Chocolate Covered Murder Part 6

"I work hard," he snapped. "The least you can do is be supportive."

Lucy couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Like I don't work hard, too?"

"Yeah!" he exclaimed, as a ball made it through the hoop. "You have a part-time job, Luce. It's not the same thing as being the breadwinner."

Lucy threw down the magazine. "Men are so self-centered!" she declared, grabbing another.

"Hey, I'm a good guy," he protested. "I said I'd take you to that ball, didn't I?"

Lucy stared at the black-and-white photo of a nearly naked man and woman entwined in a steamy embrace on a beach; they appeared to be coated in baby oil.

"A funny thing happened when I was doing an interview at Chanticleer Chocolate. The woman who works there, Tamzin, asked about you."

"Did she?" Bill was staring at the TV, where two commentators in blue blazers were recapping a play. "I helped Max put in the shelves in the storeroom."

"You never mentioned it," said Lucy.

A commercial for an erectile dysfunction drug was playing on the TV; a man and woman were sitting in separate bathtubs, outdoors. "Who does that?" asked Bill, incredulous.

"Dora said Max was nothing but trouble... ."

Bill was flipping channels, pausing at a golf match. "You can say that again," said Bill. "He never paid me for that job." He was staring at the parched Arizona landscape that filled the screen. "Look at that, must be eighty degrees at least."

"How much did he owe you?" asked Lucy.

"We agreed on five hundred dollars, but I haven't seen a cent-and I'm not the only one he stiffed."

"Who else?" asked Lucy.

"Just about everybody," said Bill, watching as Phil Mickelson made a putt. "Nice."

"If he owed a lot of people money, a lot of people had a motive to kill him, didn't they?"

Bill looked at her. "I don't follow you. What would killing him accomplish? You still wouldn't get your money back."

"You'd get revenge," said Lucy.

"Pretty cold comfort, if you ask me," said Bill, draining the bottle of beer and switching off the TV. "What do you say to a 'matinee,' before the girls come home?"

Lucy was caught by surprise; she was wondering who else Max might have stiffed. "Now?"

He grinned wickedly. "Yeah, now. Like in that commercial. We can be spontaneous, right? And I don't need any pills, either."

Spontaneity didn't appeal to Lucy, who was newly self-conscious about her body, thinking of the tummy bulge she'd noticed the other day. "I feel fat," she said.

"Don't be silly," said Bill, taking her hand and drawing her into an embrace. "I love you just the way you are. You're perfect."

Lucy felt her resistance crumbling as he wrapped his arms around her.

"A little bit of extra flesh is s.e.xy," he murmured, whispering into her ear.

Lucy felt as if she'd been slapped and pulled away. "I've got to start supper," she snapped, marching into the kitchen.

"What? What did I say?" demanded Bill.

Lucy grabbed a couple of onions and began chopping, furiously smacking the knife against the cutting board. How on earth did the Faircloths do it, she wondered, as her eyes filled with tears. It was the onions, she told herself. Onions always made her cry.

Chapter Six.

Sunday morning, when the breakfast dishes were all cleared away and the dishwasher was humming, Lucy sat down at the round golden-oak table with the newspapers. Bill was outside splitting wood, and the girls had gone over to Prudence Path to babysit little Patrick while Toby and Molly went to a christening.

Lucy always read the Boston Sunday Globe first, starting with the colorful magazine. She was turning the pages slowly, savoring this bit of quiet time, pausing to admire a mouth-watering photo of a red velvet layer cake. Perfect, she thought. Just the thing to make for the dessert contest.

Flipping the page over, she eagerly read the recipe but didn't find it all that appealing. It called for too much sugar-two cups-and two whole sticks of b.u.t.ter, as well as an awful lot of red food coloring. It also called for the addition of vinegar, which made the whole thing sound more like a science experiment than a cake.

No, red velvet wasn't the way to go. Maybe cupcakes, she thought. They were all the rage. Maybe she could work up a cupcake with a gooey chocolate surprise filling and a ganache topping. That sounded yummy, but she'd never had much luck getting ganache to set and she couldn't enter cupcakes with runny icing. And she had no idea how to get that chocolate filling inside the cupcake. Did you bake it in? Was there some sort of magic process involved like the Denver Chocolate Pudding in her f.a.n.n.y Farmer cookbook that she sometimes made as a special treat?

Another specialty was the clafouti she often made in summer, when cherries and blueberries were in season. She'd found the recipe in her Julia Child cookbook and it was surprisingly simple. It was the only recipe in that book that she actually made. She was wondering if she could figure out a way to make a chocolate clafouti, perhaps with frozen raspberries. That would be really good, and original. She suspected all she'd have to do would be to add some cocoa powder to the recipe, but how much? Chances of getting it right the first time seemed slim-and would it also need a chocolate sauce? She rather thought it might, which made the project seem awfully ambitious.

She was leafing through her Paula Deen cookbook when she heard someone tapping at the kitchen door. Libby, never a very good guard dog, was giving mixed messages, simultaneously growling and wagging her tail, when Lucy opened the door. Discovering it was Frankie, the dog erupted into a joyful dance of greeting.

"Down," said Lucy firmly, pointing to the dog's bed.

The Lab settled down with a big sigh and Lucy took Frankie's coat. "Want some coffee? It's nice and hot."

"Sure," said Frankie, slipping into a chair. "I can't stay long, I've got another appointment with the Faircloths. I've been showing them everything from here to Portland and back."

"I meant to thank you for telling me about them," said Lucy, pouring two mugs and bringing them over to the table. "They are every bit as cute as you said and I got a great interview."

Frankie sipped at her coffee. "I'm getting a bit sick of them, to tell the truth. Talk about picky!" She shrugged philosophically. "Of course, when you're spending the kind of money they are, I guess you can be picky. They have a lot of art and antiques and they want a house that will showcase their collections."

Lucy was puzzled. "I thought they lost everything in a house fire."

"You're right," said Frankie, knitting her brows. "I guess some of their stuff was saved-they must have it in storage." She wrapped her hands around the mug. "Actually, I was wondering about the couple at Chanticleer Chocolate. Do you think they're looking for a house?"

"You mean Trey and Tamzin? I don't think they're a couple," said Lucy. "Where did you get that idea?"

Frankie took a sip of coffee. "I saw them outside the store. They were arguing; I guess that's why I thought they were a couple." She giggled. "Maybe it's just their names. Trey and Tamzin. They sound like a couple, no?"

Lucy smiled. "I don't know much about Trey, but I do know that Tamzin is very flirtatious. She flaunts her a.s.sets, if you know what I mean."

Frankie's eyebrows went up. "Really?"

"Tight dresses, very low necklines, thigh-high boots. Stilettos."

"Not chic," said Frankie, who favored tailored pantsuits enlivened with colorful scarves.

"That's one way of putting it," said Lucy. "She's certainly not subtle. She's got 'em and she flaunts 'em."

"It's better to leave some things to the imagination," said Frankie, with a sly smile. "But as far as you know, Trey doesn't have a family?"

There was something in her expression that made Lucy wonder if Frankie was interested in Trey for herself. If so, she thought, she wasn't the only one. "I don't think so, but I don't really know," said Lucy. "I know Corney said she finds him very attractive."

"Oh, Corney, she goes after all the single men, but she never catches one," said Frankie, looking at her watch and getting up. "I can't be late for the Faircloths. Roger gets very annoyed."

"He seems so formal, old-fas.h.i.+oned even," said Lucy, getting up and taking Frankie's coat off the hook where she'd hung it.

"He's very easygoing-as long as he's getting his way," said Frankie, pulling the coat over her shoulders and b.u.t.toning it. "But I told him, I can only give them the morning. I must go to the funeral this afternoon."

"I'll see you there, then," said Lucy, opening the door.

Funerals were always a big draw in Tinker's Cove, especially if there was reason to believe the sad observance would be followed by a generous spread. It was no surprise that Max's funeral, actually a memorial service since Max had been cremated, attracted a large crowd. Lucy figured most of the mourners were looking forward to the buffet lunch from Fern's Famous, which had a highly popular catering service run by Flora, as well as the candy business.

Lucy, who was sitting beside Bill in the crowded Community Church, was finding it difficult to concentrate on the eulogy as her thoughts kept straying to Flora's curried chicken puffs and beef satay. They also did a really tasty Greek spinach pie and truly amazing Swedish meatb.a.l.l.s that Bill couldn't resist, and neither could she. Faced with all that delicious food, she knew she had to have a plan, so she intended to follow the suggestion in an article she'd read recently that advised limiting yourself to a single bite of high-calorie foods. "The second bite will taste just like the first," the author claimed.

Lucy was soon checking out the congregation, trying to judge the size of their appet.i.tes. The fis.h.i.+ng crowd were undoubtedly big eaters and she hoped Flora had taken that into account. She was mulling over the best strategy for attacking the buffet, vowing to load her plate with cru-dites rather than cheese cubes, when the minister intoned the final benediction. Everyone stood as the chief mourners exited the front pew and began walking down the aisle. First went Lily, accompanied by her mother; she was holding tightly to Dora's hand. Flora walked behind them, beside Fern, who refused her daughter's offer of a supportive arm despite her advanced age.

Lucy was struck by the image this family of women presented: four generations, obviously sharing the same gene pool, all dressed similarly in black. Lily, the youngest with her fresh complexion and long blond hair and her mother, Dora, with her frosted bob. Flora, in her sixties, with salt-and-pepper hair, bore the same lines on her face as her mother, only less deeply etched. Fern was the smallest of the four, and the oldest, but was clearly the respected head of the family. Watching them, it occurred to Lucy that they made a complete unit in themselves and she wondered if there had ever really been a place for Max. How did he fit in with this tightly knit group?

The four women were followed by a scattering of Gooches from Gilead; at least Lucy supposed that's who they were. Max's parents had died years before and he was an only child, so she a.s.sumed these mourners were a loosely related collection of cousins, aunts, and uncles. They didn't have the same sense of unity about them that the four women had; they didn't resemble each other but came in a variety of shapes and sizes. A gawky, red-haired kid slouched along beside a very short, very fat woman who might or might not be his mother, a stocky man with a gray beard accompanied an attractive woman with streaked blond hair, a young man with a studious air and wire-rimmed gla.s.ses followed behind them.

The center aisle soon filled with people moving slowly toward the exit and Lucy was about to join them when Bill caught her arm. "Let's go out the side door," he said, whispering in her ear. "We don't want to be at the end of the procession."

Apparently Bill had also been thinking hard about the best strategy for getting first dibs on the buffet and was planning an end run around the crowd. The reception would take place at the Macdougal family homestead, a huge old Victorian that had been completely renovated and now sported an authentically gaudy paint job of brown, cream and red. Lucy remembered how the house had looked when she first moved to Tinker's Cove; it had been practically bare of paint then and the sagging porch roof was held up with a couple of two by fours propped against cement blocks. That was before Fern's Famous had become the successful business it was today, of course.

Lucy and Bill weren't the only ones who'd avoided the crush at the church door. They found quite a number of people were already helping themselves to the buffet when they arrived, which Lucy thought was pretty rude. They should have waited for the reception line to form and murmured the usual plat.i.tudes to the grieving family before stuffing their faces, which would have been the proper thing to do. She noticed with alarm that the curried chicken puffs were disappearing fast, however, so Lucy decided there was nothing to do but abandon her principles. She did it reluctantly, fully aware that her extremely proper mother was probably spinning in her grave as she loaded her plate, careful to take only one of everything. Even so, the plate was filling up fast.

"Great food, but you can always count on Fern's Famous," said Corney, joining Lucy and Bill on the padded window seat in the bay window. Like Lucy and Bill, she was holding a plate piled high with finger food. "I don't know what it is about buffets, but I always eat too much."

"I think we'll have a light supper," said Lucy, talking with her mouth full. "Is that okay with you, Bill?"

"Mmph," said Bill, apparently in agreement.

"I'm feeling full and we haven't even gotten to the dessert table yet," confessed Lucy.

"Don't skip the desserts," advised Corney. "They've got something new-a Black Forest cake with brandy-cherry filling. It's absolutely delicious."

Lucy was surprised since she knew Corney was perpetually on a diet and avoided desserts. Come to think of it, she realized with a guilty pang, she was on a diet herself and had no business eating any dessert. "Maybe Bill can give me a bite of his," she said. "I'm trying to lose a few pounds."

"I normally don't eat sweets but that cake is worth the calories," said Corney. "Besides, when a guy takes you to dinner he doesn't want to hear you complaining about the calories. He wants to see you enjoy yourself."

"So you had the cake on a date?" said Lucy, picking up Corney's hint.

As she guessed, Corney couldn't wait to tell her all about it. "Trey took me out last night. We had a lovely meal at the Queen Vic-they get their desserts from Fern's Famous, you know."

"That does sound nice," said Lucy, noticing that Bill was wandering toward a group of men cl.u.s.tered in a corner. "Did you have a good time?"

"I did. Trey is everything a girl could want. Tall, handsome, wealthy. And he's fun, he's got a great sense of humor."

"Sounds like you're smitten. Has he asked you out again?"

"That's the thing," said Corney, scowling. "I'm not sure whether it was a real date or a business dinner. He spent an awful lot of time talking about his plans to expand the business and how the Chamber could help."

"That's tricky," said Lucy.

"You said it. I don't quite know how to play it. I called to thank him. I didn't want him to think I was chasing him, but I wanted to let him know I'm available and I really like him." Corney's face fell and she looked down at her empty plate. "He didn't suggest a second date. In fact, all he wanted to talk about was some kind of special chocolate that's going to revolutionize the confectionary business." She sighed. "I now know a lot more than I ever wanted to about chocolate."

"b.u.mmer," said Lucy, chewing a meatball. "What's his relations.h.i.+p with Tamzin? Are they a couple?"

"I'm not sure." Corney lowered her voice. "It would explain why he doesn't fire her. Have you seen the way she dresses? That woman is sooo unprofessional."

"Men like that sort of thing," said Lucy, as a sudden silence fell in the room. All heads had turned toward the door where Dora and her family were entering; each woman was carrying a flower arrangement they'd brought from the church. A few friends rushed over to take the flowers and help them with their coats, and the noise level rose again.

The reception line formed and Lucy and Bill took their places along with everyone else, shuffling slowly along. Lucy wasn't sure what to say under the circ.u.mstances. "I'm sorry for your loss," was okay for Lily, but not quite the thing for Dora. "Terrific party, great food," came to mind and Lucy giggled, which made people look at her. When her turn finally came, she murmured something about a terrible loss, we'll all miss him, and was promptly pa.s.sed along from Dora to Lily and then to Fern and Flora.

Duty done, Lucy and Bill made their way through the crowded rooms to the little study off the hall where they'd left their coats. Lucy's good black pants were feeling uncomfortably tight as she made her way to the door, and her conscience wasn't about to let her forget she'd overindulged. That Black Forest cake was every bit as good as Corney said, even though she'd only had a few bites, but she'd been unable to resist the mini-cupcakes with lemon filling and b.u.t.tercream icing topped with coconut. All that delicious food made her sleepy and she was yawning and b.u.t.toning her good black coat when Fern herself approached her with a foil-covered plate.

"Lucy, I wonder if you'd do me a favor?" she said, placing a blue-veined hand on Lucy's sleeve. Her voice, usually firm and authoritative, was a bit quavery today and she looked tired.

"Whatever you want," said Lucy.

"You know my friend, Julia... ."

Lucy knew Fern was one of the few people in town who dared to call Miss Tilley by her first name. Of course, they had probably been schoolmates well before World War II. "I'm sure she would have come if she were able," said Lucy.

"Yes, she's getting over the flu. I absolutely forbade her to come," said Fern, with a flash of her usual bossiness. "But I put together a little plate for her and I wonder if you could deliver it for me."

"Sure," said Lucy, taking the foil-covered dish. "I'm sure she'll appreciate it."

"I happen to know she loves my Boston cream pie, so I gave her a big piece, and some other things, too."

"I'll take it right over," promised Lucy, making eye contact with Bill who gave an approving nod.

"It will be your good deed for the day," said Fern, patting her hand.

It was only a short drive to Miss Tilley's old Cape-style house and the car didn't have time to warm up. Bill stayed outside, keeping the engine running, while Lucy dashed up the path. She was chilled clear through when she knocked on the door, which was opened by Rachel.

"What are you doing here on Sunday?" Lucy asked, stepping inside.

"I was on my way home from the play rehearsal and thought I'd stop by and check on Miss T," said Rachel. "She's had a touch of the flu."

The house was wonderfully warm and cozy. Miss Tilley kept a fire going all winter in the ancient keeping-room hearth that had once served for both heating and cooking. Nowadays, of course, the fireplace was supplemented with heat from a modern furnace and cooking took place in the kitchen ell that was added on sometime in the 1920s.