Sink Trap (16 page)

“He is not my boyfriend,” I said.

“He didn’t rat you out, did he? He acted like he knew you were in that house, and said he wasn’t going to turn you in. You don’t do that for just anybody, Georgie. He’s still carrying that torch, I swear.”

“Old friends.” It didn’t sound convincing, even to me, but I let it drop. “I say we tell him the truth, more or less. I had a key, we were suspicious about Martha Tepper’s disappearance, and we went out there to look for clues as to where she went.”

Sue shrugged. “A little sugarcoated, but close enough
for me.” She started the engine. “Go get some sleep. I’ll meet you here as soon as I close up the shop tomorrow.” I nodded and opened the door. “Let’s plan to eat here, so we don’t have to have this conversation in public. I’ll figure something out, and we’ll just tell Wade when he gets here.”

 

 

At twenty minutes to six I stood in the kitchen, staring into the refrigerator. Staring was about all I could do. It was still a bachelor refrigerator: a few microbrews, some leftover faux-Chinese takeout from the supermarket, butter, mayonnaise, and a brick of cheddar cheese, the edges hard and dry from exposure to the air. Should have wrapped that cheese a little better.

The cupboards weren’t much better. The sourdough from Katie’s had turned dry and hard as a brick. I knew better than to buy two loaves. I hadn’t even cut into it.

I was about to surrender to the temptation of Gari baldi’s when Sue knocked on the front door.

“Come in,” I called. “And help me figure out dinner.”

The tapping of stiletto heels on the living room floor told me it wasn’t Sue. Not by a long shot.

“I thought you said to come in,” my mother said from the kitchen doorway.

I stifled a groan.

“Mom, I have to go to the grocery store. Now. Wade is due for dinner in twenty minutes, and there is nothing here to cook.”

“Nonsense,” Mom said. She tap-tap-tapped her way across the linoleum to peer into the refrigerator. I tried not to think about the damage those spikes might be doing to my already-worn-out floor. It was Mom’s turn to groan. “This isn’t a refrigerator, it’s a . . . a beer cooler.” She pulled out the empty vegetable bins and peered at the egg trays that held only a few individual mustard packets from some long-forgotten fast-food meal.

“Is this how you eat, Georgiana? I taught you better nutrition than this.”

She moved away from the refrigerator and began pawing through the cupboards. It took only about ninety seconds to inventory the meager supplies.

She turned back to look at me, her eyes narrowed in thought. “You have an electric skillet, don’t you?”

I nodded and opened the bottom cupboard near the sink. The electric frying pan had been a housewarming gift from my mother. I had never used it, but at least I had washed it and removed the tags before I put it away.

“Get a big saucepan out, too,” she said. “And a baking sheet.” She pulled my meager spice supply from the cupboard. “Where are your knives?”

I gestured to a drawer next to the stove. She tsk-tsked as she looked in the drawer. “You know knives should be stored in a block, Georgiana. They will keep a better edge.”

As little as I used my knives—the pizza cutter was my usual tool—it likely didn’t make much difference.

Following Mom’s direction, I put the skillet on the table.

“Don’t turn it on yet, though. You’re just going to use it to keep the fondue warm.”

“Fondue? Doesn’t that take wine and fancy cheese and a special pot and things?”

Mom shook her head. She was already working on cutting up the stale loaf of sourdough, making uniform cubes. “I haven’t cooked fondue since your father was in grad school,” she said, “but I think I remember how to do it. It won’t be the most elegant company meal”—there was a trace of disapproval in her tone, but she didn’t bela bor the point—“but it should do nicely.”

She pointed at the brick of cheddar sitting on the counter next to her. “You need to grate that.”

While I grated the cheese, she toasted the bread cubes in the oven and emptied a bottle of microbrew into the saucepan. As the beer heated, she added some garlic powder—“It’s better with fresh, but you use what you have”—and a pinch of salt. By the time I’d finished with the cheese, the beer was hot.

Mom handed me a clean plastic trash can bag, with a little flour, salt, and pepper in it. “Put the cheese in there, and shake it, so it gets covered with flour.” She gave the bag one last look and stifled a sigh. Obviously I didn’t have a proper bag, though she didn’t say so.

Soon I was stirring the cheese into the beer, while Mom arranged the bread cubes on plates and heated the electric skillet. She dug around in my junk drawer and dragged out a bag of bamboo skewers. “Use these instead of fondue forks,” she said, placing them next to the plates of bread cubes.

She stood back and admired her handiwork. I had to admit, the kitchen smelled pretty darn good. There were placemats on the table, and my good dishes, along with glasses for the iced tea Mom had just made.

“How did you do all that so fast?” I asked. It had been a long time since I’d seen Mom in action, and I had forgotten how good she was at this kind of thing.

“Practice. You just keep doing it, and it comes faster, like any skill. Besides”—she smiled at me—“I couldn’t have Wade thinking the only thing you knew how to cook was take-and-bake pizza.”

A guilty flush spread over my face and Mom laughed.

“Well, thanks. I guess I owe you one for this.”

“It’s what any mother would do for her only daughter, and her only daughter’s beau.” She glanced at her watch, a delicate gold and diamond number. “Speaking of Wade, I better skedaddle before he gets here. Three’s a crowd, don’t you know?”

I glanced at the gently bubbling pot, and back at Mom.

“Don’t walk me to the door,” she said. “You need to keep stirring that until it’s completely melted. Then put it in the skillet at two hundred degrees to keep it warm while you eat.”

“Mom,” I said as she headed for the front door, “what did you stop by for, anyway?”

“Nothing important,” she called back. “It can wait. You have more important things to worry about tonight.”

Fortunately, she was gone before Sue showed up. I don’t think her version of my evening included my best friend.

When Sue arrived, I put her to work adding a third setting to the table. She nodded her approval, and waved a grocery bag in front of me.

“I took a chance that you might figure out something, but I was willing to bet it wouldn’t include a salad.” She took out a packaged Caesar salad, found a bowl in the cupboard, and added the dressing and croutons. She was sprinkling the cellophane envelope of grated parmesan on top when Wade knocked.

“I thought this might be a little more comfortable if we ate here,” I said, leading him into the kitchen.

Wade gave a low whistle of appreciation when he saw the table. He sniffed the aromas of cheese, toasted bread, and an undertone of dark ale, and shot me a look of surprise.

“You cooked?”

“I had a little help,” I admitted. “But yeah. Didn’t you think I knew how?”

The fondue was delicious, and the crisp salad and cold tea were nice contrasts to the hot, gooey cheese.

We made small talk as we ate, but I could feel the tension knotting in my stomach. Soon, Wade would want an explanation for what Sue and I were doing the night before.

The fondue was reduced to a crust around the edge of the pan, and the salad was gone. I unplugged the skillet and put it on the counter to cool.

“Now then,” Wade said, “you two owe me a story. And it better be a good one.”

I hesitated, feeling the knot in my stomach twist and tighten. I had to tell him.

“I, that is, we . . . we were worried about Miss Tepper. Nobody knows where she is, and I can’t get a straight answer out of anybody. Rick Gladstone promised me a forwarding address, but he hasn’t called. I had a key to
the house, and so we went out to see if we could find some clue as to where she went. An address or a flyer or something from the place she’s moving to. Something like that. We figured there had to be something in the house.”

Wade snorted. “Dressed all in black, in the middle of the night? With all the lights off? You were just innocently looking for an address? Oh, please!”

“It’s the truth,” Sue said. “We
are
worried. You can turn us in to whoever it is that you think cares, but we were just trying to find out where she went.”

Wade bristled, and glowered at both of us. “Did it look like I was going to ‘turn you in’ to anyone?” he asked. “Or did I wait, and give you a chance to explain?”

His gaze moved to me, looking deep into my eyes. “I don’t want to see you get in trouble. Either of you,” he said, glancing over to Sue, then returning to me. “If anyone caught you in that house, with or without a key—which, you will notice I have specifically not asked how you got—you could be in serious trouble.”

I colored at the mention of the key. He knew I didn’t have any right to have the key, and he didn’t want me to try and lie about it.

“Wade,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. “I know this looks kinda bad, but there really is a good reason.”

He leaned back and crossed his arms, looking at me expectantly. “I’d like to hear it.”

“I think something happened to Miss Tepper. I don’t think it was her idea to leave, and I don’t think she’s coming back.

“Ever.”

Wade threw his arms in the air and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “All because of some sad story Paula Ciccone told you? I warned you about her stories! She dramatizes everything.”

“It isn’t just that.” By now I was practically begging. I wanted Wade to believe me; I needed someone besides Sue to share my fears.

“There’s the housekeeper,” Sue said. “She lived in the house, and when Miss Tepper moved, she lost her job and her home at the same time.”

I cut in, explaining about all the un-Miss-Tepper-like behavior, and our suspicions. Wade let me talk, though I could see it wasn’t changing his mind.

Finally, as I ran down, he shook his head. “I don’t buy it, Georgie. Martha Tepper was a nice old lady, sure. But she was tired of the cold and the wet, and she had more than earned the right to live where she pleased. She didn’t owe anyone in this town a thing.

“In fact, this town owed her. Not that she would think that way, but we all knew she did a lot for the community, even if she kept it quiet. Did you know she funded the first Homes for Help project?”

I shook my head. “That’s my point exactly. She had the money to do what she wanted. There are people who would benefit a lot if she went away and never came back,” I argued, not ready to give up.

“Like who?” he shot back.

“Like Gregory Whitlock. He’s going to make a bundle off that house, and even more off of developing the warehouse site, and you know it.”

“And there’s the housekeeper, Janis,” Sue added. “If Miss Tepper was deserting her, she might have felt she had nothing to lose. Desperation and anger are a bad combination.”

“I can’t believe you two.” Wade shook his head, and shrugged. “Look, I know I’m not going to stop you. You two are determined to keep up your so-called investigation, no matter what I say. So go to it. Have fun.”

He reached for my hand, and looked in my eyes. “But I need a favor from you, Georgie. Please.”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t about to promise anything until I heard what it was he wanted.

“Could you confine your snooping to daylight hours? To times that you might actually have a legitimate reason to be in that house?”

Wade grinned at me, lightening the tension in the room. At least he wasn’t threatening to tell anyone about our adventure.

“I suppose,” I said. I looked at Sue, and she nodded.

“Thanks.” Wade squeezed my hand and winked at me. “It would be darned difficult for me to explain to the rest of the Council if my girlfriend was arrested for breaking and entering. Especially if they found out I knew about it.”

At the word
girlfriend
, Sue’s eyebrows shot up, and her expression said, “I told you so.”

I ignored Sue’s gloating, and grinned at Wade. “Girlfriend? Isn’t that a bit presumptuous?”

“Maybe,” he teased back. “But it could happen. And a cat burglar just doesn’t fit with the rising young politician image, now does it?”

I frowned. “You mean this all has to do with your political image?” I pulled my hand away. “Is that it?”

“N-n-no, not at all,” Wade stuttered. “I mean, it was just a joke. I was teasing. I didn’t mean—”

Sue couldn’t keep a straight face any longer, despite my warning glance. She laughed out loud at Wade’s predicament.

“Forgot she was the star of the senior play, didn’t you?” she said between giggles. “She had you going!”

Wade looked at me. I smiled and spread my arms in a “caught me” gesture.

“Next time we have dinner,” Wade muttered, “we are not including your partner in crime.”

chapter 15