Mummers' Curse by Gillian Roberts Read Free Book Online Page A

tonight, and don’ know who’s open for takeout on New Year’s Day.”
    Given that the cat was unlikely to whip up a repast, that left me as the somebody. I am a moody cook. I have my moments, but only when I feel like it. Mostly, I don’t.
    The grinding dailiness of food preparation makes me feel trapped in an alimentary canal. I can hear the hollow boom of empty stomachs, the gurgle-song of digestive juices. Buy ingredients, they warble; prepare them, serve them to me in a new form, clean up from the serving and the cooking, and then—well, I don’t want to think about the finale of the roundelay. And if you listen to it, obey it, do it—then you have to start all over again. Couldn’t we take care of all that and save a whole lot of time if we were fitted with long-term batteries instead? I think Mother Nature was on the phone when the idea of sustenance came by for review, and she waved it on.
    Besides, even though we now shared the loft, the kitchen was still, unmistakably, Mackenzie’s. He tried to be nonchalant about it, but I could feel him watching that I didn’t scratch the tin lining of his beloved copper pots, and that I left the counters sterilized in case we’d have to perform brain surgery later in the evening. I like to slop things around, feel industrious through an abundance of clutter, then do a decent cleanup. Life is too short to polish a copper pot, which, just like the rest of the food cycle, needs constant redoing.
    Luckily, we still had the chicken-vegetable-noodle soup, most of a good crusty loaf of bread, and a bottle of Pinot Noir. On my less inspired days, whatever I cooked seemed like leftovers—even when we’d never had the food a first time.
    “You have to remember,” Mackenzie said from the sofa, “that somewhere is a person who shot a man in front of hundreds of thousands of spectators. A person, therefore, who isn’t easily intimidated. Cold-blooded. Not a person to frighten by pushing on him or meddlin’.”
    “Meddling! You make me sound like a—”
    “Meddler.”
    “I wanted to help. That was all.”
    “Does it have anythin’ to do with your friend’s being involved?”
    “Why are you picking on him? You said everybody was a suspect. You don’t know anything except that Vincent was hard to find today. Which argues in his favor, anyway.”
    Mackenzie nodded. “He’s a suspect, then, is that okay?”
    “Why? You sought him out because he teaches at my school and you knew his name. Teaching with me isn’t a crime, but you’re making it one. That’s why I feel involved.”
    “Far as I can see, you always feel involved. Have you ever considered puttin’ this quirk to use?”
    “You called it meddling.”
    “Not that way. You could turn a profit by labeling it a problem, a societal ill. You know the drill. Females who love crime too much. Homicide addiction. Women who snoop too much. Write a book, go on talk shows. Confessions of a crime junkie.”
    He pronounced it as crahm , but a slur, slurred, doesn’t sound less offensive.
    “A twelve-step program,” he went on with low-grade Southern glee, “startin’ with step one: one crime at a time. You’ll make a fortune.”
    “Never mind. It was an offer, nothing more. End of topic.” I said it mildly, actually meant it, although I was still worried about Vincent Devaney’s whereabouts and/or why Mackenzie was suspicious of him. But in the meantime, peace was restored in our little household. After awhile, we even remembered that there were things to do together that were more fun than discussing crime and punishment.
    Later, Mackenzie napped. He had to go back to work at midnight. I lay on the bed, watching the digital adjustments of our Doomsday clock. We’d gone to a Boxing Day party after Christmas. Each invitee brought his worst gift for a blind swap.
    I wound up stuck with the Doomsday clock, and nobody else tried to trade for it. No wonder. And no wonder somebody had gladly given it up.
    It sat on