A Fair to Die For (2 page)

“Interesting word choice.”

“Squinchy? That’s something I do remember from childhood. It was a family word.”

“It describes the feeling well, and no wonder you feel squinchy. After all these years of silence, the daughter of a woman who supposedly died as a child, and certainly couldn’t have if her story is true, has appeared. Would you be glad if she turned out to really be a cousin?”

“I . . . guess so. I have almost no family left.”

“Then I think we should go ahead and invite the woman here tomorrow. We won’t find out more unless we do that, and maybe the mystery surrounding your dad’s sister will finally be explained.”

Carrie brought a box of black and white photos to the kitchen table after they finished supper clean up. Most of the people were known to her, and as she laid each picture on the blue and white checked tablecloth, she identified them for Henry, pointing out with special pride a faded photo of her great-great grandfather in his Civil War uniform. “That blotch on his pants leg came from a bullet wound in the leg,” she said. “I guess uniforms were hard to come by, and they didn’t worry about a few holes or bloodstains. Grandpa had a later picture of the man leaning on a cane. He was tall for the times, and distinguished looking.”

“He’s distinguished looking here, too,” Henry said, tapping a fingernail on the photo, “but it’s obvious the height didn’t pass down to your part of the family.”

“Hey . . . ”

“Don’t ‘hey’ at me.” He began singing, “Five foot two, eyes of teal blue. .  .”

“Good grief,” she said, as she continued laying out the box’s contents.

There were photographs of her grandparents and parents through the years, and two aunts on her mother’s side. She smiled when Henry exclaimed over her baby pictures and a progression of photos marked on the back with captions like “Carrie, 3
rd
birthday,” and “Carrie’s first day at school.” She figured his comments about how cute she was were either prejudice or diplomacy, but, nevertheless, they were nice to hear. “You looked cuddly and soft, even then,” he said, reaching over to squeeze her hand.

There was one worn manila envelope tied up with yellowed seam-binding tape that obviously hadn’t been disturbed in years. “Gosh,” she said, “this was in the stuff I packed up after Mom died, and I obviously never got around to looking inside.”

She untied the tape and spread the envelope’s contents out on the table. After studying the assortment, Henry pointed with a finger, and said, “Your grandparents, right? I assume this must be your dad. He looks about eight. Then, who’s this little girl? Could she be the missing sister?”

Carrie said nothing as she studied the photo, then scanned the remaining pictures. “Here’s a photo of my dad with his parents. Maybe he’s late teens here?”

“Um hmm, and this picture seems to be the latest one in the bunch. No girl, but that really isn’t definitive.”

“No. We still have no concrete answers, though if that girl in the one picture is his sister, she couldn’t have died before she was, what? Four or five?”

The phone rang and Carrie looked at the clock. Six-thirty. At least the woman was punctual. “Good timing,” she said to Henry. “Lunch tomorrow?”

He nodded.

“Hello.”

Chapter Two
A SHOCKING STORY

“Tomorrow would be fine, Edie, Henry can be home all day. How about lunch? Noon? Most of the highway here from Tulsa is four lane. Should take you two and a half hours, tops. Got a pencil and paper? If you have a GPS, that will help, or you can call us if you get lost. I assume you have a cell phone.”

“Yes.”

“Then here are the directions.”

As Carrie hung up, the fact they would need to prepare the meal she had offered this woman sunk in. “Ohmygosh. She’s coming. Tomorrow. Noon. For lunch. What on earth are we going to fix?”

“How about soup and sandwiches?”

“That’s way too ordinary.”

“I don’t see why. It is a lunch. If you like we can cut the crusts off the bread and make fancy triangle-shaped sandwiches. Put them on your big glass plate and there you are—a gourmet lunch.”

“I don’t know . . . ”

“Carrie, my love, we aren’t serving the Queen of England here. A woman who claims to be your long-lost cousin is dropping in on us without much notice.” He began chuckling. “If she expects caviar and all kinds of stuff with French names at our house we are about to educate her.”

“There’s nothing funny about this.”

“Oh yes, there is. We’ll just explain that both your former husband and my former wife were wealthy enough to hire cooks, and neither of us learned Meal Prep 101 until we were out on our own at very ripe ages. Then, for both of us, the basics sufficed. So, Cousin Edie will have to make do with basics.”

Her unhappy look stopped him.

“Cara, will you feel better if I e-mail Chef Bohnert and ask what he suggests?”

“
Chef
? You know a real chef?”

“Yep, Chef John Bohnert. He has a cooking show on television in California.”

“Henry, not only are you the handsomest man alive, you are the most surprising.”

“Handsome, huh? Are you saying that just because I’m offering to find recipes to wow a maybe cousin?”

“Not at all”. She got up to stand behind his chair, and began stroking the grey hair at his temples.

“Ummm. You don’t do that often enough.”

“You know I can’t reach you like this when we’re standing. I’d need a step stool. But, enough. How on earth did you meet a chef?”

“Facebook. I was commenting about growing heirloom tomatoes a few months ago and John picked up on it. We’ve stayed in touch. I didn’t realize I hadn’t told you.”

“Never mind. By all means, ask him for ideas. Maybe you should phone. We only have a few hours.”

“Don’t know his phone number.”

“Well then, get on the computer in a hurry and let’s pray he answers right away.”

He stood, saluted, and headed for his computer.

An hour later he had an answer. “John gives several choices. Here, I printed them out. I think the tuna salad recipe sounds best.”

She took the papers from him. “Oh, Henry, tuna salad is so
ordinary
. I can make tuna salad, just stir in pickle relish and mayonnaise. What else does he suggest?”

She read down the list, feeling more discouraged with each turn of the page. “Some of these have long preparation times, and some call for ingredients we don’t have on hand. Most are complicated. Oh,” she wailed, “What am I going to do?”

“Carrie, calm down and look at that tuna salad recipe again. It has ingredients you’ve never put in tuna salad. Do we have celery seed and onion powder here?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“Okay. It’s a little late in the day for sandwiches, but why don’t we mix up a tiny amount of this with just one small can of tuna, and see what we think?”

Fifteen minutes later, Carrie said, “YUM! Thank you, Chef John Bohnert!”

“Whew, I’m glad that’s settled. And I promise to create a super-terrific King of a gourmet tomato soup tomorrow. We already have fruit gelatin, ice cream, and brownies. So now we can brush the tuna off our teeth and go to bed.”

Carrie was up early the next morning, her mind full of “to-do’s.”

Be sure the house is neat and dusted, I wonder what she looks like, sweep leaves off the porch, set the table with the good dishes, I wonder if she has children or siblings, make tea and lemonade, make Chef John’s tuna salad, decide what to wear, should I use cloth or paper napkins?

While she was hurrying through her to-do list, Henry began creating his soup. She stopped in the kitchen, duster in hand, to find him with his head in their pantry. He was holding a can in each hand—tomato soup in one and chopped tomatoes in the other. “Where are the cans of tomatoes and green chilies?” he asked.

She pointed with the duster. “Down there, behind the salsa and spaghetti sauce. Don’t make it too hot.”

“I won’t. You want crackers or corn bread?”

“Do we need either? We’ll have sandwiches.”

“Oh, sure, that’ll be enough. We might put some chips out, though.” He hesitated at the pantry door, studying her. “How are you doing? Eager anticipation?”

“Well, anticipation at least. Lots of trepidation mixed in. But it would be nice to have a cousin as a friend.”

“You don’t have any other cousins?”

“My mom and dad’s generation wasn’t much on producing offspring. Mom had two sisters, but one of them never married. The other had a son, an only child like me, but he was killed in Vietnam. So, unless she has younger brothers and sisters, Edie is it.”

She looked at the kitchen clock and hurried to put away the duster. She still hadn’t decided what to wear.

A small, tan Ford bumped down the lane at twelve noon exactly, and Carrie and Henry were already on the porch when it parked and the driver stepped out.

She’s very tailored,
Carrie thought.
No
frills, straight hair, but she is short like me
.
Kind of skinny, though.
E
verything about her is beige, even her hair, though I suppose it’s meant to be ash blond, and maybe you call those slacks taupe. Is there such a thing as beige lipstick? Probably. Goodness, I wonder what she’ll think of my turquoise and green outfit? Too gaudy? Maybe I should have worn the dark blue . . . oh, never mind, I
like
this outfit, but I am tempted to give her one of my bright-colored scarves before she leaves.

Everything about the woman matches,
Henry thought.
All the same color. Even her hair matches, but I’d bet that hair color is fake. Carrie’s grey curls are so much prettier. In Kansas City, Sgt. Creekmore dressed like this when she was keeping a watch on someone. It helped her fade into the background. As far as I can see, there is no family resemblance here, no softness like Carrie. The woman is all angles. I wonder if she’ll turn out to be as dull as she looks. If so, poor Carrie.

“Welcome to Blackberry Hollow,” his wife was saying.

A smile of such obvious pleasure spread across the woman’s face that Henry felt a twinge of regret about his earlier assessment. Edie spread her arms, inviting a hug, and, and after a short hesitation, Carrie responded.

When the women separated, Edie turned to him and, before Carrie could introduce them, said, “Hello, Henry. Carrie, you sure snagged one heck of a big, good-lookin’ man. Looks like he could crush rocks with one hand. I’d best be good.” She winked at Henry, and reached out to shake his hand. “Glad to meet you, cousin-in-law.”

“Come on in,” Carrie said, and opened the door, asking, “Shall we talk for a while, or eat first?”

“Eat, if that’s okay,” Edie said. “I’m starved. I was too excited to eat much breakfast this morning. We’ll have all afternoon to talk.”

During the meal Carrie learned little about Edie other than that she had no children and had been divorced for many years. Most of the talk was about food.

“Carrie, this tuna salad is magnificent. Did I detect celery seed? What a brilliant idea. And the soup was just right to go with it. You are obviously a marvelous cook.”

“Thank you, but Henry created the soup, and the tuna salad recipe came from a . . . a friend, though I did change a few things.” Carrie couldn’t manage an admission that the recipe came from a friend of Henry’s. She wanted to hold onto some credit for the meal, though Edie was spreading praise on a bit thick. And, after all, she had added more celery seed than the recipe called for.

“My goodness, a man that cooks. Carrie, he is a gem. Compliments to the chefs.”

Carrie said “Thank you” again, and suppressed an urge to giggle. Nerves?

Henry rose from the table and picked up his plate. “You two begin catching up on all your news. I’ll take care of lunch dishes and join you in a few minutes.”

Carrie smiled at him gratefully, then waited a couple of heartbeats for Edie to begin raving once more about the wonderful attributes of her husband but, unexpectedly, nothing came. The woman remained silent, put down her napkin, and followed Carrie into the home’s main room. She didn’t speak until they were seated across from each other.

“So, Carrie, where shall we start? We can’t possibly cover nearly sixty years in one afternoon, but I am eager to hear about your life. Begin at the beginning.”

Carrie ignored the request. She wanted to learn more about this self-proclaimed cousin before she talked about herself, so she said, “Something besides looking me up must have brought you to this part of the country. Blackberry Hollow is a long way from the East Coast, and we’re certainly off the beaten path. Are you on vacation?”

“Not really. I’m retired now, and I did come here mainly to see you, but I also hope to accomplish a bit of business in this area, perhaps with your help.”

“You know, Edie, I haven’t a clue what your profession was.”

“Oh, here and there. Staff assistant, which is just a fancy name for secretary as I’m sure you know. Some of my working life in DC was spent as a general research assistant for various people in government, and, now and then, I helped write speeches for a couple of them. Sounds dull, but I’ve always enjoyed doing detail work and I like research. There’s such a sense of accomplishment when you find a gem of usable information. With the Internet, the ability to access information has exploded.”

Thinking of Henry’s quick access to Chef John’s tuna salad recipe, Carrie said, “It sure has, and your job doesn’t sound dull at all. I wonder if, over the years, I’ve heard speeches you wrote.”

Edie laughed. “They weren’t necessarily memorable. Nothing of the ‘Ask not what your country can do for you,’ or ‘I have a dream’ class.

“Anyway, Mom was most insistent that I look you up, but I’d have attempted to find you even if she hadn’t asked me to. There are so few family connections left for either of us.” She paused, looked at her hands for a minute, then said, “If you don’t mind, tell me about your life now. I’m wondering if you might be able to help me with a bit of research, but I need to understand you better before I ask.”