Mary Lisa patted his cheek. “You heard Lou Lou-it’s nap time.” John and Jack left under the suspicious eye of Mr. Rogers, who actually followed them out of the inn and watched Jack’s truck until they were out of sight.

“Does he think we’re going to circle back, sneak in for an afternoon orgy?”

“Nah,” John said. “Not Mr. Rogers. But that old bat Mrs. Willis is another thing.”

FIFTY-FOUR

Mary Lisa took a bite of Mrs. Abrams’s pot roast and chewed slowly, savoring the taste of the spices Mrs. Abrams kept secret.

“Have you ever tasted anything more delicious in your lives?” she asked. Lou Lou and Elizabeth were seated on either side of Kelly, opposite Mary Lisa and Jack. Mary Lisa’s parents sat at the ends of the formal dining room table. The women wore dresses and heels, and the men were in suits, except for Kelly, who had on tight jeans and an oversized sweater. She was looking from Mary Lisa to Jack, but there wasn’t a laser death ray in her eyes, which greatly relieved Mary Lisa. John, when told about dinner, readily excused himself from attending. He was a smart man.

“Even better than the blueberry pancakes this morning,” Elizabeth said, “and that’s saying something.”

“It’s great, Mrs. Beverly,” Lou Lou said, nodding toward Kathleen.

Mary Lisa was glad she didn’t have to deal with Monica and Mark being there as well. Both of them were in Salem overnight for one of Monica’s campaign rallies, a blessed relief.

“Elizabeth is an anchorwoman on a local L.A. TV station,” Mary Lisa said.

“Oh?”

Her mother’s voice sounded only mildly disapproving, Mary Lisa thought, and plowed onward. “She was a crime reporter with the L.A. Times until about a year ago when the TV station producer spotted her at a party.”

Elizabeth said, “Serendipity or happenstance, whatever you wish to call it, it’s a wonderful thing. Nearly the same thing happened to Mary Lisa.”

Jack asked, “How did you get started, Mary Lisa?”

“My agent called me one morning, said he’d gotten me an audition on Born to Be Wild. He said it was a lead role, sighed, and added that the audition would be good experience for me. Yep, he had no hope that I’d land it. Anyway, everything worked out very nicely.”

Lou Lou said, “Mary Lisa, sometimes I want to smack you, you’re so bloody modest. Mrs. Beverly, your daughter is the biggest soap actress in history. Her very first year, she won the Emmy for the best lead actress. It’s never been done before, and now she’s won it a second and third time.”

“And the rest is history,” Elizabeth said. “Hey, here’s to Mary Lisa.”

“Hear, hear,” Lou Lou said. Everyone clicked glasses together. Kathleen Beverly slowly raised her glass.

“And Lou Lou is about the greatest makeup artist in La-La Land,” Elizabeth said.

Mary Lisa waited, tense and wary, but again, her mother merely looked at Lou Lou, nodding.

George Beverly said, “Hey, Lou Lou, Mary Lisa told me you landed that primo makeup contract with the big producer.”

Lou Lou nodded. “Yep, that worked out well.”

Kathleen set her wineglass back on the table and said to Lou Lou, “You appear to know my husband well.”

“Well, ma’am, he’s very popular with all of Mary Lisa’s friends.”

“Are you responsible for Mary Lisa’s makeup on the soap?”

“Most of the time.”

“You sure like to paint her up sometimes,” Kelly said.

“Yeah,” Lou Lou said easily. “That’s for sure. Hey, it’s Hollywood.”

Social time over, Mary Lisa thought, as a blanket of silence fell over the table. She tried to think of something innocent and light to say, but her mother leaned forward slightly and said to Jack, “Before we came in to dinner, Chief Wolf, you mentioned that you wished to speak to me about Olivia Hildebrand.”

“Yes, ma’am. I understand you are best friends. I hadn’t realized how very close you were to her.”

“Yes, well, I would like to speak to you about her as well. I’ve told you once already that she’s been through quite enough. She’s sedated at home, as you know, under a doctor’s care, with two of your deputies hanging around her house. And she’s a wreck. Please have the decency to leave her alone. She did not kill Milo.”

George said slowly, his eyes on his wife’s face, “You don’t know that, Kathy. I’ve been thinking about telling you this all week, Jack. The fact is, Milo beat her their entire married life as best I can tell. I think she might have snapped. Maybe Milo’s killing Jason and hurting Marci drove her over the edge.”

There was silence at the table. Only Kelly continued to eat, stabbing a small baked potato off the edge of the beautifully arranged oval platter with the pot roast at its center.

Jack carefully set down his fork. “Milo beat his wife? I noticed when I was with them right after Jason’s murder that he appeared rather controlling with her, but-you’re certain? He beat her? I didn’t know this, Mr. Beverly. No one’s said a single word to me about that.”

Kathleen said, “That doesn’t matter. You don’t understand. Olivia isn’t a murderess, she isn’t!”

“Perhaps,” George said, eyeing his wife from the other end of the dining table, “we’d best leave this for a while.”

“No!” Kathleen nearly came up out of her chair. “You’re the one who started it, telling Chief Wolf that Milo hit her sometimes, giving her a motive in his mind to suppose my best friend killed her husband. Well, she didn’t.”

“Why not, Mrs. Beverly?” Jack asked calmly.

“You want the truth, Chief? All right, here it is. She’s a wuss, no spine at all. She couldn’t even discipline that loose daughter of hers.”

All the ugliness splatted in the open by the beautiful pot roast. Jack saw Mary Lisa open her mouth, then close it. He squeezed her hand beneath the table.

George Beverly said, “Kathy’s right about Olivia being weak. Once, a long time ago, Olivia came here, all bent over like an old woman, clutching her ribs, crying and moaning. She said Milo had kicked her when she was crawling away from him. I was so mad, I went to see Milo.” He stopped, and stared around at the people at his dining room table. “Now isn’t the time,” he said. “It really isn’t.”

“Yes, Dad, Jack needs to hear this, please,” Mary Lisa said.

“Please, sir, she’s right,” Jack said.

“All right. As I said, I went over there, confronted Milo. He was swaggering around, told me to mind my own business. Then he lost control and actually hit me. I hit him back, in the ribs, and he went down. Turns out Olivia followed me there. She came running in, screaming at me to leave him alone. When I managed to get her off me, I stood there, so shocked and appalled I couldn’t think straight, watched her crouch over him, cooing and rubbing him where I’d hit him. Old Milo moaned and she looked up at me and threatened to have the police throw me in jail.”

“You never told us that, Dad,” Kelly said.

He shrugged. “Why should I? It had nothing to do with you girls. Besides, after that night, Olivia never dragged herself over here again to your mother after he’d beaten her. Maybe she didn’t because she was afraid of what I’d do. I don’t know.” He looked down the table at his wife. “What did she do from then on, Kathy? Call you? Beg you to meet her somewhere?”

“That’s cruel, George. But it makes my point. Olivia would never have hurt Milo. She adored him, even though he was a monster. She would have done anything he told her to, anything.”

Jack said, “You and Olivia Hildebrand seem like very different people, Mrs. Beverly. How is it you’re such good friends?”

She looked at Jack, locked her eyes on his face. “When we first arrived in Goddard Bay nearly twenty-five years ago, Olivia went out of her way to make me feel welcome.” The words seemed to catch in her throat. She downed some wine, swallowed. “No one else did. But Olivia came over to see me and we talked and talked. She became my best friend. That’s all.” And even you need a friend, don’t you, Mom? Mary Lisa thought.