Let There Be Suspects (8 page)

She screwed up her freckled face. No one has ever looked disdainfully at me through Harry Potter glasses. It was something I never hope to see again. “Yes, certainly. She can write about something she
sees
, Mrs. Wilcox. But if I were you, I would question giving in to her on this.”

I questioned it for, oh, one and a half seconds. “She’ll have a story written. And you won’t take off points because she couldn’t bring herself to write about angels right now? We have an understanding?”

She gave the briefest of nods.

Mine was even briefer. I turned and headed for the door. Halfway there I saw a stack of Christmas gifts the children had left for Miss Hollins. Teddy’s decorated tree and star cookies were wrapped in silver paper at the very top.

I am a virtuous woman. Well, maybe not so much, but my husband
is
a minister. I did not snatch back the cookies.

5

When I got home Vel was alone in the kitchen, preparing pasta for dinner. Pasta is the logical standby when meat eaters cook for vegetarians. Of course Vel’s sauce, made with grilled eggplant and a plethora of vegetables and spices, was complicated and smelled luscious.

I’d half expected to find her rolling out sheets of dough and cutting angel hair pasta with an Exacto knife, but she wasn’t that stressed. Vel’s meals get more intricate as her anxiety increases. As girls, on the nights it was Vel’s turn to cook, Sid and I were not above pretending that report cards had arrived or her best friend was moving. We had some fabulous meals until she caught on.

“I’ve poached pears to go with this,” she told me. “And I thought the girls would like farfalle pasta with the sauce because it looks like butterflies. Your little Italian grocery has a good quality import.”

The pancakes had finally worn off. I sneaked a leftover piece of carrot that hadn’t made it into the sauce. “We have a little Italian grocery? Here in Emerald Springs?”

“I can’t believe you don’t know. It’s a charming little store. Signore DiBenedetto handpicked pears for me. Everything he has is top quality.”

I vaguely remembered what store she was talking about. From the outside, it’s tiny and dark and looks like a dump. Which says everything about judging a book by its—well, you know.

When Vel didn’t slap my hand I took another piece of carrot. “How did you find it?”

She looked up. “Well . . .”

I was suddenly
really
interested in the answer. “Well . . . ?”

“I was heading for Krogers, and I spotted Ginger.”

“Doing what?”

“Standing on a sidewalk just down from the store, looking around like she thought somebody might be following her.”

“So you did? Follow her, I mean?”

“Well, just a little ways. And I wasn’t very good at it, because I lost her. That’s when I found the grocery.”

“Maybe she thinks Sid hired a hit man.”

“Sid did pretty well without one yesterday.”

I took the last piece of carrot and got the sponge to clean off the counter. “You were pretty hard on Sid at breakfast.”

“No more than she deserved.”

“I think she feels bad enough.”

“She’s all grown-up now. Why can’t she just let this stuff roll off her back?”

“For the same reason I expect you to return the yellow mohair sweater you borrowed your senior year of high school.”

“Give me a break.”

I laughed and hugged her hard, releasing her quickly, since Vel’s not a touchy-feely kind of gal. “What can I do?”

For the next half hour I took instructions. For dessert we were going to serve a platter of leftover goodies from the open house, but Vel had bought Italian dessert wine and a very ripe Gorgonzola to serve immediately after the meal, the way Signore DiBenedetto had suggested. If Vel was following the old guy’s advice, I had to meet him and discover his secret.

The parsonage dining room is the least-used room in the house. Invariably we eat in our too large kitchen at a farm-house-style table that divides the room. Tonight called for more formal surroundings, and Vel and I set the dining room table, despite it being more or less a crime scene. The room is long and narrow and the old walnut-veneer table has been here through several generations of ministers. We just managed to squeeze ten chairs around it, including an office chair from Ed’s study. Unfortunately dinner was going to be cozy.

“Place cards?” I suggested, calculating the best way to keep Sid and Ginger at opposite ends. “Teddy would be happy to make them.” I went up to cajole her and also tell her about my meeting with Miss Hollins.

Teddy and Deena were both in Teddy’s bedroom when I arrived. My daughters looked suspiciously angelic, the way children often do when Christmas is right around the corner. We don’t do the naughty or nice thing in this house, but even children without the threat of coal in their stockings know that behaving well during Christmas week is in their best interest.

Teddy’s room is simple, almost somber. To brighten Teddy’s choices Junie made a wonderful country church quilt for her bed, and I noted that Teddy had carefully folded it back so that neither she nor Deena were sitting right on it. Had I checked the ID bracelet on this baby before I brought her home from the hospital?

The girls were playing a board game Teddy had received last Christmas and never, to my knowledge, opened until now. I suspected that this, too, was an example of what lovely and
grateful
daughters they were.

“Having fun?” I went to the bed to peer over Deena’s shoulder. “She’s beating you, isn’t she?”

“I’m letting her.”

“You are not!” Teddy jumped her little plastic thingamajig six spaces.

“Junie’s taking a nap in my room,” Deena said.

I know it’s unusual, but my sisters and I have never called Junie anything but Junie. To this day I’m not sure how this happened. But faced with
Grandma
or
Granny
or
Nanna
, my sisters and I decided that
Junie
would work for the girls, as well. In my family the word means love, which is what all grandchildren need.

“I need a favor.” I explained about the place cards. “Can one or both of you make them?”

“You don’t want Aunt Sid and Ginger to sit near each other, do you?” Deena asked.

I shook my head. So much for family secrets.

“I think I even like
Teddy
more than Aunt Sid likes Ginger, and that’s saying a lot.”

“Way more,” I agreed.

“Will there be another fight?”

I guess if my daughter figured out the eggnog baptism wasn’t an accident, the jig is up at church. “Not if I can help it,” I said with a certain amount of force.

“I asked Bix to help me find Moonpie after lunch,” Teddy said. “He was lost again.”

Moonpie hides from Teddy, but we don’t point this out, since she’ll have plenty of other reasons to need therapy by the time she grows up. “And did Bix help?” I asked.

“He told me to go away.”

I wondered where Bix was hiding right now, and what I could do to him before dinner.

“I don’t like children,” she said, in Bix’s whiny voice.

Teddy is a mimic, an eerily good mimic. “Did he really say that?” I asked.

She looked up at me, as if to question my intelligence.

I changed the subject and told her what Miss Hollins had agreed to.

“Good grief, Teddy,” Deena said. “Who cares if you believe in angels or not? Just make it up. You can write about stuff you don’t believe in.”

“I can’t.” Teddy jumped six more spaces, and Deena rolled her eyes.

Ginger and Cliff hadn’t arrived by the time everyone else came downstairs for dinner. I suspected Ginger planned to make an entrance, and I was right. The Grables were ten minutes late, and Ginger was dressed to the hilt. Most of the time I shop in Emerald Springs, and if I’m not at a discount store I’m at “Here We Go Again,” the consignment store that benefits our local hospital. Ginger clearly shops where Mabyn Booth does, in some exotic location with taxis and skyscrapers. The coat was butter-soft, caramel-colored leather, belted with a notched collar. Under it she wore a violet cashmere sweater, suede boots that exactly matched it, and winter-white wool pants. Her amethyst jewelry was exquisite, set in delicate burnished gold.

I was wearing a faded denim skirt and the same turtleneck I’d worn to scrape wallpaper.

Ginger immediately handed me a wicker basket wrapped in red cellophane. “Something just a little extra special,” she said. “Luxuries you would never buy for yourself.”

I heard the subtext. Luxuries we could not
afford
to buy. I peeked through the cellophane and indeed, did not recognize a thing.

“Flame raisins on the vine,” Ginger said. “Italian chestnut honey. And just the most incredible Calabrian fig puree. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the new tastes.”

Since I was determined to show Sid how this was done, I smiled my thanks. “We’ll put them out with dessert. That way we can all enjoy them.”

“I certainly hope some of that wonderful fruitcake is left,” Ginger said. “Sid, it wasn’t ruined by the eggnog, was it?”

Ed caught my eye. I thought he looked particularly handsome tonight in a sweater Junie knit for him several years ago. I thought he also looked particularly alert, as if he was ready to fling himself between Ginger and Sid.

“It survived just fine,” Sid said pleasantly.

“Well, I’m just glad my Kobe beef was eaten so quickly,” Ginger said. “Your guests just couldn’t seem to get enough, Aggie. But I apologize. I really didn’t know your family was vegetarian.”

“We don’t expect other people to live the way we do,” Ed said.

“How unusual. For religious people, I mean.”

Ed caught my eye again. I thought maybe he was beginning to understand.

“Drinks this way.” Vel pointed toward the living room. “We have some wonderful wine Junie bought today. Girls, I made a special punch for you.”

We moved into the living room, and the preliminaries went well, which in this case meant no one threw anything at anyone else. Vel had made a lovely vegetarian antipasto platter, and to her credit she politely asked Ginger to serve plates for everyone.

“No pepperoncini for me,” Junie told her. “All those things I used to love.” She shook her head.

Cliff had hardly said a word, but I joined him at the Christmas tree. “I popped in this afternoon,” he whispered. “To see what I could do about, you know.”

“Any luck?”

“Success.”

No one had told me, and I was thrilled. “He’ll be so happy. You’re a genius.”

He smiled at me. “She doesn’t realize, you know.”

I knew we were talking about Ginger now. “Realize what?”

“How she comes across sometimes. She only acts this way when she’s insecure.”

I wondered if Cliff was as bad at reading everyone as he was at reading Ginger. “Junie loves her like a real daughter. That ought to count for something.”

“Maybe things were harder for Ginger when she was with her real mother than you realize.”

“I realize a lot, but I’ll give her credit for choosing a good man,” I said.

He looked pathetically grateful.

I cleaned up plates and glasses as they were emptied, and eventually we moved into the dining room. The girls had outdone themselves on the place cards: Teddy’s artwork and Deena’s fanciest script. Best of all they had put Ginger and Cliff at one end of the table, and Sid and Bix at the other, with the rest of us as buffer.

Vel brought in the pasta, topped with feta cheese. The poached pears were nestled on fresh greens and smelled of thyme and lemon. A basket of hot rolls appeared, and we all snuggled together in our chairs.

“Fusilli pasta,” Ginger cooed. “How clever of you, Vel.”

Vel glanced at me, as if to say,
I told you she doesn’t know about food
. The table was silent as everyone dished up. Bix disdained the pasta but took five pears, which meant no one else would have seconds.

Ginger took small portions of everything, but when everyone else began to eat, she stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth. More than once I had noticed her staring into space in the living room. At the time I’d assumed she was searching for the perfect way to ruin somebody’s evening. But now I noted that she seemed far away. I wondered how many glasses of Junie’s vintage cabernet she had imbibed as she’d dished up artichoke hearts and provolone.

“How did my favorite people spend their days today?” Junie was clearly in her element, wreathed in smiles. In her mind, this was the reunion she’d dreamed of.

In random order the others recounted their days, although Bix just shrugged. When it was Ginger’s time she looked more than pleased to tell us. “Oh, I was at the spa all day getting wrapped and massaged and pampered. For such an ordinary little town, the spa and hotel are almost up to my standards.”

I filled my mouth with pasta so I couldn’t respond. It was my turn next, but as a safety measure, I chewed slowly.

“Aggie, tell Cliff and Ginger about the house you’re renovating,” Junie prompted. “I’ll bet you were there for part of the day.”

I was surprised, since Junie hadn’t seen the Victorian yet. Then I remembered that Lucy had been her guard dog during the open house. I swallowed. “Lucy must have told you all about it.”

“My talented daughter.” Junie’s proud smile turned her plump cheeks into shiny red apples. The apples went perfectly with her red velour sweatsuit and the blinking Santa hat she’d borrowed from Teddy.

“We’ll see how talented once it’s finished,” I said modestly. “It’s a lot of work, and we haven’t found anyone who can help us yet.”

“It’s a great old house,” Sid said. I had taken Vel and Sid to see it when they first arrived. Bix had come, too, but he had waited on the porch when I mentioned there might be mice.

“What needs to be done?” Cliff asked.