The Secret Ingredient Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery

  Genia felt every ear in the place upon them, and she glanced rather desperately across the table at her host. “Take it easy, Celeste,” David said harshly. “Everybody can hear you.”

  “Don’t give a damn,” she muttered into her drink. “Don’t give a damn about anything now.” She slugged the rest of it and then pointed at the empty glass while looking at David, as if to tell him to get her a refill. But when a waiter came over to take the order for oysters and crackers—to which David added a request for clam chowder—he neglected to order the drink.

  The waiter walked away, looking glad to escape.

  “David! You forgot my drinkie-poo.”

  “You’ve had enough to drink, Celeste.”

  Genia tensed at the abruptness of it, but neither did she blame him for saying it. They would do Celeste a kindness if they could keep her from making a bigger fool of herself.

  Celeste glared at him. “Who do you think you are? Mr. High and Mighty Stanley Parker? Godalmighty Parker? I’ll drink as much as I damn well please, and I don’t want any damned clam chowder, either.” She turned to Genia, her lower lip stuck out like a pouty little girl’s. “Men all think they can tell me what to do. Do they do that to you? They’ll run your life if you let them. As if I haven’t run my own life perfectly well all these years. Who says I need any help?”

  Genia exchanged another glance with David that Celeste didn’t see.

  This was getting out of hand, embarrassing for all of them. If they tried to stop her, she’d get angry and make an even worse scene. But if they didn’t stop her, there was no telling what she’d do. Genia felt terribly relieved when a distraction walked up in the portly form of the mayor of Devon.

  Larry Averill laid a hand on Celeste’s shoulder.

  “Did I hear somebody ask for help? Well, I could sure use some help from somebody. Evening, Genia. David. You’re looking gorgeous tonight, Celeste. But poor ol’ me, I could sure use a place to sit down and have dinner. You folks happen to know of an empty chair someplace in this club?”

  With a look of relief, David said, “Please join us, Larry.”

  Instead of taking the empty chair across from Celeste, the mayor grabbed another chair from a table close by and scooted it up to their table right next to her, so he was seated between the two women. Then he took Celeste’s right hand and held it firmly in his own left hand, on top of the tablecloth. Understanding that he was trying to keep a grip on his old friend’s behavior, Genia scooched her own chair over to make room. It resulted in an odd seating arrangement, but it seemed perfectly satisfactory to her. Bless his heart, was Genia’s only thought. He’s so sweet to her.

  The mayor took firm hold of the conversation.

  “Great send-off for Stanley, don’t you think?” he asked them.

  “Fit for the king he thought he was,” Celeste slurred, and would have added more, except that Larry squeezed her hand, visibly, on the tabletop, and then interrupted her to laugh and say, “Me, I wouldn’t ever want to be a king, would you, Dave? Too dangerous. Too many enemies out for your blood all the time. I’ll settle for a simple seat in the state legislature, and if I can’t have that, I’ll die happy being mayor of this town.”

  “No, I wouldn’t want to be king,” David replied quickly, as if also trying to override anything that Celeste might try to say. “I’m more the courtier type, myself.” He laughed, in a self-deprecating way that invited the others to join in the humor at his expense. David smiled over at Genia, and then included Celeste in his glance, too. “I don’t want to rule a country, I just want to take lovely ladies to dinner.”

  “Smart man,” the mayor said, just as quickly.

  “Well, I want to be queen!” Celeste waved her left arm about, almost knocking David in the head with her hand. Taking a cue from the mayor, David grabbed the free hand and held it down, also, on the tabletop. Celeste flushed and said directly to his face, “So I can yell Off with Their Heads!” She laughed, and it had a nasty sound. “Somebody sure tried to take Stanley’s head off, didn’t they?”

  She put her face up to the mayor’s, grinned drunkenly, and asked, “Who do you think that was, Larry?”

  Genia wished she could be anywhere but here.

  David released Celeste’s hand, but Larry held on to her.

  “I don’t know,” the mayor said calmly, “but I do know that daughter of his may have as good a head for business as her father did. I talked to Nikki a little bit, about the art festival, and I think she’s going to support it.” Genia felt her own admiration for the mayor growing by leaps and bounds; she felt she was getting a glimpse into how this amiable mayor managed to handle people, difficult situations, controversy. As if there weren’t anything else in the world to worry about at the moment, he said to her in the most pleasant, innocuous way, “We want to hold it out on Parker’s Island, you know.”

  “Will she let you do that?” Genia asked him, playing along.

  “Well, she didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no, either.”

  “She’ll do what her father wanted,” Celeste predicted in a loud voice. She stared angrily at David. “Just like everybody else did. The cowards.” She looked away from him. “But not me. I’ve never kowtowed to Stanley Parker or to anybody else, have I, Larry, honey?”

  “No, Celeste,” he replied with pride and affection in his voice. “You’ve always been your own woman.”

  “Damn right.”

  “Nikki’s hubby is all for the idea,” Larry told them, referring to Randy Dixon.

  “I’ll just bet he is,” Celeste said sarcastically. “She’ll give him some highfalutin supervisory job, and he’ll never have to work for a living again.”

  She appeared to be unhappy at losing their attention.

  “Isn’t anybody going to buy me another drink?”

  “No,” David said rather coldly, Genia thought.

  “Sure, Celeste,” Larry said, in a much kinder voice. “I’ll buy all of us coffee and dessert. You’ve never had apple crisp until you’ve had it here in Devon, Genia. Who wants decaf?”

  “Coffee?” Celeste’s tone was disbelieving. “Only if it’s got scotch in it.”

  “And then let’s take a walk,” Larry continued cheerfully, as if she hadn’t spoken. “You and me, Celeste, down by the docks. Or, all of us, if David and Genia want to come, too. It’s a pretty night, no matter what Harrison Wright says it’s going to do later this week. I saw Kevin Eden tying his boat up, just before I came in here. We could go down and talk to him about the art festival, see if we can get him to cooperate.” To Genia, he explained, “I guess you know Stanley let Kevin live out on the island for a pittance, and now Kevin doesn’t want to be bothered with our festival. Not that I really blame him. I mean, we will bother him with all of our preparations, and he would probably need to vacate the island the weekend of the event.”

  “Is there any benefit to him?” David asked.

  “Well, yeah, he could probably sell a lot of his own artwork.” Larry smiled around the table at them, his genial gaze lingering last on Celeste. “So let’s walk down to his boat and try to convince him to go along with it.”

  “He doesn’t have to go along with it,” Celeste blurted out, with an arch look for all of them. “Now that Stanley’s dead.”

  There was a silence while they stared at her.

  “Celeste, what are you talking about?” Larry asked her, and for the first time that evening, his tone betrayed a hint of impatience. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Celeste faced them triumphantly, with the air of someone who knows something the others don’t. “It has everything to do with it! Stanley had Kevin up to lunch at the Castle, and he told him that if he didn’t go along with the festival—and do it gracefully—that Stanley would kick him off the island.”

  Celeste laughed, and banged her empty glass on the table.

  “Of course, Nikki doesn’t know that,” she said unsympathetically. And then she giggled. “I
’m not supposed to know this. Nobody’s supposed to know, but Ed Hennessey told me, ’cause he overheard the whole thing. Now that Stanley’s dead, Kevin can pretend he never said anything. Unless somebody tells Nikki.” She shrugged. “I’m not going to. Why should I? Why should I do a favor for Stanley Parker, who never did a damn thing for me?”

  “Celeste,” Larry chided gently. “That’s not true—”

  “You don’t know!” she shot back at him. “You don’t know a damn thing about it, Larry Averill.” She grabbed David’s wineglass and downed the remaining contents. “Stanley’s dying did a lot of folks a favor, didn’t it?”

  She stared at each of them in turn, as if daring them to protest.

  “Celeste,” Genia asked quietly. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t have to say what I mean.” Celeste’s expression looked childishly exultant until she looked over at David Graham. Then her look turned sly. “But you, David, what do you get out of Stanley being dead?” Celeste pressed her fingers to her lips in a false show of suppressing a smile. “Oh, but I guess you already got what you wanted from Stanley out of Lily, didn’t you, David?”

  A silence, this one chilling, fell on the group.

  “Oh, did I say something wrong?” Celeste mocked them with widened eyes. “I’m so bad. Genia, I guess you’re the only one here who doesn’t stand to benefit from Stanley’s death, aren’t you?”

  The mayor looked flabbergasted by the implications of that question. “Celeste,” he started to say, but he was cut off before he could finish his sentence.

  “How do you benefit, Celeste?” David asked in a dead-even tone.

  “Me?” For the first time, Celeste looked flustered instead of just drunk. “I don’t benefit from his death. Not at all. I’m sorry he’s dead.”

  “No,” David pressed, “you’re not.”

  “David Graham, that’s a terrible thing to say!”

  “Do you think you haven’t been saying terrible things about us?” he continued, leaning toward her. “How about facing the truth about yourself for once, Celeste? You were furious at Stanley, weren’t you? I don’t know why, but I know you were, so why don’t you admit it to all of us?”

  “Take it easy, Graham,” Larry Averill objected.

  The mayor grasped Celeste’s hand again.

  She jerked it out of his grasp and attempted to stand up.

  Genia stood up quickly, too, and hurried around to Celeste’s side of the table. “We’re going to the ladies’ room,” she informed the gentlemen. Firmly, she guided Celeste around her chair, then around the table, and on toward a discreet sign that pointed to “Rest rooms.”

  When they got into the ladies’ room, Celeste began to weep, and she begged Genia, “I’ve got to get out of here. Don’t let David see me like this. I have to go home. I know I’m too drunk to drive. Take my keys, Genia, please? Drive me home? Oh, God, why did I say all those things? Please, please, don’t let anybody see me like this.”

  Genia sat Celeste down in a chair in the rest room and hurried back out into the dining room to tell the men she was taking Celeste home.

  “I’ll drive her,” Larry said, standing up at the table.

  But she declined his offer, recalling how pitiful Celeste had looked as she begged Genia not to let anyone see her. “She doesn’t want to see anyone right now, Larry,” Genia told him quietly. “She’s embarrassed. I’m sure you understand. I’ll just take her keys and drive her home.” Turning to her own escort, she asked, “David, could you pick me up in front of her house in twenty minutes?”

  “Of course. I’ll follow you.”

  “Fine, just don’t let Celeste know you’re doing it, all right?”

  Genia reached for Larry Averill’s hand. “She’ll be okay.”

  “I wish you’d let me drive her home.”

  “No, really, it’s better this way.”

  With the discreet help of the maître d’, Genia got Celeste out a side door without being observed by very many people, and then into the front passenger seat of the Realtor’s red Lincoln Town Car.

  Their ride to Celeste’s house was brief, as she lived close enough to the Yacht Club to be within walking distance. All of the way there, Celeste cried into the steady supply of tissues that Genia kept handing her from an open box between them on the seat. Once there, Genia got the front door open with Celeste’s keys and then helped her upstairs to her bedroom.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” the Realtor kept sobbing. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  * * *

  Still weeping, Celeste sat down heavily on the edge of her unmade bed.

  “Will you be all right by yourself?” Genia asked her gently.

  “Yes. No. Are you all right by yourself?” Celeste looked up with teary, mascara-smeared eyes. Genia realized she was interpreting the simple question in a complex way. “Don’t you get lonely? I’m not all right by myself, Genia, and I never have been. I don’t want to be alone, but what choice have I got?”

  Genia thought, You’ve always had a choice you didn’t want.

  Lawrence Averill, she meant, for it was obvious how much he loved Celeste.

  Instead of answering, Genia laid her cheek on top of Celeste’s head and gave her a little hug. Then she went into the bathroom to look for some kind of medicine that might mitigate the ferocious hangover Celeste was bound to have in the morning. Finding a bottle of aspirin, she spilled out two tablets into her hand and also filled a glass with water. She took it back to Celeste, who swallowed obediently and then fell back onto her bed.

  “Don’t you want to get out of those clothes?” Genia asked her.

  But Celeste already had her eyes closed.

  Genia managed to remove Celeste’s shoes, lift her legs onto the bed, and roll the bedcovers over and around her so that she wouldn’t get chilled. Winded after that exertion, she stood gazing down at the other woman for a moment, waiting to see if she really was asleep.

  It appeared she was, or at least she wanted Genia to think so.

  Genia picked up the glass she’d brought in and carried it back toward the bathroom to fill and leave on the bedside table for Celeste, for the inevitable moment when she awoke with a raging thirst. On her way back, moonlight caught a glimmer of jewelry on Celeste’s dressing table and snagged Genia’s glance. She saw necklaces, bracelets, and earrings spread haphazardly across the top of the table.

  And she also saw something that made her catch her breath.

  “No, this can’t be,” she whispered.

  She walked over to the dressing table to get a better look at the contents of the jewelry box. And there it was: a starburst of diamonds and pearls, Grandmother Andrews’s pearl and diamond brooch. There could not be two such pieces of jewelry in Devon. Genia lifted her lost brooch from the tangled mess of adornments, glanced over at the recumbent figure on the bed, and then put the heirloom into her own pocket.

  Genia was making sure the front door would lock before she stepped out of Celeste’s house, when she heard a noise that stopped her.

  She looked up toward the ceiling, from where it came.

  From above she heard the sound of Celeste moving about in her bedroom, first the creak of the bed as she sat up and swung her legs to the floor, then the sound of her footsteps as she walked heavily to the bathroom. For a moment Genia thought of going back upstairs. Would Celeste be sick? Was it safe to leave her alone? She guessed that Celeste had had a lot of experience with nights like these.

  It was probably best to leave her alone now. By morning, the fog of alcohol would lift and give Celeste a chance to explain what looked unexplainable.

  David Graham’s Lexus was quietly idling at the curb, where he waited to pick her up. She was suddenly exhausted, and felt he would understand if she asked him to take her straight back home, instead of going anywhere else that evening.

  “How is she?” he asked, when he opened the door for her.

  “She’ll be
better in the morning.”

  “She’ll be miserable in the morning.”

  “I don’t know what to do about that.”

  She decided to say nothing about the brooch.

  “There’s nothing any of us can do,” he said.

  “David …?”

  “You’d probably like me to take you right home, wouldn’t you?”

  “How did you guess?”

  “Celeste has a way of wearing people out. Even Larry, who is as devoted as an old dog, said he was going home to bed. And I didn’t think politicians ever got tired.” He smiled over at her, looking almost as weary as she felt. “It was very nice of you to help her, Genia.”

  “Anyone would have done the same.”

  “Not I.” There was a stern set to his jaw. “I would have left her there to get herself out of the mess she got herself into. That may sound heartless, but nobody ever helped a drunk by making it too easy for him.”

  Genia didn’t reply, but she didn’t entirely blame him, either.

  It sounded to her as if perhaps David Graham and Celeste Hutchinson had a bit more of a history together than most people knew. Genia didn’t know how many times they had gone out together, although she had the impression it wasn’t very often. Possibly he had witnessed similar scenes before this, and that’s why he was no longer as interested in Celeste as she was in him. Genia didn’t judge him harshly for that, any more than she judged Celeste for being an alcoholic.

  She would have liked to help, but didn’t know how to do that.

  David walked her to her door, left her with a polite kiss on her cheek, and said, “I hope you’ll allow me to start all over again, Genia. Maybe we can pretend this evening never happened and go out to dinner again very soon?”

  “I’d like that, David.”

  As she said it, she was surprised by how much she meant it.

  17

  SECOND SERVING

  Eddie Hennessey leaned against the wall of the crowded, smoky bar—his usual hangout—and wondered if he would ever come back here again. After tonight he would be able to afford a better atmosphere than this, hang out with a better class of people, drink better booze.