Free The Secret Ingredient Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery by Virginia Nancy; Rich Pickard Page A

Stanley, it was some other poor soul. Or that Stanley was injured, but not dead.
    She forced herself to speak calmly and to listen carefully.
    “You think he fell over the cliff?”
    “Yeah. Must have lost control of his motorbike.”
    “Where was it?”
    “The bike? Kinda halfway down the hillside.”
    “No, I mean where … where did it happen, Kevin?”
    “Oh, well, I’d say about a hundred yards from here, I guess. On that little strip of beach down there between this property and Stanley’s. You know the one I mean?”
    “Yes, I frequently swim there.” So close , she thought with helpless dismay, he was so close to safety. “You found him, and then you came running back here?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Jason, where were you all this time?”
    The boy started to tell her, but his father jumped in, speaking in a loud, firm voice that overrode his son’s. “Jason showed up right when I was getting back up to the path. He was coming from the direction of Stanley’s house where he’d been looking for him, isn’t that right, son?”
    Jason looked down at the cup of hot chocolate that she gave him.
    “Yeah. Thanks, Aunt Genia.”
    “And then the police came?”
    “Right,” Kevin said.
    “What did they do, Kevin?”
    He hesitated. “A lot. More than you’d think they would for an accident like that. They measured and took pictures, and called out the medical examiner. They wouldn’t even move Stanley’s body, or take it away, until the medical examiner said they could. I guess that’s standard procedure.” Suddenly his voice became heated. “I’ll tell you what isn’t standard procedure, though! It isn’t normal to interrogate innocent people who just happen to come across a dead body. The way they asked us questions, you’d think they thought we murdered Stanley. It made me so mad, especially the way they treated Jason. Just because they know about his drug arrest, they acted like he’s some kind of hardened criminal. I told them to back off. Hell, I went to school with some of those guys. They know better than to treat my son like that. And I told them so, too.”
    Genia glanced over at Jason as she got out the silverware.
    The boy caught her glance. Out of his father’s eyesight, Jason gave Genia a disgusted look, as if he weren’t as grateful for his father’s defense as Kevin might have thought he should be.
    “You’ll just get me in more trouble with them, Dad.”
    Kevin looked hurt. “I’m trying to keep you out of trouble, son.”
    “Well, just don’t, okay? You’ll make them more suspicious.”
    “Suspicious of what? You haven’t done anything.”
    “You make them think I have!”
    “I did not, Jason.”
    Genia slid their plates in front of them. “Who needs water? Salt and pepper? Kevin, Donna claims you eat Tabasco sauce with everything. Is that true? Should I see if I can find some for you?”
    The distraction of food did the trick she had hoped it would.
    The father grinned at Genia and said, “That was only because her cooking is so bad, right, Jason? No offense to your mother, but if we hadn’t got divorced, I would have grown an ulcer from all that Tabasco I had to eat. But this looks great, Genia, even without hot sauce.”
    “What will happen now, Kevin? Do you know?”
    “I guess they’ll take his body to a funeral home.”
    “I wonder if they’ve notified his daughter.”
    Kevin sat up straighter, looking startled, as if he’d only just realized there would be other people who had loved Stanley who had to be told. “My God, Nikki and Randy! She’ll be so upset about her dad.” A small, wry smile moved his lips. “Randy will have to pretend to be upset.”
    There was a time when Genia might have felt compelled to remonstrate with Kevin for saying such a thing, when she might have chided him. But she had lived long enough and seen and experienced enough things to feel that it was far better to voice an uncomfortable truth than to speak comfortable lies. She