“Oh, I just adore the auras possessed by young children,” Gillian sighed rapturously. “And to know that your blood and a part of your essence is encapsulated in this child… James, I can’t wait to lay my eyes on this boy!” She looped her arm through Bennett’s. “I feel jittery already.”
“That’s it, woman,” Bennett teased her fondly. “No more tree-bark tea for you.”
“I’ll introduce all of you, I promise. But I don’t want to overwhelm the poor kid. He’s going to meet his grandparents tomorrow night. I have another reason to be happy, because Milla and my father are now officially man and wife. They had a quick wedding down at the church.” James tapped the scrapbook and then drew in his breath. “Oh no! I’ve been so wrapped up in my own affairs that I haven’t done a thing to celebrate their nuptials. I haven’t even bought them a gift! I was going to send them on a nice little honeymoon, but I don’t have the time or the money to do that now. What am I going to do?”
“I imagine your coffers are a bit bare right now,” Bennett remarked.
James nodded. “You can say that again. New carpet on Monday, furniture delivery on Tuesday, and flat broke by Wednesday.”
“We’ll brainstorm while we paint,” Gillian suggested. “The cadence of our bodies moving our brushes and rollers up and down, up and down, might just stimulate the creative centers of our minds.”
“Don’t let that woman near your CD player,” Bennett warned. “She’ll put on some yoga mumbo jumbo and we’ll all be chanting like Gregorian monks.”
The four friends finished looking through Eliot’s scrapbook and then got to work. They bantered, painted, and chatted all morning long. By noon, the kitchen and living room looked clean, fresh, and bright, and Eliot’s room had been primed and was ready for Lindy’s hand-painted designs.
“This is very cathartic,” Gillian stated as she set down her paintbrush. “Do you have a nice, serene color chosen for your bedroom? I’m certain we could get that finished today.”
James shook his head. “I hadn’t expected this painting party, but I could go buy some. I think Lindy’s going to need a few more colors for Eliot’s room. And I’d love to treat for lunch. It’s the least I can do.”
“Hello!” Lucy called out as she let herself into the house. “Lunch is served!”
Bennett moved forward to remove one of the two plastic bags from Lucy’s hands. “What have we here?”
“Meatball subs. Except for Gillian’s, of course. She’s having provolone, mozzarella, tomato, and a pesto spread on herb focaccia.”
James pushed a twenty dollar bill into Lucy’s hand. “Hi,” he said shyly as she looked down at the money.
“I’m not taking this.” She breezed past him into the kitchen and laid the bill on his counter. “I missed half of my painting shift, so the least I could do was pick up lunch.” Gazing into the living room, she smiled. “I call the zebra chair!”
“I thought you might be angry with me,” James whispered to Lucy once the food had been handed out and the rest of the supper club members were making themselves comfortable in the living room.
Lucy feigned great interest in a Benjamin Moore paint chart. “I was just shocked, that’s all. I… I’ve got to get used to thinking of you totally as a friend. And you are my friend, so don’t worry. Come in here and eat your sub. I’ve got an update on our investigation.”
After settling in the lion chair, she spread a napkin on her lap. “I ate half of my sub in the car, so let me take a few bites while it’s still warm, and then I’ll tell you about the phone calls I made to Natchez.”
James couldn’t believe how famished he felt. Is there a chemical in the paint that induces hunger or is painting more of an aerobic workout than I thought? he wondered.
Without bothering to consider that the contents of his hero might be too warm to chew, he released his sandwich from its tight package of aluminum foil and bit into the end of the sub, inviting molten marinara sauce and a large piece of scalding meatball into his mouth.
“Ahhh!” He felt as though he might breathe fire. “Hot!” Lindy shoved a water bottle into his hand, and he washed down the burning food as his friends looked on in amusement.
Bennett tossed him a snack-sized bag of baked potato chips. “Better start with those, my man. Okay, Lucy, whatchya got for us?”
“Russ DuPont is Mrs. D.’s grandson,” Lucy began as she placed the remnants of her sub on the crocodile table to cool. “Russell DuPont’s mother never married. She also died at a young age from alcohol poisoning. According to the neighbors, she’d always been a wild girl. Russ often went without meals or electricity, and he missed more days of school than he attended.” She pried open her bag of potato chips and halted her narrative in order to eat one.
“That poor boy,” Gillian sighed.
Lucy agreed. “I think he’s lived a hard life. His grandmother ran out of money and was sent to a state-run home when Russ was ten years old. After his mother’s death a year later, he was placed into foster care and, if I can believe what these Natchez ladies told me, was one angry boy. He got in trouble all the time.” She raised her sub to her lips. “He’s got an extensive juvenile record. From vandalism to petty theft to selling his grandma’s prescription drugs on the street, this kid’s done it all.”
“The neighbors told you all that?” Lindy asked in disbelief. “Must be a smaller town than I thought.”
Once she’d swallowed Lucy replied, “No. I called the Sheriff’s Department and told them all about our case. They were very interested in helping me get a full picture on Russ. I guess he’s got them out of bed more than once with his criminal activities. They’re faxing me copies of his records.”
“So we’ve got a hostile young man who drove to the Shenandoah Valley and got a job on a goat farm where he produced bacteria-infested eggs that he somehow gave to Paulette.” James poked a meatball with his fingertip. “Sounds like a complicated and deliberate plan. Russ is no dummy.”
Gillian’s expression was sorrowful. “It sounds like that young man was consumed by a desire for revenge. Instead of trying to live a life based on higher principals, it seems like he’s chosen to live one based on blame and the baser of our human emotions.”
Lindy looked perplexed. “Am I missing something here? Why would this boy hate Paulette? Did she do something to his mother or to his grandma?”
All eyes turned to James. “That’s an integral question and I’m hoping you can answer it.” Lucy’s voice held a plea. “If not you, then Milla.”
A thought had been forming in James’s mind while Lucy had been speaking, and now he spoke it aloud. “Milla told me about their neighbor, a Mrs. D. She was an older woman who had hundreds and hundreds of recipes in her possession. She had shoeboxes filled with them. All the recipes were created by Mrs. D. from scratch. What if-?”
“The Diva stole her recipes!” Lindy shouted. “And published them as her own!”
“And don’t forget got rich and famous off ’em too,” Bennett added. “While the DuPonts stayed poor and downright miserable, Paulette was autographin’ cookbooks and hostin’ television shows.”
They all chewed thoughtfully on their sandwiches as they tried to imagine Russ DuPont somehow discovering that his grandmother’s recipes had made another woman extremely wealthy.
“Our hypothesis makes sense,” Lucy determined. “If Paulette did make off with the recipes, it would certainly explain why she never returned to Natchez. Still, without a confession from Russ, our theories are circumstantial.”