Roots of Murder by R. Jean Reid

did.
    â€œâ€˜Campaign manager’ is also a polite euphemism for chief cook and bottle washer,” Desiree interjected.
    â€œWe shall certainly have to set up a time for you to do a proper grilling,” Aaron said to Nell. He again shook her hand, lingering just a touch beyond the usual hearty shake of a politician, and then he and his sister left.
    Nell hung back, letting them get a good distance away before she headed out.
    The evidence of both her intellect and her instincts said he definitely had been flirting. It seemed important that Nell knew Desiree was his sister. That he knew more about her than their brief meetings suggested was probable. He claimed to have read the Crier, which meant he’d read her articles and editorials. It was an open secret she did most of the editorial writing and Thom’s job was to smooth whatever feathers might have been ruffled. Though Nell liked to think she lived an opaque life, just like most people, she also acknowledged that Pelican Bay was on the smaller side of ponds and the person who ran the local paper was, by default, a big fish.
    Nell considered her looks to be in the “no broken mirrors” range—pleasant, but nothing that would turn heads. Thom had insisted he’d watched her every time he saw her on campus and almost had an orgasm when they’d ended up in class together. She’d laughed off his flattery. After seventeen years of marriage, she still had laughed off his insistence she was good-looking . “Be real,” Nell would answer. “You married me for my brains, ambition, and bust size.”
    Vivien had been the beauty in the family. Maggie was the oldest daughter, the second mother who took care of them all; Vivien the cheerleader, the beauty queen; and Nell had been, simply, the last daughter, smart because that was all that was left her. She still remembered her mother’s voice: “You’ll never be the beauty your sister is, so you might as well study.”
    The stab in her heart was still bitter at the memory of graduation, giving her valedictorian speech, with only Maggie and Frank, the brother closest to her in age, sitting in the audience. The rest had chosen to cheer Vivien on as she competed for whatever cheap tiara she was going after, Miss Hog Jowls of Indiana. It wasn’t that Vivien was mean or demanded attention, but she seemed to live in a world that existed between her and the mirror and the stage. Their mother egged her on, as if Vivien’s beauty was the best reflection any of her children could give her.
    Nell glanced at her image in the window as she walked down the deserted hallway. Maybe I wasn’t bad looking at twenty-five , but at forty? All those years spent next to Vivien’s beauty had seeped into the mirror. The blurred image in the dusty school window was more blank than ugly. Filling in with memory, Nell saw a woman above average height at five-eight , her hair swept up in a chignon that was easy and quick. It was still the light chestnut color it always had been. Her mother called it dirty blond, as if blond was so clearly better than brown, even dirty was preferable. Her eyes were blue-gray , only the bare beginnings of laugh lines. She didn’t have Vivien’s jutting cheekbones or Maggie’s wide smile, but her face was regular with a strong chin and the hint of dimples. Maggie told her she needed those dimples otherwise her face was too serious, with the eyes, brow and forehead of someone who read books, and studied.
    Is this what Aaron Dupree found attractive? Then she hastily walked on. Even with her intellect and instincts saying that, if only for a brief flirt, yes, he did, she still found it unreal.
    She and Thom met on a class project. They were both getting their masters in journalism at Columbia. They found they worked well together. Thom claimed that he was smitten the first time she edited him, but Nell remembered a more measured courtship,