Stephanie gave her aunt an affectionate kiss. “Sit down, Aunt Josie, we’ve barely started.”
“We can go over the introductions again,” Dawn said.
“I know most of you,” Josephine said after she’d settled herself in a wingback chair set apart from the rest of us. “But start over if you want. I’d like to hear how you describe yourselves.” She pointed to Lurleen and me. “You’re the only ones I’ve never met. You’re the tall one, so you must be Lurleen. I feel I already know you since Stephanie talks about you all the time. You don’t need to re-introduce yourself, but you,” she said pointing in my direction, “you, I know very little about.”
Lurleen raised her hand as if she were a student in Aunt Josie’s class. “My friend, Ditie Brown, loves mysteries so I invited her to come. Actually, Stephanie suggested I bring her along.”
“I’ve heard a few things about you, Dr. Brown,” Aunt Josie said, “so, I’m glad you’re here. You know about real murders, and you’re a doctor as well.”
“She came in very handy this evening, Aunt Josie,” Stephanie said. “Nicole had a fright.”
“I’m fine now,” Nicole said. “It was nothing, a prank, some kid in a grotesque Halloween mask outside the window.”
“You didn’t act like it was a prank,” Dawn said. “You seemed terrified, which is why I suggested we do a sound therapy session to help us all relax.”
“More New Age stuff, Stephanie?” Aunt Josie asked. “I thought you’d be over that by now. I could use a drink—that’s how I relax.”
“Coming right up.” We watched Stephanie head for the kitchen and return with a glass of red wine and my plate of cookies. She handed the glass to her aunt and put the plate on the coffee table. “You missed quite a show, Aunt Josie. If it hadn’t been for Dr. Brown I’m sure the whole evening would have been ruined.”
“Nicole always puts on quite a show,” Aunt Josie said.
Whoa! Lurleen and I gave each other a look. What was that all about?
Nicole must have seen our reaction. “Josephine and I have a long history,” Nicole said. “We’ve had our problems in the past, but I thought we were over them by now.”
“We are,” Josephine said. “I call a spade a spade that’s all. You get easily upset. You know that; we all know that. I’m very grateful Dr. Brown was here. She has a reputation for sorting out trouble of the most dangerous kind, including murders and illnesses.”
Lurleen looked a little upset by the accolades being thrown my way.
“Lurleen has done as much to solve the murders we’ve run into as I have, maybe more,” I said, “and it hasn’t been all that many.”
“Really, no false modesty is called for,” Dawn said. “We know about the Sandler case.” She paused to take a large sip from a Sandler’s Soda can. “Then there was the murder at the Civil War reenactments, then the cooking contest. Did I leave anything out?”
“Not really,” Lurleen said. “I mean there was that old murder at the mansion that’s now the Atlanta cooking school.”
“Lurleen’s cooking school,” I said.
“Yes,” Stephanie said. “It’s a wonderful school. I’ve been thinking about signing up for a course. I hear it’s fabulous!”
“Now,” Dawn said, “where were we? I’ve already said I was a physical therapist, married with two sons, and I teach yoga on the side. Who else would like to say more about themselves?”
“I will,” Stephanie said, “mainly for Dr. Brown’s benefit.”
“Please call me Ditie.”
“Dr. Brown, Ditie, brought the cookies, so help yourselves,” Stephanie said. “I also love to bake and I volunteer when I can. That’s how Lurleen and I met. We had an immediate connection, both of us interested in mysteries and the occult. Lurleen and I have suffered losses in our lives, and we both sometimes yearn for the people who have left us.”
I thought about Lurleen’s mother who died tragically when Lurleen was twelve and the woman Lurleen called her Aunt Theresa who died a few years ago. She wasn’t her real aunt, but she took Lurleen to live with her. Was that why Lurleen found comfort in the occult, hoping to hear from one or both of them again?
Stephanie seemed to be studying me as she spoke. “Lurleen told me you didn’t believe in any of this, Ditie, not seances or tarot card readings. They bring peace to many people, so where’s the harm?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. I’d seen parents grieve in different ways for children who died, and I supported them as best I could.
Dawn seemed to want to lighten the mood. “Reading mysteries is my guilty pleasure. It takes me away from more serious issues.”
“I never feel guilty about reading them,” Stephanie said. “They can provide a great deal of comfort when the real world becomes unmanageable.”
I wondered if something was bothering Stephanie and if her real world was feeling unmanageable.
“Who’s next? No need to be shy,” Dawn said. She was sounding more and more like the person directing the show.
Lurleen nudged me.
“Okay, I’ll go,” I said. “I’m afraid this will sound repetitious. I’m married, work in a refugee clinic, have two children, Lucie, age 12, and Jason, 8. I enjoy cooking, gardening and old movies. Lurleen got me interested in mysteries.”
“You left out the best part,” Lurleen said. “Ditie married an Atlanta police detective three months ago. The wedding was lovely, but we ran into some trouble afterward.”
I looked at her and shook my head slightly, but she ignored me.
“There was some unpleasant business after the wedding,” Lurleen said, “when a dead body turned up near our rental houses. We were staying on the Gulf of Mexico in Florida, and it was a perfect wedding except for what happened next.”
“Another murder?” Crystal asked. She was seated next to Lurleen and moved a foot away.
“We didn’t commit the murder, Crystal, ” Lurleen said. “We even tried to stay out of it, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.”
“Of course,” Aunt Josie said.
“My turn?” Lurleen asked looking around the room. Aunt Josie nodded in her direction.
“My name is Lurleen du Trois. I’m not married, but I have a boyfriend. He’s a private detective, so a lot of what Ditie and I know about crime comes from our significant others. No kids, which means I can help Ditie take care of hers. I’m also very busy managing my cooking school. I don’t cook, but I know what tastes good. I love adventure, and when I can’t find the real kind I settle for the kind I find in books.”
Lurleen turned to Crystal.“Is there more you’d like to say about yourself?”
“I have a small business on the side, doing tarot card readings and helping with seances, but basically I’m a housewife.’ She said that as if it might be something to be ashamed of. “I’m also involved in a number of volunteer organizations and that’s how I got to know Stephanie. As I said before, Nicole is my neighbor, and she introduced us.”
I noticed a similarity about these three women, Nicole, Stephanie and Crystal. They were slender, well-dressed and attractive—polished is the way I would describe them. They seemed to be around the same age, in their thirties, and I could easily imagine they were close friends. The most obvious difference among them was the color of their hair. Nicole looked like a natural blonde, Stephanie was brunette, and Crystal, with her red hair and streak of black was by far the most striking.
“I guess you could call me a housewife too,” Lurleen said. “I mean I no longer work. I used to be an accountant and then some money fell into my hands, legitimately, so now I like to do volunteer work. Of course, I’m really not a wife, and I don’t do much around the house, so maybe I don’t qualify as a housewife.”
Crystal laughed. “Thanks, Lurleen. You’re making me feel better about being a housewife with a small business on the side.”
“I love mysteries,” Lurleen said, “but not the kind that are too bloody.”
“I’m with you,” Stephanie said. “That’s why we’ll focus on cozy mysteries.”
“Well-written cozies,” Dawn added.
“Cozy mysteries?” Nate asked. He’d been silent for most of the evening.
“You know how little old ladies put crocheted covers around teapots?” Lurleen asked.
Nate shook his head.
“Those coverings are called cozies. They’re to keep the tea warm, so cozies are mysteries little old ladies might like with no blood and gore, no serial killers. Mostly they provide a puzzle to solve with clever amateur detectives to do the solving.”
“Maybe you didn’t know what you were in for,” I said.
“No, I didn’t,” Nate said, “but I’m really here more for the company.”
Did I notice a look pass between Nicole and Nate? I looked over at Lurleen and I could tell she’d seen it too.
Nicole was the only one left. We all turned to her.
“You’ve seen the worst of me. Honestly, I don’t get hysterical, no matter what Josephine was implying.”
“I wasn’t implying anything,” Aunt Josie said.
“I work in the ER,” Nicole said, “and I couldn’t do that if I overreacted to things. I’m a single girl who works hard and likes to take a break reading mysteries.”
Suddenly, we heard pounding on the front door.
“I wonder if that’s Adeline Morgan,” Stephanie said. “She works at the Centers for Disease Control with my husband, Jonathan, and said she didn’t have time to read mysteries or come to a book club. Maybe she changed her mind.”
The pounding continued and before Stephanie could get to the door, a man burst into the house and into the living room. He wasn’t a big man but he looked menacing.
“Is my wife here? There you are,” he said pointing to Nicole.”You’re doing everything you can to avoid me, and I won’t have it.” He came over and grabbed Nicole by the arm.
She pulled away from him, and Nate stood up in front of her. “Cool it, Ben. You’re making a fool of yourself. This is a book club, nothing more.”
“I knew she’d come running to you, Stephanie,” Ben said. “What has she told you?”
“Nothing, Ben. You need to cool off,” Stephanie said.
“You tell Nicole to cool off. She’s the one who wants the divorce, not me. She’s the one who’s telling everyone lies about me.”
“This isn’t the place for any of this,” Stephanie said. “If you don’t leave I’ll call the police.”
“Get out, Ash,” Nate said. “You’re causing a scene over nothing.”
Ben stopped talking and looked around the room. “I’ll leave,” he said, “but I’ll see you at the house, Nicole.”
I thought of Nicole’s bruises. Was Ben Ash the person who’d inflicted them?
He was about the same size as Nate and maybe the same age, late thirties, but he looked to be in much worse shape. Even from where I sat I could smell alcohol on his breath.
Nate shoved him out the door. We sat in silence until Nate returned.
“I thought you said you were single,” Lurleen said.
“I am,” Nicole replied, “but our divorce isn’t final yet.”
Lurleen spoke before I could and said what I was thinking. “I don’t think you should go home tonight, Nicole. Ben seems pretty mad.”
“It’s all right,” Nate said. “I’ll go with her and stay as long as I’m needed. Nicole has taken out a restraining order against him.”
“I can stay with her as well,” Crystal said.
Nicole nodded. “Thanks, both of you. Ben gets excited and then he settles down. He knows he can’t come to the house, so he’ll probably go to his own apartment to sleep it off. I’m sorry this has been one more disruption for you, Stephanie.”
“Maybe we can still salvage the evening,” Dawn said. She grabbed a cookie and ate it. “These are delicious, Dr. Brown.’
“Ditie,” I said.
“Ditie is a very peculiar name.” Aunt Josie said. She was apparently a woman who didn’t struggle to choose her words carefully.
“It’s from Aphrodite, and it’s the middle name my father gave me. Pronounced with a long i.” I hoped she would not comment on the fact I didn’t resemble the usual picture of Aphrodite. She didn’t.
Instead she talked about herself. “I’m Stephanie’s aunt and thought of myself as Nicole’s aunt as well until she divorced my nephew Don Junior. I work in the health care industry and own a number of nursing homes and assisted living facilities.”
That was the end of the introductions, and the end of the conversation. We sat in uncomfortable silence until Dawn tried to get us back on track.
“Shall we talk about the book?”