English Trifle (39 page)

This book would not have happened if not for the help of two British friends, Samantha Humphries and Elsie Beard—thank you both for helping this book come together; details are the difference between good and great and your time and tutoring made all the difference.

Big thanks to my non-British pre-readers—Julie Wright and Breanna Kilpack. You both caught things in need of catching and I so appreciate your help in getting it right. My writing group gave feedback throughout the writing process and kept the story on track: Ronda Hinrichsen, Jody Durfee, Becky Clayson, and Anne Craeger—I’d be lost without you guys. Thank you to the members of LDStorymakers who have created a foundation for my writing over the years and to all those readers who write to me and ask for more.

With this book I started Sadie’s Test Kitchen, a closed blog comprised of willing cooks who tried and tested the recipes featured in this book. It was a huge weight off my shoulders to have all of them giving feedback and steering me in the right direction—thank you Don, Sandra, Laree, Annie, Barbara, Shirley, Michelle, Whit, and Danyelle. You guys are priceless.

Thank you to the amazing staff at Deseret Book—Jana Erickson for overseeing the process, Shauna Gibby for the beautiful cover, Rachael Ward for the typesetting, and my wonderful editor, Lisa Mangum, who is my continual cheerleader and friend.

Hugs and kisses to my family who suffered through my inability to figure out whodunit for an embarrassing amount of time—patience is a virtue and they are virtuous indeed. Special thanks to my sweetie, Lee, for all that he does for me and our family; he is definitely my better half and I’d have never gotten here on my own.

And of course, thank you to my Father in Heaven for the gifts of a lifetime and the continual help in turning those gifts into talents that bless my life, and hopefully bless other lives as well.

Josi was born and raised in Salt Lake City, attended Olympus High School and made an appearance at Salt Lake Community College before marrying her high school sweetheart and starting a family. In addition to her writing, she loves to bake, travel, can her own peaches, watch criminal justice TV, and study the oddness of human nature. English Trifle is her tenth published novel, and the second in the Sadie Hoffmiller mystery series that combines many of her great loves into one delicious book.

In her spare time, she likes to overwhelm herself with a multitude of projects and then complain that she never has any spare time; in this way she is rather masochistic. Josi currently lives in Willard, Utah, with her husband, Lee, and their four children.

She also enjoys cheering on her children and sleeping in when the occasion presents itself. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached at [email protected].

Have you seen Thom yet?” Sadie asked, craning her neck to see into the corners of the temporary stage set up at the front of the ballroom. Thom Mortinson was supposed to have arrived by 6:30, but had called to say he was running late. Sadie was trying not to show her annoyance at men who had no concept of time. Detective Pete Cunningham—Sadie’s date for tonight—was late too. She glanced at her watch: 7:05. Thom was supposed to have begun his presentation at 7:00 sharp.

“Not yet,” Gayle answered from where she sat at Sadie’s left.

“So, did you two read his book, then?” an increasingly familiar voice said.

Sadie looked past Gayle to the young woman seated next to her—the date of Frank Argula. She was thirty years Frank’s junior, with thick brown hair piled on top of her delicate little head. Sadie feared a sneeze might snap her neck completely. Her hair had to weigh twenty-five pounds. Sadie didn’t know the girl’s name—Trixie or Bambi or something like that, she was sure.

“Sure,” Gayle answered, shooting Sadie a look brimming with annoyance. It was the fourth time Trixie had cut into their conversation. Frank was currently involved in an animated discussion with a city councilman.

“It must be really good,” the girl said with a floating kind of smile as she looked around the room, “for all these people to want to listen to him talk about it.”

“It’s good,” Gayle said dryly.

Sadie scraped together her last bite of mashed potatoes from her plate. Truth be told, she hadn’t loved Devilish Details. Thom had published the book a few years after moving away from Garrison and while she was very proud of his accomplishment, the writing just wasn’t her style.

Gayle turned back to Sadie. “I still can’t believe he agreed to come.”

“Why wouldn’t he come?” Trixie cut in.

Rather than being annoyed at yet another interruption, Gayle’s eyes lit up at the girl’s innocence and Sadie took a sip of her drink to hide her smile. Gayle turned back to the girl with a very different expression. Here we go, Sadie thought. It wasn’t that Gayle was a gossip, per se, but she, well, liked . . . being informed and sharing that information. Of course, any time Sadie pointed that out, Gayle turned the tables and recalled all the times Sadie had been the one to spill a story. A server leaned in to take away their plates.

“Didn’t Frank tell you about Thom?” Gayle asked sweetly, once the server moved away.

The girl shook her head.

“Well,” Gayle said, wriggling in her seat a little bit and leaning closer, “before Thom wrote Devilish Details, he lived here in Garrison with his son—that is until his son killed himself and his girlfriend after their junior prom.”

Trixie gasped and put a hand to her mouth. Sadie felt her stomach tighten just a little bit. Hearing the details laid out so bluntly was a bit of a shock. Even from Gayle. “You’re kidding,” the girl said, lowering her hand. “A murder-suicide? Here?”

Up until last October, when Sadie’s neighbor had been murdered, the Mortinson tragedy had been the most recent homicide in Garrison, Colorado. Damon, Thom’s son, had only been a couple years older than Sadie’s own daughter and so the tragedy had hit close to home. The school district brought in grief counselors, parents forbade their daughters from dating the bad boys, and Thom Mortinson moved to California. No one blamed him for what happened, of course—Damon had been in and out of trouble since he turned twelve—but no one could fault Thom for wanting to make a fresh start, either. Lost in her thoughts, Sadie didn’t realize Gayle was still telling the story.

“So, you can imagine our surprise when a couple years later Thom’s name showed up on the cover of a New York Times bestseller. Of course we all knew he’d been a bit of a closet writer before Damon’s death, but no one expected this kind of success, especially after what had happened.”

“Wow,” Trixie said. She pulled at the top of her strapless gown and looked toward the stage again. “Has he written any other books?”

“No,” Gayle said, shrugging her shoulders. “Just that one book, though he’s been saying for years that he has another one in the works.”

“Maybe he’ll be like Harper Lee,” the girl said. “In literary circles the common theory is that she never wrote another book because she’d written the perfect novel right out of the gate. How do you compete with your own greatness?”

Sadie and Gayle both looked at Trixie in surprise. They hadn’t expected her to recite scholarly supposition. “Maybe,” Gayle said slowly, obviously caught off guard.

“I wonder what it’s like for him to come back here,” the girl added, unusually serious. “I imagine it’s hard.”

Sadie was reminded of her own surprise when she’d heard he’d accepted the invitation. What was there to come back to Garrison for but to face old ghosts?

Her thoughts were interrupted as a server placed a white dessert plate in front of Sadie. Every thought of Thom or Trixie disappeared. In the middle of the plate was a most beautiful sight—a thick, gooey piece of devil’s food cake. Sadie grabbed her fork and dug in without hesitation.

“I thought you were on a diet,” Gayle said.

Sadie looked up, fork poised inches from her open mouth and did her best to scowl at her best friend. Gayle didn’t take back the question she’d asked; in fact, she continued to look pointedly at the rich chocolate goodness on Sadie’s fork. The rich chocolate goodness that was going straight to Sadie’s already ample hips. Trixie turned to converse with Frank, and the clinking of silverware and mingling murmurs of a hundred conversations filled the room. Sadie paid no heed to any of it. Instead, she looked at Gayle and with exaggerated movements put the bite of cake in her mouth and closed her lips around the fork. Sadie closed her eyes and tried not to groan out loud as the decadent chocolate melted on her tongue.

Gayle snickered and Sadie feared she’d failed at her attempts to silently appreciate the deliciousness filling her mouth. It was just wrong that such an amazing culinary creation should have any calories at all.

“You should really attempt a little more self-restraint,” Gayle said when Sadie recovered from her chocolate-induced swoon and opened her eyes. No one but Gayle, and maybe Sadie’s children, could get away with talking to Sadie like that. However, after twenty years of friendship, there wasn’t much they could do to offend each other. “Everyone knows you made the cake, so your reaction comes across as rather arrogant.”

Sadie used the edge of her fork to cut off another bite. “I have no problem with appearing arrogant when I’ve done something this magnificent.”

In truth, it was a little embarrassing to lose control like this—especially in public. Sadie prided herself on her humility, and yet she had no control when it came to good food. She’d returned from England almost six weeks ago and had been existing on salads, fruit smoothies, and baked chicken ever since in hopes of losing not the seven pounds she’d thought she’d gained, but the twelve pounds the scale said she’d brought home with her. Twelve pounds in two weeks—Sadie didn’t know that was even possible.

Unfortunately, the diet hadn’t been as effective as she’d hoped—possibly due to the fact that despite her strict meal regimen of protein and leafy greens, she’d been baking scones and crumpets a few times a week; she didn’t count that as breaking her diet because perfecting the recipes was actually research. Gayle, of course, knew this.

And then Sadie had been asked to supply the dessert of her choice for the library fundraiser. Before she’d even hung up the phone she’d known what she wanted to make—devil’s food cake. Since it was commonly understood that diets were left at the door of events like this, she knew it was a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: she’d make a fabulous contribution to the dinner, and she’d get a piece of otherwise forbidden cake.

“I swear this is the best cake I have ever made in my life,” Sadie said reverently after taking her second bite.

Gayle chuckled and Sadie couldn’t help but join her, knowing that she was being a little ridiculous. She put a hand on Gayle’s arm and leaned in toward her friend. “It’s a good thing you’re sitting next to me,” she said, giving Gayle’s arm a squeeze. “I’d be liable to embarrass myself otherwise.”

Gayle laughed again and cut a bite from her own piece. She paused for a moment after putting it in her mouth and then turned to Sadie. “This is incredible.”

Trixie turned toward them both and nodded, her jaw rhythmically moving as she also chewed her cake.

Sadie gave them both a smile, glad to be sharing the moment with people that could appreciate it. She took yet another bite, able to keep from moaning this time—but just barely.

“How many did you end up making?” Gayle asked, hurrying to take another bite as if the cake might disappear at any moment.

“Eighteen,” Sadie said. “Thank goodness Shawn came into town last night, so he could help me finish up.”

Gayle nodded again, but Sadie noted the distracted look in her friend’s eyes. Eyes that were green tonight. Gayle’s real eye color was mud—Gayle’s word, not Sadie’s—so she bought colored contacts. Green was Gayle’s favorite since it went so well with her curly red hair, but she also had blue and hazel ones. She even had a pair that were violet, which Sadie found a little bit creepy. Who ever heard of someone with purple eyes? Even a woman as beautiful as Gayle—and she was a beautiful woman—had a hard time pulling off purple lenses.

“Shawn didn’t want to come?” Gayle asked once she swallowed yet another bite.

Sadie shook her head. “It’s hard to believe, but he thought spending a Saturday night with his mom at a library fundraising dinner sounded boring. In fact, I think his exact words were ‘dead boring.’ ”

Gayle huffed in feigned offense.

Sadie chuckled and lifted yet another bite to her lips.

The rich chocolate threatened to make her weak in the knees again when her eyes caught movement on the stage. Thom had arrived and was fiddling with his wireless microphone, trying to clip it to the lapel of his suit jacket. Another man, shorter and balding, was trying to help.

“Oh, there’s Thom,” Gayle said, pointing at the stage with her fork. “I’m guessing the little man is his manager? Mr. Ogreski?”

“I would assume so,” Sadie said, watching the men with an air of distraction as she cut another bite.

“Thom looks good,” Gayle continued in an appraising tone. “He’s single, you know.”

Sadie rolled her eyes but couldn’t help but smile at the same time. After Gayle’s divorce five years ago, even the suggestion that she might want to date again was met with thinly veiled violent intents directed at whoever had dared to bring it up. And then, just over a year ago, Gayle accepted a neighbor’s invitation to attend a single’s dance at her church. Gayle was officially introduced to middle-age single life that night, and she hadn’t looked back. Sadie was glad—a woman like Gayle needed people, and people needed women like Gayle. Gayle opened her mouth to say something, but then straightened, dropped her chin coyly, and looked over Sadie’s head. “Speaking of single men,” she said, then smiled brilliantly and cocked her head to the side.

Sadie swiveled in her seat, then smiled and sat up straight as Detective Pete Cunningham entered the ballroom and headed toward their table. If only she’d been able to fit into her black velvet formal. Instead she was in her navy blue sparkle-dress—which was nice, but not nearly as elegant as the flowing dress Gayle was sporting—green, to match her choice of eye color for the evening.