LITMIR.BIZ

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detectives. Grief had driven Brent and me apart for the first three years after Alec was killed, but during the past three years, Brent and I had returned to being friends who enjoyed meals together. And kayaking. Dep squirmed. I set her gently on the floor. “You’re not a boater at heart, are you, Dep?”

      Tail up, she bounded toward the back of the house. I followed her through the dining room. It was mostly white because the room’s only windows were stained glass above built-in bookcases on both sides of the fireplace.

      Alec and I had gone a little overboard on our kitchen. We had installed an oversized fridge and a double-oven range with six burners. The cabinets were pine to go with the woodwork in the rest of the house, and the floor was covered in terra-cotta tiles in shades of pumpkin, smoked paprika, and dark-roast coffee beans.

      Dep ate her dinner from a chocolate-brown bowl that Cindy had made, complete with kitty paw prints and Dep’s full name, Deputy Donut, in white. I told her, “You’re a lucky cat, Dep, with your own personalized Cindy Westhill dishes.” Dep’s only answer was to tilt her head and crunch delicately on a piece of kibble. I grilled a mozzarella and pesto sandwich and ate it at the granite-topped kitchen island.

      After dinner, Dep accompanied me upstairs to my combination office and guest room. The white walls, which Brent had originally helped Alec paint, were still waiting for the perfect artwork. I would find it someday, especially if Nina scaled down the size of future paintings.

      At the computer, I found the obituary for Richmond P. Royalson Junior. He had died twelve years after his son changed his will in favor of him and Alma Ruth Royalson. Alma was Rich’s mother. She and Rich were the only family members listed as surviving Richmond P. Royalson Junior. Alma’s obituary was also easy to find. She had died only a couple of years ago, at the age of ninety-four.

      From Rich’s rental book, I knew Derek Bengsen’s address, so of course I had to look for Terri Estable’s. I found a T. Estable in the town house complex where both Derek and my friend Samantha lived.

      I went back downstairs and read in the wing chair in the living room with Dep purring on my lap until bedtime.

      When I closed my eyes in my calming white and Wedgwood blue bedroom, I saw the lovely hues of the clamshell bowl that my mother-in-law had made about the time I was eleven and her son, my late husband, Alec, was graduating from college. Although Alec and I both grew up in Fallingbrook, we had not yet met each other.

      Alec. I would always miss him.

      Picturing the hues that Alec’s mom had put together when he was a teenager was comforting, and so was the purring cat nestled behind my knees. Rain pattered on my bedroom windows.

      * * *

      By morning the rain had ended, but the clouds had not completely rolled away. The first thing I said to Tom in Deputy Donut was, “I didn’t know that Cindy was famous for her pottery. I knew I liked her work, but . . .”

      Nina chimed in, “We discovered one of her bowls in Rich Royalson’s cottage last night. It should be locked in a glass case in a museum.”

      I added, “Alec never told me she was famous.”

      Tom turned on one of the fryers. “Alec was away at college at the height of her fame. Besides, nothing about our parents is abnormal, while at the same time, everything is. And from the moment Alec began talking, he was determined to be a policeman like his dad.” He grinned. “I was the star in his eyes. Besides, Cindy did not necessarily want to keep up with all the latest trends in pottery.”

      Nina measured flour into the bowl of one of our large mixers. “Artists can be stubborn about following our own vision and not caring about the market.” Those dark eyes glinted with self-deprecating humor. “Or pretending we don’t when all we really want is to become rich and famous.”

      With three of us working, making an extra three dozen donuts for Rich’s birthday party was easy. Nina and I wanted to carve screaming faces into the thick fudge frosting. We restrained ourselves.

      The Knitpickers and retired men came in and sat at their regular tables, across from each other and near the front windows. The retired men loved to tease the Knitpickers and vice versa, and Cheryl got a lot of teasing about Rich Royalson. She defended herself by telling them about Rich coming in later with a different woman, and about Steve, who, she said, was a better match. She had to endure even more teasing for dating two different men in one day. She didn’t stay as long as usual. Apologizing about needing to go home and change for Rich’s party, she left around eleven.

      Shortly after eleven thirty, we packed an urn of fresh Guatemalan coffee, Rich’s sailboat platter, which we had wrapped in layers of plain newsprint, boxes containing three dozen Boston cream donuts, plus paper napkins and cups, into the Deputy Donut delivery car. The car was a 1950 Ford four-door sedan painted black and white like a police car, complete with our Deputy Donut logo on the white front doors. Instead of a light bar like real police cars had on top, a huge donut with white fiberglass icing was lying flat on the roof. The sprinkles were tiny lights that could be made to sparkle and dance.

      Rich was lucky. The sun had come out, and his seventieth birthday was surprisingly warm for the twenty-seventh of October. Driving to Lake Fleekom, I didn’t turn on the rooftop donut’s sprinkle lights, which wouldn’t have shown up in the sunshine. I also didn’t broadcast a recorded siren, music, or even my own voice making announcements over the megaphone-shaped loudspeaker mounted in front of the donut. I drove as sedately as one could in a car with an oversized donut on the roof.

      Both of Rich’s gates were standing open, and the circular driveway was empty. I guessed that Rich’s vehicles were inside the three-car garage on the right side of his house. Apparently, no guests had arrived early.

      I swooped into the driveway in a grand manner and parked my vintage Ford close to the front steps. It was eleven fifty-four.

      In a hurry to deliver the donuts and coffee and return to Deputy Donut to help Tom and Nina, I ran up to the elegant stone porch and pushed a button next to a massive carved wooden door. Inside, chimes boomed, a long and involved tune.

      No answer.

      I tried the chimes again. Reverberations, echoes, but no people.

      Rich was probably in back, either in the tent or gazing out over the lake. I’d find him and ask where he wanted me to put the donuts and coffee. I walked around to the side of the house. The tent was set up on a flat expanse of lawn next to a beach. In its own sheltered valley, Lake Fleekom was only now being touched by the morning’s first sunbeams. Fingers of mist twisted upward from the water. On a gray day, the scene might have looked spookily perfect for Halloween week. On this sunny and blue-skied day, it looked romantic and magical, an enchanting backdrop for a party.

      The clunk of a paddle against a canoe gunwale carried over the water through the mist. I loved making donuts and sharing them with people, but I wished I had my kayak and could, right that very moment, paddle through that mystical mist.

      Stepping over extension cords snaking from the house to the tent, I made my way down the grassy slope. Black and silver balloons, garlands, and birthday wishes hung on the outside of the tent. More of them decorated the inside.

      Near the back of the tent, six round tables, each with six chairs, were covered in white tablecloths and set with white napkins, gleaming cutlery, and sparkling glasses. Rectangular tables near the front, also covered with white tablecloths, were ready for last-minute food additions. Little tented cards announced what would go where. One labeled LOBSTER ROLLS was beside a plastic wrap–covered bowl of buns. They were similar to hot dog buns, but sliced through the top instead of the side. Oysters were on ice, ready to be shucked. One slow cooker sent out the delicious smell of baked beans, while another contained equally fragrant seafood chowder. The label near an empty chafing dish said LEMON-BAKED SCROD.

      A handwritten guest list was taped to a section of tablecloth hanging over the side of one table. The list was about twenty names long.

      I didn’t find Rich, but I did see tented cards for Boston cream donuts and for gourmet coffee

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