“Just a little bit more basil, sweetheart,” Lucy said as she pulled the cork from a bottle of Chardonnay. She peered over Marta’s shoulder. “Now, when the onions get a little translucent, you want to put in the mushrooms.”
     “What about the spinach?”
     “It goes in last. You don’t want to overcook it.”
     “So, you think Will’s going to show up, Mom?”
     Lucy shook her head. “I don’t know, Marta. He said he would. I think it would be good for him to get out of his apartment and stop obsessing for awhile. But we all have to work through our grief in our own way.”
     “Okay, Mom, I’m ready for the mushrooms.”
     Lucy handed her a cutting board, heaped with neatly sliced Shiitakes, which Marta pushed awkwardly off into the skillet.
     “Now stir for about a minute, then add a half-cup of this wine.”
     “So, do you have a thing for Will, Mom?”
     “Pardon me?”
     “Do you like Will?”
     “For Christ sake, Marta—put in the wine, dear—Emmy’s only been gone a couple of weeks.”
     “I don’t mean it like that, Mom—where’s the measuring cup? I know it’s going to take some time. But, you know, do you like him?”
     “You don’t need a measuring cup.” Lucy picked up the wine bottle, and poured until the quantity of liquid in the skillet met with her satisfaction. “I haven’t even thought about it. Will seems like a nice guy, but a little neurotic. Okay, dear, time for the spinach, but don’t let it get too shriveled up.”
     A knock on the door.
     “Speak of the devil,” said Lucy.
     Lucy greeted Will and dragged him into the dining room. “You’re just in time to be our guinea pig,” she laughed. She took the bottle of wine that Will brought as an offering and excused herself .
     “Marta’s getting cooking lessons this evening,” Lucy called from the kitchen.
     “Oh,” returned Will.
     “Under the direction of a Master Chef, of course,” said Marta.
     “I’m sure it will be just fine,” Will smiled as Lucy returned with her hands full of dishes.
     “Be seated, sir. Tonight’s fare,” said Lucy, “Linguine Florentine in white wine sauce, a delicious fresh fruit compote, Marta’s special garlic bread, and a fine Oregon Chardonnay.”
     “Sounds delicious.” Will sat down as Lucy finished setting the food out.
     “Hope you have a strong stomach,” Marta appeared at the door with the entree and grinned.
     “I’ve eaten some pretty bad food and survived,” Will quipped.
     Marta chuckled as she seated herself. When Lucy finished pouring the wine, she joined her two guests, and without fanfare, started eating.
     “Dig in,” she said, her mouth full of food.
     “She’s like that,” said Marta, nodding toward her mother. “No grace or nothin’.”
     Will laughed and attacked his pasta.
     “Guess who I had tea and cake with?” A smile quirked around Will’s thin lips.
     “The Queen Mother?” Marta in mock seriousness.
     “Edwina Phillips.”
     Lucy was astonished. “The same Edwina Phillips who wrote to Emmy’s great-grandmother?”
     “The same. I found her on Emmy’s email and called her up. She’s 105. Living history. She also knows quite a lot about Emmy’s family–the Bartletts and about Great-Grandma Catherine. It seems the family disowned Catherine for having a baby without a husband. I know women didn’t do that sort of thing with impunity, but the Bartletts were real cold about it. The way Edwina described the Bartletts, I feel like Doug had a worse time growing up with them than Emmy did without them, in spite of the millions he inherited. I don’t know what Emmy expected to find when she went looking for family, but I don’t think she would have been comfortable with the Bartletts.”
      Will took a long drink of wine. “So, that was high tea on Monday.” He picked up his fork and twirled it full of linguini. “Great stuff.”
     “Thanks,” Marta said.
     “Doug seems alright, though,” Will continued, “just a bit odd.”
     “What do you mean,” Lucy asked.
     “Well, I’m not sure. I spent Tuesday evening with him at the symphony. Afterward we went to the Heathman for drinks and then on down to the waterfront. We were sitting on a bench. I don’t remember what we were talking about. Then Doug started talking about his family. It appears that his mother was an accomplished violinist before she became ill. He said some things about her that struck me as odd. It may have been the way he said them. I don’t know. Anyway, I think the man has some serious family issues.”
      “You have to give him some credit. He does good work with Camp Horizons and he supports the arts and the Historical Society,” Lucy pointed out. “Pass the fruit please, Marta,”
     Marta looked at Lucy with a blank stare.
     “The fruit please. Is something bothering you, Marta?”
     “I’m sorry, I was just thinking.”
     “About…?” Lucy prompted. Extracting information from Marta was often like pulling crabgrass, it comes a handful at a time, but you need a backhoe to get the whole thing.
     “I keep thinking about Colin.” Marta’s voice was broken, and her eyes had started tearing.
     Will seemed agitated and unaware of Marta’s emotional state. “Things keep pointing to Colin. It doesn’t make sense, unless he murdered Emmy.”
     “But why?” asked Lucy.
     “What if Colin was angry about Emmy turning him down. The guy has a monstrous ego. He puts a move on her and she refuses. He becomes physical and things get out of hand.”
     “I don’t know, Will,” Lucy said. “Colin has an ego alright. And he doesn’t always deal with women in a very enlightened manner. But I can’t picture him getting violent that way. Besides, why would he dress her up in bondage gear? That would only bring suspicion on himself.”
     Marta was streaming tears now. “It’s not Colin!” she blurted out.
      “Why couldn’t it be Colin?” Will asked. “What makes you so sure, Marta?”
     “Because he wasn’t even in town. I can’t tell you where he was, but he wasn’t even in town.” She wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand.
     “What do you mean? How do you know…?” Will began, but Lucy was shaking her head at him. Maybe it wasn’t worth the argument just now. “If we accept that, then who could it possibly be? Who could have killed Emmy and why?”
     Lucy started the round, “Connie Crage, maybe.”
     “The developer?” Will seemed surprised.
     “Or Kimmi,” Marta offered. “Or cops. There’s been some weird shit going on.”
     Lucy reached over to the sidetable and pulled a notebook and pen out of a drawer. She clicked the pen and wrote down the names that had been thrown in.
     “Whoa, back up,” Will said. “What do you guys know about Connie Crage that makes him a suspect? I know he flipped out and threatened Emmy at that hearing, but do you really think he could have killed her?”
     “What do the police have on Colin? That he’s into S&M and he knew Emmy. Well, Mr. Hardhat is into it too and he sure knew who Emmy was,” Marta said.
     “Where’d you get that information?” Will asked.
     “Kimmi.”
     “That’s reliable. She’s one of your suspects,” Will said.
     Marta shrugged.
      Will thought about Kimmi and the leather shop. Marta was right, she probably did know.
     Lucy tapped the end of her pen on the notebook. “Chris Langford confirmed it. I know it’s hearsay, but her husband told her that Connie ran into Colin at a certain leather store that caters to the S/M crowd. You do know she is defending Colin?”
     Will nodded.
     “You didn’t tell me that Crage knew about Colin, Mom. He could have set Colin up.”
     “Okay. I agree that the developer could be a possibility,” Will said. “I’m not convinced that his motive was strong enough. What did he have to fear from Emmy?”
     “Perhaps it wasn’t that rational. He has PTSD.”
     Marta sighed, “Don’t talk in alphabet, Mom. What’s PTSD.”
     The look that passed between Lucy and Will was all about the impermanence of tragedy. “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He’s one of the vets who brought the war home in their heads,” Lucy said.
     “There’s something else about Connie Crage,” Will said. “He’s quite close to Doug Bartlett. He and Doug’s brother served in ‘Nam together.”
     Will was all business. “We have two other suspects. Kimmi and the cops. What puts them in the picture? Tell me about Kimmi.”
     “She’s a snitch. She’s an addict. She’s in love with Colin and she may not be into it, but she knows about the kinky sex scene.” Marta ticked the reasons off on her fingers. “In fact, she works at that leather store where Colin and Connie Crage buy their stuff.
     Lucy wrote the list down under Kimmi’s name.
     “As for the cops. I don’t like them, but that’s beside the point. They were out to get Colin.”
     When they’re not out to get me, Will thought. He debated telling them about his shadow, DeChris.
     “What about those punks that beat up Colin?” Will asked.
     “Boneheads,” Marta corrected him. “They’re probably working for the cops.”
     “Or Connie Crage,” Lucy put in.
     “Maybe it was just some random street kid who was staying at the house.” Will said.
     “What about the leather gear? Where did it come from? A street kid wouldn’t be hauling it around,” Lucy objected. She knew Marta was holding back about Colin. All that stuff about him being out of town meant something. Lucy caught Marta’s eye and held it. Marta started to say something and stopped.
     “What is it, Marta? You’ve got to help us out here if you want to help Colin.”
     “Colin kept stuff at the house. Bug called it his playroom.”
     Will spoke, “That would have made it real easy for anyone who wanted to set Colin up.”
     “Something else,” Lucy watched Marta for a reaction, “According to Tom Morris, Colin might have been involved in some questionable activities involving young girls.”
     Marta was looking down at her plate, avoiding eye contact, and Lucy knew she would get nothing further out of her.The trio debated the relative merits of each choice without coming any closer to knowing which of their suspects, if any of them, was responsible for Emmy’s death. They cleared the dishes while they talked. Lucy stacked the dishes in the sink and ran hot water over them. Plenty of time to wash up later. She picked up the half-empty bottle of Chardonnay that had contributed to the sauce and went into the living room where Marta and Will waited for her.
     “There is one other person we might consider,” Will turned the stem of his wine glass and tipped it so that the wine made a tidal roll up the side of the globe and back.
     “What’s on your mind, Will,” Lucy was a little disconcerted by his obvious avoidance of eye contact.
     He shifted in the overstuffed chair. “Hear me out and don’t jump on me for obsessing.” Will was making eye contact now and there was warning in his look.
     Lucy held up her hand, “No problem. Just clue us in.”
     “This goes back to the City Council meeting. Remember what you said about Councilman Milcheford being uncharacteristically quiet? Isn’t that how you phrased it? I’ve been thinking about that and putting it together with an article I found pasted in Emmy’s journal. It was from March. I gave her the clipping because it was about Bartlett House and I knew she’d be interested. It showed Milcheford, Crage, and Doug Bartlett. The three of them were standing in front of the Bartlett Property. I think Teddy Milcheford might be in collusion with the development company. He might have agreed to push the permit process through and smooth the way for approval from the City.”
     Lucy shook her head. “Teddy is too ambitious to jeopardize his political career by doing favors for Connie Crage. He wants to be governor. Besides that, I’m as likely to be Miss America as Teddy is to murder someone.”
     “I don’t know, Mom. You’re pretty hot,” Marta interjected.
     “Nevertheless,” Will went on, “He did know that Colin was into kinky sex. The fact that Crage told Teddy that he saw Colin tells me that the two of them know each other real well. I don’t know about you, but I’d have to feel pretty close to someone before I told them that I got off by tying people up, or by getting tied up.”
     “That’s hardly damning evidence and according to Chris, Teddy said Crage dropped the sex tidbit in a meeting so apparently Connie isn’t shy about it.”
     “What was the meeting about?” Will asked.
     Suddenly, what Will was saying about Teddy’s involvement in the development didn’t seem so far-fetched. “Chris wouldn’t tell me. She told me not to pry. I got the feeling it was not completely kosher.”
     “He’s a sleaze, Mom. You’ve said yourself that he had motives other than love for marrying Chris.” Marta never forgot a thing she overheard.
     Lucy acquiesced. “I’ll put him on the list, but only because we’re trying to cover all the bases. What are we postulating that his motives were?”
     “What if that meeting was a partner’s meeting? It could be that Teddy’s got some investment or some kind of stake in the outcome of the development,” Will offered.
     “Do you think Emmy might have known something that she didn’t tell us? Bug said that Emmy was supposed to go with… with them that night, but she backed out,” Marta said.
     That was a little awkward, Lucy thought. I wonder what Bug really said. “Go with them where?”
     Marta didn’t answer.
     After a moment of awkward silence, Will spoke, “Emmy’s boss, Orville Kuppenheimer said that Emmy got a call from Colin on the day she was murdered. She was supposed to meet him that evening. Marta, are you saying she didn’t?”
     “She was supposed to, but she didn’t.”
     “And you’re not going to tell us…?” Will added. He trailed off when Lucy put up her hand.
     Lucy could see that Marta was on the verge of breaking down again if the questioning continued. There would be a scene, but they weren’t likely to get any more information from her. The person who really needs to know is Colin’s lawyer, and if Marta really thinks he is innocent, she needs to tell Chris. Marta might get upset, but Lucy would have to bring it up. But she would wait until Will left.
     “I know this sounds like an excuse,” Will changed the subject, “but I feel like there is something in Emmy’s journal or among her things that will tell us who killed her. I’m going to keep rooting.”
     Will stood up and stretched. “I think I need to go. Thanks for the meal. You two can really cook.”
     Lucy smiled at the compliment. “You could be right about the diary. We should try to find out what she was doing that last day and maybe something in her belongings holds a clue. Next Monday I’m going to have a little sojourn out to Camp Horizons for an open house where I can rub shoulders with Connie Crage. Milcheford will be there, too. What do you think, Will? Want to come along?
     “Doug told me about the open house. I was thinking about going anyway,” Will said.
     “Great. In the meantime I’d like to know more about what Detective Morris has on Colin.”
     Marta stood and turned to Will, “Can you give me a lift home. It’s not far.”
     From the second story window of her living room, Lucy watched her lanky daughter pause to light a cigarette as she and the professor followed a path through the center court garden of Lucy’s apartment complex. The last time she had watched Will leave, he was holding Emmy’s hand like a teenager, and the sound of their contented voices had risen up and kissed her.