The Secret Ingredient Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery (15 page)

      14
F
OOD FOR THOUGHT

Nikki Parker Dixon didn’t wait for her father’s murder to be solved to hold his memorial service. On the Tuesday morning following his murder, almost six hundred persons filled St. Anne’s parish church to hear their celebrated citizen eulogized by mourners ranging from the lieutenant governor to an ex-convict who had gone straight under Stanley’s sponsorship. The weather changed from clear to overcast that very morning as the limousine pulled up in front of the church with Nikki and Randy inside.

Within the church the people who had attended Genia’s dinner party sat near one another, as if drawn together by something in common beyond the fact of their mutual acquaintance with the deceased. Harrison Wright held his arm around his wife throughout the service. Celeste Hutchinson sat in the front row with the mayor, Larry Averill. David Graham slid into a row beside Genia. They shared a hymnal, and he whispered to her, “I hope you still want to have dinner with me tomorrow night?”
Why did I agree to that?
she thought. Nevertheless, she inclined her head in acceptance. The church was no place, and this service was no time, to back out now. Beside her the whole Eden family sat together, the twins sandwiched protectively between Kevin and Donna.

As Genia nodded her hellos to all of them, she thought of the names on the white bookmarks in the old cookbook, and she wondered,
Why did he invite you to lunch at the Castle? Why did he make me invite you to dinner?

Ed Hennessey, dressed in a suit, stayed outside and smoked.

As Genia listened to one speaker after another extol her late friend, she thought unhappily,
Was he killed last Saturday by someone who is eulogizing him today?

Genia had just finished changing from her black funeral suit into a comfortable pair of slacks and a blouse when a brand-new crisis exploded, forcing her attention in another direction. She had spent an hour at the Castle with other invited mourners. Now, middle of the day or not, she wanted to pour herself a glass of the wine and indulge in some of the creamy French cheese that David Graham had given her. Then she wanted to retreat with her snack to a covered section of the deck, blessedly alone, to watch the rain begin to fall.

The crisis call came from Donna.

“The police just called, Aunt Genia. It’s positive.” Donna’s voice was rough with anguish.

Alarmed, but not understanding, Genia asked, “What is, dear?”

“Jason’s drug test!”

“Oh, no! Does he know?”

“Jason? Aunt Genia, it was Jason they tested. Of course he knows. He had to know it would be positive. He couldn’t have smoked the stuff in his sleep.”

“No, of course not.” Genia felt a rush of sympathy for her overburdened niece. To make matters worse, he was now eighteen. “You must be worried sick. Where is he now?”

“I don’t know! He raced off in his car, and I haven’t seen him since. The court date is already set. It’s in three weeks. How could he do this? He knew what would happen.”

“Did he say anything to you before he left?”

“Oh yes. My son said, and forgive me, but I quote, ‘Those assholes, I didn’t smoke pot, I’m clean.’ ”

“Well, then, we need to find out what went wrong.”

“Aunt Genia, you don’t believe him, do you?”

“Well, I don’t think we ought to take it for granted that he’s guilty. He may be. But drug tests are often wrong. There can be false positives and false negatives.”

For a moment, Donna seemed to forget her own troubles, as she exclaimed, “Sometimes I wonder about you, Aunt Genia! The things you know that I would never expect you to know … well, if Jason shows up there, tell him to come home so that his mother can kill him. And tell him if I don’t, his father will.”

Within the hour, Jason showed up at Genia’s back door. She let him in, observing that his young face looked shadowed with concerns that no one his age should have to carry.

“Come in, dear.” She ushered him directly to the kitchen, the room in any house where troubles, if they could not be solved, could at least be salved. After the call from his mother, Genia had never poured that glass of wine. Instead, she had water on the boil, and so she poured for him and herself cups of herbal tea that advertised itself as “soothing.” That was what they needed, she thought, a little warm and calming comfort. To the tea, she added honey.

“Here, Jason, drink this.”

“Did Mom call you?”

Genia nodded.

“For what it’s worth—probably nothing—I didn’t do it, Aunt Genia. There’s a mistake, there’s got to be.”

His aunt released her breath in a long sigh.

“It doesn’t make any sense, I know,” her nephew admitted. “I can’t explain it. But I swear to God, I swear on Mr. Parker’s grave, I didn’t smoke any dope. I know what will happen if I do, I’m not a total moron. Even if my mother thinks I am. Does she really think I’m so stupid I’d risk going to jail? For a joint?” His voice was choked with anger and hurt feelings, and the sight and sound of him hurt Genia’s own heart.

“I don’t think you’d do that.”

He lifted his head and stared at her. “You believe me? Really?”

“Of course I believe you.” Genia said the words stoutly, as if they were completely true, but inside she quailed a bit, hating the soupçon of doubt she felt. “If you say you didn’t, you didn’t. It’s true that it doesn’t make any sense, but there has to be an explanation. Perhaps a mix-up in samples. Mislabeling. Something simple.” She reached over to lay her hand on his arm, and she could feel how tight his muscles were.

“There’s more.” He paused, and gulped in air. His body looked all bunched in the chair now, as if he were pulling himself in tight. “The cops think … Eddie told them … they think I smoked pot … because he told them I was growing a bunch of it in Stanley’s greenhouse.”

“Oh, Jason. Were you?”

He lifted his head again and stared directly into her eyes. “Well. Sort of.”

Genia felt her heart sink. “You were? Did Stanley know?”

Suddenly the boy’s gaze shifted away from her. “That’s what the cops want to know, too. What do they care if Mr. Parker knew?” His tone became deeply sarcastic. “Are they going to arrest him, too?”

“I have to ask, Jason. Why did you grow it?”

He shrugged and avoided her gaze. “I just did. I never meant to smoke it.”

“Or sell it?”

“No way!”

“Then … why, Jason?”

“Does there have to be a reason for everything?”

“Well, there usually is,” she replied gently.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know what to tell you.”

The police will not be satisfied with that
, Genia thought.

They finished their tea in a tense and worried silence, until her nephew said, “I’m sorry, Aunt Genia.”

She clasped one of his hands. “We’ll get you through this.”

“I’m really glad you’re here. I don’t know what I’d do—”

“The main thing is, you didn’t smoke it, and that can’t have been your sample they tested. Let’s get that straightened out first, and then we’ll figure out what to do about the pot in the greenhouse. You say the police know about that?”

“Yeah. Yes.”

“We’re going to need to talk to your lawyer, Jason.”

The boy’s eyes filled with tears, which he angrily wiped away.

“Life sucks,” he blurted out.

She hated very much to hear him say so. “I hope one day you’ll be able to change your mind about that.”

“Don’t count on it, Aunt Genia,” he said bitterly.

But she did count on it, with all of her heart.

And now she deduced what Kevin Eden was doing at the greenhouse the morning after Stanley’s death: He wanted to destroy the evidence of his son’s illegal crop.

“How did your father know you were growing pot?”

“Janie told him.” This was said without surprise or rancor. “Remember when she was so mad at Mr. Parker? She saw it in the greenhouse when you sent her up to the Castle to look for him. She was so mad at Mr. Parker and me that she called Dad out on the island. She called him from right there in the greenhouse and told him.”

“
That’s
why she was so mad at Mr. Parker?”

“Yeah. Janie was pissed! Excuse me.”

“That’s all right. I’ll bet she was! I am, too!”

“Don’t be mad at him, okay?”

“Why not? Look at the trouble you’re in now. He should never have allowed it, and don’t tell me that Stanley didn’t know anything about it. He knew every plant by sight. He would certainly have noticed a marijuana plant growing in his greenhouse! Honestly, if he weren’t already dead, I think I would kill him myself.”

“My dad was sure mad enough to kill him.”

Suddenly great-aunt and grandnephew stared at each other in mutual dismay at those words.

“No!” Jason protested. “I never meant—”

“I know, honey. But tell me something. Is
that
why your father was here that night, Jason? He wasn’t really coming to my dinner party, was he? He was coming to give Stanley a piece of his mind, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, but Aunt Genia, my dad wouldn’t …”

She covered one of his hands with her own again. “Of course not, but we have to know the whole truth so that no one can surprise us with it, don’t we?”

She waited, but Jason didn’t respond.

“
Is
that the whole truth, dear?”

He nodded without looking at her.

“And nothing but the truth?”

“So help me.” But he said it bitterly, and it sounded to Genia more like a prayer than a vow.

The next evening, while getting dressed to go out to dinner with David Graham, Genia thought wearily,
Why in heaven’s name did I agree to this?
She didn’t want to go out with a man she barely knew and pretend that everything was just fine; she wanted to stay home and think about how to help her family. Plus, now that push came to shove, she felt a little uneasy about going out with a man other than her friend Jed White, who lived in Boston. Not that she and Jed had any claims on one another, but neither had they gone out with other people, either.

Jed had been her first true love, a college friend who had appeared back in her life a year ago. When she had first arrived in Devon, Jed had driven down from Boston to see her that week. They had met in Newport, where they had dined at a charming coastal restaurant owned by a friend of his. They’d sat outside on a heated deck, under a sky packed so full of stars that Genia accused Jed of ordering them from a catalog, just for the evening.

“It’s wickedly extravagant of you,” she’d teased him.

“For you, anything,” he’d said with a wide smile.

Their meal had been memorable, though not entirely in a good way. It had started well enough, with delicious baked lobster stuffed with wild mushrooms, corn so sweet it took her back to her Iowa roots, and exquisite Key lime pie for dessert. It was their conversation that had soured the evening for her, and which made her still feel uncomfortable when she recalled it.

It had started when she told him the outcome of Jason’s hearing for possession of marijuana.

“… has to remain free of drugs and alcohol.”

“No jail time?”

“Thank goodness, no. He’s only seventeen, Jed.”

“Old enough to know better, young enough to be taught a lesson.”

“Surely you don’t think an ordinary seventeen-year-old high school boy … who has never been in trouble before … deserves to be sent to jail … do you?”

“It would be convincing, Genia.”

“It might be a good deal more than that, Jed. It might also be dangerous. I can’t believe you really believe what you’re saying. Marijuana is not harmless, I know, but neither is prison. In fact, I suspect it holds a great many worse dangers for a young boy than marijuana does.”

“Are you a hippie, Genia?”

“No, Jed,” she had retorted. “I am a grandmother.”

“Soft-hearted,” he’d pronounced with a patronizing tone.

“Realistic,” she had snapped back.

Their evening had never got back on course after that.

Since then they had chatted by phone, but there always seemed to be some reason to cut their conversations short. Jed’s business and travel schedule—and her cooking schedule with Stanley—had made it impossible for them to meet again. They were so near to one another, and yet so far. And that might be true in many ways, Genia suspected. She hated to think what he might say about Jason testing positively for drugs. As the weeks passed for her without seeing Jed again, she wondered if it was the man she missed, or only the dream of romance.

Dinner with David Graham would not be the same thing at all.

It was a reassuring thought that did not prevent her from feeling just a bit disloyal, and not only to Jed White, but also to Celeste Hutchinson.
I hope Celeste isn’t at the club tonight
. However little this dinner meant to Genia, she had an uncomfortable feeling that Celeste might read it differently.

Celeste was more likely to look at it as competition for David.

“But that’s silly,” Genia assured herself as she fastened pearl earrings onto her earlobes. “It’s just a dinner date. It’s not as if I want to marry the man. Celeste is welcome to him, if he’s interested in her.”

Before she left she looked around the bedroom again.

“Oh, I wish I could find Grandmother Andrews’ brooch,” she said to herself.

      15
D
INNER FOR
T
WO

Genia wore to dinner a simple black summer dress, one that draped easily over those small bulges that seemed to appear in spite of her daily walks. Glancing in the side mirror of David’s car, she checked the light sweep of blush across her cheeks, the touch of gray eye shadow, her lipstick. Over her shoulders, she wore a soft, handwoven shawl to ward off the possible chill of air-conditioning at the club. The shawl was black angora, shot through with pearly threads that picked up the luminescence of her earrings. A strand of pearls around her neck and black watered-silk pumps completed her ensemble, in which she felt a great deal more dressed up than usual.

“You look lovely, Genia,” her date greeted her.

At first they drove to the Devon Yacht Club in a silence that seemed to acknowledge that they’d both had a very long week. Genia enjoyed being squired, and watched the view roll by while David remained attentive to his driving.

She stroked the buttery yellow seat of the car.

“This is very nice, David.”

“It’s a Lexus.”

“I’m more accustomed to pickup trucks.”

“It’s hard to think of you as a rancher, Genia.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, you hardly look like one.” He glanced at her and laughed. “Where are your cowboy boots? Where’s your horse?”

“The boots are back home in my closet, the horse is in the stable.”

He smiled. “Maybe you are a rancher, after all.”

“I love it there,” she said, as she stared out the window. They were just pulling into the club, where there was a wonderful view of the ocean on three sides. “It’s where we raised our children. It’s home.”

“A ranch must be worth a king’s ransom these days.”

“I don’t know about that, but ours is certainly priceless to us.”

“Ours? I’m sorry, I was under the impression that your husband—”

“Oh, yes, Lew died about twelve years ago. I just meant the children and me, our family.”

“I see. I wish I could say the same about children of my own.”

“Were you not ever married before, David?”

“No, not until Lillian.”

David let a valet open the doors for them and take the car. He offered his arm to her when he came around to her side. They strolled together up the stone walkway to the club. Halfway there, an outburst of noise at the edge of the parking lot drew their attention.

“There they go again.” David shook his head. “Drunken sailors.”

Genia saw two men squared off. “Are they fighting?”

“Usually. Wednesday is half-price night at the bars down there.”

A small crowd of men and women had gathered around the two would-be combatants. Genia stiffened when she thought she recognized Ed Hennessey, Stanley’s fired handyman. And the traitor who had told the police that Jason was growing pot in the greenhouse. She could have sworn that he was staring right back at her, and she would have bet her bottom dollar he was smirking at her.

“I’d like to knock
his
block off,” she muttered.

Her escort looked startled, amused. “Whose?”

“That man …” Genia pointed. “Stanley’s handyman.”

“What did he do to make you so mad at him?”

“It isn’t what he did to me,” she said, but then said no more.

When David tried to get her to explain herself, she squeezed his arm lightly and turned him in the direction of the entrance to the club. “I promise not to make a scene,” she said lightly. “No fistfights, I swear. Not unless he starts it.”

David burst out laughing. “You surprise me, Genia Potter.”

If there was anything she couldn’t forgive, it was somebody who hurt her family, especially the children. Aloud, she merely said, “Why, David, it’s lovely in here.”

“You’ve never been before? I thought surely Stanley had brought you.”

He looked surprised and delighted to be the first to show her around. Genia tactfully refrained from telling him that Stanley had told her he wouldn’t set foot in the Devon Yacht Club once Lillian and David made it their favorite place for drinking and dining.

By eight o’clock that evening Genia felt glad that she had accepted David’s invitation to dinner at the Yacht Club. Seated amid elegant surroundings, with a moonlit view of the bay, Genia enjoyed being able to relax for a few hours in the company of a handsome, gracious man. His own affection for his stepdaughter, Nikki, made him sympathetic to her niece’s and nephew’s growing pains.

“They seem like great kids to me,” he commented at one point. “Almost everybody goes through a rough time at that age, don’t you think so? As long as they don’t get killed, or end up in jail, or hurt anybody else, or get pregnant, I say they’ve done just fine.” His smile was rueful. “Modest goals, perhaps. But it looks like hard work to me to navigate teenagers through the shoals of high school these days. My hat is off to all of you for trying so hard to do it right.”

“Thank you, David.”

Genia felt warmed by his kind words, and also by the wine, and she couldn’t help but compare his empathy with the harshness of Jed White’s attitude toward Jason, a boy Jed didn’t even know.

Then, for over an hour, they talked of almost nothing but Stanley, of his life, his murder, his funeral. There was much to say, and there were many speculations to lay on the white-covered table. Cold stone crabs with remoulade sauce came and went, followed by Caesar salad made with fresh eggs and anchovies, and twice they emptied little plates of thin, crisp, buttered, crustless toast. Genia declined David’s generous offer of champagne, but was happy to accept a glass of delicious, fruity white wine.

Her host raised his own glass of wine.

“To Stanley, of whom many fine things may be said, but the finest of all is that he was loved by Lillian.”

“Why, David, what a sweet thing to say.”

They touched glasses.

“Did you know her, Genia?”

“I only met her a few times, years ago.”

He smiled, looking as if he were remembering something sweet. “I hope you don’t mind it if I talk so much about my wife.…”

“I enjoy hearing about her.”

“She was beautiful, in every way. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her. You know”—he glanced frankly at Genia—“the rumors were that we had an affair before she divorced Stanley, but that is a slander on a good woman’s name. I won’t say that I would have had any scruples, but she certainly would have. The fact is, we never even met until after her divorce. And if we had met before then, I doubt she would have noticed me.”

Privately, Genia thought it unlikely that any woman would fail to notice David Graham. He had the looks and charm to attract the attention of people of any age.

“When did she finally notice you?” Genia teased gently.

He smiled, looking pleased. “At an art auction in New York City. I bid on a Chagall print, just an inexpensive little thing, and she counterbid, and I bid again, and she beat me. I walked over to congratulate her and fell in love with her blue eyes. Lillian used to tease me that the only reason I married her was to get my hands on that print.” He laughed out loud, and Genia found herself feeling charmed both by the man and by his story.

A little later, Genia found a tactful moment to ask:

“David, is it true that she drowned?”

“Didn’t Stanley tell you about it?”

“No, he wouldn’t discuss it.”

“Really? Not at all?”

“Not at all.”

“That’s interesting, because I’ve always thought he blamed me.”

“Oh, he probably did,” she admitted ruefully. “But he still never talked about it, at least not to me.”

“Yes, she drowned on her birthday.”

“Oh, David! How awful!”

“She had a little sailboat that she loved, and she took it out for a solo cruise late that afternoon.” His face darkened, and an expression of such sadness crossed it that Genia wanted to reach out to grasp his hand. “I’ll tell you something I don’t tell many other people. We’d had an argument that day, on her birthday, just to make it worse. I think we’d had too much wine for lunch. Usually we never argued. Never. But we did that day, and that’s why she took the boat out alone. To get away from me—”

“Oh, David …”

“Not that she didn’t love me. She did. The argument would have blown over. It was nothing. But she left angry, and maybe a little drunk, and the current was a little more than she was used to handling, only neither of us thought about that at the time, and …”

He sat quietly, staring down at his dinner plate.

After a moment, he continued. “She had promised to be back by six, because we had a dinner party to attend. When she didn’t show up, I called her on her cell phone. It was a birthday gift. Actually, that was what the argument was about. She accused me of thinking she was an incompetent sailor. She said if I really trusted her ability, I wouldn’t feel the need to reach her by telephone. I got defensive about it and said that was ridiculous, that there could be a million reasons why I might need to talk to her on the boat. But she was right, of course. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her ability or her judgment, it was just that she hadn’t been sailing long enough to have a chance to develop them. I hated it when she took the boat out alone. So, yes, I admit it, I got her the cell phone to make myself feel better, so I could call her and hear her voice when she was out on the sea.

“I called once. Twice. I knew she could have her hands full with the sails, I prayed that’s why she didn’t answer.” He shuddered visibly. “That was the worst feeling I ever had, listening to that cell phone ring and ring. The damn thing was waterproof, because I got it
for
the boat. It was this elegant little teak thing, custom-made for sailors, with the name of her boat embossed on it, and it could have been ringing at the bottom of the ocean by then.” He made a fist with his right hand and silently and slowly pounded it on the white tablecloth, as if crushing something. It was one of the most poignantly impotent gestures Genia had ever seen. “She never came back. They found the boat, capsized. I don’t know if the boom came around and struck her, or if waves swamped her. It doesn’t matter now. She’s gone, and I couldn’t even bury her. It seems horribly ironic now that we named her boat
Waterlily
.”

When she heard that, Genia had to suppress a shiver of her own. This time, she did reach over and briefly grasp his hand. Under her touch, the tightened fist relaxed a little.

“I’ve never been that frightened, when she didn’t answer.”

“I can’t even imagine it.” But then Genia realized she could exactly imagine it: That’s how scared she had been after Lew had collapsed with his heart attack. Like the man seated across from her, she had feared the worst, and the worst had happened to her.

“One of the most awful parts of it was telling Stanley,” he said unexpectedly. “He wouldn’t believe me at first. Did he think I was making it up to torture him? No, that’s unkind of me. He didn’t want to believe it, any more than I did. I just let him rail at me. Maybe I thought I deserved it. If I hadn’t encouraged her to learn to sail … if we hadn’t argued …”

“If life weren’t what it is.”

“Yes.” He grimaced as if he’d had a sudden sharp pain. “As far as Stanley was concerned, I thought, if it makes him feel better to hate me, then let him rant at me. I knew how he felt. I wished I had somebody to blame, too.”

“That was very generous of you, David.”

He shrugged off the compliment. “Anybody would have pitied him.”

Genia didn’t think so; she thought it took a special kind of second husband to be so understanding of a hostile first husband. She listened as David added, “I think Stanley was in worse shape than I was, Genia. He really loved her, I believe. He just didn’t have any talent for showing it. Lillian never quite believed that he cared as much about her as he did about himself and his many other interests.”

“Do you think she was wrong about that?”

This time his smile was a little embarrassed. “Well, if I did, I never tried to argue her out of it.”

Genia laughed a little. “I understand. You’re only human, after all.”

“All too!” He sat up straighter and made an obvious effort to smile and to inject some cheer into his voice. Rather incongruously, he inquired, “How’s your lobster?”

“Perfect. But I can’t eat another bite.”

Genia took his cue that he had said all he could about Lillian.

“But it’s all-you-can-eat!”

“This,” she said, smiling, “
is
all I can eat.”