The Diva Serves Forbidden Fruit

I love the idea of a home control center but I’m on a tight budget. How can I do it for less?

Go to your dollar store. Buy a clipboard for each child’s papers and hang them in horizontal rows. Add a big calendar for appointments and a chalkboard for daily events. Buy hooks for keys and a basket for mail. If it looks disjointed, paint a border around the whole thing!

Sophie

Natasha strode up to Frank and me. “May I have a word, please, Sophie?”

I excused myself and followed Natasha. “What’s up?”

“I’m sick. You won’t believe this.”

We were still walking. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“To The Laughing Hound.”

“Great! I’m starved.”

She glanced at me. “You can’t stay there.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll see.” She pulled open the door and waved away the hostess.

“We have to make ourselves invisible,” she said.

I snapped my fingers. “But I left my cloak of invisibility at home!”

“Shh.” She sidled toward the bar. “Look for just a second, so you won’t be seen. The table all the way in the back on the right.”

I peeked around the corner. “Mars is here.”

Natasha pulled me back. “Did you not notice who was with him?”

I looked again and stepped back. “Greer Shacklesworth.”

Natasha crossed her arms. “What are we going to do about it?”

“We? Mars is a free agent. And Greer is very attractive. Good for him,” I said.

“What’s wrong with you?” she whispered. “Can’t you see that she’s seducing him?”

“What do you want me to do? Go sit next to him?”

Natasha eyed me. “That’s not a bad idea. We could both pull up chairs and interrupt their little tête-à-tête.”

“It was a joke, Natasha,” I said.

“Um-hmm. Look at them now.”

I peeked again. Greer was definitely getting closer and gazing into his eyes. Wow.

I stepped back. “We are not interfering. Let’s get a bite to eat.”

“Great idea!” Natasha walked into the room and straight up to the table where Mars sat with Greer.

I wasn’t playing her game. I headed for the bar and tried to ignore her when she called, “Sophie! Look who’s here!”

“Sophie!” Natasha’s voice grew insistent.

Reluctantly I turned around and found Dr. Peter Chryssos smiling at me. He was seated at a small table, evidently having lunch.

“I believe someone wants your attention,” he said.

My gaze flicked over to Mars. I hoped he wasn’t on a date with Greer, because Natasha had already pulled up a chair and was gesturing wildly for me to join them.

“Are you eating alone, Dr. Chryssos?” I asked. “Would you mind if I joined you?”

“By all means.”

“Thanks. I’ll be right back.”

I made my way to Mars’s table and ignored Natasha’s entreaties to sit down. After all, she had achieved her goal of disrupting Greer’s intentions toward Mars, assuming she had any intentions. “Where is Nina?” I hissed at Mars.

“In the back with Bernie. Don’t worry, we haven’t abandoned her.”

I gave him a thumbs-up and went to join Dr. Chryssos, who appeared to be eating a hefty grilled sandwich. “That looks good, Dr. Chryssos. What’s in it?”

“Please, call me Peter, otherwise I’ll have to call you Mrs. Winston. Bernie came up with this and named it the No Guilt Sandwich. It has bacon in it, which ought to cause me to feel guilty, but the rest is shredded chicken, avocado, and Havarti. So it’s not all bad!”

“I’ll have one of those,” I told the waiter, “and unsweetened iced tea.” When he left, I said, “I’m glad to have a chance to talk with you.”

Peter raised his eyebrows and swallowed a bite of his sandwich. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and said, “I can’t tell you anything about Lark or Dulci.”

“Oh, but I think you can.”

He gazed at me quizzically.

“I’m not interested in their medical condition. What I want to know is what happened during your trip.”

He nodded knowingly. “It’s very troubling. I’ve bought extra bolts for my doors.”

“It’s believed that they opened the door to their killer.” As I spoke, I realized that narrowed down the field. I mused aloud, “Which means they had to know the person, at least well enough to not have felt fearful.”

“Are you implying that it was someone on the tour with us?” he asked.

“I’m not implying anything, but now that you mention it, was someone on the tour disgruntled or angry with them?”

“Whitney Rutherford’s son is a totally self-absorbed young man. Probably the rudest person I have ever met. I would go so far as to call him narcissistic. I’m not a psychiatrist but I think Lark and Dulci would have had to do or say something to trigger his anger for him to kill them. I wouldn’t count him out, though.”

“I heard you spent quite a bit of time with Lark.”

“She was lovely. A very nice traveling companion. But don’t get the wrong impression. There was nothing romantic going on. We were the only two without spouses, so we teamed up when it came to meals and such.”

“Did she say anything to you about an incident? About going to visit anyone? Doing something that was off the itinerary?”

“She did a lot of shopping for her family. She showed me toy sailboats for the boys made out of cork and joked about a cork voodoo doll that she bought as a joke for her son-in-law. She said she had lit candles at the cathedral for her parents, her grandparents, and Frank’s father.”

“Was she Catholic?”

“I don’t know. But it made her very happy. She seemed content, as though it had brought peace to her. I seem to recall her saying something about being relieved of a great burden.”

I finished the last bite of my sandwich. “I hardly think anyone would have killed her over cork sailboats. Were you there when the baby was thrown?” I asked.

“That was something! I bit on that one hook, line, and sinker. I thought it was a real baby and I dodged forward to help catch it. Can I tell you how stupid I felt when it turned out to be a doll? Those people were pros. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Did they steal anything from you?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I think one of the ladies lost her purse. She was frantic, but for the sake of convenience, her husband had put their passports and tickets in his inner jacket pocket, so the loss was mostly financial, although I believe he did get her cell phone. I saw them on the plane, so it didn’t prevent them from going home.”

“Did anything else like that happen?” I asked.

“Well, people try to sell you roses and whatnot when you dine outside but that couldn’t be connected to Lark’s death.”

He took a big gulp of his iced tea. “So what happened with you and Wolf?”

I really didn’t want to go into that. Luckily, his phone buzzed.

He glanced at it. “I’m very sorry to break this off, but I’m being summoned.”

“Another death?” I asked, chills running through me.

He nodded. “Car accident.” He bestowed a lovely smile on me. “Would you have dinner with me sometime?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’d like that.” He would probably ask about Wolf again, but I supposed that couldn’t be avoided.

“I’ll give you a call,” he said, and he walked away.

I glanced over at the table where Natasha had joined Mars. He was gone, as was Greer. But Natasha and Nina watched me. I asked the waiter for my tab.

He looked at me in surprise. “Dr. Chryssos took care of it.”

How had he done that? It was very generous of him. I walked over to the table where Natasha and Nina were.

“Well?” asked Nina. “How did it go?”

“No one who was on your trip recalls anything helpful.”

“That’s what you talked about?” asked Natasha. “No wonder you can’t get a date.”

“I have some good news,” said Nina. “My husband is coming home. You won’t have to put up with me much longer.”

“I enjoy having you stay with me. But I know you’ll feel better when you can be in your own home.” I eyed Natasha. “How was your lunch?”

“Greer is definitely after Mars. She didn’t even have the grace to stop flirting with him when I joined them. What moxie!”

Nina snickered. “I do hate to agree with you, but Sophie, this time Natasha is right. Greer is quite the operator.”

“Thank you, Nina! Now, how are we going to stop this?” asked Natasha, looking straight at Nina.

“Oh, I didn’t say that. If Mars likes Greer, then that’s his business.” Nina threw me a delightedly smug look.

“I am not getting involved,” I said.

“Sophie!” Natasha whined. “I thought you were on my side.”

I tried very hard not to make a face. Mars had been miserable with Natasha, why on earth would I help them get back together? I changed the subject. “Any luck on the house?”

Natasha’s eyes welled up with tears. “It’s a nightmare. Cal Bickford came over to look at it. Did you know that he’s Lark’s brother-in-law?”

“I didn’t know that,” said Nina.

Natasha nodded. “The house is worth a lot. I can’t give it up. I just can’t. I’ve spent so much time getting it just right. I refuse to walk away from it now.”

How could I have been so stupid? That was why Natasha was so eager to reconcile with Mars. If he moved back into the house, her problems were over. How wicked of her! Part of me wanted to berate her, but there was just no point in that. “Have you applied for a loan to buy him out?” I asked.

“They turned me down,” she admitted. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

I was glad I hadn’t yelled at her. I would be very upset if I were losing my house.

“So you’re going to put it on the market?” asked Nina, her eyes wide.

“How did I ever get myself into this mess?” Natasha moaned.

Nina and I knew the answer to that, but we had the decency not to say so.

I glanced at my watch. “I’ve been here way too long. Nina, do you want to come with me or stay here with Bernie?”

“I’ll come browse through the tents.”

“Spy on Greer’s, will you?” asked Natasha as we walked out the door.

“Who’s minding the store at your tent?” I asked.

“My sister.”

“I’m so glad that you’re getting along,” I said.

“We do have a lot in common. We’re still searching for our father.”

Natasha had only recently located her half-sister through a DNA match. They not only shared a father, but he’d apparently had a type of woman that he liked. Both of them had earthy moms who believed in the power of stones and potions. “Have your moms met yet?” I asked.

“There’s another headache that looms in my future. I’ve been able to talk my mom out of coming up here, but I can’t do that forever.”

“You have told her about your sister, haven’t you?” Nina asked.

Natasha avoided eye contact. “Um, well, sort of.”

“You haven’t told her?” I gasped.

“Seriously, Sophie? How would you tell your mother that the man she married abandoned her and her child and waltzed off to marry someone else?”

She had a point. “I wouldn’t be able to do that over the phone. I would drive to Berrysville and tell her face-to-face. It would be hard to do, but your mom would probably deal with it better than most people. Look at you. In the beginning it was horrifying to you. And now you like them.”

Nina nudged me. I followed the nod of her head.

Wolf had shown up and was standing in front of Lark’s house with his arms crossed over his chest.