The Nantucket Diet Murders Read Online Free PDF Page A

for Sunday, say one o’clock at the shack?”
    As Peter bent, affectionate, brotherly, to kiss Mrs. Potter a second time, she thought, as she often had before, that Peter treated them all like little boys—like eager, active little schoolboys, to be gently teased and chivied and ordered about. It was his special magic that he only ordered them to do those things that would prove to be fun (and often good for them as well), and he went to a great deal of trouble to arrange his amusements for them.
    Peter left to return to the kitchen, but his path was momentarily blocked by a plump, scurrying figure in a tan gabardine raincoat and matching small-brimmed round hat, carrying a large shapeless bag over one shoulder. The pair made an awkward two-step, dodging from left to right, until Peter stepped firmly aside, propelling the newcomer gently into the private dining room, where the shrieks of laughter and applause were steadily increasing.
    “Was that Lolly?” Mrs. Potter asked. “I haven’t seen her for so long I couldn’t be sure.”
    Helen Latham replied. “I don’t know why she couldn’t have come over to speak properly to her own mother, and certainly she should have greeted
you
properly, Genia. Sometimes I give up.”
    “I’m sure she was in a hurry to join her party,” Gussie explained good-naturedly. “I saw her with Edie Rosborough the other day and they were so busy talking they didn’t even see me.”
    “Oh,
Edie,”
Helen said carelessly. “I suppose I should be glad she seems to have found a girl friend at last—you know Lolly never really
has
fit in with people we all know. Since she met the girl, it seemed they asked her to join this littleSoftball group, and she even got her first job a while back. She’s a volunteer assistant at the science library. Not much of a job, but it’s something for her to do.”
    Mary Lynne’s conciliatory voice quickly tried to cover up Helen’s disparagement of her daughter. “When the playing season is over, these girls are all too busy with their jobs around town for a celebration, Linda Peaseley told me. So they save up their dues and wait until now, when things are a little slack. The natural science library is closed today, I think, and the Peaseley travel agency where Linda works for her father has got everybody scheduled for whatever winter trips they’re taking. Not that any of
us
is considering such a thing right now. Lord love a duck, Genia, you couldn’t pay any of us to leave now that Tony’s here.”
    “Ozzie told me things are quiet in his law office now, before he starts on our tax returns, so I suppose this is a good time for Edie to take the afternoon off,” Mittie added. “Besides, I think someone said it was her birthday.”
    “Listen to them!” Mary Lynne marveled. “Did you ever hear such a-whooping and a-hollering? They’re having themselves a high old time today.”
    On a fresh wave of laughter the team members burst into the dining room. Lolly Latham waved uncertainly toward their table, following the young woman Mrs. Potter now remembered from past visits to Ozzie deBevereaux’s law office, where she had for some years run his affairs with single-handed competence. Mrs. Potter remembered other familiar faces—a teller from the Pacific Bank; a perky and pretty librarian from the Atheneum; a dependable alto in the choir at church. Others were new to her. All were attractive, fresh-faced young women in their twenties and thirties. Their laughter abated slightly as they straggled into a semblance of a line.
    Among them was a tall girl with an oval face, biscuit-colored skin, and softly rounded features, her black hair in a single braid down the back, wearing a bright head scarf tied Indian fashion. She waved energetically at Gussie.
    As she waved back amiably, Gussie leaned toward herhouseguest. “Tell you about her later,” she whispered. “She’s our secret weapon.”
    As members of the team surveyed choices of salad greens,