Grace smiled at our new neighbor then took the weight of the salad from my arms.
Max shoved his nose into Jennifer’s crotch.
“Max!”
The dog ignored me.
I grabbed his collar and hauled him away from our guest. “Bad dog! Sorry about that.”
“No problem. I grew up with dogs. He was just saying hello.”
Max dropped his jaw into an I-knew-it-would-be-fine grin.
“He sure is handsome.”
Max preened and wagged his tail.
I wagged a finger in his face and released his collar. He’d greeted our guest, and she’d passed his doggy sniff test. Now he strutted to the kitchen, where the chance of treats was better.
“How about a drink?” I led Jennifer to the living room.
She paused in the doorway and took in the velvet couches, French antiques, and art-covered walls. “I love your house.”
“Thank you. What may I fix you?”
“Wine?” A question rather than a statement.
“Red or white?”
“Red.”
I poured her a glass of cabernet and fixed myself a scotch and water (after the day I’d had I needed something stronger than wine).
“Please, have a seat.” I handed her the glass and waved her toward a couch.
She smiled at me, sat, and sipped. “Gosh! This is really good. What is it?”
I glanced at the bar cart and squinted at the bottle. “Cabernet.”
She nodded. “It’s yummy. Is it a favorite of yours?”
It was whatever Aggie had grabbed at the liquor store when I realized we didn’t have any red wine in the house. “My housekeeper picked it up.”
“I’ll have to write down the name.”
Grace appeared in the door holding a can of Tab and a plate of limes. “Aggie says dinner will be ready at six thirty.” Then she smiled at our guest. “How are you this evening, Mrs. Howe?”
“Oh my gosh—” our neighbor’s smile was movie-star bright “—please call me Jennifer. Mrs. Howe is my mother-in-law. And I’m fine. Thanks for asking. Just thrilled to be here tonight.”
Grace crossed to the bar cart, poured the Tab over ice, and added two lime wedges. Then she settled in a club chair.
I was dying to ask her if she knew what happened at Dirty Sally’s—of course she knew. Debbie was one of her best friends. Instead, I took a healthy slug of scotch. “How are you settling in, Jennifer?”
Our guest wrinkled her nose. “Kansas City is nothing like California.”
“Where in California are you from?” asked Grace.
“I’m from San Diego but I went to school near San Francisco.”
Grace sipped her Tab. “Stanford?”
“Yes.”
“That’s where Mom’s—” her gaze slid my way before she picked a word “—boyfriend went.”
Jennifer manufactured another brilliant smile. “I met my husband there.”
“What did you study?” I asked.
“I have a degree in mathematics.”
“Really?” Grace and I spoke at the same time—both of us endlessly impressed with anyone who studied math on purpose.
“Yes.”
“The math gene skipped our family,” Grace explained. “I blame Mom.” Of course she did. “We can handle arithmetic and that’s about it.”
“Let me know if you ever need any help with your homework or studying for a test.”
My other next-door neighbor, Margaret Hamilton, flew her broomstick at midnight. Marian Dixon, from across the street, seemed to think the happenings at my house were more interesting than her soaps. It would be nice to have a neighbor who didn’t hex me or spy on me—one who understood a quadratic equation, even if she was a Bohemian gypsy who’d give Mother heart palpitations as soon as they met (really, Ellison, what is happening in your neighborhood?). “Be careful,” I warned. “We may take you up on that.”
“I’d love to help. Aside from having a few rooms painted and installing some new carpet, the house doesn’t need much. I have too much time on my hands.”
It was my turn to smile. “You’re kind to offer.”
Grace stood, walked to the bar, and squeezed a third lime into her Tab. “What brought you and your husband to Kansas City?”
“My husband’s job. Although—” Jennifer took a sip of her wine and turned the wattage of her smile to blinding “—he travels more than we thought he would.” In other words, if she’d known she’d be stuck by herself in a big house in a city where she didn’t know anyone, she might have stayed in California. That toothy grin wasn’t fooling anyone.
“I have rumaki.” Aggie stood in the doorway with a silver tray in one hand and a stack of cocktail napkins in the other. “Shoo, you.” She directed that last bit to Max who was all about bacon.
He followed her into the living room and watched closely as she presented the hors d’oeuvre tray to Jennifer, then me, then Grace.
“Mmmmm,” said Jennifer. “These are great. I’ll have to get the recipe.”
“Do you enjoy cooking?” I asked.
“I do. It’s such an opportunity for creativity. What about you?”
Grace choked on her rumaki.
“Aggie is the cook in this house,” I said.
Aggie donned a gratified smile, put the tray down on the coffee table, and hauled Max back to the kitchen.
“Mom can’t cook.”
“Grace—”
“Oh, don’t deny it. You could burn water.”
That was an exaggeration. A teensy exaggeration.
We chatted about cooking—Grace delighted in telling Jennifer about the time I incinerated a roast (the fire engine Henry called was overkill). We told her about Kansas City—the best grocery store (McGonigle’s for meat, Milgram’s for everything else), best bakery (McClain’s), best hair stylist (Rick McHugh at Salon B), and best restaurants (Grace and I debated BBQ—but debating the best BBQ was practically a professional sport in our home town).
“Dinner’s ready.” There was a strange expression on Aggie’s face—as if she’d forcibly smoothed a curl off her lip.
We crossed the hall to the dining room. On the sideboard was a roasted chicken, beautifully browned new potatoes, fresh green beans sautéed in butter and oil, and Jennifer’s salad.
My daughter stopped short. “What’s that?”
“That’s my latest creation.” Jennifer didn’t seem to hear the horror in Grace’s voice. “I think it will taste great.”
Jennifer had brought us a Jell-O salad that she’d poured into a Bundt pan. Aggie had removed the pan and found food (a determination up for debate) that looked as if it had passed through an alien’s intestinal tract. Jennifer’s “salad” glowed lime green in the chandelier’s soft light. Unidentifiable bits of food lurked in its verdant depths.
“What’s in it?” Grace’s voice was painfully polite.
“Diced apples, nuts, raisins—”
Oh dear Lord. Raisins were the food equivalent of Satan.
“—olives—”
Raisins and olives? Together? Jennifer was my guest. Being a good hostess required me to eat her salad. How? My stomach was already objecting.
“—iceberg lettuce, green onion, mandarin oranges—”
“Wow.” Grace looked ready to make a run for it.
But Jennifer wasn’t done “—radishes and prunes.”
Prunes? Did Jennifer need psychotropic drugs? Was she off her meds? I forced a smile. “It sounds delicious. We can’t wait to try it.”
“It’s just an experiment. I hope you don’t mind being guinea pigs.”
We minded. “Of course not.”
Jennifer smiled brightly. “If you like it, I’ll have to make it for Marshall.”
Not if she wanted to stay married.
We served ourselves succulent chicken, roasted potatoes with crisp edges, perfectly cooked green beans, and Jennifer’s salad. The dinner plates cringed at contact with Jennifer’s Jell-O (they didn’t—not really—but they wanted to).
Grace spooned the smallest portion she could politely get away with onto her plate.
I did too.
Then we sat. That salad—green slime and garbage—waited on our plates. The olives looked like eyeballs. The raisins looked like—I couldn’t think about that. Not when I had to take a bite.
Grace lifted her fork and managed a morsel of salad that seemed to contain nothing but Jell-O and apple.
Apparently looks were deceiving. Jell-O and apple didn’t warrant the disgusted expression that flashed across her face.
I paused with my fork poised above the quivering green.
Jennifer didn’t pause. She took an enormous bite. She chewed. She tilted her head to the side. “Not bad. What do you think, Ellison?”
There was no escape—Jennifer was watching me with an expectant expression on her pretty young face.
I lifted a bite to my mouth, forced my lips apart, and ate the single most appalling thing I’d ever tasted. Somehow, I swallowed. “Wow.” I reached for my water goblet.
“I know! Yummy, huh?”
Did the woman have no taste buds?
“It certainly is unique. Where did you find the recipe?”
“No recipe.” She confirmed what I already knew. “It’s just something I threw together.”
I tightened my hold on the fork and forced another bite (please, God, let the fork’s tines find no prunes—or raisins).
Grace gave me a Mom-do-I-have-to look.
I cut a bite of chicken and gave her a you-are-grounded-till-May-if-you-don’t-eat-another-four-bites-of-our-guest’s-horrific-side-dish look.
“This chicken is delicious,” said Jennifer.
“Where did you learn to cook?” asked Grace.
“I’m self-taught.”
Jennifer ate another bite of salad. A little furrow appeared between her brows. “I think I may have put in too many olives.”
I smiled weakly and choked down another bite. “It certainly is unique.” My roast-reduced-to-carbon sounded pretty good by comparison.
“It is, isn’t it?” Jennifer’s smile was genuine.
How could a woman who graduated from Stanford not recognize she’d created the single worst side dish in the history of side dishes?
“Jennifer,” Grace drew Jennifer’s attention, and I hid some Jell-O under my potatoes. Poor, unfortunate spuds. “What’s your favorite food?”
“When I grew up, my mom was a super strict vegan. We didn’t eat any sugar or meat or dairy. So, when I went to college, everything was a revelation. There’s nothing I don’t like.”
Her story explained so much.
“Surely, you must have an absolute favorite.” I drew her attention. Grace camouflaged some Jell-O.
“Nope.” She shook her head and shared another sunny smile. “Everything tastes good to me.”
Jennifer Howe and her Jell-O salad from hell were the best argument I’d ever seen for letting kids eat whatever they wanted.
With a hand that barely shook, I fed myself another bite.
Ding, dong.
We heard Aggie and Max hurry down the hallway (this Jell-O salad dinner was the first time in his lifetime that Max hadn’t sat next to the dinner table waiting for a morsel to fall).
A moment later, Anarchy filled the doorway. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“I told him there was plenty of food.” There was a devilish glint in Aggie’s eyes. Aggie held out hope I’d get over my infatuation with Anarchy and settle down with Hunter Tafft. She might even have blamed Anarchy for turning my head away from the silver-haired lawyer. In those opinions, she and Mother were in complete accord. Setting a place for Anarchy at a table where he’d feel obligated to try Jennifer’s Jell-O salad amused her.
There was no way I could warn him.
“Thanks, Aggie.” Poor man, he should have run when he had the chance.
“Jennifer, this is my friend, Anarchy Jones. Anarchy, please meet my new next-door neighbor, Jennifer Howe. Jennifer went to Stanford, too.”
Anarchy smiled and pulled out a chair. “Nice to meet you.”
Jennifer looked a bit stunned. Anarchy had that effect on women. “Hi.”
“Thanks for letting me join you.” He glanced at the sideboard and his expression froze.
“Jennifer brought the salad for tonight’s dinner.”
He nodded. Once. And sat. Slowly.
An instant later, Aggie had a place mat and silverware in front of him. “Don’t get up.” There was that devilish twinkle again. “I’ll fix you a plate.”
She heaped his plate with Jennifer’s salad.
“Anarchy’s a homicide detective,” said Grace.
Jennifer’s eyes grew large.
“Which is handy,” Grace continued.
I gave her a cut-it-out-this-minute-young-lady look.
Jennifer gave her a what-on-earth look. “Why is it handy?”
“Because Mom finds bodies.”
“Grace!”
My daughter rolled her eyes. “It’s not as if she won’t find out. I’m surprised Mrs. Dixon hasn’t been over to warn her.” She smiled at Jennifer. “Mrs. Dixon is nosy.”
“Grace!”
Jennifer, whose eyes were as big as the drop biscuits Aggie was passing, snapped her sprung jaw closed. “How many bodies?”
“Good question.” Grace ticked off a finger. “There’s—”
“One body is too many.” We needed a new topic. I gave Grace a do-you-want-to-be-grounded-till-July look.
“It’s not as if you’ve killed anyone.”
I narrowed my eyes and scrunched my face at her. Yet. I hadn’t killed anyone yet.
“Do you really find bodies?” Jennifer asked.
“Not on purpose.”
“Ellison is—” Anarchy searched for a word “—unlucky.”
“Who would care for seconds?” asked Aggie, her eyes twinkling like a mirrored ball. “I’m happy to serve.”
“No, thank you.” Grace and I spoke in unison.
“Detective Jones, what about you?”
Anarchy glanced at the industrial waste on his plate and grinned. “I haven’t finished what I have.”
“I’ll take a little more of the salad,” said Jennifer. “Things I make don’t always turn out this well.”
We stared at her in horror.
Aggie picked up Jennifer’s plate and spooned more of the Jell-O mold onto it.
We all watched her do it—a reaction akin to slowing down to gawk at an accident on the highway.
Grace was the first to look away. “Any interesting murders today?”
She was probably asking Anarchy, but I was the one who choked on a prune.
She tilted her head. “Mom, did you find a body?”
Jennifer put down her fork and stared at me. “A body?”
“My yoga instructor was murdered.”
“Murdered?” Jennifer’s drop-biscuit eyes were back, and she reached for her wine.
“Since when do you take yoga?” Grace demanded.
“Libba.” A one-word answer that described much of what went wrong in my life.
“Libba was your yoga instructor’s name?” asked Jennifer.
“No Libba’s my friend who dragged me to yoga. She thought it would help with stress. It didn’t.”
Bzzzzzz.
“What’s that?” Grace asked.
“My pager.” Anarchy pushed away from the table. “Ellison, may I use your phone?”
“Of course.
The line in the study.”
“Thanks.” He disappeared into the hallway.
“He seems nice.” Jennifer’s eyes were still huge. “How did you two meet?”
Grace answered with a malicious grin. “Mom found a body floating in the pool at the country club and the police thought she did it.”
“Seriously?” she looked at me for confirmation.
It was too hard to explain. “What Grace said.”
She leaned back in her chair. “And I thought Kansas City would be boring.”
“Not on this block,” Grace replied.
Anarchy appeared in the doorway. “I’m sorry to skip out on dinner, but I have to go.”
Grace looked at his plate then grinned up at him. “So soon?”
“I caught another murder.”
“We can have Aggie make you a plate to take with you,” she offered.
Anarchy’s brown eyes glinted with humor. “No, thanks. I won’t have time to eat.”
He’d skillfully escaped the green menace.
“Ellison, I’ll call you later.”
I stood and dropped my napkin onto my chair. “I’ll walk you to the door.”
We walked to the front door.
“Did you really get called in to work another murder?”
“Yeah. Why do you ask?” His brown eyes danced.
“I thought it might be Jell-O salad avoidance.”
He shook his head. “If I was ever to lie about going to a murder scene, I can’t think of a better reason.”
I glanced back toward the dining room and lowered my voice. “She thinks it’s good.”
“She does not.”
I nodded. Emphatically. “She does.”
Anarchy leaned down and brushed a kiss across my lips. “I’ll call you later.”
“Anarchy—” I fixed my gaze on his chest and swallowed. Hard.
“What?”
I’d been meaning to ask him for weeks and couldn’t put it off another day. “Do you own a tux?”
“I do.”
I ignored the flutter of nerves in my stomach and raised my gaze to his face. “Would you please escort me to the gala?”
An expression I didn’t recognize settled on his features. “The one at the museum?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure you want to take me?”
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