He’d sooner cut off the nose on his face as do anything with a girl. But maybe that was the old Artie. Now that his voice had changed and peach fuzz adorned his chin, maybe hormones ruled his mind, in which case, Charla should watch her step around him.
How much of Dudley’s philandering ways had his son inherited? I shuddered to think of a second generation of Dudleys let loose on the general populace.
Were my daughters in danger from these potential womanizers? Would there be a repeat demonstration of what was going on out in the backyard in a bedroom upstairs with Artie and Charla as the participants?
Not if I had anything to do with it. “Why don’t we all sit down to supper? I’m sure you boys must be starved.”
“Yes ma’am, I’m right hungry,” Grant answered as he slid into a seat.
I started for the kitchen to help bring the food out but Mama stopped me with a curt look. “Cleo, sit down and rest that foot of yours. We’ll get the food out here. Where’s Bitsy?”
Bitsy was becoming intimately acquainted with my office toilet, but I wasn’t going to mention that. “She’ll be along in a minute.”
I glanced over at the table. The bases of all the silverware were perfectly aligned, the floral patterns on the gold-rimmed china plates were precisely oriented in the same direction. The linen napkins and the tablecloth looked like they’d been freshly pressed. And the centerpiece of massed candles was absolutely stunning. Charla had outdone herself.
Her usual idea of setting the table was to throw things down as she dashed around the table. She deserved praise for making the effort to achieve such a wonderful presentation. “Nice job on the table, Charla.”
“Lexy did it,” Charla said as she placed a basket of rolls on the table while Lexy filled the crystal glasses with iced tea. Charla gave me her best two-hundred-watt smile.
“We switched jobs because I wanted to cook with Grandma.”
I noticed Artie reeled under the force of that smile, and I made a mental note to keep close track of that boy. Charla didn’t need to experience the joy of motherhood at fifteen.
Another jolt of anxiety shot through me as I complimented Lexy on her elegant table setting. I’d counted on Lexy keeping Mama on track with the cooking. Surely Charla wouldn’t have helped Mama prepare something inedible for company?
Bitsy came in and sat down next to me. She took a roll and pinched a bit off the edge to eat. She still looked a bit pale. I felt sorry for her, but I couldn’t quite forget that insurance money. Bitsy had ten million dollars worth of reasons to murder her ex-husband.
How was I going to get through this dinner if I kept thinking about that insurance money? The list of things I didn’t want to think about at dinner just kept getting longer and longer. There was doggie sex outside, Bitsy’s love child, and the teenagers sizing each other up at my dinner table.
All my troubles were related to sex. And there was a murderer on the loose. I couldn’t forget that. Keeping my family safe was my top priority. Safe sex for my daughters came in a close second when survival was an issue. A mother’s job was never done.
Charla lay hot pads on the table, then disappeared as Mama brought out the casserole dish full of bubbling lasagna. I heaved a sigh of relief. So far, so good. Charla returned with the salad, and that’s when I knew trouble was afoot. The salad was a colorful composition worthy of artistic greats like Picasso and Rembrandt.
The dark green spinach leaves ringed the lighter iceberg lettuce. Another concentric ring consisted of purple cabbage, followed by an orange ring of grated carrots and cheddar cheese, a red ring of cubed tomatoes, and an unidentifiable blue lump in the center. All of the rings were perfectly concentric. “What? How?” I sputtered.
Mama beamed. “This is Charla’s creation. She calls it Rainbow Salad. Didn’t she do a nice job?”
“How’d you make it look like a bull’s-eye?” Grant asked.
“Nested mixing bowls,” Charla said. “I put in the spinach, then the upside down bowls. As I completed a layer, I removed a bowl.”
Clever. But what was the blue stuff? “And the center?”
“Ricotta cheese,” Charla said, in a tone that suggested we were annoying her with our remedial questions. “It was the wrong color for my rainbow, so I fixed it with food coloring.”
Okay, no reason to panic. Ricotta cheese was edible, even if it was royal blue. Only, the ricotta cheese should have been in the lasagna. Not good.
Fear hammered through my veins. If Charla had been in charge of the salad, then Mama prepared the lasagna. Unsupervised.
I eyed the cheesy, bubbling mass with growing suspicion. There was a distinct fishy odor in the midst of all the regular lasagna smells. What had she done? Mama cut into the mass and carved out a jumbo slice for Artie. He stared at the lump on his plate. “It’s green.”
Mama nodded. “I played with the recipe a little to personalize it. This is my new signature dish.”
I held my breath, afraid to ask what else was in the lasagna besides spinach. Why hadn’t she put the ricotta cheese in the lasagna? I wanted to snatch her up and shake some sense into her. “Mama,” I started.
She raised her hand. “Just give it a try. I’m sure you’re going to love Spickle Fish Lasagna.”
Bitsy turned green and pressed her napkin to her lips. “Excuse me,” she muttered, fleeing from the room.
Artie took a big bite. We watched him chew in morbid fascination. His eyes grew very moist as he pondered the taste sensation of Mama’s main dish. After a few moments, he swallowed. “Interesting. You have to try it.”
Mama beamed as she dished out generous servings to everyone. I noticed that Artie hadn’t taken another bite of his “interesting” lasagna and some sixth sense kept me from digging into mine. However, when Charla, Lexy, and Grant all took big bites of their lasagna, Artie couldn’t keep the laughter inside. I watched the teens eating lasagna turn green.
Lexy spit hers out on her plate. Charla and Grant followed suit. “What is this stuff?” Lexy asked. “It tastes vile.”
“There’s tuna fish in here,” Grant said.
“The pickle relish is crunchy. Grandma, you didn’t say it would be crunchy,” Charla admonished.
I picked apart my vile-smelling helping. Spinach, pickle relish, and tuna fish. In lasagna. For grieving houseguests.
It was just too much. I wanted to howl with frustration. I should have known better than to trust Mama to follow a recipe.
“Don’t eat this,” I cautioned as I gathered up the plates. I had visions of summoning paramedics to come save us from food poisoning. “I’ll order pizza and we’ll eat in about thirty minutes. Meanwhile, have some rolls.”
“What about my salad?” Charla asked. “Can we eat that?”
“Your salad should be fine. I’ll call the pizza delivery place from the kitchen.” I glared heatedly at my mother. “Mama, I’d like a word with you.”
Charla sniffed at my sharp tone, but I couldn’t worry about her delicate feelings right now. I lifted the huge pan of lasagna and limped into the kitchen. I heard Mama say something to Charla as I ordered the pizza, then I waited for Mama to come to me.
I was spooning the awful casserole into the trash when she marched in. It was all I could do not to retch at the fishy odor emanating from the pan.
My frustration boiled out of me. “How could you do this, Mama? Bitsy’s going to think we’re out to murder her entire family.”
Mama’s spine was so stiff you could iron on it. Her amber-flecked brown eyes glittered with fury. “It’s not my fault her ex-husband got killed. If he’d kept his thingy where it belonged none of this would have happened.”
“This isn’t about Dudley’s womanizing. How could you embarrass me this way?”
The slack muscles in Mama’s forearm arm flailed as she shook her finger at me. “You’ve made my life a living hell by keeping me out of my kitchen. What fun is plain lasagna? Spickle Fish Lasagna is an original.”
&n
bsp; She had me there, but the reason Spickle Fish Lasagna wasn’t on anyone’s menu was because it tasted terrible and smelled worse. But what about her other statement? Had I made her life a living hell?
I had curtailed her creativity in the kitchen because her meals weren’t edible. It was a simple economic decision. “I’m sorry that I limited your creativity, but I had reasons for doing so.”
Mama pounded her fist on the kitchen counter. “Your trouble is that you’re wound too tight all the time. If you don’t release all that stress, you’re going to end up just like me.”
Seeing as how Mama could run me into the ground any day of the week, I didn’t see that as much of a problem. But she was right about me being wound tightly. Between my divorce, living with Mama, running my business, dealing with Charlie and the girls, and finding a murdered friend, I was over my limit for stress.
I sighed deeply. A stress-free woman would be generous with her own flesh and blood. I wanted to reinvent myself and here was a good place to start. “Why don’t we compromise? I’ll agree to let you cook again, say dinner two nights a week. You can try out your creativity on us. How does that sound?”
Mama grinned big. “Sounds mighty fine to me.”
For a split second, I wondered if I’d been had. Mama had been wanting to cook again, and the kids had wanted pizza for dinner. Both were getting exactly what they wanted, and it seemed entirely too coincidental to me.
At the sound of a car in the driveway, I turned toward the door. “There’s the delivery guy. Grab a stack of clean plates and I’ll bring in the pizzas in just a sec.”
I glanced at the nook where I normally kept my purse. It wasn’t there. Nor was it anywhere else in the kitchen.
All right, I could be flexible. I’d let the pizza guy in, then find my purse. I opened the door. Much to my surprise, my purse hung in mid-air right under my nose.
“Looking for this?” a deep sexy voice asked.
Here was another stress I didn’t need. I could see Rafe’s dark brown eyes smoldering sensually through the loop of my purse strap. A snap of recognition jolted through my system as I went on full golf pro alert.
“Thanks, I was just looking for my purse.”
I had to be careful here. Rafe could be using his sex appeal to find out if I suspected him of being a ruthless killer. Was I up to the challenge of playing it cool? If this were a poker game, I’d be holding my cards close to my chest.
“You left it at my shop this morning.” Rafe reached behind him as if he were going to retrieve his billfold from his back pocket.
Surely this long, lean man with gilded hair wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. My female instincts were shouting at me to kiss him before he got away, but my head said to keep my distance. These were dangerous times for Hogan’s Glen.
“Along with this.”
My broken shoe. He’d had it stuck in his pocket. That was rather intimate for our casual acquaintance. But. A storybook handsome man with a shoe standing at my door. Wasn’t this every woman’s fairy tale?
Who was I kidding? Fairy tales didn’t come true for thirty-five-year-old divorcees. I snatched my shoe without making direct contact with any part of his delectable body. “Thanks. Sorry I left my stuff behind.”
“Mom!” Charla bellowed as she walked in the kitchen. “Are you hogging all the pizza?”
A look of irritation flashed across Rafe’s face. Was he annoyed at the interruption? Did he plan to seduce my suspicions out of me? My pulse leapt wildly at the thought.
I accidentally put all my weight on my taped ankle as I turned to face Charla. Pain lanced through me lightning fast, and I clutched the counter to steady myself. “False alarm. It isn’t the pizza guy.”
Charla stopped at my side, her arms barred across her developing chest. She was cute and young and perky. All the things I left behind after her birth. “Charla, have you met Rafe Golden? Mr. Golden is the golf pro down at the course. Rafe, this is my oldest daughter, Charla Jones.”
“Hello.” Charla scowled at Rafe.
I didn’t understand her instant dislike, but maybe she wasn’t mad at Rafe. Maybe she was mad at me. I made an effort to soothe her pride. “Your salad looked lovely, Charla. I plan to have some as soon as the pizza gets here.”
Charla’s scowl stayed in place. “It’s all gone. I wish we’d taken a picture of it.”
I deposited my broken shoe on the counter and squeezed her shoulder. “You can always make it again when it’s just us.”
Processing what she’d said, I realized that Bitsy’s boys must be starving if all the salad was gone. “Take the chocolate pudding out and we’ll have the pizza for dessert.”
“Yes!” Charla pumped her fist in the air. She skipped away with the pudding.
I turned my attention back to Rafe. It was impossible to miss how completely his broad shoulders filled the doorframe. Against my will, liquid heat pooled in my lower abdomen.
I couldn’t believe he was here, at my house. Rafe Golden was standing here in my kitchen, looking at me like I was dinner. What was I going to do with him?
Even if there wasn’t a murderer on the loose, I had good reason to be careful. My female instincts had malfunctioned with Charlie and I had no reason to believe they were working now. For a moment I allowed myself to believe that Rafe’s interest in me was on the up and up.
What did Rafe expect from the women he pursued? Sultry voices and steamy nights under satin sheets? If so, he’d missed the boat with me. My sheets were clearance sale percale and the only time I’d ever had a sultry voice was when I had laryngitis. “Would you like to come in?”
He shook his head to indicate no. “I wanted to schedule your golf lesson.”
My golf lesson. Time with Rafe all by myself. Through the mixed brain messages of “be careful there’s a murderer on the loose” and the “hot dog what are you waiting for,” I managed to sound coherent. “When did you have in mind?”
With those words, a whole new world of terror opened up for me. Committing to a lesson meant that I would spend time alone with a man that seemed very interested in me.
What clothes would I wear? How would I style my hair? I had the distinct impression Rafe had a steady diet of buffed and polished women. Looking down, I saw my taped ankle and my ratty pink slippers. Buffed and polished wasn’t my natural state.
Rafe whipped a day planner from his pocket. “I wasn’t sure about your ankle,” he said, studying the entries in his planner. “I have an opening tomorrow afternoon or we could schedule something next week.”
The new and improved me wanted that golf lesson. I wanted to believe he wasn’t a murderer. “Tomorrow won’t work for me. I’ve got houseguests through the weekend and Dudley’s funeral on Saturday. What about next week?”
He flipped the page to Monday. Christine Strand had his one o’clock slot. Two o’clock was open. “Two o’clock works for me.”
While he penciled me in, I had a moment where my thoughts were my own. If I trusted my hormones that Rafe wasn’t a murderer, that still left his assistant with plenty of means and opportunity to kill Dudley.
What did Rafe know about Jasper and Dudley? Information could be right under my nose if I only had courage enough to ask him. I wanted to clear Jonette, so I needed to start asking questions about the murder.
I could be subtle. Rafe would never know I suspected a golf course employee of killing Dudley. “The other day I spoke with Jasper about Dudley. What’s your take on their relationship?”
His gaze narrowed shrewdly and I wondered if I had been subtle enough. “Seeing that Dudley is dead, they don’t have a relationship. Prior to that, Dudley was treated just the same as any other golf club member. It’s not our policy to discriminate against our members.”
His response didn’t net me any new information. I’d never clear Jonette at this rate. To heck with being subtle. I might as well state what I thought and see how Rafe reacted. “Jasper told me he didn’t like Dudley very much.”
Rafe shrugged. “Who did?”
Chapter 12
Lexy and I wore black to Dudley’s funeral. Charla had insisted her Uncle Dudley wouldn’t want her to be so inhibited. She opted for a confection of dark indigo swirled with lavender and plum. Mama wore one of her conservative church suits and her triple-stranded pearls.
To fit my foot in my black high heels, I’d foregone taping my ankle. A decision I had been regretting as I stood by Bitsy in the church foyer while the townspeople filed past. I prayed for a short-winded eulogy and the fastest liturgy on record.
Dudley’s parents were long dead and his estranged brother wasn’t coming up from Florida for the ceremony. Bitsy had insisted that we sit in the family pew with her, so we all proceeded together to the front row. In a church packed with perfumed mourners, I was exceedingly glad to have a reserved seat.
Why were all these people here if no one liked Dudley? I wanted to berate them for their ghoulish curiosity. Did they expect to see his unhappy banking customers egging his closed casket? Did they hope for a pew of his discarded mistresses to ogle? If so, they were wasting their time.
I had read somewhere that killers had a fascination with attending the funerals of their victims. Was the killer here? Was it someone I knew personally? I shuddered at the thought, but my brain locked onto that idea. I did a quick inventory of people I knew that might be suspects.
Jonette had purposefully stayed away. She topped the list of police suspects because she’d had run-ins with Dudley her entire life. I didn’t think much of their detecting ability if they thought Jonette did Dudley in.
Jasper was here, sitting next to Rafe. Both of them had unrestricted access to the golf course where Dudley was killed. Because of Dudley being involved in the teacher’s pension scandal, Jasper also had a motive to kill Dudley. There were no women sitting with Jasper and Rafe so I assumed Jasper’s mother wasn’t here. I needed to go question her on Monday.
Bitsy was here. She’d inherited a pile of money upon the death of her ex. She had ten million reasons for wanting Dudley dead.
1 In For A Penny Page 9