The Secret Ingredient Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery

  “There,” she said. “Now for the phyllo.”

  After wiping clean a large space on the center island, she peeled off one sheet of the thin pastry and set it on the surface. She brushed it lightly with melted butter, added a second sheet, and repeated the process. Stanley would have enjoyed making this, she thought as she folded the pastry in half. He was as careful and creative about his cooking as he was about his other ventures. Lillian, he had once told Genia, had not liked to cook, and so during their marriage he had cooked any meals their various hired chefs had not prepared for them. His favorite chef had been a superb cook whom Stanley had stolen from one of the finest restaurants on the East Bay.

  “Do you ever not get your way, Stanley Parker?” Genia remembered teasing him.

  And she recalled his answer that day. It had been somber, not in keeping with the light mood in which she had asked it.

  “Yes,” he had said. “When Lil refused to come back to me. She had her reasons—I wasn’t much of a husband—but I thought I could make it up to her. I never convinced her. Or maybe David was more convincing than I.”

  It must have been terribly hard for Stanley when Lillian brought David Graham to Devon, Genia thought. David stood in such stark contrast to Stanley—younger than Stanley by almost twenty years, Genia guessed, as well as being courtly, debonair—yes, and handsomer, too. And he shared Lillian’s passion for all things artistic, as demonstrated by the fact that they had actually met at an art auction in New York, David had said.

  Genia scooped half of the rice mixture onto the buttered pastry, then set the sliced tuna on top. She seasoned the fish carefully, then covered it with the remaining rice and folded the pastry over to form a package. She then repeated the process three times. On the heels of that activity, Janie arrived, and Genia immediately set her to work chopping carrots and leeks into slender strips. She instructed Janie how to heat a cup of chardonnay, boiling it down for the sauce. The wine would be added to plain yogurt, enriched with an egg yolk and seasoned with bits of parsley, fresh basil, and the sautéed carrots and leeks. Just before serving, they would spoon the creamy sauce over the baked tuna. Under Genia’s watchful eye, her grandniece placed the pastry-wrapped fish in the preheated oven and then they started on the dessert.

  “Janie, let’s freeze the rest of these berries.”

  Suddenly, Genia couldn’t face any more cooking. Since Janie had arrived, there hadn’t even been time for a cup of tea or any real conversation. They’d been too busy. The table was set, the water glasses were filled, and Janie had already started to tidy the small messes they’d strewn about on the countertop, island, table, and stove. Genia had found a moment to run upstairs, change into a dress, put on makeup, and freshen her hairdo. They were almost ready for Sylvia Stewart, who should be arriving shortly. The tuna in its phyllo wrapping was nearing a perfect golden, crispy brown, and as soon as they removed it from the oven, they could take a brief break before Jason arrived with the guest in tow. His job this morning was to pick up his great-aunt’s mystery guest in Genia’s clean car and escort her to the house.

  Glancing over at her grandniece, Genia thought she saw distress in the teenager’s face and posture. Janie’s henna-red hair stuck out in more clumps than usual this morning, and a bright blue plastic clamp provided the only color on her black-clad person. Her aunt felt sure that the child’s black jeans and T-shirt were reflective of mood instead of fashion.

  “Janie, are you sleeping all right these days?”

  “Sleep? What’s sleep? If I go to sleep, then I just wake up and find out that something else awful has happened that makes Jason look as guilty as O. J. Simpson. It gets worse and worse every day. What are we going to do?”

  The last word was a drawn-out wail.

  Genia pulled a chair from the kitchen table and let herself sag down into it. Everything felt heavy these days, including her mind and her spirit. She knew just what Janie meant. What were they going to do? Now that her immediate cooking duties were complete, she felt a bit like wailing, too.

  “Nobody cares,” Janie proclaimed.

  “That’s not true,” was her aunt’s automatic response.

  The girl wiped the back of her right hand across her cheek. She’d been sniffling back tears all morning, and now she allowed a few of them to flow. “Oh, you care, sure, and I guess Mom and Dad care, but what difference does that make? Jason is miserable and scared out of his wits, although he won’t admit it to anybody but me.” Her voice caught on a sob as she suddenly gave exaggerated attention to filling a plastic freezer bag with plump blueberries.

  “The police will find the real killer, Janie.”

  “Yeah, right,” was the bitter reply. “Like, they really want to find anybody but Jason.”

  Genia felt guilty relief when the doorbell rang, forestalling the need for her to come up with some reassuring answer to her niece’s concerns. Genia didn’t have any such answer at the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t want Janie to know that.

  Wearily, she walked to the front door and opened it, prepared to shed her exhaustion and welcome her luncheon guest.

  But it wasn’t Jason and Sylvia Stewart on her front porch.

  Nikki Parker Dixon stood there, looking furious. Without preamble, she looked up at Genia and said, “If my father weren’t already dead, I would absolutely kill him!”

  “For heaven’s sake, Nikki, what’s wrong? Come in!”

  “I’ll tell you what’s wrong.” Nikki stomped into the foyer and whirled around so fast, Genia caught her breath and stepped back. “He’s dead, and he’s still trying to hurt me!”

  “Go on back to the kitchen, dear,” Genia said to the angry young woman. “I know your father made mistakes, but he loved you—”

  “I don’t want to hear anything about that anymore! Do you know what he had the nerve to do?” The words preceded them down the hall, spilling into the kitchen, where Janie looked up with a startled expression. “A private investigator called today, asking for a monthly payment on his bill to my father. And do you want to know why? Because my father hired him to investigate my husband, that’s why! He was spying on Randy!”

  “Oh, dear,” Genia murmured, coming in behind her.

  “I can’t believe it, Genia! Oh, hi, Janie. I’m sorry you have to hear this, but just be glad you have a decent father, not somebody who wants to break up your marriage someday! My father hired a stranger to follow my husband around to try to catch him in something so I’d have to divorce him. How could he have done such a thing to us?”

  “Is that what the man told you?” Genia asked, feeling confused and appalled. Nikki was so upset, talking so loud and fast that Genia felt as if certain crucial facts were falling through gaps in her tirade against her father. If what Nikki said was true, Genia wanted to think that Stanley must have had very good reason; if he didn’t, he had stepped over a serious boundary that he probably should not have crossed. Still, she wasn’t ready to give up on him yet, not without hearing more of the facts.

  “He said just what I told you. That Dad hired him. I said hello, and he said, ‘May I speak to Mr. Parker?’ And I said, ‘Mr. Parker is deceased.’ And there was this long pause, and he said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, this is bad timing, but I’m calling about some money he owed me.’ And I said, ‘What for?’ And he said he was a private investigator and Mr. Parker had hired him to investigate somebody and his bill was overdue. And I just exploded. I knew who he meant! I told him my dad was dead, and I’d pay the rest of his bill, and he was to stay out of our business from now on. And I slammed down the phone. I probably shouldn’t have been nasty to him. It wasn’t his fault, he was just doing what Dad hired him to do, but I don’t think I have ever felt so offended in my whole life.” A little steam seemed to go out of Nikki, and she dropped into the kitchen chair that Genia had recently vacated. “I went through Dad’s papers on his desk, and I found the guy’s card, look.…”

  She held it out for them to see, then dropped i
t onto the table.

  “Norman Heist. Great name for a P.I., isn’t it?”

  “And you’re sure he was hired to investigate Randy?”

  “Well, who else, Genia?”

  “Did Mr. Heist say that’s who he was supposed to follow?”

  “Well, it wasn’t like I needed to ask,” the young woman said bitterly. She pushed her glasses up on her nose. “All he had to do was say he was a private eye and my dad hired him, and I knew right then what he was hired for. I didn’t let him say much else. I didn’t want to listen to it! You know how my dad would have loved to get anything incriminating on Randy. Oh, I can’t believe he really went this far!”

  “I can’t, either,” Genia said slowly.

  Nikki seemed suddenly to come awake to the fact that she had invaded a busy kitchen. “I’ve interrupted, haven’t I? I’m so sorry!” She got up abruptly and pushed in the chair. “I’ll get out of here so you can get back to your cooking. I just had to explode to somebody, and Randy’s not around, so I came over here.” Looking around her curiously, she asked, “Are you still working on Dad’s cookbook?”

  “Well, yes,” Genia told her, “but we’re also preparing lunch for a guest. Nikki, maybe you can help us solve a mystery. This is a woman your father had invited to the arts council meeting last night. I don’t know if you noticed her in the crowd? Bright red hair, tall, slim, a woman in her forties, quite attractive?”

  But Stanley’s daughter shook her head no.

  “Maybe you’ve heard of her?” Genia asked hopefully. “Sylvia Stewart?”

  “No, I’m sorry, the name’s not familiar. Why?”

  “Because it was your dad who invited her to come to Devon to the arts council meeting last night, and he was going to have her out to the Castle for lunch this afternoon. You’re sure he never mentioned her name to you? You’ve really never heard of her before now?”

  “No, but what’s the mystery about her?”

  “She doesn’t know why your dad wanted to see her,

  Nikki.”

  “Weird! Then why did she come, if she didn’t know why?”

  Genia smiled at Stanley’s daughter. “Your father could be very persuasive when he wanted something, and evidently he very much wanted to meet her.”

  “And she really doesn’t know why?”

  “That’s what she says.”

  Nikki made a cynical face. “Maybe he thought she had some dirt on Randy. Maybe I ought to stay and meet her, would that be all right? You don’t have to feed me, but now I’m curious. When’s she supposed to get here?”

  Genia glanced up at the kitchen clock and frowned.

  “Ten minutes ago.” She hadn’t realized how long Nikki’s visit had taken; by now, Jason should have arrived with their guest. If they didn’t get here soon, the entrée would lose much of its delicious crisp freshness.

  She excused herself to go to the telephone to call the Devon Bed and Breakfast. When the owner of the B and B answered, Genia asked her, “Has my nephew been there to pick up Mrs. Stewart?”

  Upon hearing the answer, Genia frowned again and then said, “I see. Would you put me through to her room, please?” But then in a few moments, she spoke to the owner, who had come back on the line again. “No one answered in her room. She hasn’t checked out, has she? No? Well, I think I’d better come into town and pick her up myself. If you see her, would you let her know? Thank you so much.” She hung up the phone gently, and turned to look up at Janie and Nikki. “She says that Jason has been there and left …”

  Janie walked over to glance out the window, as if expecting him to drive up that minute.

  “… without Mrs. Stewart,” Genia finished.

  Her niece turned and stared at her. “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know,” her great-aunt replied, frowning. “I wish your brother had a cell phone, so we could call him and ask him. And Mrs. Stewart didn’t answer the phone in her room, so I couldn’t ask her, either. She must have stepped out for a moment and they missed connections, somehow, although I would have thought that Jason would call me from the front desk to tell me if he had a problem.”

  “He would have, Aunt Genia.”

  It struck Genia most unpleasantly that once again a guest was late in arriving for a meal. The last time that had happened …

  Genia refused to think about that last time.

  Briskly, she told the other women, “Nikki, I gave Jason my car to drive, and I don’t want to leave Janie out here alone without a car. May I ask a huge favor?”

  “Want me to drive you to the B and B?”

  “Yes, would you, please?”

  “Of course. Let’s go.”

  “Thank you so much, Nikki. Janie, would you take the tuna out of the oven, cover it carefully with foil, and set it aside until we get back? Thank you, dear.”

  Genia and Nikki left a worried-looking Janie to finish the preparations for the guest who had not arrived.

  Having poured some of the melted water out of the water glasses and put in fresh ice, having checked to make sure the phyllo-wrapped tuna was snugly wrapped in foil, there was nothing for Janie to do but sit in the kitchen and wait until they got back. She was just at the point of feeling bored enough to clean the refrigerator when the telephone rang in the kitchen.

  Janie hurried to answer it.

  “Jason?” she asked breathlessly.

  There was a silence, and then a man’s voice said, “No. Is this the home of Eugenia Potter? I meant to call …”

  “Oh! Yes, she’s my aunt, but she’s not here now.”

  “Are you Janie?”

  “Yeah, who’s this?”

  “This is Jed White calling from Boston. Hello, Janie, I’ve heard a lot of nice things about you. I’m a friend of your great-aunt’s. Would you tell her I called?”

  “Sure. Hold on while I get some paper.…”

  Janie spotted a pen and an upside down legal pad near the coffeepot and reached for it. Turning it over, she grabbed the pen and scribbled at the top of the first page the number the caller gave her. After she hung up, her attention was drawn to a name written on the first line: RANDY DIXON.

  Before she could read any further, the kitchen phone rang again, and again she eagerly grabbed it.

  “Jason?” she demanded again.

  “Janie—”

  “Aunt Genia! Where are you? What’s going on?”

  “I’m at the bed and breakfast, dear.” Her aunt’s voice sounded funny, kind of hushed and upset and urgent. “Janie, I don’t want to frighten you, but I have to tell you something very bad. Mrs. Stewart has been found in her room, badly beaten. It looks as if someone tried to kill her, and probably thought they had succeeded. She’s still alive, but just barely. I don’t know where your brother is, but”—and here her aunt lowered her voice even more—“we need to find him before the police do.”

  “Oh, my God,” Janie said, shocked to her core. “They’ll think he did it, won’t they? Oh, Aunt Genia!”

  “Janie, listen to me. This is terribly upsetting. And on top of everything else, it scares me to think of you alone out there on the cul-de-sac. Please lock up the house, get in your car, and drive to your mother’s house. Will you do that right now, please?”

  “Okay, but what about Jason?” Her voice rose to a hysterical pitch.

  “We’ll find him, Janie. You just leave now, please.”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming!”

  “Good girl. I’ll see you at your mother’s house.”

  Her aunt hung up at her end, leaving Janie holding a dial tone. For a moment, she couldn’t move, paralyzed by this awful new information. This was something else the police would try to blame on Jason! As she stood there, her glance fell on the yellow page with the name Randy Dixon at the top of it.

  Her eyes took in the rest of the words before her mind did.

  When Randy heard from his resentful wife about the change in Stanley’s will, he knew push had finally come to
shove.

  Neither of the Dixons was invited to Genia Potter’s dinner party—yet another exclusion with Stanley behind it. But that gave Randy exactly the opportunity he needed to act on his motive. If he knew his father-in-law’s habits as well as he thought he did, he knew where to find the old man alone and vulnerable.

  Janie’s heart was pounding in her chest, and she felt suddenly short of breath. Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes widened as she read.…

  Surprise would help.

  There would be no time for Stanley to yell, to raise an alarm, or to fight back, as feeble as his effort would be.

  It was as easy as falling off a log.…

  Only it wasn’t Randy Dixon who fell.

  Janie tore off the first page where it was written. She backed toward the kitchen table, holding the accusatory page in fingers that had gone damp and shaky. Oh, my God! she thought, in a panic. Nikki said her father hired a private investigator to find out bad things about her husband! And here, Aunt Genia has actually written down that Randy killed Mr. Parker! But if Aunt Genia knew, why didn’t she tell Nikki? Why doesn’t she tell the police?

  Janie thought she knew why: Because Nikki and the police would not believe her! But Janie believed it. Maybe Nikki was in on it! Maybe Nikki had come out here to distract Aunt Genia, while Randy was at the bed and breakfast trying to kill that poor woman! Nikki said that maybe the mystery lady knew some dirt on Randy! That must have been why Mr. Parker had wanted to meet her, and that meant Randy would have wanted to get rid of Mrs. Stewart, too!

  “Oh, my God,” Janie screamed, alone in the kitchen.

  She was too distraught to question why Nikki Dixon would have needed to distract her aunt Genia while her husband committed a murder, but she did have the thought that Nikki was too nice to have done such a thing. It had to be all Randy’s doing! Poor Nikki, married to a madman! And now all Janie could think of was that her brother had gone to pick up a woman that somebody wanted to kill. And now that woman was almost dead! What if something had happened to Jason, too? What if that’s why Jason hadn’t called? What if he had walked in on the attack, and Randy had taken him hostage?