Pudding Up With Murder

by Julia Buckley

  “You make yourself sound that way.”

  “And yet, if you saw a picture of me with some beautiful woman, and we were both smiling and her arm was around me, that wouldn’t bother you?”

  I thought of my resentment of Maria before I knew that there was nothing between Parker and her. Maria, with her tall, shapely form and her dark hair and pretty face. Yes, my mistrust had been deep and resounding, and I had attributed to her qualities that she really did not possess—bitchy, slithery qualities that had made me dislike her intensely. “No, it wouldn’t,” I lied.

  “Huh,” he said. We drove in silence for a while. Finally Parker said, “You look nice.”

  “Huh,” I said to the window.

  Then we didn’t talk at all.

  When he pulled up in front of Jenny’s building, I turned to him. “I do not want to be embarrassed in front of my friend, so you are going to have to pretend that I’m a girlfriend that you love and trust, not a woman you suspect of two-timing you with an ex-boyfriend. And I in turn will pretend that I’m not incredibly mad at you, even though I am.” I got out of the car and slammed the door, then opened his back door to retrieve my pie. I slammed that door, too, and walked up the pathway without checking to see if Parker was following me. I halfway expected to hear his car driving away, and a part of me felt he would be justified in doing so.

  I normally wouldn’t have been such a drama queen, but Parker and I had one Achilles’ heel in our relationship, and it had to do with honesty. We both valued it, and now it seemed that Parker still didn’t think I was honest—not deep down—or he would never have suspected that I had feelings for Angelo. I didn’t even know if he suspected that I was cheating, or if he just feared it. Maybe Parker didn’t want to lose me, and I could understand that.

  But he needed to understand that he had hurt my feelings, and that his mistrust had opened up an old wound.

  I rang Jenny’s bell, and Parker appeared next to me, tall and handsome. He looked wonderful; he wore a pair of jeans with a forest green shirt and a dark patterned tie. “You look nice, too, Jay. I was going to say that earlier.”

  “Lilah,” he said, reaching out to stroke my hair, but Jenny buzzed us in, and I slipped past him before he could touch me.

  • • •

  JENNY AND ROSS, in a terrible contrast, could not keep their hands off each other and had an annoying new habit of calling each other “honey.”

  “You want me to check the roast, honey?” Ross asked, massaging Jenny’s shoulders.

  “Oh, thanks, honey—that would be great.” Jenny grinned at us. “We’re so glad to have you guys here. It’s our first double date, if you don’t count that Christmas party we all attended. The first of many double dates, I hope!”

  Parker and I forced some toothy smiles, and he walked over to study the things on her mantel. Jenny sent me an uncertain glance, and I waved her away. “This place looks amazing!” I said. “Those flowers on the table are gorgeous. Are those tulips?”

  Jenny adjusted a barrette in her reddish hair. “Yes. Oh my gosh! Jay, I saw those flowers you sent Lilah. She texted them to just about everyone she knows. They’re pretty spectacular.”

  “Thanks,” Jay said. “So is Lilah.”

  I knew his blue eyes were on me, but I would not risk their hypnotic spell. Those darn blue eyes . . .

  “The roast looks good, hon,” Ross said, bounding back in. “Should I turn off the oven?”

  “Oh, would you, sweetie? And then we can all wash up and sit down.”

  Sometimes Jenny sounded like the grade school teacher she was; still, we obediently washed our hands before we went to the kitchen. “You two sit on that side,” Jenny said, ushering us to her beautifully made table. The cloth was pale blue, and a vase of purple tulips sat in the center. She had set out blue ceramic plates with purple cloth napkins, each of which was held in place by a clementine.

  “This looks lovely, Jenny. Thank you for inviting us.”

  “Well, I had to celebrate with my maid of honor!” she said, bubbling with enthusiasm. Then she darted to the stove to get the dinner that smelled so amazing.

  I smiled at her fiancé. “I’m so excited for you both. And that was a sweet proposal, Ross. Very romantic.”

  “It was a great night,” Ross said, beaming. “I still can’t believe Jenny said yes.”

  Jenny returned with a steaming roast, set it down at the end of the table, and began to slice it with a lethal-looking knife. Ross passed around a salad and then a bowl of potatoes. “So tell us about you two,” Jenny said with a smile.

  I didn’t want to talk about love, but I also didn’t want to air our grievances in front of our friends.

  “Jay is working on a case, as always,” I said.

  Ross looked intrigued as he forked up some salad. “That must be so cool, man. Walking around with a gun and catching bad guys. It seems like something on TV. The most dangerous thing I ever do is break up playground fights.”

  Jay nodded. “Sometimes it seems appealing to get a job like that. Mine can be depressing. And it has never allowed for much of a social life.” His blue eyes moved to me. “Luckily Lilah is pretty busy herself most of the time, so she’s not as lonely as she could be.”

  “Aw,” Jenny said with great sympathy. “You need to take some time off, Jay! When’s the last time you had a vacation?”

  “I don’t remember,” Jay said, looking surprised. He also looked tired, I realized, thinking with some guilt about the nap that had left me feeling refreshed.

  Ross wasn’t finished talking about crime. “So what’s this case you’re working on? You handle homicides, right?”

  “Yes, when they occur. Pine Haven isn’t exactly the murder capital of the world, but I’ve been pretty busy in this last year. And there was a recent murder.”

  “Wait—is this about Cantwell?” Ross asked.

  Jenny turned to him, surprised.

  He shrugged. “It was in the paper. He’s a big deal around here.”

  Jay straightened in his chair. His cop sense was tingling. “Did you know Marcus Cantwell?”

  Ross nodded. “I did. He was a member of the board at JFK. All his kids went there, so he was a staple from way back. Pretty influential, too, as far as I could determine from the few meetings I attended. I only go when they’re discussing something that might directly affect the curriculum.”

  “So when was the last time you saw Cantwell at a meeting?” Jay asked. He seemed to remember, belatedly, that this was supposed to be a casual meeting of friends and not an interrogation, so he pasted on a smile and took a sip of the wine Jenny had just poured him.

  Ross thought about this. “Huh. I guess it would have been right around the beginning of the year. The first meeting of the board. Cantwell told us he would be retiring soon, but that he’d stay on the board until they elected a replacement. He was sort of eccentric, but he seemed on the ball mentally. He made some shrewd comments; I could see why they liked having him there—he wasn’t just a figurehead.”

  “Did they discuss anything controversial?” Jay asked.

  Ross frowned. “Not that I recall. I’ll have to think back.”

  Jenny was pouting slightly. “Hey, this is supposed to be a social occasion. Let’s not talk about murder or our jobs or anything.”

  The men looked at her blankly for a moment; then Ross nodded. He would be an eternally supportive husband, I realized, because there was that special something in his eyes that said even if he didn’t understand why Jenny wanted it, he wanted to give it to her. “Sure, honey. Hey, we forgot the bread. I’ll run and get it.” He leaped out of his chair and went to the counter, where he found a long baguette and began slicing it.

  Jenny turned back to us, her pretty face flushed with happiness. “I’m so excited that Lilah will be my maid of honor. Ross and I are thinking ma
ybe next November for the wedding.”

  Parker had been looking into the depths of his wine, which he was swirling moodily. Now he looked up at Jenny and said, “What color will the dresses be?”

  I stared at him, shocked, but Jenny didn’t notice anything amiss. “I’m not sure; Ross likes the idea of a burgundy color, like this wine, but I was thinking about a winter white. Not the same shade as my dress, which will be ivory, but several shades lighter.”

  “Lilah would look beautiful in that color. I saw her in a white dress once that she got from Serafina. It was amazing. She looked like some rare flower.”

  Jenny and I exchanged a glance. “How much wine have you had, Jay?” Jenny joked.

  Jay shrugged. “No one should be surprised that I find Lilah beautiful, especially not Lilah.” His expression was moody again. I never knew quite what was going on in Parker’s head, but I felt a little burst of warmth at his words.

  Ross returned with the bread. “I guess this is a good time to ask this. Jenny wants four bridesmaids; her three sisters and Lilah. I only have two brothers and one best friend; I wonder if you’d do me the honor of being the fourth groomsman, Jay.”

  Jay’s eyes widened. “A groomsman—with a tuxedo and all that? Wow. I actually have never done that before. One of my brothers eloped, and the other had a small ceremony in the mountains—just him, his wife, and a minister. I don’t actually know how to do it.”

  Jenny’s eyes were bright. “Oh, it’s easy. You just rent a tux, and the rest is all laid out—the rehearsal dinner and the wedding. You just have to be there to stand up for us and celebrate us.”

  Jay smiled, and it transformed his face. “I can do that. Thanks for asking, Ross. I would be honored.”

  “And then you can see Lilah in her white dress,” Jenny gushed.

  “That would be a perk,” said Parker, and he put an arm around me, pulling me closer.

  “You two are perfect together,” Jenny said. “I think it’s great that Lilah and I both got involved with someone around the same time. Pretty soon I’ll be helping Lilah plan her wedding!”

  “Let’s not rush things,” I said, my eyes on my plate.

  • • •

  THE EVENING PASSED pleasantly enough, mostly because Jenny was her usual vivacious self and clearly enjoyed being a hostess. She looked beautiful in love, and I drew great pleasure from simply watching her as she regaled us with stories. She and I had shared the occasional philosophical chat, back in college, about love and what we thought it was and whether we would ever find it. Jenny had said at the time that she knew she wanted to marry and have children, so she hoped she wouldn’t settle for the first suitable man, but would shop around for her soul mate.

  Ross was certainly not the first man she had dated, but he was definitely the first one she had ever loved. Still, I doubted she would ever regret her choice.

  Over dessert I studied Parker while he listened to Ross’s animated questions about police work. I had thought I loved a boy in high school, but in retrospect it hadn’t been love—just a sort of euphoria at the idea of shared attraction. In college, too, I had dated someone that I felt I loved, but by the end of our relationship I hadn’t even liked him.

  Then there was Angelo. I had truly been in love with him, and now that time had passed I found I still liked him, but my passion for him had burned out, and all that was left was an admiration for his culinary gifts. Why couldn’t Parker understand that? What was it about Angelo, I wondered, that made Parker feel so threatened? Or was he truly convinced that I was untrustworthy?

  I narrowed my eyes. The beautiful sentiments Parker had sent with his flowers and the actual sentiments he had expressed in the car, juxtaposed as they were, felt jarring. Deep down, he could only really mean one of those things.

  Parker turned to look at me; he seemed to read my thoughts. He opened his mouth to say something, but Ross said, “Jay, if you have a second, I’ll show you the tuxedo that Jenny picked out for the groomsmen.”

  Jay snapped back to attention. “Sure. Lead the way.”

  They filed out of the room, talking in jovial male tones, and Jenny sat across from me. “Spill it,” she said.

  “You can tell?”

  She curled her lip. “You’ve been shooting daggers into him with your eyes since you got here. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. I had a beautiful night with him last night, and then he sent me beautiful flowers, and then he got all jealous of some picture of me and Angelo in the paper.”

  “What picture?”

  “Nothing. Just some publicity shot in the Metro section.”

  Her phone, which was never far away, was suddenly in her hands, and her fingers were working. “Googling now. Okay. Oh my. Lilah, this looks like a wedding photo.”

  “It’s not my fault! I had been talking to him for about one minute—arguing with him, really—and some woman came up and snapped our photo. I had no idea.”

  “Obviously Jay is overreacting, but—I mean, this photo looks—romantic.”

  “But it’s not. Which I told him. So at what point do you have to believe someone because you trust and love them?”

  Jenny shrugged. “Maybe it will just take him a day or so.”

  “Fine. He can have all the space he wants.”

  “Don’t make your sad little orphan face.”

  “I don’t have an orphan face.”

  “Yes, you do. It’s kind of hilarious. But it just proves how hung up on Jay you are.”

  “I love him, Jenny.”

  “Tell him, then.”

  “I did—remember the phone call yesterday? I did tell him, and then he said he loved me, too.”

  “Then just let this blow over. Don’t say something you’ll regret. Just stay away from him for a while until he misses you. And for God’s sake, stay away from Angelo.”

  “Angelo is my boss.”

  Jenny gave me a serious look. “Are you willing to quit that job to prove a point to Jay?”

  I hadn’t thought about that. “I don’t know. Maybe. But I kind of like it. Variety is the spice of life, and it adds variety to my week.”

  “Just think about it. How much would you want Jay to work with an ex-girlfriend?”

  I nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Good. Your pie was amazing, by the way. Ross told me to get the recipe.”

  “It’s easy. I’ll e-mail it to you.”

  “Hey, that was pretty funny when Jay asked about the dresses.”

  I smiled in spite of myself. “Yeah. Parker has a little romantic streak, but he hides it really well.”

  The men were coming back in now, and they were talking about Marcus Cantwell. “He was a pretty cool guy as far as I could tell,” Ross was saying.

  “Did you ever speak to him one-on-one?”

  “Not usually, but at that last meeting, he and I happened to walk to the parking lot together, so we had a little bit of conversation. He said something about his money—how everyone assumed that he was rich—and that he actually had a lot of expenses. He was paying alimony to three wives, and he said his kids had always been expensive. Even more so now that they were older—that’s what he said. And of course he had six kids, so that’s a lot of kids to support.”

  “Five kids,” I corrected. In one day I had become a Cantwell expert.

  “Oh yeah—five,” said Ross. “That’s still a lot of kids, though.”

  Jay was making his thoughtful face. “Did you ever hear him talk about—opposition of some kind? Did he have any enemies on the board, for example?”

  Ross scratched his head. “Not that I know of. I mean, some people found him a little pompous, but that’s just the kind of snarky talk you hear after a school board meeting. It wasn’t anything significant.”

  Jenny was looking aggravated again. “
Who wants some more pie?” she said. “You know when Lilah makes it you can’t have just one piece.”

  “I do,” said Jay Parker. He took my hand and dragged me back toward the kitchen.

  • • •

  AFTER WE SAID our good-byes at Jenny’s, Parker’s car was very quiet once again. I stared out my window, considering several ways of beginning a conversation and then rejecting them all. Jenny had made me realize that Parker’s complaint had at least a shred of validity, but I didn’t want to apologize, because I had done nothing wrong.

  Parker stopped at a red light. “Lilah,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “I meant everything I said to you last night. I just—to see his face with yours this morning—it was like an invasion of our happiness and our privacy.”

  I chose my words with care. “I understand why you might feel jealous, but you need to know that I am not interested in Angelo, I am not involved with him, and I never will be. I told you that at Christmas. Sometimes people will take photographs of us, I suppose, but it’s not like I’m clipping them out and putting them in a scrapbook. Angelo is my job.”

  “I know.” His voice was grudging.

  “It’s a brand-new job, Jay. Do you want me to quit?”

  The light turned green, and he accelerated down the dark street. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you want me to quit the TV show? Is that what it would take to prove that I don’t care about Angelo and I do care about you?”

  Parker’s face was unreadable. “Don’t be silly.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Would I be glad if he was totally out of your life? Yes, okay? But would I ask you to sacrifice a part of your burgeoning career? No. I would never want that. Believe it or not, Lilah, I care about your happiness.”

  “Is it a bad sign that we always end up arguing? After last night, I thought we’d never argue again.”

  Parker said nothing. This infuriated me. I glared out my window until Parker pulled into the long driveway that led to my house.

  “I still have some work to do,” Parker said coolly. “So I probably shouldn’t come in.”