Let There Be Suspects Read Online Free Page B

sing elsewhere.
    Now I almost felt nostalgic for that chalk outline that had kept people away for so long. The house looked wonderful; the food was remarkable. My girls understood that this was an important event and we needed their full cooperation.
    But I could almost feel the house trembling under the weight of suppressed emotions. I just hoped it didn’t explode until the last parishioners were on their way home.
     
As it turns out, I’d been given a short respite before guests arrived. Bix Minard had been at our door. I found him in our kitchen, pawing through the refrigerator to see if anything remotely appealing had appeared.
    It’s a measure of how much Sid values Bix that despite Ginger’s arrival, she could still smile brightly at this new man in her life, a smile that didn’t even dent his ennui.
    I was sure Bix was starving. This morning our golden-haired guest had refused Vel’s freshly roasted Columbian coffee—he prefers Costa Rican—my vegetarian sausage—Bix does not eat “fake” meat—and Ed’s scrambled eggs. Our eggs, it seems, are not from genuine free-range hens. How he knows this without examining their teensy little chicken pedometers is the mystery of the day.
    “Nothing much has changed in there,” I told him. “But the table is overflowing. As soon as the party starts you can eat to your heart’s content.”
    He glanced at me with all the warmth of Frosty the Snowman. And now that I think about it, our boy Bix actually looks a bit like Frosty. Bix doesn’t have a carrot nose, but his does protrude noticeably. He may have been hot stuff on the lacrosse field at Princeton, but since his glory days, Bix has developed a Frosty-like paunch. Even his gray v-neck sweater, layered over a striped T-shirt and a crisply ironed dress shirt, can’t hide the bulge. Then there’s that GQ habit of carelessly flinging a long, dark scarf over his sports coats or jean jackets.
    “I’ll wait.” Bix closed the door with unnecessary force. I wondered if his patrician stomach growled in Latin, or maybe Shakespearean English. It was another mystery unsolved. At that precise second Ginger walked into the room. Most likely the growling was from Sid’s throat.
    “I’ve never seen a prettier spread,” Ginger said. “Agate, you have a knack for starting with modest ingredients and making something wonderful.”
    Ginger had been an annoyance in my childhood, not a thorn digging deeper and deeper into my flesh. I didn’t go for her throat. “Think of it as the loaves and the fishes,” I said.
    She frowned, or close enough to make her point. “I didn’t see any fish. There is a lot of bread, though. Cheap and filling. Always a good choice on a budget.”
    “Yes, and if I pick up enough cans on the street this year, maybe next Christmas we can afford butter to go with it.”
    “You were always so funny.” She didn’t crack a smile.
    Ginger turned to Sid. “And what a fabulous fruitcake. I have another recipe you might like to try. Of course the ingredients aren’t as easy to find, but I always say it’s worth a trip to a gourmet market for the best.”
    She held out her hand to Bix before Sid could choke out a reply. “I’m Ginger Grable. Sid and I were raised together.”
    I watched Bix visibly transform from a sulking, slouching pain in the neck. By the time he had finished, he was passably debonair.
    “Sid’s never mentioned you.” Bix held her hand just a little too long.
    “I guess screaming in my sleep doesn’t count.” Sid took Bix’s arm. “Bix, come help me tack up the mistletoe. I forgot to do it earlier.”
    I watched my sister drag Bix into the living room, then I turned to Ginger. This was my house after all, and we might never be alone again.
    “I’m all for you being here if you’ve come to make amends, Ginger. Or even if you’re just here to make Junie happy. That’s good enough for me. But make no mistake about it. I’m expecting you to act like the