Page 31 of A Talent for Murder

Lily had sent it at six thirty, almost three hours earlier. But Martha had been out to eat by herself, her phone untouched in her purse that hung on a hook beneath the lip of the bar. She was only looking at it now because she’d just settled the bill.

“Husband wondering where you are?” the bartender said.

“Oh no. Something else.” One of the reasons Martha hadn’t checked her phone all night was that she’d been talking with the bartender. She was at a restaurant walking distance from her house, a place she’d never been to before. Earlier in the evening, Martha had found herself wandering her house in a daze, unable to decide what to do next. After deciding to eat, she found herself staring into her cupboard, frozen. Her breathing was shallow.

Then she was grabbing her coat and her purse and the house keys and within minutes she was outside in the dusk, walking from her house to the waterfront. After she’d gone about half a mile she felt as though she could fully breathe. She turned a corner and slowed her pace. There was nothing she could do tonight, nothing to do but wait to hear from Lily, who had yet to check in with any kind of update. Not that she was supposed to. Lily had told Martha that she shouldn’t wait for reports, that she’d only send a text or call if it was important. But despite the fact that she’d said that, Martha had still expected to hear something, anything. The silence was unbearable.

Despite her anxiety, or because of it, Martha had realized she was hungry. She walked past a local tavern called Muriel’s, a place she frequented with Alan, then stopped outside a steak house she’d never gone into called the Flagship. Without hesitating, she stepped inside, and a hostess in a crisp white shirt and a black vest looked up at her from behind her station.

“Just one,” Martha said. “For dinner.”

“I can seat you at a table or at the bar, if you prefer.”

Martha said she’d prefer a table, not wanting to speak with anyone, and she was led into a dim room outfitted to look like a library and was given an oversized menu. It was a Monday night and the place was quiet, just one couple a few tables over, silently dismantling their steaks. When a waitress shimmied over, Martha said she’d changed her mind and maybe she’d like to eat at the bar. The waitress, peeved, pointed her in the right direction, and Martha was instantly happier after she slid onto a large high-backed stool and ordered a glass of red wine from the bartender. After the wine was poured, she ordered a rare sirloin steak with béarnaise sauce and a side of creamed spinach. She felt calmer, confident that Lily was going to find out the truth, no matter what that truth was. The wine was helping as well, that first sip sinking her into the womb-like atmosphere of the dark bar. Lily could handle herself, whatever the situation turned out to be. And there was another feeling, one she was having a hard time admitting to herself. Regardless of what the truth was about Alan, she was starting to wonder if she needed him in her life at all. It wasn’t as though she were madly in love with him. No, she just liked his company. Why had she thought they needed to get married? She hadn’t, actually. But he’d wanted to, and she’d agreed.

When her steak came, she thought of her father, how much he’d like this restaurant, although he’d be drinking a dry Gibson with his meal. She sliced into the very pink steak, sopped up a little of the sauce, and took a bite. How strange life was, that on the night when she might find out if her husband was a serial killer, she could enjoy something as heavenly as steak with béarnaise sauce.

“All good?” the bartender said. He was about forty she thought, one of those heavyish men who made the extra weight sexy. It didn’t hurt that he had great hair and a beautiful gray beard.

“Perfect,” she said, “and another glass of wine when you get a chance.”

After her meal was finished, she didn’t want to leave, so she ordered a glass of port, still thinking of her father, a fan of the post-dinner drink.

He’d been talkative, her father, toward the end of his life, as though making up for years of silence. Even though he’d had two daughters, Martha’s sister was all the way in Alaska, and since he’d never remarried after her parents’ divorce, Martha was really all he had as he had succumbed, pretty rapidly, to pancreatic cancer. Not only was he suddenly open with her, but she found herself telling him things about her life that, before his diagnosis, she would never have considered speaking out loud to anyone. She told him about Ethan, her horrible boyfriend when she’d been at graduate school, and she even told him about how she was convinced Eve Dexter put a love curse on her back in high school.

“I actually remember Eve Dexter,” he’d said. “Only because I knew her mother. Kit Dexter. I did her will.”

“Did she leave everything for Eve?”

“I don’t remember.”

“She really did curse me, you know.”

“You actually believe that?”

“That she put a curse on me, or that it worked?”

“Either. Both.”

“Yes, I believe she put a curse on me. I kissed her boyfriend and the first thing she did was get every kid in school to shun me, but I guess it wasn’t enough. It was confirmed, you know. A psychic spotted it on me.”

Her father frowned, but his eyes were amused.

“You think I’m silly?”

“No, I believe you. And I believe that little harlot Eve Dexter cursed you.”

“But you don’t believe that it affected my love life.”

“If it did, it’s because you believed it would. No, I don’t really believe that love curses work. What I do believe, though, is that we’re all cursed, anyway. At least in love.”

“Ooh, dark, Dad.”

“Sorry,” he said, but he’d been laughing as he said it.

Martha paid the bill at the steak house, having just read Lily’s message. She left Jonah the bartender a whopping tip and promised to be back soon. As she moved from the dim lighting of the bar through the yellow glow of the restaurant, then out into the misty night, she still felt as though she were in the unreal bubble created by that first glass of wine. Once outside, she called Lily, who picked up right away.

“Oh, you had me worried.”

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