A Frying Shame

by Linda Reilly

  Talia couldn’t help wondering if her propensity for stumbling onto murder victims had finally sent him over the edge. Even though she hadn’t been the one to find poor Norma, she’d participated in the contest that had triggered the terrible events, including the attack on Lucas.

  Maybe it was all too much for him. Maybe instead of three times being the charm, this time it was the ax.

  Or maybe—

  Or maybe Ryan had met someone else. Surely he met all sorts of people when he took his business trips for his company. Maybe he’d met a career-woman type, like Talia used to be. Maybe she was savvy, sophisticated, and suave, with a laugh that sounded like the tinkle of chimes.

  Talia smacked herself lightly on the cheek. She was letting her imagination run crazy wild. This wasn’t a soap opera—this was real life. She’d never doubted Ryan before, and she didn’t intend to start now.

  In a way, it was like that old song—whatever will be will be.

  She didn’t remember all the words, but she hummed the tune all the way back to Fry Me.

  14

  The eatery was quiet when Talia returned. Someone, probably Martha, had turned down the AC a smidge. Instead of the icy blast that normally blew from the vents, the air was pleasantly cool, like an early-autumn day.

  Molly was wiping down the tables in the dining room. When she saw Talia, she scooped up her cleaning sponge, grabbed Talia’s hand, and dragged her into the kitchen. “There’s something I have to show you,” she said urgently.

  Her tone sent a jolt of dread through Talia. “Why? Is something wrong?”

  “No. It’s just—”

  The eatery door burst open and Vivian Lavoie trotted in, a white straw bag slung over one plump shoulder.

  “Lordy, but it’s a nice day! I love it when it turns cool like this in the summer.” She plopped her handbag onto a table and then dropped onto a chair behind it.

  Molly had just nabbed her iPhone off the tiny table at the back of the kitchen when she saw Vivian come in. Her face fell with disappointment.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll talk later,” Talia whispered to Molly.

  Molly pouted and tossed her phone back on the table, while Talia went out to greet the elderly woman.

  When Talia had first met Vivian last year, she’d found her to be a terrible gossip. But over the last several months Vivian had become a regular customer, as well as a friend, and Talia had learned to cull the truth from the “almost” truth. Mostly Vivian was lonely and wanted a friendly ear.

  “How are you doing, Viv? Can I get you a drink?” Talia asked her.

  “Some of that luscious iced tea of yours would be delightful. And since I’ve sampled every fried treat on your menu, I think I’ll go for the traditional fish and chips today.” Her round face beamed as she glanced around. Clearly she was pleased by the absence of competing customers.

  “I like it when it’s quiet in here,” Vivian said. “You and I get a chance to chat.” She winked at Talia.

  Talia poured an iced tea for Vivian and then sat down and made small talk with her while Molly whipped up her meal. Minutes later, Molly set the lined, cone-shaped serving dish down in front of Vivian. Talia couldn’t help smiling at Molly’s presentation. She’d nestled two pieces of crisp golden haddock atop a bed of “chips” that were fried to perfection. Next to that she set down a ramekin of coleslaw, a small container of tartar sauce, and a bottle of malt vinegar.

  “Thank you, dear. That looks wonderful!” Vivian instantly grabbed the vinegar and sprinkled a hefty dose over her fish and her fries.

  Talia sensed the woman wanted to sprinkle a few tidbits of gossip, as well. She had that look in her eye that said, Let’s dish, shall we? Molly, meanwhile, was giving Talia the high sign that she needed to talk to her.

  “Excuse me, Vivian. I’ll be right back.”

  Talia trailed Molly into the kitchen. “What did you want to show me?”

  “I can’t do it now, not until we’re alone. In the meantime, do you mind if I run over to Queenie’s Variety? I need to get a few, um, feminine supplies.” Her cheeks flushed pink.

  “Say no more. And take your time,” Talia told her.

  Molly looked relieved. “Thanks. Oh, and if you’re wondering where Martha is, she walked down to the church to light a candle for Lucas.”

  Her throat tight, Talia nodded.

  After Molly left, Talia noticed Vivian staring after her. The woman furrowed her gray eyebrows, as if trying to remember something.

  Talia went back to Vivian’s table. She knew it was bad form to plunk herself down with a customer while they ate. She also knew that this particular customer welcomed it. At home, Vivian probably ate most of her meals alone. She seemed to light up whenever Talia was able to join her.

  “That’s the Feldon girl, isn’t it?” Vivian said, after swallowing a mouthful of fish.

  Talia grinned. “Yes, that’s Molly. She’s helping out while Lucas is . . .” She stopped herself, unsure how to finish the sentence.

  Vivian patted her hand. “I heard about your young helper. I’m so sorry, Talia. He seemed like such a dear boy to me.”

  Talia didn’t like her referring to Lucas in the past tense. “He is, Vivian. He’s a fine young man. We’re all praying for his recovery.”

  “Oh yes, of course.” She munched another mouthful, dabbed her napkin to her lips and then pressed it back into her lap. “You should have seen that girl’s mother in high school. Pretty as can be, she was. But a quiet girl, not one of those flirty, floozy types that throw themselves at the boys.”

  “Wait,” Talia said. “You knew Molly’s mom when she was in high school?”

  “Oh, of course I did. I worked in the cafeteria there for a number of years.”

  Talia pulled her chair a tad closer to the table. “Did you know Wes Thurman, too?”

  Vivian nodded, her mouth full of coleslaw. She washed it down with a slug of iced tea. “He was one of the semipopular boys. Didn’t play football, but he starred on the track field.”

  Talia mulled this over. “So Wes was from here originally.” She knew he was, but she wanted Vivian’s take on it.

  “Well, now, I wouldn’t say he was from here originally. He and his folks—and a sister, I believe—originally came from somewhere in the Midwest, if my memory serves. The father got transferred up this way, and they ended up settling here in Wrensdale. In fact, if I recall correctly, Wesley didn’t enter Wrensdale High until his senior year.” Her face sagged. “He didn’t seem to remember me, though. I guess I’ve aged a lot since I worked at the school.”

  “Are his folks living?”

  Vivian shrugged. “Who knows? I really don’t keep track of that sort of thing.”

  Talia bit off a smile. Vivian kept track of far more things than she admitted.

  “I’ll tell you, though”—Vivian’s blue eyes flared—“that other one was always after Wesley. A conniving piece of work, she was.” She stabbed her fork a bit too forcefully into her last bite of haddock.

  “Other one?” Talia prodded. She had a feeling she knew who it was.

  Vivian gave a crisp little nod. “I’m talking about that Bosley girl—Sandra. If they handed out a prize for loosey-goosey morals, that woman would win, hands down.”

  “I’m guessing you mean Sandra Summers.”

  “That’s the one. You should have seen the way she pursued Wes Thurman back then. Like a hound after a fox.” She shook her head with disgust. “Of course, Norma made matters worse, always plotting against Audrey. I think she and Sandra were in cahoots to push Audrey out of the picture.”

  Out of the picture? Talia’s pulse spiked. Vivian really was a font of information. The question was, how much of it was truth?

  “Viv, are you saying that Audrey was after Wes, too?”

  “It was more like Wesley was after her. Oh, you should have seen her back then! Pretty as an angel, that girl was. Sandra tried to pretend she wasn’t jealous, but you could see it in tho
se mean eyes of hers—how much she hated Audrey. She never gave up trying to sink her claws into Wesley.”

  She was still trying, Talia thought, if what Harry told her had any truth to it.

  Still, it all sounded like a lot of teenage drama to Talia. She’d seen plenty of it back in her high school days, even had an unrequited crush or two of her own. What amazed her was how fresh everything was in Vivian’s mind. The woman truly had the heart and soul of a premier gossip.

  “Wesley didn’t care a fig about that Sandra girl, though. At least, not in the beginning.” Vivian spat the words as if Sandra had been a troll who lived under a bridge. “Back then, he only had eyes for Audrey. Sandra tried to pretend she wasn’t jealous, but she wore her envy like a shawl.”

  “So Wesley wanted Audrey,” Talia mused, almost to herself.

  Vivian nodded. “Did he ever! Around the middle of that school year, I started seeing the two of them in the cafeteria line, chatting and giggling with each other. Pretty soon she was wearing his ring on a chain—you know the way the girls do.”

  Talia had never worn anyone’s high school ring on a chain, but she knew plenty of girls who had. “It’s symbolic, I guess. Like saying, ‘He’s mine, so don’t even think about stealing him.’”

  Vivian laughed. “I suppose you’re right. It’s like staking a claim on someone, isn’t it?”

  Talia nodded distractedly.

  “But then, right around prom time—late May, as I recall—Wes dumped poor Audrey for Sandra. Oh, it was the talk of the school! Sandra strutted around like a cat who’d swallowed a bucket of cream, while poor Audrey looked absolutely devastated.” Vivian shook her headful of gray curls.

  Okay, this was getting interesting. Now things were beginning to make a modicum of sense. Audrey’s resistance to attending the festival. Her anger at Crystal over entering the contest. The thought of seeing Wesley Thurman again must have triggered some horribly painful memories.

  Vivian went on. “It was after Wesley dumped Audrey that she started seeing the Feldon boy. Such a nice, shy boy he was. Very smart, too. They had a whirlwind courtship and eloped the night of the prom. Their folks didn’t even find out about it until after graduation. It wasn’t even nine months later that Audrey and Brad had little Molly. Wesley, meanwhile, had gone off to college out west somewhere, and never came back.”

  Until now, Talia thought. And even though he’d never hooked up with Sandra, it was obvious from her recent behavior that she was still interested in him. Sandra’s husband as much as said so, poor man.

  Talia took a deep breath and then slowly let it out. Trying to process everything Vivian was saying made her head buzz like an electric saw. What gnawed at her like a flesh-eating virus was the fact that five of the players in the Steeltop Foods debacle—Wes, Norma, Sandra, Audrey, and Vivian—had all been at the high school, in one capacity or another, around the same time.

  Way too coincidental for her liking. She leaned in toward Vivian. “I just want to be clear, Vivian. Did you and Norma work in the school cafeteria at the same time?”

  Vivian balled up her used napkin. “We sure did, for a couple of years anyway. After a few years I had my fill of it and left. Norma stayed on longer. She’s a tad younger than me. Mostly she washed dishes, but she also did some minor food prep.” Vivian jerked her forefinger at the ceiling, as if she’d just remembered an important point. “Oh, and back then she was Norma Taylor. Her first husband was still living. After he died, Norma married Freddy Ferguson. He’s long gone, too—rest his poor soul.”

  So back when Wes knew Norma, she was Norma Taylor. So when she entered the contest as Norma Ferguson, her name wouldn’t have jingled any bells with him. He had no way of knowing she’d been widowed and remarried.

  No wonder he’d looked so taken aback when she’d stepped onto that stage and faced him.

  “I have to tell you, Talia,” Vivian said, lowering her voice, “I couldn’t have been more shocked when I heard Norma entered that contest. Back when I worked with her, she couldn’t cook to save her life.”

  “What do you mean, she couldn’t cook? She won the contest!”

  Vivian nodded. “I know. She surely did. All I can think of is that she must have enrolled in some cooking classes after she quit working at the school. Probably got tired of everyone teasing her about the salt incident.” She dropped this little tidbit with a sly smile.

  “Salt incident? Okay, Viv—spill it. Tell me everything.”

  Vivian fluttered like a bird. “Well,” she said, “about two weeks after she started on the job, there was this one day when they put her in charge of the macaroni and cheese. Now, keep in mind, we prepared food in large batches. I’m sure you’ve seen those huge stainless-steel pans we used.” She spread her hands almost a yard apart to indicate the size.

  Talia nodded. She could easily picture the large rectangular pans filled with standard school fare such as lasagna, shepherd’s pie, or macaroni and cheese. Most kids complained about the food, but Talia actually liked most of the stuff they served. She’d never admitted that, of course.

  “I remember,” Talia said. “Go on.”

  “Well, this one day she was making the cheese sauce for the macaroni, and someone reminded her to salt it. So Norma—get this—dumped an entire cup of salt into the mixture. A whole cup! Needless to say, the entire batch had to be tossed. The school had to pay for a huge order of pizza to be delivered that day. Norma took a lot of ribbing for that one.”

  “I can imagine,” Talia said thoughtfully. Not that it made one iota of sense. How did a woman go from having zero cooking skills to winning the Steeltop Foods contest? “But she must’ve learned to cook in the meantime for her to win that contest, right?”

  “I suppose she must have,” Vivian agreed. “The school offers some excellent adult education courses, and I’m sure cooking is one of them. Norma probably enrolled and then realized she really enjoyed it. I mean, what else did the woman have in her life?”

  What else, indeed? Unless her volunteer work for Bruce Ferringer’s campaign kept her wildly fulfilled. Hard to imagine, but . . . to each her own.

  “Did she ever have kids?” Talia asked her.

  Vivian chewed her lip. “Yes, a son. I don’t think he lives in town, though.” She speared the last fry in her serving cone and held it aloft. “In a way I felt sorry for Norma. She never seemed to fit in, you know? No one liked her very much. I guess that’s why she tried to bond with some of the kids.” She popped the fry into her mouth.

  Talia’s brain was on overload. She needed to write all of this down so she could try to connect the dots. Norma’s killer was in the mix somewhere—she felt sure of it.

  “Vivian, did you tell any of this to the police?” Talia said.

  “Why, yes. Well, most of it, at least, but that O’Donnell fellow just looked at me as if I was boring him with ancient history.” She looked troubled. “It bothered me when they arrested poor Crystal. I really can’t imagine that nice woman killing Norma. Can you?”

  “She didn’t kill Norma, Vivian. That’s what worries me—that they’ve stopped searching for the real killer. Whoever it is, he or she is still out there, and—”

  A sudden thought stabbed her. If the police believed they now had the killer in custody, what was going to happen to Lucas?

  “Is something wrong, Talia? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Vivian’s mouth hung open in a look of concern.

  Talia scraped back her chair and rose. “I’m not sure, Vivian. But I really appreciate everything you’ve told me. It helps more than you know.”

  “Always glad to help,” Vivian said. She hoisted her straw handbag off the table and dug out a hand-crocheted, zippered purse. After paying for her meal and leaving a small tip, she gave Talia an impulsive hug. “Take care, okay? Let me know if I can help with anything else.”

  “I will, Vivian. Thanks.”

  After Vivian left, Talia raced into the kitchen and dug her cell phone out of
her locker. She called Detective Prescott’s private number. “We have to talk,” she said urgently. “Now.”

  15

  Martha and Molly returned almost at the same time, one looking glummer than the other. Weariness had etched deep lines in Martha’s face. Molly’s normally neat French braid looked scraggly, as if she’d braided it days ago and slept on it for several nights.

  It seemed to Talia that both employees had been gone for quite a while. Normally, she’d speak to them about their lateness. But Molly was only helping out as a temp, and Martha wore such a look of gloom that she didn’t have the heart to even mention it.

  In their absence, Talia had handled two take-out orders and served the lone customer—an elderly gent with long white braids and an iPod stuck in his extraordinarily large ear—sitting at the single table near the restroom. The man had chosen the deep-fried veggie sampler, a combo of green beans, cauliflower, and eggplant rounds coated in batter and deep-fried to a crisp golden brown. At the man’s request, Talia had served the meal with salsa dip and a scoop of coleslaw.

  “You make good food,” the man complimented her.

  Talia thanked him. She watched as he dug a wallet out of his pocket. Made from worn leather cobbled together with strands of red gimp, it looked as if he’d made it at summer camp when he was twelve. He pulled out a wrinkled twenty, smoothed it, and handed it to her.

  She’d been behind the counter ringing up his tab when her two employees had returned. The man approached the counter, took his change, and whispered in a loud voice, “I left your tip on the table. Don’t let someone snitch it, okay?”

  “Thank you, sir. I won’t.” Talia smiled at him. “Please visit us again soon.”

  The man winked at Talia, his gaze lingering on Martha for a moment before he strolled toward the door.

  “What’s his problem?” Martha said in a sharp tone.

  Talia stifled a giggle. “Isn’t it entirely possible, Martha, that the man might have been flirting with you?”