1 Catered to Death by Marlo Hollinger Page B

though Steve and I are in our fifties, we haven’t known too many people who have died. Our grandparents, of course, and Steve’s dad. But while those losses were hard, none of them were totally unexpected. Neither of us had certainly ever known anyone who wound up murdered. It seemed incomprehensible to me. Who could have done such a thing? Who could hate Frank Ubermann so much that they wanted to see him dead? It had to be one of the teacher’s. That was the only solution that made any sense.
    I warmed a croissant from the batch I’d baked Sunday afternoon and slathered it with butter and homemade strawberry jam to soothe my nerves. Comfort food at its finest and I needed it since this whole mess was making me a mess. Sipping my coffee after I finished the croissant, I mentally reviewed the teachers I had met on Friday. Really, it didn’t take a whole lot of stretching of my imagination to think that any one of them could have done it. The only person out of the entire staff who seemed even vaguely normal was the school’s receptionist, Ruth Sparrow, and even if Ruth appeared normal the woman had to be harboring at least a small grudge or two against the rest of the Eden Academy staff for treating her like an untouchable.
    True, Ruth said she didn’t mind not being included in things like luncheons and parties but I wasn’t totally sure if I believed her. Even with her sweet personality it had to be hard on her ego to be ignored all the time and I was willing to bet my last stick of butter-flavored Crisco that Ruth wasn’t paid very well either. Why would Ruth stay in such a thankless job?
    Then again, Ruth was around my age, possibly divorced or widowed, and finding another job once a person was over fifty was a lot like trying to find a parking spot at the Mall of America on Black Friday. Not going to happen. That was probably why Ruth put up with being dissed by the rest of the staff; she needed the job so she had to put up with their crap. Still, I didn’t think Ruth was a killer; she was too sweet and way too passive. Sweet and passive wouldn’t apply to any of the other people I’d met at Eden Academy, including Maxi, the loud bus driver. But Maxi hadn’t been in the building when Frank was shot so that cleared her.
    Sorting through the suspects, I decided that if I had to bet who might have killed Frank Ubermann, my money would most likely be on Jack Mulholland. It didn’t help that Jack looked so freaky with his shaved head, huge beard, creepy glasses and a wardrobe that was straight out of a remake of Easy Rider. I’m perfectly aware that it’s not fair to judge someone on how they dress but from the moment I met Jack there was something about the man that had made me uneasy. There was an air of distinct weirdness floating around Jack Mullholland that made connecting the dots between him and Frank Ubermann’s killer a pretty short and straight line. I wondered if the police had made that connection yet.
    Getting up, I reheated my coffee and then returned to the kitchen table, my mind mentally moving around the fateful luncheon table and finally resting on Frank and Claudine. Maybe Steve was right and their pre-lunch animosity was just a show so no one would suspect what was really going on between the two of them, although I wasn’t sure why either of them would care what I thought. Then again, if they were going to put on an act, it made sense to put it on for everyone, even the caterer.
    I made a mental note to find out if Claudine was married. Maybe her husband had snuck into the school and killed Frank out of jealousy. From what I’d witnessed on Friday, if Claudine did have a husband it looked to me as if he had every reason in the world to be jealous, or at the very least suspicious, of Frank Ubermann.
    Claudine had also been the most clearly upset after Frank’s body had been found but that might have been because she was the one who had found it, although Monica ran a close second. The