Page 52 of Apple of My Eye
She followed me in back and declined coffee and donuts but accepted a bottle of water.
"Aunt Ruby, you do realize that the sheriff's office is not the mayor's personal police force, right?"
"She reports to me," she said smugly.
"Aunt Ruby!"
"All right, all right, don't get your panties in a bunch. Yes, I realize that. But that man deserves some kind of punishment for breaking Eleanor's heart."
I agreed but I wasn't about to tell her that, so I changed the subject. "Have you ever thought there was something fishy about Pastor Nash?"
"What?" She frowned. "Tess Callahan, you are not going to get out of going to church by making up stories about Caleb Nash."
"I wasn't—"
"I'll have someone bring you the swamp cabbage costume as soon as we get it dry-cleaned. It smelled rather like mildew and flatulence. I think Marvin had a digestive problem when he was human."
"What? I—"
"I wonder if vampires still fart? If they do, would it smell like blood?" She shuddered. "That would be disgusting."
"Aunt Ruby!"
She leaned over and kissed my cheek and then all but ran out the door. "Ask that nice Carlos, will you?"
"I amnotasking Carlos if vampires fart!"
"Love you, bye!"
And she was gone.
Suddenly, I was starting to feel nostalgic for Mayor Ratbottom.
13
The rest of my day was oddly quiet. Not many customers, no texts or calls asking for help spying, and no unexpected gifts showing up.
The thought of gifts made me realize that Jack had said he had a gift for me, but he'd never gotten around to giving it to me with all that had happened. Now I was kind of curious to know what it was.
Singing lessons, maybe?
I grinned at the thought. No, not even Jack would do that.
He'd been busy on his new case all day, according to the quick text he'd sent me around lunchtime, and I realized I missed having him around, but there was still no sign of him at closing time, so I locked up and headed home to get a quart of homemade chicken noodle soup out of my freezer to take to Mellie's. I was worried about her, and she hadn't answered my 'get better soon' text. According to some of my customers, this cold that was going around was miserable for a good week, but then they'd bounced back completely a day or so after the worst of it.
I'd been raised to believe nothing beat homemade chicken soup when it came to getting over a minor illness like a cold, and I doubted Vern got home from a hard day's work in the bakery and cooked soup. Maybe I was doing him an injustice. He might be a world-class chef, for all I knew.
When I got to Mellie's place, Vern answered the door looking surprised. "Tess? What are you doing here?"
I handed him the canvas tote that held the plastic quart container of soup. "I brought Mellie some soup. Well, for both of you. It's frozen; I didn't know when she'd feel like eating. But the reheating instructions are on a card in the front pocket of the tote."
His narrow face broke into a big smile. "Tess. That's really great of you. Do you want to come in? I mean, Mellie has mostly stayed upstairs, so the germs are probably up there…"
"No. I appreciate it, but I can't afford to get sick right now," I said apologetically. The poor guy probably needed some company who wasn't yelling donut orders at him. "I have my family coming over for pizza."
"Oh. Sure." Vern struggled to hide his disappointment, but he was like me: everything he felt showed up on his face.
"Look," I said impulsively. "Come over and have pizza and pie with us."
