The Secret Ingredient Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery (16 page)

      16
P
OSTPRANDIAL

Genia! Oh, David!”

Genia looked around at the loud sound of their names, but David did not. He seemed to freeze where he sat, his right hand holding a water glass in midair. When Genia spotted the source of the greeting, she saw it was Celeste Hutchinson, perched at the bar on a tall stool, a drink in her own right hand, posed in a salute to them. She wore the same floral print dress she had worn to the dinner party; when she slid down off the stool, the back of the dress caught, hiking it up above her knees for an instant, though she didn’t appear to notice.

With a feeling of dread, Genia watched her weave their way.

Celeste’s gait was unsteady, her smile a bit loose.

Politely but slowly, David got up and stood beside his chair.

“Celeste,” he said in a tone of resignation. “Join us?”

Genia would have felt embarrassed to be the recipient of such reluctant courtesy, but Celeste accepted the invitation cheerfully, plunking herself down at their table and then emitting a big sigh, like someone whose feet hurt and who had finally got to rest them.

“Why thank you, darlings!” Celeste had sat down too hard in the chair that David held out for her, and her body took a moment to realign itself on the cushion. She plopped her drink down hard, too, so that still more of it splashed out. There was a slur to her voice, and she was talking loudly enough to cause other diners nearby to turn their heads to look at her. With a coy lilt, she inquired, “Am I interrupting something private?”

“Not at all,” Genia said with a reassuring smile.

Celeste cocked her head coquettishly at David. “A little tête-à-tête, a dinner date for two?”

“I’ll order something for you to eat,” he said bluntly.

Genia thought that was a good idea, but an expression of hurt crossed Celeste’s expressive face. She looked indignant and martyred. “You don’t have to feed me, David. I’m not a beggar here. I can take care of myself.” She started to get up, but then gave up the struggle. The anger disappeared as quickly as it had come, and she giggled drunkenly. “Later. Oysters. And crackers. That sounds good. ’Long as you’re paying.”

She giggled again, and winked at Genia.

“Here’s to Stanley Parker,” Celeste said then, raising her glass high again. Her flushed face grew even redder. “Rest in peace, you lousy bastard.”

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.