“And nothing heals you like Tammy’s hot dish,” Mom said, taking Jude’s now vacant seat. “That woman can cook.”
“I can’t believe she has time to bake what with her spreading gossip all over town.”
“She’s a woman of many talents,” Mom said, nodding.
“It’s too bad Tammy never worked a full-time job. She could’ve made a killing if she’d had her own hot dish show. Or even just a restaurant. People would line up for these cheesy potatoes.”
“She had a job before her kids were born,” Mom pointed out as she picked a piece of lint off her otherwise pristine pants.
“You mean when she sat at a desk in the Air Force?”
Mom’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. She didn’t sit at a desk.” Mom studied me. “She was an intelligence officer.”
“She… what now?” I blinked, sitting up a little straighter.
“Oh, yeah. She flew diplomats around and listened to their conversations. She knows at least four other languages. Russian, Arabic, Spanish, French…” Mom ticked them off on her well-manicured fingers. “In the early nineties, she flew Russian diplomats to Moscow, and because she was a cute blond thing, they just blabbered away, thinking she couldn’t possibly understand them, but she understood every word.”
“Tammy Anderson,” I repeated. “Tammy Anderson is fluent in Russian.”
“And Arabic. And several other languages. She was an army brat growing up and learned to speak all kinds of languages. She was also pretty good at computers, too, and hacking terrorist codes.”
None of this made sense. The hot-dish-making nosy busybody tradwife was a spy—a computer hacker spy?
“TammyAnderson. Our neighbor, Tammy Anderson.”
Mom nodded.
“It’s one of the reasons I’m so nice to her, honestly,” she said. “She had a bit too much to drink one night at knitting club and told me she killed a KGB agent one time. On a secret mission, but still.”
“She… what now?”
“She’s got some pretty intensive combat training, I guess. She didn’t mean to tell me about that. She says it was self-defense, but it was after everyone else at knitting club went home and she busted out a new bottle of homemade limoncello. And when she starts throwing back limoncello shots, the woman gets so chatty!”
“Wait… limoncello? That’s liquor made with lemons?” I could feel my stomach clench.
“You haven’t had any of Tammy’s homemade limoncello?” Mom seemed surprised. “She grows her own lemons. She’s got at least two lemon trees in her three-season room. She goes on and on about how she got the seedling from Italy when she and Ted went there a few years back. She won’t stop talking about them, honestly. It’s kind of annoying.”
“Are they Sorrento lemons?” I felt like my ears were ringing. Mom looked at me with surprise.
“Yes! How did you know?”
Because the Canceled Killer left Italian Sorrento lemons with the fresh branches and leaves on at the crime scenes. They didn’t have stickers from the grocery store because she grew them herself.
Tammy.
Freakin’.
Anderson.
She loved Barry the Chihuahua. See: all the victims of the Canceled Killer who abused dogs.
She hated childless, career women who never married. See: all the very dead childless female corporate executives.
She was a veteran pilot herself. See: the CEO she murdered who sold fake PTSD cures and the Eezee airline exec who skimped on safety checks.
Also, Russo said the perp he saw wore a life vest.
Or maybe that was just Tammy’s signature orange puffer vest.
