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THAT NIGHT THE ghost of Percival Ruskin came to me in a dream. He was in my kitchen, mixing something in his pewter punch bowl.
“Hey, Jane. You thirsty?” One might assume British-born Percy would have an accent to match his country of birth. This was not, in fact, the case. He sounded like Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver.
“I sure am, Percy.” I wasn’t lying. My dream self had wandered into the kitchen for the express purpose of guzzling the two-liter bottle of orange soda I’d stashed in the fridge. I’d never felt so parched. It may or may not have had something to do with the three slices of Buffalo chicken pizza I’d wolfed down shortly before bedtime.
The significance of this encounter was not lost on my unconscious mind. Here was my chance to recover the recipe that had cost two men their lives and sparked a centuries-long blood feud. “So tell me,” I said. “What goes into this punch?”
“Oh, a little of this and a little of that.” Now Percy didn’t just sound like De Niro, he looked like him, as well.
Even asleep, I thought to ask, “Is the recipe written down anywhere?”
“You know who would know?” Percy said. “Stu. You should ask him.”
“I can’t, he’s dead.”
“You talkin’ to me?”
“That’s different,” I said, “you’re right here in my kitchen. Stu is six feet under, and he’s not making house calls. Hey, that’s my tequila!”
Percy was pouring every last drop of my precious añejo tequila into his punch bowl. That bottle had cost a bundle and should have lasted a year or more, doled out in stingy, infrequent shots.
Next he upended a bottle of grapefruit-flavored vodka over the bowl. Didn’t someone recently mention grapefruit-flavored vodka?
“Are you sure this is the correct recipe?” I said. “It doesn’t look very Colonial.”
He dipped his pewter cup into the mixture and tasted it, then uncapped a bottle of beer and poured it in. “If there’s anything I know how to make, it’s Dreamboat cookies. Where do you keep the jerky?”
I opened my eyes in the darkness of my bedroom, feeling the dream slipping away, dissipating like fog. I concentrated on replaying it, committing it to memory, though I couldn’t say why, aside from a vague sense that it contained some nugget of truth.
Then I sat up, slid my feet into my fuzzy slippers, and went in search of the orange soda.
*
AT AROUND THREE in the afternoon I was sauntering down Main Street, headed for my red, secondhand Mazda, which was parked around the corner. It had been a productive day so far, and I was feeling pretty good about myself.
I’d spent the morning with an address book that had belonged to a client’s brother, a classical studies professor who’d succumbed to a stroke while engaged in illicit acts with the wife of the department head. The official story was that he’d been struck down while volunteering in a soup kitchen. Yeah, good luck selling that story.
In any event, I’d been hired to make phone calls to friends and distant relatives, gently notifying them of the death and providing visitation and funeral info. It wasn’t my first time performing this sad task, and it’s never easy. I’ve found that most people take the news reasonably well, especially when the death is expected or the deceased was well on in years.
Once in a while, though, someone totally loses it. Usually I can calm them down on my own. In one instance, however, which occurred nine years ago, a middle-aged man named Bart became so distraught over the news that he threatened to jump out the window of his fifteenth-floor apartment. I happened to have a land line back then in addition to my cell, and without breaking our phone connection, I managed to call 911 and quietly alert the cops to the situation. They responded swiftly and saved Bart’s life.
The weird thing was, Bart wasn’t even close to the deceased. They’d been college roommates thirty years earlier, and their only interactions since then had been occasional “likes” on Facebook. I figured poor Bart must have been at such a low point in his life that it took very little to push him over the edge. Okay, poor choice of words, but you get my point.
Fortunately, that morning’s death-notification session went smoothly. After lunch, I hied myself to Crystal Harbor Ceramics, a pottery gallery and studio there on Main Street owned by an artistic young couple, Poppy and Beau Battle. A regular client of mine, Veronica Sheffield, had decided the cremated remains of her recently deceased uncle Edwin merited a handmade urn that reflected his enduring devotion to Australia—a country, I should add, he’d never visited except in the occasional movie and magazine article.
I met Veronica at the gallery to discuss the project with the Battles. And no, she didn’t actually need me for this transaction, just as she hadn’t needed me for ninety-nine percent of the bizarre assignments she’d hired me for over the years. But Veronica had more money than she knew what to do with, and she relished displays of conspicuous consumption, particularly when a deceased individual was involved. Don’t ask me why. I’m a Death Diva, not a shrink. Every time she hired me, she made sure everyone in town knew about it.
Fine with me. Not only did I receive my fee, I scored plenty of free advertising to boot. A win-win.
And in case you’re wondering, Veronica arranged for Beau Battle to craft an urn in the shape of—you guessed it—a cartoon kangaroo. Yeah, I know, but you can’t buy taste.
So there I was, making my way down Main Street, greeting other pedestrians and wondering what kind of takeout to pick up for dinner (burgers or Thai? Or hey, how about pizza? Haven’t had that since last night) when a rapid knocking brought me up short in front of a store called Mike & Mary Pat’s Kitchen Emporium.
My friend Maia Armstrong was on the other side of the big display window, beckoning me into the store. I entered and gave her a hug. “I thought you bought all your cooking gear wholesale,” I said. Maia was a successful local caterer.
“I’m not here as a customer.” She nodded toward the back of the store, where there was a demonstration kitchen fronted by a curved granite counter with seating for fifteen. “I’m teaching a class on paella in a little while.”
Only then did I notice her taupe chef’s jacket. Her magnificent cloud of shoulder-length Afro coils had been tucked under an artfully twisted head wrap in shades of orange and purple.
“I didn’t realize you were holding classes here,” I said.
“It’s only my third time at Mike & Mary Pat’s.” Maia glanced at a couple of young guys near us who were comparing high-end woks before steering me into an aisle filled with big-ticket coffeemakers and espresso machines, devoid of customers at the moment.
“To be honest,” she said, “I get a lot of affluent suburbanites who own these fully stocked, state-of-the-art kitchens and never make a darn thing in them except coffee and cocktails. They come to this store and plunk down big bucks on complete sets of Le Creuset cookware and Shun knives, and then they never touch them. It’s all for show.”
“What a waste,” I murmured, thinking of the fully stocked, state-of-the-art kitchen I’d inherited from Irene McAuliffe, along with the rest of her big, fancy house. Of course, strictly speaking, the house didn’t belong to me yet. It belonged to Sexy Beast during his lifetime. Which, if you’d known Irene, you would not find the least bit surprising. I wasn’t much of a home chef myself, but at least I didn’t pretend otherwise.
“So most of them are here to drink wine,” Maia said, “eat the samples, and socialize. Which, when you think about it, isn’t the worst way to spend a couple of hours. And a few of them, believe it or not, actually want to learn how to cook.”
“Go figure.” I became aware of a middle-aged woman hovering at the periphery of my vision, clearly a store employee waiting for the opportunity to get a word in. I turned and was surprised to realize I recognized her.
Maia said, “I’d better get back there and set up. But listen, Jane, it’s been too long since we had a girls’ night out. I’m thinking dinner and a show in the city. Maybe get Sophie in on it?”
“Sounds perfect,” I said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Once we were alone, the saleswoman smiled and said, “I see you know our Chef Maia. Are you here for her paella class?”
“Oh. No, I’m, um... I just came in to browse,” I said, thinking fast, loath to squander this chance encounter. Before she could ask what I was looking to buy, I said, “You’re Stu Ruskin’s sister-in-law.”
Darla Ruskin blinked. “Have we met?”
“No. My name’s Jane Delaney. I was at the funeral.” I made myself add, “You and your husband conducted a lovely graveside service.”
“Thank you for saying so. Stu wouldn’t have wanted a lot of fuss.”
I didn’t know about that. The Stu Ruskin I’d been learning about had probably anticipated a much more elaborate sendoff than he’d received. From what I understood, his brother and sister-in-law had done, and spent, the minimum necessary to satisfy the requirements of his will.
Darla Ruskin was just under average height, her graying dark-blond hair cut in a short, serviceable style. She wore a drab brown jacket dress identical in style to the black one I saw her in at Stu’s funeral. “So you knew my brother-in-law?”
“Not exactly. Well, not when he was alive, anyway.” Watching Darla’s eyes bug out, I hastily added, “I’m the one who found him. After he, um...”
Her features hardened. “Committed suicide.”
Well, maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. That wasn’t a conversation I intended to have with her. Instead I said, “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” I was still thinking about that strange dream and Percival De Niro’s punch bowl.
“I’m afraid I’m busy, Ms. Delaney. It’s just me and the owner here today, so if you’re not looking for anything in particular—”
“It’ll just take a minute,” I said. “And please, call me Jane.”
She opened her mouth to tell me to get lost just as an attractive, fiftyish man who was obviously her boss popped his head into the aisle. He didn’t look like a Mary Pat, so by deductive reasoning I identified him as Mike. Would I have made a great detective or what?
Mike said, “Darla, I could use you—”
“Tell me about this one, Darla!” I slapped a possessive hand on the nearest coffeemaker, a contraption made by Jura that was so imposing and complicated, it would have looked right at home on the International Space Station. Houston, we have a latte.
Mike’s eyes widened fractionally. He bestowed an approving smile, made a carry-on gesture, and disappeared.
Before his employee could stomp off after him, I said, “One little question, Darla. It’ll take no time at all. I’ll even consider buying...” I peeked at the price tag on the Space Station coffeemaker. Now it was my turn to go bug-eyed. “What kind of fanatic would spend six grand on a coffeemaker?”
“Our customers appreciate quality, and they’re willing to pay for it.” Darla double-checked that no one was within earshot and turned her disapproving glare on me. “I heard about you, you know.”
“What?” I was still reeling from sticker shock. “What do you mean?”
“I was told that someone called the Death Demon discovered my brother-in-law’s body.”
“It’s actually ‘Diva,’ not—”
“And that you make a living doing disgusting things to corpses,” she said.
“Okay, there’s a lot of misinformation going around—”
“I would like you to leave the store, Ms. Delaney.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Now.”
I stood my ground. “Did Stu ever mention a recipe?”
I saw her mentally debating whether to answer the question or toss me out on my keister. The look I gave her said, Just try it.
Finally she huffed in exasperation. “Are you talking about the recipe that was stolen?”
“Yes!” My heart kicked. “What can you tell me? Did Stu have it?”
“Well, of course he did,” she said. “That’s what started all the fuss, isn’t it?”
“Fuss? I’m not sure I—”
“We were visiting Stu,” Darla said, “my husband and I, when that awful man showed up. Not that we enjoyed going over there. Gil and his brother never got along, and Lord knows I had no fondness for him either, but family is family, that’s what I always tell Gil, and it was our duty to look in on his brother once a month, him with no wife and no contact with his own children because, let’s face it, they couldn’t stand him, but we did the right thing, even following his kooky burial instructions to the letter, and—”
“Okay, okay, I get the picture,” I said. “Let’s back it up a bit. What’s this about an awful man coming by? What happened?”
“I was getting to that,” she sniffed. “This man just barged into the house and attacked Stu. I can’t recall his name.”
“Attacked him how?” I asked. “Did he have a weapon?”
“None that I saw,” she said, “aside from his fists. And he was yelling all kinds of terrible things. It didn’t last long. They exchanged a few punches before Gil managed to separate them.”
I thought about Ty Collingwood and how he’d felt about his daughter’s relationship with Stu Ruskin. Sounds like he might’ve decided to take matters into his own hands. Or more accurately, fists.
“When did this happen?” I asked.
“Around the end of June,” Darla said.
Which was shortly before Martin started working for Stu. Could this fistfight be the so-called attempt on Stu’s life that had prompted him to hire a bodyguard? A bit of an overstatement in terms of lethality perhaps, but the timing certainly fit.
“What kind of terrible things was the man saying?” I asked.
“Oh, things like ‘Leave her alone’ and ‘I’ll make you sorry’ and ‘You better watch your back.’ Along with some very bad language. Never in my life have I seen anyone so angry,” she said. “If Gil and I hadn’t been there, well, I don’t like to think what might’ve happened.”
I said, “But what does this have to do with the recipe?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Darla said. “Stu only took up with that woman to get his hands on it. He never would’ve bothered with her otherwise.”
“Took up with...? Oh. You’re talking about Georgia. So it was Henry who barged into Stu’s house.”
“Right, that was his name. Henry Something,” she said. “The baker who invented that ridiculous cookie.”
“Henry Noyer,” I said, “and it was actually his wife who invented it. Well, Georgia Chen is his ex-wife now.”
“All the misery Stu caused.” She gave a sad shake of the head. “And for what? So he could die a little richer.”
Stu had told Martin that someone attacked him, but refused to identify the perpetrator. Which made no sense. Wouldn’t he want his bodyguard to know who to be on the lookout for?
The answer came to me in the next breath. The last thing Stu would have wanted was to draw attention to the con he was pulling on Georgia. A fistfight with her estranged husband? Something that juicy would have had tongues wagging and might have led to someone putting two and two together and figuring out what he was really up to. I’d be willing to bet Georgia herself still didn’t know about the fight.
I recalled what Henry had said about Stu’s claim that someone tried to kill him. If you ask me, it was BS. It would seem he was speaking from firsthand knowledge. Henry’s intention, at that point anyway, hadn’t been to kill Stu but simply to beat the tar out of him for stealing his wife.
“I guess I wasn’t specific enough,” I said. “It’s not the cookie recipe I’m interested in. It’s an old Colonial recipe for a kind of punch—called Sybbie’s Punch, or maybe Peg Leg Punch. I thought you might know whether Stu had it in his possession. Or perhaps your husband does, or even one of their cousins, if they have any.”
Darla’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why do you care about some old recipe?”
I thought fast. “It pertains to an assignment I’m working on. I’m not at liberty to divulge details, other than to say the recipe belonged to the Collingwood family—specifically Sybille Collingwood—but one of Stu’s ancestors, a man named Percival Ruskin, swiped it way back in the seventeenth century.”
“An assignment?” She grimaced. “You mean that Death Demon stuff?”
“It’s Death Diva, and not everything I work on involves satanic rites, animal sacrifice, or grave robbing. Sometimes I like to take all those extra body parts that are just lying around and sew them all together, see what I can come up with. Sort of a fun, rainy-day craft activity for the kiddies.”
And before you tell me I just blew it, let me assure you it was already a lost cause. I could see it in her mean little eyes. This woman had zero intention of sharing any information with me, even if she knew anything about that old recipe, which she probably didn’t.
One look at her stony expression and I knew it was time to skedaddle. As she trailed me to the door, I said, “You know, Darla, if you ever get bored selling pots and pans, I could always use an intern. You’d spend most of your time mopping up entrails, but hey, the job comes with dental. Just tell me you’ll think about it.”