Diva Runs Out Of Thyme

ELEVEN

From “THE GOOD LIFE”:

Dear Sophie,

I love crispy turkey skin. It always looks wonderful when it comes out of the oven but somehow when my wife serves it, the skin is limp and unappealing.

—Crispless in Crimora

Dear Crispless,

I’d bet your wife covers the turkey with aluminum foil to keep it warm while you eat your soup. Covering the hot bird causes moisture to collect and the skin to lose its crispness. Just leave the bird uncovered and it will be as crisp as can be.

—Sophie

Natasha kneeled to tend to Mars. “Sophie, how could you?”

Mom shrieked, “Craig, Humphrey, do something!”

Wolf skirted the table to help Mars. “Call nine-one-one. Looks like a food allergy to me.”

Mars didn’t have any allergies. But even I could see he was suffering from something more serious than ordinary food poisoning. I set the turkey on the table, ran for the phone, and called an ambulance.

When I returned, Mars moaned and curled into the fetal position. He hacked and appeared to have trouble swallowing.

Natasha stroked Mars’s head. “Please, Vicki, get Sophie to tell you what she gave him. Please?”

“You’re being absurd. I didn’t give him anything. If I had poisoned the soup, everyone would be sick.” I was horrified to see more than one scared face. I threw my hands up in a hopeless gesture. “I didn’t poison anything!”

The wail of the ambulance siren grew in strength. I gave up hope that I could be of assistance, flung open the front door, and ran into the street to flag them down.

The sight of another rescue squad raised goose bumps on my arms. Surely Mars wouldn’t die, too. How could this be happening?

They brought a stretcher into the dining room and radioed the hospital. Wolf’s presence made things easier. He knew the rescue crew and provided succinct answers to their questions.

When they asked Natasha if Mars had any allergies, she sheepishly turned to me. I shook my head. Within minutes they carried Mars out of the house and loaded him into the ambulance.

Natasha seized my arm and hissed into my ear, “I don’t know why you would want to hurt Mars but make no mistake. I’ll do anything to protect him.” Throwing me an angry glance, she rushed out to follow the ambulance in her car. Bernie offered to drive June and bring her back later. Vicki apologized for having to leave and ran after a visibly shaken Andrew, who yelled for her to hurry.

I gazed around the yard at my remaining guests. The colonel, lonely heart Francie, pale Humphrey, creepy Craig, suspicious Wolf, my parents, and my sister. I wanted to go to the hospital with the others, but knew I shouldn’t.

Dad slung an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “He’ll be all right. There’s nothing you can do to help Mars now.”

“We might as well get back inside and enjoy the turkey,” I said with feigned enthusiasm. When we returned to the dining room, a police technician surveyed the scene. In the commotion, I hadn’t noticed him arrive. Mom ushered everyone into the living room to wait.

Everyone except MacArthur and Daisy, who were whimpering at the table. Then I realized that Mochie had taken advantage of the chaos to jump up and help himself to turkey. Tiny as he was, he had chomped down on a wing and he pulled on it like a little tiger. I picked him up, along with the chewed-up wing, and called the dogs into the kitchen so they could share Mochie’s ill-gotten treat. Wolf followed the dogs.

“Did you call your buddy to test for poison?” I asked.

He took a deep breath. “Be glad Mars had his reaction before we ate anything else.” Wolf tugged loose a crusty piece of stuffing stuck to a pan and munched on it. “At least he only had to test the appetizers and the soup. Unless . . . did Mars come in here and taste anything while you were cooking?”

I tried to remember. “I don’t think so.” Various people had floated in and out of the kitchen. But the only one I could remember for sure was Natasha because she had been driving me crazy. So much for her theory about the cops suspecting Mars. Even they wouldn’t think he’d poisoned himself.

Wolf picked at the stuffing pan again. “That’s presuming he was poisoned at all. Could have had a reaction to something. Even something he ate hours ago for breakfast. The results will probably put you in the clear—for this one anyway.”

I set Mochie on a chair and looked around. The cop, who had already investigated the kitchen, had been very neat. We’d stacked the empty soup bowls on the counter and they were now gone. Except for the smudge of a soup ring where bowls had been, I wouldn’t have known he’d been in the kitchen at all.

After giving Mochie and the dogs their treats, I preheated the ovens to warm up the side dishes. They’d been sitting on the table cooling off for over an hour. The rest of my guests would probably get food poisoning.

Wolf threw a log on the fire and asked if he could help.

“Not unless you can speed up your cop friend.”

He settled into a chair and Mochie jumped on his lap. “Do you invite your ex-husband and his family to all your holiday gatherings?”

I poured each of us a glass of iced tea, handed him one, and sat down opposite him. “That was just a confluence of bizarre events. Actually, the last couple of days have been that way. Are we in a full moon?”

In a very calm tone he said, “I don’t expect many ex-wives would invite the women who stole their husbands.”

I looked at him in shock. He didn’t come right out and say it, but the implication hung in the air—only an ex-wife who was up to no good would invite the woman who broke up her marriage. I gritted my teeth and groaned. “Natasha did not steal Mars.”

The police officer taking samples called Wolf from the doorway. They stepped outside to talk and I couldn’t help spying on them from the kitchen window. Neither seemed worried or upset. If anything, they spoke calmly—business as usual.

I carried the reheated stuffing back to the dining room, where Mom collected discarded wrappers left by the rescue squad. Guilt nagged at me as we removed place settings. Mars could die, yet the rest of us were going to feast as though nothing had happened. I returned to the kitchen with Humphrey tagging along behind me.

“Thank you for inviting me.”

I thought about telling him I didn’t know he was invited, but that would have been unnecessarily rude. He seemed so frail and ghostlike with his pale skin and platinum hair. If I exhaled too hard, it might knock him over. “Glad to have you.”

He reached out tentatively and placed cold fingers on top of mine.

It took all my willpower not to snatch my hand away.

He giggled. “I guess you’ll think I’m silly, but I had such a crush on you when we were kids. I’m amazed you remember me. There were times I wasn’t sure you knew I was alive.”

I withdrew my hand fast and pretended to slap it to my chest in a completely stupid effort to appear surprised. “Kids! We were all so insecure back then.” I struggled to recall details about him. “You were so good at . . . at . . .”

He stepped into my personal space, closer than I’d have liked, and bit at my bait. “Dissecting frogs.”

I edged back, still trying to be friendly. “And look at you now. What is it you do for a living?”

“I’m a mortician.”

It figured. Humphrey looked like he had stepped out of a blond Addams Family cartoon.

“You know, Sophie, I’ve always been so shy. I was never able to tell you how I felt, and now, to learn that you feel the same is like a miracle.”

Where did he get that idea?

Wolf coughed, undoubtedly to let us know he stood in the doorway.

Humphrey’s confidence melted and he shuffled out of the room, his head hanging down in embarrassment.

Wolf picked up the dish of sweet potatoes.

I wasn’t sure how much he’d seen, but part of me wanted to be sure he knew that Humphrey got my feelings all wrong. “That probably wasn’t what it looked like.”

“Murder someone and it’s my business. Your love life is your own business.” He carried the casserole of sweet potatoes and marshmallows toward the dining room and I heard him mutter, “Though I can’t see the attraction myself.”

What did he mean by that? That he couldn’t see Humphrey being attracted to me or me being attracted to Humphrey? I dashed after him but a dining room full of family and guests, including Humphrey, didn’t seem the right place to question him.

For the third time, we sat down to eat. Dad carved the turkey and for a few minutes of passing and loading plates, we acted like a normal group of family and friends enjoying a holiday feast.

“Wolf, do you think Mars’s poisoning has anything to do with Simon’s murder?” Hannah brought us back to reality.

The soft clinking of silverware halted as we all froze.

Her question hung in the air, taunting me. If there were a connection, the killer had made a serious error. Wolf’s field of hundreds of suspects at the stuffing contest would have been narrowed down dramatically.

Craig broke the awkward silence. “It’s not a preposterous question. Mars’s brother certainly doesn’t make a secret of his feelings about Simon. And I understand Simon and Mars hated each other as well. Mars’s whole family is suspect if you ask me.”

“If the murders are related, then I guess Mars is off the hook for Simon’s murder.” Hannah speared a piece of turkey with her fork. “I mean, he wouldn’t have poisoned himself. It must be one of the others. It can’t be Natasha, so that leaves June, Andrew, and Vicki. Oh! And that Bernie fellow.”

I watched Wolf. He was no dummy. He hadn’t said a word but he observed the rest of us.

“My money’s on Natasha.” If she’d been younger, the brittleness of Francie’s voice would have been chalked up to cheerleading. But at her age, it sounded grumpy and as though she’d had one Scotch too many. “Andrew isn’t smart enough to do the dirty deed and deflect suspicion by being open about his disdain for the man. And June wouldn’t poison her own son.”

The colonel fed MacArthur a piece of turkey under the table. “Well, Detective? Do you have a suspect?”

Dad promptly knocked over his wineglass. I rushed to his aid and sopped up the wine with napkins. While I dabbed at the carpet, Wolf’s cell phone rang.

He excused himself from the table but returned within seconds. His jaw had tightened. “I apologize for my abrupt departure but there’s been a development in Simon’s murder.” His gaze shot to Francie. “They’ve found the suspected murder weapon.”