Death of a Bacon Heiress

by Lee Hollis

  “After Red found out his mother was excising him entirely from the will, he filed a petition with the court to be named Pork Chop’s guardian,” Sonny said.

  “Sneaky bastard!” Liddy hissed, unable to contain herself.

  “But given the explicit and legally binding wishes of the deceased, the court is refusing to recognize him,” Sonny said.

  “Well, who are they recognizing?”

  “You.”

  Hayley sat back in the chair looking blankly at Sonny.

  What he had just said did not register.

  At first.

  And then, after a few seconds, the word clicked in her mind.

  You.

  “Me?” Hayley squeaked.

  Liddy couldn’t rein it in anymore. She exploded with joy, grabbing Hayley by the shoulders and shaking her. “That pig can tear up your house all he wants! You can just buy a new one! A much bigger one! Maybe a waterfront mansion next to the Rockefellers!”

  “Sonny, you can’t be serious,” Hayley said, shell shocked.

  “If this plays out as I expect it will, you’re going to come out of this a multimillionaire.”

  Hayley gripped the sides of the chair, fearing she just might faint.

  Chapter 33

  “That sounds like a real hoot, and I’m flattered as hell, but I can’t leave Bar Harbor,” Mona said. Outside the Harborside Hotel Rhonda Franklin stood in front of her while two bellhops loaded the trunk of a Lincoln Town Car with her luggage.

  Rhonda nodded solemnly. “I understand. I just had to ask or I would always wonder.”

  Hayley stood off to the side watching the scene. She couldn’t believe Rhonda had just asked Mona to come with her to New York, where she was returning to continue her hosting duties on The Chat, and to honor the remainder of her contract as the Redmond Meats spokesperson.

  “The thing is, Ron, I could never give you what you want. And I got responsibilities. I still got a boatload of kids to raise and a deadbeat husband to feed.”

  Rhonda nodded, her lips quivering and her eyes brimming with tears. “You’re a special woman, Mona Barnes. Your family needs to learn to appreciate you.”

  “Oh, they do in their own way. My kids made me lobster-shaped pancakes for breakfast on Mother’s Day. And my husband, well, my husband didn’t exactly let me choose the movie on our date night, but he actually put his pants on and left the house to go to one, even though it was one of those stupid movies about cars that turn into robots, Transponders or Transformers, or whatever. It’s not much, but it keeps me happy.”

  Rhonda leaned in and kissed Mona lightly on the cheek.

  Mona smiled. “I had fun.”

  Hayley quietly stepped forward. The animal carrier she was holding was heavy and she was losing her grip. Inside, Pork Chop’s snout was pressed against the metal grate on the latched door.

  Rhonda happily accepted the carrier, cooed and kissed the potbellied pig’s snout, and then handed it off to one of the bellhops, who slid the carrier in the backseat and strapped it in with an extended seat belt.

  Rhonda turned back to Hayley. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “He belongs with you, not me,” Hayley said.

  “Last chance to change your mind,” Mona said.

  Mona made no bones about her opinion. She thought Hayley was crazy to give Pork Chop to Rhonda Franklin and say good-bye to a cool twenty million dollars.

  And Mona wasn’t alone.

  Liddy.

  Randy.

  Sergio.

  Her kids, Dustin and Gemma.

  Sal.

  Hayley’s mother in Florida.

  They all thought she was crazy.

  Her only allies were Leroy and Blueberry, who made it very clear they wanted that pig out of the house, and never wanted to lay eyes on it ever again.

  Hayley’s friends and family spent the better part of two days trying to talk her out of it. But Hayley had already made peace with the decision. She had no emotional connection with Pork Chop. She was his guardian only in the strictest sense of the word.

  But Rhonda Franklin was another story. She adored Pork Chop. And he loved her.

  It wasn’t only the perfect match.

  It was the right match.

  And Hayley knew in her heart that Rhonda would do right by him, and make sure Pork Chop was as happy as, say, a pig in mud.

  Rhonda already had a fortune. She didn’t need the twenty million and had no desire to keep it. Hayley knew she had made the correct decision when Rhonda promised to donate the money to her favorite animal charities, which was a cause Hayley was passionate about ever since she was a little girl.

  So no big mansions or yachts or lavish vacations in the French Riviera were in her immediate future, but hey, you never know what life may bring.

  Rhonda hugged Hayley, took one last misty-eyed look at Mona, and then donned dark glasses to hide her tears and slid into the backseat of the Town Car. The driver shut the door and got into the driver’s seat and they sped away to the Bar Harbor airport.

  “Well, we’ll always have one thing in common,” Mona said.

  “What’s that?”

  “We both waved good-bye to a rich and famous lifestyle. All you had to do was babysit a pig, and all I had to do was be Rhonda’s girlfriend.”

  Hayley put her arm around Mona. “We both did the right thing.”

  “You think so? I’m not so sure.”

  “In any event, we also have one more thing in common.”

  “What’s that?”

  “After a day like this, we could both use a drink.”

  Hayley, with her arm still around Mona’s shoulder, steered her to the left and inside the Harborside Hotel toward the bar.

  Chapter 34

  She could tell Leroy sensed something was wrong.

  Hayley was gently stroking his fur just the way she always did, but there was tension in her fingers.

  Her whole body, in fact.

  Leroy’s head was resting on her lap. He gazed up at her.

  Even Blueberry, who usually took no notice of anything other than what directly affected him, had stopped licking himself across the room near the television and watched Hayley curiously.

  She was trying hard not to cry.

  She didn’t want to collapse into a hysterical mess at this moment.

  Not when Aaron was seated next to her on the couch where he had just broken up with her.

  “I’ve been trying to have this conversation for a while now, Hayley. These months together have been wonderful. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard or enjoyed someone’s company so much. . . .”

  “But . . .”

  “But I think we both feel the same way. Deep down, on some level, we both feel that we’re not meant for each other.”

  He was right.

  But it didn’t make it any easier to hear.

  “You know, the funny thing is, for a while there I thought you were going to propose. . . .”

  “What?”

  She felt foolish bringing it up. It seemed so silly now.

  “Liddy saw you looking at rings at a jewelry shop.”

  “Oh, that. It was a class ring. I was showing the owner a few scratches on it. I wanted to get it buffed and polished because I have a reunion coming up.”

  “I knew it had to be something like that. You know, Liddy; she’s always spinning drama out of nothing. . . .” she said, her voice trailing off.

  They sat in silence for another minute. Leroy licked her fingers. He was letting her know he was there for her.

  Or maybe it was just the fried chicken she had eaten for dinner.

  “Tell me something,” Aaron said, taking a deep breath. “If I had proposed, would you have said yes?”

  This was not something Hayley had contemplated. She just sat there wondering.

  “I thought so. Your hesitation tells me I’ve done the right thing.” Aaron stood up. “I better go.”

  Hayley pic
ked up Leroy and set him down on the couch, and then followed Aaron to the door.

  “I wish nothing but the best for you, Hayley. I hope we can stay friends.”

  “Of course.”

  She knew what that meant.

  A casual hello at the grocery store.

  Maybe a friendly nod at a potluck supper.

  A quick catch up at one of her pet’s vet appointments.

  But they would never have another quiet dinner, just the two of them, and they would no longer share intimate stories about their past, and they would never kiss and touch each other underneath the Christmas tree and get tinsel in their hair and laugh about it.

  That chapter in their relationship was coming to a close.

  Aaron gave her a soft peck on the cheek.

  And then he turned and walked out of the house and he was gone.

  She closed the door.

  And then she let the waterworks begin.

  She went upstairs to her bed and sobbed until she exhausted herself and fell into a deep sleep.

  Chapter 35

  Hayley couldn’t believe her eyes.

  She just stared at the front page story in the Island Times.

  It was an in-depth report on the two murders committed by Felicity and Alan Chan, the homicidal husband and wife team who had just been indicted.

  The story would live on for months through the trial and sentencing.

  But the story itself wasn’t what struck Hayley.

  It was the byline.

  Underneath the headline, just in front of the first paragraph, it read, “By Bruce Linney and Hayley Powell.”

  Bruce had given Hayley cowriting credit.

  Hayley stood up from her desk and carried the paper through the back bull pen to Bruce’s small, cramped office where he was on the phone.

  He waved her inside with a smile and finished his conversation.

  “Okay, Ben, you take care.” He slammed down the phone. “That was Ben Hendricks, city editor at the Boston Globe. He saw our article and was calling to say what a bang-up job we did.”

  “You did the job, Bruce. You wrote the entire article.”

  “But you solved the crime. I told you, Hayley. We make an unbeatable team.”

  “I have to admit, working with you didn’t suck.”

  Bruce laughed. “I’ll take that!”

  “I just want to thank you for giving me credit. It was a nice gesture.”

  Bruce jumped up from his desk and came around. “I’m telling you, we should join forces more often. Together we could turn this paper around.”

  “I think it’s time I go back to focusing on my cooking column,” Hayley said.

  “You’re too modest. Anyway, thanks again for helping me out with a great story,” Bruce said, giving Hayley a kiss on the cheek.

  The exact same spot Aaron had kissed her the night before on his way out the door.

  Except this one felt different.

  This time her whole face was flushed with a warm feeling.

  For a moment she worried it might be menopause.

  But after doing the math, she was confident that she still had at least a few years before that would happen.

  Then why was she feeling so hot and bothered?

  Bruce took her by the shoulders. “You okay? You look a little weird.”

  “No, I’m fine,” Hayley said, brushing him off and hurrying back to her desk, where she sat down and tried collecting herself.

  If not menopause, then what?

  Why did that kiss make her feel so flustered?

  Did she actually have feelings for . . . ?

  No.

  Stop.

  What a ridiculous notion.

  That would be impossible.

  Not him.

  Not Bruce.

  She pushed the thought right out of her mind.

  For now . . .

  Island Food & Spirits by Hayley Powell

  The actress Rhonda Franklin asked me to write a few words in today’s column about her dearest friend, Olivia Redmond, who you all know recently passed away. What you probably don’t know is that Olivia and I forged our own friendship of sorts in the weeks preceding her untimely death, and this bond we shared over our love of bacon has been very special to me.

  I had heard of the famous Redmond family as far back as I can remember. They had a summer home here on our island and were very much involved in the community. I remember when I was a little girl at a Fourth of July parade, I was awestruck by the dancing pieces of bacon and hamburgers and hotdogs on top of the massive Redmond Meats float. In reality those meats come to life were just local actors dressed in costumes, but I was mesmerized nonetheless. They would toss all us kids packs of bacon-flavored chewing gum as they passed by. I also remember Olivia herself, a teenager at the time, sitting on a makeshift throne, smiling and waving at the crowd. I idolized her. She was the closest thing to a celebrity I had ever seen at the time. I knew nothing about her, but she was inspiring to me sitting so high on that float, on top of the world. It was only later, as an adult, that I really got to know the woman behind the myth in my mind.

  Olivia’s family was always very generous with the locals. It was no secret that all those hotdogs we consumed at the high school football and basketball games during the school year and that delicious crispy bacon we enjoyed at our church breakfast fund-raisers were donated by the Redmond family, a tradition Olivia carried on when she took over as the company’s CEO after her father’s passing. Kindness and generosity are two admirable qualities she possessed. But I recently learned something about Olivia from a mutual friend (all right, most of you know I’m talking about Mona Barnes) that put her in a whole new light.

  Olivia loved animals as a child. She befriended many of the cattle that grazed and grew on the Redmond family ranch even though from a very young age she was told the truth about her new friends, that they were being raised to feed many thousands of people in our country. She made it her mission to make sure those animals had the best life possible before they departed the farm. This innate caring on her part carried over into adulthood, and when Olivia went to work at the family company she overhauled many of the standard meat industry practices and focused on animal health and safety, taking a more organic and health conscious approach to how they raised their products, despite the initial impact it had on the family’s profit margin.

  She was a long way from when she was a little girl throwing lavish farewell parties for the cattle about to depart the family ranch when their time had come and inviting all her kindergarten friends over for hamburgers and hotdogs to say good-bye to all her cow friends. I know, I know. Those poor little kids probably didn’t make the connection between the cattle they were playing with and those sizzling burgers on the grill, but cut them some slack, they were five years old.

  It’s tragic that we will no longer see Olivia Redmond around town during the summer months, but her legacy will live on. And I hear Redmond Meats is planning an even bigger and more elaborate float than last year for the Fourth of July parade. I know I will be celebrating by raising a glass and saying thank you to Olivia for giving us so many varieties of meat for countless memorable meals for many years to come. She will most certainly live on in our memories, in our hearts, and in my case, in my cholesterol, according to my doctor.

  Today’s recipe, in honor of Olivia, combines pasta and bacon and garlic. These are a few of my favorite things, to quote Julie Andrews from one of my all time favorite movies, The Sound of Music.

  And if you’re wondering what cocktail to serve with this mouthwatering pasta dish, worry no more! I love to serve my Easy Bellini. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed!

  Easy Bellini

  Ingredients

  1 bottle peach schnapps, chilled

  One bottle of Prosecco or a sparkling wine, chilled

  For one serving pour one ounce of the chilled peach schnapps in a champagne glass, then fill the glass with your chilled Prosecco, s
erve and enjoy!

  Rigatoni with Bacon and Peas

  Ingredients

  2½ cups of rigatoni

  4 to 6 slices of bacon, chopped (I like more bacon)

  1 small onion, chopped

  2 to 3 cloves garlic, chopped

  1 10-ounce package frozen peas

  2 large tomatoes, cut into bite-size pieces

  ¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, more for serving

  Kosher salt and ground black pepper to taste

  Cook the pasta according to the directions on the package. Reserve one cup of the cooking water; drain.

  Meanwhile cook the chopped bacon in a large skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it begins to crisp, 6 to 8 minutes. Add the onion, garlic, salt, and pepper. Cook while stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft, another 6 to 8 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook until the sauce begins to thicken. Add the peas and 1/4 cup grated Parmesan and heat until warmed through, 3 or 4 minutes.

  Add the prepared pasta and half of the reserved pasta water to the sauce and stir to coat the pasta. Use more of the cooking water if too thick.

  Serve with the extra Parmesan and let your taste buds do the talking.

  Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of Lee Hollis’s next Hayley Powell mystery

  DEATH OF A PUMPKIN CARVER,

  coming in September 2016!

  Chapter 1

  Halloween was Hayley’s favorite day of the year, but it was also incredibly dangerous.

  Especially to her waistline.

  All that candy.

  The peanut butter cups.

  The candy corn.

  The mini Milky Way bars.

  Of course, every year without fail, she would stock up on every sweet imaginable, more than all the trick or treaters who showed up at her door could possibly stuff into their orange plastic pumpkins they carried around the neighborhood.

  No, she was always left with a sweets overflow, and then she carefully hid her stash from the kids so she could gorge in peace when they weren’t home.