The Secret Ingredient Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery (11 page)

Stanley Parker had watched the second half from the stands, but he was a purist who claimed that the feats of farm clubs didn’t belong in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Jason had just as vehemently argued that they did, because they were also professionals, after all.

Guess I win
, Jason thought disconsolately.

The old man had promised to take him to a game sometime.

He rubbed a thumb absently along the rough edge of the table which was worn from long use, and thought of the hours he’d spent here watching the old man get red in the face about the designated hitter rule, and also learning about Mr. Parker’s early life as a banker, about his wife and his daughter, his devotion to the arts, his respect for the work of Jason’s own father.

That had felt good, to hear the old man say that.

But the last week their conversation had turned strange.

Mr. Parker had seemed troubled, distracted, and people kept coming and going up at the Castle, always somebody new coming over for lunch, a different one every day, and always just one of them at a time. Jason had recognized all of them. Ms. Hutchinson. Mr. Graham. Randy Dixon, alone. Then Nikki on another day. Mrs. Wright, without her husband. Even the mayor. Even his own mom, and then later in the week, Jason’s dad. Old Man Parker had been busy entertaining all those people, and so he hadn’t come out to the greenhouse as much as he usually did. When he did come by, Jason had listened for once, instead of doing so much of the talking. The old man had said weird things then, about how people weren’t always as nice as they seemed, that they could be phonies and fakes, and they could do terrible things, and nobody would know it was them.

Jason felt sure he, himself, would know.

He’d just
know
who was good, and who was bad.

Mr. Parker was one of the good ones. So was Aunt Genia.

He finished off the cheese and two thick pieces of Mr. Parker’s bread, and then put the leftovers back in the refrigerator, thinking,
I’ll never have any of his homemade bread again
. He grabbed the plastic container where the old man usually kept cookies and found three double-chocolate ones inside, and wolfed them down, one after the other.

Mr. Parker also made great cookies.

As he gobbled the cookies, he wandered up and down the rows, saying good-bye to the plants, while cookie crumbs fell to the floor.

He wondered what would happen to this place now.

Nobody else cared about it like him and Mr. Parker.

Well, he’d better get it over with, what he’d really come to do.

It didn’t take ten minutes, but he hated every hypocritical moment of the job.
Stupid drug laws
. When he was done, he came back inside the greenhouse. He fingered a new leaf on a coleus plant, unfurling in a multitude of dark colors. In Hawaii, Mr. Parker had told him, this same plant might grow as big as a bush. He’d like to see that. They seemed kind of puny and dull here. But plants were so cool. Jason squeezed his eyes shut and tried to stop the painful sting behind his lids.

The damp air, the smells of growth and earth and young flowers folded around him. He didn’t think he could stand it that the old man was gone. It was like losing a grandfather, only worse, because he’d had him for such a short time.

For the first time in his life, he’d felt needed.

“I need you, kid. To tend my plants.”

That’s how it all began. His job was so simple. To water the plants … and … and …

“Oh, and, kid, there’s this other part of the job, but you’ll have to think about it long and hard before you say yes. I’m probably a wicked old man to ask this, but I’m a powerful old codger, too, and if we get into trouble, I’ll buy us out of it. May not be the best lesson in the world to teach a young man, but at this point, I don’t have a choice.”

Jason had agreed to do it. Done it willingly, proudly.

“This may be the worst mistake I ever made,” the old man had said. “I hope you don’t live to regret what I’m asking of you. I may be a selfish old bastard, and maybe you ought to tell me to go to hell.”

Jason hadn’t done any such thing.

He slumped to the floor, wrapped his arms around his knees, and bent his head, and cried. He’d do it all again, even if his father found out all over again. And how the hell
did
his dad find out? Even if it pissed off his dad, and got him in trouble, and nobody understood why he’d done it, he’d still do it all over again. And he’d never tell the truth about it. Never. He’d show his mom, he’d show everybody. He could be as loyal as a goddamned dog. He could be committed to something and somebody, all the way to death and past. Let them think what they wanted, he didn’t care. Screw ’em. He’d made a promise to Parker, and he’d keep it, or die trying.

      9
S
HOPPING
L
IST

Genia had fallen in love with downtown Devon the first time she laid eyes on it. On this lovely, sunny afternoon, only hours after she’d learned that Stanley had been murdered, the colorful, cheerful bustle of its quaint streets and the sight of its neat little harbor felt immensely comforting to her.

She had come to shop for Randy and Nikki Dixon.

As she parked her leased car, she felt glad to have a purpose for the next few hours to distract her from the reason for this shopping trip. But everywhere she turned she found yet another memory of Stanley Parker.

Genia had learned that during Larry Averill’s long tenure in civic offices Larry had cajoled, bargained, and twisted Devon’s collective arm to get it to clean itself up from its early fishing port days. Now it was quite the tourist attraction and as quaint as a New England seacoast village ought to be.

“If it were any cuter,” Stanley had once grumbled to her, “I couldn’t stand it.”

It seemed as if his forceful presence was abroad in town on this first morning after his death … his murder. Everywhere she went, people were excitedly talking about it, about him, and about who might have killed him and why.

“I knew it was no accident, I’ll tell you that much.”

The owner of Stella’s Bakery looked knowing as she handed over to Genia a white paper bag full of plain cake donuts and a box of gingerbread. Genia had learned that Rhode Islanders loved donuts, preferring them crisp on the outside, dense on the inside, and more cakelike than airy in texture. Instantly upon eating one, she had become a devotee.

The air inside the shop was warm and moist, redolent of sugar and dough.

Beneath Genia’s feet, old wooden planks creaked when she moved down the counter to the cash register to pay.

As good as the donuts were, and the malassadas (fried sweet bread dough), the real specialty at Stella’s was the gingerbread, made from a famous old Rhode Island recipe. In Devon, they called it “Stella’s Gingerbread,” even though every order of it came with a little printed card that gave all the credit to one Stephen Green, baker of Little Rest, circa 1826. The only ingredients were milk, molasses, butter, ginger, salt, and “saleratus,” the old-fashioned word for baking soda. Mixed all together by Stella’s deft hand, it was nothing short of ambrosia, and with a little homemade whipped cream on top, it rivaled anything heaven had to offer, in Genia’s opinion.

Stanley
, she thought as she counted out her money and listened to other people talk about him,
I hope you find something in paradise that’s even better than this gingerbread, though I doubt that’s possible
.

Of course, they had planned to put it in their cookbook.

“Now, I’m not saying a word against the mayor,” the shop’s owner continued in a confiding air that all seven customers in the shop could easily hear, “but I know for a fact that he and Mr. Parker hated one another like vinegar hates oil. If one of them came in a room, the other one left, and that’s the God’s honest truth. I’ve seen it happen.”

“Where was that, Stella?” a man in back asked her.

“Town council meetings,” she replied without a moment’s hesitation. “I was there the night Stanley brought up that idea for the art festival, and the mayor latched on to it like a bee on a trash can. He said this was something the town council ought to take up, not the arts council, and I thought Stanley Parker was going to have a conniption fit. Got up out of his chair and left the room, plain as you please.”

I’ll bet Stanley was just going to the men’s room
, Genia thought. She didn’t think it her place, as an outsider, to say it out loud, but it did bother her to hear Stanley’s relationship with Larry Averill so terribly misrepresented. Stanley had never described Larry as the brightest bulb in the political spotlight, but he had seemed to like the mayor personally.

With donuts and gingerbread in hand, she moved down the sidewalk toward the Red Rooster Deli, which advertised itself with a painted wood carving of a Rhode Island Red rooster. The distinctive sign, which hung from a black wrought-iron arrow, reminded her that Stanley had only recently called Larry Averill “dumb as a rooster.” But still, to say the two men hated each other?

Genia didn’t believe that for one minute.

She couldn’t quite remember why Stanley had referred to the mayor in that insulting way, but she thought it had something to do with Celeste, and how it had appeared to Stanley as if Larry had pined his life away for her.
But Larry hasn’t
wasted his life, Stanley
, Genia argued in her mind with his spirit.
No man has wasted his life who has accomplished so much for his hometown. Larry’s just a devoted kind of man, that’s all
. She could almost hear Stanley’s retort: “Yeah, like a dog.”

Even preoccupied as she was, she couldn’t help but enjoy Devon’s quaint downtown and credit the mayor for its fine state of preservation. Along the west side of Main Street where she walked, the architecture was all of a kind: red brick attached buildings in Federal style, with glassed-in display cases bowing out toward the street, showing off regional ware such as Peter Pots pottery with its distinctive blue or brown glazes, and Stone Bridge dishes. The east side of the street looked charmingly eclectic, architecturally speaking: There were Victorians, next to Georgian revivals, abutting colonials with white picket fences, and even Gothic revivals. Four centuries of architecture were represented. The centuries before the Europeans came were also represented in a small museum that housed artifacts of native tribes: Narragansett, Patuxet, Wampanoag, and a dozen others.

On the way to the deli she passed The Independent Man, which she knew was not an expression of male chauvinism, but rather a bookstore named for one of the founders of Rhode Island, Roger Williams. This was a state whose early history gave it a right to pride itself on tolerance, civil dissent, and independent thinking. Stanley had seemed to Genia the very model of a Rhode Island “independent man,” even if tolerance might not have been one of his stronger traits.

She walked past a New York System Wiener Stand, where the grillman was lining up little spicy-hot red wieners in their buns along his forearm, in the approved Rhode Island way. He had three customers waiting for their wieners to grill. Genia’s niece had told her that the mayor pushed through the idea that when their town gussied itself up for tourists they should concentrate heavily on the favorite foods and famous history of their locality.

It had proved to be a commercial windfall for many people.

Larry Averill was predicting that the Devon art festival could be a local windfall, too, not only for artists, but also for all who might profit from an annual tourist attraction.

As Genia entered the Red Rooster, she made up her mind that quahog chowder would be just right to take up to Nikki and Randy at the Castle, along with the baked goods and a few other things. “Quahog”—pronounced co-hog—was the local word for the hard-shell clams that were devoured every which way, from steamed to fried to boiled, and even stuffed, with their own special appellation: “stuffies.”

“I’d bet money it was that awful Ed Hennessey who did it,” one customer whispered to another, right in front of Genia at the fish and seafood counter in the Red Rooster. “I told Stanley he was a fool to hire that man, and him just out of prison. I happen to know that Ed’s father was just like him, no-good from the get-go. I’ll bet you a ham sandwich that the police arrest Ed before this day is out.”

“You think so?” her companion whispered back.

“I hope so,” the first woman said with feeling.

“Why?”

“Because if it wasn’t Ed, who was it?”

The two stared at each other, and then glanced back at Genia behind them. “You hear about the murder?”

She nodded her head, but didn’t say anything.

“Just awful,” one of them said.

“Scares me,” the second one echoed. “I know for a fact that Ed Hennessey stole tools from my sister when he mowed her lawn. And he scared her half to death. He was a Peeping Tom, she told me. Always sneaking around, and staring in her windows.”

“Stanley should have known better,” her friend said ominously.

“Well, I guess he knows better now,” was the smug reply.

Genia bought a sackful of fresh clams, and then carried her purchases back out to her car. Then she set out for more shopping. As she stepped off the cobblestone street onto the sidewalk, she ran into Lindsay Wright, who also seemed to be shopping this morning.

“How pretty you look,” Genia told her.

In a lemony sundress the young woman looked right off the cover of a Neiman Marcus catalog, and yet Genia had overheard her say to Celeste Hutchinson that she did all her shopping at a certain store which was the Rhode Island equivalent of Filene’s Basement in Boston. The implication was that she could afford good quality clothes because she knew how to shop for great bargains. After more than six decades of living, it was Genia’s private opinion that a person could go broke on bargains.

“Thanks, Genia. Did you hear the awful news about Stanley?”

“Yes, I’m sorry to say.”

Lindsay grasped one of Genia’s wrists and pulled her aside into the shade under a shop’s canopy. “What do you know about it?” Without giving Genia time to reply, Lindsay blurted out, “I called Harrison, and he said all he knows is what they have in the newsroom, which isn’t much. Just that the police say Stanley was murdered by somebody who bashed him in the head with something. Have you heard any more than that?”

“That’s all I know, too, Lindsay.”

“I just can’t believe it happened like that! To Stanley! It’s just too creepy. There he was on the way to dinner at your house, and now he’s dead!”

Although Genia could have lived without the juxtaposition of those two events, she nodded sympathetically. She hoped the fact that Stanley was bound for her house didn’t actually have anything to do with his death.

“Did the police interview you?” Lindsay whispered, after looking around to see if anybody was listening.

“They came out to my house this morning.”

“Well, they called to ask us to come in after Harrison gets off work. They told me that they want to talk to everybody who was at your dinner party! We want to help, but we don’t know a thing to tell them. Did you?”

“No, I didn’t, either.” Genia decided not to gossip about Ed Hennessey. “Oh, I do know one thing, though. I spoke to Randy Dixon, and he said that he and Nikki will be staying at the Castle. There will probably be a memorial service this week.”

“Really? Harrison and I had better drop by there.”

“Do you know Nikki very well?”

“Well, no, actually, I don’t know her at all, but it seems like the nice thing to do. I knew Stanley well enough.”

Genia thought that last was said with a dry twist.

As if she had heard the same note in her voice, Lindsay immediately followed that by saying, “It’s just so sad. I was crying all morning, just thinking about poor Stanley.” She didn’t look it, Genia thought; her eyes were clear and happy; her skin was smooth and firm below them. And yet Lindsay turned her mouth down, making a sad face. “Now he won’t get to see the art festival happen out on his island. I thought it was a terrible idea, but I feel sad for him because it was something he wanted, and now he won’t get it.”

“Do you think there won’t be one now?”

“Oh, I don’t see how. I mean, it was Stanley’s island, after all, and where would they hold it, if not out there?”

A bit mischievously, Genia suggested, “Maybe his daughter will take up the cause in her father’s memory.”

“Nikki?” Lindsay’s sunny mood seemed to darken a bit. “But she doesn’t even live here anymore; why should she be interested in having all that fuss and bother on her island?”

“I don’t know that she would,” Genia admitted.

Lindsay nodded, as if that was much the better answer.

Looking cheered up again, she chatted for a few more minutes, telling Genia about an upcoming arts council meeting on Thursday and inviting her to come. Then she was off, floating away like a lemon meringue confection, Genia thought. She watched as Lindsay swung her trim, fit body into a red Saab convertible and then drove slowly down the street. Genia saw her wave at a tableful of diners at a sidewalk cafe. She looked more like a homecoming queen on parade than like a young woman saddened over the death of an acquaintance. For a moment, Genia felt offended by Lindsay’s superficial responses, but then she brought herself up sharply:
She is young
, Genia reminded herself,
and Stanley probably was more of an acquaintance than a friend. Lindsay shouldn’t have to feel this as deeply as I do. Let her be young and happy; don’t force suffering on her just because you feel bad, Genia
.

At Swamp Yankee’s grocery, she picked up lobster salad, rolls, clam cakes, and jonnycake meal for white cornmeal pancakes. While standing in the checkout line, Genia overheard the checkout girl tell the boy bagging groceries that she’d heard that Mr. Parker had
many
enemies among the East Coast Mafia. But then the boy countered that Jason Eden had probably smoked some bad weed and done in the old man.

Genia couldn’t let that pass.

“Jason Eden did no such thing,” she said in her most authoritative voice, looking the boy straight in the eye. “I’m his great-aunt, and I ought to know.”

The boy looked embarrassed as he handed her purchases to her.

But as she walked away, she heard the two teens snicker, and the boy said softly, “Yeah, right, like Jason would tell her.”

Genia didn’t mind the disparagement of herself—she’d had a similar low opinion of grown-ups when she was their age—but she minded very much the slander on her nephew’s name. She had started to think,
on my nephew’s good name
, as the old saying usually went, but then she had to sadly amend that to the shorter version. The truth was that Jason had already besmirched his name in his hometown. With a sinking sensation, his aunt realized that whether it was fair or not, more than one aspersion might be cast on Jason’s name this day.
Oh, Jason
, she thought as she got back into her car,
please don’t get into any more trouble of the kind that makes people say cruel things about you
.