Aurora 06 - A Fool And His Honey Read Online Free PDF

not capable of producing a suitable meal.
    Standing with massive dignity in a starched gray uniform with a white apron, Mrs. Esther said, “Dinner is served.” She did not meet our eyes or wait for a reaction, but strode back into the kitchen, her dark face still impassive, her chin proudly up. The heavy gold hoops in her pierced ears swayed as she walked.
    Mrs. Esther didn’t serve. She placed the food ready on the table and remained in the kitchen until it was time to clean up. And she almost always prepared a menu she’d decided on herself.
    Tonight she’d picked chicken baked in a white sauce, green beans, homemade rolls, sweet potato casserole, and a tossed salad. Calories and cholesterol were not considerations in Mrs. Esther’s catering business.
    After we’d all passed the dishes around, which was a pretty effective icebreaker, Martin asked me to tell Catledge what had happened in our backyard that afternoon.
    As I turned it into an amusing vignette, without the element of anxiety that had given the incident its edge, naturally I glanced from Gatledge to Ellen and back. Catledge was at the end of the table to my left and Ellen was opposite me. Their reactions were more intriguing than the story. Catledge was shaken, visibly upset; Ellen thought the whole episode was vastly amusing.
    I’d have sworn Catledge would laugh and Ellen would worry. This reversal was very interesting.
    To my further fascination, Catledge cut the ensuing discussion off at the knees. I was just sure as sure can be that ordinarily Catledge would spend a good fifteen minutes speculating about who’d “spiked” Darius Quattermain’s acetaminophen. Yet here he was, trying to shunt the conversation into the ongoing battle between two factions of the library board. I shot a significant look at Martin while Ellen was fetching more tea from the kitchen and Catledge had excused himself.
    I can’t let puzzling behavior go by without picking it apart to discover its cause. Suddenly I wondered if Ellen had been the unnamed woman who’d been sabotaged by the medicine switcher.

    I was pleased with the idea, the more I hammered it out. Twitchy Ellen was very likely to have tranquilizers in her purse. She was certainly abnormally serene tonight. Perhaps Catledge feared staying on the subject of Darius Quattermain because he thought Ellen likely to reveal her own little episode of similarly bizarre behavior? He would hate it to be known Ellen took “nerve pills.”
    The silence that had fallen over the dinner table was so awkward that Martin felt compelled to break it.
    “We had a surprise visitor today,” he said easily.
    “Who was that?” Catledge asked, right on cue, relief easy to read in his voice.
    “My niece came to visit, with her baby boy,” Martin said.
    I cocked an eyebrow at him. We weren’t going to mention Regina’s visit, we’d decided.
    “A boy,” Ellen said. “I miss our boys. They were adorable babies. But all cute babies grow up and leave home, don’t they?” That should have been said in a light tone, but it wasn’t. Ellen’s voice grew more and more edgy with every word. Once again, an uneasy silence fell over the table.
    Ellen pushed her chair back and rose, maybe a little unsteadily. “Excuse me, please,” she said, managing to sound almost normal. “I’m being a bad hostess. I feel unwell.” And walking quickly, her backbone stiff, she was out of the room and going up the stairs, face carefully turned away.
    “I’m so sorry Ellen is ill,” I said instantly. “She should have canceled. We would have understood. Bless her heart, she worked so hard when she should have been in bed.” I hoped my chatter would fill the silence and smooth things over, and to some extent it did.
    “Ellen never knows when to take things easy,” Catledge said gratefully. “We’d love to have you back when she’s well.”
    “Oh, no, it’s our turn,” Martin contributed. He was already up and retrieving my coat.