S'more Murders

by Maya Corrigan

  She quelled a flutter of anxiety in her stomach. At least he hadn’t named it the Titanic II.

  * * *

  Val pulled into the driveway at Granddad’s gabled and turreted Victorian house, went in the side door, and looked around for her grandfather. He was in the front room, known as the courting parlor when the house was built. Instead of courting couples, it now held computers—Val’s laptop and a new addition, the tablet her parents had given her. Her birthday fell during their annual sailing trip from Florida to the Bahamas, and they always sent a generous gift to make up for not celebrating with her.

  Granddad stopped pecking on her keyboard when she joined him. Tufts of white curls fringed the sides and back of his otherwise bald head. “You usually come home earlier than this. Did your afternoon helper at the café show up late?”

  “No, I got together with Otto Warbeck, the man you met at the Protect the Bay Barbecue, the one who needs a caterer.” In the year since she’d moved in with her grandfather, he’d thrown several jobs her way, as if she didn’t have enough to do managing the Cool Down Café. But she enjoyed catering small dinner parties as a change of pace. “The fancy yacht you saw at the marina yesterday belongs to him. That’s where he wants me to make dinner. I wouldn’t agree until I saw the kitchen on the boat. It’s small but efficient and equipped with the latest appliances.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were going on that yacht? I would have gone with you to see what it’s like inside.”

  “You’ll have your chance. Otto said he’d pay you as the sous chef.”

  Granddad grinned. “A chef on a yacht! I can do that.”

  “Assistant chef and server,” she corrected. Nothing daunted the man. After taking an online course in private investigation, he’d added sleuth to his résumé. And despite little cooking experience, he was eager to turn his newspaper column into the Codger’s Cookbook—with her help, of course. “Otto asked me to re-create the last meal the Titanic passengers ate.”

  Granddad’s eyes bugged out behind his wire-rimmed bifocals. “Why does he want to do that?”

  She shrugged. “He collects Titanic memorabilia. With this dinner, he gets to relive a piece of history.”

  “He’s making a party out of a tragedy. It’s like dancing on someone’s grave. Fifteen hundred graves.” Granddad pinched the skin at his throat, a habit of his when something troubled him. “I don’t want any part of it. And you shouldn’t either.”

  She hadn’t expected pushback from him. Who else could she ask to help her? Her cousin Monique would do it, but she’d just left for a two-week vacation in Hilton Head. So it was Granddad or nobody. “The yachtsman is willing to pay big money for us to make this dinner, enough to cover half the termite repairs. It would take me months to set aside that much from the café earnings.”

  “The house isn’t going to fall down if we don’t fix it right away.” He waggled his finger. “Your mother wouldn’t want you to do this.”

  Val had stopped listening to her mother when she went to college fifteen years ago, and she didn’t plan to start again. “I signed a contract with Otto. I can’t back out.”

  Granddad stroked his chin, the beard he’d had all winter now gone. “If you’re giving that dinner party on his yacht, I have to go too. Your mother would never forgive me if anything happened to you. I’m going to make sure that boat doesn’t leave the dock unless it has enough life vests, life rings, and lifeboats.”

  The yacht doubtless had all the safety equipment it needed, but if confirming that was enough to get Granddad to go, she was content. Obviously, fear of tempting fate, also known as superstition, contributed to his negativity about the Titanic dinner. “Otto’s willing to pay for two assistants. I’m going to call Bethany.”

  “Call Gunnar instead. He’ll be more help in an emergency.”

  “But not with cooking and serving.” Though her boyfriend liked to eat well, he had few kitchen skills. “Anyway, he’s too busy.”

  “With what? His next role as an amateur actor?” Granddad’s intonation conveyed his scorn for Gunnar’s acting ambitions.

  “No, he’s swamped with work from his accounting clients. Income taxes are due in a week. By the way, did you mail your tax forms?”

  He nodded. “I earned more money than in any year since I gave up my video store.”

  But not enough to pay the bills by himself. “I’m glad to hear it. By the way, I’m going to need your help testing Titanic recipes this week. And you’ll have to learn how to serve a formal dinner.”

  “No big deal. I’ll watch reruns of Downton Abbey and see how it’s done.”

  * * *

  Late Saturday afternoon, Val parked her Saturn near the marina. As she and Granddad unloaded the food for the Titanic dinner, she spotted Bethany, who’d walked to the marina from her house a few blocks away. Granddad did a double take at the sight of Bethany in a sophisticated black dress. She usually wore bright colors, which clashed with her ginger hair, and styles that would look better on the first graders she taught than on a curvy woman.

  With Val toting a large cooler, Granddad two smaller ones, and Bethany bags of groceries, they skirted around the waterfront crab house toward the marina.

  Val stopped short when the dock came into view. The Abyss wasn’t among the yachts at the marina. “Otto’s boat isn’t here yet.” She checked her watch. Almost four.

  Granddad set down his coolers. “You’re sure we’re here at the right time?”

  “We’re five minutes early, but the boat should be in sight by now.” Val put down her cooler and peered down the river. No yacht approaching. “I’ll call Otto.”

  She left a message on his voice mail and then shed her black jacket. With the weather unusually warm for April and the sun beating down on her, she was starting to feel the heat. The yacht’s absence gave her even more reason to sweat.

  Granddad took off his jacket. “These black duds make us look like we’re bringing food to a wake.”

  Bethany laughed. “Your clothes are too hip for a wake, Mr. Myer.”

  “I haven’t worn these since January, when I was the one with the rich client.” He brushed imaginary lint from his black shirt and pants. “You’re ready for a night on the town. Nice dress.”

  Val agreed. “You look elegant in a simple sheath. That style is very slimming. I’ll have to get a dress like that.”

  “I only wear it when my choral group performs. Speaking of slimming, when you asked me to help with the Titanic dinner, I took it as a good omen for the diet I’m starting this week.”

  “Titanic and good omen don’t go together,” Granddad said. “What’s on your diet?”

  “Ice. When you’re hungry, you chew ice. Eating it actually burns fat, because the body uses energy to melt it.”

  “It’ll crack your molars too.” He clacked his teeth. “Then you won’t be able to chew real food, and you’ll lose a lot of weight.”

  “No worries, Mr. Myer. I’m careful to pound the ice cubes into small pieces.”

  “So the diet involves exercise too,” Val said. “It’s perfect.”

  “Are you being sarcastic?” Bethany didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m combining the ice diet with the raw food diet. They say you burn more calories than you consume when you eat a stick of celery.”

  A myth, but Val didn’t bother to say so. She’d never succeeded in talking Bethany out of a fad diet.

  Granddad pointed to the coolers. “What will you do with all this food if that rich fella doesn’t show up with his yacht?”

  “Have a feast with you two and then freeze the leftovers. We’ll eat them for weeks. Weird as the Titanic dinner sounded to me at first, I’d be disappointed not to go through with it, after all the work I’ve done.” Val craned her neck to look down the river. All she saw were a few sailboats and a motorized inflatable boat cruising toward the marina. “Come on, Otto. I was looking forward to the Titanic experience.”

  “So were the folks who
climbed aboard in 1912,” Granddad said. “And remember what happened to them. If Otto’s yacht sank, I’m glad it happened before we got on it.”

  Chapter 2

  An inflatable dinghy glided toward the dock where Val and her Titanic crew waited.

  The young black man at the wheel shut off the motor. “You going to Mr. Warbeck’s boat?”

  “We hope so,” Granddad said.

  “I’ll take you there.” The young man tied the inflatable to a pier. “I’m Jerome Young.”

  Val introduced herself, Granddad, and Bethany to Jerome.

  While Granddad and Bethany gaped at the small boat, Val answered her chiming phone.

  Otto was finally returning her call. “The boat in the slip I reserved didn’t leave when it was supposed to. Engine trouble. The marina will have a spot for the Abyss in an hour. I sent my crew member to pick you up.”

  “He just arrived in an inflatable.”

  “Best I could do on short notice. We’re anchored down the river. See you soon.” He hung up.

  Val reported what he’d said to the others.

  Bethany looked askance at the small boat. “Will there be enough room for us and all this?” She gestured at the coolers and the grocery bags.

  “No problem. The boat holds seven people.” Jerome handed them each a life vest, though he wasn’t wearing one himself.

  The inflatable was the largest one Val had ever been on, about twelve feet long and six feet wide on the inside. Granddad occupied the rear seat, between the engine and the wheel, where Jerome stood. Val sat on a backless bench in front of the wheel and Bethany on the prow seat. She pressed on the curved sides of the boat every few minutes, presumably to make sure the air wasn’t leaking.

  After Jerome left the harbor’s boat traffic behind, Granddad said, “Is this your boat?”

  “Nope. It goes with the yacht.”

  Val twisted around to look at Jerome. “Does the yacht have other boats?” Lifeboats, perhaps?

  “Another inflatable, smaller than this one. Six people can squeeze into it. You gotta paddle that one. And there’s also a kayak.”

  She could guess what Granddad was thinking. As long as those boats were filled to capacity, unlike the lifeboats on the Titanic, they’d make it to shore in an emergency.

  He leaned back and relaxed. “You work for Mr. Warbeck, Jerome?”

  “Tonight I do. I’ll be at the helm while he parties.”

  Granddad continued to make conversation, asking where and how Jerome had learned to pilot a yacht.

  The young man’s terse answers gave way to lengthier ones as the river widened. “I’ve completed all the training for a captain’s license from the Coast Guard, but I still need more sea time.” The Abyss came into view. “You’ll board on the swim platform aft. It has a ladder and a railing to hang on to. I’ll give you a helping hand.”

  The platform, molded into the hull, spanned the width of the boat, which was about twenty feet, and added four feet to its length.

  Once on it, Granddad pointed to the door between the twin staircases that led up to the main deck. “Where does that go?”

  “To a storage area and the engine room,” Jerome said.

  As they climbed the four steps up to the main deck, Otto and Cheyenne came out of the saloon to greet them.

  He beamed at them. “My wife has gone all out with decorations. You won’t believe how different the saloon looks, Val.”

  He was right. Cheyenne had applied decorative static-cling film on the windows to mimic the leaded glass in the Titanic’s dining room. Without a view of the outdoors, the room felt smaller than it had five days ago. The hostess had set a beautiful table with a striking floral centerpiece. Bethany admired the Titanic replica dishes: white plates trimmed in cobalt blue decorated with gold filigree. Val noted that the four forks at each place wouldn’t suffice. They’d have to wash and reuse two of them.

  She hurried to the galley to unpack the coolers and get the food ready. The dinghy delay had eaten up the slack she’d built into the schedule. She was so busy she barely noticed the yacht motoring to the marina. She couldn’t fail to notice the Warbecks’ raised voices drifting up the staircase from the lower deck, though she couldn’t tell what Otto and Cheyenne were saying. They’d just gone downstairs to dress for dinner. Their disagreement lasted less than a minute, or else they continued it in lower tones.

  * * *

  Shortly before seven, Val hurriedly filled a silver tray with bite-sized appetizers, her take on the Titanic menu’s hors d’oeuvres. The salmon mousse atop cucumber rounds and the bruschetta with goat cheese and roasted red peppers looked colorful and tasty. She wondered if Otto’s guests had arrived yet. If it weren’t for the opaque film on the sliding glass door to the aft deck, she would have been able to see them as they climbed aboard. The hosts would then direct them to the upper deck, where Granddad was setting up the bar and Bethany stood ready to make s’mores.

  Granddad opened the sliding door into the saloon. “The first bunch came aboard. A couple who look around fifty. They’re gussied up like Otto and his wife, tux for him, gown for her. In his penguin suit, he looks like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief.”

  Val smiled. She’d seen that movie at least twice in the last year. Granddad had a collection of film classics from the video store he used to own, and he never tired of watching his favorite Hitchcock movies. “Did he bring Grace Kelly with him?”

  “He brought his wife. Grace Kelly she ain’t, but she has the tastes of a princess. She asked for champagne, the one thing I didn’t have in the bar upstairs.” Granddad took a bottle of bubbly from the fridge. “A sixtyish guy with a mustache also came aboard. He talks like he belongs in Downton Abbey. His wife was supposed to come, but she bowed out because of a migraine.”

  “So we’ll have seven for dinner.” Not a lot less work than eight.

  Granddad wrapped the champagne in a towel and took it outside. A minute later Val left the saloon too. She carried her appetizer tray to the upper deck and was surprised to recognize the woman drinking champagne. Louisa Brown often stopped at Val’s Cool Down Café at the athletic club. There, she replenished the calories she’d lost trotting on the treadmill and twisting in dance aerobics. Though fit, she verged on roly-poly. She stood barely over five feet tall.

  “I didn’t know you’d be here.” Louisa popped a salmon-topped cucumber in her mouth.

  “I’m catering tonight’s dinner.”

  Louisa looked up at the tall man in a tux next to her. “This is my husband, Damian Brown. Damian’s a lobbyist for the poultry industry. Val runs the café at the Bayport Racket and Fitness Club.”

  Damian flashed a smile, his teeth as white as his starched dress shirt. “Glad to meet you, Val. I’m looking forward to a wonderful dinner.”

  With his mild Southern drawl, he didn’t sound like Cary Grant, and Val thought he looked more like George Clooney. Damian fit the mold of a handsome middle-aged man with dark hair touched by gray.

  The older man with the British accent came over and introduced himself to the Browns as Homer Huxby, an antique dealer and Titanic enthusiast.

  Cheyenne beckoned from the s’mores table on the other side of the deck. “We have a special treat over here to whet your appetite. Come on over, everyone.”

  Damian responded quickly and crossed the deck toward her, Louisa hot on his heels.

  Val noted the contrast between her and Cheyenne. Otto’s wife resembled a Greek goddess in a floor-length cream silk dress that skimmed her curves as it draped down from a low-cut neckline. Next to her, Louisa looked dowdy in her long gray tiered dress with beige lace insets at the bodice and cuffs. Her four-inch-wide purple satin belt with a rhinestone buckle added pizzazz, but the style didn’t flatter a short woman. Val wondered if the dress was a leftover from the Titanic era. It might have survived because the moths had shunned it as too drab.

  Val offered appetizers to Otto and the antique dealer. She then handed off the tr
ay to her grandfather and went down to the galley to make up a cold dinner plate for Jerome. She filled the plate with canapés, poached salmon, asparagus vinaigrette, cheese, and grapes.

  As she was leaving, she saw Otto on the deck outside the saloon, greeting the last two guests to come aboard. He introduced her to them. Stacy Turnstone, a slim, fiftyish woman, had come with her son, Trey, who looked to be in his early twenties. They both had dark blond hair pulled into a low ponytail, hers held with a small black velvet bow, his with a red rubber band—an unusual accessory with a tuxedo. He looked uncomfortable, touching behind his ear and rubbing the back of his neck. His mother, unlike Louisa, had made no effort to dress in Titanic-period clothes. She wore black palazzo pants and a silver sequined top.

  Otto took the new arrivals to the upper deck. Val followed them and delivered the plate to Jerome at the controls. He thanked her profusely and said he’d eat it later.

  Otto took her aside when she went back to the deck. “I need eight people at the table. Since one guest couldn’t come, I asked Bethany to switch hats and serve as a guest.” He peered at Val. “I can see you’re not happy about that.”

  Commandeering her assistant wasn’t the way to make her happy. “I counted on Bethany helping me in the galley during dinner.”

  “I paid for her to make s’mores, and she’ll be finished with that once we sit down. I’ll still pay her for the whole evening, of course. She said she’d sit at the table if that’s acceptable to you.”

  Val fumed. He had no right to approach someone who worked for her before he cleared it with her. Why did he need eight at the table anyway? Val swallowed her annoyance and her question. She had no choice, as he certainly knew. “That’s fine.” She couldn’t force herself to smile.

  “Thank you. I’d like you and your grandfather to join us all in a champagne toast when we leave the dock.”

  A gesture to mollify her? She usually didn’t drink alcohol when working, but she had two reasons to do it tonight: Otto wouldn’t be happy if she turned down his peace offering, and she’d seen the champagne in the fridge. It was French and very expensive. She couldn’t pass up a sip of it.