The Diva Goes Overboard

I’m eager to make a butter board. Do I have to do it on a board? My boards are so big.

There isn’t a reason in the world that you have to use a board. If you’re like me, you probably have loads of cute, small, serving dishes that would be perfect to serve softened butter with beautiful toppings.

Natasha

I stopped in my tracks. Could that be what happened? Had Joan been at the party? I hurried along the street, planning to stop by Natasha’s house to see if Joan had been on the guest list, but when I passed my own home, I heard a woman call my name.

“Sophie!” Stella waved at me from the stoop at my kitchen door.

I turned and walked toward her. “Hi, Stella.”

“I hope you don’t mind my stopping by like this.”

I unlocked the door, grateful for the cool air inside my house. “Of course not. Come on in. Could I offer you some iced tea?”

“Yes, please! I’m parched.”

While Daisy and Mochie introduced themselves to Stella, I pulled a pitcher from the fridge, added ice to two tall glasses, and poured the tea.

Handing her a glass, I asked, “How are you?”

She gulped tea, then said, “Everything considered, I’m okay. I’m still breathing, the kids are healthy, and—” She burst into tears.

I steered her to one of the chairs by the fireplace and handed her a box of tissues.

“You have a lot going on. Losing your dad must be overwhelming.”

She gulped tea, sniffled, and then hiccupped. “I’m a wreck. I was so ugly to you and then I sent my children to you! And you took care of them in spite of what I said,” she wailed, tears coursing down her face.

“It’s okay. You’re under a lot of stress. They were darling! Your mom was over here in no time to pick them up.”

“I didn’t want them walking all the way to Mom’s house. They might have disappeared. Been kidnapped or something. I was so desperate to keep them out of the system. I knew that Lili and Julie would know which one was your house because it’s Lili’s favorite, and it wasn’t nearly as far for them to walk.”

She sniffled and held a tissue to her nose. “I’b going to lose custody!” She sobbed so hard that Daisy laid her head in Stella’s lap.

“You don’t know that,” I said in what I hoped was a soothing voice.

She nodded her head. “Yes, I do. They think I’b a criminal. And now, the way Dad set up the trusts for the kids, Jordan is determined to get custody so he can use their money.”

I frowned at her. “But doesn’t Ronin have to okay expenditures? Neither of you can just take the money meant for the children.”

“Jordan says he can. My lawyer said Jordan’s lawyer has already been in touch with her about custody. He didn’t care about it before! He only wants them now because the money is tied to them.”

She was in a pickle. I had a bad feeling that Jordan might try to do exactly what she claimed.

“Sophie.” She sniffled again and looked me in the eyes. “I need your help. You have to find the person who murdered Dad and Joan. I can’t have this hanging over my head. Can you imagine what a judge would say about a mom who might have killed someone?” She twisted the tissue in her hands. “I’ll tell you who I’d like to kill—that rotten Tripp Fogarty! Why would he say he saw me hit Joan with a charcuterie board? Why? I don’t understand.”

My first thought was that Tripp must have done it himself. It wasn’t impossible. He could have grabbed the board and hit Joan from behind in two minutes. Then all he had to do was flee the store and pretend to be picking up flowers. “Do you think Tripp had a reason to kill Joan?”

“I hadn’t thought about that.” She brightened up. “Maybe! Can you ask around? Apparently, I was the only one who didn’t know that Jordan was seeing Joan! Did you know that?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? I was hoping he would reconsider and come back to me.” She wailed again. “He says he was at home when Joan was murdered and he claims to have a witness who saw him there, probably some woman who would lie for him.”

“Do you still want him back?”

“No!” She blew her nose and sat quietly for a moment. “I’m so conflicted. I don’t want him back now. I can’t believe he started going out with Joan so quickly.” She snapped her fingers. “He moved out and just like that he had someone else? That tells me a lot about how he really felt. He didn’t care about me at all! If you love someone, you don’t replace them in a matter of weeks or months. Sometimes not for years. You spend time pining and suffering and it takes a while before you can even think about loving someone else. Do you think he was seeing her before we separated?”

“I don’t know.” She was looking a little stronger. I preheated the oven, took some cookie dough out of the freezer, cut off chunks, and slid a tray of the chocolate chip cookie dough into the oven. They would be ready in minutes.

“Up until I found out about Joan, all I wanted was my family back. Jordan and my kids. That’s all. I know I wasn’t spending enough time with Jordan. Taking care of three kids keeps you busy. Plus, my business had been picking up and that was really important to me because Jordan was working sporadically. Someone had to keep money coming in, right?” She shook her head. “What a fool I was. I thought he was envious because things were going so well for me in my business. He wanted that kind of success, but has never managed to achieve it. Jordan always wants everyone else to do the work. He never worked his tail off like I did. I tried to overlook his jealousy, but now I realize what a jerk he was. I was getting four hours sleep a night! Even when I had a contract to provide charcuterie boards, Jordan couldn’t be bothered to help out. He never had the time to take the kids to school or pick them up, or go to their after-school activities. I had to do everything.”

Stella winced and rambled as if she were speaking her thoughts aloud. “Of course he was seeing Joan before we separated. How could I not have realized that? I was too busy, that’s how. That rat! And then when Dad died, he came around acting all sweet and sympathetic.”

Stella sniffed the air. “Cookies? They smell delicious! Dad always disliked Jordan. You know what he did? On my wedding day, when Dad and I were outside the church, ready to walk in, he stopped. He came to a full, complete stop. The organ was already playing the processional music! Dad said, ‘It’s not too late to back out. I’ll stand by you if you choose to do that.’ ”

Stella wasn’t crying anymore. She pursed her lips, wiped her eyes, and looked determined. “I should have listened to him. I should have run off like Julia Roberts did in that movie. But you know, there’s so much pomp and tradition and fuss leading up to the wedding that I couldn’t imagine not going through with it at that moment. I was in love! Of course, I wouldn’t have my wonderful babies if I had been a runaway bride. I suppose it’s a trade-off. I wouldn’t give them up for the world. But maybe they would have had a better father. Someone who really loved me and wouldn’t have cheated on me at the first opportunity.”

I took the chocolate chip cookies out of the oven and used a spatula to slide them onto a cooling rack.

“Sophie, I would die if I lost my children. I’m not joking. I couldn’t take it. I won’t be spiteful. I won’t badmouth Jordan in front of them. That’s not my style. No matter how angry I am, I won’t make it their burden to carry. I’m okay with occasional weekends at Jordan’s house, as long as he’s with them. None of that nonsense about leaving them with a sitter while he goes out on dates. If he has them for the weekend, he should take care of them and focus on them. That’s only reasonable, right?”

I moved some of the cooling cookies to a platter. “It seems reasonable to me. Milk, coffee, or tea?”

“Milk!” She managed a feeble smile. “I’m always taking care of everyone. You’re being so kind. This is a treat for me. I feel just awful about what I said to you. Especially now that I’m here asking for your help. What a terrible person I am!”

I poured two glasses of cold milk and handed one to her along with the plate of cookies. “You’re not terrible. You’re in a big mess.”

She moved to the banquette with her milk and bit into a cookie. “Mmm, all melty and soft!”

I sat down with my milk. “You had every right to be upset about your father’s disposition of the store. I would have felt the same way in your shoes.” I picked up a cookie and bit into it. She was right. They were so good fresh from the oven when the chocolate was soft. “Rumor has it that Jordan has a debt of some kind he needed to pay off. Do you know anything about that?”

Stella nodded. “I didn’t sign on it, but he tried to get me to do it. He took out a loan to start a restaurant after he moved out. It’s my guess that he spent most of it on renting an apartment. The kids say it’s pretty incredible. It overlooks the Potomac! He went straight to the snazziest place in town.”

“You’d think no one would have given him a loan. Didn’t he have two failed restaurants before?”

Her eyes wide, Stella said, “I know! That’s exactly what I said. What kind of person would have given him a loan at all when he didn’t have a job and had a record of disastrous restaurants? It worries me.”

“Why is that?”

“For starters, I think he spent it all and doesn’t have a business to show for it. I haven’t heard anything about him renting a building for a restaurant. And secondly, I can’t see a bank lending him that money. That means it would have to be a private debt—a loan from someone. If they’re pressing him for money like I’ve heard, then he’s in serious trouble.”

“Are you one hundred percent certain that your father didn’t lend him the money?”

Stella choked on her milk. “Gah! There is no way he would have done that. None at all.”

“I’m going to ask you a tough question. I’m sorry, but I need to be straightforward about this. Is there any chance that Jordan murdered your father in the belief that you would inherit the money to pay off his debt?”

Stella leaned toward me. “Oh, Sophie, I have wondered about that myself. The timing is certainly suspicious. And from the moment the ambulance left the engagement party until the reading of the will, Jordan was so nice to the kids and me. In a flash, he became the man I wished he had been. Reading to the children, playing with them. Saying all the right things to me. I’m not stupid, Sophie. He was a fool to imagine that I couldn’t see through his act. Did he really think I would forget the way he treated me that quickly? Did he think I would erase it from my mind? Not a chance!” She sucked in a deep breath. “It’s hard for me to imagine that he could be that devious and cruel. But I have seen his darker side. The one where Jordan is the only important person in the world. Yes, Sophie, I hate to think that I could have married a man who would murder my father, but it’s entirely possible.”

“Did he attend the engagement party?”

“He was there, but not with me. I can assure you of that.”

Joan had been at the party, too. That was curious. They would have known Stella would be in attendance. Did they simply not care? Did they think no one knew and they could pull it off in spite of their relationship? Could Jordan and Joan have been in cahoots? I needed to move on to Stella’s predicament before she remembered she had children to take care of.

“You parked in back of the art gallery on the day we helped you with the charcuterie boards. Did you see anyone back there? Anyone sitting in a car or hanging around?”

“Sophie, you know how heavy those boards are to carry once they’re laden with food. Honestly, I don’t look at anything else. Even if someone opens a door for me, I focus on the board and don’t look up until the board is safely on the table.”

“Did anyone open a door for you?”

“I don’t think so. I learned early on that you can’t rely on someone holding the door. They get called away, the phone rings, a customer comes in and then I’m standing there in the rain holding a heavy board with no free hand to open the door. Now I prop the door open, and I’m pretty sure that’s what I did that day.”