Pudding Up With Murder

by Julia Buckley

  Parker looked thoughtful. “You two bonded over dogs, huh?”

  “And other stuff. Cash is just a friendly person, so he was easy to talk to.”

  “I know all of the Cantwell kids. Prudence was one year ahead of me in high school, and Scott was a couple years behind. Emma, as you know, was in my brother’s class. That will either help in getting them to open up to me, or potentially hinder things.” A thought occurred to him, and he touched my hand. “At Christmastime, it was actually really helpful that you could offer me bits of information that you got on the side—things people revealed because they weren’t talking to a cop. I might have to ask you to do that for me again.”

  “Are you deputizing me?” I joked, standing to clear the table.

  “Not exactly. But you’re observant, Lilah, and you have good instincts. I might need to rely on those. You were at the party. You were there in the crucial moments before Cantwell’s death. And Cash likes you. All of those things could come in handy.”

  “Huh. Cash really likes you, too. He talked about you a lot—what a cool older kid you were, and how you shared your old toys with him. I can’t picture you as a kid, Parker.”

  “I never was one.” He ate his final bite, then stood up and carried his plate to the sink.

  He rolled up his sleeves and started to wash some dishes; I grabbed a towel and dried them, conscious of tall Jay Parker standing at my side, the hardness of his arm occasionally brushing mine.

  Finally the dishes were done, and I hung the towel over the drying rack. Parker knew I had an early delivery, so he insisted on calling a cab to take him home; he left the room briefly to make the call, then came back in and leaned on the counter. “You have a great little house. Very snug. Thanks for feeding me; I seem to always be thanking you for that.”

  “You’re welcome.” I lifted one of his hands and studied it. “You’re probably pretty tired out, huh—from traveling, and your long training thing, and then this thing with Maria.”

  “I am pretty wiped out, I admit. I’ll go home and grab about ten hours of sleep so I can concentrate on my interviews tomorrow.” He leaned down to look into my face. “Someday soon I would like to hang around. Maybe not go home at all. But we said we’d wait until the time was right.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, not looking at him.

  He hugged me against him. “Do you know I watched you on TV in New York?”

  “What? How? Cooking with Angelo is a local show.”

  “It must be syndicated—or maybe New York is a test market, or something. I saw it on the cable channel in my room. I watched it both Fridays when you were on, and it made me homesick. You’re so good on the show, I could even put up with him leering at you the whole time.”

  I laughed. “Don’t be silly. Even you have to admit that Angelo is a real professional. He’s good at what he does. Wow, I wonder if he knew it was playing in New York? If he did, he didn’t tell me!”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to make you nervous.”

  “I do get nervous. But I’m getting better.”

  “You are great. And that last thing you made—that Chinese-inspired casserole—that looked really good!”

  “I’ll make it for you. It’s easy.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Do you have a lot of work this week?”

  “I have about three clients lined up in the near future, plus my catering gig, which is about six hours a day, at present. I get one weekday off because I also work Saturday. I had to take today off specially to go to this event with Ellie. I have tomorrow off from Haven, but I have an early delivery, so I’ll spend the morning doing some cooking and freezing to be ready for the week.”

  “Ah.” He studied my face for a while, tracing my eyebrows with his pointer fingers.

  I enjoyed my perusal of his blue eyes, his strong face. “I did miss you a lot, Jay.”

  “Good. I promise I’ll stay put. We’ll make lots of time for each other now, right?”

  I pouted slightly. “Sure. Because when you’re investigating a murder, you’re always super available.”

  He looked sad. “Marcus Cantwell was always good to me. After my father died, when I was sixteen, he used to invite me to sit on his porch with him and look at stars. His kids were always off somewhere—or maybe he purposely did it when they weren’t around so that I’d have his full attention. He taught me things about the planets and galaxies, and he let me look through his expensive telescope. Sometimes he let me sip his beer or take a puff off his cigar.” He held up a hand when I protested. “He wasn’t trying to corrupt me; he was just letting me escape from my troubles for a while, and treating me like a man. It did me a lot of good. He came to my high school graduation; he even gave me a present. Well, a card full of money. But that is a present. And you know what he wrote inside? I’m proud of you.”

  “You’re kidding me!”

  “No, I’m not. So you can see why I have trouble believing these tales of his neglected children or him loving his dogs more. That wasn’t the Marcus Cantwell I knew.”

  “Cash said his Dad was a good guy. He said he used to be way more normal but that he’d gotten kind of eccentric in his old age.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Jay said. He peered out my living room window. “Look, my cab is here.” He kissed me on the top of my head, then took my hand and started walking toward the door, dragging me behind him.

  He opened the door and said, “It’s good to be back.”

  I kissed him good night, and he went out into the spring darkness.

  I felt Mick staring at me, and I looked back at him. “Well, I guess we’re on our own, right? Do you feel like watching a movie and making some popcorn? The Britton kids made that sound really appealing.”

  Mick nodded.

  Soon I was bundled on my couch with my dog and some popcorn. Mick didn’t like this particular human food, so there was no danger of him shoving his snout into the bowl. We watched Six Days, Seven Nights, which happened to be playing on the movie channel, and I admired the rugged attractiveness of Harrison Ford and the elegant beauty of Anne Heche. I thought that Jay Parker would be almost as effective as one’s companion on a tropical island besieged by pirates, although I doubted he knew how to fix an airplane. And it wasn’t Ford but Parker I dreamed about that night. He was wielding his gun, attempting to save me from some unknown menace, and I was about to take a sip of a blueberry mojito, when I turned to see who had offered it to me. “Of course it was you,” I said, and then I woke up, but by then the face of the person I’d recognized had faded away.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The next morning I sang along with “Budapest” on my iPod while I stirred the ingredients for a dessert casserole that I was making for my landlord Terry’s girlfriend, Britt. She and Terry were always throwing what I jokingly called “high society” parties, and I’d convinced her to occasionally send some work my way. This time she was having a Sunday afternoon reception, and she wanted something that would go well with coffee.

  The casserole, which I had invented for a client a few months earlier, was a sort of deep-dish coffee cake made with pastry dough, cinnamon butter, raspberry jam, almonds, and a special sugar glaze. I arranged the ingredients in a square glass dish and slid the whole thing in the oven, observed closely by Mick, who shoved his soft brown snout against my arm to get a whiff of things. “Move back, nosy,” I said.

  Mick’s legs moved about a centimeter backward, and I laughed. I pushed past him and opened my kitchen door so Mick could go out into the yard, and the phone rang. I picked it up, still watching Mick through the window; he was chasing a squirrel. “Hello?”

  “Lilah! I’m so glad you’re home,” said the voice of my best friend, Jenny Braidwell.

  “Hey, Jenn. I feel like I haven’t talked to you in weeks.”

  “You haven’t.”

  “Well, a
s I recall, you’ve been pretty busy with your wonderful boyfriend.”

  Her voice was remorseful. “And I know yours has been away. I should have come over more often.”

  “True. But I know how absorbing a new romance can be. How’s that going?”

  Jenny giggled into the phone. “Lilah—I’m engaged!”

  “What? When did this happen?”

  “Last night. He took me to Cardelini’s—sorry; he doesn’t know your whole history with Angelo—and he proposed right after dinner. It was very romantic. They even had a band playing, and we danced.”

  “Oh, Jenn. I’m so happy for you! Really. We have to throw you a big engagement party.”

  “No, you don’t. But it would be nice to get together and celebrate—me and Ross, you and Jay.”

  “Of course. Let’s do that really soon. Jay has a new case, which as you know will take up a lot of his time, but we’ll find a night sometime soon when he can steal away.” I watched Mick as he rolled around in the spring grass. “This is just great. I knew the minute I saw you two together that it was meant to be. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.”

  “I felt the same way about you and Jay. How’s that going, anyway?”

  Mick was sniffing something now. “It’s great. I mean, sort of. He only just got back from his training thing yesterday afternoon, and now he’s back at work. Which is fine. We all have work to do. It’s just . . .”

  “What? Do you not like him as much as you used to?”

  “Oh no. I like him more and more. I am passing rapidly from liking into infatuation. Or addiction, maybe.”

  “How about love?”

  “It’s too early to say love, isn’t it? I just—I halfway expected that when he got back, we would fall into a passionate stage because we’d been apart so long.”

  “And he’s not passionate?”

  “He is, but it’s—comfortable. Which is good. I’ve always felt comfortable with him. But I hate to think that we somehow skipped over that stage where we can’t keep our hands off each other and have already settled down into a sort of predictable, old-person kind of romance, where I just make my rice pudding casseroles and he does his police work and then we sit in my house and watch TV or something. I look at Cam and Serafina, and they’re just constantly all over each other. But of course Jay is not like Serafina. She’s all about touching, and he’s very quiet and self-contained. That’s fine. We’ll just be the boring couple.”

  Jenny tsked into the phone. “It’s not like that at all. I’ll bet he dragged you into your bedroom the minute he got home.”

  Mick was at the door, and I let him in. “No. I mean, we haven’t reached that stage yet.”

  “Really?”

  “We decided we’d take things slowly, get to know each other. Which we started to do, and then he got called away. And now we’re back to the slow thing. Which is fine. It’s fine.”

  “How about Friday for our dinner? We can eat at my place. I’ll make something special; my cooking is getting better, I swear, and Ross is a terrific chef.”

  “I’ll ask Jay and get back to you. Is that okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m really happy for you, Jenn.”

  “Oh, and, Lilah? You will be my maid of honor, right?”

  “Now you’re going to make me cry. And yes, the answer is YES! I’d be honored.”

  “Then my work here is done.”

  “Will my dear baby Henry be the ring boy?”

  “He will. He’s already made some demands, the little punk. Luckily it’s a pretty standard request: he wants to wear a black suit with a white shirt and a black bow tie, because that’s what Bruce Wayne wears.”

  “Well, of course!”

  “So my sister and I have to try to find just the right tux for Hen, who will be by far the most demanding man in the wedding party.”

  “Wait a minute—will your sisters be mad that I’m maid of honor?”

  “Nah. I wasn’t Tina’s or Carrie’s, either, but I was in the wedding parties. And Deb has assured me she’s going to elope when she gets married. They’ll all be in my wedding party. They get it. And they all love you.”

  “All right, great. Listen, I have to make a raspberry glaze and deliver a casserole. I’ll ask Jay about Friday and get back to you, okay?”

  “Okay. Love you, maid of honor!”

  “Love you, too. And congratulations, Mrs. Ross.”

  She was laughing as she hung up the phone. Feeling inspired, and still holding my cell, I clicked on Jay Parker’s name and sent him a text that said, Thinking of you. I wasn’t going to bog Parker down with some long, involved message while he was at work. This seemed like the perfect length for him to scan quickly while he was in the midst of whatever his investigation required.

  Suddenly I remembered the first time I saw him in his police role, investigating a death that had occurred in a church basement. He had looked tall and professional and surprisingly handsome. His blue eyes had had the same hypnotic effect on me then as they did now.

  I put my phone down and went to the counter, where I stirred together some confectioners’ sugar, warm water, softened butter, and raspberry extract. When it reached the proper consistency, I pushed it aside and checked on my casserole, which looked golden brown and smelled great.

  I pulled it out and left it to cool. Then I jogged to my room to put on something nicer than sweats in order to deliver my finished product to Britt. I donned a pair of black pants, a red blouse, and a silver chain necklace, along with the earrings Parker had given me. I brushed my hair, slipped into some low black heels, and jogged back downstairs to drizzle glaze over the casserole. “Oh, Mick, she is going to love this,” I said to my dog, who had nestled into his basket to contemplate his spring dreams.

  He nodded gently.

  “I’m going to run down the driveway. Don’t be mad now, okay? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Mick seemed okay with the plan. I put a lid on the casserole, grabbed my key, locked my dog safely in the house, and started marching down the long driveway to Britt and Terry’s place.

  Their house, an elegant brick-and-concrete affair in light gray, was surrounded by blossoming cherry trees, pale pink and fragrant, and I breathed in deeply as I rounded the corner. Spring brought a desire to live anew through the intoxicating scents that floated on the air.

  I climbed the stone steps and knocked at their big door. Britt appeared a moment later, leaning out to whisper to me. “Listen, I have a visitor, so come in but leave the casserole on the side table there, okay?”

  “I can just go,” I whispered back.

  “Don’t be silly. Come on in and I’ll introduce you. I just don’t want to out your secret business.”

  “Okay.” I walked into the big hall, waving at my electronic friend, the Wurlitzer jukebox, which held pride of place in Terry’s foyer. I set the casserole on a side table and walked with Britt into the kitchen, where I was shocked to see Prudence Cantwell hunched over the kitchen island on one of Britt’s kitchen stools, poking moodily at a plate filled with cheese and crackers.

  She looked up as we entered, and her eyebrows rose. “I know you,” she said. “You were there yesterday, at my dad’s.”

  Britt looked surprised. “What? Lilah, you knew Marcus Cantwell?”

  “I only met him yesterday. I went to his place with Ellie Parker, who is his next-door neighbor. She’s Jay’s mom and my friend,” I said to Britt. Then I turned to Prudence. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Her eyes were wide and wet with tears, but she shook her head. “No, no, I’m not going to indulge in this right now. The wake and funeral will be bad enough.” She took a sip of a soft drink that Britt had given her, then directed a gaze at me. “You were there, though—you were one of the last people with my dad. That’s so weird to think of, that
he was basically with strangers when he died. No offense,” she said weakly.

  “None taken.” Britt gestured to a chair, so I sat down. “I want you to know that your father was very happy in that last moment. He didn’t seem to know he was in danger. He was telling Ellie how much he loved rice pudding as a kid. That he had stolen some out of her dish, just like a little boy. And that’s what his smile looked like—a mischievous boy.”

  Prudence let out a watery laugh. “Oh, he was like that sometimes. Thanks for that. What was your name?”

  Britt stepped forward and put her hands on my shoulders. “This is our neighbor and good friend Lilah Drake. Lilah, I take it you already met Prue?”

  “Not officially,” I said. “It was all rather confused yesterday, but yes, sort of.” We shook hands across the table. “How do you two know each other?” I asked.

  Britt poured me some lemonade from a pitcher that sat on the kitchen island. “Oh, in a lot of ways the art world is very small. Prue and I have known each other for years. First we would see each other at the same galleries, and then we started meeting up for coffee, things like that. Now Prudence Cantwell paintings are sold at my gallery, and I can’t keep them in stock.”

  “Oh. That’s great. I need to visit your gallery again, Britt. I think I’ve only been there once.” I had never been back because the prices of the paintings were out of my financial range and would be for my entire lifetime; still, it would be good to support Britt now and again with my presence.

  “I’ll let you know next time we’re having an evening event,” Britt said, tucking her silky hair behind her ears.

  Prudence sighed and started to gather her things. “Well, I’ve taken up enough of your time with my sad stories. I should go see what the siblings are doing.”

  Britt held up a hand. “Stay where you are. You came here to escape your lunatic brother and your obnoxious boyfriend, and here you shall stay.”

  Prudence dropped the purse she had picked up and slumped back on the counter. “If you don’t mind, I’ll stay another half hour. Maybe by then Scott will have gone away somewhere to harass other people.”