Read Online The Secret Ingredient Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery by Virginia Nancy; Rich Pickard - Free Book Online Page B

it.”
    “And you didn’t tell me?” Lindsay asked, half-laughing.
    “Sorry, honey.” He smiled beatifically at her and then turned to stare out the window again. “Isn’t this a great storm? There must be a gigantic cumulonimbus cloud up there, or we wouldn’t get this much of a downpour. It’s so exciting when a cold front comes up under a warm front and forces it to rise. That’s when we get turbulence like this.” He looked riveted to the drama of nature playing outside the warm, well-lighted house. “There’s real drama playing up there. Clashing and flashing, banging and clanging. I could watch it twenty-four hours a day. It’s better than theater, better than TV or the movies.”
    His wife grinned and shook her head so that everyone but her husband saw her. “Sometimes I think that if he weren’t nailed down, he’d blow away with the first wind.”
    “I’d love to,” Genia heard the weatherman murmur.
    “That’s what a wedding ring is for,” David Graham joked, “to nail a man down. Isn’t that right, Larry?”
    “Wouldn’t know about that,” the mayor said jovially.
    Genia felt so impatient with them for chattering on about the weather and their art festival when Stanley was missing. But everytime she said anything like “I can’t imagine what’s keeping him,” one of the others would dismiss her worry, saying, “If anybody can take care of himself, it’s Stanley.” And, “Oh, he just wants to make a grand entrance.” And, “Don’t worry so much, Genia, you don’t know Stanley like we do. He probably stopped along the way to start a committee or launch a museum.”
    While they laughed and carried on, she seriously considered leaving the table to call the police. Five more minutes , she told herself, if he’s not here in five minutes, I’ll do that . It was only because Jason hadn’t returned that she didn’t hop to the phone immediately; the boy’s continued absence reassured her, causing her to imagine that maybe he had helped the old man out of the heavy rain and was even now waiting for Stanley to change into dry clothes, and then would drive them both over in Stanley’s car. Although, why the boy hadn’t called to tell her …
    Maybe the storm had knocked the telephones out.…
    She felt a warm touch, and looked up to find that Harrison Wright was gazing at her with concern in his nice hazel eyes. Quietly, under the hum of the other conversations, he said, “I’ll take any excuse to go out in a storm. Would you like for me to drive up to the Castle and look for him?”
    She grasped his hand thankfully and was just about to say “Oh, yes, would you please, Harrison?” when the answer arrived in a shocking gust of wind and rain.
    The French doors blew open with a crash that startled everyone into silence. For a moment Genia thought the storm had done it. But the open doors admitted not only a torrent of cold rain, but also the figure of a man who stood before them soaked and dripping. A burst of lightning flashed behind him, as if Frankenstein’s monster had suddenly materialized there. He had wild hair that stuck out in every direction from his scalp, and he wore brown boat shoes, blue jeans, and a Hawaiian shirt of so many colors it looked as if he had wiped his paintbrushes on it.
    “Dad!” Janie, who was serving coffee, set the pot precariously on the table and ran to her father. He reached for her and hugged her close. Kevin Eden stood with his legs spread wide, panting for breath as if he’d run a long way.
    “My God, Kevin.” Donna looked at her ex-husband’s muddy brown boat shoes with disgust. “Look what you’re tracking in!”
    “It’s Stanley,” Kevin Eden said, ignoring her. “I found him down on the beach. He’s dead. Stanley’s dead. Somebody call the police.”
    At that moment, if Genia had been asked to swear in a court of law how the other people in her house reacted to the news, she would have said with relief . If anybody else felt