The Diva Poaches a Bad Egg

Book 18: Domestic Diva Mystery

by Krista Davis

Genres: Mystery; Cozy Mystery

Synopsis

Northern Virginia’s own Martha Stewart returns in a brand-new mystery as an interior designer clashes with a killer . . .

Stylish brunches are all the rage this autumn in Old Town Alexandria, and everyone’s posting their parties on social media. But while Domestic Diva Sophie Winston juggles her event-filled calendar, she’s approached by local designer Mitzi Lawson—who is afraid someone is following her. The very next day Mitzi loses her best friend and business partner, Denise. The two were renovating a generations-old house where Denise died unexpectedly, and Mitzi fears that it wasn’t a medical condition to blame, but murder.

It could just be the shock talking, but Sophie agrees to help Mitzi involve the police. Then she receives a panicked phone call from Mitzi, and when she rushes to the old house, Mitzi is nowhere to be found. Now Sophie’s appetite for investigation is piqued even more than her appetite for eggs Benedict and mimosas.

Could Denise’s death be connected to her viper’s nest of in-laws or the house she was working on which her husband just inherited? What of the self-proclaimed etiquette expert with some improper secrets, or the scheming mistress? Or does the old house harbor secrets of its own? There’s a generous buffet of suspects to keep the Diva scrambling for an answer . . .
 
Includes delicious recipes and fabulous DIY decorating tips!
 

Release date: May 27, 2025

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

“Don’t look at me.”

The woman’s voice came from behind me. We were in the convention hall of an enormous Washington, DC, hotel. The hall had been turned into a gallery of home furnishings and clever household ideas for the House and Home Expo geared to interior designers and decorators. Pillows and fabrics in every imaginable color had me thinking about redecorating my home. At least updating things a little bit. I had seen a lot of local interior decorators whom I knew, but the last thing I expected was a spy-style covert communication. Did this woman have the wrong person? It took every ounce of determination I had not to turn around and face her.

Her voice was familiar to me. I picked up a rococo mirror and, pretending to admire it, aimed it behind me.

I should have known. Mitzi Lawson, a well-known interior designer, was doing her best to feign interest in a turquoise and yellow fabric. Mitzi and Denise Nofsinger owned one of the best interior design companies in Old Town Alexandria, where I lived, just across the Potomac River.

“Hi, Mitzi.”

“Shh!”

“Why the subterfuge?” I asked in a whisper.

“Meet me tomorrow morning at the Inger House at eleven. Come in through the alley and the back gate.”

“Mitzi, what’s going on?”

She didn’t respond. I raised the mirror again. “Mitzi?”

She was gone. I tried to act natural when I turned around. There was no sign of the woman with short curly brunette hair and big brown eyes. But on an order pad, someone had left a big checkmark.

Mitzi remained on my mind all day while I handled minor problems and made sure the convention went smoothly. It was ending that evening, which meant my involvement was coming to a rapid end. By six o’clock in the evening, vendors were hard at work packing up their exhibits. The convention participants began to wander through the hotel in evening attire as they headed for the cocktail reception before a gala dinner. At eleven o’clock, I swept through the convention display hall again. It was a bit of a mess, but the hotel cleaning crew was already on top of it. All that remained of the convention were the attendees, who would be checking out in the morning. After quick consultations with my client and the convention services manager of the hotel, I headed for home. It was nearly one in the morning when I drove across the Potomac River and into historic Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia, where the streets were lined with Federal-style houses built in the 1800s. Saturday night traffic slowed my progress. I was pleased when I could turn onto my blissfully quiet street.

My classic Ocicat, Mochie, met me at the door, mewing complaints about having been home alone. He was supposed to have exotic spots but had been born with bracelets on his legs and bull’s eyes on his sides. I swung him up into my arms and held him tight. “I missed you, too. Or are you just hungry?” Probably the latter, I thought. He might have missed Daisy, my hound mix, though. She had spent the week with my ex-husband.

In the kitchen, I pulled a can of kitty salmon out of a cabinet and served it to Mochie, who ate as if he hadn’t seen food in days. “Really, Mochie? I was here this morning.”

I collected the mail, browsed through boring advertisements, tossed them in the trash, and headed upstairs to bed.

SUNDAY

Not surprisingly, I slept late the next day. After a big convention, I tried to keep my calendar light so I could catch up on other things. After a relaxing shower, I pulled on stretch-every-which-way jeans, resenting that they felt snug on my waistline, and an oversize V-neck cotton sweater in burgundy. Not the sort of attire I usually wore for business. But I had a hunch that Mitzi hadn’t asked to meet me about a convention or major event. October had swung in a little cooler than usual and my only major plans for the day were to pick up Daisy and meet with Mitzi.

Mochie’s persistent mews let me know he thought he was starving again. I fed him first, then fried a couple of eggs sunny side up for my breakfast. I ate them with a slice of utterly delicious pumpkin bread loaded with just the right combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Good enough to offer to company if anyone dropped by. I cleaned up the kitchen and prepared to head over to the Inger House.

Mochie jumped up in the bay window, probably watching for Daisy to come home.

I grabbed my purse and said goodbye to Mochie, who lounged in the sunshine. I hurried out, pausing to lock the door behind me. The Inger House was only five blocks away. The sun had warmed the day, but a brisk cool wind blew. The beautiful golds and oranges of harvest mums and pumpkins decorated doors and stoops.

I wasn’t much of a runner, but I did my best to hurry at a half jog, half rapid walk. Mitzi evidently didn’t want anyone to see me entering the building. That was odd. I told myself there could be half a dozen reasons she might want me to come in through the back door. Maybe the front door wasn’t working properly. Maybe a construction change had blocked the front door. Maybe it had been painted recently and she didn’t want anyone touching it and marring the finish.

I was twenty minutes early when I reached the address Mitzi had given me. I sauntered to the end of the street and turned left in search of the alley behind the house. An old wisteria plant grew up a crumbling brick fence. Surprisingly, on the other side of the gate, the fence looked new. Had someone insisted on saving the plant and refused to tear out the old brick? An arch curved over the gate, which looked as if it had come from the Middle Ages. Vertical black planks were held together by horizontal black planks that had been bolted on with large square screw heads. The gate had been painted some time ago, but someone had stopped painting too soon and left the very bottom portion a dingy, worn gray. I pushed the gate open and dodged through an overgrown garden with red brick paths.

I knocked on the door on the side of the house.

No one answered.

Hoping that Mitzi had unlocked the door, I grasped the weathered doorknob and turned it. Something stopped the door from swinging inward. I peered through the glass window in the door.

Denise Nofsinger lay on the red brick floor of the kitchen. Her right hand stretched out as if she had fallen when she was reaching for the doorknob.

“Denise!” I called. She didn’t react.

I paused long enough to call 911. When I was certain an ambulance was on the way, I slipped the phone into my pocket. Kneeling, I reached inside and tried to move her so I wouldn’t injure her by pushing the door open. “Denise! Denise, can you hear me?”

She didn’t move, but I was able to gently open the door wide enough to wedge inside.

I kneeled beside her. “Denise?” I said softly. I placed two fingers on her wrist, but found no pulse. Oh no!

“Denise?” I gently moved her hair out of her face and tapped her cheek, but she still didn’t respond. I didn’t see any wounds on her skin or head. I gazed around the kitchen. There was no blood anywhere. Could she have had a heart attack or a stroke? Denise was young for that sort of thing, but sometimes it happened.

I rolled her over onto her back and cleared her mouth. I started CPR and chest compressions, muttering, “five compressions, three breaths,” the whole time.

I gazed around the small kitchen floor. Nothing had fallen on her.

Sirens wailed close by. I had to open the front door. Could someone have hit Denise? Pushed her and then she banged her head? Where was Mitzi? Injured in another room? Was the attacker still in the house? If so, wouldn’t the sound of the sirens spook him? Would he be in a rush to get out? After one last attempt at chest compressions, I stood up.

In haste, I plucked a cast-iron frying pan from a hook on the wall and ventured toward the front door. There was no door from the kitchen to the rest of the house, simply a doorway that led to an old-fashioned butler’s pantry. With upper and lower china cabinets on both sides, there was no place to hide. My phone rang. I ignored it and let it roll over to voice mail.

I could hear boots outside, and someone knocked on the door.

The butler’s pantry led to a formal dining room that appeared to be undergoing a refresh. A beautiful mahogany table gleamed, but there were no chairs. I hustled to the foyer and unlocked the door.

“She’s through there,” I blurted to the emergency medical responders. “I’ve been trying chest compressions, but I can’t revive her.”

They strode through the house, calm and steady. I guessed their hearts weren’t pounding like mine. My phone rang. Out of habit, I pulled it from my pocket. It was just my friend Natasha. I let it roll over to voice mail.

Happily, Wong walked in right behind them. I relaxed because Wong was one of the best cops I knew. Sharp and clever, she had the ability to see through a lot of baloney. We shared a fondness for food, especially of the cupcake variety. Her straining uniform was a testament to that. Unfortunately for Wong, she had married the wrong man by a mile. She’d been married to him when she joined the police force and continued to use the name Wong even though they’d divorced years ago. “Am I glad to see you!”

“What’s going on here?” she asked, following the EMTs. We watched them from the butler’s pantry.

“I was supposed to meet Mitzi Lawson, but when I arrived, I found Denise Nofsinger sprawled on the floor in the kitchen. I saw Mitzi yesterday. She was afraid of something or someone. I think Mitzi was working on this house with Denise.”

The EMTs asked me several questions, but I didn’t know Denise’s date of birth or medicines that she might be taking. “She’s married to Mike Nofsinger, if that helps.”

Wong and I returned to the foyer.

“Stay here,” she said. “I’m going to have a look around.”

The front door flew open, and Mitzi rushed inside. “Why is there an ambulance?”

Wong spoke calmly. “The paramedics are with Denise. Does she have any medical conditions?”

“Is she all right?”

“Mitzi!” said Wong. “Does she have any medical conditions? They need to know.”

“She’s diabetic.”

Wong relayed that information, and moments later, the EMTs walked through with Denise on a stretcher.

“Denise!” Mitzi ran toward them.

Wong spoke gently. “Mitzi, don’t block them. They need to rush her to the hospital.”

Mitzi backed away and shouted, “I’m coming, Denise! I’ll be right behind them.”

As they loaded Denise into the ambulance, Mitzi turned to Wong. “What happened? Was she attacked?”

“We don’t know.”

I told Mitzi that I had found Denise on the floor of the kitchen, but thought I should limit the part about not being able to revive her. After all, I wasn’t a medical professional.

“Was she bleeding?” asked Mitzi.

“I didn’t see any blood,” I said.

Mitzi scrounged in her purse. “Here’s the key to the back door. Lock up before you leave? I need to get to the hospital. Has anyone called her husband?”

“If you have his number, you should do that,” said Wong. “Right now. What is his number?” She pulled out a notepad and jotted Mike’s number on it.

Mitzi made the call. “Mike? Something has happened to Denise. She was found on the floor of your kitchen.” There was a silence. “I don’t know. No one knows. I’m on my way to the hospital. . . .” Mitzi left the house with the phone to her ear.

“I’m going to have a quick look around,” said Wong.

“Is that cop speak for you’re making sure the person who attacked Denise isn’t still in the house?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

I followed her into the massive living room. Just in case someone was still lurking in the house, I didn’t want to be alone.

“This must have been quite the home once.”

Wong was right. The rooms were unconventionally large for Old Town, with impressive crown moldings. But some of the furniture needed updating. Chair cushions sagged from decades of use. The almond wallpaper with a pattern of delicate blooms on it was actually back in vogue again, but had faded and now appeared shabby. Much of the furniture looked to be inlaid mahogany and would probably fetch a pretty price in an antiques store. In true Old Town style, the floors were old and creaked as we walked, but were probably a point of pride. With a little updating, it would be a showplace again.

“Who owns this house?” she asked.

“It’s commonly known as the old Inger House. I understand it has been in their family for generations. You probably know them as the Nofsingers. I think Helena Nofsinger and Jacky Finch were Ingers before they married.”

Wong kept going. We entered a sunroom that made me swoon. It was a conservatory of the sort often seen in grand British homes. Vertical green panels held glass from floor to ceiling in an art deco style. At the ceiling level, the glass and the motif continued up to a peak. A practical brick floor probably absorbed the heat from the sun during the day. Massive vines had been trained up the walls. Furniture was scarce and bleached from years of sun exposure.

“Can’t hide in here,” said Wong.

We exited through a different door into a family room with a formal fireplace. It looked to me like the sort of room where the family had gathered at the end of the day to relax together or watch television. Giant squarish brown leather chairs were weathered and softened from wear. A long camel-colored sofa showed dents where people had occupied it over the years. The artwork was mostly of hunting dogs and horses in gilded frames. Family mementos crowded the mantel in no particular order. It had been a much-loved room. In the far corner, one door led to a bedroom and another to the foyer. The bedroom probably hadn’t been used in years. The wallpaper featuring roses had faded, but must have been very beautiful in its day. All manner of clutter from newspapers to magazines and stacks of clothing had been loaded on top of the bed. Ancient luggage lay in piles on the floor. A large, elegant armoire stood against a wall close to a window.

Wong opened the armoire. “Hmmpf. Big enough to hide in.”

Luckily no one hid inside among the clothes on hangers.

Wong opened a closet door. To our surprise, it turned out to be a tiny bathroom that had probably been added in the fifties from the looks of the plumbing fixtures and pink tile. Inside the bathroom was another very narrow door, probably a closet for towels and such.

“That’s curious,” said Wong. “No wonder they needed the armoire. There’s no place to hang clothes.”

I followed her through the foyer and up the stairs. There were no less than five bedrooms. And every single one of them was clad in a different discolored wallpaper. A door at the end of the hall opened to stairs that led to the attic.

“At least it’s not summer. Attics get so hot,” said Wong.

I followed her to a veritable treasure trove. A sea of antiques spread from one end to the other. Tables, chairs, dolls, porcelain dogs, vases, trunks, lamps—it went on and on. There was so much that I forgot all about a possible intruder until Wong said, “Well, he’s clearly not here.”

We clambered down the stairs, closed the door, and walked down the main staircase to the foyer, which offered two more doors. One turned out to be a closet, and the other led downstairs to a basement.

Wong didn’t even pause before loping down the stairs. I, on the other hand, had seen enough movies to know that the upstairs door would slam shut behind us, imprisoning us in a nightmarish basement.

I waited for her. Wong didn’t spend much time there. She returned, looking just fine.

“Was it spooky?”

“Just a typical Old Town basement, except bigger. People try to make the best of them, but there’s not much you can do with low ceilings and old pipes running every which way. If anyone attacked Denise, he’s definitely gone. You didn’t happen to see anyone running out of the house, did you?”

“Do you really think I would have let you search the whole house if I had seen someone running from the scene of the crime?”

Wong nodded. “There could always be a second person. Why exactly were you meeting Mitzi here? You have to admit that the timing is odd.”

I hadn’t thought about it that way. “Are you suggesting that Mitzi wanted me to find Denise?”

Wong shot me a look. “It’s curious that she was running late to meet you. I have a bad feeling there’s more to this than you’re telling me.”

“Yesterday I saw Mitzi at the decorating event in DC and she was acting very odd. As if she didn’t want to be seen with me. She asked me to meet her here today. But when I arrived, I found Denise in the kitchen splayed out on the floor.”

“You don’t know why? Were they consulting with you on decorating?”

“No. I haven’t been in touch with either of them in a while.”

Wong frowned. “Let’s lock up.”

We returned to the kitchen. I picked up a few bits of paper that must have wrapped medical equipment. I found a basic plastic trash can under the sink and tossed them inside.

Wong waited for me in the dining room. “What an elegant home. I wouldn’t mind living here.”

“I hope they won’t be ditching all the furniture,” I said, admiring the mahogany table and china cabinet. As I gazed at them, I thought I saw a tiny bright yellow something under the china cabinet. I walked over and dropped to my knees to look underneath it. A pin lay on the floor. I picked it up and showed Wong. Letters formed the peak of a little triangle at the top. “Synergy,” I read aloud.

“Oh yeah. That’s the gym. Well, it was a gym, very popular with weight lifters, but I hear they have all kinds of health programs now. I’ve been meaning to get a massage there. I hear they’re pretty good.”

I left the pin on the dining table.

We locked the front door, left through the back door, and walked through the yard and the alley.

Wong kept the key. “I’ll take this over to the hospital and give it to Mitzi.”

We had reached the front of the house. “Are you going to question her?”

“You bet I am.” Wong waved and hustled down the street.

Would Mitzi try to pull some kind of con? Did Mitzi and Denise have a falling out? Were they splitting up their company? Could Mitzi have set me up? I looked forward to hearing what Wong would find out

I turned to look at the house. The three-story home was gorgeous. The kind of house people admired as they drove by, but few of us had the opportunity to live in. The brick had been painted beige and all the trim work was a pristine white. There was almost no garden at all in the front, but a matching brick wall extended to the right. A black iron gate permitted passersby a peek at the lush garden outside the sunroom.

It would be easy to hide in a house that large. I would check up on Mitzi tomorrow. She must have some clue what was going on with Denise. It was entirely possible that the house had nothing to do with whatever happened to Denise. Maybe someone had followed her inside because of some animus toward her. But she had locked the front door. I had to unlock it for the first responders. The conservatory! I bet it had a door. Someone had managed to get inside somehow.

I was still thinking about that as I turned toward my block. I groaned inwardly at the sight of Natasha at my front door checking the time on her watch.

“Sophie!” She waved at me. “Where have you been?”

It was a rhetorical question because she babbled on as I approached her and unlocked my front door.

“Don’t say no. You simply must do this. If not for yourself, then for me. Plus, you’ll have to talk Nina into it. I would have used members of my own family, but they’re all so di. . .