Ladies Courting Trouble. Dolores Stewart Riccio

order. “She’s pregnant, too,” she declared angrily. “Holidays seem to bring out the monster in estranged husbands.” Still wearing her all-purpose court outfit—suit, stockings, and pumps in monochromatic navy—she was just a shade plumper, but radiant in her own new freedom.

      I wondered if Becky and Adam were planning to visit their father, perhaps tomorrow, but I didn’t ask. Gary Hauser, my ex, a chemical engineer, unfortunately was employed at the Pilgrim Nuclear Plant and lived in a nearby condo development called Governor Bradford Village. I did my best never to run into him.

      And now that I was newly married, it was heartwarming to see how well my children responded to Joe’s earthy affection. In the Mediterranean way, he hugged everyone, including Adam.

      Fiona, in a striped skirt and quilted top, stood beside me, breathing in, I knew, the essence of everything I was feeling about Becky and Ron, Adam and Freddie, my dear, absent Cathy, even Gary and Joe. “All things will evolve as they are meant to do, in the best of possible ways. Don’t you worry, Cass,” she murmured in my ear.

      “Oh, thanks, Dr. Pangloss,” I hissed. But before I could ask her for specifics, Freddie had dragged her away for a conference on “finding the unfindable,” which was Fiona’s specialty.

      “She knows enough right now,” I warned Fiona.

      “But I always want to learn more, you know that, Cass.” Freddie’s tone was deferential, but the wink she directed toward me was her own saucy self.

      “Freddie’s ability to learn complicated material is almost intuitive. She never stops amazing me,” Adam said, causing Freddie’s pale face almost to blush. “She’s on her way to becoming a master troubleshooter at Iconomics.”

      “She never stops amazing me, either,” I said, thinking of an entirely different set of skills that Freddie possessed. Had he seen her ability to addle a delicate machine? Yes indeed, as I soon learned, he had witnessed just such an incident, but he hadn’t realized what was going on.

      It was a lovely feast, filled with warmth, affection, and laughter. Joe told engaging stories about his Greenpeace missions. Becky described her craziest family cases. Adam related how a “curious but humorous intermittent virus” had infected a competitor’s display at the Atlanta Computer Show. At this, Freddie looked away from my raised eyebrows to busy herself cutting meat off a turkey leg, while Scruffy leaned devotedly against her side, sensing that bits of crispy skin were about to fall his way. Fiona refrained from dowsing the food, for which I was personally thankful, both for her trust and for not having to explain what was going on to Becky and Adam.

      So I was in a rather mellow mood, still humming “We Gather Together” and putting sheets of foil over leftover pies when Patty called me, gasping and crying. “It’s Wyn, Cass. He got dreadfully ill right after dinner—the dinner we give at the church, you know. For the elderly or anyone else who’s alone.” More sobs. I had to strain to understand her. “Poor, dear man. And Wyn’s not the only one. I’m calling from the hospital now. I thought you ought to know. It’s probably hemlock again. In the chocolate cake. Oh, Cass…Wyn’s favorite. He gobbled up two pieces, while complaining that the coconut was ‘off.’”

      “Oh, Patty, I’m so sorry. Would it help if Joe and I came over there? Has someone notified the police?” All the time I was being reassuring, I was wondering why Wyn and Patty hadn’t been more careful about the provenance of every food at the church dinner. And surely Patty had warned Wyn to watch out for chocolate.

      “The police know, Cass. Wyn insisted on having an officer present to keep us all safe. Officer Notley personally vetted all the donated foods, attached a label with a name to them all. But the problem was Bevvy Besant’s cake. ‘I’m white cake,’ she said, so Ned Notley okayed the two ‘white’ cakes. But Bev had only brought one. And what do men know, anyway? Ned thought coconut frosting meant white.”

      “Where’s Officer Notley now? Do you think I could talk to him?” The idiot.

      “He’s having a gastric lavage, dear. Wyn gave him a big piece of the coconut cake. Sorry for him, you know, getting stuck with Thanksgiving Day duty. But those two nice detectives are here again. So you stay put, dear. You have your family there. Just go ahead and enjoy them. There’s nothing you can do. I simply had to talk to someone outside the church, you know. Mrs. Pynchon is acting as if I’m somehow at fault in all this for not keeping a closer eye on the donated food and a tighter rein on Wyn’s sweet tooth. I even heard her telling Detective Mann that he ought to investigate me. Me! Can you imagine that?”

      “Stone Stern and Billy Mann are always running into crackpots like Mrs. P. They’ll know enough to ignore her. But tell me, Patty, has anyone been able to track down the chocolate cake. I mean, who brought it?”

      “Oh, I should have known,” Patty wailed. “But I was so busy serving the dinner, and by the time I had a bite myself, then started cutting up the desserts, there was Wyn digging into a chocolate cake. What was I going to do? Grab the fork out of his hands and wrestle the cake away? Of course, I instantly checked the label, and it said Besant, big as life. The pies were donated by Bunn’s Bakery, you know, but the cakes were baked by the Ladies’ League.”

      “What about the rest of the food?”

      “The cooked turkeys were a gift from Forker’s Turkey Farm. Angelo’s Market sent over most of the fixings. Oops. There’s Dr. Blitz. Have to go now.”

      “Patty…wait…I want you to keep me posted. I’ll try to stop by later.” But I didn’t know if she actually heard me.

      Joe and Fiona had been hanging over me, listening with concern to my end of the conversation and what they could hear of Patty’s squeals. “You’d think the Ladies’ League would have been much more careful after what happened the last time,” Joe said. “They should have vetted every single food item themselves, never mind the cop, and kept tabs on who actually carried each one into the kitchen.”

      “Okay, I won’t say they should have dowsed the dinner,” Fiona said. “I know that’s not their thing. But for Goddess’s sake, a modicum of care. Talk about ‘Death by Chocolate’!”

      Hearing our excited voices, Becky, Adam, and Freddie came in from the living room, where Freddie had been taking all their money in a cut-throat game of Monopoly. I’d warned them that Freddie was a wizard with dice.

      “What is it?” Adam demanded.

      “Not another poisoning!” Becky cried. “What kind of a pervert would poison people on Thanksgiving?”

      “Chocolate cake this time. Might be hemlock again.” I found I needed to sit down and take deep breaths for a moment. Joe put a consoling hand on my shoulder. “That was Patty Peacedale. The cake turned up at the Gethsemane Thanksgiving dinner for the lonely and elderly. The pastor is very ill. He’s at the hospital now with several of his parishioners.”

      “Awesome,” Freddie declared. “Some nutty dude, no doubt about it. Wish I could stick around to help catch this guy. But you go, girls! Chocolate lovers are getting to be an endangered species around here.”

      “Yes, this has gone quite far enough!” Fiona was drawing herself up into her most imperious glamour. “We simply must get together posthaste.”

      “Maybe at Phil’s,” I agreed. “She’s entertaining family, but I believe they’ll be leaving sometime tomorrow.”

      At seven, Becky said good-bye, pleading the merciless caseload she was carrying for Katz and Kinder. Leaving Joe, Adam, and Freddie to deal with the last of the dishes, Fiona and I jumped into her ancient baby blue Lincoln Town Car and headed to Jordan Hospital to see how Wyn and Patty were faring.

      “You don’t suppose the reverend is being targeted by evil forces, do you?” Fiona asked as she drove at her usual lulling pace of thirty-five miles an hour.

      “Nothing so medieval,” I said. “If he is a target, it’s those millions he’s just inherited.”

      “Evil