The Nantucket Diet Murders by Virginia Rich Read Free Book Online

own daughter’s new job as a volunteer lawyer for Legal Aid. She told of her son Scott’s internship with the Santa Fe Opera, after his late return to college and his recent graduation with a master’s degree in performing arts administration.
    Mrs. Potter hadn’t known there was such a thing, although it sounded reasonable enough. “I hope he majored in fund-raising,” she said. “If not, he could take a few lessons right here on the island from Helen. She’s superb at it. Isn’t it interesting that people always seem to give more to a rich solicitor? I suppose they hate to look cheap in front of their rich friends but can think of lots of excuses to make to their poor ones. Anyway, the move sounds perfect for Scott, and I’m sure Louisa and her husband know all about it.”
    The two Berner and three Potter children had known each other nearly all their lives. In their growing-up years they had turned up at each other’s family dinner tables without notice, and they still saw each other often. Scott was a godfather for one of the children of Louisa, Mrs. Potter’s eldest. Marilyn, the lawyer, and her husband were friends and now neighbors of her younger daughter, Emily, in Philadelphia.
    Now, in answer to Gussie’s suggestion, Mrs. Potter snapped on the local island TV station. The reception seemed a bit fuzzy and the hand-lettered local advertisements, endearingly amateurish, reminded her of those flashed on the screen in the old movie house of her Iowa youth, shownbetween the news of the world and the comedy, and again before the main feature.
    “What’s this new shop that’s opening Friday?” she called to Gussie through the open kitchen door. “They keep showing a picture of a lot of noses. And who’s Mary Rezendes?”
    “Tell you later,” Gussie shouted back. “It’s part of my secret!”
    “Fog tonight, maybe light snow by morning,” she called in turn as the Nantucket weather station report followed. “Good thing I got in today before Logan weathered in. Of course, I could have taken the bus to Woods Hole and then the boat, unless the fog was impossible, but this way I got back in time for our lunch at the Scrim. I can’t tell you how good it is to see everyone again, and everyone looking so
great!”
    Gussie returned to the library and pointed toward the open doorway leading to the front hall, which in turn opened into large connecting parlors on the other side of the house. “Want a drink?” she asked. “You remember where the liquor closet is in the back parlor—I’m sure there’s everything there,”
    “I’ll get myself a light Scotch and water,” Mrs. Potter declared promptly as she rose to cross the hallway. “As long as you aren’t letting me help in the kitchen tonight, this will give me a chance for a real look at the other side of the house while I’m getting it I know you’ve bought some new paintings since I was here last.”
    The two rooms, each with its high ceiling centered by white plaster garlands and whorls and rosettes, each with its white marble-faced fireplace, above which hung a great gold-framed mirror, each with tall windows with white interior wooden shutters folded back into deep window recesses, were open as one. The sliding double doors, their hardware of heavy silver, as were those of the window shutters, were seldom closed, and the rooms were carpeted as one with thick pale gold.
    Heavy off-white damask covered big chairs and comfortable sofas, further softened with needlepoint-covered pillowsof Gussie’s own design and execution. The white walls were covered with framed paintings, large ones alone or smaller ones grouped together, some modern, chiefly French Impressionist. The warmth of their colors, with that of the needlepoint, gave the long double room vitality and warmth.
    Certain familiar objects reminded Mrs. Potter of how long she and Gussie had been friends. First of all, there was the house itself. Soon after their college graduation