Sour Crime Donuts, page 18
Izzy was laughing. “Okay, stop. I get it. But really, what are you going to wear?”
“I hadn’t decided, but after this discussion, I think I should wear my emerald-green dress.”
“Ooooh, that will go so well with your dark hair. Your deep blue eyes will really pop.” She gasped. “I didn’t mean that literally. Sorry, Emily.”
I controlled my laughter. “It’s okay.”
“Maybe I’ll wear the black dress I wore when your husband interrogated me. Is he coming tonight?”
“No, so you don’t have to try to match his dark gray suit and navy-striped tie.”
“I guess he has to work.”
“I guess he wasn’t invited.”
“What? I thought Hope would be a stickler for etiquette and invite a couple if there is a couple. Maybe she’s changed over the years. See you tonight.” She disconnected.
I went up to our spacious bedroom suite in the loft, showered, and put on the green dress and a chunky green and black handmade necklace from The Craft Croft. Despite Dep’s rubbing against my ankles, I slipped my feet into a pair of shiny black sandals. “Good thing I won’t be walking much,” I told my purring kitty. “These are definitely not as comfy as the shoes I wear in Deputy Donut.”
“Meow.”
Downstairs again, I opened the fridge. Suspecting that I would never be able to choose a wine that would appeal to a chef, I selected a chilled bottle of one of Brent’s and my favorite pinot grigios. I put it into a sheer purple drawstring bag.
I carried the bag along with a sweater and a tiny purse containing my phone and driver’s license, but not much else, toward the front door. With only one eye open, Dep was lying on a couch. I told her, “Brent will probably be back before I am.” She opened her other eye, yawned, stretched, closed both eyes, and curled into a ball, apparently content to snooze in a cozy spot until we returned.
Driving south, I wondered if Glenn and Hope might serve dinner outside on the patio. It should be another perfect evening—warm but not hot. The slight breezes would probably end when the sun went down.
Izzy’s car was already parked near the Maple Street house. No cars were in the driveway, but maybe Glenn or Hope had a car in the garage. Not wanting to block it in, I parked on the street behind Izzy’s car.
The front door was ajar, and the screen was closed. I rang the bell. Hope opened the screen door. She hadn’t hooked it, this time. “Emma. Come in.” Her black raw silk tunic was almost hidden under thick ropes of gleaming gold chains. Her capris matched the tunic. The clear band over the forefoot of her stiletto-heeled sandals made all but the soles and heels of her shoes seem almost invisible. I slipped out of my uncomfortable sandals and left them underneath the table beside the door. I laid my purse on the table and handed Hope the wine.
She pinched the bag’s ruffled top between one thumb and forefinger as if she didn’t want too much of her hand to come into contact with it. “You didn’t have to do that.” She backed up and waved at the ruby-red velvet couch, the matching armchair, and the cobalt-blue wing chair, all of which I’d inherited from my grandmother and had had reupholstered. And thoroughly cleaned after we moved Dep out. “Have a seat.” She strode toward the kitchen. The pulled-back bun on the back of her head looked tight and painful.
With her knees together, her black linen dress pressed, and her curls combed and mostly tamed, Izzy perched on the edge of one of the couch cushions. As if she couldn’t help adding touches of whimsy to her life, she wore silver ballet slippers with large silver pom-poms resembling chrysanthemums on the toes.
During the years before Brent and I had begun cuddling on the couch together with Dep, Brent had nearly always chosen the wing chair. Even though he wasn’t invited to this particular event, I avoided the wing chair and sat on the other end of the couch from Izzy. The room was the way Brent and I had arranged it, except we’d taken our personal belongings and artwork to the chalet. The clear glass shelves beside the windows where I’d kept vases echoing the colors in the stained-glass panel above the window were still empty, as was the glass-doored case beside the stairs, except for something—a book?—on the lower shelf. If, like Brent and me, Glenn and Hope kept books and magazines on tables near the couch and chairs, they had, as we usually did, tidied them away when company was expected.
Behind me and beyond the dining room, dishes, pots, and pans clattered in the kitchen that Alec and I had designed and that Brent and I had also shared and enjoyed. I heard Glenn’s and Hope’s voices but couldn’t make out more than the occasional word.
It was both familiar and distressingly otherworldly, my house, but not mine. Did I really want to keep renting it to strangers? Maybe I shouldn’t have accepted the dinner invitation.
I told myself to relax and enjoy the evening. The meal would be exceptional, no doubt, and part of the reason I was here was to support Izzy, who was meeting her estranged cousin for the first time in years.
What, if anything, had been said before I arrived that made Izzy sit stiffly as if she were missing her tiny home and deck?
Actually, I would have rather been there, too. Without the icy cousin and the chef who was too busy—quite understandably—to greet his guests.
I turned toward Izzy. We exhausted almost every possible detail about the drive down County Road C. Finally, Glenn came in with a tray of tall, frosty glasses tinkling with ice cubes. Each drink was garnished with a sprig of lavender and thin slices of lemon. Glenn set the tray on the coffee table. “French lemonade,” he announced, waiter-like. “With freshly squeezed lemons, sparkling water, and lavender syrup. Help yourselves.” He was wearing a chef’s hat and a chef’s apron over a pressed white dress shirt and jeans that looked at least as expensive as the ones Hope had worn the previous time I’d visited this house.
Hope followed Glenn with cocktail napkins. “And no alcohol.”
I scooted forward and picked up a glass. “It’s just as well, since we both drove.”
Izzy chose a glass.
Leaving the third glass on the tray, Glenn and Hope headed toward the kitchen. I wondered what her stiletto heels were doing to our wide-plank pine floors, the house’s original subflooring, which had been covered by carpeting in Victorian times, and was now protected only by area rugs. I could almost hear the antique wood splinter with each step she took. I hoped that the kitchen floor’s tiles held up to those heels.
Izzy pointed at the lone glass on the tray on the coffee table and held up one finger, then cocked her head back toward the kitchen, held up two fingers, and wrinkled her forehead in puzzlement.
I whispered, “Maybe they share?”
She covered her mouth for a second to hide a giggle, then suggested, “They ran out of lavender syrup?”
Did I somehow miss that Brent was supposed to come? My face heated. I sipped at the drink and said loudly enough that someone listening from the kitchen might hear me, “Delicious!”
Glenn had appeared silently at my elbow. With a courtly bow, he handed me a small plate with three canapés on it. “Glad you like it.” He described the three canapés. “This one’s a mushroom tartlet. That one’s smoked trout and mascarpone on a toasted slice of baguette, and the third one is fresh fig slices with honeyed goat’s cheese on French spiced bread.”
He gave Izzy an identical plate and explained each delicacy again. It was no wonder that I hadn’t heard him coming. His leather shoes apparently had very soft soles, as if they had been made for someone whose work required him to stand for hours at a time.
I asked, “Did you bake the baguette and the spiced bread yourselves?”
Hope handed me a tiny fork. “Glenn did. I don’t do kitchens except to help carry things if I have to, like tonight. Glenn gets up early to bake, and he’s been working all day on this.” It was the most congenial remark I’d ever heard her make. She walked to the window and looked out for a second as if she were watching for someone. Again wondering if I’d been supposed to pass the invitation along to Brent, I felt myself blush even more. Without another word and with her heels beating against the floor, Hope followed Glenn to the kitchen.
Izzy tasted her lemonade and said quietly, “Fancier than what I served.”
I murmured, “But not as much fun.”
She threw me a conspiratorial smile, glanced over her shoulder toward the kitchen, and sighed. It was going to be a long evening.
One feature of our old-fashioned wooden porch was that, unless one set one’s feet down carefully, footsteps resounded over the hollow space underneath.
Someone had come up onto the porch. Not a woman in heels, and not, I thought, Brent.
The doorbell rang. Izzy jumped and turned toward the door.
From the kitchen, Hope called in a cheerful voice, “Come in!” Although remote, it seemed warmer than the welcome I’d received.
A man stepped into the living room.
Landon, aka Mr. Mystery.
Chapter 27
Landon, or whatever his name really was, returned my gaze and nodded. A flush mottled his cheeks.
Izzy’s fork slid off her plate and landed on the rug.
Landon glanced her way. The color drained from his face. He took a step backward and placed his hand on the screen door as if he were about to open it and run away.
Izzy made no attempt to pick up her fork. Her mouth hung open.
Hope’s heels pounded into the soft wood floor of the dining room, and then the living room, until my inauthentic Persian rug absorbed some of the force of her footsteps. “Landon! So glad you could make it.”
He stammered out, “I . . . um . . . here.” He shoved a bouquet of showy dahlias at her.
She kept them from falling onto the floor. “Sweet. Is that what made you late, stopping at a farm stand?”
He defended himself. “Sorry. I thought you said seven thirty. For drinks.” His voice was as deep as I remembered but somehow less calming.
Hope trilled a brittle laugh. “And you’re fashionably late even for that. Come in and meet my cousin Izzy and our landlady Emma.”
Izzy corrected her. “Emily.”
“Emily? My bad.” She turned toward the dining room and gestured to Glenn, who must have come in silently again. “And this is my almost-fiancé Glenn. Everybody, this is Landon Bafter, someone I met in New York.”
We greeted each other in various ways, all of them awkward. Landon sounded as stiff as Izzy looked.
Hope, however, seemed totally comfortable and, I thought, in control. She waved toward the armchair and wing chair. “Have a seat, Landon. Your French lemonade with lavender is there on the coffee table. If the ice melted too much while waiting for you to arrive, I’ll get you a new one.” Maybe Hope couldn’t help her snide and hurtful remarks.
Landon seemed to almost stumble over his feet on his way to the armchair across from me. “This is fine.” I wondered if he chose that chair because it was farther from Izzy. His face still red, he picked up his French lemonade. The frost on the glass had become water droplets that ran down the glass and, as I knew from my own drink, made the glass slippery. Where were the coasters I’d kept on the coffee and end tables?
Behind me, Glenn said, “I’ll get the rest of the appetizers.” He picked up the tray the drinks had been on and returned to the kitchen. Hope clopped behind him.
Izzy bent down and retrieved her fork.
I set my plate on the coffee table in front of me. Grasping my slippery glass tightly, I went to the glass-doored bookcase beside the stairs and peeked in. What I thought might have been a book on the bottom shelf was actually a neat stack of my coasters. Knowing I was probably being too pushy, I distributed more of the coasters than we probably needed on the tables. Finally, I found something to say. “We three meet again.” How inane.
I sat down and put my glass on the coaster nearest me on the coffee table.
Landon cleared his throat. “Yes.” He spoke as if he could barely force the word out.
I badly needed to tell Brent where Landon was, but I’d left my phone in my purse on the table near the door. Rushing to get it and then sending Brent a message would be even ruder than helping myself to coasters. Also, if Landon guessed what I was doing, he might bolt. Trying not to squirm, I asked him, “What brings you to northern Wisconsin?”
“Work.” He must have remembered the first story he’d told us. “First to Duluth, and then here, and then, um, I go back to New York.”
Izzy didn’t say a thing, so I continued my questions. “What kind of work?”
“Law.”
“Law enforcement?”
“No. I’m a lawyer. Corporate law. Nothing interesting.”
Or nothing he wanted to disclose.
Izzy sat uncharacteristically still and mute.
Glenn and Hope returned. This time the tray held two more glasses of lavender-infused lemonade and three plates of the canapés. They gave Landon a plate, and then Glenn sat in the wing chair.
Holding her plate, Hope eased down onto the couch between Izzy and me. “Well, isn’t this cozy?” she cooed. “Just us girls.” She picked up a coaster and then glanced toward my glass on its coaster. “Quaint, like visiting a grandmother.”
I felt like a fifth, and entirely unnecessary, wheel. Also, I missed Dep. Usually, when I’d sat in this spot, Dep had been on my lap or on the cushion beside me. Also, I could imagine Brent sitting here and hiding his amusement to share with me later. Strengthened by picturing my comforting kitty and empathetic husband, I bit into the mushroom tartlet. “Delicious, Glenn.” Maybe I was necessary at this party, after all, if the only other person who was going to say anything was Hope, who had little to offer besides poorly veiled criticism. I tried to start a conversation. “So, we know that Glenn’s a chef, and an excellent one, Landon’s a lawyer, I make and sell donuts and coffee, and Izzy is a budding entrepreneur. What do you do, Hope?”
“Oh, executive things in New York, like everyone else there.”
I looked at her left hand. No ring. “And Glenn’s your almost-fiancé?”
“He’s popped the question, but I’m waiting for the right time to give him my answer.”
Izzy finally found her voice. “It sounds like we know what your answer is going to be.”
Glenn grinned, nodded, and gazed admiringly at the smoked trout canapé in his hand. “It seems I need to hire a photographer to document the occasion the next time I ask her.”
Hope added, “And invite our guest list.” She turned toward Izzy. “Isabella, what have you been up to since your snot-nosed brat days?”
“Wiping my nose, apparently.” Good for you, Izzy, I thought. His face neutral except for that betraying blush, Landon stared intently at Izzy. She went on, “School, a degree in biology, and now I’m looking into raising crops in greenhouses.”
Hope made an obvious shudder. “Aren’t you going to give that up now?”
Izzy looked honestly perplexed. “Why?”
“It’s morbid. Didn’t a man die where you’re planning to put your greenhouses? Or did I misunderstand what people are saying? Aren’t you afraid the place will be haunted, and all of your vegetables will shrivel on the vine?”
“No.”
There was another pause in the conversation. Silence would have been preferable to the chewing and swallowing of people who apparently had nothing they wanted to say.
Hope gathered our empty plates. “I believe that Glenn is ready to serve the soup course now.”
I stood. “I’ll just make a quick trip to the bathroom.”
Hope raised her eyebrows. “I’d have thought you’d have, oh, never mind. You live somewhere way out in the boonies, don’t you? Don’t worry. The soup is supposed to be cold. We won’t serve yours until you’re back. I guess you know your way.” There was that icy laugh again.
“Yes, thank you.” Walking around the back of the couch, I could see into the dining room. The table was tastefully and beautifully set—with my dishes, cutlery, and starched white linen place mats and napkins—for five people, which confirmed that Hope had expected Landon, and no one else. Not Brent.
I grabbed my purse from the table beside the door and ran upstairs.
Chapter 28
I shut myself into the bathroom and sent a text to Brent, telling him that Landon was in our Maple Street home and had claimed to be a corporate lawyer in New York. I gave Brent Landon’s last name and said that we were about to start the soup course, and there would probably be several more after that.
Brent texted back immediately. He asked me to let him know when the party was breaking up.
I was halfway down the stairs when I heard Hope call to Glenn, “You can serve Emma’s soup. I hear her clomping down now.” My bare feet were hardly making a sound on the runner on the wooden stairs.
I trotted the rest of the way down to the first floor. Trying to look like I didn’t want to waste time finding somewhere to put my purse, which still contained my phone, I hurried into the dining room. “Sorry for holding everyone up.”
Glenn was setting a clear glass bowl of white soup onto the clear glass plate at one of the two place settings in front of empty chairs. “Here you go, Emily.” He had removed the hat and apron, but I was amused to see that he still wore a scabbard for one of a chef’s most prized implements—his chef’s knife. This scabbard was made of black silicone. No knife handle stuck out of the top of it, and its decorative circular cutouts confirmed that it was empty. Glenn must have felt secure in a kitchen where only his almost-fiancée was helping him, and he didn’t have to protect the precious knife from someone who might use it for prying the lid off a jar. I nearly groaned at the thought.
Hope’s hand hovered over her soup spoon.
The round, glass-topped table could accommodate six people. Izzy was between Hope and Landon, who sat next to the chair that had to be Glenn’s. Trying not to be obvious about keeping my purse with me as if I feared I was in a den of robbers, I slipped into the chair next to Hope and put the purse on my lap.
