Murder at the Blue Plate Café (A Blue Plate Café Mystery) Read Free

have rich homeowners in the county, as well as tourists. We carry some novelty items, and visitors stroll in pretty often.”
    “And your mom?”
    “Mom’s okay. I don’t suppose she’ll ever get over losing Dad, but she keeps busy with the church, and she still gives piano lessons, not that many kids take them these days.” I knew Tom’s own children didn’t take lessons—there was no piano in the house.
    “Speaking of Canton,” Donna interrupted, “we’ll have to go there to talk to the lawyer and check the safety deposit box. I have a key, and my signature is on file.” She hesitated, “It made more sense than putting you on it since I’m closer. I’ve already called the lawyer’s office, and we’ll have to go to the funeral home. Reverend Baxter will be here at two-thirty tomorrow afternoon to discuss funeral arrangements. I thought maybe we could have it Wednesday.”
    Stunned, I was thinking she could have waited to consult me. She sure was in a hurry, which made me worry. Tom said brusquely, “Let’s have a peaceful dinner before we go into all that, can we? Kate, Donna, want wine?” He grabbed himself a beer out of the fridge, while I uttered a weak, “White, please.”
    “I’ll have the usual,” Donna said. Her usual was white Zinfandel, that sweet awful stuff. Tom knew me well enough that he had chardonnay on hand for me.
    We filled our plates with sliced ham, a corn casserole, scalloped potatoes, a spinach casserole, and a red fruit Jell-O salad with dark cherries in it and, as I discovered when I took a bite, some port wine. I passed on the creamy lime green molded salad—lime Jell-O with mayonnaise? But this was the food of my childhood, and I loved it.
    “Honestly,” Donna said, “you’d think these ladies could find some new dishes. Not that I’m not grateful, but….” Donna shook her head, and I wanted to ask if she’d suddenly become a gourmet cook. In fact, I did ask.
    “Are you a cook these days? I remember you never wanted anything to do with it.”
    She drew herself up haughtily. “If I’m going to run a B & B, I’ll have to know how to cook great breakfasts. And maybe eventually dinners.”
    I nearly choked on my food, and Tom groaned. “Donna, it could be years before it paid off. We’ve had this conversation before.”
    “Oh, fiddle,” she said turning away. “I’ll find a way to make it work.”
    I was a little slow to pick up on this conversation. “A B & B? In Wheeler?”
    “Of course,” Donna replied. “There are two successful ones already, and I want to get one up and running before there’s too much competition. It looks to me like a good way to make money and meet new people.”
    Tom watched her warily, the doubt in his mind absolutely clear on his face.
    “Don’t you agree, Tom?” Donna asked, all innocence.
    He sighed. “If it will make you happy, Donna.”
    I couldn’t imagine Tom’s backbone had gotten so soft that he was desperate to make Donna happy. And suddenly I saw why she was in such a yank about Gram’s will. Surely my sister wouldn’t have…. No, the thought was beyond belief. Still I was suddenly uncomfortable, and my remaining bites of food stuck in my throat.
    “So how’s Dallas?” Tom asked heartily in a desperate attempt to change the subject. “Who’s the newest man in your life?”
    Tom was as good-hearted as he could be but he sometimes blundered in where angels and fools knew better than to tread. Donna was always lecturing me on the need to settle down and marry. My biological time clock, she warned, was ticking. I couldn’t see that her life made a particularly positive statement about marriage and motherhood, but then what did I know. Tom loved her, no doubt about it. I just wished she could settle down and be happy with her life or find something she felt was fulfilling—hard to do in Wheeler. Maybe she could write romance novels—she read them all the time. Now I realized she thought a B & B was the way