A Healthy Homicide by Staci McLaughlin Page A

was sure to be in a foul mood. This evening might turn out to be even more interesting than I’d originally suspected.
    Now I needed to figure out what dish to bring. What went with a side of drama?

Chapter 10
     
    I owned so few cookbooks that I hesitated to even call them a collection. Every book was a hand-me-down from my mom and offered small meals with few ingredients that took less than twenty minutes to make. Perfect for a single girl in an apartment, but not so great for a Celebration of Life. An event like that called for warm, comforting casseroles and plates of gooey chocolate brownies.
    After glancing through a few recipes in one of the newer cookbooks, I slammed the book shut, cleared my breakfast dishes, and grabbed my jacket. Time to call in reinforcements. I went down to my car.
    Ten minutes later I pulled up in front of Mom’s house. It was a one-story ranch-style house, painted light blue with white trim. Up until a few weeks ago I’d called this place home. Now I stood on the doorstep and wondered if I should knock or use my key. Before I could decide, the door swung open.
    “I thought I heard a car,” Mom said. She ushered me inside and shut the door. “I’m so happy to see you. Come on in and sit for a while.”
    I headed toward the living room, Mom bustling along behind me. On the TV a group of women sat around a table, chatting. Mom muted the volume and smoothed down the front of her twin sweater set before taking a seat in the tattered brown corduroy recliner, which used to be my dad’s favorite spot. Her salt-and-pepper hair looked freshly permed, and I noticed she was careful not to lean her head against the chair’s thinly padded headrest.
    “What brings you by this morning?”
    I perched on the edge of the couch. “I need a super-easy casserole recipe for a party tonight. With all your cookbooks, I thought you might know of a dish like that.”
    “Nothing comes to mind, but I’m sure one of my books will have what you’re looking for. You’ll need to drag them out of the garage. Now that we’re eating healthier, I packed most of them up. They all use pounds of butter and too much cheese.”
    I stood and rubbed my hands together. “Yum. That’s exactly the kind of recipe I’m looking for.”
    “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Mom picked up the remote control. “The boxes are in the corner by the water heater.”
    I went out to the garage and eased around her sedan to reach the far corner. A tall stack of boxes waited for me. I pulled the top one toward me, fell back against Mom’s car from the weight, and dumped the box on the cement floor. A girl could get a workout looking up recipes. Fortunately, when I opened the top, an array of covers featuring housewives wearing aprons smiled up at me. I closed the top, shoved my fingers under the bottom of the box, and lugged it into the house. Mom had returned to watching television but muted the volume once more when I came in.
    “That was fast,” she said.
    “First one I opened looks promising.” I dropped the box on the floor with a thump and sat down cross-legged in front of it. Before I took out the first book, I paused. “Do you have to work this morning? I can take this with me.”
    “No, I go in after lunch.” Mom had recently gotten a part-time job at Going Back for Seconds, a women’s clothing consignment store downtown. Ever since my father died, I’d worried that his pension wouldn’t cover the bills. Now that Mom had gone to work, I could breathe a little easier and stop trying to sneak money into her purse.
    Mom rose from the recliner and crouched down on the floor near me. She pulled a cookbook out of the box and ran her hands over the cover. “I bought this the first year your father and I were married.” She glanced at the picture of Dad on the mantel and smiled wistfully. She set the book back in the box. “What kind of party is it? A potluck dinner?”
    Did people still have those? “There’s a