Free Simmer Down by Jessica Conant-Park, Susan Conant Page B

squash!” I tossed five in. “How about some rutabaga? Or parsnips?” I didn’t wait for an answer and added eight of each to the growing mountain of ingredients. At the rate I was going, there’d be enough to feed a battalion of old girlfriends. I added twelve gigantic onions to the mound and reached in to mix the whole mess up. “There. Are. Your. Mixed. Root. Vegetables!” I hollered, garnering stares from the shoppers around us. “Follow me! You’ll need fresh herbs! Lots of them!” I was just plain old shouting now.
    So much for my class act.
    Hannah at least had enough sense to keep her mouth shut during my tirade and said nothing when we got to the checkout, where she paid $86.29 for her supposed dinner for two. The four overpriced organic chickens I’d insisted on hadn’t helped with cost control.
    I leaned in to the checkout person and whispered conspiratorially, “She’s having a romantic dinner with an old boyfriend. Keep your fingers crossed!”
    Hannah watched me like I’d completely lost it. Granted, I had lost it, but for good reason, and once the crazies had kicked in, there was no stopping them. For the sake of my mental health, Detective Hurley should’ve placed Hannah in solitary confinement for the duration of her miserable life.
    As we walked silently back to the car, with Hannah carrying all the bags, I tried to regroup. I was acting as badly as Hannah. I racked my brain to come up with a smooth social work way to handle this situation and heard snippets of class lectures whip through my mind. Victim of trauma…resulting defense mechanisms put in place to protect the fragile ego…compassion for troubled client… Hannah’s controlling and obnoxious behavior could be the result of finding herself in an out-of-control situation. I needed to cut her some slack.
    Oh, yes. While making her feel guilty and ashamed.
    I drove to her apartment complex and planned my words.
    “Right here.” Hannah pointed to a posh four-story building surrounded by a wrought-iron gate. I put the car in park.
    “Look, Hannah,” I started, finally calm, “I know you had a horrible night, and I apologize for the way I acted. But how would you feel if your boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend said the things that you’ve said to me? Probably not very good. I haven’t done anything to you that warrants this kind of treatment. It is unacceptable and needs to stop.” There. Simple and to the point. I had set my boundaries and made it clear that they were not to be crossed—just as Naomi had taught me to advise our sexual harassment hotline callers!
    Hannah stared at me, expressionless.
    “So,” I continued with a little less confidence, “I understand that there can be leftover emotions from past relationships, but, um…” Why was she staring at me like that? “You see…Josh…Josh has moved on from the past and is looking forward to the future, you know, with me, and…”
    “You have parsley in your hair,” announced Hannah, reaching out and plucking a green leaf off my head. “Tell Josh to call me.” She collected her bags and slammed the door before strutting up the walkway.
    I was beginning to doubt that running interference between Josh and his ex had been worth the embarrassment. But I had to keep trying: until Oliver’s murder was solved, Hannah would keep trying to persuade Josh to rescue her from supposed police persecution. The ideal solution to the murder would, of course, consist of absolute proof of Hannah’s guilt. But even if someone else turned out to be the murderer, the police would stop questioning Hannah, and she’d lose her excuse for playing on Josh’s sympathy.
    I drove a few blocks and then used my cell phone to call Adrianna, who was the only person capable of preventing me from phoning Josh at work, demanding to know why he’d ever gone out with a psychopath, and threatening that if he actually cooked for her, I’d shred his Gordon Hammersley cookbooks to paper cole slaw with