The Secret Ingredient Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

patch that crack in her life. He’d thought for a while that David Graham might fill that bill, but that liaison seemed to have broken apart before it ever really got started, leaving Celeste looking desperate enough to break Larry’s heart. He wondered what had happened there but didn’t feel he had a right to ask her.
    Odd how life turned out. She’d never married, either.
    All this time, they could have been—
    “No,” he said out loud, wheeling right without stopping, just after a light turned red. “It wasn’t meant to be.” He slowed down slightly now as he drove along the twisting, narrow roads of the seaside residential neighborhood, marveling as always at the beauty of his town. Lush blue-violet hydrangeas hugged the winding stone walls bordering the large estates. The houses themselves were hidden behind thick stands of oak and elm and sycamore trees, but the mayor had been a guest in many of them and knew firsthand the elegance hidden in many of the “cottages,” as their owners called them. There were no sidewalks here, and people walked on the side of the road, lugging folding chairs, coolers, and towels as they made their way to the beach. He pulled to the middle of the road and waved to a group of teenagers with towels thrown around their necks, riding their bikes toward the ocean for a twilight swim. Future voters, he thought with an inward smile of affection for them.
    Larry turned west then, away from the ocean drive and toward Celeste’s neighborhood, a historic area rich in Federal-style homes and carefully tended gardens. It was a neighborhood that didn’t quite suit her, he thought, though he would never have said so to her. It was all roses, elegant, old-world, restrained; she was extroverted and her beauty was as lush as blue hydrangeas. Larry felt a pang of guilt at the word “lush,” even to apply it to her appearance. By right of family, Celeste belonged in this neighborhood, even if the town gossips now prattled more about her drinking than her lineage.
    He parked in front of Celeste’s house and trotted to the door.
    Trim could use some fresh paint. Maybe I can get to that this week .
    The idea reminded him unpleasantly of Stanley Parker. Just last week the old man had made it clear that he didn’t approve of certain assistance the mayor had quietly directed toward Celeste, without her even knowing it. Darn it, what was wrong with the old guy? Since when was kindness illegal? Stanley must be getting senile. He was old enough for it. And cranky as heck sometimes. And self-righteous as a preacher with an ax in his hands.
    There was only one way to deal with people like that.
    Surprised when Celeste didn’t answer after three rings, the mayor looked at his watch and found he was running even later than he’d thought. Celeste must have given up on him and driven off to the party by herself. That sure makes me look good , he thought in disgust at himself. I ought to get myself one of those alarm watches and set it every fifteen minutes to get myself going where I ought to be .
    On the other hand, maybe this would give him time to make a stop.
    He trotted back to his car and hurried off toward the road that led both to Mrs. Potter’s house and to Stanley Parker’s Castle, too.
    In the house at the end of the cul-de-sac, Genia Potter smiled at the sight of her grandniece “slaving away” over a hot stove. It was an improbable sight: a seventeen-year-old girl, five foot ten, in clunky black shoes with three-inch heels, black tights, a short black pleated skirt, a black sleeveless T-shirt, a golden scarf around her neck, and three golden earrings in each earlobe. Topping it off was henna-red hair that was caught up at the back of her head with a huge green plastic clip. In New York City, Jane Eden might have passed unnoticed on any street, but here in Devon, Rhode Island, she looked as conspicuous as her great-aunt Genia suspected she wished to be.
    Genia felt her heart swell with