Weep No More, My Lady

QUOTE FOR THE DAY:

The power of beauty, I remember yet.

– Dryden

Dear Cypress Point Spa guest,

A cheery good morning to you. I hope as you read this you are sipping one of our delicious fruit-juice eye- openers. As some of you know, all the oranges and grapefruits are specially grown for the Spa.

Have you shopped in our boutique this week? If not, you must come and see the stunning fashions we have just received for both men and women. One-of-a-kind only, of course. Each of our guests is unique.

A health reminder. By now you may be feeling muscles you'd forgotten you had. Remember, exercise is never pain. Mild discomfort shows you are achieving the stretch. And whenever you exercise, keep your knees relaxed.

Are you looking your very best? For those tiny lines that time and life's experience trace on our face, remember, collagen, like a gentle hand, is waiting to smooth them away.

Be serene. Be tranquil. Be merry. And have a pretty day.

Baron and Baroness Helmut von Schreiber.

One

Long before the first rays of the sun proclaimed yet another brilliant day on the Monterey Peninsula, Ted lay awake thinking about the weeks ahead. The courtroom. The defendant's table where he would sit, feeling the eyes of the spectators on him, trying to get a sense of the impact of the testimony on the jurors. The verdict: Guilty of Murder in the Second Degree. Why Second Degree? he had asked his first lawyer. 'Because in New York State, First Degree is reserved for killing a peace officer. For what it's worth, it amounts to about the same, as far as sentencing goes.' Life, he told himself. A life in prison.

At six o'clock he got up to jog. The morning was cool and clear, but it would be a hot day. Without a sense of where he wanted to run, he let his feet follow whatever roads they chose and was not surprised to find himself after forty minutes in front of his grandfather's house in Carmel. It was on the ocean block. It used to be white, but the present owners had painted it a moss green-attractive enough, but he preferred the way the white paint used to gleam in the afternoon sun. One of his earliest memories was of this beach. His mother helped him to build a castle; laughing, her dark hair swirling around her face, so happy to be here instead of New York, so grateful for the reprieve. That bloody bastard who was his father! The way he'd ridiculed her, mimicked her, hammered at her. Why? What gives anyone a streak of cruelty like that? Or was it simply alcohol that brought out something savage and evil in his father, until he was drinking so much that the savage streak became his personality, all there was, the bottle and the fists? And had he inherited the same savage streak?

Ted stood on the beach, staring at the house, seeing his mother and grandmother on the porch, seeing his grandparents at his mother's funeral, hearing his grandfather say, 'We should have made her leave him.'

His grandmother whispered, 'She wouldn't leave him-it would have meant giving up Ted.'

Had it been his fault? he wondered as a child. He still asked himself the same question. There was still no answer.

There was someone watching him from a window. Quickly he continued to jog down the beach.

Bartlett and Craig were waiting in his bungalow. They'd already had breakfast. He went to the phone and ordered juice, toast, coffee. 'I'll be right back,' he told them. He showered and put on shorts and a T-shirt. The tray was waiting when he came out. 'Quick service here, isn't it? Min really knows how to run a spa! It would have been a good idea to franchise this place for new hotels.'

Neither man answered him. They sat at the library table watching him, seeming to know that he neither expected nor wanted comment. He swallowed the orange juice in one gulp and reached for the coffee. 'I'm going to the spa for the morning,' he said. 'I might as well have a decent workout. We'll leave for New York tomorrow. Craig, call an emergency board meeting for Saturday morning. I'm resigning as president and chairman of the company, and appointing you in my place.'

His expression warned Craig not to argue. He turned to Bartlett, his eyes ice-cold. 'I've decided to plea- bargain, Henry. Give me the best and worst possible scenarios of what kind of sentence I can expect to get.'

Two

Elizabeth was still in bed when Vicky brought in her breakfast tray. She set it down next to the bed and studied Elizabeth. 'You're not feeling well.'

Elizabeth propped her pillows against the headboard and sat up. 'Oh, I guess I'll survive.' She attempted a smile. 'One way or another, we have to, don't we?' She reached over and picked up the vase with the single flower from the tray. 'What's that you always say about carrying roses to fading flowers?'

'I don't mean you.' Vicky's angular face softened. 'I was off the last two days. I just heard about Miss Samuels. What a nice lady she was. But will you tell me what she was doing in the bathhouse? She once told me just looking at that place gave her the creeps. She said it reminded her of a tomb. Even if she wasn't feeling well, that would be the last place she'd go…'

After Vicky left, Elizabeth picked up the schedule that was on the breakfast tray. She hadn't intended to go to the Spa for either treatments or exercise, but changed her mind. She was slated for a massage with Gina at ten o'clock. Employees talk. Just now Vicky had underscored her own belief that Sammy would never have gone into the bathhouse on her own. When she had arrived on Sunday and had the massage, Gina had gossiped about the financial problems of the Spa. She might be able to hear more gossip if she asked the right questions.

As long as she was going there, Elizabeth decided to go through the full schedule. The first exercise class helped her to limber up, but it was hard not to look across the room to the place in the front row where Alvirah Meehan had been the other day. She had labored so hard to bend and twist that at the end of the class she had been puffing furiously, her face bright red. 'But I kept up!' she had told Elizabeth proudly.

She ran into Cheryl in the corridor leading to the facial rooms. Cheryl was wrapped in a terry-cloth robe. Her finger- and toenails were painted a brilliant bluish-pink. Elizabeth would have passed her without speaking, but Cheryl grasped her arm. ' Elizabeth, I've got to talk to you.'

'About what?'

'Those poison-pen letters. Is there any chance of finding any more of them?' Without waiting for an answer, she rushed on: 'Because if you have any more, or find any more, I want them analyzed, or tested, or fingerprinted, or whatever you and the world of science can do to trace them back to the sender. I did not send them! Got it?'

Elizabeth watched her sweep down the corridor. As Scott had commented, she sounded convincing. On the other hand, if she was reasonably sure that those last two letters were the only ones likely to be found, it would be the perfect attitude for her to take. How good an actress was Cheryl?