Silk casually tossed the towel over her shoulder and reached for the pitcher, performing each task with a fluid grace and sensuality that I usually associate with music, something by Gershwin perhaps. She filled the glass with orange juice and drank it down slowly, but I had stopped watching her long before then, turning my attention instead to a foursome of golfers lofting their second shots toward an elevated green beyond St. Ana’s backyard. I knew when I was being played, and while I usually didn’t mind, my inner voice kept repeating, She’s only a child.
A few minutes later a woman stepped through the French doors onto the patio. Priscilla St. Ana was handsomely approaching forty-five. Not quite as young and attractive as her air-brushed photo would suggest, I thought, but pretty enough that she could pass for younger. The fact that she had changed her hairstyle helped. Piled high in the photo I had downloaded, it was now cut short. She was dressed in a crisp white shirt, tailored to accentuate her generous bosom and slender waist, and a long, thin black skirt with a silver buckle—two swans with necks intertwined. The skirt’s front slit revealed a graceful leg.
Silk took her towel and her orange juice and moved past her as she approached the table. “Your guest,” she said as she passed.
“So I see,” Priscilla said. “Mr. McKenzie.” She extended her hand. Her eyes were neither warm nor cold, and they didn’t give much away—a poker player’s eyes. I shook her hand.
“Can I offer you something?” The maid seemed to materialize out of thin air behind Priscilla’s shoulder. “Caroline makes an outstanding iced tea.”
“Tea will be fine.”
“Thank you, Caroline,” Priscilla said.
The maid disappeared into the house.
“I appreciate your taking the time to see me,” I said.
“Not at all. Please, sit.”
I sat. “You have a lovely home, Ms. St. Ana.”
“Thank you. Please, call me Cilia. I was christened Priscilla by my parents, but I prefer Cilia, the name of my favorite character in Johnny Tremain. No one would call me that while my father was alive. Now everyone does.”
A moment later, Caroline reappeared carrying a silver tray with both hands. The tray supported a glass pitcher filled with tea, a bowl of ice, a dish of sliced lemons, a sugar bowl, and two crystal tumblers.
“Thank you, Caroline,” Cilia said.
The maid departed, leaving Cilia to fill both glasses herself, offering me one. The umbrella protected us from the hard afternoon sun but not from the heat, and I found myself drinking the tea much too fast.
“Please, help yourself,” Cilia said in a voice that was more polite than friendly.
I poured another glass.
Cilia tossed her head a little so that her blond hair swung and I could see the auburn under the chemicals, close to the scalp. She smiled easily. The heat didn’t seem to bother her at all.
“I was pleased before to notice you not noticing my niece,” she said.
“Oh, I noticed her.”
“You weren’t ogling. Most men do. I find it distasteful.”
“I make it a point not to ogle women who haven’t voted in at least three presidential elections.”
“Then you are an exception to most men.”
“No doubt about it.”
She regarded me carefully over the rim of her glass. “How may I help you?” she asked. Her tone reminded me of my high school math teacher—not antagonistic, merely commanding. I refused to be intimated, as I had been by the math teacher.
“I want to talk about Merodie Davies.”
“So you said over the phone. I knew, of course, that Merodie was in trouble. I assumed she would seek my help. I am a bit bewildered that she hasn’t.” Cilia topped off my glass with iced tea. “What would you like to know?”
I gestured toward the pool.
“Silk is Merodie’s daughter.”
“Yes. How did you guess?”
“I saw a photo of her mother when she was about Silk’s age.”
“There is a resemblance.”
“What exactly is your relationship with Merodie Davies?”
“Simple question. The answer is a bit more complicated. Why is it important that you know?”
“Ms. St. Ana, your personal check in the amount of forty-one hundred dollars and change was discovered in Merodie’s house.”
Cilia’s eyebrows seemed to knit together as she gazed past the patio and adjacent pool toward the golf course, not seeing any of it. She said nothing.
“Cilia?” I said.
More nothing.
“Cilia. The check.”
“I have been paying Merodie an allowance for quite some time now,” she said. “Why does that matter?”
“Can you tell me why you’ve been paying her an allowance?”
“She is the mother of my niece. I can’t just let her go homeless, can I?”
“Is that what you told the Anoka County Sheriff’s Department when they questioned you?”
“They haven’t questioned me. Why would they?”
My inner voice was shouting at me. The cops haven’t pressed Vonnie Lou Lowman or questioned Priscilla St. Ana? What gives?
“Cilia, the check was dated August first.”
“That is correct.”
“It wasn’t mailed; the envelope had no postmark. You must have hand-delivered it.”
“Yes.”
“On August first.”
“Probably. Why is that significant?”
“That’s the day Eli Jefferson was killed.”
Cilia’s voice rose in protest. “Are you suggesting . . .?” She stopped herself. A puzzled expression crossed her face.
