussing exceeding the speed limit here, we’re talking about murder. And I can’t see my mother committing cold-blooded murder. She just . . . wouldn’t.”
    “Not cold-blooded murder, I agree,” Stella said. “But if she felt threatened or she was angry enough?”
    A.J. stubbornly shook her head despite uneasy memories of the things her mother had done back when she had been drinking. Those things could be attributed to the alcohol. And while it was true that Elysia did rather live in