The Mephisto Club

on the van’s dashboard. Peering through the rear window, she saw a wheelchair lift.
    “Hello, there! Are you the detectives?” a booming voice called out. The woman who stood on the porch waving at them was obviously able-bodied.
    “Mrs. Felway?” said Jane.
    “Yes. And you must be Detective Rizzoli.”
    “And my partner, Detective Frost.”
    “Watch those cobblestones, they’re slippery. I try to keep the driveway sanded for visitors, but really, there’s no substitute for sensible shoes.”
Sensible
was a word that clearly applied to Edwina Felway’s wardrobe, Jane noted, as she climbed the steps to shake the woman’s hand. Edwina wore a baggy tweed jacket and wool trousers and rubber Wellingtons, the outfit of an English countrywoman, a role she certainly seemed to fulfill, from her accent right down to her green garden boots. Although she had to be sixty, she stood straight and sturdy as a tree, her handsome face ruddy in the cold, her shoulders as broad as a man’s. The gray hair, cut in a neat pageboy, was pinned back with tortoiseshell barrettes, fully exposing a face with prominent cheekbones and direct blue eyes. She had no need for makeup; she was striking enough without it.
    “I’ve put the kettle on,” said Edwina, ushering them into the house. “In case you’d like some tea.” She shut the door, pulled off her boots, and shoved her stocking feet into worn slippers. From upstairs came the excited barking of dogs. Big dogs, by the sound of them. “Oh, I’ve shut them up in the bedroom. They’re not all that disciplined around strangers. And they’re quite intimidating.”
    “Do you want us to take off our shoes?” asked Frost.
    “Heavens, forget it. The dogs are in and out all the time anyway, tracking in sand. I can’t worry about the floor. Here, let me take your coats.”
    As Jane pulled off her jacket, she could not help staring upward at the ceiling that arched overhead. The open rafters were like the beams of a medieval hall. The stained-glass ocular that she had noticed outside beamed in a circle of candy-colored light. Everywhere she looked, on every wall, she saw oddities. A niche with a wooden Madonna, decorated in gold leaf and multicolored glass. A Russian Orthodox triptych painted in jewel tones. Carved animal statues and Tibetan prayer shawls, and a row of medieval oaken pews. Against one wall was a Native American totem pole that thrust all the way to the two-story ceiling.
    “Wow,” said Frost. “You’ve got a really interesting place here, ma’am.”
    “My husband was an anthropologist. And a collector, until we ran out of space to put it all.” She pointed at the eagle’s head that glared down from the totem pole. “That thing was his favorite. There’s even more of this stuff in storage. It’s probably worth a fortune, but I’ve gotten attached to every hideous piece and I can’t bring myself to let any of it go.”
    “And your husband is—”
    “Dead.” She said it without hesitation. Just a fact of life. “He was quite a bit older than me. I’ve been a widow for years now. But we had a good fifteen years together.” She hung up their coats, and Jane caught a glimpse into the cluttered closet, saw an ebony walking stick topped by a human skull.
That monstrosity,
she thought,
I would’ve tossed out a long time ago.
    Edwina shut the closet door and looked at them. “I’m sure you detectives have your hands full with this investigation. So we thought we’d make things easier for you.”
    “Easier?” asked Jane.
    The rising squeal of a teakettle made Edwina glance toward the hallway. “Let’s go sit in the kitchen,” she said, and led the way up the hall, her worn slippers whisking across the tired oak floor. “Anthony warned us you’d have a lot of questions, so we wrote out a complete timeline for you. Everything we remember from last evening.”
    “Mr. Sansone discussed this with you?”
    “He called last night, to tell me everything that happened after I left.”
    “I’m sorry he did. It would have been better if you hadn’t talked to him about it.”
    Edwina paused in the hallway. “Why? So we can approach this like blind men? If we want to be helpful to the police, we need to be sure of our facts.”
    “I’d rather have independent statements from our witnesses.”
    “Every member of our group is
quite
independent, believe me. We each maintain our own opinions. Anthony wouldn’t want it any other way. It’s why we