The Secret Ingredient Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery

by Nancy Pickard

  And why hadn’t he discussed with her the food he served them? There had been nothing Stanley Parker enjoyed more than a good debate on the merits of angel hair pasta over fettuccine, or lamb chops over veal. Every other time he had had company this summer, as far as she knew, he had hashed out his menus with her, just for the pleasure of it.

  As far as I know …

  Evidently, she had known him less well than she thought.

  It saddened her to contemplate that possibility.

  For some reason Stanley had considered it none of her business that he was having a series of luncheons at the Castle for a short list of prominent citizens of Devon. Nor had he seen fit to tell her they were the very same people he had asked her to invite to her house for their tasting dinner.

  “Stanley, what were you up to?”

  Genia sat up for a long time with his open cookbook on her lap. And then suddenly it occurred to her that maybe he’d only planned to have those people over; maybe none of these meals had ever happened. Even though it was very late, she decided to interrupt her niece’s sleep by telephoning her with a single question:

  “Donna, dear, I’m so sorry to be calling so late—but did Stanley have you to lunch last week?”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line, which might have been prompted only by the fact that Genia had awakened her. Finally, Donna dragged out a word as if she didn’t want to say it.

  “Yes.”

  Again, there was a long pause.

  “Why, Aunt Genia?”

  “Oh, I’m just trying to decipher this cookbook of his, and he had your name written down by a recipe, with the date, but no year. I just wondered when it was. I didn’t remember either of you mentioning it to me.”

  “Well, that’s when it was.” Her niece’s tone was sulky.

  “Thank you, dear. I apologize for waking you over something so trivial.”

  “That’s okay. Good night, Aunt Genia.”

  “What was the occasion, dear?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I just wondered why he invited you to lunch with him.”

  Again, there was a longish pause. “He wanted to talk about Jason.”

  “Really? To let you know what a good job he was doing?”

  “Yeah.” Another pause. “And to tell me not to send him to military school. As if it was any business of Stanley’s.” The sulky, reluctant tone became sharply indignant. “Jason is my son, and I’ll do what I think is best for him.”

  “Did you say that to Stanley?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What did he say?”

  That question produced another pause, and then Donna said, “I really don’t remember what he said.” Genia heard her yawn pointedly into the telephone receiver. “I’m too sleepy.”

  But Genia wasn’t letting her go so easily. “It looks as if Stanley had Kevin out to lunch last week, too—”

  “He did? Why, that conniving old—”

  “Kevin didn’t tell you?”

  “No, he didn’t tell me. I’ll bet you they cooked this plan up together, to get me to change my mind about sending Jason—”

  “What plan?”

  Donna’s torrent of angry words stopped abruptly. “Just … well, just the … plan for Stanley to … uh, try to convince me. Aunt Genia, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m really so tired—”

  “Of course. I’m sorry. Good night, sweetheart.”

  But after Genia hung up and checked her list again, she saw that what Donna had suggested could not be true: Donna had gone to lunch with Stanley a full six days before Kevin did. If Kevin had “cooked up” some plan with Stanley, it hadn’t been then.

  Why was her niece apparently so loath to tell her about lunching with Stanley? And what “plan” did she think they cooked up? And why did Stanley invite all of my other dinner guests over to his house that very same week without giving me so much as a clue that he was doing it? Not so many days ago, she had inquired suspiciously, though humorously, of Stanley, “What are you up to?” Now, in her mind, she asked his spirit: What were you up to? What was the real point of the dinner party you lobbied so hard for me to have?

  Genia felt terribly disloyal to her own kin when an unavoidable question rose next in her mind: Stanley, did all of these mysterious goings-on lead in some way to your death?

  12

  WARMED-OVER HUSBAND

  Monday morning Genia slept late because she’d stayed up studying Stanley’s cookbook the night before. Following her morning tea and a brisk walk, she busied herself by continuing the work of testing recipes for the Rhode Island cookbook she had been writing with him. The only way she could force herself to do it was to decide to dedicate the project to him. It was lonely work.

  While two recipes simmered, she removed from the refrigerator a tureen of ginger carrot soup that she had previously prepared and warmed some for herself. She didn’t feel like eating, but she knew she should, to keep up her spirits. It felt to her as if she had made the soup a lifetime ago, though it was really only two days old. The rich flavors of it—pear and lemon, ginger and carrot—had blended more, so it tasted even better now than when she had first made it.

  Sitting at the kitchen table with it, she thought in regard to the soup, The secret ingredient here is time. Time to mellow and time to deepen.

  Time. Which Stanley had run out of.

  When the bottom of the bowl was visible beneath her spoon, she pushed it aside and pulled out his cookbook again. Slowly, she turned the pages, stopping again at the recipe for sautéed veal, with its mysterious, dramatic message.

  The doorbell ringing scattered her thoughts.

  When she went to answer it, she was startled to find David Graham standing on her front stoop, looking impossibly debonair in pale yellow slacks, an open-necked white shirt, a blue jacket, and loafers. In his arms he held, rather incongruously, a plastic bag with the label of a gourmet grocery shop in town.

  “David!” To her own ears she sounded insincerely warm and enthusiastic; she hoped she didn’t sound that way to him. Here on her front stoop was one of the very people whom Stanley had had to lunch last week, and for what reason? she wondered now. Why in the world would Stanley ask Lillian’s second husband to dine with him on chicken satay? With an effusiveness born of surprise, she exclaimed, “How nice to see you! Won’t you come in?”

  “I didn’t think you were home.” He looked really pleased to see her standing there and he also appeared to accept her greeting as a genuine welcome. “Where’s your car, Genia?”

  “My car? Oh! I forgot that I lent it to my niece yesterday.”

  “I didn’t know if I should come by without calling first, but I took a chance.”

  “I’m glad you did. Won’t you come in?”

  He stepped into the foyer, where the coral roses he had brought two nights earlier now stood in full bloom in their vase on the table.

  “I saw you being helpful at Nikki’s yesterday, Genia.”

  “I didn’t do any more than anyone else—”

  “That’s not what Nikki told me.” He smiled gratefully at her. “She said you brought chowder and clam cakes and gingerbread, and then you took charge in the kitchen and got everything laid out for the guests. She was very grateful, and I am, too. You know, I think of her as my own daughter. Anyone who helps Nikki is a good person, in my book.”

  “She’s fortunate to have a stepfather who cares about her.”

  “I love her as much as if she were my real daughter. Anyway,” he said with a charmingly modest air, “I was in the Red Rooster Deli this morning, thinking about you being so nice. And it occurred to me that you had all of us over Saturday night, and then you did all that work for Nikki yesterday, and when did you have a chance to take care of yourself? So I’ve brought you a few things.”

  “Why, David …!”

  He smiled in a self-effacing way that made light of his spontaneous gesture. “Now, don’t be impressed. It’
s nothing at all. Just a little bread, and wine and cheese. The basic foodstuffs, you know.”

  Genia laughed, and he did, too.

  “That’s so true,” she agreed. “A person could live a long time on bread, wine, and cheese. You’ll help me eat some of it right now, won’t you? Normally, at this time of the morning, I’d be in the kitchen working with Stanley, and I’m feeling so blue to be here without him. I’m really glad to have some company.”

  “I think we all feel that something vital has gone out of the town.”

  Leading the way into her rental kitchen, Genia thought that had been a very perceptive—and diplomatic—thing for David to say. There were lots of things in the world that were “vital,” including floods and hurricanes, but that didn’t necessarily mean you’d miss them. Lillian’s second husband had found just the right thing to say about the death of her first husband.

  With a bread board and bread knife between them, Genia asked David Graham how his stepdaughter was holding up.

  “I think she’s doing fine, thank you. Randy is standing by her. The truth is he’s probably relieved that Stanley’s gone—”

  “Oh, David,” Genia couldn’t help but object.

  “Well, he’s only human, after all. Stanley could make life miserable for people, Genia. You might not have seen that, but it’s God’s truth. Any man who was bold enough to take his little girl away from him was doomed, right from the day of the wedding. I hope you don’t mind my saying this. I mean no offense to Stanley, but he could sure be hard on people.”

  “So I’m learning. Was he hard on you, David?”

  His response was a wry smile. “Not to my face, which he avoided seeing as much as possible.”

  Genia couldn’t help but laugh a little.

  David smiled back at her. “Lillian used to say that Stanley didn’t mind me marrying her nearly as much as he minded that now Nikki had a stepfather. We decided that since Nikki was a grown woman and she already had a father, I should take the role of friend and just forget the stepdad business if it bothered Stanley so much. It seemed to work all right.”

  “That was tactful of you, David.” Genia hesitated and then plunged in. “Were you surprised when he asked you to lunch last week?”

  David looked surprised right at that moment, she thought, and then he laughed out loud. “Surprised? That doesn’t even begin to describe it, Genia. Shocked was more like it. Did he tell you why he asked me to lunch?”

  She shook her head no.

  “He didn’t? That rascal, I thought he’d tell everybody.”

  “What, David? Honestly, he never said a word to me.”

  “He wanted money, Genia.” David looked squarely at her, and then he, too, shook his head as if he could hardly believe his own words. “Stanley had decided that I wasn’t married long enough to Lil to deserve to inherit half of her estate. He wanted it back! He said that I didn’t have any right to all that money, or to the house, and that I should sign it all over to Nikki.”

  Genia’s mouth nearly dropped open.

  “I told him,” David continued, “that what Lillian did with her estate was none of his business anymore. I told him that I had loved her better in those three years than he had in the whole thirty years they’d been together. I know it was cruel, but damn it, the man infuriated me. He treated her like a fancy housekeeper most of the time, and then he thought he could control her even after she was gone.” David took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Genia, I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.”

  “I am flabbergasted,” she admitted to him.

  “So was I. I didn’t stay for the lunch he cooked for us. I just got up from the table and walked out of that house, and …” He suddenly looked a little pale. “And I never saw him again.”

  “I don’t know what to say, David.”

  But she knew what she was thinking: No wonder Stanley had not ever mentioned that luncheon to her; if he had, she’d have told him he was out of his mind to ask such a thing of Lillian’s legitimate widower.

  David, looking anxious to find something else to talk about, stared around the kitchen as if searching for a subject of conversation. His expression brightened. “Say, isn’t that the cookbook Nikki gave you last night?”

  “Yes, bless her heart.” Genia felt she’d been quite nosy enough for one morning; she latched on to the change of subject as gratefully as he. “I feel a little guilty having it, though. You might tell her for me that if she changes her mind, she can have it back.”

  “Oh, I don’t think she will, Genia. Honestly, it may be something special to you, but I think that to Nikki it’s just a dirty old cookbook. Besides, she’s got his whole collection of antique cookbooks, and she is quite proud of those. Still, would you like me to take it back to her, to see what she says?”

  “Well, I’m embarrassed to admit that I’d like to keep it around for just a little while longer, David. I am enjoying going through it and reading all of Stanley’s notes to himself. It’s like being with him again.”

  Her guest reached for the book and drew it to himself.

  “What’s in here, anyway? It looks more like a scrapbook than a cookbook.”

  “It really is. There’s a little bit of everything, I guess.”

  David pointed to a bit of dried cheese and smiled. “And a taste of it, too.”

  Genia smiled. “A health hazard, no doubt.”

  “Only if you eat it instead of just read it.” He leafed through a few pages, then closed it and looked over at her. “I’d better not overstay my welcome, especially since I arrived like an orphan on your doorstep. But I was wondering if perhaps we could have dinner together sometime?”

  She blinked, not at all sure what he was asking.

  “Wednesday night is lobster night at the Yacht Club,” he continued. “All you can eat, and what you can’t eat you can take home. Will you join me?”

  It was awkward. She didn’t know the context in which he was inviting her: Was it strictly as a friend, or was it as a date? If the latter, should she mention that she already had a gentleman friend who lived in Boston? And would going out to dinner with this handsome man be an act of disloyalty to her friend Jed? In a small town like this would people talk; would they make up gossip about the handsome widower and the widow from Arizona?

  She couldn’t just sit there gaping at him. “I’d love to, David.”

  “I’m so glad,” he responded warmly, and suddenly, she was glad, too.

  “Did the police come out to talk to you?” he inquired at the front door.

  “Yes, but I’m afraid I couldn’t help them.”

  “Nor could I,” he said regretfully. “You and I didn’t have anything to gain from Stanley’s death, but it appears that someone must have thought they did. Do you have any idea who that might be?”

  The obvious answer was his own stepdaughter, Nikki.

  Genia didn’t say that. “No, I don’t, David, do you?”

  “No, but I hope they catch him soon, whoever it is.” He looked at her closely for a moment. “You’ll be careful, won’t you? I hope it’s safe for you to stay here. What do the police say about that?”

  “They didn’t tell me not to. I think it’s all right. I’m not afraid.”

  And that was true, she didn’t feel much fear. And she wasn’t entirely sure that made sense. If a murder occurred only a few hundred yards from a person’s front door, shouldn’t it make that person just a little nervous? Hardly anybody locked their doors in Devon; she supposed that now she ought to, just to be on the safe side.

  “Could you stay with your niece, Genia?”

  “Yes, I could do that,” she said, without indicating that she would.

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said rather sternly. And then he smiled, looking a bit embarrassed. “Not that it’s any of my business to say so. I hope you don’t mind. I’m just concerned, that’s all.”

  After he had departed from the house, a scent of his aftershave lingered.
It was a clean, musky smell that Genia found pleasant to sniff as she followed it back to the kitchen. When the doorbell surprised her by ringing again, she half expected to find yet another dinner guest standing there at her front door.

  But it wasn’t a guest. It was a policeman looking for her nephew.

  13

  ALWAYS HUNGRY

  The uniformed officer stood on the brick steps of her rented house, his badge glistening in the sunshine. To Genia’s eyes he didn’t look much older than the boy he said he was looking for.

  “Mrs. Potter, I’m Officer Cecil Patterson. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for Jason. His mother told me I might find him here.”

  “Donna did? May I ask why you want him?”

  “Just part of his diversion program, ma’am. Random drug test. He knows this could happen at any time. Today just happens to be a day that was good for me to check him out. Is he here?”

  “No, Officer Patterson, Jason’s not here—”

  But then suddenly he was—pulling up into her driveway behind his sister, who was at the wheel of Genia’s car. From inside the screen door of the house, Genia and the policeman could see the exact moment when the twin in the first car got her initial glimpse of the police car parked ahead of her. Janie put on the brakes so fast that her brother almost ran into her from behind. Jason tapped his horn at her. She stared toward the house—they could see her do it. Obviously, she and Jason were “trapped,” and so Janie slowly pulled forward and parked. Jason did the same. The twins got out of their separate vehicles and walked up to the house as if they were walking through wet cement. When they opened the screen door, Janie’s face hardened into an angry look, but Jason grinned and said, “Hey, Cecil, t’sup?”

  The policeman smiled and turned to Genia. “This is what comes of being a cop in a small town, you know. Everybody calls you by your first name.” Pretending a fierce officiousness, he growled at Jason, “That’ll be Officer Cecil to you, kid.”