LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 5

      I whirled to find out what was wrong.

      Nina was rubbing the back of her head.

      Above her, a large and very deep cast-iron skillet was swinging from a hook in the ceiling. The skillet’s ridiculously long handle had allowed the pan to bump Nina and turn the skillet into a creaking pendulum. It looked about to hit her again or fall off the hook or both.

      I yelled, “Watch out!”

      She reached up with both hands. Holding the skillet by its pan, she attempted to resettle the handle on its hook, but the handle slipped off. She made a show of being pulled down almost to the linoleum by the skillet. “Ooof. It’s heavy.”

      “Are you okay?”

      “Yeah, it barely touched me. It just surprised me. But feel how heavy.” She transferred some of its weight to my outstretched hands.

      I couldn’t help laughing at the ungainly thing. “It’s ridiculous.”

      Biting a lip, she studied it. “Whatever is it for?”

      “I don’t know. Could that long handle let people use it over an open fire? It’s big enough to use as a deep fryer.” Maybe I was exaggerating.

      Nina got into the spirit. “Pioneer donuts!”

      “That’s where they got the name ‘old-fashioned’ donuts.”

      Nina flashed me a stern look. “Groan. Can you help steady it while I try to put it back where it belongs?”

      “Where it doesn’t belong. That’s another thing to tell Rich. Even if he and Terri are too short to run into that thing, his tenants might be as tall as you are. I doubt that anyone could use that skillet in a kitchen, so why keep it in here?”

      “You might call it a skillet,” she said solemnly. “I call it a kill-it.”

      “An overkill-it.”

      We managed to hang the unwieldy thing up. Whoever had last cooked with it over an open fire had not cleaned it, unless bashing it into the wall next to the fridge and leaving a soot-rimmed and skillet-shaped hole counted as cleaning. We had to scrub about a ton of soot off our hands. And scour the sink afterward.

      Finally, we returned to opening the upper cabinet doors to hunt for the platter Rich wanted us to use for the next morning’s Boston cream donuts.

      Nina breathed, “Wow.” She examined her palms and must have found them spotless. With great care, she lifted a pottery bowl off a stack of platters. The bowl was an abstract of an open clamshell. It was glazed in iridescent pastels—aquas, pinks, blues, and ivories. She set the bowl on the counter. “It’s handmade.” Gently, she turned it over. “It’s a Cindy Westhill, signed and numbered. It’s number one of only ten, which makes it even more valuable. It’s dated, too, just over twenty years ago. Is she any relationship to you and Tom?”

      “She’s his wife, my mother-in-law.”

      Nina blew a whistling breath between pursed lips. “I knew that Tom’s wife was an art teacher who helped you paint the tables in Deputy Donut, and they’re beautifully done, but I didn’t realize that his wife was the potter I learned about in art school.”

      “And I didn’t know that art students studied her work.”

      Nina raised her head and stared around at the dark blue kitchen cabinets. “You know what?” Without waiting for me to answer, she went on, “The colors that your mother-in-law used for this bowl would be a perfect palette for a seaside New England cottage, even though the cottage is not in New England or anywhere near the sea.”

      I would have high-fived Nina if I hadn’t been afraid of flapping our hands too close to the valuable bowl. “Perfect.” My one-word answer reminded me of Rich. I added, “I’ll take photos for reference.”

      She gazed lovingly at the bowl. “For reverence.”

      With our phones, we photographed the bowl from all angles, both with flash and without, until Nina got what we both thought was a faithful reproduction of the bowl’s hues.

      We carefully removed plates and platters that the clamshell bowl had been on. The platter next to the bottom was decorated with seaside scenes. “This would fit Rich’s party theme,” I said, “but he specifically mentioned sailboats. I see only one sail, and it’s on the horizon.”

      The largest platter was still on the shelf. Nina took it out and set it on the counter. “This is probably the one he meant. It has lots of sailboats.”

      Agreeing, I set the seascape platter on the shelf. We stacked the other platters and plates on it. Nina eased the clamshell bowl onto the top of the pile. “I would display that in my home,” she said, “not in a rental cottage where it could be damaged by people like Derek and his friends.”

      “Maybe Rich won’t rent it to people like that again, especially after he renovates. And maybe he and Terri will use the cottage themselves, instead.”

      Nina closed the cabinet. “That could be fun—going all the way to the other side of the lake to their cottage for a weekend.”

      “Or for a romantic lunch of donuts fried in a three-ton skillet over an open fire.”

      She looked out the kitchen window toward the screened porch and the lake. “They could come by canoe. Paddling across the lake is more romantic and probably as quick as driving on that gravel road.”

      “It did have a few ruts.”

      “You know what?” Nina asked. Again not waiting for a reply, she said, “Terri might hate the renovations and decorations we suggest.”

      I groaned. “She’ll probably paint everything green and gold.”

      “Or black,” Nina added ominously, “to match the soot stains from someone bashing the skillet into the kitchen wall.”

      I had to pull hard to close the back door, and then I had to fiddle with the key, but I finally managed to lock the door. I double-checked. It was firmly locked. As we left the porch, I noticed that someone had punched a hole in one of the larger screens closest to the building. Was that another casualty of Derek’s party?

      I dropped Nina off at her apartment, a combined artist’s studio and loft above Klassy Kitchens, a shop selling top-of-the-line kitchen cabinets and fixtures. It was near downtown Fallingbrook and within walking distance of Deputy Donut. I didn’t think Nina owned a car. Easing herself out of mine, she said she would look in Klassy Kitchens for ideas for Rich’s cottage.

      I drove home and went inside. Alec and I had painted the living room walls white.

      The furniture and accessories were jewel tones approximating the ruby, sapphire, emerald, and topaz stained glass above the front windows and door.

      Dep let me know that I had been gone too long.

      I picked her up and hugged her. “On Wednesday, we won’t have to work.”

      “Meow!”

      I rested my cheek on her warm fuzzy head. “You’re right. I might not be here all day on Wednesday. Brent and I often go kayaking Wednesday afternoons.” My handsome detective, Nina had called him. He wasn’t mine, but he was handsome, and he was a detective.

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