Season of Secrets by Marta Perry Page B

you?”
    Glory closed the oven door and wiped her hands on her apron. “Pot pie’s not a summertime dish, to my way of thinking. Heats up the kitchen too much. You want things that cook faster in the summer.”
    Clearly Marcus wanted Glory to talk about that summer. So Dinah would steer the conversation in that direction, even though her instincts were to do anything but that. “Or cold dishes. You still make the best potato salad on the Peninsula?”
    Glory grinned. “Child, I make the best potato salad on both sides of the Ashley and the Cooper,” she said,naming the two rivers that bound old Charleston into itself. “Maybe even in Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties all put together.”
    â€œI remember that potato salad,” Marc said. “Sometimes we had Sunday lunch out on the veranda—potato salad and cucumber sandwiches and crab salad.”
    â€œStop, you’re making my mouth water. And Glory won’t make us potato salad. It’s not summer.”
    It wasn’t any summer, but especially not that summer, ten years ago, when they’d lunched on the veranda, laughing at Court’s attempts to catch one of the butterflies that hovered over the buddleia bush. There hadn’t been any shadows of impending tragedy over those lunches, had there?
    Glory straightened, hands on her hips. “No sense you talking about potato salad, Mr. Marc. You want to ask me something, just come right out and ask it. You know I’d do anything at all I could for you.”
    That was a vote of confidence, and she hoped Marc appreciated it. Glory believed in him.
    â€œThank you.” His voice softened a little. “It’s not any one question I want to ask you. It’s that I hope you’ll think about what it was like here that summer. Think about any little things that happened that didn’t feel quite right, even if they don’t seem to have to do with my wife’s death. We don’t know what might be important.”
    Glory nodded, her eyes shadowed. “Reckon I’ve spent plenty of time on my knees about it. There’s nothing that pops into my head, but I’ll think on it some more.”
    â€œWhat about Jasper Carr? Do you remember anything about him?”
    Dinah had put Carr into his mind with her simple comment about Annabel not liking the man. She hadn’t meant anything by the words—they’d just popped out, and Marc had seized on them.
    His single-mindedness chilled her. If Marc did find evidence that implicated someone in Annabel’s death, what would he do? Turn it over to the police, or try to take matters into his own hands? She hadn’t thought that far, and she should, before she said anything else that might make him suspect someone.
    Glory was shaking her head slowly. “Can’t think of anything, except that time I found him in the kitchen. But you already know about that.”
    â€œFound him in the kitchen?” His voice was sharp, his prosecutor’s voice. “What are you talking about?”
    â€œWhy, that one evening I came back for my purse. I’d gone off without it. Everyone was out, and there Carr was right here in the kitchen.”
    â€œDoing what?” Marc leaned forward, intent.
    She shrugged. “Nothing that I could see. He said the back door was open and he just come in for a drink of water, but I didn’t buy that. I spoke to him pretty sharp and sent him off with a flea in his ear, I can tell you that.”
    â€œWhy did you say I knew about it? I didn’t.”
    â€œI told Miz Annabel the next day.” Distress caught at her voice. “Had to do something, didn’t I? She said she’d talk to you about it. Said you’d have to give him his notice. Didn’t she tell you?”
    â€œNo. No, she didn’t tell me.” He swung toward her. “Did Annabel tell you about it?”
    â€œI don’t think so. Not