Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 04 - With This Ring (15 page)

It was apparent Sandy didn’t take my comments seriously. I wondered what she would think if she knew her husband was on my suspect list and had been on the detective’s list too. She wouldn’t be laughing so much if she was aware there was a possibility Buck was somehow involved in the murder.

“Well, good luck, dear,” Sandy said. “Have a nice day, Ms. Starr.”

After leaving the bank, I turned back onto Locust, the most prominent industrial street in town, and headed east toward Pete’s Pantry. I found a parking spot right up front. It was a narrow space, but I didn’t need a very wide one for the convertible. It was yet another advantage of owning a tiny car. But there were some drawbacks too. The biggest disadvantage was that I couldn’t buy very many groceries at any one time and get them all loaded into my miniscule back seat, and the trunk would hold no more than a bag or two. On more than one occasion I’d had to make several trips to the store to haul home enough stuff to stock the pantry. The more guests we had, the more groceries it took to keep them fed, and the more trips I made back and forth to Pete’s. Of course, I was always welcome to take Stone’s truck to the store, but it felt like I was driving a school bus in comparison to my own car, and then I had to worry about door dings when parked in a too-narrow parking spot. I didn’t want to be responsible for any damage to his new vehicle that he took so much pride in.

Once inside the store, I grabbed a basket and began to select a few things off the shelf. We were out of vinegar, and the mustard bottle was nearly empty. I asked the butcher to cut me a large seven-bone roast, and picked up several packages of precut pork chops. Then I filled a few plastic bags with fresh fruit and vegetables.

We always needed milk and eggs, so I headed toward the dairy isle after grabbing a package of chocolate-chip cookies off the display at the end of the row. It was on sale, after all. I couldn’t afford not to buy it when it was forty cents off its normal price. Besides, I had a broken wrist and a wedding in question. I needed comfort food in the worst way. What I didn’t consume, Detective Johnston would, I was sure.

Once in the dairy department, I checked for broken eggs in four cartons and found none. Then I grabbed the last two gallons of milk in the row, assuming they’d have the longest expiration dates. Last stop was the bread aisle, where I squeezed loaves of bread with my right hand, looking for the softest, freshest loaf of sourdough, after squeezing all the sleeves of blueberry bagels.

I was on the way to the checkout stand with a carload of groceries already, when I noticed a display of spaghetti sauces on the end of the aisle, where most of the sale items were usually located. A jar of Prego for $1.69 sounded like a good deal, and there was no limit on how many a customer could buy. I decided to buy six jars of the sauce with mushrooms and garlic, even though the small amount of hauling space in my car was coming into play, and I was already pushing the limit. But my homemade sauce wasn’t much to brag about and Prego was so much easier and quicker to fix. It would make for a simple supper for our guests. If I used every inch of the passenger seat too, I might be able to make room, I reasoned.

As I placed the last two jars in my cart, I looked down the aisle and saw Paula Bankston pulling a bottle of ketchup down off the top shelf to place in her cart. Before I could duck out of sight, she turned to walk toward me. It was a close call. Fortunately, she was concentrating on the various items on the shelves, and stopped in front of the pickles and olives. She was probably shopping for items she’d need to put out for the luncheon after her dad’s funeral service the next day. I didn’t want her to see me. I was still a bit ashamed of the commotion I’d caused at the church service honoring her father and his service to the members of the congregation. I doubted she’d have anything pleasant to say to me, and I didn’t want to give her an opportunity to un-invite me to the luncheon. I hadn’t been this thrilled with an invitation since Leonard Rutherford asked me to the all-school dance in junior high.

I stepped back out of the aisle before she could look up and catch me observing her. As I did, I bumped into the front of my cart and felt it begin to roll away from me. I turned to my left quickly to grab the cart and my left hand glanced off a jar of spaghetti sauce about halfway up the display. The jar teetered back and forth, while I flailed around hitting jar after jar with my plaster cast in an attempt to prevent the inevitable.

Before I could react to right the jars, they began cascading to the floor, shattering one by one. Spaghetti sauce was splattering all over my jeans and everything else in its path.

“Oh, goodness,” I heard an elderly lady say behind me. I was thinking something similar to that myself, but “goodness” wasn’t quite the word that came to mind.

Not knowing what else to do, I bent down and started picking out the few unbroken jars and lining them up on the floor. I looked up to see Paula staring down at me. She didn’t acknowledge me, just shook her head in disbelief and pushed her cart back up the aisle. She had to be thinking I was the biggest klutz she’d ever had the displeasure of meeting.

“Clean up in aisle six,” a booming voice said over the intercom.

The manager and two younger boys showed up almost instantly with mops and towels and other cleaning paraphernalia. The two teenage boys began picking out the larger shards of glass and placing them in a metal bucket. By their expressions, I could tell they were none too pleased with me. I knew they’d rather be hiding out in the back storeroom texting their girlfriends, or sneaking a smoke in the bathroom. The manager asked me if I was okay, but he seemed more angry than concerned about my welfare. I couldn’t blame him. I was a menace to society.

“That’s a very good price you have on the spaghetti sauce, Edward,” I said, inanely, after reading the nametag on his white canvas apron. I gestured toward my cart. “See? I’m buying six jars. I’d be more than happy to pay for all the jars I’ve broken, too, at the sale price of course. I apologize for the mess, but it was strictly an accident. I haven’t had long enough to grow accustomed to this cast.”

Edward, the store manager, was kind enough to not allow me to pay for the damage, even though he still acted upset with me. He told me to continue my shopping and to be more careful with my cast. The young men would clean up the glass and sauce and restack the few remaining unbroken jars. I apologized one last time and slinked off toward the paper goods section of the store. There I added two rolls of paper towels to my cart, so I could wipe as much sauce off my clothes as possible in the parking lot before getting into my new car. God knows I spilled enough coffee on my seats and floorboards without adding spaghetti sauce to the mix.

It was very embarrassing going through the checkout stand with red sauce dripping off my elbows and other assorted places on my body. Everybody stared at me while I pretended to read a
People
magazine I’d taken off the rack. At least I didn’t run into Paula again. Seeing her at the visitation tonight would be bad enough. Why couldn’t I get through just one full day without causing a catastrophe?

* * *

I walked into the kitchen with two plastic bags. One was full of used, sloppy paper towels. I’d asked for a spare bag when checking out at Pete’s Pantry. I had red stains all over my blue jeans, and scattered red blotches on my pale yellow t-shirt to complement the stains and multi-colored blotches that had been already on it. Wendy looked at me briefly and turned back toward the sink. “I don’t even want to know,” she said. “You look like something even a cat would be afraid to drag home.”

Stone came into the kitchen a few seconds later and I explained what happened at the grocery store to both him and Wendy. I didn’t actually mention seeing Paula Bankston. I just told them I’d accidentally upset a spaghetti sauce display, blaming the entire incident on the unfamiliar cast on my wrist.

Stone and Wendy couldn’t keep themselves from laughing out loud at my expense. I was glad they could find humor in my humiliation. I felt a bit betrayed by the two people I loved most in life.

Stone told me to go get some clean clothes on while he brought in the rest of the groceries, which I had crammed into every nook and cranny in my car. I’d be lucky if I didn’t have egg yolk stains on my floor mats.

Wendy immediately pulled out her cell phone to call Andy so she could amuse him with the story about my mishap at the store. I wondered if it was too late to put her up for adoption.

* * *

Wendy insisted on preparing dinner for everyone. She fixed spaghetti, salad, and garlic toast, with an upside-down pineapple cake for dessert. The spaghetti was just her way of rubbing salt in my wounds. While she was fixing the sauce, I was trying to get some of it out of my jeans and t-shirt. I used an entire bottle of Spray ‘n Wash. I ran the load of clothes through the wash cycle three times, just to be certain all the fresh stains were out, before I put them in the dryer. The clothes weren’t even worthy enough to donate to Goodwill, but I couldn’t bear to throw them away. They may have been barely more than rags, but they were the most comfortable rags I owned.

Stone set plates and silverware on the large oak table in the dining room, while Wendy dished up the spaghetti and meatballs. She has a great recipe for homemade meatballs that she learned from her grandmother on Chester’s side of the family. I’d always had a great relationship with my mother-in-law. She taught me a lot about running a household when I was a new bride many years ago. But she drew the line at trying to teach me to cook. She told me she’d have better luck teaching a raccoon to crochet. I’d been a tad bit insulted at the time, but, even then, I knew she had a valid point.

After dinner, Stone and Wendy worked in companionable silence cleaning up the kitchen. Wendy was a messy cook; there was more spaghetti sauce on the counter than had been on me when I returned from Pete’s Pantry. She could cook a bowl of oatmeal and use every pot and pan in the house. But as long as she cleaned up after herself, I wasn’t going to complain.

I relaxed in the parlor with my standard cup of coffee and the novel I’d removed from my nightstand. Once again I thought about how lucky I was to have found a man like Stone. Chester had been a wonderful husband and father, but Stone was my soul mate. He made me want to be a better person, and the perfect wife and partner. Of course, I’d once wanted to be an opera singer and failed miserably at that too.

Chapter 8

“How are you feeling this evening, Ms. Starr? How’s that wrist? I’m sorry to see you broke it in the fall,” Reverend Bob said as he came up to greet Stone, Wendy and me at the visitation that evening. He assumed it was the mishap at the church that had caused the fracture. I didn’t feel like elaborating and explaining the second fall that had succeeded it.

I pulled my cardigan tighter around my waist. It was a cool night, and I’d worn black slacks and a nice lavender top, and white ankle socks. I didn’t even consider one of my few dresses, afraid to risk wearing those five year-old, over-sized panty hose again. I’d have never wormed my way into them, anyway, with a cast on one arm. I’d have a run in them before I got them out of the plastic egg. Just finding an outfit in my closet I could wrangle into with the cast on was a big enough challenge as it was.

“I’m doing fine, and the wrist isn’t feeling too bad either,” I assured Reverend Bob. I shook his outstretched hand without making eye contact and kept moving on into the sanctuary. I was embarrassed beyond belief about the debacle during his church sermon Sunday morning. I’d been going to ask Reverend Bob if he’d step in and officiate at our wedding the following Saturday, but was too mortified to do it after the incident at church. I’d been greatly relieved when Wyatt called earlier and told us he’d asked the minister at his own church if he’d marry Stone and me. Considering the circumstances, the minister had no reservations, but he did feel it might be a tad disrespectful with the situation being what it was.

“Wouldn’t they rather postpone it, and wait to ask Steiner’s replacement to officiate?” The Methodist minister, Tom Nelson, had asked Wyatt. Wyatt had replied that we felt Steiner’s temporary replacement, Reverend Bob, probably had too much on his plate right now, and many wedding guests were expected from out of town. It would be difficult to reschedule this late in the game. Nelson seemed to see the reasoning in my reluctance to cancel this weekend’s ceremony. Wyatt went on to give him directions to the inn and asked him to arrive there no later than two-thirty on Saturday.
Bless you, Wyatt!