Murder at the Book Group Read Online Free

the electric burner. No doubt she was preparing one of those odious teas she favored—tonics, she called them—claiming they promoted longevity and well-being. I’m all for longevity, well-being, and the whole shebang, but if it took downing one of her lethal concoctions to have it, I’d seriously reconsider. She took a white mug with a gold “C” identifying it as hers off the tray on the table and set it on the counter. Then she removed the cellophane wrap from a box covered with Chinese characters.
    â€œIs that a new tea?” I asked. Not that I cared, but I thought it was a question she’d answer.
    And she did. “Yes, I’ve never tried it, but someone suggested it.” She opened a drawer, produced a scoop, and measured loose tea into a strainer. Then she opened the refrigerator, grabbed a plate of apple slices and what looked to be goat cheese, used her hip to push the door shut, and headed for the dining room. “Do you mind pouring the decaf? The carafe’s right there.” Using her chin, she pointed toward the table before disappearing through the doorway.
    Normally, I didn’t bother with such niceties as carafes and served guests from the coffeepot itself, but that was me. As I poured, I thought back to when Evan was my husband. Very much in love, or perhaps lust, we couldn’t wait until graduation from Rochester Institute of Technology and married while still in college. Then the “open marriage” craze of the early seventies appealed to him, but not to me. Since I had, even in that permissive era, eschewed premarital sex and pushed for marriage, I failed to understand why he thought I would embrace such a radical concept as open marriage. While I shed my prudish ways during our marriage, my commitment to monogamy, in or out of marriage, lasts to this day. After two years of grappling with the open marriage issue, in addition to others, I hightailed it to a divorce lawyer.
    Once safely unmarried, I acted on a spirit of adventure and moved to Los Angeles, where I remarried not once but three times. Evan remained on the East Coast, taking a vow to abstain from marriage, open or not. We remained friends, keeping in touch over the years and miles. In between my own marriages, I entertained fantasies of remarrying him and living happily ever after, managing to forget why I’d divorced him in the first place. But his enduring commitment to the single life kept me from acting on my fantasies.
    In 1999 I found myself a widow. Dispirited, I considered my options, one of which was another uprooting. My cousin Lucy Hooper, a recent widow as well, offered temporary living quarters in her home in Richmond. The fact that Evan had retired from his management job in Rochester after winning the New York lottery and taken a position as an adjunct business professor in Richmond provided added incentive to reverse the cross-country move I’d made a quarter of a century before. Perhaps we were meant to be together after all, his chronic marriage phobia be damned.
    Evan responded to the news of my impending move with enthusiasm, saying it would be great to see each other often. I kept mum on my special plans for the two of us. One month after that conversation, on a bright and sunny day in April 2000, I landed in Richmond with my calico cat, Shammy, in tow. But my hopes were dashed. In the space of that one month, Evan had managed not only to meet but to marry one Carlene Lundy, the woman who now gave him short shrift.
    Despite my disappointment, I chose to remain friends with Evan. Who knew how long this marriage would last anyway? And it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that in order to remain friends with Evan I had to be friends with his wife. And so I did, as much as anyone could be friends with the unforthcoming Carlene. As for Evan, except for the annual turkey dinners he and Carlene hosted in early December to usher in the holiday season before