Acts of Malice by Perri O'Shaughnessy Page A

lodge.’’
    ‘‘He’s been around a long time,’’ Sandy said later. They were turning off the lights, getting ready to leave. Sandy had gradually thawed into her usual cantankerous self.
    ‘‘Who?’’
    ‘‘Phil Strong. He and my daddy were friends. They used to hunt together when they were young. One time they hunted a bear. Illegal even back then, but they were both pretty wild, I hear.’’
    Nina zipped up her parka and started gathering up her papers. ‘‘How long ago was that?’’
    ‘‘Oh, who knows. Thirty-odd years ago. That family started the ski industry at the lake. They’ve been here since people wore coonskin caps.’’
    ‘‘And where’s your father now?’’
    ‘‘Dead.’’ Sandy said it with no emotion. ‘‘But he never did forgive that man. He almost stole my mother from him. That’s what my daddy said, but my mother said she had more sense. I always wondered what the truth was.’’
    ‘‘If he had, you’d be rich,’’ Nina said, teasing.
    ‘‘I am rich in everything that counts,’’ Sandy said in her customarily severe manner. They went out together and Sandy climbed into her ancient sedan and skidded off onto the darkening icy street, leaving Nina to realize that Sandy looked downright happy.
    Bob offered to make dinner when they got home. He was probably motivated by hunger and the certainty that Nina would not work her way around to his needs for quite some time yet. While she raced through her mail and picked up the living room, he rattled through the kitchen slamming drawers and opening cupboards, announcing a special dish he had in mind which combined a box of noodles, a few cans of soup, and a bag of frozen broccoli.
    She didn’t care what he made, she was so very grateful. She planned her praise in advance, and would say it, no matter what. That was how to raise a child that would cook.
    They had lived in their A-frame cabin for over a year now, and although she couldn’t remember ever shopping, somehow, over time, the place had gotten furnished and a few personal touches had begun to emerge. A soft rug defined the seating area by the large stone fireplace. Pictures of tropical palms, the ocean, and favorite art prints had somehow worked their way into frames on the walls.
    The sun spent much of the day on the kitchen table, coming in at a slant through one set of windows in the morning and pouring through the large plate glass at the back of the cabin in the afternoon. The sunniness, the airiness of it, and her attic bedroom were what Nina loved about her new home.
    Her main difficulty with home ownership, other than financial, was general maintenance. Her brother Matt had found her a handyman, a local man with arms like Popeye and a similarly half-cocked eye, and when things went wrong, if she remembered to call, he got around to making them right again eventually.
    When she got involved in a case, she ignored everything else. She got up in the morning and ran out the door. Stacks of clothes, folded and unfolded, clean and dirty, began to pile up. Paperwork, especially junk mail, took up a larger and larger portion of the kitchen counter, and eventually oozed to the table until they had to push things over to set places.
    Lately she had tried a new tack: no matter how tired she felt in the evening, she disciplined herself to spend at least fifteen minutes trying to establish some order before allowing herself the all-important glass of wine.
    She was really bushed tonight. What she really wanted to do was fall into bed and have five minutes to think about Collier before sleep took her. Fifteen minutes, she chanted to herself, don’t be lazy, go for it . . .
    Pulling a throw pillow out from beneath a chair, she tossed it to the couch. It fell back to the floor. Sighing, she picked it up again. She knew that there was a philosophy behind this repetitive labor, something about being in the moment, something about enjoying whatever you did thoroughly, but