and sweating freely and sometimes making other noises while Ricky Martin sang “Livin’ la Vida Loca.” Clara was always happy to exercise close to Myrna since any number of sins, and sounds, could be blamed on her. And she was easy to hide behind. The entire class could hide behind Myrna.
Myrna turned to Clara. “If you hold her down, I’ll kill her.”
“But how? We’d never get away with it.” Clara had been giving it some thought. So far she’d done twelve leg lifts of the ten Pina announced, and now Pina was complaining bitterly about snowboarders while her own pneumatic legs went up and down.
“No one would say anything,” said Myrna, lifting her legs a millimeter. “And if they threaten to, we kill them too.”
It was as good a plan as Clara had heard.
“Where are we with the leg lifts?” Pina asked. “Three, four …”
“OK, Bugsy, I’m in,” snorted Clara.
“So’m I,” said Dominique Gilbert on Clara’s other side, her voice almost as unrecognizable as her purple face.
“Dear God,” said The Wife, across the room, “do it soon.”
“Do what?” asked Pina, starting to bicycle her legs in mid-air.
“Murder you, of course,” snapped Myrna.
“Oh, that,” laughed Pina, never totally appreciating how close it came every class.
Twenty minutes later the class was over, after a last Tai Chi movement in which Clara meditated on murder. It was a good thing she adored Pina and needed the class.
Toweling off and rolling up her mat, Clara wandered over to the cluster of women who’d formed in the middle of the room. After a minute or so Clara managed to get the conversation around to where she wanted it.
“Did you see Inspector Beauvoir’s back in the village?” she asked, nonchalantly, dabbing at a trickle of sweat down her neck.
“Poor guy,” said Hanna Parra. “Still, he seems better.”
“I think he’s kinda cute,” said The Wife. Her eyes were large, expressive and without guile. An earth mother, married to a carpenter.
“You don’t,” said Myrna with a laugh. “He’s too skinny.”
“I’d fatten him up,” said The Wife.
“There’s something about that Inspector. I want to save him,” said Hanna. “Heal him, make him smile.”
“Mr. Spock,” said Clara, though this conversation wasn’t exactly going as she’d hoped and she hadn’t helped by just taking it off into outer space. “The Vulcan?” she explained when a few of the women looked perplexed. “Oh, for God’s sake, you can’t tell me you don’t know Star Trek? Everyone had a crush on Mr. Spock because he was so cool and distant. They wanted to be the one to break down his reserve, to get into that heart.”
“It’s not his heart we want to get into,” said Hanna and everyone laughed.
They put on their coats and ran across the snowy road to the inn and spa for the regular post-exercise tea and scones.
Clara was still amazed every time she entered the inn and spa, remembering it as the crumbling old Hadley house before Dominique and her husband Marc had bought it. Now their hostess sat relaxed and elegant, smiling and pouring tea.
Had Dominique killed the Hermit? Clara couldn’t see it. No, if Clara was being honest, the most likely suspect months ago, and the most likely one still, was Marc Gilbert. Dominique’s husband.
Clara brought the conversation around to murder once again.
“Hard to believe Olivier’s been gone almost six months,” she said, accepting a fragrant cup of tea from Dominique. Out the window she could see the clear blue day, always the coldest. Snow caught up in a whirlwind swirled by the window, making a slight sprinkling sound, like sand against the glass.
Inside the inn and spa it was peaceful. The room was filled with antiques, not cumbersome Victorian oak, but simple pine and cherry pieces. The walls were painted pastel shades and felt restful, serene. A fire was lit and the place smelled delicately of maple wood smoke, moisturizers and tisanes. Chamomile, lavender, cinnamon.
A young woman arrived with a plate of warm scones, clotted cream and homemade strawberry jam. This was Clara’s favorite part of exercise class.
“How’s Olivier doing?” The Wife asked.
“He’s trying to adjust,” said Myrna. “I saw him a few weeks ago.”
“He still insists he didn’t kill the Hermit,” said Clara, watching everyone closely. She felt a fraud, pretending to be a homicide investigator, play-acting. Still, there were worse stages. Clara smoothed clotted cream on her warm scone, then strawberry jam.
“Well, if he didn’t do it, who did?” Hanna Parra was a stout, attractive pillar. Clara had known her for decades. Could she