A Corpse in the Soup by Morgan St James and Phyllice Bradner

after a few hours.”
    True to her word, Godiva was back to normal by the time she had consumed her third cup of black coffee. She was even cheerful and looking forward to the adventure.
    They completed the papers for a Lincoln Town Car at the San Francisco airport and headed north on Highway 101. As they approached San Rafael, Goldie saw a sign for Andy’s Antique Depot and insisted that Godiva pull off the highway. Much to her surprise, there was no protest.
    “Look, Goldie, we can eat first. I’m starved.”
    Godiva zipped down a side street and angled the car into the parking lot of Grandma’s Country Kitchen, an attractive little restaurant with bright green eaves and matching curtains. A huge Quonset-type building across the street sported the sign Goldie had seen from the freeway.
    The heavy china plates and mugs with a dark green stripe around the edge matched the eaves and curtains. Very ’50s. Over lunch the ladies worked out their game plan. A little snooping, a little shopping, a little time to unwind.
    Open-faced turkey sandwiches with all the fixings and apple crisp pie for dessert tasted as if Grandma, in her ruffled gingham apron, had been cooking for hours. On the way to the cash register, they peeked through the open kitchen door and discovered that ‘Grandma’ was actually a burly, bearded black man with a greasy apron wrapped around his ample belly.
    They ventured across the street to the Antique Depot and Goldie spent about two hours picking out far more than she had expected to find. She slapped sold labels on all of the items she had selected and then sweet-talked Andy into an additional twenty percent discount with free packing and crating. Stumbling across some real bargains this early in the trip took the pressure off. She agreed to end the day’s hunt and just enjoy the drive through Napa Valley. Godiva kept spotting wineries that might have offerings worthy of gracing her table as they cruised north in the comfortable car, passing through Novato and Haystack.
    After sampling vintages at several tasting rooms, Godiva eased back into the plush passenger seat and yawned. “I didn’t realize how wound up I was. There’s nothing like a leisurely drive through this beautiful wine country to calm a person down, but I’m glad you’re the one driving now. Have I been unbearable?”
    Rolling along at the posted legal speed limit as cars whizzed past her, Goldie chuckled. “I refuse to answer on the grounds that you might ask to take the wheel and you’re in no condition to do that.”
    “Well, you are just crawling along...”
    “What? I’m going sixty-five! Juneau drivers are so much more responsible than you Californians. Where’s the fire, anyway?”
    “Poor little country mouse!” Godiva patted her on the arm. “There’s a great big world out there. Of course you drive slower in Juneau. At sixty-five miles an hour, you would run out of road in forty-five minutes!” She leaned her head against the cushiony seat rest. “I’m gonna take a nap.”
     
    By the time they reached Petaluma, Godiva was snoring loudly. Instead of arriving in Cotati early in the afternoon as planned, they finally pulled up at the bed and breakfast about eight in the evening. Godiva seemed to be feeling no pain thanks to the multiple wine tastings along the way. She had spent more on cases of wine to be shipped home than Goldie spent on stock for her store. For a fleeting moment Goldie envied the way Godiva could throw away money like that without a second thought.
    Godiva wrinkled her nose at the dilapidated façade of the Oldtime Squeezebox Bed and Breakfast. “Jeez, this place is a real dump.”
    “Godiva, you’ve become a spoiled Beverly Hills dowager. This isn’t so bad. It’s...it’s quaint.”
    “All you antique dealers use words like ‘quaint’, and ‘collectable’, and ‘vintage’ when you really mean ‘old piece of junk’. This place is barely habitable.”
    “Come on.” Goldie