Pie A La Murder (8 page)

Saturday evening, Tuffy and I greeted Nicholas at the front door. He arrived with a bouquet of red roses, a box of chocolate-covered strawberries, and a kiss that left me breathless. When he let me go, I took the roses and he reached down to give Tuffy a scratch on the head.

“Beautiful flowers,” I said. “I’ll put these in water.”

“Just in the sink. I don’t want you to take time arranging them.”

He and Tuffy followed me into the kitchen. Tuffy trotted over to his dog bed and settled down while I filled the sink with an inch of water and propped up the roses so that their stems could drink.

Nicholas sniffed the aroma coming from the Dutch oven on the stove. “Beef Bourguignon?”

“Yes.”

“Great. The longer it sits, the better it tastes.”

He took me in his arms, kissed me again, and whispered, “Can we go to the bedroom?”

I liked the fact he didn’t take my agreement for granted.

“Unless you’d rather make love here on the kitchen floor,” I said mock-seriously.

In the bedroom, Nicholas gently slipped his hands up underneath my sweater. “I like it that you wear bras that hook in front,” he whispered.

Nicholas never got to taste the Beef Bourguignon.

We made love twice—first with urgency to satisfy our hunger for each other, and then in our usual, more leisurely manner. We were lying content in each other’s arms when he raised his wrist above the back of my head and looked at his watch.

“It’s late.” He removed his other arm from where it lay across my rib cage and sat up in bed.

I checked the red numerals on my bedside clock. “It’s only nine fifteen.”

He was already out of bed and reaching for his clothes. “I want to get home before Tanis brings Celeste back from their dinner together. She shouldn’t be alone in an empty apartment.”

“I understand,” I said. And I did. I remembered all the nights I’d waited up to be sure that teenage Eileen got home safely. I joked, “Do you want some Beef Bourguignon to go?”

He looked at me, as though trying to gauge my real feelings about his hasty departure. “I’m sorry about this, honey. May I have a rain check?”

“Perhaps. The chef at this establishment is rather fond of you.”

“You’re wonderful,” he said. “And I love you.” Then he gave me a light kiss and was gone.

In the kitchen, I stuck a fork into the Beef Bourguignon to taste it. Delicious. It should have been, with all the work it took, but the multiple steps were worth it for the result. I scooped out a bowl full, gave Tuffy one of his favorite dog chew bones, and sat down to enjoy my dinner at the table I’d set for two.

Children have to come first,
I told myself. In the year or so of my romance with Nicholas, I’d never stayed away overnight at his place, nor had I let him stay here all night if Eileen was home. Maybe that seemed silly—old-fashioned, even, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, but I thought it was the right way to behave. Of course Eileen assumed that I was sleeping with Nicholas, but I wasn’t going to parade the fact in front of her.

The ringing of the phone on my kitchen wall interrupted my thoughts.

“Del—now don’t get mad,” Liddy said.

Uh-oh.
“What have you done?”

“Something to help you with this Nicholas situation.”

“Maybe I should have asked you first—I mean, now I realize that I probably should have—but when the idea hit me, and Bill said it was fine with him, I was so excited I just plunged right ahead with the plans!”

“What plans?”

She took a deep breath and told me all in a rush: “Bill and I are going to give a dinner party next Friday night for Celeste and her mother and Prince Freddie. And you and Nicholas, of course—so we can all get to know each other!”

I felt the food begin to congeal in my stomach. But there was one tiny ray of hope and I clutched at it: The impression I got from Celeste’s conversation at the luncheon was that Tanis—the prince catcher—was a snob and the Marshalls weren’t famous. “What makes you think they’ll want to come to your party?”

“Oh, she already accepted,” Liddy said. “I called her at the hotel a little while ago and reached her in the dining room. She said Celeste had told her about me, and that she was looking forward to meeting her daughter’s new friends. She said yes to my invitation without even asking the prince if he wanted to go.” Liddy chuckled. “I suspect that it’s Tanis who wears the crown in that relationship.”

“Well, so I guess that’s all settled. Is there anything I can bring?”

“Nope. I’m going to have dinner catered. You have absolutely nothing to do.”

Nicholas called Sunday morning. Furious.

“Is Liddy out of her mind!”

“Calm down,” I said. “I was shocked, too, but you know Liddy means well. No one could have a more loyal friend, so if you want to say anything negative about her you can hang up now.”

He expelled a breath. When he spoke again, he was composed. “Sorry I flew off the handle. I wasn’t prepared when Tanis told me about it last night.”

Before I could stop myself, I said, “Tanis told you?” I resisted the temptation to ask how she looked.

“She told me about it when she brought Celeste home. I would have called you after she left, but Celeste and I stayed up until nearly three o’clock, talking.” I heard warmth return to his voice.

“I’m very happy you two found each other. Girls need a father.”

“It feels good,” he said.

My hope was that at some point Celeste would be open to a friendship with me, or at least that she wouldn’t always be hostile, but I wanted Nicholas to have a good relationship with his daughter. After their having been separated for most of the girl’s life, I knew that was going to take time.

As far as Nicholas and I were concerned, I would have to be patient. I loved him. If we were meant to be together, we would be.

If not . . .

I was thankful that I had good friends and a busy professional life.

Eileen came in from her early morning run. Her face was dripping with sweat and perspiration had soaked through her tank top. She gave Tuffy a quick scratch. Taking a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, she said, “I’m so hungry I think I’d give my left kidney for a piece of your stuffed French toast.”

“Me, too,” I said. “Except the part about the kidney. Go shower and I’ll make us some.”

As I took eggs and milk and blackberry preserves out of the refrigerator, I said, “Tuffy, I’ve decided it’s impossible to try to lose ten pounds by Friday.”

For the next three days, before and after taping my TV shows, Phil Logan had me giving interviews to various national TV and radio broadcasts about Operation Pie.

“The bake sale idea is really catching on,” Phil said. “Your Web site is hearing from people all over the country who are starting to form up in teams. In addition to the radio and TV segments, I’m setting you up with print interviews, too. Most of them you can do by phone—I’ll e-mail photos—but the
Chronicle
wants to do an in-person, and take pictures of you in your home kitchen. The reporter’s Gretchen Tully. When are you available next week?”

“Today’s Wednesday. . . . How about Thursday next, a week from tomorrow, if she wants to see me prepare for the live show that night.”

“Good idea,” Phil said. “I’ll let you know if it’s good for her, but I suspect it will be. That’ll really give her a look behind the scenes.”

Later that afternoon, I was returning home from a long walk with Tuffy when I saw a black limousine pull up and park just ahead of the walkway leading up to my house. A uniformed chauffeur got out from behind the wheel, hurried around to open the rear door, and extended one hand to help his passenger alight.

The passenger was a very attractive woman: blonde, slender, perhaps in her forties. She wore an elegant suit that was, I guessed, the work of a name designer, and probably not an American one.

My breath caught in my throat and my mouth felt dry. I knew that this stranger had to be the former Mrs. Nicholas D’Martino. To my dismay, she was even better looking than I had imagined. Next to her, in my Tuffy-walking sweats and sneakers, I felt frumpy.

“Della Carmichael?” she said. Her voice was well modulated, her enunciation clear, her tone cold as ice. Like Celeste, she spoke with that pretentious mid-Atlantic accent.

“Yes,” I said. “You must be Celeste’s mother.”

She turned to the chauffeur. “Leonard, wait for me in the car.”

He complied.

I said, “Won’t you come inside?”

Tanis Fontaine D’Martino—the future princess of something-or-other—gave me a glare so fierce that I wondered if she was able to turn servants to stone. “I won’t be here long.” She nodded in Tuffy’s direction. “Please put that dog in the house.”

Her imperious manner made me mad, but I bit back a retort and instead forced myself to say pleasantly, “I don’t want us to get off on the wrong foot—”

“There is no
right
foot after what you’ve done!” She indicated the thing she was carrying: a pink laptop computer.

“What have I done?”

She glanced back at the chauffeur, who was facing forward with such stiff posture that I was sure he was pretending not to listen to his employer’s conversation.

Nicholas’s ex-wife turned and stalked up the brick walk toward my front door. Tuffy and I followed. I unlocked the door and put Tuffy inside. “Would you like some coffee, or tea?”

“Not from you,” she said.

I closed the door so Tuffy wouldn’t get out. “I’ve had just about enough of your attitude,” I said. “Because of Celeste, I was looking forward to having at least a civil meeting with you. Now, either tell me what you’re upset about, or leave.”

I saw a flash of surprise in her eyes. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“That Celeste’s life is about to be ruined, as well as my marriage plans!” She opened the laptop, balanced it on one forearm, and tapped a few keys. “The photographer you introduced her to e-mailed the proofs of the pictures he took.”

She turned the screen to face me. I saw three absolutely gorgeous shots of Celeste in various outfits and poses. They could have been fashion magazine covers.

“Those are very good,” I said, unable to figure out what was upsetting her.

She looked at the screen and scowled. “Wrong pictures.” She angrily punched another key. “Look,” she commanded.

I looked. And felt my mouth drop open in shock.

On the screen was a different kind of photo of Celeste. She was holding in one hand what was unmistakably a chef’s apron. It was placed against her torso strategically, but she was positioned at such an angle that the side of one hip was visible, making it obvious that she wasn’t wearing anything below the waist, either. Somehow her holding that apron against her front made for a more salacious picture than if she’d been standing there completely naked.