Final Fondue (A Five-Ingredient Mystery) (9 page)

Granddad frowned. “Your rotten ex-fiancé? What’s he doing here?”

“Good question.” Granddad’s reaction, a mixture of surprise and annoyance, didn’t surprise Val. Her mother’s lack of reaction did. Mom got up off the sofa, crossed the room to the shelves by the fireplace, took out a book, and shifted it to a new location on the same shelf. Val watched her rearrange books, a suspicion forming. “What do you know about Tony’s visit, Mom?”

Her mother wheeled around. “He called me a few days ago to ask my advice because you wouldn’t respond to his messages. I told him that you were busy getting ready for the festival and that he might like to visit Bayport during the festival.”

“
What?
” Val jumped up. “It was your idea for him to come here and ambush me?”

Her mother ran a hand through her curly hair. “Ambush isn’t the right word. He has something to say, and you won’t give him the chance. He just wants to talk to you.”

Granddad waggled his index finger at Mom. “How can you take his side, Diane, after what he did?”

“You’re turning on me too, Pop? I only wanted to do what’s best for Val.”

Val hugged herself, holding in the anger bubbling inside of her like lava. The image of Penelope Grandsire superimposed itself on her mother’s face. Her mother had meddled, just as Payton’s mother had, both fanning old flames, possibly with the same goal—to ward off a new romance. She gave her mother a defiant stare. “What makes you think you know what’s best for me?”

Mom returned Val’s steady look. “If you can’t bring yourself to even talk to Tony, you haven’t put that relationship behind you. Unfinished business can haunt you for years.”

“It’s finished as far as I’m concerned, Mom.”

Shaking with anger, Val marched out of the room toward the kitchen.
Running away?
Yes, but with a good reason. A full-blown argument with her mother would ruin the weekend, not only for the two of them, but also for Granddad.

A loaf of crusty French bread rested on the kitchen counter. Her mother must have picked it up at the bakery on Main Street. Val hacked off the narrow end, crunched down on it, and chewed vigorously. Then she sliced off another piece and slathered it with butter. She felt calmer, partly because bread-and-butter was the ultimate comfort food and partly because of the tranquil aura her grandmother had left behind in the room where she’d spent so much time.

Val opened the refrigerator door and spotted the plastic bag of shrimp her mother had brought from Florida. The shrimp were still slightly frozen. She took the bag from the fridge.

Granddad came into the kitchen and set his empty beer bottle on the counter with a bang. He still looked tense, but not as angry as before. “You got plans for those shrimp?”

“I have an easy recipe you can use for your column, a simplified version of a Greek dish with shrimp, tomatoes, and feta cheese.”

“Good. What do you want me to do?”

Val took his rare offer to help with the cooking as a sign of support for her in her quarrel with Mom. “Shell and devein the shrimp. I’ll run water on them first so they don’t freeze your fingers.” She put the shrimp in a colander and took them over to the sink. “Where’s Mom?”

“Gone upstairs to grade papers. She says she’s not ready to retire from teaching. But, as usual, she retires from the kitchen pretty quick whenever it’s close to mealtime. Cooking never interested her. Your grandmother was tickled when you took an interest.”

Val fetched olive oil, garlic, and a can of diced tomatoes from the pantry. “I was tickled to learn from her.” Even when she could barely see over the kitchen counter, she’d insisted on helping Grandma cook.

Granddad leaned on the counter, his face grave. “Just as well your mother left us alone so I can tell you how my investigation is going. I found out what the strangler did before killing Fawn and how the murder went down.”

Really ?
He often touted his cooking expertise, though he had none. Boasts about his investigative skills wouldn’t surprise Val. On the other hand, he might have learned something important. Either way, she’d rather her mother not know anything about his so-called investigation.

Val glanced toward the staircase that ended in the kitchen. If Mom came down the back stairs, she might overhear Granddad talking at the counter.

He motioned for Val to follow him to the breakfast table on the other side of the room. “Let’s go over there. If we keep our voices low, your mother won’t catch anything we say.”

Joining him at the table, Val adjusted the position of her chair so that she could see if Mom came to the kitchen from either the back staircase or the butler’s pantry. “What did you find out?”

Granddad moved his chair closer to Val’s at the small kitchen table. “I walked through the neighborhood, talking to folks and looking real hard for clues. Halfway between here and the historic district, there’s a house with flowers in pots hanging from the porch roof. Lots of pots, nice flowers.”

Val conjured an image of a bungalow no one would notice except for the hanging garden on the porch. Pink petunias and blue vinca cascaded from planters held up by long rope hangers. “I know where you mean.”

“Each pot hangs from sixteen strands of jute rope, four in each of four places around the pot. One of the pots was on the ground. It had two missing strands. It looked like someone sliced them off below the top knot and at the lower end.” He demonstrated a cutting motion and clicked his tongue. “Those strands are like the rope used to strangle Fawn.”

Val’s heart sped up, but just a little. He might be mistaken about the rope. “Did you notify the police?”

“I did some investigating on my own first so I wouldn’t raise a false alarm. I knocked on the door of the house with the flowers. Nobody was home. Then I talked to a neighbor. The folks with the hanging plants have been on vacation for a week and aren’t due back until next weekend. The neighbor said all the pots were okay yesterday afternoon when she watered the flowers. The rope was cut sometime between then and this morning.”

Was he trying to solve this murder on his own?
“When are you going to tell the police?”

“I told them and stood guard over the pot until they arrived. First a young officer came by, then a sheriff’s deputy, and then the crime scene unit.”

“The crime scene unit. I’m impressed, Granddad. You may have discovered where the strangler got the rope.” Obviously, the police were taking his discovery seriously.

“I sure hope they give me credit for that when the story comes out. The police are sitting on a lot of information they haven’t released. But I found out a few things.”

“From the chief?” Granddad had served as a father figure after the chief lost his own dad, and the chief always treated him well.

“Nope. He wasn’t there. It’s a good thing you talked me into getting a hearing aid. When the police first got to the house with the hanging plants, I kept cupping my ear and asking them to repeat what they said. Pretty soon they were talking like I wasn’t there. I turned up the volume.” He touched the back of his ear to demonstrate. “Then I could hear real good.”

She should know by now how wily he was, but he always surprised her with his ploys. “What did you hear?”

“Fawn was strangled from behind. Her killer slipped a looped rope over her head.”

Val’s stomach turned. She’d learned in a self-defense class how to break the hold of someone trying to choke her from the front. With a rope tightened from behind, Fawn wouldn’t have had much chance to fend off the attack. “She might not have even seen her attacker.”

“And the strangler didn’t necessarily see her face either. What if that rope was supposed to go around someone else’s neck?” He leaned toward her. “When Monique was taking pictures of the wedding bunch near your booth, I saw how much like Fawn you looked in a crab hat. You gotta watch your back, Val.”

She tensed, not just because the voodoo doll had reinforced her anxiety about Chef Henri. She also feared Granddad would go on the offensive. A few months ago, when he’d believed her in danger, he’d taken down his shotgun. That time the police had let him get away with threatening someone at gunpoint, but would they be so generous if he did it again? Even worse, this time he might shoot someone, or the person he was threatening might grab the shotgun and use it on him.

To keep him from overreacting, she decided to downplay the threat to herself. “Jennifer also looks like Fawn in a crab hat.”

He tilted his head to one side and then the other, as if weighing her idea. “Could be, but she’ll have to get someone else to protect her. I don’t know who
her
enemies are, but I know of two people who’d want to go after you.”

“Two?” Bad enough she had to look over one shoulder to make sure Chef Henri wasn’t following her, now Granddad wanted her to look over the other shoulder too. “You seriously think two people would want to strangle me? Who?”

“That chef and Tony.”

“Tony ?”
She laughed.

“Shh.” Granddad pointed to the ceiling. “Lower your voice. Your mother will hear you.”

She whispered, “Tony is too wrapped up in himself to go to the bother of murdering anyone. Trust me on this.”

“Why would I trust you when it comes to Tony? You missed what he was doing right under your nose when you were engaged to him.”

“Then ask Mom about him. She’s his confidant.”

“Don’t be so hard on her. She means well. And don’t ruin tonight’s dinner by talking about the murder.”

Or about Mom’s clench with the police chief.
Val stood up, went to the sink, and ran water over the shrimp. “What topics are acceptable?”

“One topic. Family. She’s gone to California to see your brother and his brood twice since the last time she came here. She’ll have plenty to tell us about the grandkids. And you can talk about the café and the cookbook you’re working on.” He joined her at the counter and peered at her index card with the shrimp recipe on it. “Let’s see what you’ve got here. Hmm. This looks easy enough.”

So easy that he could have cooked it himself, but he just watched Val do it. Her mother stayed upstairs until dinner was on the table. When she took her first bite and raved about the shrimp dish, Granddad thanked her as if he’d made the dish himself. Then he fed her questions about his great-grandchildren, keeping the conversation on one track through most of the meal. Val did her part with some follow-up questions.

When dinner was almost over, Mom said, “So much for the California branch of the Deniston family. Now let’s hear about the Bayport branch. I spent some time this afternoon with your grandniece, Dad. I like Monique. Don’t you?”

Val glanced at her grandfather. This probably wasn’t the family conversation he wanted to have.

He broke off a piece of French bread and sopped up the sauce on his plate. “She’s okay. Can’t say I think much of her husband.” He popped the bread in his mouth.

Val watched her mother push what was left of her dinner around the plate, possibly trying to decide how to deal with Granddad’s brief, grudging response.

Her mother put down her fork. “Don’t hold her husband against her . . . or her father. You haven’t given Monique a fair chance because of what her father did. It’s time to put that to rest. Men who fled to Canada during the Vietnam War have been welcomed back in this country for decades. He didn’t come back, but he probably would have if he hadn’t died so young. You can’t blame her for something that happened almost fifty years ago.”

“I don’t blame her. Heck, I don’t even blame him anymore. Maybe he really had moral qualms about that war.”

“So why keep his daughter at arm’s length?” Mom held both hands out with her palms up. “Monique moved to Bayport eight years ago, and I saw her once—at Mom’s funeral. She came, even though none of us went to her mother’s funeral the year before. We’ve been here every Christmas since then, and you never asked her to join us.”

Granddad’s eyes blazed. “You don’t know the whole story. Sure, I was outspoken when my nephew dodged the draft. My sister never forgave me for saying that her son was shirking his duty as an American. She told people I sent him hate mail, calling him a traitor. Somebody may have done that, but I didn’t.”

Mom touched his arm. “Your sister died almost twenty years ago, Pop. Let it go.”

He returned her steady gaze. “I can’t do that, Diane, because she took her anger out on your mother.”

Val had never heard this part of the story and never even met Granddad’s sister. “What did she do to Grandma?”

“She told lies. She spread rumors at church and at the woman’s club about your grandmother’s loose behavior when she was young. It took a long time, even after my sister moved away from Bayport, for your grandmother to get the respect she deserved in this town.”

Val was incensed that anyone, least of all a family member, could treat her kind, gentle grandmother so badly. “That’s terrible.” She understood now why Granddad found it hard to reconcile with his sister’s branch of the family.

Mom frowned. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

“You were on your way to college when we found out what she was saying. Your mother didn’t want you bothered by it.” He took off his bifocals and wiped his eyes. “She’s been gone six years. I think about her every day, and it still makes me mad when I remember what my sister did to her.”

Val’s eyes stung with tears. Maybe his anger at his sister’s family made it easier to cope with his grief over Grandma’s death.

Mom reached for his hand. “You have every reason to be angry with your sister, Dad, but don’t transfer your anger to Monique. It’s no better than your sister transferring her anger at you to someone else.”

He downed his remaining beer.

Val stood up. “Bethany’s coming by for me in twenty minutes. We’re going, uh, out for a while, and before I leave, I want to make a breakfast casserole for tomorrow.”

Fortunately, Mom and Granddad were too engrossed in talking about the past to ask her about her plans. If they knew she was going to the maze in the dark, the night after a murder, they would have worried about her. Knowing that Henri would be giving a cooking demonstration tonight eased her own fears. The maze, bound to be a popular attraction, would offer safety in numbers.

* * *

It took Bethany and Val fifteen minutes to drive to the cornfield maze off a rural road outside town. Val called Gunnar as they waited to buy tickets.

Just inside the entrance, a maze monster gave a flashlight to each group coming in. Val and Bethany started down a dark path, sandwiched between a group of six teenagers and a family of five. The family included twins Bethany had taught the year before. After ten minutes of tramping between eight-foot high cornstalks on paths lit only by tiny flashlights, the twins were bawling.

Val didn’t blame them. “This place is creepy for little kids.”

Bethany glanced behind her. “The family’s turning around. You’ve gone through the maze already, haven’t you?”

“Yes. Under different circumstances.”

Val had enjoyed finding her way through the cornfield with a blue sky above. But on a moonless night, she found it disorienting. In the dark, the maze resembled a tunnel with walls that rustled in the breeze and reached out to brush against her. Her mild claustrophobia kicked in. She’d never experienced it until she tried spelunking in college. Now she avoided caves, but who would expect to be claustrophobic in a cornfield?

Don’t panic
, she told herself. One step after another, flashlight and eyes on the path ahead, not on the living walls closing in on her.

A screech came from within the corn wall. Val jumped away from it. Wailing followed.

Bethany laughed. “I remember that from last year. They have motion detectors with speakers hidden among the corn.”

The banshee version of Robo-Fido.

Bethany stopped short as screams came from the group of teenagers twenty feet in front of them.

Val tensed and then immediately relaxed. “They’re adolescents fooling around. Come on, or they’ll get way ahead of us and we’ll be all alone on the path.”

Bethany hurried up. “Shouldn’t we see another signpost? It’s been a while since the last one.”

“Yes, it has. We’re looking for signpost five. Gunnar texted me to turn left there and go straight ahead until we see a path to the right. That’s where he’s hiding out.”

A skeleton jumped out in front of them. Bethany shrieked and clutched Val’s arm.

Cackling, the skeleton disappeared down a side path.

Bethany laughed nervously. “That’s why the teenagers screamed.”

Val couldn’t believe how her heart was racing. The skeleton had rattled her. She wouldn’t fall for that again. “We have to be prepared to see scary scarecrows. Gunnar the Zombie isn’t the only one lurking in the maze.”

After a few steps, Bethany stopped again. “Are you sure we’re going the right way?”

She was balking every other minute, and Val was losing her patience. “You’re the one who wanted to do this. While you were on the caveman diet, you took all sorts of risks. Now you go on the baby food diet, and you’re totally timid.”

“Don’t blame my diet. When I was here last year, there was a moon out. Now it’s pitch black and easy to get lost. Also, there’s the murderer to worry about.”

Val tamped down her annoyance. Bethany was young, only twenty-five, and entitled to an occasional rash decision. She needed reassurance. “We’re not alone here. Up ahead you can see the teenagers’ flashlights. If we think we’ve lost our way, you wave that flag on a stick while I shine the flashlight on it. The corn cops will come and rescue us. Besides that, we have our phones.”

“But will we have the time to wave a flag or call 911 if the Bayport strangler comes after us?”

“Well,
one
of us will have the time.” Val poked Bethany with her elbow to show she was joking.

“You’re not helping, Val.” Bethany moved forward, but even more cautiously than before.

They must have walked beyond the reach of electrical wires because no more noise came from banshee motion detectors. Now the only sounds were screams from nearby paths where skeletons, zombies, and other scary creatures were doubtless jumping out at people.

Whoops and howls came from behind them. Val turned around and made out movement in the darkness. A band of preteen boys wearing crab hats stampeded past. One boy jostled the flashlight out of Val’s hand, and the light went out.
How annoying.
She stooped and patted the ground. It couldn’t have fallen far.