stick, but on this magic Thanksgiving, the pastry mixed up perfectly—neither too wet nor too dry. I baked a slew of pies: pumpkin-pecan, mince-pear, and two apples, one French with cream and one regular New England. All thoughts of the murderous herbalist were banished from my spicy, steamy kitchen.
Joe and I had got it all together—not only together, but polished and shining. And, as always, it was glorious to have most of my family—with lively Freddie as a bonus—together around the table. Fiona was sharing the holiday with us, adding her own particular zaniness and wisdom, a nice foil for Freddie’s kinetic energy.
From the moment Adam and Freddie stepped out of his Lexus, however, I’d had to submerge the nagging little notion that their friendship was becoming a lot less than casual, which, of course, had been Freddie’s intent ever since they’d first met here in my house. I remembered how Adam had come downstairs looking for a boot Scruffy had stolen. My tall, fair-haired son was wearing only a towel at the time, and Freddie had been turned to awestruck, worshipful stone, Pygmalion in reverse.
Oh, let those little birds fly free! I reminded myself, trying not to visualize Freddie as a prospective daughter-in-law—Great Goddess! What a challenge that would be! I loved the girl dearly, but she was Volatile with a capital V. Still, she’d saved my life once—I owed her one, though not necessarily one of my children.
From sheepskin jacket to Gucci loafers, Adam looked as if he’d just stepped out of Gentlemans Quarterly. Even the perfectly faded jeans had an Armani label. Freddie, on the other hand, sported her usual bohemian chic—micro skirt, clingy top, thigh-high boots, and a sporty ankle-length black leather coat. Her pale face emphasized heavy eye makeup, more skillfully applied than it once had been. Her hair was midnight black again, jelled into pixie peaks, and her earrings were plentiful, but never mind—at least she’d given up the nose ring. They were a wildly divergent couple, but maybe that was the attraction.
Since the days she worked at Hamburger Heaven, Freddie had always been a favorite with Scruffy. It’s the girl. The girl is here! Let’s keep her this time. He danced around Freddie, leaping and snapping his teeth together, until she crouched down and allowed herself to be greeted with sloppy kisses.
Becky came in later, breathless from an emergency hearing for an abused wife seeking a restraining order. “She’s pregnant, too,” she declared angrily. “Holidays seem to bring out the monster in estranged husbands.” Still wearing her all-purpose court outfit—suit, stockings, and pumps in monochromatic navy—she was just a shade plumper, but radiant in her own new freedom.
I wondered if Becky and Adam were planning to visit their father, perhaps tomorrow, but I didn’t ask. Gary Hauser, my ex, a chemical engineer, unfortunately was employed at the Pilgrim Nuclear Plant and lived in a nearby condo development called Governor Bradford Village. I did my best never to run into him.
And now that I was newly married, it was heartwarming to see how well my children responded to Joe’s earthy affection. In the Mediterranean way, he hugged everyone, including Adam.
Fiona, in a striped skirt and quilted top, stood beside me, breathing in, I knew, the essence of everything I was feeling about Becky and Ron, Adam and Freddie, my dear, absent Cathy, even Gary and Joe. “All things will evolve as they are meant to do, in the best of possible ways. Don’t you worry, Cass,” she murmured in my ear.
“Oh, thanks, Dr. Pangloss,” I hissed. But before I could ask her for specifics, Freddie had dragged her away for a conference on “finding the unfindable,” which was Fiona’s specialty.
“She knows enough right now,” I warned Fiona.
“But I always want to learn more, you know that, Cass.” Freddie’s tone was deferential, but the wink she directed toward me was her own saucy self.
“Freddie’s ability to learn complicated material is almost intuitive. She never stops amazing me,” Adam said, causing Freddie’s pale face almost to blush. “She’s on her way to becoming a master troubleshooter at Iconomics.”
“She never stops amazing me, either,” I said, thinking of an entirely different set of skills that Freddie possessed. Had he seen her ability to addle a delicate machine? Yes indeed, as I soon learned, he had witnessed just such an incident, but he hadn’t realized what was going on.
It was a lovely feast, filled with warmth, affection, and laughter. Joe told engaging stories about his Greenpeace missions. Becky described her craziest family cases. Adam related how a “curious but humorous intermittent virus” had infected a competitor’s display at the Atlanta Computer Show. At this, Freddie looked away from my raised eyebrows to busy herself cutting meat off a turkey leg, while Scruffy leaned devotedly against her side, sensing that bits of crispy skin were about to fall his way. Fiona refrained from dowsing the food, for which I was personally thankful, both for her trust and for not having to explain what was going on to Becky and Adam.
So I was in a rather mellow mood, still humming “We Gather Together” and putting sheets of foil over leftover pies when Patty called me, gasping and crying. “It’s Wyn, Cass. He got dreadfully ill right after dinner—the dinner we give at the church, you know. For the elderly or anyone else who’s alone.” More sobs. I had to strain to understand her. “Poor, dear man. And Wyn’s not the only one. I’m calling from the hospital now. I thought you ought to know. It’s probably hemlock again. In the chocolate cake. Oh, Cass…Wyn’s favorite. He gobbled up two pieces, while complaining that the coconut was ‘off.’”
“Oh, Patty, I’m so sorry. Would it help if Joe and I came over there? Has someone notified the police?” All the time I was being reassuring, I was wondering why Wyn and Patty hadn’t been more careful about the provenance of every food at the church dinner. And surely Patty had warned Wyn to watch out for chocolate.
“The police know, Cass. Wyn insisted on having an officer present to keep us all safe. Officer Notley personally vetted all the donated foods, attached a label with a name to them all. But the problem was Bevvy Besant’s cake. ‘I’m white cake,’ she said, so Ned Notley okayed the two ‘white’ cakes. But Bev had only brought one. And what do men know, anyway? Ned thought coconut frosting meant white.”
“Where’s Officer Notley now? Do you think I could talk to him?” The idiot.
“He’s having a gastric lavage, dear. Wyn gave him a big piece of the coconut cake. Sorry for him, you know, getting stuck with Thanksgiving Day duty. But those two nice detectives are here again. So you stay put, dear. You have your family there. Just go ahead and enjoy them. There’s nothing you can do. I simply had to talk to someone outside the church, you know. Mrs. Pynchon is acting as if I’m somehow at fault in all this for not keeping a closer eye on the donated food and a tighter rein on Wyn’s sweet tooth. I even heard her telling Detective Mann that he ought to investigate me. Me! Can you imagine that?”
“Stone Stern and Billy Mann are always running into crackpots like Mrs. P. They’ll know enough to ignore her. But tell me, Patty, has anyone been able to track down the chocolate cake. I mean, who brought it?”
“Oh, I should have known,” Patty wailed. “But I was so busy serving the dinner, and by the time I had a bite myself, then started cutting up the desserts, there was Wyn digging into a chocolate cake. What was I going to do? Grab the fork out of his hands and wrestle the cake away? Of course, I instantly checked the label, and it said Besant, big as life. The pies were donated by Bunn’s Bakery, you know, but the cakes were baked by the Ladies’ League.”
“What about the rest of the food?”
“The cooked turkeys were a gift from Forker’s Turkey Farm. Angelo’s
