The Secret Ingredient Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery

by Nancy Pickard

  “Mrs. Eugenia Potter,” the mayor said with good-natured formality, “I’d like you to meet Ms. Sylvia Stewart.”

  “Mrs.,” the other woman corrected him. “But please, call me Sylvia. How do you do, Mrs. Potter?”

  “I’m Genia, Mrs. Stew—Sylvia.”

  And then it hit her: This woman had the intials S.S., and tomorrow, if she wasn’t mistaken, was 8/19. She started to say something, but the mayor was already talking.

  “We have a mystery here, Genia,” he told her in his genial way. “Mrs. Stewart—Sylvia—has come down from Providence at the invitation of Stanley Parker—”

  Genia turned to look at the woman. Aha, she thought. “—and, unfortunately, she didn’t get the word that he was … about his passing.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Genia said to her.

  “Thank you,” Sylvia Stewart replied, but she looked embarrassed again. “I didn’t actually know him. I never met him. I don’t even know why he wanted to meet me.”

  Genia blinked. “You don’t?”

  “No, Mayor Averill tells me you were a good friend of his, and I was hoping maybe you might know something about it. You see, Mr. Parker contacted me and said he had something very important to ask me. I think he wanted to show me something, too. And he practically begged me to come down here to join him at this council meeting. I asked him if he couldn’t come to Providence to see me, but he said, no, I had to come here. He intimated it was a matter of life or death, though I’m afraid I didn’t take that seriously. He seemed a rather dramatic old man, if you’ll forgive my saying so. You may wonder why I would go to all this trouble for someone who called out of the blue and made a request like that, but everybody in Rhode Island has heard of Stanley Parker. When I told my friends, they all thought I should come, just to see what he was up to. My husband said there was nobody more creditable than Mr. Parker, so if he wanted to see me, I should do it.” The woman raised her hands in a display of bafflement. “So here I am, and I don’t know why!”

  “How very odd,” Genia agreed. “I wish I knew.”

  “We were going to have lunch tomorrow,” Sylvia Stewart added, looking a little disappointed, “at that house of his that everybody calls the Castle. I was so looking forward to getting a chance to see it. I know that sounds petty, but his house is nearly as famous as he was. I’m a photographer of sorts and I was even hoping to take pictures of it.”

  “You can still do that,” Genia assured her, feeling eager to get to the bottom of this mystery. “I am renting a cottage right down the street from the Castle, and if you will do me the honor of coming to lunch tomorrow, I will be glad to drive you over there so that you may take some photos of it. I’m sure that his daughter would like to meet you, too.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to be such a bother!”

  “Not at all, it would be my pleasure, truly.” Genia had already taken note of the trim little travel case the woman grasped by a handle. “I’m assuming that you’re staying overnight, since you were lunching with Stanley tomorrow. Where are you staying?”

  “Mr. Parker made a reservation for me at the Devon Bed and Breakfast.” Doubt clouded her face. “Or, he was going to. I don’t know if he actually—”

  “I would bet that he did, wouldn’t you, Mayor?” Genia said.

  “Yes,” Larry Averill assured their guest, “and if he didn’t, we’ll get you in someplace else that’s just as nice, I promise you. Did you drive down?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why don’t I go with you over to the Devon B and B.…”

  “That’s so nice of you!”

  “And,” Genia said, “just leave your car there. I’ll send my nephew Jason to pick you up around eleven-thirty tomorrow morning, if that’s convenient.”

  “Thank you so much, um …”

  “Genia.”

  “Genia.”

  But the mayor was frowning a bit. “You’re going to send Jason? Are you sure that’s—”

  “Yes,” she replied a bit sharply. “I’m sure.”

  When she glanced back at Sylvia Stewart’s face, she realized the woman probably hadn’t even heard that little exchange. In fact, she was staring off into the crowd behind Genia, and her face was white as chalk.

  “Are you all right?” Genia asked her quietly.

  “What? Yes, I thought I saw a ghost.”

  Genia looked back over her own shoulder, but all she saw were the good people of Devon heading off toward their cars or beginning to walk to their homes. Her own niece and Kevin were talking to Harrison and Lindsay Wright. She saw David Graham and lifted her hand to wave, but he disappeared in the throng without seeing her. Celeste Hutchinson was standing on the Town Hall steps looking in the direction in which he had gone, and when Genia turned around again she saw that Larry Averill was staring at Celeste.

  “If you’re sure you’ll be all right …?”

  “Oh, yes. I just saw someone who …” She hesitated, To Genia, she looked like someone who is about to say one thing, but changed her mind and says another. “… who reminds me of somebody else.”

  “Then I’ll see you tomorrow around noon.”

  They exchanged cordial farewells, and then the mayor escorted the stranger in town down the sidewalk to the nearby hostelry. Genia’s last impression was of a graceful, elegant woman striding along beside a portly, disheveled man. She stared after them for a few moments, until they turned a corner and disappeared from view.

  And then she noticed that the woman had dropped the small white card that Larry had handed to her. Genia stooped to pick it up and saw that it was one of Celeste Hutchinson’s real estate business cards.

  23

  ON THE MENU

  When she got home, Genia brought her yellow pad down from upstairs and began to write while the arts council meeting was fresh in her mind. Regretfully, she made a little amendment to the scenario she had written about Lawrence Averill, based on the white business card that had dropped from Sylvia Stewart’s hand.

  “Larry, I know what you’re doing,” Stanley scolded the mayor.

  “Well, good!” the portly man said in his jovial way. “I’m glad somebody does!”

  “I think you’d better be serious for once, Mr. Mayor. What I know is that you are using the influence of your office to funnel business to one particular Realtor in town. Do I need to name her?”

  For once, the loquacious mayor had nothing to say.

  “I’ve seen you do it,” Stanley continued, “so don’t deny it. I’ve seen you pass out her business cards to visiting businesspeople and newcomers. You keep a stack of them with you, don’t you, just like you keep those keys to the city, and you hand out her cards just about as often as you hand out keys? That is a completely improper use of your office, and you know it—”

  “Stanley, she needs help—”

  “That may be, but as mayor you can’t show that kind of favoritism. I want you to stop it immediately. If you don’t, I will be forced to report this to the board of Realtors and to the town council. Do I have your promise on this?”

  At her kitchen table Genia thought sadly, Larry might have uttered the words to such a promise, but I doubt he could keep it. She herself had seen Larry hand out one of Celeste’s business cards this very evening. He must be aware that he was doing something a mayor shouldn’t do. And how many other visitors had received that small engraved card from the hand of Devon’s mayor?

  If Stanley knew …?

  If Stanley had confronted the mayor, that would threaten Larry at the very root of the two things he held most dear in life: Celeste and his own political ambitions, modest though they might be by other people’s standards.

  Was it enough to motivate him to kill Stanley?

  Sweet, practical, generous Larry? Genia tried to make herself believe her own scenario was possible, but there was no way to convince herself it was probable. The mayor who has given his whole life over to the welfare of the town? Could Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde exist u
nder those shabby old suits, or in that same heart that handed out brass keys with such unabashed pride and joy?

  Genia didn’t think so. She didn’t want to think so.

  I may be an old fool, Genia decided, but I simply cannot believe that Larry Averill ever willingly harmed a person in his life, not even for the sake of Celeste Hutchinson.

  “Such a nice man,” Genia couldn’t help but say to herself.

  He was, wasn’t he?

  She had one more scenario to write before bed, and this one, too, was based on what she had seen and heard at the arts council meeting. She hoped she was wrong about how she was interpreting certain nuances, but if she was right …

  Lindsay Wright appears to have it all—a handsome, nice husband who is devoted to her, local standing in her own right through the arts council and as the spouse of a local celebrity, plus natural beauty and gorgeous clothes to show it off.

  But Lindsay didn’t come from money. Lindsay doesn’t have a job, at least not one that pays, because the presidency of the arts council is a volunteer position. And how much money can a regional TV weatherman actually make? Not enough to support a clothes habit like the one his wife has.

  Genia stopped writing to think: Stanley had told her that Lillian always complained that she couldn’t buy a decent wardrobe in Devon; for true fashion, she had to travel to bigger, more sophisticated cities. Genia picked up her pen again.

  “So how do you manage it, Lindsay?” he inquired over lunch.

  “I do my shopping in Providence, Stanley,” she replied easily. “At secondhand stores, but don’t tell anybody, okay? I even hit the flea markets and garage sales, if you must know.”

  “Really? Celeste told me she spotted you buying a lot of fancy designer things at Lord & Taylor’s recently.”

  “Oh, that couldn’t have been me.”

  “I think it was, Lindsay.”

  “Well, so what, Stanley? What are you saying? What do you care where I shop? I don’t get this, what are you getting at?”

  “What I’m getting at is a certain imbalance in the books of the arts council.…”

  Again Genia paused, pen over yellow paper: Maybe Lindsay Wright wasn’t stealing money from the arts council, and Celeste wasn’t stealing other people’s jewelry. But how did either woman manage to pay for her lifestyle without going heavily into debt?

  This was all imaginary, of course, but what if …

  “I’ll make it up!” Lindsay swore to the old man. “But please, please, Stanley, don’t let Harrison know what I’ve done! Please don’t let anybody know, or you’ll ruin both of us. You’ll ruin our marriage, you’ll ruin Harrison’s future—”

  “I’m not the embezzler here, Lindsay.”

  “Embezzler! Stanley, I’m just borrowing—”

  “This is criminal behavior,” was his stern response. After all, the Devon Arts Council was his special baby, and he even referred to it as “his” arts council. “How do you think you can ever repay it, Lindsay? You don’t even have a job.”

  “I’ll get one! Please, Stanley!”

  He reluctantly agreed not to act on his knowledge immediately, but to give Lindsay a chance to confess to the council and to try to devise a method of repayment, if they are willing to let her do it.

  But Lindsay had no intention of confessing anything.

  This was a lot to base on the word “audit,” and a couple of different, large dollar amounts, Genia chided herself, but she completed her writing anyway.…

  Terrified of the consequences of her own greed—she could go to prison!—she decided to sneak onto Stanley’s property before the dinner party and to kill him.

  Now no one will ever know, she thinks.…

  Until she gets a call from Eddie Hennessey, who listened in on her luncheon with Stanley and who saw her in the woods that night.

  Genia was startled by her own fantasy: “Good grief, it could have happened that way. That could, indeed, be why Hennessey was killed, because he knew something incriminating, or he actually saw the murder and attempted to blackmail the killer.” Hadn’t Celeste hinted at that very thing last night and again this morning? She had claimed it was Eddie who told her that Jason was growing pot in the greenhouse. What else had Ed Hennessey learned while he was peeping and eavesdropping on his employer and Stanley’s guests?

  She turned back the pages of the yellow pad and then got up and laid it next to the coffeepot on the kitchen counter. Her scenario about Stanley’s hated son-in-law, Randy Dixon, was on top, on the first page. Seeing it there, Genia turned the pad upside down so only the bland gray back of it was displayed to view. I wouldn’t want anybody reading this, was her final thought before she went upstairs to bed.

  In a moment of inspiration before she actually crawled between the sheets, Genia turned to Stanley’s old cookbook, which she kept just under the bed within easy reach of her hands. She felt sure that Stanley had already chosen a recipe he planned to use for lunch with Sylvia Stewart.

  She found it where the white slip marked the page:

  Tuna in phyllo.

  “S.S., 8/19.”

  Genia relaxed, feeling good about having found it. Now she could prepare and serve his guest what he himself had planned. After marking the page she closed the book and put it away in its hiding place again, wondering what he had been going to discuss with her over tuna in phyllo.

  And then a thought struck her: The intruder in this house had been going through her cookbooks. Looking for something? Or looking for a particular cookbook? Genia picked up Stanley’s old one again, and this time she looked at it very differently. Was it possible they were searching for this cookbook? And that’s why nothing seemed to be missing in the house? Because they hadn’t found this one thing they wanted?

  “But why?” she asked aloud.

  It seemed a ridiculous idea. What could there be about this greasy, tattered old cookbook that anybody would want? As far as she knew, the book itself was perfectly ordinary in its own special way; that is to say, while it was a superb cookbook, it wasn’t a rare one, it wasn’t even a true antique, and there must have been thousands printed just like it. She checked the copyright page. Yes, it was a first edition, but even a first was worthless in this kind of condition. She paged through it, trying to see it through new eyes which might spot something of value in it. But there were only Stanley’s scribbles, many nearly illegible, and bits of paper, grocery receipts and such, stuck in every which way.

  “I’m so tired,” she finally admitted, “I probably wouldn’t recognize something valuable if it bit me.” She didn’t really believe the book had value to anyone but her, but just to be on the safe side, she got out of bed with it, took it into the bathroom, and placed it at the very bottom of her dirty clothes hamper. The hamper was quite full, as she hadn’t had time in the past week to keep up with her housekeeping chores. She thought that a thief would have to want a cookbook very badly to look for it there.

  After getting into bed again, Genia lay for a time staring at the ceiling and trying to decide how much of this she was imagining, and how much was real. She had thought someone was in the house last night. Then again, she might have imagined it. The cookbooks on the kitchen shelf had looked disarranged, but she could be wrong about that, too. She didn’t think so, but she had to consider it. As for whether somebody wanted a messy old cookbook bad enough to try to steal it …

  It seemed absurd on the face of it.

  She turned off the bedside light, feeling confused and nervous. Should she accept Donna’s invitation—and David’s urging—and move back into the garret above the gallery? No, she finally decided just before she closed her eyes. If there really was somebody in this house, and even if they did want that cookbook, they didn’t do anything to hurt me or this property.

  She thought her feeling of safety was real.

  Or am I imagining that, too?

  24

  BOILING OVER

  Nothing woke her until dawn, and she a
rose feeling reassured.

  She dug down toward the bottom of the dirty clothes hamper, found the cookbook there, and carried it downstairs. She was going to need it in order to prepare the tuna in phyllo.

  Once in the kitchen, Genia turned to the recipe Stanley had chosen and read through it several times to make sure she had the complete picture of it in her mind. It wasn’t a recipe for beginners. It was a rather sophisticated one that required experience, time, care in preparation. It seemed to her this was the kind of entrée to prepare when you wanted some solitary time first, time to think things through, to let your mind wander; or, it was a recipe that could be completed while your guest sat nearby drinking a glass of wine while butter sizzled in the skillet. This recipe spoke to Genia of the possibility that Stanley either wanted to spend a good deal of time with his guest, or that he wanted her to know that he appreciated the time and effort she had taken in order to come to Devon solely on the basis of his mysterious invitation.

  “You’re making a lot out of a mere recipe, old girl!”

  She set to work, putting a pot of basmati rice on to cook.

  Next, she prepared to poach the tuna. She filled an oval brass poacher with water and chicken broth, added a splash of wine, lemon juice, bay leaves, peppercorns, and parsley, and brought it all to a boil. As she worked, she imagined Stanley doing the same over his enormous cast-iron stove. How many times had the two of them stood right there, debating the merits of copper kettles over stainless steel, or comparing flavors of olive oil, while steam curled up around them, dampening their hair and skin and wrinkling the cotton chef’s apron that Stanley wore while cooking.

  Snippets of old kitchen conversation spun around Genia now as she placed the tuna fillets in the fragrant broth and covered it. She chopped a white onion into small pieces and tossed it into the butter melting in a small skillet. At the right moment, she removed the poached fish from the burner, and then set the fillets aside to cool in the liquid. Then she removed the cooked rice and stirred in the onions, capers, cream, and seasonings, and set that mixture aside to cool, too.