1 Catered to Death Read Free Page A

was quite enjoyable. I’m a thoroughly domestic creature who loves to cook and entertain. I also like to clean and decorate so as a caterer I was getting to do everything I enjoyed and best of all I was going to get paid for it.
    “Man, you’ve already done a number in here.” Jack Mulholland returned with the rest of the containers from the van. “It looks great!”
      “Thank you. It does look nice, doesn’t it?”
    “I’ll say. As you might have noticed, keeping things nice and tidy isn’t too high on anyone’s priority list around here. I wish we could put you on the staff full-time.”
    Oh, yes. This was way better than working at the book store where compliments came about as often as blizzards in July. “Thanks again.”
    “What time are we eating?”
    “One o’clock.”
    Jack raised his arm and looked at a watch anchored to his wrist with an enormous leather band that was straight out of 1972. “Great. Just half an hour to go. I’m starving.” He turned to go but I stopped him with one more question before he got out the door.
    “Do you know where I could find Claudine? I should probably check in with her since she’s the one who hired me.”
    Jack gave a fake shudder from the doorway, a move that made his well padded midsection shimmy like a gigantic bowl of Jell-O. “Don’t say her name when I’m not wearing a string of garlic around my neck. I let you get away with it before but twice in ten minutes is too much for me.”
    I laughed a little uneasily. I assumed Jack was kidding but it was hard to tell. “Do you know where she is?”
    “Check the freezer. She’s probably taking a nap in the icemaker. If she’s not there, check the workroom in the basement. She might be sharpening her fangs with one of the files we keep down there.”
    I tried to smile. “You’re scaring me.” He was, too. Claudine had sounded frightening over the phone and the image Jack was painting of her was pretty close to what I’d pictured during our conversation.
    “And rightly so,” Jack replied. “That one’s got an icicle inside of her where her heart’s supposed to be––like the Grinch. Just pretend you like her so she pays you. She’s been known to hold a grudge if she senses that people aren’t giving her the homage she thinks is her due.” Chuckling to himself, Jack backed out of the room. “I’ll see you at one, pretty lady. Until we meet again.”
    Jack vanished, leaving me alone and unnerved. I hoped he was teasing about Claudine but he didn’t seem to be. Well, even if she was as scary as Count Dracula, it didn’t really matter to me. I had a job to do. I began to set the table. As I worked, I kept looking toward the doorway, expecting Claudine to come in and say hello at any moment. Claudine was most likely a very proper older woman who was used to having things done the way she wanted them done. That was also probably what irritated Jack Mulholland so much. The man practically had free spirit all but tattooed across his forehead. But as the clock continued to tick and Claudine didn’t appear, I began questioning myself. Had I showed up on the right day? Jack hadn’t known about the lunch. Maybe I’d gotten the time or the date wrong. And if I did, how on earth were Steve and I ever going to be able to finish two enormous seafood casseroles before they went bad?
    I refused to psyche myself out. Claudine had said Friday the eighth and that was today. I carefully folded the white damask napkins that had been a wedding present and put one at each place setting, glancing repeatedly toward the door but it remained empty. After I set the last napkin in place, I walked over to one of my coolers to get the herb butter so it would have time to soften up before the lunch. Everything was going perfectly except for the fact that no one seemed to know or care that I was at the school.
    “How’s it going?” a low voice suddenly asked from the doorway, making me jump a good six inches into the