Drowning in Christmas (Kate Lawrence Mysteries) by Ivie Judith

Author:Ivie, Judith [Ivie, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, cozy, Judith K. Ivie, New England, Mainly Murder Press, Kate Lawrence series, Wethersfield, Connecticut, women sleuths
Publisher: Mainly Murder Press
Published: 2010-10-01T05:00:00+00:00

Jeff was Michael's brother's son, and Michael and I were his godparents, “although what business a nonbeliever like me has calling herself a godmother is beyond me,” I remember telling Michael. “Couldn't I just be his devoted auntie?”

But Jeff's mother was a staunch Catholic, so godmother it must be. I presented myself at the church on the appointed day for the prayers and the wetting of the head, but my involvement with the child from that point on had been minimal. We presented Jeff with gifts at Christmas and on his birthday, and we put together a nice collection of savings bonds that he ultimately converted to a down payment on a car, and that was about it.

Still, over the years I enjoyed seeing Jeff at the endless family functions to which Michael's kin subjected me. Truth to tell, I enjoyed very few of my in-laws, but Jeff's intelligence and quirky way of looking at the world always appealed to me. He was too uncoordinated to be athletic, a fact of life he accepted philosophically, if a bit wistfully, but throughout high school, he was the mainstay of both the debating team and the chess club. His nice-but-average looks didn't make him the class heartthrob, but his quick wit and dry sense of humor kept the girls giggling.

“I may be a geek, Aunt Kate,” he had told me once, “but I can always get a hot date for the dance.” I suspected that the girls who accepted Jeff's invitations as a lark had been surprised to find themselves having a very good time.

One of Jeff's hot dates had been Donna. When her football-playing boyfriend was injured senior year and couldn't take her to the big autumn dance, he recruited Jeff to take his place. “It was the worst play he ever made,” Jeff confided to me that Christmas. Donna had shyly accompanied him to the inevitable family gathering. “She's the one. She doesn't know it yet, but she's stuck with me for life.”

At the time, I had smiled at his unrealistic confidence about the way things would turn out, but here we were, seven years later, preparing for their wedding.

“It's so good of you to do this for us,” Donna said to me. She and Jeff sat with me at the kitchen table. We were waiting for the caterer, who was finally making an in-person visit to tell us how he wanted things arranged before the arrival of his crew on Sunday.

“Not at all,” I assured her. “It's a Schmidt tradition to be married at home, and Michael and Sheila just can't manage it in that apartment. I'm glad to help.”

“So it's Aunt Kate to the rescue,” Jeff grinned. Now a fast-tracker at one of New York's most prestigious accounting firms, he had lost none of his impish appeal. I winked at him.

“The most reliable agnostic godmother in the East, that's me. Besides, if this caterer is as good as Michael says he is, there won't be anything for me to do but get out of the way.

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