The Secret Ingredient Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery by Virginia Nancy; Rich Pickard Read Free Book Online

the diversion program, the boy would be eighteen. Old enough to be tried as an adult if any other drug charge were brought against him. Under the white tablecloth, his great-aunt crossed her fingers and hoped for the best for all of them.
    Things seemed to calm down. She could have gone home.
    But Devon, Rhode Island, worked its charm on her.
    Genia was surprised by how at home she felt in the little town, where there wasn’t any crime to speak of, and the most controversial thing happening was whether or not to start a citywide art festival like the ones in other towns in South County. It was all so peaceful, so pleasantly civilized. Sometimes she felt almost like a “Swamp Yankee,” which was the affectionate nickname given lifelong residents of South County—people like Lew’s old mentor, Stanley Parker, and her own relatives-by-marriage. There was something about being in the smallest state in the union that also charmed her. But even more compelling was the fact that Devon brought a sweet renewal of memories of her late husband, who had summered there with his grandparents when he was a boy. Genia suspected that was the real reason she lingered, even when spring changed into summer, and she wasn’t even thinking of packing her bags.
    Her late husband’s mentor, Stanley Parker, worked his wiles on her, too. He was seventy-nine years old, retired from the presidency of the local bank he owned, though not retired from trying to run the town of Devon. Upon her arrival, the old man had invited her immediately to dinner at his “Castle” on the highest cliff overlooking his town.
    “I’ve taken a liking to you,” he informed her.
    To Genia’s amusement and pleasure, she discovered that meant being swept into Stanley Parker’s confidence, his privileged social circle, and his ever-evolving plans.
    Afterward she thought that it was all Stanley Parker’s fault when her two weeks turned into three, and then into a month, and then three. It was all his fault when a Realtor friend of his located a perfect house for Genia to rent: a story-and-a-half Cape Cod, weathered clapboard with white trim, and a wonderful wide deck overlooking the ocean. And it was Stanley Parker’s fault, too, that suddenly she was busy as a short-order cook in a room full of gluttons.
    “Genia Potter,” he said with an air of dramatic pronouncement, after only one month, “let’s do a cookbook together. You and I. Rhode Island recipes. We’ll get it published by an editor I know who owes me money.” When she laughed in surprise and didn’t answer right away, he threw in the kicker: “Lew would approve.”
    And so there she was, ensconced in a pretty little house on the ocean on the northeast tip of the southern edge of Rhode Island, writing a cookbook, and deeply involved in her late husband’s family’s life, and feeling as happy as a clam that hadn’t been caught and steamed yet.
    In August Stanley Parker suggested that she host a sit-down dinner party, whose purpose was to test recipes for their cookbook. “Whom shall I invite?” she asked her new mentor.
    As if he had a list in his pocket, he reeled off seven names: “I want you to ask your niece and that artist ex-husband of hers, even though Kevin probably won’t come if Donna’s here, but ask him anyway. And send an invitation to Lindsay and Harrison Wright—he’s that black TV weatherman you like so much, and she’s the president of my arts council—and to Celeste Hutchinson …”
    She was the Realtor who had found Genia the house to rent.
    “And to David Graham—”
    “David Graham? That’s generous of you, Stanley.”
    “Why, just because he married my ex-wife? That only proves that he and I have something in common, namely excellent taste in women.”
    “All right.” Genia smiled at him. “Anybody else?”
    “Yes, the mayor, Larry Averill. Get your niece and nephew to help out in the kitchen, and I’ll come over early, to boss everybody around.”
    She