Note to self: Ask Cyrus to find more entertaining guests.

Something to ponder: Did the fact that Guru Sanjay turned up dead after doing my show hurt my chances of getting A-list guests?

Later that evening, after stopping at Johnny Chen's for our take-out order, I cautiously unlocked the front door to the town house. I tiptoed inside, wondering whether Lark was awake and functioning, and was pleased to see her curled up on the sofa watching television with Pugsley at her side.

Then I noticed that she was staring blankly at the Weather Channel, and I knew her mind wasn't on rainstorms in Topeka or the bl.u.s.tery Santa Anas in Southern California.

"Hey," I said, setting the little white cardboard cartons with wire handles from Johnny Chen's on the coffee table in front of her.

"Is that dinner?" she asked listlessly.

"No, I adopted a bunch of goldfish from Mike's Marine World."

I took a close look at her and saw that her eyes were red rimmed from crying.

"Bad joke," I apologized, handing Pugsley his steamed dumpling on a napkin. He swallowed it in one gulp, and I took the remote out of Lark's hands to kill the distracting chatter about c.u.mulus clouds forming in the Pacific North-west.

"We need to talk," I said gently. It was dim in the room, and I switched on the ginger-jar lamp on the end table, flooding the room with soft pink light.

"Okay." A tiny, ghostly voice and a hopeless shrug.

"But we can eat first if you want," I added, taking in the stricken expression on her face. Her mascara was smudged from crying and she looked very small and vulnerable with her blue and white vintage afghan tucked around her legs.

She reached for her carton of veggie stir-fry and stabbed at the contents in a desultory way with a plastic fork. We ate in uncomfortable silence side by side for a few minutes, with Pugsley hovering around us like a hungry jackal, watching our every bite, his little feet tapping a staccato on the polished oak floor.

Finally Pugsley curled up under the coffee table. The town house became very still except for the solemn ticking of the grandfather clock in the entryway. Why wasn't Lark speaking up, telling me she was innocent? I was convinced she had nothing to do with Guru Sanjay's death, but for some reason, I needed to hear her say the words.

Then I gave myself a mental head slap. What in the world was wrong with me? How could I even think Lark could be capable of violence? She's so softhearted, she even rescues ants, carrying them outside in an envelope and setting them down gently in the garden.

The idea of her killing someone was ridiculous. Even someone as odious as Guru Sanjay.

Yet, something wasn't right. My stomach started to p.r.i.c.k with anxiety, and my nerves were strung as tight as piano wire.

I drew in a long, slow breath, hoping to relax, and found that my chest ached from the effort. I shoveled in more veggie lo mein to soothe my jangled nerves with a little carb rush. Chinese food therapy: works every time.

"Okay," Lark said finally, breaking the silence. She shot a sidelong glance at me, pushed the afghan aside, and sat up straighter. "I think I'm ready to tell you what happened last night."

Finally, the moment of truth! I knew what was coming next. Lark would tell me what I already knew--that she had nothing to do with Guru Sanjay's death and it was all a case of mistaken ident.i.ty. The kind of thing that could happen to anybody--right?

"Okay, let's hear it."

She took a long, shuddering breath, and then she let out a little sigh. Her blue eyes were shining with intensity and her pupils were dilated. Her gaze dropped to her hands, folded primly in her lap.

"Maggie, I think I may have killed him."

I felt like I'd been sucker punched and nearly dropped my carton of noodles on the polished oak floor, causing Pugsley to yip with excitement. My breath caught in my throat, as if it couldn't make it all the way down to my lungs.

"What? This is a joke, right?"

"It's no joke. It never should have happened this way. I never meant to hurt Guru Sanjay."

"I believe you, but start from the beginning." I tried to rein in my rampaging emotions. So much for eight years of psychoa.n.a.lytic training! I was an emotional wreck, and my thoughts were swirling like dry leaves in the wind as I struggled to make sense of what she was saying.

"I'll try, but some of the evening is a blur. I think I must have blocked part of it out of my memory. I told that to Detective Martino, but he didn't believe me," she added ruefully. "He thinks I'm guilty, you know."

"Don't worry about Detective Martino right now. He thinks everybody's guilty. Just tell me what happened," I said firmly, "and don't leave anything out." I gave her a sharp look. "That bit about going out to the drugstore last night wasn't true, was it?"

"No, it was just an excuse," she said, flushing a little. "I went straight next door to the Seabreeze as soon as I left here. I knew you'd think it was crazy, so I felt too embarra.s.sed to tell you the truth."

So Carmela was right, I thought grimly. I wondered whether Lark knew she'd been spotted in the hotel lobby and had probably already been positively identified by the front-desk clerk. That must be why Martino had dragged her down to the station this morning. Otherwise, why would he have reason to suspect her?

"I was going to call Guru Sajay on the house phone to ask him to autograph my copy of Heal the Cosmos--"

"You had it with you, right? That's why you were carrying that big yellow Coach knockoff; you had the book in there."

Lark nodded, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. With her choppy blond haircut and winsome features, she looked about twelve years old.

"Yes, and I brought along a little gift for him, a bottle of my Calming Essence." Lark makes her own herbal essences from dried flowers, and, generous soul that she is, she loves to give them out to her friends. You just add a few drops to a gla.s.s of water and instant nirvana.

"Go on." I was beginning to wish I had poured us both a gla.s.s of wine before hearing what Lark had to say. A hefty flute of Pinot Grigio would hit the spot about now. I looked longingly toward the kitchen but didn't want to interrupt Lark's train of thought.

"Well, I was heading for the front desk when I spotted him walking down the hallway to the back stairs. I don't know how I got up the nerve to speak to him, but I did. I ran right up to him and told him I'd read all his books and had brought him a little present. I told him I'd love to have him autograph his book for me."

"And of course he agreed," I prompted. I could just picture it. A fat middle-aged man meeting a devoted follower who just happens to be a gorgeous young blonde. It didn't take much to connect the dots.

"Yeah, he agreed all right, but I got more than I bargained for," she said, letting out her breath in a whoosh. "He invited me up to his room for a minute, and that's when things got crazy."

Despair laced her voice, and her tiny hands were knotted in fists, clutching the afghan as if it was a lifeline. Pugsley gave a nervous little nip, probably tuning in to the desperate tone in her voice.

"Crazy how?"

Lark blushed, a slow red burn that crept up her neck. "Well, first I asked him a lot of questions about his philosophy, and he seemed really interested in explaining it all to me."

I nodded, remembering how much Guru Sanjay liked to talk about himself.

"And then suddenly he gave me a funny look and his whole att.i.tude changed. He was like a different person, Maggie. He lunged at me and tried to kiss me. I couldn't believe it! How could I have been so stupid? He was a complete lech. He didn't want to talk about metaphysics; he just wanted to get into my pants!"

"Ah." A beat of silence pa.s.sed. "Okay, so he was a jerk and he made a pa.s.s at you. What happened then?"

"I tried to leave," Lark said slowly, "and he blocked my way. He was standing right in front of the door, trying to put his arms around me." She gave an involuntary little shudder at the memory, and her voice suddenly became high-pitched and girlish.

"He sounds like a creep! What did you do?" Pugsley's eyes darted back and forth between us, as if he was following the conversation with rapt interest.

"I managed to slip past him and get my hand on the doork.n.o.b, but he caught me. So I turned around, put my hands against his chest, and pushed him as hard as I could. Maybe he tripped or maybe I'm stronger than I thought, but he stumbled backward."

"Onto the floor? Or onto the bed?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I didn't wait around to find out. I ran out of there as fast as I could and took the back stairs down to the gardens." Her blue-eyed gaze locked onto mine.

"But I swear he was alive when I left, Maggie, honest!"

"I know," I said quickly. "But we've got to figure out what happened next. How long were you in his room?"

"I don't know . . . maybe forty-five minutes or an hour. Why?"

I bit my lip, thinking. "Lark, you came home sometime around midnight. What did you do after you left the Seabreeze?"

"I walked along the boardwalk for a long while. I think I lost track of time. I was so upset, and you know how I like to walk to clear my head." She pulled in a breath that fluttered on the edge of tears. "But Detective Martino doesn't believe a word of this. He thinks I killed Guru Sanjay! The only reason he hasn't charged me yet is he doesn't have enough evidence to make the charges stick. But he's keeping his eye on me and I know he'll be back. He made it pretty clear I'm his number-one suspect."

"We have to think this through, Lark," I said, my a.n.a.lytical side finally kicking in. If I was going to help Lark, I had to push my emotions aside and focus on the details of the case. "Do you know how Detective Martino connected you to the crime in the first place? Why did he zero in on you as a suspect? How did he even know you visited the guru last night?"

I wondered how much Martino had told her when he'd interrogated her, and I figured he was keeping the main details of the investigation to himself. Still, he might have given her a hint of what sort of case they were building against her. I had the horrible, sickening feeling that Lark was right. She was their prime suspect. Their only suspect.

"It was the bottle of Calming Essence," she said, surprising me. "That's what did it." A mirthless smile crept across her face. "As they say, 'No good deed goes unpunished.' If I hadn't brought it with me, none of this would have happened."

"What in the world are you talking about?" I was flummoxed.

"You know, the gift I brought Guru Sanjay. I put it down on his dresser when I first walked into his hotel room, and then I just forgot about it. When he attacked me, all I wanted to do was get out of there fast!"

"The Calming Essence!" I said, light dawning. "It had one of those handmade labels on it, didn't it?"

Lark nodded miserably. She does beautiful calligraphy work on handmade paper and attaches a tag to each gift bottle. With her name and address and an inspirational quote.

Bingo.

What a terrific bit of luck for Martino. He didn't have to be Adrian Monk to track her down with a clue like that staring him in the face!

"Tell me what happened down at the police station. Did you ask for a lawyer?"

She shook her head. "No, nothing like that," she said quickly.

"Did that detective--Martino--offer to get one for you?"

"Oh, yes, that's the first thing they told me. That I could have a lawyer and that I was free to leave anytime I wanted. Of course, they said since I hadn't done anything wrong or committed a crime, I wouldn't be needing a lawyer."

Hmm. Clever move. Nice bit of forensic psychology at work here. I knew Martino was smart enough not to jeopardize his case by denying Lark her rights, but he wasn't going out of his way to protect her interests, either. "So they interrogated you for a while and then let you go?"

Lark nodded, stifling a yawn. "It seemed like hours. I told them exactly what happened, and at first they seemed to believe me." She shook her head. "Then another detective came in and asked me a couple of times if I'd been really angry with Guru Sanjay for coming on to me."

"And you said--"

"I admitted that I'd been really angry and disappointed. But I certainly didn't kill him. Why would I?"

Why, indeed? I needed to know what Martino's next move was going to be. Had he accepted Lark's explanation, or was Big Jim Wilc.o.x right? Were they really focusing on Lark exclusively? It certainly looked that way.

And what about Miriam Dobosh and Olivia? Did Martino even know about their connection with the guru and what his death might mean to them? Why was he focusing on Lark and ignoring some other hot leads? And what was the cause of death? Had that been determined? It sounded like the cops knew that Guru Sanjay was the victim of foul play, but they were still hazy on the details. Or they weren't ready to show their hand just yet.

At midnight, I decided to turn in, leaving Lark and Pugsley curled up together, watching Sense and Sensibility. Ideas were flying inside my brain, but I put on a CD of Soothing Ocean Waves, snuggled under the comforter, and tried to make my mind go blank.

Tomorrow was another day, and I had a good idea where to pick up my investigation.

Chapter 9.

The next morning I called a reporter friend, Nick Harrison, from the Cypress Grove Gazetteand invited him to lunch. Nick, who is in his early twenties, covers arts and entertainment for the paper, and I'd heard he was planning a big piece on Guru Sanjay for the Sunday supplement. He's a good-looking guy, tall and athletic looking, with a boyish smile and dirty-blond hair worn on the longish side. Today he was wearing what I call Cypress Grove Casual, a snowy white golf shirt and pressed khakis with Reeboks.

Nick and I have sat through a couple of local press-club dinners together, and I figured meeting him for pasta would be the quickest way to get some background information on Guru Sanjay. Nick's laid-back, a nice complement to my type-A personality, and there's enough of an age difference that he thinks of me as an older sister, not potential date material.

We met at Gino's, a tiny Italian restaurant close to the station. Gino's is so much like the Italian bistro in Billy Joel's song it's almost a cliche, with red-and-white-checked tablecloths and photos of long-dead Italian opera singers lining the walls. The only thing missing is a Chianti bottle on each table, with multicolored strands of candle wax dripping down the sides. The food at Gino's is first-rate, the prices reasonable, and the service fast, so it's popular with the business crowd. After settling ourselves into one of the red leather booths and making an agonizing choice between vodka penne and fettuccine Alfredo, we got right down to business.

"Guru Sanjay was quite a piece of work," Nick said, reaching for his icy mug of draft beer. "I'm just getting into the story, and no one has anything good to say about him. Of course I'm saving the corporate people for later in the week; right now I'm concentrating on his personal life. The guy sounds really loathsome. I don't know how he attracted such a big following."

"Tell me about it," I agreed. "I had to sit through two hours on the air with him, remember?" I sipped my mango iced tea and tried not to look enviously at Nick's frosty gla.s.s of beer. I would have joined him, but I had a show to do that afternoon.

"So what was your take on him?"

"Well, at first I couldn't see how he managed to become a New Age superstar. I guess I just didn't get his appeal. But somehow, once he was live on the air, he changed. He was like a different person. He was magnetic, almost mesmerizing. I can see how people want to believe in him, and how they're taken in by his message."

"Sucked in, you mean," Nick said wryly.

"Yeah, definitely sucked in. The phones were ringing off the hook. It's hard to explain; the guy has charisma. I hate to admit it, but he does. He's almost like a religious figure, a cult figure."

"I think he tells people what they want to hear," Nick said. "Maybe he plays on their vulnerabilities, their insecuri ties."

"That he does," I agreed.

"I think I'm going to use a lot of quotes from his ex-wife in the opening of the piece," he went on, his brown eyes soft and reflective. "Or maybe highlight them in a sidebar. The problem is, her quotes are going to be pretty inflammatory, so I'll have to edit out the expletives." He patted a thick file next to him on the table. "In fact, I better run some of the material by the managing editor before I turn in my article. I don't want Sanjay Gingii, Limited, to hit us with a defamation suit--I've heard they have a crack legal team on retainer."

"Wow, is it that bad?" I was so excited I nearly forgot my fettuccine. So the guru had an angry ex-wife, and she was ready to tell all. Was there anything here that could further my own investigation?

"Worse than you think. h.e.l.l hath no fury like a woman scorned, you know."

"Are you telling me Sanjay left her for someone else?"

Nick nodded. "He got involved with another woman, and the timing couldn't have been worse. He cheated on Lenore right after she made him famous. She's the one who created the whole Guru Sanjay persona, you know--the seminars, the tapes, the talks. Before he met her, he was nothing."

The story was getting better and better. "So he wasn't always a guru? How does someone get to be a guru, anyway?" I mused. "I've always been puzzled about that. I wonder if it's like being a psychic or a ghost whisperer. There's no qualifying test--if you say you're one, that's it. You're in."

The corners of Nick's mouth quirked, and I noticed a couple of girls at the next table giving him the once-over. He really did have an adorable smile, complete with dimple. "Well, the first thing you do is latch on to someone in the motivational field who has a national audience, along with Ivy League academic credentials and some big commercial appeal. Someone with a platform. Someone like Lenore Cooper, Sanjay's ex-wife."

"Lenore Cooper? Why does that name sound familiar?"

"Lenore is a psychotherapist, and she was the one with the big career when she first met Sanjay. And he wasn't calling himself Sanjay Gingii back then. His name was Lenny Vitter, and he spent his time selling used cars and writing bad checks back in Sioux Falls, South Dakota."