Kathryn looked up at me briefly and our eyes locked. She nodded slightly, then she went on reading: When my beautiful Evangeline and I rode out of the city, she said in her most confidential voice as we mounted the horses, "I have something to share with you. I've never shown anyone this secret place before. But I find I have a fondness for you, Victoria that... that surpa.s.ses my sisters, when it comes to secrets."

The enchanting look in her eyes quickened my heart, and I found myself wishing I was riding astride to ease a tension that began to build in my nether regions. It turned out, however, I was glad I had saved this physical sensation to share with my angel later in the afternoon rather than relieving it at a canter.

When we reached the middle of a lovely green glade, she dismounted and I did as well.

"I think the horses do not need to be tied. The gra.s.s and water in the stream will meet their needs. You know, Victoria, I'm quite successful at knowing what horses want, but I find that skill fades when it comes to..." Victoria turned and looked at me for long moment as I held my breath and hoped she would come to me on her own, without my bidding.

Instead she drew from her horse bag a large parcel she tucked under her arm. It was quite hot in the sun and our heavy riding clothes added to our discomfort. I was desperate for relief from the heat and desperate for a different sort of relief ever since I had first felt Evangeline in my arms at the train station.

"Come along," she beckoned.

I followed her between low yew branches out of the glade. A wall of yews in a broad circle made a private outdoor room. (I may note here that I will henceforth find a circle of yew trees a meaningful and deeply comforting place to me, always.) In its center was a rock pool that the clear stream swelled and eddied. Birds darted around it, but it was unspoiled by any human presence. It was ours alone.

"Fancy a swim?" said Evangeline softly and then she smiled the most provocative of smiles and I was quite ready to swim with her for eternity.

She put down her parasol and opened her parcel. In it was a large blanket that she spread on the ground. "There is no one around, Victoria. I have come here fifty times and never been disturbed." And then... she began to disrobe.

"Jiminy Crickets," I said.

Kathryn paused here and I shifted in my seat. Kathryn glanced at me in a way that made me desperately glad that we were sharing this moment. I saw Jessie lean against Farrel's shoulder.

Kathryn read: I stood stock still, hoping the moment was not a mere figment of my imagination and then with a smile upon my lips I undid the b.u.t.tons of my shirtwaist and slipped my dress up over my head. The extra padding we both wore at the back was soon discarded, petticoats and the rest of our fashionable trappings were cast aside into two large heaps. I thought briefly that the fabric from our ensembles would have clothed a dozen needy children.

My angel's modesty was now protected only by her summer chemise and drawers. Their light linen fabric was sheer, and for the briefest of moments I reflected that her modesty would be protected by nothing at all when this fabric was wet.

She took my hand and we stepped down into the small rock-lined pool. The water was warm but refreshing, and we hastened to submerge ourselves in its liquid embrace.

"How did you find this lovely place?" I asked her as I paddled to the center and dipped my head under the water.

"When I was a girl, my pony led me to it. I was supposed to ride near the house, but I'd travel for hours letting the pony choose the trail. That was when we could afford to keep horses."

"You could keep a horse now, Evangeline, if you wished. Your finances would more than bear it."

I swam back to her and we moved to sit near the edge of the pool, still with the water to our shoulders but resting on the rocks beneath.

"Victoria," Evangeline began, "my mother and sisters and... I are eternally grateful to you for all you have done. When I received your note saying you would come to Fenchester, I had looked forward to your caring sympathy but had never dared believe you would so adroitly solve all our problems."

Evangeline's voice caught and she turned from me in the throes of emotion. The full meaning of her family's grat.i.tude was clear to me, but at that moment I cared for nothing but the knowledge of where her own heart lay.

I said, "It makes me very happy to be able to grant you peace of mind. I hope you know that I would do anything... anything, I could to make you happy, my dear."

"Would you, Victoria? Could you know, when you left me in Rome, I thought I would die from the loss of you. I cried for days, though I hid it from the others at Charlotte's house. I made up my mind to tell you the next time we met. But then my circ.u.mstances were so reduced, so desperate, I thought it unfair to burden you with more than a request for advice. I didn't want you to think I wanted you to... financially enc.u.mber yourself. Now that those troubles are a thing of the past, however..." She reached for my hand and drew me closer.

I said earnestly, "But don't you know, darling Evangeline, that I would have given my last breath to ease your cares? I would have... I will... if you but allow me..."

And with that, she kissed my cheek, then slipped up the water's edge until she was only waist deep, and as I had suspected, the soaked fabric that covered her had become as clear as gla.s.s, thus revealing a vision that is etched on my very soul for eternity. I was ready to act, but it was she who reached forward.

With hands on both my shoulders, she drew me to her slowly until I was very close.

I managed to say, "Evangeline, dare I ask?"

She answered my question with a kiss on my lips. It was not the type simply between dear friends. Indeed my Angel became a tiger burning bright. Her meaningful kiss grew ferocious as I responded. She forthwith rent the linen fabric from my eager form and tore hers away as well. We pressed together, feeling each other not with gentle fingertips but with every inch of sensitive flesh.

I confess that I had imagined this moment a hundredfold and taken pleasure from the planning of my actions, yet it was clear that Evangeline had not only done the same but had all the more skill in her stratagem. The pond had a perfect place for one to recline while a water sprite found a dozen spots to suck and stroke.

I grew desperate for a spend and moaned my need in a primal way which was somehow not foreign to this ancient spot. She parted me and clove me with her tongue using skill that would have rivaled Charlotte's, but driven with an ardent force that would have put Charlotte to shame.

I felt my body grow ready and she felt my readiness as well, using it to excellent advantage. She concentrated on building my urgency until I begged release, which she achieved with surprising boldness, using her entire hand in a way I had not experienced previously. Indeed, I doubt such a sizable... stimulation would have been as intensely pleasurable had I not been so perfectly prepared and desperately desirous, and, indeed, so in love with my Angel. In fact, when the primal sounds of my release had ceased to echo against the yew trees, I found I was ready for it yet again.

I was joyously exhausted by Evangeline when she finally allowed me rest. But the merest sight of her fueled me, and I took her in similar ways, slowly working her to peak again after each culmination. We spent hours taking turns bringing each other delight. Speaking strictly for me, I could have spent the rest of my life in that circle of yews, making love with my Angel.

I am very glad my skillful mentor Charlotte Cushman had taken me... well, shall we say under her wing... And based on my experiences of the afternoon, I wouldn't be surprised if one of Charlotte's disciples took Evangeline under her wing whilst in Rome. Because my darling had delivered to me pleasures many times my wildest imagination. If indeed Evangeline developed her skills from her own imagination, then she is as inventive as the entire White Marmorean Flock (as Mr. James described us) grouped as one.

When we finally drew back to rest as the sun dipped below the trees, she said, "It has always been you. There has never been another."

I am sure, dear journal, I will always consider those ten words the sweetest I have ever heard. I told her I felt the same.

As Evangeline lay back against the pool's edge that a million years of swirling water had etched, I suddenly saw her as a siren, a naiad, a Rhein maiden. She is my muse, the one for whom I will make every sculpture, every work, from whom every inspiration will come. I know, as sure as the sun will come up tomorrow, that this will always be true. If I were never to behold another woman, or even another beautiful thing of any kind, it would not matter because the vision of Evangeline at that sweet moment will be enough to sustain my commitment to art itself and will inform my every work for the rest of my life.

Kathryn stopped reading and looked up.

Finally Farrel said, "Can't beat the 19th century for poetic license."

Jessie said with amus.e.m.e.nt, "That's how you feel about me, isn't it, Farrel?"

Farrel replied, in a remarkably serious voice, "Yes, it is."

Kathryn saw I was staring at her and she smiled.

So that was how Victoria was able to create a thousand sculptures in a windowless cave. The memory of Evangeline was her inspiration. She didn't need anything else.

Kathryn scanned the next page, then she read: We are now together. She is mine, I am hers. And I count the seconds until I shall be with her again.

There was a pause in the room that was filled with heavy breathing and considerable shifting in seats. I had a feeling that everyone was thinking about being alone with the woman who shared her bed. I certainly was.

"My, my," said Kathryn.

"Talk about Uhaul Lesbians! One afternoon and it's a lifetime commitment," said Farrel.

"It happens that way sometimes," said Kathryn.

"Yes, it does," said Jessie.

Kathryn was looking at me with that half-smile that thrills me and makes me weak at the same time.

Jessie's head snapped up. She looked at the clock on the wall. "Do you think the police still have Gabe or that he's back home?" she asked insistently.

"I don't know. He has that alibi, so they won't hold him long."

"It's Buster's dinnertime. Not eating will make him sick... Remember that time?" asked Jessie turning to Farrel.

"Uh huh, he got dehydrated and had to go to the animal hospital."

"Can you find out?" Jessie asked me.

"I'll check."

I reached Sgt. Ed O'Brien on my cell in a minute.

"No question she was murdered, Maggie. Stabbed twice in the neck close together. Looked like a vampire bite, but they were kind of square holes. Do they make, like, sculpture tools like that?" asked O'Brien.

Kathryn, Jessie, and Farrel were following my every word. I hated to shock them, but I had to respond. "Yeah, there are all sorts of things like that. Handmade icepicks, files, even old-fashioned flooring nails. Any one of those could have been within reach in the studio."

"Well, whatever it was, it's not there now. The guys checked everything for bloodstains. There's nothing. If the perp used a tool from the studio, then he took it along."

Or she, popped into my brain. It always does when people presume it has to be one gender or the other.

"No way Carbondale could have done it, unless he hired a hit man. We're getting ready to send him home in a squad car right now," said O'Brien. He told me a few things about Gabe's interview and then asked me to let him know if I found out anything else.

I turned to the group after O'Brien hung up. "They're bringing Gabe home in a few minutes. Sgt. O'Brien says Gabe's alibi is pretty solid."

"He said something else, didn't he?" asked Kathryn.

I nodded. "Gabe told the police investigators that Suzanne had already left him before he went to his conference. She'd moved out her clothes, office papers, her best kitchen tools. Everything she really cared about she packed up and took away a week before he left for England."

"I wonder why she didn't tell me," said Jessie softly.

"She didn't have much, but what she had was pretty fine. All the art was original. Her kitchen stuff was top of the line. She had one Remington chef's knife she paid $75 for at an auction. But everything she valued would have fit into a couple of boxes. Wouldn't you say, Jessie?" asked Farrel.

"I don't know what to say... Oh Maggie, I thought she left without telling me goodbye. Now it turns out she's been lying at the bottom of that thing all this time. I hate to think..." Jessie sobbed and Farrel went to her to hold her in her arms. Jessie hugged her back tightly.

Kathryn reached for my hand. I held it and saw the glistening tears in her eyes.

Then Kathryn said, "What was that last thing... about the tools?"

Nothing got by Kathryn.

I took a breath. "The Coroner confirms it was murder."

"You already figured that, Maggie. What else?" said Kathryn.

"She was stabbed twice in the neck by something pointy, like a square skewer."

Farrel nodded saying, "A needle file could look like that, or a horseshoe nail, or an eighth-inch mortise chisel, even the tang on the other end of a chisel. Did they find it down there? The murder weapon?"

I shook my head. "It's not there."

Jessie got up from her seat and walked to the other end of the kitchen, out of earshot. "You don't have to stop talking. I just don't want to hear this," she called back.

"So how do they think it happened? Was it like you said?" asked Kathryn.

I nodded. "The Coroner said it hit a vital artery when she was stabbed. That's why there was so much blood. She probably didn't regain consciousness."

"That's a tiny bit of comfort," said Farrel softly.

"So the murderer grabbed a tool to use as a weapon and killed her, and then took the weapon along?" asked Kathryn.

"Looks like it. Or I guess the killer could have brought the weapon into the bas.e.m.e.nt..." I mused.

"Unlikely that someone would be carrying a mortise chisel in their pocket or purse. Even I don't do that," said Farrel.

"True, unless..." I said, thinking about the lethal wound in Suzanne's neck.

"I'm going to call Gabe. I'm worried about Buster. I don't trust Gabe to take care of him," said Jessie coming back to the group. She dialed but got no answer.

"He dropped his cell phone in Buster's dog dish. He probably hasn't replaced it," I said.

Jessie said slowly, "If she died right after I saw her... then where is all her stuff. If she moved it out, where did she put it?"

"I saw some boxes in the mudroom of the stuff she left there. Gabe must have shuffled the remainders of her things into boxes so he could do his macho remodel. Suzanne did always say she traveled light. You would have had a lot in common with her Kathryn. Traveling light," I said.

"I have more than I thought, though. Mostly books, and now I have my Victoria Snow sculpture and a baby grand piano. So I guess my light traveling days are behind me," said Kathryn I smiled at that. "You have that nice little watercolor... um..." Something flashed into my brain. I said, "Farrel what did you say about original art?"

"Huh? You mean about Suzanne? Well, that she had some pieces she loved. Small things, but great."

"No repros? None?"

"No, Gabe had some, but all of Suzanne's things were original."

I thought back to the day I'd fixed Gabe's lunch. I asked, "Everything she had was original?"

Farrel and Jessie nodded.

"What is it?" asked Kathryn.

"I think... I think I better go over to Gabe's."

"Why?" Farrel and Kathryn asked in unison.

"Because when I was at Gabe's, Buster knocked over a box in the mudroom and I saw what was in it." In my mind I saw Gabriel Carbondale packing those boxes and putting them there. Then I thought back to Nora Hasan saying, 'And now, all the world's a stage.'

"Kathryn, all those pompous things that Gabe is always saying, they aren't just random are they?" I asked. "Giving short shrift, bag and baggage, meat and drink to me, good riddance, vanish into thin air... He's not just making those up, is he?"

"No, of course not," said Kathryn. "It's all Shakespeare."

I stood up and grabbed my jacket.

"What's this about?" - Farrel.