Murder Can Spoil Your Appetite (25 page)

With the champagne taken care of, I went on to deal with the remainder of the advance preparations for the dinner.

 

Ellen and Mike arrived promptly at eight, just as I was setting the hors d’oeuvres on the cocktail table. And a nice little selection it was, if I say so myself: parmesan cheese puffs, bacon roll-ups, and mushroom croustades—which, in the event you’re not familiar with them, are tiny breadcases with a delectable mushroom filling.

Both of my guests looked adorable this evening, with Ellen at her most Audrey Hepburnish. She was wearing a beige turtleneck sweater and a straight, rust-colored suede skirt that reached her ankles—also, the most radiant smile you’d ever want to see. Mike—who, with his sandy hair and long, lean body, is even the perfect match for her physically—had on a brown-and-gray crew-neck sweater, gray slacks and a smile that came close to vying with Ellen’s.

I thanked them for the merlot they’d brought before announcing that we’d be saving it for another occasion. And then I recruited Mike to open the Piper Heidsick.

I might have sounded a bit on the sappy side when I made my tearful toast, but the words were heartfelt. “Whatever you wish for yourselves,” I told them, “I wish you much, much more.”

A single ceremonial sip of the bubbly—which, I’m happy to report, hadn’t soured in the least—and Ellen was jumping up from the sofa to hug me. For a second there I imagined I heard something crack, and I truly feared that in her exuberance she’d broken one or two of my ribs. (How anyone with the build of a celery stalk can exhibit so much strength is almost as big a mystery as where she can possibly be putting all the food she consumes.) I was still wondering about the extent of the damage inflicted on my anatomy when my almost-nephew—a designation which I now happily substituted for the previous “Ellen’s almost-fiancé”—bestowed a more benign token of affection, depositing a kiss on my cheek.

Soon the two of them were sipping and nibbling, while the sherry roast pork—a favorite of theirs—sizzled in the oven, where it would momentarily be joined by a delicious sweet-potato-and-brown sugar concoction.

It was a few minutes after I’d returned from a visit to the kitchen when Ellen remarked that so far I hadn’t reached for the hors d’oeuvre tray even once. “What’s the matter, Aunt Dez? You’re not touching a thing—aside from the champagne, I mean.”

“It’s nothing, really. I just haven’t felt much like eating the last couple of days.”

“Then how could you prepare all this?” She waved her hand first at the cocktail table and then in the direction of the kitchen. “I know that whenever I get like that, I can’t even bear to look at food.”

I had to laugh—but I didn’t. Ellen was sounding as if she grappled with this affliction on a regular basis. The truth is, she loses her appetite about as often as I do, which means practically never. “Cooking doesn’t seem to bother me. It’s only the swallowing I have trouble with,” I told her.

“I know this is kind of a doctor thing to say, Dez,” Mike put in, flushing, “but if this keeps up, you really should have yourself checked out.”

“Honestly, it’s just a reaction to the Vincent case. It’s getting me down.”

I caught Mike and Ellen exchanging glances and raised eyebrows. Probably because they were both well aware that all the cases I’ve ever worked on have gotten me down, some of them on a daily basis, but I’d rarely, if ever, taken it out on my food before.

“Well, don’t let it go too long,” Mike pressed. “Okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed. “I won’t.”

 

We had dinner in the living room, on the folding table. I’d covered the table with a beautiful lace cloth—the only really nice one I own—and set out the good china and silver. The fresh flowers, displayed in a gorgeous Baccarat vase Ed and I had received as a wedding gift, made a lovely centerpiece. I was really pleased with how festive everything looked.

By the time we sat down to eat I’d consumed quite a lot of the champagne—enough, in fact, so that I was actually up to small helpings of the pork and sweet potatoes and a slightly larger helping of my bountiful, fourteen-ingredient salad. I can’t say I ate with any great enthusiasm; mostly I just picked. But even that was progress.

Over the meal, we continued with what was naturally the evening’s main topic of conversation: the forthcoming nuptials.

Mike mentioned that he was still waiting anxiously to hear from his parents. “I’m dying to let them know about Ellen and me,” he said wistfully. Then Ellen went on and on about how thrilled
her
parents were going to be. And from here, the talk worked its way around to Ellen’s gown.

Although they hadn’t reached any decision yet as to the kind of wedding they wanted, my niece had some pretty definite ideas on what she was planning to wear. “It has to be a long dress. That goes without saying. I’d like silk. A sheath, most likely. Something with a high neck, maybe even a turtleneck. And I’m leaning very strongly toward off-white. What do you think, Aunt Dez?” She didn’t give me a chance to answer. “You’ll be my matron of honor, of course.”

She’d made the pronouncement casually, but there was nothing casual about it for me. I shrieked, shot out of my seat, and rushed around the table to embrace her, quickly retreating before she could embrace me back.

I was so overjoyed with the news that I even picked at the roast pork some more.

Soon it was time for dessert.

I’d considered ordering a cake, but then I elected to serve my chilled lemon soufflé, since Ellen and Mike are both so crazy about it. I suppose I shouldn’t really call it “my” soufflé, though, since I didn’t actually create it. The truth is, years ago I came across the recipe in a newspaper. At any rate, tonight I’d taken great pains to decorate it to fit the occasion. The result, I’m afraid, was hardly the artistic masterpiece I’d been striving for. To begin with, the soufflé is only about seven inches in diameter, and I’m not exactly a whiz with a pastry tube. So while I did manage to fit “Happy” on one line, “Engagement” ended up being broken up into “En,” and then on the next line, “gage,” and on the last, “ment.” Not only that. The hearts I drew wound up looking like scraggly circles, with the flowers resembling more scraggy circles, but with tails.

Nevertheless, Ellen and Mike politely oohed and aahed over my handiwork.

“It was a great touch, your adding all those man/woman symbols,” Mike said appreciatively.

I accepted the compliment with my most gracious smile.

After Mike had had seconds of the soufflé and Ellen thirds—and even I had managed a couple of spoonfuls—Mike asked about the investigation. “I know you don’t like to talk business while we’re eating—and incidentally, I was glad to see that you at least had
something
at dinner—but now that we’re through, maybe you won’t mind filling us in. What’s been happening over in Riverton?”

So I told them, without going into any of the details, about how some recent information from Vito da Silva had reinforced my initial feeling that Sheila Vincent had been involved in her husband’s murder. “Lou, my partner, on the other hand, believes a member of da Silva’s own organization might have been responsible, that maybe because of da Silva’s closeness to Vincent there was some kind of a jealousy thing going on there.”

“What a crock!” Ellen responded. “How did he come up with a dumb idea like that?”

Much to my subsequent chagrin, I leapt instantly—and passionately—to Lou’s defense. “Look, Ellen,” I retorted, bristling, “Lou Hoffman is an extremely capable police officer and also a very intelligent man. It’s just that some facts we’d been given a while back made it appear as though Mrs. Vincent had no motive for doing away with her husband. So Lou went to this alternative theory. What I found out from my client the other day, however, gives the widow a dandy motive. But unfortunately, I can’t share what I learned without divulging my source.” I concluded with a contentious, “Anyhow, while I’m not quite sold on Lou’s idea, it does have some merit, you know. You’d realize that yourself if you bothered to take even two seconds to think about it.”

“When is Al due back?” Ellen asked, apparently not offended in the least.

“Some time today or tonight—I’m not sure which. But where on earth did that come from?”

She ignored the question. “How are you going to handle things with him?”

“With Al? What does he have to do with this?”

“It’s obvious how you feel about your partner. Even Mike must have picked up on it.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Mike mumbled.

Ellen flashed him a grin before going back to work on me. “You should see how your eyes light up when you talk about him. You really like this guy.”

My face seemed to be on fire. “Well, of course I do. I’ve told you before, he’s a very nice—”

“I’m talking
like
him like him. As you’re well aware.”

“You have it all wrong, Ellen. Lou’s a good partner, and I respect him as a person, but that’s as far as it goes.”

“Do you think he’s interested in you?” my niece asked eagerly, paying no attention at all to the protest.

“We get along together. Period. I’m even trying to fix him up with someone.”

“Really? And he’s agreeable to that?”

“Well, I haven’t said anything to him, because so far I haven’t come up with anyone suitable, but—”

“Of course you haven’t!” Ellen exclaimed. “And you never will. The reason being that you want him for yourself.” Then after apparently turning things over in her mind, she murmured, “But it’s possible you don’t even know it yet.”

“This is ridiculous!” I got quickly to my feet and grabbed a handful of dishes. If I wanted to escape Ellen’s nonsense, clearing the table seemed to be as good a move as any.

But snatching up some glasses, Ellen trotted after me. “If he doesn’t make any overtures to you,” she suggested to my rapidly retreating back, “tell him you’ve got tickets to a show. Or better yet, invite him here for a home-cooked meal.” And as soon as she had me trapped in a corner of my tiny kitchen: “For heaven’s sake, Aunt Dez, do
something.
Are you a today woman or . . . or what?”

 

Later, at the door, Mike and Ellen were effusive in their praise.

“It was a sensational meal,” Mike raved. “Absolutely sensational.”

“The best,” Ellen concurred. “And by the way, have you thought any more about spending Thanksgiving in Florida with us?”

“Yes, I have. And I thank you—and your folks, of course—but I’m going to have to pass. I’m really too involved with the case to take all that time off.”

“That’s what I was afraid you’d be telling me. Say,” she declared an instant later, “now that I’m practically a married woman, you’ll have to give me your lemon soufflé recipe one of these days.”

I was so astonished I couldn’t even respond. Ellen’s prowess in the kitchen is limited strictly to a surprising ability to slap together a good breakfast. But after that . . . well, let me put it this way: If there were no such thing as Chinese takeout, this girl would have starved to death years ago.

“Listen,” she went on, “I know you don’t think I’m capable of making anything like that, and you’re probably right. But I’d still like to try.” She looked up adoringly at my almost-nephew. “For Mike,” she said.

It couldn’t have been anything
but
another sleepless night. I had much too much to come to grips with.

Ellen’s comments had forced me to take my head out of the sand:
I am attracted to Lou Hoffman. Very attracted.
I said the words aloud.

Okay, so physically Lou wasn’t really that close to being my type—he was certainly a lot more robust than my ideal. But I was willing to overlook this (wasn’t that generous of me?) since there seemed to be a kind of vulnerability about him that made up for it. Maybe I had this impression because he struck me as being so alone—or he would be, as soon as Jake went off to school. And then, once I’d heard about his marriage . . . Of course, I can only guess that these things contributed to my feelings for the man. But anyhow, whatever psychological factors were in play here, one thing was definite: I liked Lou. Or, as Ellen put it, I
liked
him liked him.

The catch was that I hadn’t the slightest inkling whether he was at all interested in me. I did feel that he had come to regard me as a friend and a bona fide partner. If there was more to it than that, though, I couldn’t say there’d been any indication of it.

But regardless of how things worked out between Lou and me, I could no longer go on seeing Al. It wouldn’t be fair, not to either of us. The trouble was, even the thought of breaking off with him made me want to stick my head under the pillow. As I’d learned only yesterday, however, this didn’t help in the least.