The Diva Cooks up a Storm

by Krista Davis

  Sophie

  At eleven the next morning, I made funeral potatoes to bring to Kelsey. They were amazingly easy to make and they were always popular thanks to the cheesy richness of the potatoes. So she wouldn’t have to worry about returning the pan, I baked them in a very sturdy disposable baking pan. It wasn’t as pretty as a ceramic casserole dish, but it would be a lot less hassle for Kelsey.

  At noon, I popped aluminum foil over the top to keep it warm and walked down the street to Kelsey’s home. I banged the fox-head door knocker.

  When Lavinia Brown opened the door, for a moment I thought I had the wrong house.

  “Oh. It’s you,” she said.

  What was wrong with that woman? I said hello and stepped inside. “Is Humphrey here?”

  “He’s working today. I came over with Jay. Someone left a casserole on his doorstep by mistake.”

  “How odd.” I swept past her into the dining room, where Natasha had decked out the table with a black tablecloth again. If I recalled correctly, Natasha had gone through a couple of black decorating phases.

  A small group of people, including Jay and Kelsey, had gathered around one dish.

  “Did someone bring something yummy?” I asked.

  “We’re trying to figure out what it is,” replied Jay. “It was left on my doorstep by mistake.” He scooped a little bit out and placed it on a plate. He dipped a fork into it.

  “Is it rice or noodles?” asked Kelsey.

  “Hard to tell.” Jay tasted the tiniest bit. “Oh! Spicy! I think it just cleared out my sinuses.”

  Unidentifiable food that was spicy? I knew who had cooked it—Natasha. But she knew perfectly well which house was the Habermans’. Leaving the dish at Jay’s house had not been a mistake. What was she up to now?

  I made room on the table for my funeral potatoes. Behind me someone said, “Those smell good.” I knew the voice—Wolf.

  I turned around. “I hope they’ll taste good. You’ll have to try them and tell me.”

  “I’m not sure I should eat anything. I’m not here as a bereaved.”

  “Why are you here? I heard you didn’t find much when you searched the house.”

  “Sometimes it’s interesting to see who shows up.”

  “I give you permission to eat some of my potatoes. And really”—I gestured toward the laden table—“there’s plenty of food. Most of it will end up in the trash if people don’t eat.”

  “True. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Any word on Gavin?”

  “He’s going home today. He’ll be fine. The surgery on his leg went very well. He just needs some downtime to recuperate.”

  “Did you have a chance to talk with him?” I smiled at Jay and moved out of the way so he could try my potatoes.

  Wolf shook his head. “He and his mom lawyered up fast.”

  “So Kelsey is off the hook!” I whispered.

  “Whoa. Don’t go jumping to conclusions yet. Everything, except the foggers hidden in the library, still points at Kelsey.”

  I wasn’t about to say it aloud, but I had a hunch I knew why he said that. Kelsey could have planted the foggers to implicate Cindy.

  Madison sidled up to us. “Wolf, I’m so glad to see you here. I’d been debating about calling you, and when I heard about the bug bombs in the library, well, I knew I had to say something. I’ve known Cindy for a very long time and she’s a dear, but Sophie and I heard a scathing discussion between Cindy and Hollis at the underground dinner.”

  Wolf focused on Madison intently. “Sophie mentioned that. I’d like to know what you recall, though. Sometimes people remember different things.”

  “Hollis practically threatened to behead her!”

  Wolf didn’t even flinch.

  “It was horrid. And, Sophie, did you get the idea that there’s some kind of family secret? Didn’t Hollis warn her against opening a can of worms or something?”

  “Thank you, Madison,” said Wolf. “If you recall anything else, please let me know. Even if you don’t think it’s important.”

  “There is one more thing,” she said. Madison brushed her hair out of her face and took a deep breath. “I just didn’t think anything of it at the time. Since Gage’s death I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m sure you understand. I close my eyes and have nightmares. It’s awful. Anyway, when I can’t sleep, it’s far worse to be at home, so I walk around town. After the underground dinner, I expected to be wiped out. But sleep eluded me, so I went out for a walk. You know how beautiful Old Town is at night. Anyway, I was a block away from here when I saw Cindy run by.”

  “Are you sure it was her?” asked Wolf.

  “Definitely. She’s so thin and delicate. She was dressed in black, wearing leggings I think. She was on the other side of the street, and I wasn’t about to yell out her name and wake everyone up. But she ran by and kept going right down the street.”

  “Thank you, Madison.” Wolf appeared grim to me. “I appreciate your coming forward with that information.”

  “I had to. It was meaningless at the time, but now . . . And I’ll do some digging to see if I can find out that Haberman family secret.”

  Madison drifted over to the table and picked up a plate.

  I could hear Natasha whining to Kelsey, “Entirely too many people are dropping by with food. If this continues, no one will bring anything for the real repass after Hollis is buried.”

  I whispered softly to Wolf, “I think I may know that family secret. Follow me.” I walked straight to Dr. Jay Charles. “Could I tear you away for a couple of minutes, please?”

  “Why certainly, Sophie. Your potatoes were smashing!”

  I beckoned the two of them out to the back porch. The first thing I did was look for the bees. They were gone and a temporary patch was in the spot they had invaded.

  “Jay, would you please tell Wolf about Gavin’s blood type?”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Yes, of course. Hollis was not Gavin’s biological father.” He went on to explain about their incompatible blood types.

  Wolf pulled a small pad out of his coat pocket and wrote down the details. “Are you sure about this?”

  “I haven’t seen Gavin’s chart, but apparently they asked for type AB-positive donations.”

  Wolf’s eyes met mine. “One more little thing.” I tried to phrase my request so it wouldn’t sound like it was a favor for me to verify the information. “Kelsey was with me early in the afternoon yesterday. From there, she went to donate blood and order a flower arrangement for Gavin. If she did donate blood, she would have been tied up for a while.”

  “So she wouldn’t have been able to kill Angus,” said Jay. “She might have an alibi!”

  Wolf took off in a hurry after that. Jay went back inside, saying something about trying a Coca-Cola cake. I was about to join him when a plump, fiftyish woman opened the gate to the backyard with her hands full.

  I jogged out to help her and took a Crock-Pot out of her hands.

  “Thank you so much,” she said. “I couldn’t find a parking spot on the street. I hope I don’t get towed.”

  Scents of chicken wafted to me from the covered Crock-Pot. “Something smells good.”

  “It’s my family’s go-to dish when someone dies. It’s homemade chicken noodle soup. I know that seems like it should be for a cold or the flu, and it works great for those, too, but so often the bereaved just can’t choke down food. Soup is easy to swallow and digest.”

  “And what’s that you’re carrying?”

  “Hollis’s favorite.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I’ll never make deviled eggs again without remembering him. Every time we had a little celebration at the office, Hollis asked for these. I think he could have eaten a platter of them all by himself.”

  “You worked with Hollis?”

  “I’m Lisa Bar,” she said, as though that should mean something to me. “I miss him so much. He was the best boss I ever had. I was with him for over twenty years. We were mo
re than coworkers. What do they call it? Work-husband and work-wife? He was always there for me, you know?”

  “Nice to meet you, Lisa. Even under these terrible circumstances. I’m Sophie Winston.”

  We walked across the grass and up the porch steps. She held the back door open for me. We walked through the kitchen to the dining room, where I placed the Crock-Pot of soup on an antique mahogany buffet where it could be plugged in. Kelsey directed me to soup bowls.

  “No need,” said Lisa. “No one wants to do dishes at a time like this. I brought bowls.” She held up a clear plastic bag of disposable bowls and another with plastic spoons.

  Natasha swooped in like an irate hawk and plucked them away from her. “Were you raised in a barn?”

  Lisa’s eyes grew wide and she cringed.

  Fortunately, Natasha disappeared into the kitchen.

  I placed my hand on Lisa’s arm. “I’m so sorry. Don’t mind her.”

  “I feel like I’ve committed a most egregious faux pas!” She trembled slightly.

  “How do I get rid of her?” asked Kelsey. “She’s been ordering me around since the day after Hollis died.” Kelsey leaned toward us. “She insisted on a red coffin with a white lining that was totally reminiscent of vampires. I’m telling you, if they had put Hollis in that thing, it would have brought him back to life.”

  Lisa gasped. “Hollis would have flipped out. He had such genteel taste. What did you do?”

  “I came home, called Humphrey, and told him to cancel everything. They haven’t even turned Hollis over to the funeral home yet, anyway. Now, my aunt Delilah Jean would have loved that red coffin. She couldn’t get enough red. Her walls were red, her hair was red, and she always drove a red car.”

  “Well, I apologize for any breach of etiquette,” muttered Lisa. “I’ve brought those bowls to a dozen bereaved families. Now I’m terribly embarrassed. Imagine what those people think of me.”

  Kelsey hugged Lisa. “They think you are considerate, and I’m certain they were as grateful as I am.”

  “Kelsey”—Lisa smiled at her sadly—“I know a lot of people are close to Cindy and weren’t as welcoming as they might have been. But, honey, you made Hollis very happy. When he met you, it was like he got a second wind.”

  Kelsey burst into tears. “Thank you,” she rasped. “Thank you for telling me that.”

  Feeling a bit like a third wheel, I backed away to give them time together. Natasha seized me by the arm and propelled me into the kitchen, where Madison appeared to be studying the goodies on the counter.

  “I baked a casserole for Jay, but someone brought it over here!” hissed Natasha.

  Madison ambled over. “Maybe he can’t eat an entire casserole by himself.”

  “It hadn’t even been touched!”

  “Did you leave it on his doorstep?” I asked.

  “He doesn’t answer his door. Don’t you think that’s odd? I’m certain he was home.”

  So it was the spicy casserole as I had suspected. “He thinks someone left it at his house by mistake.”

  Madison grinned. “So what are you doing bringing Jay casseroles, anyway? I thought you were trying to reconcile with Mars.”

  “Don’t you think Jay would be perfect for me? We’re both so proper and well-mannered.”

  Madison pointed toward the dining room. “Maybe you’d better get him away from that woman then.”

  We looked to see what she was talking about. Humphrey’s mother fed Jay a taste of something on her plate.

  “That’s not proper etiquette at all!” Natasha stalked toward the two of them.

  “Ohhh, Madison,” I said. “What have you done?”

  She laughed and immediately placed her hand over her mouth. “I can’t believe I’m laughing at a repast. How dreadful of me.”

  I spied Lisa standing alone for a moment and excused myself to talk with her. “That was a really nice thing to say to Kelsey.”

  Lisa helped herself to cake. “Oh, but it was true. The divorce was really ugly. It wasn’t the first time Hollis and Cindy had butted heads. No marriage is perfect, but they had some rocky times. That’s for sure.”

  I sucked up my courage and asked what I was dying to know. “Is there any speculation at your office about who might have murdered Hollis?”

  Chapter 25

  Dear Sophie,

  I was appalled when I washed a glass potluck casserole dish and found the person had etched her name into the bottom with a fancy script. It said, “Do not steal. This belongs to Sara Murgatroid.” Is this the appropriate way to mark a dish?

  Blown Away in Surprise, New York

  Dear Blown Away,

  It sounds to me like Sara Murgatroid has lost a lot of her dishes in the past. Personally, I think it’s far easier and certainly more friendly to simply stick an address label on the bottom.

  Sophie

  Lisa moaned. “We can’t talk about anything else. You can imagine the atmosphere. First Gage and now Hollis? It’s insane. Everyone is whispering theories.”

  “Any possibility that there’s a connection between the two deaths?” I asked.

  Lisa looked around and motioned me out to the porch, saying in a loud voice, “I really need to get back to the office.”

  I followed her onto the porch.

  She gazed out over the backyard. “Something was wrong. I’m not sure what it was, but right before Gage died it was as if a cloud of gloom descended on the office. The thing is, I don’t have anything concrete. No letters or visits from suspicious people, nothing like that. Just a feeling in the air.”

  She rambled on about how much she loved working for Hollis and what a great sense of humor he’d had. I nodded and smiled appropriately, but I wasn’t really listening anymore.

  “Lisa,” I interrupted, “do you think there could have been a problem between the partners?”

  She shook her head. “I never heard a cross word between them. They were consummate professionals. Gentlemen. I’m sure you know what I mean. But Gage’s death was so unexpected. Just between us, and I don’t mean this in a cruel way, if Hollis had had too much to drink and had fallen into the river, I would have said, ‘Well, that’s Hollis.’ He did things in a big way. But Gage wasn’t the type. I guess it could happen to anybody. I’ve been known to have a drink or two too many myself.”

  “What about clients? Was there anyone who was angry with Hollis?”

  “Clients aren’t always happy with the outcomes of their cases, but I don’t know of anyone who had it in for Hollis. I didn’t hear anyone threaten him or anything.” She gazed at me intently. “These are the same things that the cop asked me.”

  Must have been Wolf asking questions. “Someone had it in for Hollis.”

  She looked around and whispered, “You didn’t hear it from me, but Cindy isn’t always the angel she seems.”

  Lisa hurried down the stairs and out to the gate. Only then did she stop to look back at me. She didn’t wave. She closed the gate, and a few seconds later I heard an engine start.

  What did that mean? We all had our moments, of course. And the divorce had been ugly. Maybe that was what she had in mind. She had probably overheard Hollis’s side of some angry discussions. Or maybe when Cindy called Hollis’s office she had been less than congenial to Lisa. Funny how things had shifted in Cindy’s direction.

  Instead of going back inside the Haberman house, I left through the gate and walked along the alley to the street. No matter who had murdered Hollis, it was a good bet he or she had arrived and left this way. I gazed around, looking for anything out of place. Wolf would have collected anything suspicious, so I didn’t expect to find much, but even eagle-eyed cops could miss something. The trouble was that even if Cindy, Kelsey, or Angus had dropped an item, it would be meaningless. All three of them had legitimate reasons for being in the alley behind the house.

  I walked a few blocks to Alex’s law firm. His assistant waved me into his office. Alex studied something on hi
s computer. He held a Tupperware bowl in one hand. The other hand held a fork poised over it.

  “I’m interrupting your lunch.”

  “I’m always happy to see you.” He set the bowl down and came around his desk for a quick kiss. “Are you bringing me good news about Kelsey?”

  “I have a question.” I peered into the Tupperware bowl. “Is that chicken salad? Did you make it yourself?”

  “I won’t take offense at your implication that I’m not capable of cooking for myself. My assistant had some kind of party with girlfriends and brought me the leftovers for lunch.”

  “I wasn’t implying that you can’t cook. I just see you barbecuing, not cutting up pretty grapes and little chunks of chicken. That was very nice of her. Looks good.”

  “I presume that wasn’t the question you had in mind?”

  I shot him an annoyed look. “Do law firms carry insurance on the lawyers?”

  “Some of them do. It’s called key person insurance. A lot of companies carry it. It’s not just for lawyers. The idea is to cover the firm in case a prime moneymaker dies.”

  “Really? I thought that was a long shot. So Parker might have lucked into insurance proceeds for the deaths of Gage and Hollis?”

  “I don’t know if they had key person insurance.” He paused and grinned at me. “But it might be interesting to find out.”

  “Trula said Parker was thinking of asking you to join the firm.”

  “He might. We’re having a little meeting over drinks tonight.”

  I froze. Would Alex be the next to die? “And?”

  “If he makes an offer, I’ll probably turn him down. Frankly, I’m happy doing my own thing. There are times when I wish I had a team of paralegals to help me, but mostly I’m happy with my professional life the way things are.”

  Watching his response carefully, I added, “And you don’t know what’s going on over there?”

  He showed no emotion whatsoever. Very quietly he said, “There’s that, too.”

  “I’m glad, but do you think you could ask about key person insurance during your meeting?”