Mousse and Murder (An Alaskan Diner Mystery) by Elizabeth Logan

Author:Elizabeth Logan [Logan, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-05-05T05:00:00+00:00

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The usual wardrobe panic set in, as it did whenever women were expected to show up at a special event. It didn’t matter whether the event was a high school prom, a movie date, or a funeral service. Today, Mom and I helped each other pick out outfits that were serious, but not morbid; cheery, but not too cheery.

We decided purple was a go-either-way sort of color, and we layered accordingly, with lavender underpinnings and black winter coats with floral scarves. Not identical twins, exactly, but close.

I’d half expected Chris to call with an offer to drive us. I had a mixed reaction when he didn’t. On the one hand, his absence would get me out of a discussion about him with my mom; on the other hand, I wanted to see him again.

“Would you like to stop at the Bear Claw before the service?” I asked.

She shook her head no. “I thought it would be good for us to get to the chapel a little early, while people are milling in the lobby, and see what we can find out. We don’t have nearly enough clues to suggest who might want Oliver dead.”

“You mean interview people in church?”

“It’s not exactly church, sweetie. It’s a nondenominational chapel for weddings, funerals, other services, I’m sure. Where to sit?” she said. “We should leave the front pew for Kendra, naturally, and maybe Gert? I believe she’s Oliver’s most recent girlfriend?”

“As far as I know. We haven’t been able to contact Lana.” Reporting to my mom added a different dimension to my project. Through no fault of hers, I felt like a failure, as if I should have made a citizen’s arrest by now, perp-walking Oliver’s killer into Elkview’s two-trooper station.

“I’ll probably recognize Lana. I met her a couple of times.” Mom tapped her fingers next to the mug holding her second cup of coffee. “It might look strange if we’re not up front, but I’d like to be far enough back to be able to see the other guests, to catch their expressions and so on.”

First Chris, and now my mom. Did everyone in Elkview know more about detective work than I did? I guess a journalist and an addicted crime-fiction reader trumped a manager of a diner in that regard, even one with a year of law school under her belt.

It must have been thinking of my year of law school that triggered a decision. While Mom stepped away for a moment, I made a call to Chris.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“I only have a minute while Mom is out of the room, but there’s something I have to do.”

“You want to give Kendra the papers.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I do, too.”

What I’d hoped to hear.

“I can hand them off at the service. It might be the last time I see her. I can say I found them in his Bear Claw desk,” I said.

“She’ll never believe you.”

“So what?”

“I like the way you think,” he said.

“But not the cookbook,” I said.

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