But the sight of him made me want to retch-because I had nearly collided with Keith Ingram.

7

Staring at Ingram, I was furious at myself for thinking he was charming when I’d met him several months ago. It had been only a passing thought on my part, but Eileen must have found him fascinating. While he was interviewing us about our fudge business, I was too intent on trying to give him good material for his column to notice her reaction to him. Even if I had been that observant, I couldn’t have guessed how corrupt he was.

When I looked at Keith Ingram now, the image that flashed into my mind was the ugly, concealed picture of the “real” Dorian Gray. And I remembered the warning from The Merchant of Venice: “All that glisters is not gold… gilded tombs do worms infold.”

The worm said, “Hello, Della Carmichael.” Ingram’s voice was as smooth as maple syrup. “I hear we’re going to be judges together.”

“Hello.” My tone was blandly polite.

If he noticed my lack of warmth, he gave no sign of it. Instead, he smiled like a lying politician, and extended his hand in greeting. I pretended that I didn’t see it.

I was fighting the powerful urge to grab the clipboard he had tucked under one arm and bash him over the head with it. But I restrained myself. During twenty years as a policeman’s wife I’d perfected the art of hiding my feelings when it was necessary. Although Mack must have known how afraid I was every time he left the house to go on duty, I never let him see my fear. It remained unspoken between us, but each time he came home, I greeted him as happily as though he’d been gone for a year.

Ingram’s lips were moving. I realized he was talking to me and tuned back in to hear him ask, “Have you met our fellow judge yet? Yvette Dupree?”

“No.”

In a tone of contempt, he said, “The so-called Global Gourmet.”

“So-called?”

“Perhaps I should have said self-styled.” Ingram inclined his head toward me and lowered his voice. “Don’t let her accent fool you. She’s about as French Moroccan as Colonel Sanders was. My guess is she does most of her traveling on the Google Express.”

“I like her books. When my husband and I went to Italy, we found every restaurant she recommended exactly as she’d described it, even in the smallest towns.”

“Have you traveled much in Europe? Other than Italy? Through Asia? Or South America? India?”

“No.”

Ingram shrugged. “Ah, well, that explains it.” He lost interest in me and began scanning faces in the lobby.

Before I could think of a riposte-it was one of those frustrating moments with a boor when you think of some brilliant squelch only much later-he said, “See you inside.”

I watched Ingram swagger off in the direction of a sudden flurry of photographers’ lights flashing and shutters clicking. Through the entrance strolled the subjects of their frantic interest: California ’s glamorous governor and his equally glamorous wife. I felt a wave of revulsion when the governor and his wife and Ingram greeted each other like old friends and posed together for the cameras, but then I gave the state’s First Couple the benefit of the doubt. Elected officials seldom knew everything about the people with whom they appeared in photos.

A short time later, equipped with my clipboard, a pen, and a packet of twenty judging cards each with a contestant’s name on it, I was in the main ballroom-called the Elysian Room-of the Olympia Grand Hotel. It had been decorated like Hollywood ’s version of a scene out of The Arabian Nights. The ceiling was tented with lengths of silk, anchored by and billowing out from a dozen sparkling crystal chandeliers. At least twenty-four artificial palm trees were spaced against the outside perimeter, their green fronds casting shadows that resembled bony fingers against the ballroom’s cream-colored walls.

There were no dinner tables in the Elysian Room this night because three-quarters of the space was filled with twenty working stoves, each manned by movie and TV celebrities in black tie or evening gowns. Members of the public who had paid five hundred dollars apiece for the privilege could wander throughout, watching stars cook and bake in the competition. Money collected for tickets would be donated to the Healthy Life Fund. The hundred-thousand-dollar prize for the best culinary creation would go to the winning star’s favorite charity.

Famous travel and food writer Yvette Dupree, author of a dozen Global Gourmet Goes to… books that covered the sights and cuisines of at least half the known world, came toward me through the crowd and introduced herself.

“You are Del-la,” she said. Her accent-a lilting mixture of French and something exotic-made my name sound almost like a dessert.

Yvette Dupree was a petite woman, and her great mane of tawny hair might have accounted for a quarter of her total weight. Heavily tanned, with the toned arms of the champion golfer that I’d read she had once been, she wore a strapless metallic gold mermaid dress so tight from torso to knees that she walked with the tiny steps that reminded me of a documentary I’d seen about Chinese women who had had their feet bound.

“I’m delighted to meet you,” I said.

“ ’Ow do you do, cherie. I mus’ tell you ’ow I enjoy your show.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind. Your book on Italy gave me a great experience of the country.”

“Ahhhh, Italia. Zee men… superb lovers… but”-she shook her head-“zay do not give grande jewels.”

Because she was wearing an impressive collection of large gems around her neck, encircling both wrists, and decorating several fingers, I guessed that none of these big-carat baubles were from Italian men.

“That’s useful to know,” I said.

Yvette peered at me through thick false eyelashes: first at my unadorned neck, then at my naked wrists, and finally my ringless fingers. She nodded to herself, as though she had come to some personal conclusion. “You do not need diamonds to wear,” she said. “Keep zem in your bank.”

That would be good advice, if I had any diamonds to put in a bank.

Moving to another subject, she said, “Do you know there are pas de-pardon, I mean no psychiatrists en Italia?”

I admitted that I hadn’t heard that, but I added that I thought the actress Audrey Hepburn had been married to an Italian who was a psychiatrist.

“No psychiatrists,” she insisted. “En Italia, when peoples have zee problem zee men go to zee mamas and womens go to zee priests. America, c’est merveilleux, but too many psychiatrists, all wanting to know about one’s sentimental life.”

I had no idea what to say to that, but a response wasn’t necessary because now her gaze had passed me and had focused on the sea of glamorous-and glamorized-people who thronged the ballroom.

“All zis for zee charity. Bon.” Twirling one perfectly manicured index finger in the direction of the cluster of stoves, she said, “We must be judging, oui?”

“Oui.” It was one of the few French words I knew.

“À bientôt.” She smiled and moved away on tiny little steps toward the first line of gas stoves.

I had only that one brief conversation with Yvette Dupree, but I liked her. She was a little gaudy, and had some odd opinions, but she seemed unpretentious, and she exuded warmth that made her pleasant to be around.

Surveying the ballroom, I saw Keith Ingram in the middle aisle, jotting something on his clipboard. With Yvette going along the far left row of celebrities, and Ingram in the middle path, I decided to begin my study of the activities along the right side of the room.

I’d reached my fourth stove when out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a familiar figure: a man who towered over most of the men around him. Because he’d been my husband’s partner and our friend, I’d seen those broad shoulders and that military-short hair at least a thousand times over the course of twenty-two years. Almost simultaneously, another moving body caught my attention: Shannon O’Hara, looking voluptuous in a sea foam green evening gown. Several yards behind her husband, Shannon ’s halo of red curls bounced as she tried to get through the crowd to catch up with him.