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and then
she went to make us some tea. I came away with the gift of a lovely
silk ribbon knitted scarf in shades of turquoise from pale to
deepest blue-green.
     
    Back at the inn, sitting in the sunny sitting
room, coming up to a fortnight (two weeks, in American vernacular)
after the mysterious death of Edwin Snow, I questioned my motives.
Also, my good judgment.
    Chief Henderson had called it a suicide and
closed the case. Oughtn’t I just leave it at that, I asked myself?
However, the flinty voice that sounded to me like how M.C. Beaton’s
feisty sleuth Agatha Raisin would sound if she were real, expressed
a very different opinion. So, you plan to just rot away in that
little American village? Toss away your skills for digging? Become
a drudge and grow old never having diverted your fine education
onto a new, useful avenue? Digging needn’t be limited to the earth.
Here before you is the opportunity to dig into murder. No trowel
required.
    That brought me up short. I’d ask Daphne’s
opinion. She also loved cozies. Coincidentally, that evening was to
be the first meeting of our newly-formed Cozy Mystery Book Club. A
temporary name until we voted on a proper one. A book club with a
twist that would probably backfire on us nevertheless, we planned
to give it a try. Except for Daphne, the club’s founding “mothers”
were all great cooks. As it turned out, we attracted the most
delightful mixed bag of gender orientations from straight females
to lesbians to transsexuals and one…no I’ll hold that surprise for
later. The by-laws would say that the monthly hostess would be
required to serve a three course meal before the meeting and book
discussion. No simple brownies and cookies at our cozy book club
meetings.
    Daphne got a buy. Since she could not, as
she’d admitted, “make a Marmite sandwich without guidance” she
would be allowed to hire her favorite village caterer for this
task. Bama (short for Alabama) Hutton of Hutton’s Gluttons Catering
Service lived and worked in the village and joined the club.
    Growing up in London, my family had a cook
who could roast a beef or a bird and was adept at mashed potatoes
but lived in fear of any but canned vegetables. For years, based on
eating at friends’ houses, restaurants, country houses to which I
was invited for weekends and even at university, I came to assume
that I had inherited some recessive genes not found in my parents.
I’d never heard them complain about Meaghan’s cooking although, of
course, they were pretty self-absorbed so that might explain their
lack of interest in the meals set before them.
    I am the child of parents who, I often
imagined in my mind’s eye, woke up one morning to find a baby girl
lying between them and having no idea of how she got there but
being essentially good people, raised her anyway. That’s my story
and I am sticking to it.
    I’d begun reading cookbooks in my teens when
my friends were reading the popular trash. The summer I’d spent in
Paris learning from the finest cooking teachers in the world had
certainly come in handy when I suddenly, unexpectedly, but to my
pure delight, became an innkeeper. Being a “chocoholic,” I chose a
very special recipe for the evening’s dessert. Custard-filled,
chocolate ganache-frosted cream puffs. To hell with the caloric
impact; this was to be a special night.
    The main course would consist of my favorite
quiches. For the vegetarians,’ a filling of pears, green onions,
spinach and gruyere cheese. For the carnivores,’ bacon, tomato,
grilled fennel, feta cheese and fresh basil from the tall plant in
my sunny kitchen window. There would be a tossed salad, various
spicy condiments and freshly baked baguettes brushed with garlic
butter. The wines from the local vintner, Truro Vineyard, were
bright, sunny and reminiscent of a visit I’d made to Tuscany.
    Everything was ready by five-thirty. I popped
into the old claw-footed, porcelain tub for a leisurely bath. Forty
minutes