A Room with a Pew

by Peg Cochran

  “Louis might not have been as bad off as you think.” Lucille dropped the potatoes into the boiling water. “He really did recognize someone that everyone thought was dead.”

  Angela stared at Lucille. “Don’t you start now, too.”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  “What’s that thing in the foyer? I could hardly get the door open,” Angela asked.

  Lucille sighed. “That’s Ma’s. We can’t get it down the stairs and she won’t let us get rid of it. It’s that inversion thingie that she bought from QVC. You know—where you hang upside down.”

  “What on earth is she going to do with that?”

  Lucille shrugged. She claims it’s going to make her taller.”

  “You’re not going to leave it there, are you?”

  “What do you think? Of course not. Frankie’s going to take it apart so he can get it down to the basement. He hasn’t had time yet.”

  Angela raised her eyebrows. Lucille knew what she was thinking. Loretto hopped to every time Angela asked him to do something like he was a new recruit in the Army. Personally, Lucille often wondered why he didn’t run away. Of course, there was always the chance that he still would.

  The front bell rang and the door immediately opened. Lucille could hear Flo telling someone to go downstairs to watch the game with the guys. She walked into the kitchen carrying the usual box of pastries.

  “Is that Richie with you?” Lucille looked up from the stick of butter she was unwrapping. Maybe some good had come of all this after all, and Flo and Richie were back together again.

  “Yes,” Flo said coyly.

  “Don’t you look like the cat that swallowed the canary, as Ma always said.”

  “Me?” Flo pointed to her own chest, putting on an innocent look.

  “Yeah, you. Something’s up, I can tell.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Come on, Flo. I’ve known you from second grade. I know when you’re hiding something.”

  Flo smiled. “Okay, you’re right.” She slipped off the leopard-print glove on her left hand and waggled her fingers at Lucille.

  Lucille dropped the potato masher and it hit the floor with a clang. “What’s that?” She grabbed Flo’s hand.

  A large diamond solitaire sparkled from her ring finger.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Lucille stared at Flo, her mouth open.

  Flo nodded. “Richie and I are engaged.”

  Lucille threw her arms around Flo. “I’m so happy for the both of yous.” She wiped a tear from her eye with the edge of her apron. “I thought this day would never come.”

  Flo made a face. “Neither did I. I was stupid, then Richie . . . well, let’s not go into it.”

  “I even have some champagne,” Lucille said, yanking open the refrigerator door and pointing at the foil-topped bottle.

  “Here,” Lucille pulled the antipasto platter off the shelf. “Somebody go put this on the table.”

  Flo took it from Lucille and turned toward the door. “Why don’t you go call the guys,” she said to Angela.

  “And call Ma, would you? She’s upstairs getting ready,” Lucille added.

  She opened the oven door to check on the roast. No pasta this week—she was making a nice veal roast braised with tomatoes, mashed potatoes and peas. She couldn’t believe she’d stuck with her Mediterranean diet this long. Her pants weren’t getting any looser, but it had only been a week, and she knew she needed to be patient. The weight would come off in time.

  Finally they were all gathered around the table. Father Brennan said grace, and Frankie immediately grabbed the antipasto platter and helped himself.

  Lucy was sitting in her high chair with a terry-cloth bib tied around her neck. She was picking up something that looked like a Vienna sausage, but that Bernadette assured Lucille was made for babies. Lucille had wanted to give her some mashed potatoes and peas, but Bernadette had her own ideas.

  “Look”—Flo gestured toward Lucy—“she’s getting a tooth!”

  Everyone turned to look at Lucy, who grinned and banged her spoon against the tray of her high chair. A long strand of drool hung from the side of her mouth.

  Frankie pointed his fork at Flo. “What’s that on your finger?”

  Flo beamed. “A ring. Richie and I are engaged.”

  “No kidding? Really?” Frankie punched Richie on the arm. “Congratulations.”

  Everyone around the table murmured their congratulations except Millie, who had her head down and her eyes on her plate. She was shoveling food into her mouth so fast Lucille wondered again if Angela was feeding her.

  Lucille brought out the roast and vegetables and pretty soon everyone had cleaned their plates.

  “Great meal, Lucille.” Flo tossed her napkin on the table. “Want me to help you clear the table?”

  “Sure, thanks. And Bernadette”—Lucille turned toward her daughter—“you want to bring out dessert?”

  Bernadette shrugged. “Fine.”

  The three of them cleared the table and helped Lucille load the dishwasher.

  “Where are your champagne glasses, Lucille?” Flo opened a cabinet and shut it.

  “They’re in the china closet in the dining room.”

  “I’ll go put those out. Do you want to use the good dessert plates?”

  Lucille hesitated. They would have to be washed by hand on account of they had a gold rim, but she figured what the hell. Today was a special day.

  “Sure. I’ll bring out the champagne.”

  Flo handed around glasses and plates, and Bernadette put her cake in the middle of the table. Lucille came out of the kitchen carrying the bottle of champagne.

  She handed it to Frankie. “Would you open this for me.”

  “Now, are you going to tell me what we’re celebrating?” Angela asked. She turned to Flo. “Other than Flo and Richie’s engagement.”

  Lucille told everyone about how she and Flo had captured Mario, aka Luigi Romano, and how there was a reward of one hundred thousand dollars.

  Gabe let out a whistle. “Good for you, Aunt Lucille.”

  “It must have been a shock to Mario when he discovered Mona sitting at the table. Of course, she didn’t want to say nothing on account of that insurance money she raked in when Mario was declared dead.”

  “The feds have grabbed Benny, too,” Richie said. “He was using Louis to launder money for him at those poker games.” He glanced at Lucille. “That’s why he sent those goons to scare you off.” He put an arm around Flo and squeezed. “But he didn’t know our girls, did he, Frankie? They don’t scare that easy.”

  Frankie shook his head. He pointed a finger at Lucille. “But I don’t want no more of this detecting business, you hear? You could have gotten hurt.”

  Lucille held her hands up. “Believe me, I’m done. No more for me.”

  Frankie looked skeptical, but he let it drop.

  Lucille had a sudden thought. “So does this mean Bernadette is out of a job?” She twisted her napkin between her fingers.

  Richie shook his head. “It looks like Benny’s wife—or whatever she is—is going to take over the club as manager. Only she’s going to go legit. She knows we’ll be watching her.”

  Lucille let out her breath in a sigh. “Then everything’s going to be okay.” She smiled at everyone around the table. “Come on! Drink up, everybody.”

  They raised their glasses.

  “Cheers!”

  • • •

  Later that night, Lucille and Frank lay in bed together. It was cold—the windows in the bedroom rattled from the wind that had picked up. They were as old as the house and probably needed replacing, Lucille thought. Maybe they could use some of that reward money and get it done.

  Her feet were freezing—she should have put on some socks. She put them against Frank’s warm legs.

  “Geez, Lucille, your feet are like ice cubes.” He squirmed around to his side and pulled Lucille closer. “You must be
cold.”

  Lucille snuggled against Frankie’s warmth. Right now there was no place else in the world she’d rather be.

  “You know, I was thinking.”

  “Mmmm?” Frank said sleepily.

  “What if we use some of that reward money to give the kids a down payment on a house.”

  Frank sighed. “Lord knows, it’s time they got their own place. Maybe Flo would kick something in, too.”

  “Yeah, I bet she would.”

  They were silent for a moment.

  “Does it bother you about Flo and Richie?” Frank asked.

  “What do you mean?” Lucille stiffened.

  “That they’re engaged and getting married.”

  “Of course not. Why should it bother me?”

  “You know—you and Richie were an item at one time.”

  “It was only two months,” Lucille protested. “And I’ve never loved anyone but you.”

  “Positive?”

  “Positive,” Lucille said. “Now go to sleep.”

  Excerpt from Berry the Hatchet

  Keep reading for a sneak peek

  at the second book in Peg’s new

  Cranberry Cove Mystery Series,

  Berry the Hatchet,

  coming in May 2016!

  The entire town of Cranberry Cove is popping with excitement. Monica Albertson is baking cranberry goodies by the dozen and shopkeepers are decking out their storefronts for the first annual Winter Walk—an event dreamed up by the mayor to bring visitors to the town during a normally dead time of year.

  But it’s the mayor who turns up dead during the grand opening ceremony, his lifeless body making its entrance in a horse-drawn sleigh. Monica’s mother and stepmother quickly become the prime suspects when it’s discovered that the mayor was dating both of them, and to make things worse, her half brother Jeff uncovers a clue buried near one of the bogs on Sassamanash Farm. Now it’s up to Monica to find out who really put the mayor on ice.

  Chapter 1

  Cranberry Cove was in an uproar.

  It was less than six hours until the opening of the town’s first Winter Walk, an event designed to bring tourists—and their wallets—to Cranberry Cove during some of the darker days of the year. The festive Christmas season was over, the spring tulips were a long way yet from blooming, and the hope was that the Winter Walk would provide an infusion of much-needed capital into the local economy between the two more popular seasons.

  The shops along Beach Hollow Road bustled with business all spring and summer and into the early fall months, when tourists arrived in droves for autumn color tours. Then things trailed off until the weeks before Christmas, when Cranberry Cove’s quaint shops and traditional holiday decorations drew shoppers from all over the state of Michigan and beyond.

  January was one of the worst months as far as business was concerned. An icy wind blew off the waters of Lake Michigan and the sky was gray and leaden more often than not. The vacancy sign swung from the pole in front of the Cranberry Cove Inn all month long, and the only busy shops were the drugstore, the hardware store and the Cranberry Cove Diner, where locals gathered for farmer-style breakfasts and strong coffee in thick white mugs.

  So while other towns were taking down their Christmas decorations two weeks after the holidays, Cranberry Cove was stringing up extra garlands of small white lights, adding festive blue and silver bows to anything they could tie a ribbon around and generally gussying up the place as much as possible. Merchants would be throwing open their doors for the next several evenings and offering hot chocolate (made from the finest Dutch cocoa, of course—early settlers of the area had come from the Netherlands and a good portion of the current residents were of Dutch descent), cups of tea and even bowls of wassail for the shoppers who would hopefully soon crowd their establishments.

  Sassamanash Farm had erected an outdoor stall in front of Gumdrops, the local candy shop run by the identical twin VanVelsen sisters. Monica Albertson had been baking and cooking for several weeks to ensure a healthy stock of cranberry muffins, bread, salsa and other goodies made from the farm’s fall cranberry harvest. Her half brother, Jeff, had crafted a comfortable shelter to protect her from the winds blowing off Lake Michigan barely a block away, and Monica had installed a couple of electric heaters for extra comfort. The VanVelsen sisters had been more than happy to let her run the power cords into their shop outlets.

  The wind was picking up, and Monica wrestled with a cloth imprinted with bright red cranberries that she planned to use to cover the rough wooden table Jeff had made for the occasion. Her fingers were stiff with the cold, making them awkward, and the wind kept flipping the fabric up over her face as if this were some sort of playful children’s game. Finally, she gave up. She needed to get warm and needed to do it fast.

  “You must be freezing, dear,” Hennie VanVelsen said when Monica pushed open the door to Gumdrops.

  Gumdrops specialized in Dutch treats like hexagonal boxes of Droste pastilles, Wilhelmina peppermints, and De Heer chocolate, along with a counter full of what used to be called penny candy—like Mary Janes, root beer barrels and nonpareils, which the sisters scooped into white paper bags for their customers.

  “We have a pot of nice strong tea going in the back room. I’ll get you a cup.” Hennie headed toward a beaded curtain that separated the shop from the room behind. “Gerda got us an electric teakettle for Christmas, and I must say, the thing is a marvel,” she called over her shoulder as she pushed her way through the curtain.

  Moments later she reappeared with a steaming mug, which she handed to Monica. Gerda was right on her heels, wearing an identical pale blue sweater set and blue and gray pleated skirt and sporting the exact same tight gray curls as her twin.

  “Hello, dear.” Gerda rubbed her hands together briskly. “You look positively frozen.”

  Monica wrapped one hand around her mug of tea and brushed a tangle of auburn curls out of her eyes with the other. “I am. The wind certainly has a sharp edge to it, although the thermometer claims it’s almost thirty-five degrees.”

  Gerda nodded sagely. “It’s the wind that does it, that’s for certain. A few miles inland and it probably feels positively balmy.”

  Hennie quirked a smile at Gerda. “Maybe not quite balmy, love.”

  Gerda made a sound deep in her throat. “You’re right, of course. Certainly not balmy.” She gave a tight smile. “But more comfortable than here on the very shore of the lake.”

  Monica hid the grin that rose to her lips. The VanVelsen sisters might be inseparable, but they had their squabbles, just like any other pair of siblings. But instead of driving them apart, their genteel disagreements seemed to bring them closer together.

  While Monica had resented her stepmother Gina for stealing her father away, she had adored the baby brother who had arrived barely a year later. Monica and Jeff were as close as any siblings, although there were times, of course, when they had to agree to disagree.

  Hennie glanced out the window with a furrow between her eyebrows. “We really need it to snow.” She worked her gnarled fingers into the pleats of her plaid skirt. “Miss Winter Walk is supposed to arrive on a horse-drawn sleigh. It’s the highlight of the whole event. That’s how Mayor Crowley planned it. I read all about it in the newspaper.”

  Gerda frowned at the large windowpane that looked out onto Beach Hollow Road. “I don’t think we’re going to get any snow by this evening. Mayor Crowley had a wonderful idea, and of course we normally have piles of the stuff by now, but this year . . .”

  Preston Crowley, owner of the Cranberry Cove Inn, had taken over as mayor of Cranberry Cove upon the death of the former mayor, Sam Culbert.

  “I’m sure it has something to do with Tempest Storm.” Hennie shuddered.

  “The lack of snow?” Monica blew on her tea and took a cautious sip. “How could that be?”

  Hennie fiddled with a box of Droste chocolate pastilles, turning it over and over again in her hands. “She�
�s planning on performing some sort of spell on the village green.” She shook the pastilles at Monica and the candies rattled inside their box. “No good is going to come of it, mark my words.”

  “It isn’t a spell,” Monica explained patiently. “It’s called Imbolc, and it’s a ritual designed to hurry spring when people are fed up with the cold and ice of winter.” She glanced out the window at the gray skies. “Which most of us are, I think.”

  She always wished that winter would end on New Year’s Day and that spring would arrive in full force the next morning.

  “I’m sure that’s why we don’t have any snow,” Hennie said.

  “Sounds pagan to me,” Gerda sniffed.

  “It’s Wiccan.” Monica looked at the sisters over the rim of her mug. Their faces were settled into identical creases of disapproval.

  “No matter what you call it, I don’t like it,” Hennie said. “Besides, what kind of a name is that? Tempest Storm indeed.”

  “She is something of a whirlwind.” Gerda laughed and Hennie shot her a quelling look.

  “Still, who names their child Tempest?”

  “It’s hard to imagine her being called something plain like Jane or Martha with all those crazy clothes she wears,” Gerda pointed out.

  Monica put down her now-empty mug. “I’d better get back outside if I hope to have the stall ready for tonight.”

  “I hate to think of you out there in the cold. You must come in to get warm from time to time,” Hennie said firmly.

  Monica promised she would.

  The wind had died down slightly, so Monica decided to tackle the tablecloth again. This time she was successful in getting it on the table with all the sides even. She pulled a packet of thumbtacks from one of the boxes she’d lugged with her, and tacked each of the four corners to keep the cloth from blowing away.

  She glanced up to see Bart Dykema bustling across the street, headed toward his butcher shop on the other side of Book ’Em, a mystery bookstore and one of Monica’s favorite shops in town. He had a number of strands of lights looped over his arm. He waved when he saw Monica, and she waved back. She’d only been in Cranberry Cove since the summer, but she was already beginning to feel like a native. Certainly she felt more at home here than she had in Chicago, where she’d run a tiny café and coffee shop that had been put out of business by one of the big-name chains with whom she couldn’t hope to compete. When Jeff had asked for her help on his cranberry farm, it had seemed the perfect time to start over.