Chopping Spree

Raves for

CHOPPING SPREE

“Davidson dishes up another hit.”—The Denver Post

“Lively… fun to read.”—Bookstreet USA

“Chef de cuisine of culinary crimes, Davidson is as fresh as a bunch of cilantro in Chopping Spree…. There’s no shortage of suspects, or of food, so fire up the oven and start reading.”—Rocky Mountain News

“[As] delectable as any other dished up by Davidson.”—The State, Columbia, SC

“Laugh your way through this fun-loving catering romp and make sure to keep it handy in the kitchen for all the recipes.”—The Star-Ledger, Newark, NJ

“Readers will have a hard time deciding what is better: the mouthwatering descriptions of various recipes or the fast-paced, compelling storyline. Diane Mott Davidson has once again constructed a clever and complex mystery starring a congenial heroine and her equally enjoyable friends.”—The Midwest Book Review

“Impressive.”—Winston-Salem Journal

“Another irresistibly tempting tale … This delightful read will leave you with a smile and a longing for a rich cup of chocolate (preferably Godiva) or better yet a freshly brewed espresso.”—Booknews from The Poisoned Pen

“Especially delicious.”—Commuter Week, NJ

More Five-Star Praise for the Nationally Bestselling Mysteries of Diane Mott Davidson

“A cross between Mary Higgins Clark and Betty Crocker.”—The Sun, Baltimore, MD

“Diane Mott Davidson’s culinary mysteries can be hazardous to your waistline.”—People

“The Julia Child of mystery writers.”—Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph

“Davidson has found the recipe for bestsellers.”—The Atlanta Constitution

“Mouthwatering.”—The Denver Post

“Delicious… sure to satisfy!”—Sue Grafton

“If devouring Diane Mott Davidson’s newest whodunit in a single sitting is any reliable indicator, then this was a delicious hit.”—Los Angeles Times

“You don’t have to be a cook or a mystery fan to love Diane Mott Davidson’s books. But if you’re either—or both—her tempting recipes and elaborate plots add up to a literary feast!”—The San Diego Union-Tribune

“Mixes recipes and mayhem to perfection.”—The Sunday Denver Post

“Davidson is one of the few authors who have been able to seamlessly stir in culinary scenes without losing the focus of the mystery…. [She] has made the culinary mystery more than just a passing phase.”—Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, FL

“Goldy and her collection of friends and family continue to mix up dandy mysteries and add tempting recipes to the readers’ cookbooks at the same time.”—The Dallas Morning News

Also by Diane Mott Davidson

Catering to Nobody

Dying for Chocolate

The Cereal Murders

The Last Suppers

Killer Pancake

The Main Corpse

The Grilling Season

Prime Cut

Tough Cookie

Sticks & Scones

To Julie Wallin Kaewert,

a black-belt shopper, brilliant writer, and invaluable friend

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to acknowledge the assistance of the following people: Jim, J.Z., and Joe Davidson; Jeff and Rosa Davidson; Kate Miciak, an insightful editor; Sandra Dijkstra, an enthusiastic agent with a superb staff; and Susan Corcoran and Sharon Propson, wonderful publicists.

For help with legal insights, I am indebted to Hal Warren, Assistant County Attorney, Adams County, Colorado, for answering questions about building procedures; and Natalie Frei, attorney-at-law, for insights into criminal law procedures.

In addition, I am thankful to Liz Hudd, biology teacher, Evergreen High School, Evergreen, Colorado, whose anatomy class performs the same tasks as the one described in this book (but Liz’s students behave much better); Katherine Goodwin Saideman and Shirley Carnahan, Ph.D., instructor in Humanities at the University of Colorado, for their close readings of the manuscript; Lee Karr and the group that assembled at her home, for support and advice; Julie Wallin Kaewert, Ann Wallin Harrington, Carol Devine Rusley, and Cheryl McGonigle, for more support and advice; Triena Harper, Chief Deputy Coroner, Jefferson County Coroner’s Office, Jefferson County, Colorado, for information on cadavers; Julie Brown, Office Manager, Elk Ridge Family Physicians; John William Schenk and Karen Schenk, JKS, for their freely shared culinary expertise; Nick LeMasters, General Manager, Cherry Creek Shopping Center, Denver, for insights into mall management; and as usual, for insights into law enforcement, Sergeant Richard Millsapps, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, Golden, Colorado. For insights into the psychology of compulsive buying, I am indebted to the book I Shop, Therefore I Am: Compulsive Buying and the Search for Self, edited by April Lane Benson, Ph.D., published by Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, New Jersey.

Finally, this book could not have been written without the knowledge and insights of my wonderful brother, William C. Mott, Jr., Vice President, Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs and Company, New York, New York. Bill’s training as an architect and his business expertise in the area of mall management were invaluable at every stage of the book. Along with all of my family, I am exceedingly grateful not only for him, but for the fact that he was safely evacuated from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, by the New York Police Department. Thank you.

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!—William Wordsworth,

“The World Is Too Much With Us”

PRINCESS WITHOUT THE PRICE TAG JEWELRY-LEASING EXTRAVAGANZA

Elite Shoppers’ Lounge - Westside Mall

Monday, April 11

6 to 8 in the evening

Hors d’Oeuvre Buffet

Crown of Cheeses: Brie, Gorgonzola, Gruyère, Sharp English Cheddar, Camembert

Herb Brioche, Crostini, Homemade Crackers and Corn Chips

Tiaras of Strawberries, Raspberries, Blueberries, and Star Fruit with Creamy Fruit Dressing

Empress Empanadas with Guacamole and Sour Cream

Sweethearts’ Swedish Meatballs in Burgundy Sauce

Golden Shrimp Rolls with Spicy Sauce

Diamond Lovers’ Hot Crab Dip

Shoppers’ Chocolate Truffles

Cocktails, Premium Wines and Beers

Coffee, Tea, Chai, and Espresso Drinks

CHAPTER 1

Success can kill you.

So my best friend had been telling me, anyway. Too much success is like arsenic in chocolate cake. Eat a slice a day, Marla announced with a sweep of her plump, bejeweled fingers, and you’ll get cancer. Gobble the whole cake? You’ll keel over and die on the spot.

These observations, made over the course of a snowy March, had not cheered me. Besides, I’d have thought that Marla, with her inherited wealth and passion for shopping, would applaud the upward leap of my catering business. But she said she was worried about me.

Frankly, I was worried about me, too.

In mid-March I’d invited Marla over to taste cookies. Despite a sudden but typical Colorado blizzard, she’d roared over to our small house off Aspen Meadow’s Main Street in her shiny new BMW four-wheel drive. Sitting in our commercial kitchen, she’d munched on ginger snaps and spice cookies, and harped on the fact that the newly fantic pace of my work had coincided with my fourteen-year-old son Arch’s increasingly rotten behavior. I knew Marla doted on Arch.

But in this, too, she was right.

Arch’s foray into athletics, begun that winter with snow-boarding and a stint on his school’s fencing team, had ended with a trophy, a sprained ankle, and an unprecedented burst of physical self-confidence. He’d been eager to plunge into spring sports. When he’d decided on lacrosse, I’d been happy for him. That changed when I attended the first game. Watching my son forcefully shove an opponent aside and steal the ball, I’d felt queasy. With Arch’s father—a rich doctor who’d had many violent episodes himself—now serving time for parole violation, all that slashing and hitting was more than I could take.

But even more worrisome than the sport itself, Marla and I agreed, were Arch’s new teammates: an unrepentant gang of spoiled, acquisitive brats. Unfortunately, Arch thought the lacrosse guys were beyond cool. He spent hours with them, claiming that he “forgot” to tell us where he was going after practice. We could have sent him an e-mail telling him to call, Arch protested, if he only had what all his pals had, to wit, Internet-access watches. Your own watch could have told you what time it was, I’d told him, when I picked him up from the country-club estate where the senior who was supposed to drive him home had left him off.

Arch ignored me. These new friends, he’d announced glumly, also had Global Positioning System calculators, Model Bezillion Palm pilots, and electric-acoustic guitars that cost eight hundred dollars—and up. These litanies were always accompanied with not-so-tactful reminders that his fifteenth birthday was right around the corner. He wanted everything on his list, he announced as he tucked a scroll of paper into my purse. After all, with all the parties I’d booked, I could finally afford to get him some really good stuff.

And no telling what’ll happen if I don’t get what I want, he’d added darkly. (Marla informed me that he’d already given her a list.) I’d shrugged as Arch clopped into the house ahead of me. I’d started stuffing sautéed chicken breasts with wild rice and spinach. The next day, Tom had picked up Arch at another friend’s house. When my son waltzed into the kitchen, I almost didn’t recognize him.

His head was shaved.

“They Bic’d me,” he declared, tossing a lime into the air and catching it in the net of his lacrosse stick.

“They bicked you?” I exclaimed incredulously.

“Bic, Mom. Like the razor.” He rubbed his bare scalp, then flipped the lime again. “And I would have been home on time, if you’d bought me the Palm, to remind me to tell the guy shaving my head that I had to go.”

I snagged the lime in midair. “Go start on your homework, buster. You got a C on the last anatomy test. And from now on, either Tom or I will pick you up right from practice.”

On his way out of the kitchen, he whacked his lacrosse stick on the floor. I called after him please not to do that. I got no reply. The next day, much to Arch’s sulking chagrin, Tom had picked him up directly from practice. If being athletic is what success at that school looks like, Tom told me, then maybe Arch should take up painting. I kept mum. The next day, I was ashamed to admit, I’d pulled out Arch’s birthday list and bought him the Palm pilot.

Call it working mom’s guilt, I’d thought, as I stuffed tiny cream puffs with shrimp salad. Still, I was not sorry I was making more money than ever before. I did not regret that Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right! had gone from booked to overbooked. Finally, I was giving those caterers in Denver, forty miles to the east, a run for their shrimp rolls. This was what I’d always wanted, right?

Take my best upcoming week, I’d explained to Marla as she moved on to test my cheesecake bars and raspberry brownies. The second week of April, I would make close to ten thousand dollars—a record. I’d booked an upscale cocktail party at Westside Mall, a wedding reception, and two big luncheons. Once I survived all that, Friday, April the fifteenth, was Arch’s birthday. By then, I’d finally have the cash to buy him something, as Arch himself had said, really good.

“Goldy, don’t do all that,” Marla warned as she downed one of my new Spice-of-Life Cookies. The buttery cookies featured large amounts of ginger, cinnamon, and freshly grated nutmeg, and were as comforting as anything from Grandma’s kitchen. “You’ll be too exhausted even to make a birthday cake. Listen to me, now. You need to decrease your bookings, hire some help, be stricter with Arch, and take care of yourself for a change. If you don’t, you’re going to die.”

Marla was always one for the insightful observation.

I didn’t listen. At least, not soon enough.

The time leading up to that lucrative week in April became even busier and more frenetic. Arch occasionally slipped away from practice before Tom, coming up from his investigative work at the sheriff’s department, could snag him. I was unable to remember the last time I’d had a decent night’s sleep. So I suppose it was inevitable that, at ten-twenty on the morning of April eleventh, I had what’s known in the shrink business as a crisis. At least, that’s what they’d called it years ago, during my pursuit of a singularly unhelpful degree in psychology.

I was inside our walk-in refrigerator when I blacked out. Just before hitting the walk-in’s cold floor, I grabbed a metal shelf. Plastic bags of tomatoes, scallions, celery, shallots, and gingerroot spewed in every direction, and my bottom thumped the floor. I thought, I don’t have time for this.

I struggled to get up, and belatedly realized this meltdown wasn’t that hard to figure out. I’d been up since five A.M. With one of the luncheon preps done, I was focusing on the mall cocktail party that evening. Or at least I had been focusing on it, before my eyes, legs, and back gave out.

I groaned and quickly gathered the plastic bags. My back ached. My mind threw out the realization that I still did not know where Arch had been for three hours the previous afternoon, when lacrosse practice had been canceled. Neither Tom nor I had been aware of the calendar change. Tom had finally collected Arch from a seedy section of Denver’s Colfax Avenue. So what had this about-to-turn-fifteen-year-old been up to this time? Arch had refused to say.

“Just do the catering,” I announced to the empty refrigerator. I replaced the plastic bags and asked the Almighty for perspective. Arch would get the third degree when he came down for breakfast. Meanwhile, I had work to do.

Before falling on my behind, I’d been working on a concoction I’d dubbed Shoppers’ Chocolate Truffles. These rich goodies featured a dense, smooth chocolate interior coated with more satiny chocolate. So what had I been looking for in the refrigerator? I had no idea. I stomped out and slammed the door.

I sagged against the counter and told myself the problem was fatigue. Or maybe my age—thirty-four—was kicking in. What would Marla say? She’d waggle a fork in my face and preach about the wages of success.

I brushed myself off and quick-stepped to the sink. As water gushed over my hands, I remembered I’d been searching for the scoops of ganache, that sinfully rich mélange of melted bittersweet chocolate, heavy cream, and liqueur that made up the heart of the truffles.

I dried my hands and resolved to concentrate on dark chocolate, not the darker side of success. After all, I had followed one of Marla’s suggestions: I had hired help. But I had not cut back on parties. I’d forgotten what taking care of myself even felt like. And I seemed incapable of being stricter with Arch.

I scanned the kitchen. The ganache balls, still wrapped, sat pristinely on the marble counter. Next to it, my double boiler steamed on the stovetop. OK, so I’d already taken them out. I’d simply forgotten.

I hustled over to my new kitchen computer and booted it up, intent on checking that evening’s assignment. Soon my new printer was spitting out lists of needed foodstuffs, floor plans, and scheduled setup. I may have lost my mind, but I’d picked it right up again.

“This is what happens when you give up caffeine!” I snarled at the ganache balls. Oops—that was twice I’d talked to myself in the last five minutes. Marla would not approve.

I tugged the plastic wrap off the globes of ganache and spooned up a sample to check the consistency. The smooth, intense dark chocolate sent a zing of pleasure up my back. I moved to the stovetop, stirred the luxurious pool of melting chocolate, and took a whiff of the intoxicatingly rich scent. I told myself—silently—that everything was going to be all right. The party-goers were going to love me.

The client for that night’s cocktail party was Barry Dean, an old friend who was now manager of Westside Mall, an upscale shopping center abutting the foothills west of Denver. I’d previously put on successful catered parties at Westside. Each time, the store owners had raved. But Barry Dean, who’d only been managing the mall for six months, had seemed worried about the party’s dessert offering. I’d promised him his high-end spenders, for whom the party was geared, would flip over the truffles.

Maybe I’d even get a big tip, I thought as I scraped down the sides of the double boiler. I could spend it on a new mattress. On it, I might eventually get some sleep.

I stopped and took three deep breaths. My system craved coffee. Of course, I hadn’t given up espresso entirely. I was just trying to cut back from nine shots a day to two. Too much caffeine was causing my sleeplessness, Marla had declared. Of course, since we’d both been married to the same doctor—consecutively, not concurrently—she and I were self-proclaimed experts on all physical ailments. (Med Wives 101, we called it.) So I’d actually heeded her advice. My plan had been to have one shot at eight in the morning (a distant memory), another at four in the afternoon (too far in the future). Now my resolve was melting faster than the dark chocolate.

I fired up the espresso machine and wondered how I’d gotten into such a mental and physical mess.

Innocently enough, my mind replied. Without warning, right after Valentine’s Day, my catering business had taken off. An influx of ultrawealthy folks to Denver and the mountain area west of the Mile High City had translated into massive construction of trophy homes, purchases of multiple upscale cars, and doubling of prices for just about everything. Most important from my viewpoint, the demand for big-ticket catered events had skyrocketed. From mid-February to the beginning of April, a normally slow season, my assignments had exploded. I’d thought I’d entered a zone, as they say in Boulder, of bliss.

I pulled a double shot of espresso, then took a sip and felt infinitely better.

I rolled the first silky scoop of ganache into a ball, and set it aside. What had I been thinking about? Ah, yes. Success.

I downed more coffee and set aside the porcelain bought-on-clearance cup, a remnant of my financial dark days. Those days had lasted a long time, a fact that Arch seemed to block out.

When I began divorce proceedings against the ultracute, ultravicious Doctor John Richard Korman, I’d been so determined that he would support our son well that I’d become an Official Nosy Person. Files, tax returns, credit card receipts, check stubs, bank deposits—I’d found and studied them all. My zealous curiosity had metamorphosed into a decent settlement. Wasn’t it Benjamin Franklin who’d said, God helps those who help themselves? Old Ben had been right.

I bathed the first dark ganache globe in chocolate. OK, I’d replaced marital bitterness with bittersweet chocolate and bitter orange marmalade, right? And my life had turned around. Two years ago, I’d married Tom Schulz. As unreal as my newly minted financial success might seem, I did not doubt the miracle of my relationship with Tom, whose work as a police investigator had actually brought us together in the first place. Tom was bighearted and open-armed toward both Arch and me. So far, Tom and I had passed the tests that had been flung our way, and emerged still together. In this day and age, I thought, such commitment was commendable.

And yet, I reflected as I placed the sumptuous truffle on a rack to dry, one of the reasons I’d been so happy about my sudden financial success was that I’d vowed never to depend on Tom’s income. My earnings were now on a par with Tom’s. After the money battles with The Jerk, financial independence was a phenomenon I’d sworn to attain and keep. Unfortunately, before marrying Tom, my profits had stayed in a zone between Can feed Arch and keep gas in van to Going down fast; write for law school catalogs.

I rolled ganache balls, bathed them in chocolate, and set them aside to dry. Scoop, bathe, set aside. Marla could grouse all she wanted; I savored my new success. I was even considering purchasing a new set of springform pans, since I’d already bought a new computer, printer, and copier, not to mention new tableware, flatware, and knives—a shining set of silver Henckels. I relished no longer renting plates, silverware, and linens! I laughed aloud when I finished the twentieth truffle, and made myself another espresso. The dark drink tasted divine. No wonder they called financial solvency liquidity.

I rewarded myself with a forkful of ganache, which sparked more fireworks of chocolate ecstasy. I did a little two-step and thanked the Almighty for chocolate, coffee, and business growth.

Roll, bathe, set aside. I was appreciative that I had scads of new clients. In hiring me, they offered testimonies from friends (Marla in particular), or claimed they’d caught the reruns of my short-lived PBS cooking show. Some even said they just had to hire this caterer they’d read about, the one who helped her husband solve the occasional murder case. Well, why they hired me didn’t matter. New clients were new clients, and glitzy parties paid the bills. It had been stupendous.

For a while.

Now I looked and felt like zabaglione, frothy after being beaten too hard. And I was unsure of what was going on with my son. I rolled, bathed, and set aside more truffles, all the while avoiding my reflection in the kitchen window. I knew what I’d see there: a haggard face with licorice-black bags under bloodshot eyes, not to mention a fretwork of worry-wrinkles. My freshly shampooed, too-busy-to-get-a-cut blond hair, which people had always likened to Shirley Temple’s corkscrew curls, now gave me the look of a soaked poodle.

You’re obsessing again, I scolded myself as I set the thirtieth truffle on the rack. You’ll just make things worse.

I focused on the ganache. As if to prove my truffles were indeed worthy of Westside’s best-heeled shoppers, I’d offered one from an earlier batch to handsome, brown-haired Barry Dean, who, years ago, had taken a psych class with me at the University of Colorado. Back then, he’d flirted with me, he’d given me notes when I missed a lecture, he’d taken me out in his Mercedes for coffee after class. I’d patted his basset hound, Honey, who lay in regal repose on a blanket in the backseat. Tucking into our cappuccinos, lattes, and espressos con panna, Barry and I prided ourselves on being the only two coffee connoisseurs on the Boulder campus. I’d enjoyed our outings immensely.

The previous week, I’d given him the chocolate during our second meeting in Westside’s new shoppers’ lounge. Quickly downing three truffles, Barry had vented his frustration over the chronic delays in Westside’s second remodeling in five years. His construction manager had quit in a huff and moved to Arizona; his volatile excavator promised one thing, then did another. Since I’d had my own remodeling disaster, I’d murmured sympathetically.

Barry had eaten six more truffles—the man was stressed out—as we hammered out the party details. He offered to drive me back to my van. On the way, he promised, as he downed his tenth truffle, he’d take me out for coffee. Just like the old days.

At the espresso drive-through known as The Westside Buzz, the barista had recognized Barry. A Denver newspaper had just named him The Mile High City’s Most Eligible Bachelor, and the barista went nuts. After she got over squealing, making change, and handing us our drinks, Barry had demonstrated the turbo on his new Saab (bought because someone had crashed into his Mercedes) to zoom away. At a red light, he’d shown me the car’s stereo, CD player, fan ventilation of perforated leather seats, and other bells and whistles. The man loved cars, no question about it. I’d laughed and asked if he wanted another truffle. He’d placed his drink into the retractable cup holder, mouthed a drumroll, and popped another truffle—his eleventh—into his mouth. To my delight, he’d opened his gorgeous brown eyes wide and yodeled as he soared into a state of chocolate euphoria. Upon recovering, he’d ordered sixty. He feigned amnesia and panted, Construction? What construction?

I smiled, remembering. I bathed the fortieth ganache ball in dark chocolate, set it on the rack, and gave it a stiff appraisal. I had to admit, it had amnesia potential.

I took a deep breath and ordered myself not to indulge in another taste until all sixty of the chocolates were made. Instead, I had to start planning Arch’s birthday.

At the moment, Arch was still asleep, as the Elk Park Prep teachers were meeting for an in-service. School that day didn’t start till noon, my son had announced the previous night, and could we spend the morning shopping? I’d said no, I had to work. And besides, where had he been the previous day? He’d sighed. Then he’d pushed his glasses up his nose so he could give me the full benefit of his pleading eyes, which seemed huge against the background of his shaved head. Had I started purchasing any items on his birthday list? he asked.

I swallowed. I’d only bought the Palm; I hadn’t had time for anything else. Arch had hoisted his bookbag and stalked out of the kitchen. I yelled after him that no matter how much money you had, it was never enough. He’d called back something unintelligible.

I rolled another ball of ganache and longed to stuff it into my mouth. Instead, I dipped it into the dark chocolate. Marla’s warnings haunted me. What, exactly, was enough? On our day of planning, Barry Dean had told me about the jewelry-event-cum-cocktail-party guests, members of Westside’s Elite Shoppers Club. The “Elites,” as Barry called them, spent a minimum of a thousand dollars a week at the mall. Membership in the group guaranteed special coupons, special sales, valet parking, and events like the jewelry-leasing extravaganza I was catering that night. One thing I had asked Barry: Where did the Elites put all the stuff they bought? He’d winked, done his endearing-bachelor shrug, and said usually they rented storage sheds.

Perhaps buying wasn’t the future of retail, Barry had added. Take jewelry leasing, for example, for which there was no need to store anything permanently. You, too, Goldy, for two thousand, four thousand, or six thousand bucks a month, could wear a different piece of ultraglam jewelry every thirty days. Twenty percent off the cost of the yearly lease for all mall employees! I’d laughed and told him that none of the pieces I’d glimpsed—diamond, emerald, ruby, and sapphire necklaces—matched a single one of my aprons.

My business line rang. I put down the truffle, wiped my fingers on my stained apron, and actually prayed that this was not another new client.

“Goldilocks’ Catering—”

“You’re working,” Marla accused.

“No, really, I was sleeping in. Then my best friend called and woke me up.”

“Yeah, sure.” She swallowed something. I guessed it was her latest version of hot chocolate, which consisted of hot cream, cocoa, and low-cal sweetener. Even though Marla had had a heart attack almost two years before, she’d had little luck losing weight on a low-fat, high-carb, low-protein diet. So now she was trying a some-fat, some-carb, high-protein diet. She claimed she’d lost six pounds and felt much better. When I’d asked what her cardiologist thought of the new regimen, she’d hung up on me. You had to be careful with Marla.

Now I said, “OK, I was trying to roll truffles, until my best friend called and forced me to smear chocolate all over my new apron.”

“Quit bellyaching.” She started munching on something, I didn’t want to imagine what. “Yesterday I gave Arch a package for you. It’s in your freezer. I want you to open it.” I sighed, thinking of all the work I had to do. “While I’m talking to you, if you don’t mind.”

I knew my life would be much easier if I just tucked the phone against my shoulder, wrenched open the freezer door of the walk-in, and did as bidden. So I did. After a moment of groping, I pulled a very cold brown paper bag from a shelf. The bag contained—oh, joy—a pint of Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream, hand-labeled “A,” and a brown bottle of time-release vitamins, marked “B.”

“OK, get a spoon and a glass of water,” Marla commanded when she heard the paper rustling. “Take a spoonful of A, then a capsule of B. Now.”

I again followed orders. The ice cream improved my mood, no question. But when I tried to swallow the vitamin, I choked.

“I can’t believe you’re doing the event tonight,” Marla cried, not heeding my wheezing gasps. “You’ll wreck my shopping experience, and everyone else’s. You think people want a caterer who looks half dead? Shoppers want to escape reality, Goldy. They want to feel rich. They want to feel young. They’ll take one look at you and say, Why should I shop? She’s gonna die and so am I.”

I finally swallowed the vitamin and croaked, “Are you done talking about me kicking the bucket? ’Cuz I’ve got truffles to coat.”

“No!” Marla wailed. “I need to bitch some more, and you’re the only one who’s home.”

I refired the espresso machine, tucked the phone against my ear, and resumed work on the truffles.

Marla went on, her husky voice laced with anger: “I was going to lease the double strand of diamonds for the first month. They’re perfect for the March of Dimes luncheon. But six thou a month? What’ll I have left to give the March of Dimes?” She paused to devour more food. One of the whole-grain muffins I’d made her? Unlikely. “Then I heard that Page Stockham, also an Elite Shopper, wanted the same necklace. So now I’m trying to decide between a ruby chain and an emerald set in three rows of diamonds, in case Page gets it first. Oh, Page Stockham just makes me so angry. And to think I asked her to go with me to tonight’s event.”

“To think,” I murmured sympathetically.

She ignored me. “Making matters even worse, Ellie McNeely wants the double pearl strand with the aquamarine, which I’ve had my eye on forever to go with a dinner I’m giving in May that I was hoping you’d cater, if you’re not dead. Wait a minute, there’s someone at the door.”

I mm-hmmed and continued dipping. Ellie McNeely, whom I’d done fund-raising with over a decade ago in the Episcopal Church Women, was an old friend from my rich-doctor’s-wife years, one of the few old friends who’d remained a pal in my postdivorce, service-industry years. Page Stockham was the wife of Shane Stockham, Arch’s lacrosse coach, and I knew her not at all. But the key fact from a caterer’s perspective was that Page, Ellie, and Marla all had money to burn.

Waiting for Marla to return to the phone, I kept on with the truffles. Six to go. Roll, bathe, set aside. What had I been thinking about? Oh, yes, money to burn. I wasn’t resentful, though, because moneyed folks were my best clients. And anyway, who was I to judge anyone else’s shopping?

My eyes traveled to the carved wooden cupboard hanging over our kitchen table. I truly did not want to look down on folks who engaged in retail therapy. The reason was that during my divorce from The Jerk, and despite near-dire financial straits, I’d been a shop-to-feel-better gal myself. On weekends when it was John Richard’s turn to have Arch, I’d visited every shopping center I could find. I’d strolled through perfume-scented air, by gorgeously stacked goods, past gaggle after gaggle of smiling, prosperous people. I’d loitered in front of brightly lit displays of embroidered baby clothes, rainbow-hued designer sheets, sleek copper pots and pans, even sugared, sparkling cinnamon rolls. I’d allowed myself to feel rich, even if my bank account said otherwise.

Come to think of it, maybe that was what Arch had been doing the previous day: shopping. Still, there weren’t any luxury shops on East Colfax.

I retucked the silent phone against my ear, rolled another truffle, but stopped again to ponder the cupboard shelves. On each of those long-ago shopping trips, I’d bought myself a little something from the “Drastically Reduced” tables. My white porcelain demitasse cup and saucer, a tiny crystal mouse, a miniature wooden car laden with painted wooden gifts—all these had made me uncommonly happy. At home, I’d placed my minuscule treasures on the old cupboard’s shelves. Without the stores’ strong overhead lights, the little crystal mouse had not looked quite so brilliant; the cheap china cup had lost its translucence. But I’d never cared. Each piece had been mine, something for me, a small token of an inner voice, too long silenced, saying, “I love you.” So who was I to judge Marla or her friends, Page Stockham and Ellie McNeely? They all wanted someone, even if it was themselves, to say, I really, really care about you! And to prove it, have this!

Marla came back to the phone and said Ellie had arrived, and she had to go. Before the event, she, Ellie, and Page, who was driving down separately with husband Shane, would be getting the mud soak, the coconut-milk bath, and the vegetable-and-fruit wrap at Westside Spa.

“I’ll watch for a moving luau.”

“I’ll catch you at the party,” Marla retorted, undaunted, and signed off.

I rolled the fifty-eighth truffle. Then, lowering the scoop of ganache into the melted chocolate and setting it aside to dry, I made another espresso. To the far west, just visible out our back windows, a bright mist cloaked the mountains of the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve. On the nearer hills, white-barked aspens nestled between dark expanses of fir, spruce, and pine. I peered at our thermometer. The red line was stubbornly stuck at twenty-nine degrees. So this is Springtime in the Rockies? newcomers always asked. This is it, I invariably replied. In June, you can take off your snow tires.

I slugged down what I vowed would be my last coffee. Once again, worry surfaced. Where had Arch been yesterday? The rumor was that the rookies on the lacrosse team had been told their initiation would not be complete until they shoplifted something worth more than fifty dollars. Thinking about that possibility, my heart plummeted.

I disciplined myself to roll the next-to-last truffle. It broke into two pieces when I dunked it in the dark chocolate. Oh, darn! Guess I’ll have to eat it, maybe with a fifth espresso! I pulled out the chocolate chunks swimming in the dark coating, placed them on the rack, then refilled the espresso doser. I rinsed the old porcelain demitasse cup and closed my eyes. Worry for Arch nagged at me. I balanced on one foot. I was so tired…. And then my much-loved cup slipped from my fingers. It shattered on the floor with a heartbreaking crash. Shards raced across the wood; bits of china smashed into the molding and sent reverberating tinkles throughout the kitchen.

My best shopping treasure was gone. Later, I tried not to think of it as an omen.

Spice-of-Life Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1½ teaspoons ground cloves

⅛ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

¼ cup solid vegetable shortening

¼ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

¼ cup molasses

¼ teaspoon very finely minced lemon zestPreheat the oven to 375°F. Butter 2 cookie sheets.Sift together the flour, soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. Set aside.In a large mixing bowl, cream the shortening, butter, and sugar until very light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Beat in the egg, molasses, and zest until well combined. Stir in the flour mixture until well combined, with no traces of flour visible.Using a 1 tablespoon scoop, measure the cookies onto the cookie sheets, keeping them 2 inches apart. Do not attempt to make more than one dozen per sheet. Bake the batches one at a time, just until the cookies have puffed and flattened and have a crinkly surface, 9 to 12 minutes per batch. Cool the cookies for 1 minute before removing to racks.Cool the cookies completely on racks.Makes 32 cookies

Shoppers’ Chocolate TrufflesGanache:

½ cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon Grand Marnier liqueur

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

11 ounces best-quality bittersweet chocolate, very finely chopped (recommended brand: Valrhona)

2 tablespoons (¼ stick) unsalted butter, softened

Cocoa powder for rolling (recommended brand: Hershey’s Premium European-Style)Coating:

6 ounces best-quality bittersweet chocolate (recommended brand: Godiva Dark)

1 to 2 tablespoons clarified butter or solid vegetable shorteningPour the cream into a heavy 1-quart or larger saucepan. Add the liqueur and vanilla and heat over medium to medium-high heat until the mixture reaches 190°F. Remove the mixture from the heat, add the chopped chocolate, and stir vigorously until the chocolate melts and the mixture is shiny. If all the chocolate does not melt, you can briefly return the pan to the burner over low heat, stirring constantly just until the chocolate melts, when the pan needs to be immediately removed from the heat. Scrape the ganache into a bowl and allow it to cool at room temperature. (Do not attempt to hasten the cooling in any way.) When the ganache reaches 90°F, beat in the butter. Allow the ganache to cool until it is firm.Using a 1 tablespoon ice-cream scoop, measure out the firm ganache into balls and place them on a cookie sheet lined with a silicone (Sil-Pat) sheet. Cover loosely with plastic wrap. Chill overnight in the refrigerator.Remove the chocolate from the refrigerator and dust your hands with cocoa powder. Roll each mound into a smooth ball, then place it back on the cookie sheet. When all the ganache mounds have been rolled, return the cookie sheet to the refrigerator.In a double boiler, melt the chocolate used for the coating with a tablespoon of the clarified butter or shortening. Whisk it well until thoroughly combined and melted. Line another cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Working one at a time, drop a chilled ball of ganache into the coating chocolate, roll it around gently with a fork until it is completely covered, then lift it out of the pan, scrape off the excess chocolate on the side of the pan, and place the truffle on the aluminum foil. Work in this way until all the truffles are coated. If the coating chocolate begins to seize and become recalcitrant, add a bit more clarified butter to it and stir and melt as before. Work until all the truffles are coated. Allow the coating to set up and cool on the truffles. (This usually takes over an hour.) Serve.Makes between 12 and 15 truffles

(The recipe can be doubled, if desired.)

CHAPTER 2

I swept up the mess and went back to work. I was cloaking the final ganache globe with chocolate when Tom and Arch banged into the kitchen. Arch was clutching his usual sixty-five pounds of books, electronic gadgets, and athletic equipment. Lots and lots of athletic equipment.

At the second lacrosse game, I’d watched in horror as a forward had come barreling down the field, bearing down on Arch. My formerly little, formerly passive son set himself into a tough-gladiator defensive stance. When Arch pushed his weight into the forward’s chest, the kid went flying. The team wildly applauded my son. I’d thought I was going to be ill.

The lacrosse players weren’t the only thing that upset me about Elk Park Prep. The majority of EPP students were rich, undisciplined, and self-centered. A minority wreaked true havoc. Unfortunately, most of this contingent’s bad behavior—throwing acid on kids in chem lab, drinking to the point of oblivion at football games, stealing liquor for house parties when parents were absent—went unpunished. I’d longed to call our local rag, the Mountain Journal, to report these incidents, after hearing about them at parties I catered. But Arch had made me swear not to.

I often worried about where all the misbehavior would lead. Unfortunately, the EPP teachers and administrators kissed the feet of the biggest donors. But besides the killer lacrosse and lack of consequences for big-time mischief, what bothered me most these days was EPP’s freewheeling curriculum. Take that anatomy class. On second thought, don’t. This week, I was driving a contingent of Arch’s classmates to Lutheran Hospital, where they would dissect… a cadaver.

I sighed. Get used to it, I always told myself. With the Furman County public school student-teacher ratio at fifty to one, and with Elk Park’s hefty tuition coming out of The Jerk’s hoard of cash, getting used to it was exactly what I needed to do.

I set the last truffle aside to dry and glanced at Tom. He looked dashing in a white shirt, gray pants, and my favorite wool sweater, a crewneck pullover the color of oatmeal. His brown hair was combed up at a jaunty angle, and his spicy aftershave wafted my way. I hurried over and kissed him on the cheek. He smooched my forehead and asked if I’d like more coffee. Dear Tom. He’d known my attempt to cut back on caffeine would be short-lived.

I said yes, then patted Arch on the shoulder, which was all the maternal affection he’d allow these days. My son—now surpassing me in height (not hard, since I’m five feet two inches)—slid away hastily and adjusted his new John Lennon-style wire-rimmed glasses. The previous month, I’d offered to buy him contacts. He’d replied that what he really wanted was laser surgery. He’d need eight thousand bucks, though, to get the great surgeon the Elk Park kids used.

I’d bought him new glasses.

Checking his reflection in the window, Arch ducked his chin to assess the new tobacco-brown fuzz on his scalp. He then checked his choker of shell bits, smoothed the oversized khakis and rumpled plaid shirt that were the school’s unofficial uniform, and frowned. Something was bothering him.

“Uh, Arch?” I ventured rashly. “Where were you yesterday afternoon?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Is that polite?” I asked.

“Is it polite to be nosy?”

I gave up. Tom offered me a cream-laced espresso. It was my sixth of the morning… amazing how these things add up. I slurped the fragrant drink—blissfully similar to hot coffee ice cream—and faced my next task: breakfast for Arch. Lacrosse players, I was always telling him, needed a large morning meal so they could build the strength to pound on each other.

I retrieved English muffins, eggs, butter, and jam, and tried to ignore the fact that Arch was guzzling an energy drink. When I’d said I was giving up caffeine, he’d advised me to switch to the bottled concoction known as Virtuous Vigor. I’d tried one swig, and choked.

“Tom? Arch? In ten minutes, I can give you a late breakfast or an early lunch… your choice.”

“No time, Mom,” Arch replied as he simultaneously tossed the energy drink bottle into the trash and snagged another one. “Ready to go, Tom?” When Tom replied that he was, Arch said, “Oops, I need to get my spare long stick.”

The long stick, I’d learned, is what the lacrosse defenseman uses to scoop up the ball—after he sends a forward into the air or onto the ground. As Arch galloped back up the stairs, I banged the eggs back onto the fridge shelf and slammed the door closed.

“He’ll be fine,” Tom murmured as he hugged me. “After I pick him up at practice, we’ll make your favorite beef stew, ready when you get home from the mall. Arch gets plenty of good nutrition. Frankly, in the health department, it’s you I worry about, Miss G.”

“I’m fine.”

“No,” my husband countered. “You’re not. You need to cut back, Goldy. You’re exhausted.”

“Would you like something to eat?”

He kissed me again, then stepped back. “When I get down to the sheriff’s department, they’ll have doughnuts waiting.” He smiled. “Just kidding. Listen. After I leave Arch off, why don’t you let me pick up some sandwiches… for you and Liz?” Liz Fury was the assistant I’d hired at Marla’s behest. Liz had been a godsend. Tom concluded, “I can be back in an hour. Interested?”

I shook my head as unexpected tears pricked my eyes. When you endure seven years of being belted around by a Jerk, kindness comes as a shock. Guess I was more tired than I thought.

“Thanks, but no,” I said hastily. “If Liz and I can get all our work done, we’ll grab a bite at the mall. Then—”

Arch banged back into the room. He was now toting the long stick in one hand, the second energy drink in the other. “Westside Mall?” he interrupted. I nodded; his eyes brightened. “Westside Music just put the fifteen-hundred-buck Epiphone on sale for seven hundred. It’s the exact guitar I need, Mom, and they only have one. And The Gadget Guy is having a mega sale, so everything is fifty percent—”

“Stop!” I said, too loudly. At least I didn’t scream, Seven hundred dollars!

“Westside Music has one guitar on sale, Mom. By tonight it’ll be gone.”

I swore I’d check it out, then gave each of them a wrapped truffle for a midafternoon snack. With an air of being put-upon, Arch tucked the truffle into his bookbag, pawed through his athletic carrier, and announced he was missing his Palm pilot and cell phone, and did I know where they were.

I did not. Arch banged back up the stairs, and I gave Tom a look. “My son has become a materialist.”

“It’s the age, Goldy.”

“But where was he yesterday? What if he ends up shoplifting like those other Elk Park Prep kids?”

“Goldy, come on. Only one of those kids we caught was from Elk Park Prep, and he was carrying goods from a pen store, a leather boutique, and Victoria’s Secret.” Tom slipped into his jacket. “Plus, your pal Barry Dean, whose stores buy more advertising than God, has installed a new state-of-the-art security system at Westside. He’s even threatened to bar certain kids from the mall.”

I shook my head. I thought of my broken cup shards in the trash, and shuddered.

Tom jangled his keys. With shaking hands, I picked up the foodstuffs list to begin my check-off. Finally, Arch slammed back into the kitchen. He slipped a handful of electronic accoutrements into his backpack, then yanked up the bag in a practiced motion. In so doing, his untucked shirt revealed the skin of his back. I gasped.

The bottom fourth of Arch’s back was inked with a tattoo of a lacrosse stick.

“Mother of God!” I exclaimed.

“What’s the matter?” Tom demanded, startled.

“I… he…” I croaked. “So that’s where you were yesterday, at a, at a, tattoo…” I couldn’t finish.

“Back off, Mom!” Arch yelled.

“I, I—”

“May I see it, Arch?” Tom interposed quietly. Eyeing me furiously, Arch faced me and lifted his shirt so Tom could inspect his back.

“Well, well,” said Tom. “A tattoo. Had any bleeding or swelling?”

“No.” Arch flipped down his shirt, tucked it in, and announced he’d forgotten one more thing upstairs: his anatomy class assignment.

I sank into a chair. “I’m losing my grip,” I moaned.

“Hate to tell you, Miss G., but that’s what you’re supposed to do with an almost-fifteen-year-old.” He stroked my cheek and kissed me again. “Just concentrate on the cooking. Julian’s helping you today?” he asked. “Along with Liz?”

I took two deep, yoga-style breaths. Liz Fury was good, but twenty-two-year-old Julian Teller, our one-time boarder and close family friend, was, in my opinion, the best young gourmet cook in Colorado. “They’re both helping,” I answered. Plus, I added mentally, Julian was close to Arch, and might have some ideas about dealing with adolescence. Maybe Julian had tattoos, too.

“You’re sure you’re going to be all right, Miss G.?”

I opened my eyes wide. I wasn’t sure of anything. “Tom, I’ll be fine. Julian’s leaving Boulder at one, meeting us at the mall at two.”

“OK, listen,” Arch interjected as he traipsed back into the kitchen and deftly nabbed a third energy drink. “Could you tell Julian I need a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting? For my birthday? You’ll probably be too busy to do anything, and Julian always makes me a terrific cake,” he added.

“Arch!”

“One Epiphone on sale, Mom. One.”

Tom winked at me and waved. The back door banged behind them. A moment later, Tom’s engine growled in the driveway. My heart ached. Was I a failure as a mother? If I bought the expensive guitar, would I be succumbing to acquisitiveness? If I didn’t buy it, would Arch get more tattoos?

Before I could answer these questions, however, there was a frenzied knocking at the front door. My peephole revealed Liz Fury.

“Where’s your husband going this time of day? Is everything OK?” Liz demanded.

I stepped out onto the porch. “He’s just taking Arch to school. Late start.”

“Oh.”

Liz, an early-forties single mom, was gifted with food and efficient at catering. With her tall, slender figure, attractive face set off by sapphire eyes and chopped silver-blond hair, she even looked the part. Or at least, she looked the way most people visualize an upscale caterer. She didn’t look chic just at that moment, though. In the cold April wind, her hair had all blown to one side. Her cheeks and nose were red, and she looked less like a hip caterer than a silver-haired doll with a punk haircut.

Tom and Arch zoomed away. Liz, clutching a bag, hastened past me toward the kitchen. Under her coat, it looked as if she was wearing dressier-than-usual clothes. Hmm. I’d seen Liz talking earnestly with Barry Dean while we did the lounge measurements. Maybe she was trying to impress the most eligible bachelor.

And maybe I was becoming too obsessed with other folks’ issues. I marched into the kitchen.

“What are we doing first?” Liz asked as her eyes swept the room. “Why were Tom and Arch in such a hurry?”

“Ah…I don’t know.” I truly did not know what Tom was doing today, but I’d finally learned a thing or two as a cop’s wife, among them: Regarding police work, keep your mouth shut. And anyway, I’d forgotten to ask what Tom’s plans were; I’d been sidetracked by Arch’s tattoo.

“I got that expensive Burgundy. You’re right, though, it will make a difference.” Liz banged bottles onto the counter, then hung up her coat and washed her hands. I complimented her on her outfit—shimmery white silk shirt, spotless black silk sweater, and wrinkled-silk gray pants—undoubtedly remnants of her high-flying days as a party planner and caterer for a high-flying corporation that had gone under. When her employer had declared bankruptcy, she’d tried to find work with other big-spending companies. But the new big guns in town had brought their own party planners. With no savings, Liz had ended up begging for food stamps. If I were in her position, I’d chat up single guys, too.

Without thinking, I asked, “Going somewhere after we finish tonight?”

“Well,” she replied with a smile as she tied her apron over her beautiful clothes, “maybe.” She lowered velvety lashes over her dark blue eyes. “Not that I’d ever tell my boss about my social life.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

A grin flitted across Liz’s heart-shaped mouth as she retrieved a wide frying pan and containers of reserved beef drippings and clarified butter. I packed up the first container of truffles while she whisked flour into the melted fat, set the heat to low, and pulled out the beef stock. As I covered layer after layer of chocolate, Liz slowly stirred the stock into the roux until it thickened. Leaving it to heat, she went back to the refrigerator and perused the contents.

“Goldy, what else do we have left to do?”

“Shrimp rolls. You can check the crab dip. I’ve got two pages of printout over there. Could you, ah, bring me the grilled shrimp?”

Liz brought out the vat of shrimp, then perused the printout. A moment later she dove back into the depths of the refrigerator.

She bumped around for a bit, then called, “What’d you do, work all night on the Stockham lunch?”

“Just trying to get ahead. We’ve got that party plus Barry’s lessee lunch the following day.”

Sweethearts’ Swedish Meatballs in Burgundy Sauce

⅔ cup cornflake crumbs

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 tablespoon dried minced onion

⅛ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1¼ teaspoons salt

Freshly ground black pepper

⅔ cup heavy cream

1 egg, well beaten

1 pound lean ground beef

¼ cup olive oil, divided, for sautéing the meatballs

Burgundy Sauce (recipe follows)Preheat the oven to 300°F.In a large bowl, mix the cornflake crumbs, cornstarch, onion, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. In another bowl, mix together the cream and egg. Pour this mixture over the crumb mixture and stir gently. Allow this mixture to sit until the liquid is absorbed.Gently mix in the ground beef until thoroughly combined. Using a 1 tablespoon (or slightly larger) ice-cream scoop, measure out the beef mixture into 36 scoops onto 2 plates covered with wax paper. Gently roll the scoops between your fingers to form balls. In a large frying pan, heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat until the oil shimmers. Carefully place the balls into the hot oil and sauté, turning once, until the outside is browned. (Do not cook the meatballs all the way through; they will be finished in the oven.) Using tongs, place the browned meatballs onto a rimmed, buttered baking sheet, or better yet, a baking sheet that has been lined with a silicone (Sil-Pat) sheet. (Do not discard the drippings in the pan.)Place the meatballs in the oven while you make the sauce. (If the sauce is to be prepared later, bake the meatballs for about 10 minutes, or until just cooked through and no longer pink. Cool them and place them in a container that can be covered.)After 10 minutes, test the doneness of the meatballs by slicing one in half. The interior should no longer be pink. Do not overbake the meatballs. Remove the meatballs from the oven as soon as they are done and set them aside until you are ready to reheat them in the reserved sauce. (Do not heat the meatballs in the sauce until you are ready to serve the dish. The meatballs are delicate and will fall apart if cooked too long in the sauce.)Burgundy Sauce:

¼ cup melted fat (strained pan drippings plus enough melted unsalted butter to make ¼ cup)

¼ cup all-purpose flour

1½ teaspoons sugar, or to taste

Freshly ground black pepper

2 cups homemade beef stock or 1 tablespoon beef bouillon powder dissolved in 2 cups hot water

1 cup high-quality Burgundy wineStrain the fat from the pan (reserve the browned bits) into a glass measuring cup. Add melted unsalted butter to make ¼ cup.Keeping the heat low, return the fat to the pan and whisk in the flour. Keeping the heat between low and medium-low, whisk and cook this mixture until it bubbles. (This should not take more than a couple of minutes.) Whisk in the sugar and pepper, then slowly add the stock, whisking continuously to avoid lumps. Finally, whisk in the wine.Allow the mixture to come to a slow simmer and cook for about 5 minutes. Taste and correct the seasoning. If the sauce tastes bitter, add a bit more sugar and allow the sauce to simmer another 10 minutes. If the dish is not to be served immediately, cool the sauce and chill, covered, until ready to heat and serve.Just before serving, lower the meatballs into the hot sauce and bring the mixture to a simmer. Taste a meatball with sauce to be sure the dish is heated all the way through. If the dish is to be served as an appetizer, provide small bowls or dishes and spoons. If the dish is to be served as a main course, serve over hot egg noodles.Makes 36 meatballs in sauceVariation:You may use crème fraîche instead of heavy cream in the meatball recipe. ème fraîche must be prepared 2 days ahead.Crème Fraîche:

¼ cup active-culture buttermilk (do not use buttermilk powder)

2 cups heavy creamUsing a glass container, mix the buttermilk into the cream, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to sit at room temperature until the mixture is the thickness of commercial sour cream, usually about 2 days. It can be refrigerated, covered, for up to 3 days. Since the recipe only calls for ⅔ cup, the rest of the crème fraîche can be used for dips and sauces.

Diamond Lovers’ Hot Crab Dip

2 shallots, peeled and finely chopped

6 tablespoons (¾ stick) unsalted butter, divided

5 canned artichoke bottoms, drained, patted dry, and trimmed to remove any hard, rough spots

24 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

⅓ cup crème fraîche or commercial sour cream

1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

1 pound pasteurized crab, flaked and picked over to remove any stray bits of cartilage

2 cups fresh bread crumbs, preferably made from homemade bread (brioche is best)

½ cup finely chopped fresh parsley

Corn chips and crackersPreheat the oven to 350°F. Butter an attractive 2-quart au gratin dish, preferably a dark-colored one. Set aside.Place the shallots in a miniature food processor and blend until juicy, less than a minute. Over medium-low heat, melt 1 tablespoon butter, add the shallots, and sauté just until the shallots begin to turn golden brown. Remove from the heat and set aside.Chop the artichoke bottoms into ½-inch dice. Set aside until you are ready to assemble the dip.In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese until very smooth. Add the mustard, crème fraîche, and cheese and beat on low speed just until combined. Stir in the crab, shallots, and artichoke bottoms until well combined. Turn the crab mixture into the prepared au gratin dish.In a medium-sized sauté pan, melt the remaining 5 tablespoons butter and stir in the bread crumbs. Cook and stir just until the butter is absorbed and the crumbs are beginning to turn golden. Remove from the heat, stir in the chopped parsley, and distribute this mixture over the top of the crab dip.Place the dip in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes, until the topping is golden brown and a small spoonful of dip scooped up from the center tastes very hot. Serve immediately with a choice of chips and crackers.Makes 24 or more servings

“What else are we doing for Shane? Calculators from sardines? Whole mushrooms in the shape of digital cameras?”

“Just finish the meatballs, would you, Liz?”

She emerged with the metal container that held our meticulously rolled and browned mixture of lean ground beef, heavy cream, freshly grated nutmeg, and other goodies. While she stirred the high-priced Burgundy into the meatball sauce, I arranged fat shrimp, thin noodles, fragrant chopped cilantro, and shredded carrot, broccolini, and black mushrooms into the shrimp rolls. Before we started on our last dishes—the crab dip and cheese trays—we treated ourselves to eight leftover shrimp and the last four leftover truffles. It wasn’t a meal Elk Park Prep would highlight in their nutrition class. But so what? We were caterers.

An hour later, we entered the last stage of prep: cleaning our pots, pans, and tools, going over our checklists, and packing up our vehicles. When Liz still had her corporate job, her last financial gasp had been to buy—on credit—a silver Toyota van. It was a great car, and roomy, and Liz and I were halfway through packing it when a battered green Subaru screeched to a halt outside the house.

“What the—” I exclaimed.

“Oh, darn it,” muttered Liz. She shot me a baleful glance. “It’s my kids.”

A boy of perhaps seventeen, dark-haired and gangly, jumped out of the passenger side while a smartly dressed, beautifully bobbed young woman of about twenty extracted herself from the driver side and slammed her door shut.

“Mom!” shrieked the girl, whom I took to be Kim, Liz’s super-bright daughter, an honor student at C.U. “I have to have the van to get back to Boulder! Or the Subaru! You can’t let Teddy take a car to school today! Come on, Mom!”

“Kim,” Liz began, “I thought you were getting a ride—”

Kim’s dark hair bounced pertly as she strode up the driveway. “Mom!” she cried again. “You know perfectly well I can’t get all my stuff into a friend’s car! Why do you always side with Teddy? He’s a terrible driver, anyway. And he’s in trouble. You said so yourself. He shouldn’t be going shopping after school, when I need to get back.”

“Kim,” Liz tried again, her voice low, “please stop shouting in front of Goldy’s neighbors.”

“Mom!” Teddy pleaded, his shoulders slumped, his face screwed into a look of anxiety. Teddy, I knew, was something of a screwup, although I was not aware of the details. “I don’t have a ride to school today, and I’ve got stuff to do later, and I’m really, really late as it is—”

“Teddy, you’re not supposed to—”

“Please let me have the Subaru,” Teddy begged, “because I know it needs an oil change. Give Kim the van, let me have the Subaru until tonight. I’ll get the oil changed, then pick you up at the mall. What time will you be finished? I can meet you at the—”

“Mom!” Kim was livid. “Why are you listening to him and not listening to me? I need the van! Now!”

Liz’s blue eyes shot me a look of such hopelessness that my heart twisted in my chest. “Is there any way we can get everything into your van?” Liz beseeched me.

“Of course!” I said without hesitation. “Besides, I’d love your company.”

She blushed, then asked if she and her kids could move the stuff over, so I wouldn’t be bothered. I took this as a signal that she couldn’t stand being embarrassed another moment. I nodded and mumbled that I had work to do inside.

Poor Liz, I thought, as I packed up the last boxes in the kitchen. She’d had her kids early, then been deserted by her husband. After the corporate job crashed and burned, she’d been left without resources. I’d kill to get this job with you, she’d told me two weeks ago, as her long, slender hands had offered me a foil cup of her signature Grand Marnier crème brûlée. I’d taken only one bite and informed her that she was hired! She’d managed to balance her schedule, money, and offspring problems—until today.

But we worked things out. Kim took the van; Teddy roared away triumphantly in the Subaru. An hour later, crisis over, Liz and I were on our way.

My van zipped up Aspen Meadow’s Main Street and around the curve of the lake, where ruffled dark water skirted a membrane of ice. April in the high country brings freezing temperatures, lots of snow, and only an occasional glimpse of the warmth to come. Chugging toward the interstate, we passed snowy meadows pocked with dun-colored grass. Stands of white-barked aspen looked as if they were wrapped in green mist, the first sign of emerging lime-colored leaves.

Driving by Flicker Ridge, I was forced to slow by the entries to two new upscale housing developments. Trucks, tractors, and front-end loaders rumbled across denuded meadows, where a sign now screamed that there were ONLY 3 SITES LEFT!, next to a handpainted offer, Topsoil $70/load, which lay beside a large, beautifully lettered sign announcing the presence of Ace Custom Construction. Trucks labeled Ace and We Got Dirt hauled loads of soil in and out of a fenced-off area. Melting snow still chilled the air, but the building of the new crop of trophy homes, each set on a mere quarter of an acre, was clearly well under way. I turned up the van’s heat.

As we descended to the Mile High City, the air turned soft and warm. At my request, Liz cracked a window. Our winter in Aspen Meadow began in October and ended in May, two months longer than Denver and environs. By the time we arrived at the turnoff for Westside Mall, forty miles east of home, we had emerged into a gentle spring.

Not that arriving at the shopping center gave you a prospect of flowers, shrubs, or leafy trees. If anything, the mall’s grand new stone entrance, flanked with sloping hillocks of dirt, gave the place the look of a military outpost. Barry had told me the mall landscaping had been postponed because of the construction delays.

As I slowed to make the turn onto Doughnut Drive, the road that encircled the mall, I remembered something else Barry had told me: We’re giving shoppers entertainment and discounts these days, to make up for the mess. Tonight’s Red Tag Shoe Sale at Prince & Grogan was the discount magnet. The catered jewelry-leasing party was the entertainment. The mess was just the mess.

I slowed the van and glanced in the direction of the construction, where a line of workers were putting in a winding sidewalk that would soon be dotted with inviting benches, restaurants, boutiques, and coffee kiosks. All this, Barry had told me, was more entertainment. Shoppers want picturesque spots to sit, watch the folks go by, and eat food samples, he’d said. Shoppers don’t live in a storybook village. But they want to pretend they do.

And, he’d added, they were under severe pressure from the mall owner, Pennybaker International, to get the new village done. Malls Are Getting Mauled was the message from industry insiders. Suburban folks with money in their pockets were tired of concrete parking lots leading to blank walls enclosing identical sets of stores. They wanted to see and be seen as they strolled past trees, bushes, and sculptures. They wanted to go to the bank, the dry cleaner, and the bookstore, and then have lunch at an Italian restaurant overlooking a fountain. This was exactly what all the mall owners and execs, including Barry, were trying to offer. And at some point, all those shoppers would also need to purchase dresses, cosmetics, pots, pans, and shoes, which they could do inside the mall itself, a mere fifty steps away. The best way to promote Westside, Barry had told me, was to tack a fairy-tale village onto its back end.

At least Barry wasn’t bringing in Snow White and the Dwarfs, I reflected, as my van chugged along Doughnut Drive. The new road was perfectly named. A twelve-foot-high berm of unlandscaped soil circled the outer perimeter. At the eight-foot chain-link fence surrounding the construction area, I slowed again, then stopped at the gate. Barry was not there to meet us. Liz gave me a questioning look.

Beyond the fence, acres of flattened dirt—what would eventually become the mall’s new parking lot—sloped down to the roped-off area. There, a worker wearing a bright orange hard hat chugged around in a front-end loader, moving rocks from one enormous pile to another. The rest of the crew, clad in yellow hard hats, were clustered next to a hot dog vendor by the construction company trailer.

My eyes swept left and I barely escaped cursing aloud. The restyled back entrance to the mall—the one that led up to the Elite Shoppers’ Lounge—was surrounded by a lake of muddy drainage water. At the edge of this brown pond, an imposing line of enormous dump trucks obscured any view to that rear entry. Worse, the water came up to the trucks’ wheel wells. How were we supposed to transport boxes into the mall? By boat?

As if he’d heard my worries, the man driving the loader halted abruptly and hopped onto the rocks. This had to be Victor Wilson, the excavator Barry had mentioned, who’d been promoted recently to be the new construction manager. Victor was short and chunky, with a reddish brown ponytail sticking out from his orange hard hat. He shouted in the direction of the crew, who responded by tossing their trash and slowly moving back to the equipment on the sidewalk. I was impressed. After all the delays, it looked as if Victor was really cracking the whip.

“How are we going to unpack?” Liz asked me. “Where’s Barry? Where’s Julian?”

I scanned the drainage lake and spied a narrow wooden walkway spanning the water, curving around the row of trucks. Maybe we wouldn’t have to don hip boots, after all.

I pointed. “See that plankway in front of the trucks? If you can open the gate to the construction area, I’ll drive us as close as possible. With any luck, Julian will see the van.”

“Why did Barry even say he’d meet us at the gate?” Liz asked. “That’s not normal, is it? For a mall manager to help the catering team?”

“He’s an old friend.” I thought again of the flirtatious way she and Barry had seemed to be acting when we’d done our measuring. Then again, I’d learned in college that Barry was a seductive kind of guy. “Anyway, Liz,” I added mischievously, “maybe Barry wanted to see you.”

“Did Barry…?” Flustered, she ran her fingers through her silver-blond hair. “Did he mention my name? The fact that I was… helping you?”

“Liz, stop worrying. Everything will be fine. Just get the gate, OK?”

She hopped out, swung open the construction gate, and waved me through. Once the gate was shut and she was back inside, we bumped over deep ruts to get as close as possible to the big puddle. We ended up parking fifty yards from the wooden walkway. I still couldn’t get a good view of the mall’s rear entrance. Were the trucks parked flush against the shopping center wall? Hopefully, some kind of dike had been erected behind them, providing walking space that led to the mall’s entrance.

If Julian and Barry didn’t show up to help, and Liz and I had to skirt the truck-and-water mess to get to the lounge, we were going to have a devil of a time. I mentally calculated an hour and a half to haul everything in, another ninety minutes to set up and decorate the tables, another forty-five to do the last-minute prep on the food and set out the platters. Since my watch now said two o’clock, that schedule would put us right up against six o’clock—party time.

Liz and I heaved up the first boxes. We decided to trek down around the ruts to a foot-wide dirt path that seemed to run along the edge of the lake. The crow may fly as he may, but a smooth, longer way to the wooden plankway had to be better than negotiating hard waves of dirt. As we trod carefully on the springy plank boards, I spotted a foot-high wooden wall behind the trucks. So there was a seawall, thank goodness. Beyond it, a cement sidewalk looked dry enough for us to make it to the just-completed glass doors of the entrance. Despite the fact that I was lugging two boxes, I felt relief. Then Liz let out a little gasp.

Barry Dean had pushed through the glass doors and was striding along the sidewalk. Liz and I stepped off the end of the plankway spanning the drainage lake and started up the sidewalk toward him. Clad in a bright green sport shirt, khaki pants, and loafers, Barry acknowledged us with a hearty wave. Tripping along behind him was a young woman wearing a black halter top, white short-shorts, and chartreuse-green platform sandals. The woman was slender-hipped and big-busted. About thirty platinum ponytails stuck out from her head. She looked like a blond plant that had sprouted.

The young woman laid her hand on Barry’s arm to slow him. When he turned to face her, she did a little wiggle. Showing off her outfit? Demonstrating how all the pony-tails could jiggle at once? I groaned, shifted my load, and turned to check on Liz. She had stopped dead in her tracks. Luckily, she recovered quickly enough to grab her boxes before they fell.

Plenty of fish in the sea, I wanted to tell her.

“Honestly,” Liz murmured. She rebalanced her cargo, moved forward, and made her tone light. “That man would hit on my daughter.”

Enthusiastic honking kept me from having to reply. From between the trucks, I could see a white Range Rover rocketing over the dirt ruts: Julian. He swung in next to my van, hopped out with a bag in his hands, and hightailed it toward the plankway. Meanwhile, Barry and the blond bombshell conversed in low tones.

“Hiya,” Julian said, once he’d caught up to us. He put down the bag and expertly pulled off one of the boxes I was carrying. He’d cut his dark hair quite close to the scalp. (Not bicked, I wanted to tell Arch.) Julian was also clean-shaven and as handsome as ever. Plus, he was compact and muscled, dressed in balloon olive pants and a black T-shirt, and as usual, had come to work. Seeing Liz and her load, he immediately rejuggled my box so he could take one of hers. The kid was great: mature, bighearted, talented, and kind. I thought of Arch with a pang.

Julian swung the two boxes to one side as if they were nothing. “Hey, Goldy, I brought you one of those hot lattes made with cream from The Westside Buzz. You know, that drive-through place? I figured you’d be pretty tired by now, and since you gave up coffee, well—” He blushed and turned to Liz. “Sorry. We just met that once. I’m Julian Teller. Actually, I brought two lattes. One’s for you, Liz.”

“Thanks, Julian, but no,” Liz told him. “You have it. And it’s good to see you again, too.”

“I’m so bad!” Julian enthused, as he proffered me the bag. “I’ve already had two of those things, and each Buzz latte has four shots. I’m pretty wired, I can tell you that.”

“We can always use your energy,” Liz said, warming to him with a smile. Julian had that effect on people.

“Is that the Barry guy?” Julian asked. He lifted his chin at Barry and the blonde. “Down there?”

Barry Dean tilted his head toward the blonde, roared with laughter, then sauntered toward us. The young woman teetered along behind him.

“Hey!” Barry called. His grin flashed as he winked at me and opened his arms in greeting. “Speak of the devil!”

“I certainly hope not,” Julian muttered.

I introduced Julian to Barry, who in turn presented us to his “dear friend,” Pam Disharoon.

Pam Disharoon? I thought. Was that a combination of dish and macaroon? I’m a cute dish; my hair’s a macaroon?

“I’m Liz,” my new assistant politely announced to Pam. But Barry Dean could have introduced her, couldn’t he? Instead, he squinted at Liz and pressed his lips together.

“Hello, catering team!” Pam’s tone was bright. She lifted her pointed chin, sending the ponytails a-wiggle. “I’m sure you’ll make great chow for our jewelry event!”

Liz Fury, master of cuttlefish pasta, flourless chocolate cake, and salade composée, turned green around the gills. Chow, indeed.

“Pam is the star seller in Prince and Grogan’s lingerie department,” Barry announced with pride. “She’s the top saleswoman at the mall.”

Liz made her voice falsely cheerful as she reshifted her box. “Goldy? Julian? I’m taking this up. See you all in the lounge.” And before I could say anything, she took off.

“Well,” said Pam into the awkward silence that followed. She gave Julian the once-over. In a coy, seductive tone, she addressed him: “So you’re a caterer?”

“Pam,” said Barry, “these people are here to work—”

“Caterer’s assistant,” said Julian, not fooled by Pam’s attempt to flirt. “Goldy, give me your other box. I’ll take this load up and come right back.”

Pam took a sashaying two-step toward Julian, extended her red-nailed hands, and cupped his cheeks and chin. “Want some help?”

The well-coordinated Julian slid away from her. “I’ll meet you at your van, boss,” he told me cheerfully, and headed toward the doors.

I hastened back to my van, eager to retrieve the refrigerator-bound supplies. Through the windshield, I could see Barry and Pam walking across the plankway over the water. Without warning, Barry whirled and held up his index finger, as if to correct her. Suddenly, their conversation didn’t look friendly. Guess that meant Barry wasn’t going to help with the boxes, after all. Thank God for Julian—although maybe Barry Dean felt differently.

By the time I’d unloaded the shrimp-roll and crab-dip boxes from the van, Julian had returned from the mall. “Liz is guarding the food in the lounge. The jewelry people are already there.”

I nodded. On the list of catering rules you shouldn’t break was Never leave food where it can be swiped. Sadly, half a dozen of my beef tenderloins had disappeared before I’d learned this.

“Oh,” Julian went on, “and Barry and what’s-her-name are having a lovers’ spat.”

“Let’s avoid them.”

Hoisting our loads, Julian and I avoided the ruts and hurried down the dirt path that led to the plankway. Ahead of us, Pam was stomping away from Barry. Her barely covered rump bounced as she tried to trot in the silly sandals. The plankway jiggled with each of her steps. The construction workers stopped and gaped. So did Barry Dean. Then he turned and again marched toward us. He looked as if he’d swallowed a frog.

“Goldy,” he said once he’d met up with us on the dirt path, “could you and I have a talk?” Barry’s endearingly handsome face and brown eyes, changed so little from our time together at C.U., beseeched me. “The mall has been turned upside down lately—”

“Can we just talk upstairs?” I suggested, panting. “I really need to get this food inside.”

“I’d rather visit now,” Barry insisted firmly, “if you don’t mind. I’ll take one of those boxes.” Julian, who was now halfway across the plankway, turned back and lifted his eyebrows. Want me to rescue you from that guy? Probably sensing my reluctance, Barry implored, “Goldy, please. This is important—”

He was interrupted by the sound of a revving engine. It was loud, then very loud, like an airplane being warmed up. A short distance away, one of the dump trucks rolled away from the neat line of vehicles. The sun winked off the windshield as the truck plowed through the water. I couldn’t see the driver.

“Oh, no, I knew it!” Barry cried. “No!”

“What?” I called to him. He knew a truck was going to start up? “Barry, what’s the matter?” But he’d dropped his box and started running toward the construction gate. Where was he going? Was he going to try to outrun the truck?

My heart plunged. The truck roared and spewed exhaust. I glanced at Julian. The truck was headed right toward him.

“Julian!” I screamed. “Look out!”

Julian reared back and dropped his load. He sprang away from the path of the vehicle, lost his balance, and splashed face forward into the muddy water. The truck charged past him. I watched in horror until Julian’s mud-drenched head, followed by his body, emerged from the water. I looked for Barry. He had stopped running and seemed frozen, watching Julian slosh through the puddle.

The truck was barreling toward us. Julian, sopping wet and shouting, was running raggedly along behind it.

I dropped my box, raced toward Barry, and grabbed his shirt. As I yanked him fiercely sideways, the huge, noisy truck swerved toward us.

“Barry, run with me, dammit!” I hollered. My old friend looked at me, his face stricken. He tried to hurry, but tangled his feet and stumbled to his knees.

The truck was thirty feet away and closing. With all my strength, I wrenched Barry’s arm and body upward. His legs moved spastically as I pulled him over row after row of ruts. Finally, I tripped on one of the hard ridges and we were both airborne. We hit the dirt hard.

A foot down in a wide ditch, I could hear but not see the bellowing truck. It, too, seemed to be plowing up and down the ridges. I tugged on Barry, who was groaning as he tried to scoot along beside me. Hopefully, we were also headed away from the path the truck had been taking… a path straight at us. If I could not see the truck driver, I reasoned, then hopefully, he could not see Barry or me. The way it had been bearing down on us, I did not think that enormous dump truck was just a runaway vehicle.

The truck noise rose to deafening proportions. When our ditch narrowed, Barry and I stopped crawling. I eased up to have a peek. Fifteen feet from us, exactly where we had been when we hit the dirt, the truck vaulted the ditch where we now lay panting. All I could see of the driver was the shadowy reflection of a face behind a mud-splattered window.

Panting, Barry and I rose up on our elbows. I didn’t think the truck driver had actually seen us. Once past the ruts, the truck picked up speed. It crashed through the construction fence with a fearsome clanking of metal. Then it hurtled across Doughnut Drive. With a deafening boom, it slammed into the embankment. The berm exploded. Dirt erupted over the truck. Clouds of dust mushroomed upward as an avalanche of soil poured onto the road. A person wearing a baseball cap and baggy overalls jumped out of the cab, clambered clumsily over the embankment, then disappeared.

What was that about?

Beside me, Barry gasped and cursed. “I knew this would happen!” He was covered with mud. “I just knew it!”

CHAPTER 3

I coughed, spit out grit, and coughed again. Then I inhaled dust, coughed, and inhaled some more. I had the keen sense of having lost moments, maybe even hours—as if there’d been a period of blackness of indeterminate length. Maybe I had passed out.

I eased back onto the dirt and tried to clear the mental fog. My body lay crumpled between two dirt ridges. A severe aching sensation swept from my shoulders to my legs, slowly at first, then with more depth and speed. I groaned and elbowed up again to a half-sitting position. I gazed vacantly at the nearly lethal path the truck had taken. What had that been about? I had no idea.

Doing my best to ignore the pain, I took stock of myself. Not only were my legs, arms, and face filthy, my caterer’s outfit was streaked beyond recognition. The remains of several shrimp rolls clung to my jacket. Looking around, I realized that the truck had squashed my box and sent the contents flying.

How much food had been lost? Would we be able to do the event?

Why had Barry yelled I knew it?

I brushed off my formerly white, formerly crisp caterer’s jacket. Shimmering dust rose from the jacket as food strands showered the dirt. I sneezed violently.

Two yards away, Barry rubbed his face and hacked for breath. He had landed in a deep puddle, and his once-khaki pants were now the color of café au lait. His formerly green shirt clung to his torso like a mossy towel. Julian, his wet clothes stuck to his body, trotted toward us. He was shouting again, this time at the construction crew, something along the lines of getting their asses up here so they could help us.

Barry looked at me and blinked, then blinked again. He slid sideways in the puddle and reached in my direction.

“Goldy! Did you see the driver?”

“No. Whoever it was ran away.” I didn’t state the obvious: that whoever the driver was, he’d seemed intent on mowing us down.

“Do you know who it was?” I tried but didn’t succeed in keeping the accusatory tone from my voice.

Barry shook his head and turned away from me. Why was his muttered “No” so unconvincing?

I studied the dump truck wedged in the embankment. Along Doughnut Drive, lines of cars had stopped. Honking and yelling rose above the throngs of curious drivers who’d left their vehicles and were hustling rapidly along the road. Why else? They were trying to get a better look at the accident.

We needed state patrol and the sheriff’s department, I decided, and quick. With any luck, one of those drivers was using a cell phone to call for help right now.

And speaking of cell phones… I usually kept mine in my apron pocket. But I hadn’t yet put on my apron, so I didn’t have it. I sighed.

I was having a great day.

Barry was staring at the errant truck. There was blood on his forehead. Julian’s words were finally discernible: Are you all right? I yelled back that we were fine. How are you doing? I wanted to know. Julian hollered that he was fine, then raced down to the construction area and called to more workers. Oh, to be young and able to run around in wet clothes.

I hauled myself to my feet, then offered a hand to Barry, still stuck in the puddle. He groaned and splattered mud as he righted himself. His hands were icy, his face pale. Once free of the ditch water, he shivered, grasped the back of his left thigh, and cried out in pain.

Victor Wilson, still wearing his orange hat, raced up the parking lot. Five workers jogged along behind him. The crew did not appear to be paying much attention to Victor’s bellowed orders, commands that were liberally sprinkled with curses. With his red ponytail flapping, Victor swerved away from Barry and me and toward the truck, but not before I’d squinted at the boldly printed words on his sweatshirt. We Got Dirt. No kidding, I thought. Lots and lots of dirt.

Barry hobbled up beside me and we both spoke at once. What happened, Who could have done such a thing, Are you badly hurt, Do you have a cell phone? Without waiting for my reply, Barry wiped the trickle of blood from his scraped forehead and gazed at Victor, who was now climbing into the truck.

“No, no!” I yelled. “You shouldn’t be doing that!” Ten minutes ago, the crazed driver of that vehicle had tried to kill us. Or at least it sure had seemed that way. Nobody should be touching anything until the cops arrived.

Disregarding my protest, Victor tried to start the truck anyway. The engine groaned, clicked, and refused to turn over. With another cascade of curses, he finally got the engine going. The behemoth truck revved and erupted into an insistent beep beep beep as it growled back from the embankment and swerved to miss the mountains of displaced berm dirt. The gaggle of spectators standing on Doughnut Drive moved aside en masse.

Julian, still sopping, sprinted over to us. He assessed me, then Barry, and asked if we needed to go to the hospital. We both said no. Just call the cops, I told him. Julian replied that he was calling the cops and an ambulance to have us looked at.

“No!” screamed Barry. “No cops! They’ll drive away shoppers.” He looked at me and swallowed. “Important saying in our business, Goldy. Nothing clears a mall like a security threat. We simply cannot afford to lose shoppers.”

“Look, Barry.” I raised my voice to match his. “More shoppers would avoid this place if somebody actually had been killed a few moments ago.”

Barry groaned as he watched the line of cars along Doughnut Drive grow. The honking and shouting intensified.

Julian tersely ordered us to stay put. He was going to the Rover for some supplies. When I asked if he’d been able to make out who was driving the truck—man, woman, race, build—he shook his head. The first thing he’d seen was the truck’s backside as it catapulted out of the muddy lake and careened toward us.

When Julian roared up in the Rover a few minutes later, he had already changed into a spare sweatshirt and pants. He leaped out and retrieved a battered first-aid kit, a roll of paper towels, and his own cell phone. I noted the smooth, peculiar-to-Julian ability to do two things at once with complete calm. He punched in 911, cradled the phone between his ear and shoulder, and pumped disinfectant onto his hands. Then he instructed Barry—in the low, soothing voice Julian always assumed in a crisis—to lie down. He had to get off his injured leg, Julian explained.

Barry protested. He’d be just fine if he could get into some clean clothes and make a few calls. “And you, Goldy,” Barry said, his scraped face wracked with pain. “I’m hoping you can just go inside and get going. The mall really, really needs to have this event go off smoothly.”

“Mr. Dean, please.” Julian spoke in a low voice. “You’ll be much better off if you just let me help you. For a few minutes. Come on.”

Barry’s insistence that we all needed to get the hell out of here subsided. Groaning, the mall manager lay down as bidden.

Julian smoothed disinfectant onto Barry’s face and arms, wiped away blood and muck with clean towels, and gently touched Barry’s injured thigh. All the while, he murmured into his cell phone, telling the emergency operator what he’d seen happen. When Julian told the operator where in Westside Mall’s parking lot we were, Barry abruptly wrenched away from my assistant’s ministering hands. He struggled to a standing position, snarling that he didn’t want any help from the cops, he just needed to get back to his office.

What was it with Barry Dean? First he wanted to talk to me privately and urgently. Then, after we’d nearly been run down by a truck, he’d submitted reluctantly to Julian’s care, and told me to go inside and work on the event. Now he was back to yelping that he needed to get back to work.

While Julian walked after the hobbling Barry, trying to convince him not to leave, that he needed to be seen by a medic, I took stock of my own injuries. I’d had the misfortune to land on my kneecaps, which burned when I whisked off the tiny stones that had embedded themselves there. Blood spurted through a network of dirty scratches. My support hose, of course, were ripped and filthy. Other than my knees, I seemed to have emerged with some arm pain that would no doubt turn into a disgusting bruise. Still, no matter what the intentions of the truck driver, I had survived.

So now, I thought as I continued to massage my kneecaps, I only had to clean up, change outfits, figure out how much food we’d lost, and get on with the event. I knew the party would take place; Barry was determined. Thank God I had learned to keep an emergency pack of catering clothes in my van. I tentatively put one foot in front of the other, immediately registered acute pain in my back and hips, and sternly ordered myself to block it out. I had work to do.

Apparently Barry had again changed his mind about rushing to his office. He limped back to my side. Julian spoke earnestly into his cell phone. No, no ambulance after all, the injuries were slight. Police, yes. Yes, he went on, the attack had looked intentional, please send both state patrol and the sheriff’s department. Yes, he would wait for them to arrive.

Barry’s skin was ashen. He squinted, clearly miserable.

I asked, “You still want to talk? You want to tell me how you knew that was going to happen?”

Once again I got the beseeching brown eyes. “I do, Goldy.” His voice cracked. “Just not right now.” He rummaged in his pocket and held out a small keychain. “I left the lounge kitchen open for you, but you might want to lock it behind you, to protect the food while you’re setting up, the way you said you needed to.”

I frowned, but took the key.

“Could we… Goldy, you’re an old friend of mine.” His mouth twisted in a half-smile. Were those tears in his eyes? “Could we have our little chat later at the party? I have some things I absolutely have to do right now.”

“Not a good idea, Barry. Come on. At least tell me how you knew that truck was aiming for us.”

He blushed. “I didn’t say that.” I glared at him. Barry shook his head. “I really don’t know who the driver was. I thought I did, but… Look, I really need to go.” He started limping down to the mall.

“Barry!” I yelled sternly. “You can’t leave before the cops get here!”

Barry stopped moving. His eyes slid to the offending truck, now moving slowly back toward the construction site. The vehicle’s yellow auxiliary lights blinked as it lumbered downward. Back on Doughnut Drive, the crew waved traffic around the hills of dirt.

“Hey, old coffee buddy, I have a job to do.” His voice had become testy. “That mess and the traffic jam need to be cleaned up before the Elite Shoppers arrive. The only thing I have to do is to make sure the shoppers can enter freely. That’s how the mall makes money, remember?” I shook my head. He put his hands into his wet pockets and made his tone charming. “I’ll talk to the cops, don’t fret. I’ll see you up at the lounge. Say, half an hour? Forty-five minutes, at the latest.” He managed a wink before turning away. Good old Barry.

“But Barry—” I protested.

He moved forward, determined. After a moment he yelled over his shoulder, “Mall security will investigate this incident! They’ll be my first call.” He gave me a backhanded wave. “The shoppers’ lounge, Goldy. Thirty minutes.” He staggered away, step, hobble, step, hobble, step, hobble. Captain Ahab, managing a mall.

I shivered and clasped my arms around my ruined jacket. What was going on? It was clear I wasn’t going to find out standing in the parking lot. Would the cops need me, if they already had Julian? Trying to ignore the pain, I walked over to him. Julian was closing his cell phone and shaking his head.

“Look, Julian, thanks for your help. I… need to get back to work. Barry’s expecting the event to go off on time, I’m sorry to say.”

Julian grinned ruefully. “I’ll make your excuses to the cops, don’t worry. But I swore on my mother’s Bible that I’d stay here until state patrol and the sheriff’s department arrive. One handles traffic accidents, the other… Oh, hey, we got company.”

Victor Wilson was hustling toward us. He carried another first-aid box and a wrapped packet that I recognized as my emergency apparel kit. His wide, dirty face was crinkled with concern. Forty yards behind him was Liz Fury. Had she been setting up in the lounge all this time? I checked my watch. Incredibly, only twenty minutes or so had passed since the truck had begun its killer course toward us.

“Are you all right?” Victor demanded. “Your assistant down there gave me this to bring you.” He moved his load into one hand and offered me his free arm. It was sunburned, rippling with muscles, and streaked with mud. “Come on, lean on my arm. So you’re the caterer? Man, I am just so sorry that happened to you. Is everyone all right?”

“Barry Dean isn’t,” I muttered.

“Yeah, well, I figured that.” When Victor talked, it came out as a wheeze. “Look, I am really sorry. I have no idea what happened. Some nut tried to steal a truck, probably. It happens. Let me walk you to the back entrance. There’s a ladies’ room right inside.”

Still gripping his arm, I hesitated. Liz was telling Julian that she’d heard the crash and the yelling, so she’d quickly left the lounge. Some women in the mall told her about the truck. What had happened? As Julian filled her in, sirens announced the approach of law enforcement.

Victor guided me gently back to my van, where I gave Liz the key to the lounge kitchen, which had been unlocked when she arrived. She would double-time it, she promised me, transporting the rest of our equipment and supplies. She would also figure out how much we’d lost, and see how we could fill in with emergency back-ups of cheese, vegetables, crackers, and breadsticks. Victor insisted on calling two of his workers over to help with toting the remaining food boxes. I gingerly took my clothing packet as Victor and his crew accompanied me to the mall entrance. Three screaming, flashing prowlers—one state patrol, two sheriff’s department—roared up Doughnut Drive. Julian waved. The cop cars careened in his direction.

Victor deposited me at the ladies’ room door and told me to go slow, I didn’t look too great. He and the crew would make as many trips to the kitchen as they needed to so that we’d have our supplies. It was the least he could do, he said. Shoppers stopped to look at the hard-hatted construction workers with their raggedy paint-covered clothes. Victor gave the shoppers a defiant look. His crew stared at the floor. I thanked them all.

It took me almost fifteen minutes to strip off my ruined uniform, splash myself with water and soap, then more water. I wiped down with enough paper towels to fill an entire wastebasket. I downed half a dozen ibuprofen packed with my emergency clothing, wriggled into my clean outfit, then walked out into the bright light of Westside’s marble-paneled hall. I immediately smacked into Liz, who was coming in from the van. She reeled back, but somehow managed to keep her grip on a wrapped vat of meatballs.

“How’re we doing?” I asked grimly.

“Great. That construction guy and his crew brought up everything but the meatballs. I’ve hardly had to leave the kitchen at all. This is the last load. The van’s locked.”

“Wonderful. I’ll have to bring Victor some cookies. Maybe later in the week.”

As we made our way up the stairs to the lounge, Liz gnawed the inside of her cheek, as if she were pondering something.

“How old is Julian?” she asked abruptly.

“Twenty-two. Why?”

“Oh, nothing, just wondering,” she replied. She was avoiding my eyes. “Actually, I’d just like Julian to… talk to Teddy. If that’s OK.”

Was it OK for Julian to talk to her son Teddy? At this point in time, before an event and minutes after nearly getting squashed by a three-ton truck, who cared? I felt suddenly overwhelmed. Julian could talk to whomever he wanted. So could Liz. So could the cops. So could Barry. As they say, whatever.

Truck attack or no truck attack, I had a party to cater.

CHAPTER 4

The high-ceilinged shoppers’ lounge bustled with activity. The walls and ceiling sparkled with decorations. Jewelry salespeople (uniformly dressed in trim navy outfits, with keychains dangling from their wrists) hurried to and fro; portly security guys (straining the buttons of mustard-gold suits) paced, asked each other questions, and paced some more. A pair of tuxedo-clad bartenders clanked wine bottles onto a long table. In the far corner, a gaggle of long-haired, black-clad young men set up instruments. Ah, the band. Barry had told me what the first tune would be: “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.”

I remembered that Barry had also informed me he’d spent a small fortune decorating this new lounge, which didn’t even count the temporary decorations for the cocktail party. Even though I’d visited the lounge before, I was still impressed. Oriental-patterned wall-to-wall carpeting complemented creamy beige silk wallpaper and brass wall sconces. Floor-to-ceiling west-facing windows rose at the far end of the room. Those expanses of glass framed a breathtaking view of the mountains. The furniture had all been moved out to make way for the display cases and buffet tables.

The cocktail decorations were equally striking. The ceiling and walls glittered with strings of festive lights the color and shape of Easter eggs: sparkling lilac, brilliant green, bright pink. Lush flower arrangements blossomed out of strategically placed shopping bags. Scent was being pumped in from somewhere. The place had a magical air.

When Liz and I had come to do our table measurements, Barry had proudly pointed out that the lounge had been wired for surveillance, at the insistence of Pennybaker International. Placed overhead were innocent-looking mirrored globes, the kind that hide nests of cameras that a fellow in some far-off security room can focus on individual shoppers or suspicious-acting worker-bees. A moment of staring, as if at a visual puzzle, helped me make out the second set of cameras, which were wall-mounted. The cameras had been painted a creamy beige to match the wallpaper. Very clever.

Barry was nowhere in sight. I put down my box and hustled around the room to check the distances between the jewelry cases and buffet tables. As we’d planned, the buffet tables had been set up in a line to bisect the room lengthwise. They were topped with creamy beige satin tablecloths to match the walls. The shiny material billowed to the floor, like the skirts of ballgowns.

A stage had been set up in front of the picture windows. From there, Barry would give his sales pitch. Next to me, a glass case displayed an intricately constructed model of the finished mall, including the storybook-village boutiques and bistros. Minuscule shoppers were ranged along the tiny sidewalks. Stretching in front of the other two walls were the display cases, shiny ziggurats bursting with jewels. Just above the cases, yet more strings of tiny, suspended spotlights made the jewelry sparkle like firecrackers.

Nobody came rushing up to me, so I assumed that news of the truck debacle had not yet become public. I hightailed it toward the tiny kitchen tucked behind the lounge’s south wall.

The only box we’d lost was the one with the shrimp rolls, Liz had determined. The rest of the boxes were neatly stacked on the floors and counters. I went through one box until I found the buffet design, then hustled back out to the long table. I debated about calling Tom. Uh, sweetheart? I just avoided being squashed by a dump truck….

I punched in his office number and reached his voice mail. I left a hasty message about the “accident,” then told him that state patrol and the sheriff’s department were on site, so he didn’t need to worry.

Time to focus on the task at hand.

I studied my layout design, placed the dishes on the buffet, then hurried back to the kitchen. There I opened the box with all the cheeses, crackers, and breads. But I needed a pop of energy. To heck with my cut-back-on-caffeine resolution: I needed to make some coffee, even if it was instant. In the back of a cabinet, I finally unearthed a jar of instant Folger’s. Within moments, I was sipping a cup of the dark stuff.

Liz and I finished organizing the food and supplies by placing all the equipment we weren’t using in a coat closet outside the kitchenette. Then we hurried back out to the buffet, where we placed the serving pieces at strategic intervals before setting the tableware, plates, napkins, and glasses. When Julian raced in at four o’clock, I was dying to ask him how things had gone with the cops. But that would have to wait. From the bottom of one box, we pulled out plain white tablecloths and lofted them over the eating accoutrements set out on the buffet table—the best way to protect the flatware from sticky fingers. We agreed to finish our food prep before taking a dinner break at four-thirty. At five-fifteen, we would reconvene to check the cold dishes, heat up the meatballs and empanadas, and do our final setup.

In the kitchen, Julian washed the berries, then brandished my new paring knife to trim the strawberries and slice the star fruit. I worked on the cheese platter while Liz started arranging the crackers and breads.

“I’m not taking a dinner break, Goldy,” Julian announced, “until I hear how you met this Barry guy.”

I sliced into a hunk of Gorgonzola and gave him a look. Liz giggled.

I said, “OK, nosy crew. It started with a puzzle. Actually, it started with an exam review class, some class notes, and a fight with The Jerk.”

Julian raised a questioning eyebrow. “Go on.”

I moved on to a slab of fragrant Cheddar, and thought back. “In my college days, there was a single place close to campus where you could get espresso drinks: The Hilltop Café. I practically lived there. Clutching a foam cup of cappuccino, I’d quick-step down the Hill to Group Psych class. Barry Dean sat next to me in class, but since I had just become engaged to John Richard, I didn’t really notice him. Didn’t notice him, that is, until he asked me where I got that luscious-smelling coffee.”

Liz tossed her head of silver hair. “Goodness. That’s the best pickup line I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah, well,” I said drily, as the two of them grinned. “On the last day of class before the final, the professor was doing one of those you-need-to-come-if-you-plan-to-pass reviews. The night before, John Richard and I had our first fight.”

“Was this a fight of the physical variety?” Julian demanded, as he expertly moved aside a mountain of trimmed strawberries.

“No, all that came later.” I peeled the wrapper off the Camembert. “This particular time, John Richard barged into my dorm room. I’d left a message saying I couldn’t go to a med-school party with him because I was preparing for the Group Psych review and studying for the exam. He shouted and carried on and threw my books, mugs, shoes, and clothes all over the place. When he stomped out, I started crying and couldn’t stop. My eyes got so red and puffy that I couldn’t see well enough to go to the review class. I was sure I’d end up bombing on the exam.”

Julian and Liz had stopped working and were leaning against the counters, all ears.

“I cast my swollen eyes over the class list,” I said dramatically, “and who should be listed after yours truly but Barry Dean. It’s really not that big a deal, guys.”

“Wait a minute,” Julian said, snapping his fingers. “I know that name! Barry Dean had a TV show out in Long-mont, right? Not long ago, he was the answer to a trivia question in The Camera. What C.U. alum ran a short-lived quiz show in a nearby town?”

“Yup. Only it wasn’t a quiz show, it was a scavenger hunt. Follow the clues around Longmont, learn about the city.” I shook my head. “Barry used to love puzzles. Anyway, I stopped sniffling, called Barry’s room, and left a message with his roommate asking if I could borrow the review-class notes. Next morning, someone slipped an index card under my door. It said: ‘You can run but you can’t hide; don’t let your life go down the BLANK.’ And then he’d written HINT at the bottom of the page: ‘Check the field-house.’”

“Oh, I wish I’d had a boyfriend like that,” Liz said with a sigh.

“He wasn’t my boyfriend!”

“Go on,” urged Julian.

“So. I went to the C.U. field-house, and found a penciled sign with the Greek letter psyche on the door to the ladies’ room. I was afraid I’d find the notes in a toilet, of course, but taped on the other side of the ladies’ room door was a manila envelope. Writing on it said, let’s see, ‘First third of notes, Goldy. Everything will be just ducky if you BLANK.’ I thought for a few minutes, then zipped over to the campus duck pond, where another letter psyche was taped to the bridge, along with a second manila envelope that contained the second third of the class notes. This envelope’s message read, ‘Will just wake up and smell the…’ So of course I dashed to The Hilltop Café, where Barry was sitting at a corner table and smiling like the proverbial Cheshire.”

“You can run but you can’t hide,” Liz repeated thoughtfully. “Don’t let your life go down the toilet. Everything will be just ducky if you wake up and smell the coffee?”

“Yeah,” I said with resignation, as I started on the last cheese. “Barry looked at my mottled cheeks and puffed eyes, then glanced at my engagement ring. He said, ‘I see your ring, and I see your face, and I say, don’t marry this guy.’ Which unfortunately brought a fresh outburst of tears from yours truly. And that’s how Barry Dean and I became coffee buddies, driving all over the Boulder-Denver area in his Mercedes with the basset hound in the back, looking for good coffee before I ignored Barry’s advice and married the doctor from hell.”

Both Julian’s and Liz’s faces looked sad, even stricken.

“Come on, guys, it’s not that bad. The Jerk is history, and now we’ve got a big gig, thanks to the Quiz King of Longmont Cable. So let’s do it.”

We finished at precisely four-thirty. Barry had not yet shown up. I figured that he must have decided after all to talk to the cops, instead of to me. Fine. That was what he needed to do. Right before my eyes, Denver’s Most Eligible Bachelor had become its Most Eligible Basket Case.

Liz gave me the kitchenette key, then offered to treat Julian to dinner at the mall’s new gourmet sandwich shop. Julian arched an eyebrow in my direction. I shrugged and told them to go on. If I planned to follow through on my new resolve to keep better track of Arch, then I needed to give him a call.

I locked the kitchenette and dropped the key into my apron pocket next to my cellular. Amazingly, I’d remembered to bring the phone from the van. For the first time, I was glad I’d finally given in to Arch’s everyone’s-got-one-but-me cell-phone demand, even though I knew he’d resent what he called my “checking on him.” Tough tacks.

“Yeah.” This was his new cool-guy greeting.

“It’s Mom. I’m down at Westside—”

“Did you get my guitar yet? Did Marla find the new Palm pilot? How about the Internet watch?”

“I haven’t had time to do anything besides work. I don’t know about Marla. What are you doing?”

“Changing my clothes after lacrosse practice, Mom, what do you think I’m doing?”

“I was just worried—”

He groaned. “Mom, I have to go. Lacrosse practice is over, I’m cold, and Tom is waiting for me.” He paused. “Does this mean you won’t be buying my guitar today?”

“I just… well. Maybe we should talk later.”

He hung up, and I scolded myself for expecting meaningful communication at this stage of Arch’s life. My stomach growled. I popped out of the lounge and wandered past the mall’s alluring window displays and two huge common areas, one a coffee shop, the other an enormous play area where kids whooped it up as they leaped on and off hard rubber play sculptures in the shapes of fried eggs, toast, bacon, and pancakes. At length I came to a franchise restaurant where I wolfed down a depressingly cold steak sandwich, which tasted more of grease than beef. I had fifteen minutes before I needed to be back in the lounge. I tossed my trash, steeled myself, and went looking for Westside Music.

It was not until five-twenty that I scooted back out of the store. I was now the irritated, humbled owner of a seven-hundred-dollar electric guitar. Needless to say, the purchase had not proved to be as joyful as I had visualized. For some mysterious reason, my credit card company had balked at the purchase, despite the twenty-thousand-dollar limit they had recently bestowed on me. After running my card, the salesclerk had frowned, looked me over suspiciously, and announced in a loud voice, to me and all the people in line, that the sale had been denied. Did I, he asked loudly, want to pay by check, or not make the purchase? I blushed and meekly wrote out a check. Unfortunately, my card denial had rung alarms at Westside Music. While the people behind me groaned and muttered, I was forced to undergo a check-approval process that rivaled entering Pakistan without a passport.

Hauling the bulky guitar, I trotted past the breakfast sculptures—still filled with screeching kids—and past window displays that I willed myself to ignore. When I reached the steak place, I realized I’d walked the wrong way and was at the opposite end of the mall from the lounge. If I tried to stash the instrument in the van, I wouldn’t get back to the lounge until after the jewelry event began….

I gritted my teeth and raced back toward Westside Music. It was hard to ignore the curious stares from adults and children alike. A singing caterer works both ends of the mall? I ignored their gapes and tried to imagine Arch looking happy when he opened his gift. That happiness might last less than an hour, but so what? Besides, I had something else to look forward to: canceling that damn credit card.

I arrived, breathless, at the Westside Music counter. I paid no attention to the salespeople, whom I’d mentally dubbed the Smirking Clerks. I announced to the salesman who’d handled the botched card sale that I needed him to keep the guitar for me, please, until later in the evening. He informed me icily that they closed at nine. I’d be back by then, I vowed, and took off.

I stopped running only when I arrived at the lounge entrance. It now boasted two beefy security guards. Swirling around them was a chattering group of beautifully dressed women. They seemed to be milling about with the sole purpose of assessing one another’s outfits, makeup, jewelry, and shoes. Putting my sweat-drenched and rumpled caterer’s garb out of my head, I ducked past the women, then rummaged through my tote for ID. I flashed it at one of the guards, who nodded. Then I pushed through the service entrance to the kitchenette, washed my hands, and sped out to the main room.

To my surprise, the jewelry cases had also been covered with white damask cloths. I sprinted to the tables and about fainted with relief. Julian and Liz had set out everything. The food-laden buffet looked stunning.

“Hey, Ms. Punctuality,” Julian said, straight-faced. “Aren’t you glad Barry had a spare key to the kitchenette?”

“Sorry, really, both of you. And… what? Barry opened up for you?”

Julian nodded at the stage, where Barry, in fresh clothes and moving as if he, too, had downed a few painkillers, stood holding court with the band.

“He was looking for you,” Julian told me. “Oh, but you should know that he only opened the kitchen when we promised him we’d give him something to drink. Something alcoholic. He wanted it from us instead of the bartenders, because he didn’t want any of the salespeople to see him taking a nip. Several large nips, if the truth be told. So much for him being a caffeine guy.”

Liz giggled. Julian grinned broadly, happy to entertain.

“So,” I asked as we sauntered back to the kitchen, “did Barry ever talk to the cops?” They both shrugged. “How did you do with them, Big J?”

“State patrol just asked me the basics—you know, what happened and when. I told them you’d seen the accident, too, but they said they had plenty of witnesses, and since nobody had been hurt, they didn’t need to talk to you. Anyway, state patrol and the sheriff’s department officers told Victor to take them down to the truck. They told me to come, so I did. Get this. They found a pair of cuff links on the cab floor. Did we know whose they were, they asked. Victor said no, and so did I. So the cops put ’em in one of those brown paper bags. You know, the kind Tom uses for evidence.”

I stopped and arched an eyebrow at him. He grinned. “They were gold cuff links, Miss Nosy. They had two sets of initials on ‘em and some writing on the back.”

“Whose initials? What did the writing say?”

“I don’t remember all of the initials,” Julian replied. “The writing said something about making money. I don’t really remember what.”

“Julian.”

“OK, OK, I remember one set of initials was B. D. So maybe they were Barry’s.”

I thought again of Barry’s paranoia, how he’d wanted to talk to me, how he’d freaked out over the truck incident, how he’d then decided not to chat with me, but hustled back to his office.

“Go figure,” I murmured.

Liz shook her head. “All Barry Dean could think about was getting a drink. He slugged that expensive Burgundy straight from the bottle. Said he couldn’t take much more for one day.”

Julian added, “He said you were his old buddy and it would be OK—”

“Don’t worry,” Liz told me, “I threw away the rest of that bottle. Thirty-four bucks a pop, though. We should charge him extra.”

I made for the stage. Barry was plugging in his microphone. No question about it, the man cleaned up well. In fact, he looked downright spiffy in his tuxedo. As I got closer, though, I noticed his face was red and sweaty. Worse, he was a bit too obviously chewing on a mouthful of breath mints.

“We’ve got a videographer here,” he began, once he’d swallowed the candy. He pointed to another tuxedo-clad fellow clutching a camera. “Every woman attending gets a video of the event,” Barry went on, “so she can see herself in her chosen necklace or earrings. You’re not camera-shy, are you?” I groaned. “Don’t be nervous, we’ll cut any food accidents.”

“Actually, old buddy, what makes me nervous is you drinking wine straight from the bottle.”

“Oh, sorry about that.” He paused and gave me the full benefit of his seductive brown eyes. He seemed to be struggling with words, thoughts, something. “Goldy, about that truck—”

“Did you talk to Colorado State Patrol?”

“Er, no, but I wondered if—”

Whatever he was wondering was cut short by the band striking up “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Barry muttered something that sounded like “Holy Moly” as the lounge doors opened.

The Army of Gorgeous Women streamed in. Clad in bright-hued silk, satin, and taffeta, they hiked up their skirts and flew to the shrouded jewelry cases. Exclamations of Damn! and What’s going on? rose above the music. Barry grabbed the microphone.

“Ladies,” he announced, “and gentlemen,” he added, acknowledging the sprinkling of men, “before we start with our serious business tonight, please help yourselves to drinks and hors d’oeuvres! Then I will explain how our event is going to work!”

I made my way to the kitchen while Barry flattered the women and charmingly described how easily and effortlessly they could wear these hundred-thousand-dollar pieces they needed and owed to themselves, for mere pennies per month. Julian and Liz hauled loaded appetizer trays out to the guests. I snagged a platter of empanadas and sailed after them.

“… And for those of you who are still in need of a bargain for that next big party,” Barry was announcing fervently, “look for the perfect pair of shoes at Prince and Grogan’s Red Tag Sale! Tonight, you Elite Shoppers are entitled to an additional fifteen percent off….”

“Barry Dean is so charming,” Marla said as she sidled up next to me. She winked and dunked an empanada into guacamole. She was wearing a stunning royal blue dress with a matching cape. Without her usual array of glittering jewelry, she looked different. She’d informed me she wanted to come to the event as a clean canvas. “I’d love to listen to Barry Dean all the time. In my car, in the bathroom, in bed… while looking at his picture.”

“How was the spa?”

“Fabulous! Plus, I have so much to ask you, especially about—”

“Marla, I have to—”

“Calm down, I’m having a couple of empanadas.” She grabbed her cape and folded it over her arm, then nabbed two more empanadas, downing one and then the other, while four other women helped themselves to my tray.

“Tell me about the truck,” Marla whispered conspiratorially, once the women had moved on. With a paper napkin, she wiped creamy green stuff from her upper lip.

“You heard about that already?” I asked, stunned. Marla opened her eyes wide, a picture of offended innocence. Of course the Queen of Gossip knew about everything. why was I surprised? “Well,” I began, “somebody got into a truck, slammed down the accelerator, barely missed Barry the Charming, not to mention yours truly. Then whoever was driving crashed the truck into the berm. Trying to get out of the way, Julian, Barry, and I all got soaked with mud and grime. I lost a whole box of shrimp rolls, not to mention a big chunk of setup time.”

“How’d you ever get the food done, then?” she mumbled through another empanada.

“The excavator and his crew helped. They brought in almost every box. Actually, I guess he’s the construction manager for the mall addition. He said he felt responsible for one of his trucks almost killing us.”

“That’s not Victor Wilson, is it?”

I sighed. And here I thought Marla only knew folks with incomes of a million and up. “How can you possibly know…”

Marla looked sideways, taking in the fact that Julian and Liz were bringing out the first plates of truffles. “I don’t know him. I went out with his brothers. Don’t give me that look. Consecutively, not simultaneously. First was Bachman. Bachman’s a surgeon, a friend of The Jerk’s. Well, sort of a friend. John Richard couldn’t stand that Bachman gave better parties than he did, which is why I went out with him.” She frowned at the empanadas, as if unsure whether to have another one. “Victor’s other brother is an attorney, has a big place in Aspen, built for him by Victor, he said.”

“Nice. Now if you don’t mind—”

“Julian told me they found some cuff links inside the truck.” Marla finally decided to tuck into another empanada, her fifth. “Do you have any idea whose they were?”

“No. I don’t suppose you know whose they were.”

“Not yet. But I will. Here’s a juicy tidbit for you, though. Shane Stockham has just lost his lease at The Gadget Guy. He’s trying to placate dear wife Page, who told us at the spa that she heard this morning about his cash dam, which is the opposite of cash flow. Page wants a bauble from the diamond people, and Shane’s stretched thinner than gold plate. Brace yourself: You might see fireworks.”

I glanced at the Stockhams, whom I was doing lunch for later in the week. Had I received the final payment for their event? I couldn’t remember. As I watched, Shane reached for his wife’s shoulder. She moved out of his reach. I groaned. After I refilled the platter, I took up a plate of truffles and headed for some hungry-looking ladies who were drooling over the handsome twenty-something guys in the band. Barry, who’d just finished a glass of water (at least, I hoped it was water) stepped back up to the microphone.

“I truly can’t believe how gorgeous you all are! You look as if… well, as if you were going out for a fancy dinner with your husband’s new boss!” This was met with squeals of laughter. “But ladies…would you feel completely confident if you weren’t wearing some very special jewelry, the kind that indicated how important you really are? What if your husband’s new boss happens to be a twenty-eight-year-old woman who wears skimpy dresses from Escada and diamond necklaces from Tiffany’s?”

The women glanced uneasily at one another. Clearly, Barry’s attempt to make them feel insecure was hitting home.

“Wouldn’t you want to be certain you looked your best?” Barry crooned. “But you wouldn’t want to wear a piece that could bore you in a year, would you?” There was a ripple of edgy laughter. “That’s why we’re here! We’ll get you to elegant at a fraction of the cost… and next month you could start wearing something completely different!”

As he launched into an explanation of leasing, I glanced around and saw Julian chatting with Liz and, of all people, her son, Teddy. Dressed in faded jeans and a tattered red sweatshirt, Teddy looked as gangly and insecure as he had that morning. But I had thought Teddy wasn’t picking Liz up until later…. I certainly couldn’t afford for her to leave now.

Barry finished his speech to frenzied clapping, squeals of pleasure, and the band’s enthusiastic rendition of “Ruby, Ruby.” The empanada and truffle platters were again almost empty. On either side of the room, the jewelry salespeople whipped the damask cloths from the jewelry displays. And then something bizarre seemed to be happening. There was noise, scuffling, muffled epithets, and struggling.

People were fighting.

I turned in time to see two security guards grabbing Teddy Fury by his elbows. Then the meaty guards picked Teddy up under his arms and began dragging him from the lounge. Liz, up next to the guards’ impassive faces, was scolding them—to no avail.

Dumbfounded, I scanned the crowd for Julian. Oh, Lord. He’d abandoned his catering tasks and was standing at the corner of the stage, engaged in a heated, fist-shaking argument with Barry Dean. Barry, his arms crossed, was shaking his head.

“This isn’t happening,” I whispered in horror to no one in particular. One thing I knew from long food-service experience: If there’s a fight at a party, everyone will blame the caterer.

“Oooh, I just love being waited on,” cooed a woman at my elbow as she reached for an appetizer. I whirled.

It was Pam Disharoon. The blonde wore a skimpy hot pink dress that showed lots of cleavage and even more leg. “How do you like my outfit?” she demanded, wiggling her hips the same way I’d already seen her do with Barry.

I said, “Fabulous. Is it a nightgown or a dress?”

Pam pouted. “Both.” She grabbed the last empanada and scampered away.

I put down the tray and moved quickly behind the jewelry salespeople to get to the stage. Up there, Liz had joined the Barry-Julian squabble. The guards reached the doors, wrenched them open, and hauled Teddy out. The band kicked up the music a few notches, but the noise of Barry, Liz, and Julian arguing was still clear.

I hopped onto the stage and approached the three of them, looking as stern as possible. They formed a tight clutch of hostility.

“He’s a child—” Liz exclaimed, her voice just below a shout. Her silver hair shone in the spotlights.

“He’s a thief !” Barry retorted, his face flushed, his chin pointing defiantly at Liz.

“You just cannot do that to a kid,” Julian cried angrily. “You’re going to ruin his—”

“Excuse me,” I said with as much authority as I could muster. “This argument needs to be put on hold, and I mean, right now. Liz and Julian, go back to work right away. Barry,” I said sternly, “you hired me. There are two hundred potential clients out there who will remember this party for this altercation, unless you stop this minute. We can talk later. Understand?”

All three mumbled OK, yes, sorry. Julian and Liz hastened down the steps at the side of the stage. Barry opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn’t get the words out before another volcano of yelling erupted.

By one of the two cash registers—set up to handle the leasing arrangements—a man and woman were arguing. They were young, they were attractive… they were Page Stockham and… Shane Stockham.

“A thousand dollars a month!” Page shrieked. With her blond hair done up in a fancy French twist, and her slender body sheathed in white silk, she looked like a latter-day Audrey Hepburn. But her demeanor was the opposite of the gracious, softspoken Hepburn’s. She screeched at her husband: “You cheap bastard!”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” Shane bellowed, using the same tone of voice I’d heard so many times when he disagreed with lacrosse referees. “You’re lucky you get anything!”

“You tightfisted asshole!”

“You bitch!”

Shane lunged forward and slapped Page in the face. My stomach turned over. Page responded by kneeing her husband in the groin. When the two backed away from each other, the crowd parted to give them space.

At that moment, the security guards reentered the lounge. Dumbfounded, they looked to see what the new disruption was about.

I knew what it was about, having had lots of experience in the domestic violence department. I jumped off the stage and pushed through the throng toward the warring partners. The Stockhams had stopped screaming obscenities. Shane was trying to slap Page again. She was fending him off. I tensed my biceps, stepped up next to them, and grabbed the right arm of Page and the left arm of Shane. Using all my strength, I pulled them apart.

“Guards!” I yelled. “Come here now, please! Come take Mrs. Stockham out, now! Now! Please!” I glared at Shane Stockham and said tersely, “You need to back off, Shane. Right now.” I continued to grip his left forearm. Shane was a well-muscled man, with slicked-back brown hair and a handsome baby face. He had that young, all-powerful movie star look. “Stop this,” I said in a low voice. “A piece of jewelry isn’t worth a fight.”

The security guards reached for Page. She yanked herself away from me, then hopped quickly behind one of the jewelry display cases. Shane, meanwhile, also pulled out of my grasp. He turned his back and walked toward the stage, away from the exit doors.

“Hey, Shane! Cheap bastard!” Page taunted. “Business failure! Come get me now!”

The guards, upset at being foiled, lumbered a bit more quickly on either side of the case, trying to apprehend Page. Again she was too quick for them. With a few agile steps, Page danced back out by the buffet table, not far from me, but probably twenty yards from where Shane was walking away.

Shane turned slowly. His furious eyes fixed on his wife.

Page hissed something incomprehensible. Shane, in turn, raced back in her direction. Page neighed in triumph.

Shane was charging toward his wife. There was just one thing in his way: me. A warning chill raced down my spine.

“Security!” I squealed.

Shane kept coming. My mind conjured up Shane as the hot-tempered lacrosse coach and Arch, my little Arch, who was trying so hard to become a tough athlete. If I just stepped out of Shane’s way, he’d hit Page. Do what Arch does, I thought. Pronto.

I’d seen it over and over. Arch set his position against the attack man, then used his body weight to send the attacker in the opposite direction. When Shane was a yard from me, I placed my shoulder at right angles to his chest. Then, just as he was about to slam into me, I jerked up and under his chest, and whacked him with such force that he reeled upward. The muscled poundage of Shane Stockham went airborne. I staggered backward. Outstretched hands couldn’t prevent me from falling. I thudded to the floor, landing with a jolt of pain on my shoulder.

The security guys, who’d called for help, finally forced their way forward. Two of them manhandled a shrieking Page toward the exit. Three guards seized Shane and pulled him upright. When they tried to march him out behind his wife, I noticed that he was limping slightly.

“You nosy bitch!” Shane yelled at me, his face scarlet with fury. “What do you know about anything?”

I rubbed my shoulder. For the second time that day, I wondered if it was broken.

CHAPTER 5

That was pretty awful,” Marla commented as she escorted me to the kitchen to tend to my shoulder. “Is somebody going to call the cops? The guards shouldn’t be the only ones dealing with Shane.”

“I’ll call the cops,” Julian assured us. He asked if he could check my shoulder; I said yes. “It’s not broken,” he reported, after gently poking the shoulder blade and asking me to move it in a circle. He frowned, pulled out his cell phone, and punched buttons. “I’m going to run down to the parking lot, see if I can snag a cop who might still be there. I’ll let the sheriff’s department dispatcher know what’s what, too. Where would those guards have taken Shane, the mall security office?”

“Probably,” I replied weakly. What was going on with Shane Stockham? Did he dare think that I’d still be putting on a lunch for him day after next? At that moment, I couldn’t ponder anything that was two days away. I did want to know the reason for the fight among Liz, Barry, and Julian. Julian had taken off, which only left one person to ask.

“Liz,” I began, “I need to know why you and Julian—”

“Please,” she said in a low voice, as she bent over the sink, where she was washing platters. She would not meet my eyes. Marla, all interest, leaned in. Liz said stiffly, “I promise to tell you later, Goldy. My son should call me soon. Then I’ll know more.” She turned the water off and lifted her chin. Tears spilled as she faced me. “Look, I’m sorry I argued with Barry, but he started it. If you could just trust me to help us get through this party, I promise I’ll tell you the whole story later.”

I gnawed my lip. Liz had become invaluable to my catering business. I simply could not, would not force her to explain herself in front of Marla. Teddy had been hauled out; the Stockham crisis had erupted right after that. And Liz had apologized. I murmured that it was fine for us to talk at her convenience.

Liz nodded her thanks, then worked silently drying the platters and assembling new trays. Marla filled a dish-towel with ice and lightly pressed it into my shoulder. The events of the day filled my mind. First the truck had almost mowed me down, then Shane Stockham had almost mowed me down. And, as Liz had reminded me, we were in the middle of an event….

Marla murmured in my ear, “You should have stayed in bed.”

The band burst into “The Emerald Isle.” After a few moments, against Marla’s stern advice, I tentatively lifted a tray. I ignored stares as I transported it out to the buffet. Marla bustled along beside me, tossing smiles at the gawkers. When the guests realized no new crisis was brewing, they turned their attention back to the jewelry cases and continued trying on glittering necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. The videographer slithered through the crowd, occasionally asking women to pose for him. When Marla insisted he follow her to a jewelry case, I wondered fleetingly if the videographer had caught the Stockhams’ conflict on tape.

A few moments later, Marla magically reappeared at my side. She stepped back for me to admire her newly rented double strand of pearls with diamonds. Brilliant matching earrings and tiny barrettes wreathed her pretty, plump face in twinkles. I gave her a thumbs-up.

She said, “You don’t want to know what these cost.”

“You’re right.” I straightened platters and stirred the meatballs in the sauce. “So,” I asked her, “do you have any idea what Barry and Liz and Julian were fighting about?”

“I can guess,” she said. “You don’t need Liz to tell you the whole story; I can fill you in on most of it. Don’t you know that little Teddy’s had a few shoplifting incidents here at Westside? More than a few, if my sources are correct. Julian must know about Teddy’s problems, because he was in on the argument. When he comes back, I can cross-examine him.”

I groaned. “Well, then, what was Shane and Page’s fight about? Do their spending disagreements often turn violent?”

“I’ve heard stories,” Marla replied knowingly. Three beautifully outfitted women sidled up to the table. Marla’s eyes glided over to them. “I can’t talk about the Stockhams out here, Goldy,” she announced in a stage whisper, “with people eavesdropping. You know, I tried to warn you—”

I interrupted Marla by asking her to come back to the kitchenette after a few minutes. I picked up the empty chafer of meatballs and hightailed it back there myself.

When she pushed through the door, I was ladling meatballs into a sauté pan to heat them up. The rich smell of Burgundy sauce steamed through the small cooking space.

“If Shane is hell-bent on doing harm to his wife, then I’m not going to cater a party at his place on Wednesday or any other day,” I said. My voice sounded a tad more rancorous than I intended.

Marla shrugged. “Shane and Page have one of those love-you-one-minute, hate-you-the-next relationships. You watch, tomorrow he’ll buy her a ruby bracelet, or a round trip ticket to Paris, or maybe both. That’s the glory of numerous credit cards, yes?” Actually, I did not know, having limited myself to one about-to-be-canceled card. “Shane just received that eviction notice from Barry, although I think it’s been coming for some time now. You should have heard Page’s reaction, like a rich kid who’s been denied Christmas. By the way, she told me that they added folks to the guest list for the lunch you’re doing for them. Shane wants to include a group of potential investors to underwrite his moving the business on-line.”

I peered at her in disbelief. “He’s added to the guest list? Does he have some new caterer in mind?”

Marla popped a piece of Gorgonzola into her mouth. “Mm-mm.” She moved her hips in time with her chewing, then said, “Shane still thinks you’re his caterer, doll.”

“That son of a bitch told me the lunch was for his best customers.”

“Yeah, well, he told Page the eviction was just a tiny setback, and that he’d lease her something really gorgeous today.” Marla nabbed a morsel of Camembert. “You’d think losing your livelihood would mean cutting back on expenses. You can imagine how well Page would react, in fact, is reacting to that idea.”

As Marla bustled behind me on my way back to the buffet table, I recalled those long months when The Jerk had refused to pay the full amount he’d been ordered to give Arch and me. There’d been weeks of peanut butter, homemade bread, nonfat dry milk, chunk tuna, and noodles. When I was strung out beyond my ability to cope, our priest had come to visit. He only came once, admitting he didn’t want to jeopardize John Richard’s continued financial support of the parish by appearing to take sides. I was tempted to bring up John Richard’s current fling with a woman in the choir, but did not. In any event, the priest informed me that the most desperate folks he counseled were ones who went from having money to suddenly not having money. Most of them, he added, lived in denial for at least a year, unable to give up the high life. So they racked up debt that took decades to repay. And he certainly hoped, he concluded as he chomped into his sixth peanut butter cookie that I had made especially for his visit, that I would not bury myself in debt! I’d sat in silence as he swallowed the last of the cookie, then asked him to leave.

Well. Mustn’t grumble, as the Brits are wont to say.

I assessed the buffet table. If Shane and Page wanted to live in denial, that was their problem, not mine. At the moment, we needed still more refilled trays. I headed back to the kitchen. Marla made a wide U-turn and followed.

“OK,” she began as I pulled a new tray of beautifully arranged, succulent fruit from the refrigerator. “Here’s the scoop on why Barry kicked Shane out of Westside. First, are you aware of how they figure rents in a mall?”

I frowned at the fruit tray. How mall rents were figured. Wait—I did know this. “Yes, Barry told me. It’s a base figure plus extra for the—what’s it called?… CAM. Common area management,” I added, as I scoured the refrigerator for our Creamy Fruit Dressing.

“Very good,” said Marla.

I carefully placed dollops of the dressing—equal parts sour cream and mayonnaise—into a crystal bowl that fit in the center of the tray.

“That’s not quite all—”

“Hold on.” I paused before covering the large jar of dressing, long enough for Marla to grab a spoon and help herself to a large mouthful. I instantly prayed for the county health inspector to be a thousand miles away. “Rents,” I said, as I stored the jar. “OK. If a store is doing well enough, it’s supposed to pay a percentage of its sales to the mall. But The Gadget Guy shouldn’t have had a problem with that. That place is always mobbed!” I shouldered the fruit tray. “Was always mobbed.”

“The Gadget Guy was a huge success,” Marla agreed, as she followed me out of the kitchen. “The place did so well that they should have been paying extra to the mall owners, but Shane cried poor. So Barry had his accounts audited, and guess what? The Gadget Guy owed the mall owner, what’s their name?”

“Pennybaker International.”

“Owed Pennybaker over a million dollars. Pay up in thirty days, Pennybaker said, or you’re out of here, forever. Shane didn’t even have a hundred thou, much less a mil. The eviction notice was delivered yesterday afternoon.”

I set my tray on the buffet, where women dripping with leased jewels dug in for second, third, or—was it possible?—fourth helpings of truffles. They squealed and wiggled and raved about the rich chocolate. Curse of the cocktail buffet: People eat too much, because it’s all right there in front of them. When I’d retrieved a load of glasses and plates, I stopped to scan the lounge. Barry was nowhere in sight.

Marla moved away. I unloaded the dirty dishes and glasses, then began a lap around the lounge to retrieve more of them. Liz and Julian, I noted thankfully, were bent on the same task at the room’s opposite end. The dregs of the buzzing crowd clustered around the jewelry display cases, doing last-minute deals. Marla waved at friends, pointed to her new necklace, earrings, and barrettes, and then nipped back toward me. She must have gleaned a final tidbit of gossip.

“More news,” she said eagerly. “Shane’s future is looking even dimmer.”

“Financially?” I replied. “Or legally, after he gets through with the cops for coming at his wife?”

“In the money department, Barry’s not backing off on demanding the mall’s million.” Marla’s voice was hoarse. “Shane claims he wants more time to bring together the cash. That party you, uh, may be doing at his house? He’s hoping these potential investors will write him checks to bail him out of everything. So. How’s your shoulder?”

“It’s fine,” I lied, realizing my best friend wanted to get back to shopping and talking, not necessarily in that order. “Thanks for your company. And all the good info,” I added with a wink.

Marla nodded, gave me a huge smile, and skittered away to coo over someone’s diamond necklace.

It was almost seven-thirty, and the lounge was finally emptying. At least the platters had held up to the end. Liz and Julian appeared and also asked about my shoulder. I told them it was fine. Liz wondered if she and Julian could grab a quick cup of coffee, as they needed to talk. Then they would come back to do cleanup. I nodded. She didn’t mention the argument with Barry. I certainly hoped she didn’t want to visit with Julian so they could agree on a story.

Stop being paranoid, I ordered myself.

Marla swooped back and signaled that we go into the kitchenette. “I’ve got a flask in my purse,” she whispered. “This was supposed to be a cocktail party, and all Barry Dean managed to offer was wine. Disgusting. I’ve got some sherry in here, Dry Sack, your favorite. Why don’t you have some?”

I politely declined her offer, which brought on a why-can’t-you-ever-relax harangue that I ignored.

“OK,” I said, after Marla took a sip of her sherry. “What else have you got?”

Marla leaned forward, eager to share. “Shane and Page fought because he didn’t lease her a piece from the six-thou-a-month category. Page is a compulsive shopper, like her sister. The woman is crazed, I’m telling you. Maybe they both are. Anyway, Page wants everything her sister has, and the sister got a piece from that six-thou-a-month case.”

“Her sister?”

“Pam Disharoon. Goldy, where have you been?”

I wrinkled my nose at her. “The blond lingerie saleslady? She has so much stuff that Page Stockham is jealous of her?”

“Word is that Pam is loaded with goodies, all gifts from boyfriends. She doesn’t have to work in sales, but she does for the thrill of it. Apparently, she’s a whiz at both selling stuff and getting stuff. Free stuff. She goes to a guy’s house. She and the guy have a wild lovemaking session on his Oriental rug, all while the guy’s wife is away, of course. Pam says, Oh, if only I had a rug like this, I could think of us on it. Next thing you know, a Kirman’s delivered to Pam’s front door. I’m telling you, the woman is infamous. I can’t believe you haven’t heard about her.”

“I’ve been working. Too hard, according to you. What about Page?”

Marla sniffed. “Page is insanely jealous of Pam. Page watches her sister like a hawk, to see what she gets. Then Page goes out and buys the same thing, only bigger. It’s like a game between them.”

“And Shane fits in how?”

Marla sipped more sherry. “Well, I just heard Shane and Page are in counseling, individually and together. Last month Page spent fifteen thousand dollars just on stuff. That woman can’t walk past a store without buying something that she thinks Pam might have. Page just bought a new white Audi, because one of Pam’s boyfriends gave her one. Page can’t stand the fact that Pam’s Audi license plate says ‘GOGIRL.’ She thinks it means go get more stuff.”

I stacked the last of the dirty platters in a cardboard box. “So Page bought one because Pam had one? There’s a great motivation for purchasing a luxury vehicle.”

Marla put down her glass and obligingly scraped a platter into the new trash bag. She hesitated, as if trying to remember something. “And that’s not all,” she added. “Before she was kicked out of tonight’s party, Page told a friend of mine that Shane had told her that ninety percent of the new stuff Page just bought has to go back. Page was upset, whoo! The last ten percent, she stowed in a storage shed—her fourth. But it’s not as if she isn’t trying to change. I hear she’s on an antidepressant that’s supposed to help with compulsive spending. Plus, she’s in individual counseling, as well as a support group for over-spenders. Anonymous, of course.”

“For crying out loud—” I couldn’t imagine keeping any secrets from Marla. The woman was a bloodhound.

“You haven’t heard the worst of it. The reason Shane had to come with her here? As part of their counseling deal, Page gets no credit cards, no checkbook. So if she wants something, Shane has to be there to get it for her.”

“How’d she get the fifteen thou worth of stuff this month, then?”

Marla raised an eyebrow. “Ellie McNeely called and left a message for Shane. He’d applied for a loan and it had come through. The minute Page heard it, she raced down to the bank and talked the clerk into letting her get the dough. Bye-bye loan.”

We were interrupted by Liz and Julian entering the kitchenette. Julian told me Barry had given us the go-ahead to pack up the buffet.

“Would it be possible for me to leave early?” Liz asked. “I need to go find Teddy—”

I held up a finger for her to wait. “Marla? If you don’t mind, I need to visit with my staff.”

Marla assumed an attitude of peevishness, then winked at Julian and flounced out.

To Liz and Julian, I said gently, “You realize how arguing with a client during an event can wreck everything.” Liz opened her mouth to protest, then stopped when she saw my face. “This is not nosiness, Liz. This is your boss needing to know why you were fighting with the client… especially,” I added with a smile, “when we haven’t received the staff gratuity.”

They both hesitated. Then Julian said to Liz, “You’d better just tell her.”

Liz’s thin, pretty face was tense. “Teddy’s had trouble here at the mall—”

“Trouble?” I interjected, remembering what Marla had told me. “What kind of trouble?”

Outside the kitchenette, Barry was making an announcement that customers only had five minutes to complete their leases…and they might want to stow their pieces in their cars, if they were moving on to make great shoe deals at Prince & Grogan!

“My son had a theft problem,” Liz said huskily. “You probably read about it in the paper, they just couldn’t release his name because he’s a juvenile.”

“I actually heard about his…problem from a friend. What does that have to do with Barry?”

Reluctantly, Liz continued: “Teddy… used to wait in that eggs-and-bacon area, where parents let their kids play. Sometimes people sit at tables around the edge of the play area, to drink coffee or tea. You know it?” I nodded. “Teddy would… watch, until the parents or the coffee drinkers were distracted. Then he’d walk off with their bags. Their purses, too.” She ran her fingers through her short silver hair. “Their wallets. That’s why I wanted to talk to Julian. I just keep thinking if Teddy could have a role model—”

“Liz. The fight with Barry? Why did the security guys haul Teddy out of the lounge?”

“Law enforcement has talked and talked to Teddy, and he’s doing so much better. But then Barry Dean,” Liz began savagely, “barred him from Westside. Technically, it’s called being trespassed. He’s not allowed into the mall for any reason. If mall security catches him, they automatically call the cops and have him transported away—”

“This sucks!” Julian interjected angrily. “Here’s this seventeen-year-old kid, who’s just trying to find his mom so he can give her a ride home, and then that creep gets him dragged off—”

“Sounds like Barry was just trying to do his job,” I pointed out gently.

“Oh, puh-leeze,” Liz scoffed. “Barry didn’t have to have Teddy humiliated. There were enough guards holding on to him to stop an army, for God’s sake. And I’d like to know why my son was immediately hauled away in front of everybody when he didn’t even do anything, and Barry stood still while Shane Stockham tried to beat up his wife and whacked into you instead. Hello?”

“Well, uh,” I said, but couldn’t finish. Liz had a point.

“Anyway, why am I talking to you?” Liz’s voice was defiant. “I need to go find out where my son is.” She tugged off her chef’s jacket and tossed it onto the counter. “If you don’t want to pay me for my work today, that’s fine. Good-bye.”

With this, she stomped away.

“That went well,” Julian commented.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I retorted. “But why didn’t they just agree to meet outside the mall? If the kid knows he’s not supposed to come into the mall, why would he do it?” I let out a breath. “This was a Goldilocks’ Catering party. And we saw not one, but two fights.” I slumped against the counter, exhausted and in pain. Worse, I felt defeated.

Julian’s dark eyebrows knit into a straight line. “Let me help you with the cleanup and packing. I’ll stay as late as you want. And…I know a catering staff shouldn’t argue with anyone. So you don’t have to pay me, either.” He paused. “Teddy just felt so awful when I talked to him tonight.”

I resisted commenting on how awful the people Teddy stole from undoubtedly felt when their packages and purses disappeared. Instead, I thanked Julian for staying to help. And of course I would pay him, and Liz, too. Talking about her brought up a fresh worry. She and I had come down from Aspen Meadow together…. What if she couldn’t find Teddy? How would she get home? Did she have a cell phone? When I voiced this worry to Julian, he said Liz had his cell number. If she got stranded, she’d be sure to call.

By the time Julian and I had cleaned the kitchen—to make way for more mess—and reentered the lounge, the crowd had vanished. At my suggestion, Julian offered the remains of the buffet platters to the band and the jewelry salespeople. They pounced as if they hadn’t eaten for months. I smiled. “Free food” is always great publicity for my business. And after the evening’s crises, I needed all the help I could get.

I stacked more empty trays and carried them to the kitchen. As usual, Barry had done another of his disappearing acts. Stockham conflict or no, if Barry thought I was going to leave without my check for the staff gratuity, he was wrong.

After twenty minutes of washing platters and shuffling them to the van, we were almost done. Still no Barry. After all my admonitions about staying cool, I was starting to simmer.

“One of the musicians gave me a note the last time you were out at the van,” Julian said as he brought the last of the platters into the kitchen. “I thought it was for me, but it was for you. From Barry Dean.”

“A note? Or a check?”

Julian wordlessly handed me a single piece of paper.

Hey Goldy! it read. Great event, despite the problems. I have your check, and a tip for you, too. Meet me at the Prince & Grogan shoe sale at 8:30. Your buddy, B.

It sure didn’t feel as if Barry Dean was my buddy anymore. I glanced at my watch: quarter to nine. Great.

“Look, Julian, Barry’s being elusive. I’ve got to find him in Prince and Grogan to get our gratuity. And I need to pick up Arch’s guitar, too, before I get there.”

“You bought Arch a guitar?” Julian asked, his eyes brightening. “Why don’t you let me pick it up? It’ll save us some time.”

“You don’t know Westside Music. I’m not even sure they’ll let me have it, and I just paid them hundreds of dollars for the damn thing.”

When we hurried back out to the lounge, the lights were blinking. A bored voice from an unseen loudspeaker announced that the mall was closing in fifteen minutes. I looked around in dismay. Julian and I had done quite a bit, but at least twenty more minutes of cleanup awaited us.

“Look,” Julian said, aware of my problem. “I’ll finish the cleanup extra fast while you nab the guitar and the check. Then I’ll meet you back here, say, no later than ten after nine. They won’t lock us in, I’m sure. Plus, that’ll give Liz time to call if she doesn’t find Teddy. Then we can drive in convoy out of the lot. I don’t want you all driving out of here on your own, what with killer truckers on the loose. You’d better leave now, though, in case Westside Music closes early. You can always get the staff gratuity check later, you know.”

In the catering biz, “getting the check later” was not something you should ever do. Food is perishable; events get messed up; people decide not to give you your money. But I had no time to remind Julian of all that. I needed to get Arch’s guitar. I thanked Julian and dashed out of the lounge.

The mall was finally emptying. Rolling metal gates had been drawn halfway down most stores’ entrances. Shoppers, weighed down with bags, straggled toward the exits. Strobe lights flashed overhead, and unseen speakers warned customers to shove off. Only one family remained at the bacon-and-eggs area. Their young son, perhaps four years of age, was clinging to an oversized piece of toast.

“I can’t leave the bwed alone tonight,” he howled. “The bwed will be lonely!”

I walked faster and prayed that Tom and Arch had arrived home safely from lacrosse practice. Had Shane left his mild-mannered assistant in charge of the usual carnage at practice, I wondered, while he came here to the mall to threaten his wife and me?

At Westside Music, a much-body-pierced young woman was guarding the front doors. When I arrived, she lifted her metal-dotted chin and announced in a chilly voice that the store was closed. But I could see a clerk at the register, the same fellow who’d waited on me in the first place. I said I’d only be a minute, pushed past the sparkly gatekeeper, and scurried over to the salesclerk. Deep in thought, he was counting the contents of the cash register, one bill at a time, very slowly, mouthing twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five….

“I need my guitar, please,” I said sweetly.

The guy shook his head without looking up and kept counting. I could see the guitar leaning against a CD case behind him. I rummaged through my pockets and pulled out the crumpled receipt.

“Please, sir. I’m not here to cause you trouble. Just keep counting and hand me that guitar I’ve already bought—”

Again, the clerk shook his head. Overhead, the lights in the store dimmed. Once more, I asked him to hand me the guitar; the fellow acted as if he had not heard a word I’d said. One more reason to discourage Arch from joining a garage band: Musicians go deaf fast.

“Well,” I persisted, keeping my tone light, “since it’s clear you don’t give a fig about customer service, I’m just going to take matters into my own hands.” The clerk wrinkled his brow but did not cease counting. I moved closer to the cash register.

“We’re closed!” bellowed Body-Pierce Gal from the entrance.

Startled, the deaf cash-counter glanced up as I sidled in behind him and grabbed Arch’s guitar. Tucking it under my arm, I waved the receipt at him. He peered at it, then frowned and nodded. I raced toward the exit. Mission accomplished, I thought. I sprinted past the startled gatekeeper and headed for Prince & Grogan, Barry Dean, and the money Liz and Julian seemed so intent on refusing.

At the entrance to Prince & Grogan, I pulled the guitar to my chest and zipped inside. The P & G employees were busying themselves with their tallies. Where had Barry’s note said he’d be? Ah yes, the shoe sale. In the far right corner of the main floor, I spied an enormous banner: Red Tag Shoe Sale!!! Clutching the guitar, I sped toward it.

Making a straight path to shoes proved a challenge, however. Scented air seduced my nose to the perfume counter. Brightly colored spring outfits on impossibly slender mannequins made me wonder if I’d ever again have a slim figure. Probably not. My cross-store hike was slowed by the dimming of lights and relentless announcements that the store was closing.

I skittered around departments and displays until I finally landed at a large area denoted by a fancy-script sign: Ladies’ Shoes. In the plush P & G redo of two years ago, the shoe department had been outfitted with thick beige carpet, beige-striped loveseats, and brown-patterned chairs. Artfully placed among the furniture were glass-topped tables that probably had been neatly stacked with shoes before the Tornado of Shoppers blew through. On either side of the sign, two tall, deep cabinets held only a few sandals teetering from shelves. Unfortunately, the department held no Barry.

A couple of salespeople were picking their way through piles and piles and piles of shoes. Their probing gait, as they sorted and boxed footwear, reminded me of beachcombers’. Another salesperson was frowning at the only open cash register. I held the guitar high as I wended my way toward her, dodging picked-over pumps, boots, sandals, slippers, and loafers, all of which lay higgledy-piggledy across the floor. Perhaps Barry had been here, and given the saleslady our check. Or, following his usual style, maybe he’d written another note about where to go for payment. If this was going to be like the hunt for the psych classnotes, it was going to be a very long night.

“Excuse me, but have you seen Barry Dean, the mall manager?” I asked politely.

The clerk gently closed the cash register and gave me a sympathetic look. “I sure haven’t. Sorry.”

“I was the caterer for the Elite Shoppers party,” I attempted again, still hopeful. “I’m just trying to get our final check. Could he have left a note for me?”

She gestured to the beachcombers. “They might know. They’ve been working here longer than I have.”

I thanked her and looked around. To avoid the mountains of shoes, I decided to backtrack to the edge of the department, then make a straight shot past the cabinets to the workers. Another overhead announcement reminded customers that the store was closed, and that all salespeople needed to check out immediately.

So: I hurried. Fearful that I’d miss talking to the sorting salespeople, I lofted the guitar and began to pick my way around the piles of shoes. Ignorant of my presence, the workers called to each other, something about the cleaning crew, and just finishing this last bit. I glanced back at the cash register. The helpful saleslady was already walking toward the escalator.

“Crap, crap, crap,” I muttered, as I teetered at the edge of a pile of leather pumps with cutout designs around the toes. When I began to lose my balance, I overcompensated by yanking the guitar sideways. I wobbled over the shoes and staggered like a drunk. When I tried to get a foothold, I reeled forward, let go of the guitar, and fell onto the shoes.

My head hit the side of the cabinet hard. The low doors swung open, and I saw stars. I can’t believe this is happening again, I thought, as I lay on the pile of shoes. This is the third time I’ve fallen down today!

The overhead lights in the department began to click out in a methodical manner. I groaned and turned over. The salespeople had vacated the department. No help was forthcoming. I registered another groan nearby.

It was not my voice. Fear snaked up my back. I peered around.

The open cabinet doors had dislodged a stash of shoes and a mannequin. Could the frenzied shoppers have pulled down a mannequin?

I was startled by another groan. It came from the mannequin, which had on black dress shoes and black socks.

The shoe with a sock was attached to a leg, and then there was another shoe, and another leg…

Oh, Lord.

The legs were attached to a torso. To a body. A still warm, unmoving body.

Fighting off nausea, I pawed frantically over the shoes. Didn’t I recognize those striped tuxedo pants, those shiny black shoes? Please, God, no, I prayed, as I ignored my pain and burrowed through pumps with cutout toes, sandals, loafers, and platform shoes, to pull out this … person, who was groaning. This…person who was clearly not supposed to be here.

Finally I got to the body’s face. It was twisted to one side.

The body was Barry Dean’s.

A pulse, I told myself, as I groped. It was faint. Weak. With some effort, I managed to turn Barry partway onto his side. He groaned again, but kept his eyes closed.

There was a knife in his stomach. Blood poured onto the scattered shoes and beige rug.

“Barry!” Was I yelling? It came out as a croak. “Barry! What happened to you?”

The air behind me swished. I stiffened and tried to scramble off the shoes. A warning voice echoed inside my head. What was—?

Swoosh. I grabbed for my pocket, for my cell phone. Crack. Something struck my head, very hard. Everything faded to darkness, but not before I could ask the question that had haunted me since I reached Westside Mall, an eternity ago.

What the hell was going on?

CHAPTER 6

From the distant reaches of my cerebral cortex, I heard Marla’s voice. You should have stayed in bed. Then her reproving voice morphed into Julian’s. You need to peel the potatoes. Was he making potato appetizers? Wait, I was lying on the potatoes. Is that what Julian was calling to me about?

Why couldn’t I move?

I tried to wiggle my arms and legs. My head throbbed. Every effort at motion brought stabs of pain. I opened one eye to get a look at the hard, bumpy potatoes on which I appeared to be lying.

Not potatoes. Shoes.

“Julian,” I mouthed. “Help him.”

Hey, Goldy! Julian cried, much closer now. How did your… What happened to… I can’t… He tried to move me off the shoes. Then he cried out. I registered him stumbling toward Barry. A second later, a woman’s scream split the air.

Suddenly, a rumbly voice, one I didn’t recognize, spoke sharply. Julian protested. I mustered up strength to inch forward, but couldn’t go far. Unconsciousness claimed me the way bullies used to push me down the school slide—before I was ready.

A scent assaulted my nose. I jerked upward. My brain seemed to be cracking, splintering like glass. The stink of ammonia again hit my nostrils and I yelped. Something bad had happened, was happening, was about to happen again. What? Why?

“Mrs. Schulz,” came the deep, unfamiliar voice, much closer than before. “Wake up. We’ve called the medics and the police. They’re on their way.”

A large, rough-skinned hand grabbed my wrist. The same powerful hand pressed my wrist veins. For a pulse? When I tried to twist my neck to see who was talking, nausea steamrolled over me.

“Julian,” I moaned. “Where’s Julian?”

I opened my eyes.

A wide, pasty male face loomed in front of mine. The man was wearing a security guard uniform. “Just don’t worry about your guy Julian,” his slanted mouth announced. “We’ve got him. He’s on the other side of—”

“But—” I struggled to remember what had brought me to this pile of shoes. A shaft of memory intruded. “Where’s… Barry?” I struggled upward. I was half sitting, half lying on the bed of shoes. Barry had been right over…there.

And then I saw him. A silver knife handle protruded from his stomach. His head lay at an impossible angle. His hands were limp. He, too, lay on the pile of shoes. Blood had drenched the leather and pooled on the carpet. He wasn’t groaning anymore.

I couldn’t look at the blade’s silver handle. Or at the blood. Oh, please, no. Tears welled up in my eyes. And all I could think was: That’s one of my new knives.

Loud voices, heavy footsteps, and more clammy hands feeling for my pulse signaled the arrival of cops and medics. An eternity had passed since the pasty-faced man had waved an ampule of ammonia under my nose. Now a second dose of stink smacked my nostrils. Was I seeing two fellows in white uniforms, or was I seeing double?

“Mrs. Schulz,” said one of the white uniforms, “your husband is here.” He reached behind my head and began touching it. When his fingers pressed onto an unexpectedly painful spot, I gasped.

“How about if you don’t poke me with an ice pick?” I squealed. I was vaguely aware of not being very nice.

“Mrs. Schulz,” said the other uniform. There were two of them. This second medic’s soothing voice was a tad higher than his comrade’s. “Please cooperate.”

Now the first medic probed my neck. “Does it feel as if anything is broken?” I tried to shake my head, which was a mistake. When I whispered no, he said, “Your husband will meet you at the sheriff’s department. We’re taking you to the hospital. OK?”

“No, not OK.” My voice sounded like razor blades. “I need to go with my husband. Please, let me be with Tom.”

With stubborn resolve, I pulled myself to my knees. The medics grabbed my arms. I stood up, wobbled, and would have fallen if the two of them had not tightened their grip. “Thanks. Really, I just need to go with my family. Now, please.”

The EMS fellows murmured that I could not. They helped me off the shoe mountain and onto the solid floor of Prince & Grogan. Then they declared that the coroner was on his way, and I could not talk to anyone until I’d gone to the hospital, and then to the Furman County Sheriff’s Department. This did not sound right, but my head was too fuzzy to pull up the legalities of the situation. Especially since I did not know what that situation was, exactly.

Barry must be dead, I thought, and fought back tears.

The department store had an eerie, darkened look. As the medics led me toward an exit, I squinted and tried to make things out. Several salespeople—at least, they looked like salespeople—sat in chairs dispersed around the floor. Each one was talking to a uniformed cop who either knelt or sat nearby, notebook in hand. Finally I spotted Julian. He was slumped in a chair in the men’s shoe department. Three cops clustered around him. All looked grim.

Then I saw Tom. A sob convulsed my body. My husband’s somber expression spoke of something else I couldn’t face.

Despair.

“Tom!” I cried. “Come with me!”

He brought a finger to his lips and shook his head.

Black spots clouded my vision as I stumbled up the ambulance steps. One medic got behind the wheel and the other insisted I lie down—but not before I’d registered a dark, seated presence behind the stretcher.

“Please,” I said as I tried to focus on the ambulance ceiling instead of my pain, “what happened to Barry?”

There was a silence. Then, “That’s what you need to tell us,” announced the man behind the stretcher.

Overhead, a light came on. A headache gripped my skull. I blinked and clung to the side of the stretcher as the ambulance began to move. I said, “I don’t understand. Who are you?”

“Did you kill Barry Dean?” asked the voice.

More pain stabbed the back of my head as I jerked around. The dark presence was a bulky man in a slate-gray suit. He had salt-and-pepper hair and a ruddy face. His dark eyes locked on to mine.

“No, of course I didn’t!” I protested, astonished. “Barry was my friend. He was an old friend,” I added weakly, as black clouds again loomed behind my eyes. “And whatever happened to my Miranda rights?”

The cop wrote something in a notebook, then frowned at his pen. Finally he looked up and introduced himself. He was Detective Sawyer. “How about your assistant, Julian Teller?” Detective Sawyer asked. “Did he kill Dean?”

“Look, Detective, neither of us stabbed Barry Dean. Julian is the kindest, most helpful—”

“How does your head feel?” Detective Sawyer interrupted.

The ambulance swayed as it pelted forward. Belatedly, I registered the siren. It felt as if it, too, was right behind my eyes.

“My head hurts,” I replied. “And you’re making it worse,

Detective Sawyer. But listen… this is important….”

The ambulance slowed unexpectedly. I turned around and lifted my chin—which sent daggers slicing down my neck—and peered out at blinking sawhorses. A large yellow arrow indicated a detour around the dirt mess from the dump truck accident.

“Something important,” I tried again with the cop. The words eluded me as I twisted back to look at him. “Did you know that tonight… in Prince and Grogan? That was the second time today that somebody tried to kill Barry. Tried to hurt Barry and me. Julian was there, too—”

“When was the first time?” The detective looked bored.

“This afternoon. A truck almost mowed us down—” I said urgently. If only he understood…

“Julian Teller called in that accident,” Sawyer announced, unperturbed. “He wasn’t a victim of it.”

My hands clenched into fists. “Will you shut up? Will you let me explain?”

“When did you go into Prince and Grogan tonight?”

“Do you know who my husband is?”

“Yes indeedy. When did you enter Prince and Grogan?”

I struggled to think back. When did I enter the department store? I’d picked up Arch’s guitar at Westside Music, but that had taken longer than I’d expected.

“Oh, my God, the guitar!” I cried. “Where is it?”

“You were hit with it, Mrs. Schulz. It was badly dented, and now it’s being held by the police to be checked for prints. Please try to think when you entered the store.”

That new guitar was dented? It was being held by the police? What was I supposed to give Arch for his birthday? My head ached.

What was the detective’s question? Oh, yes, when had I entered the department store. Let’s see. After leaving the music store, I’d scuttled into P & G and made my way through the departments looking for Barry….

“I went into Prince and Grogan around five to nine, maybe a little after, I’m pretty sure—”

“And you discovered Dean when?”

Effort at thought worsened my headache. “Around nine, I guess, but—”

“Can you explain why we got a nine-one-one call, at exactly nine o’clock, with someone saying Dean was dead? Which would be just as you came into the store?”

“Nine o’clock? Well, maybe I’m wrong about those times. But you see, when I found Barry, he wasn’t dead… he was groaning. Then someone hit me, maybe because they wanted to finish Barry off—” Something was bothering me. What? I tried to review Sawyer’s last set of questions. “Am I, uh, a suspect in this, Detective? Because I sure don’t like your tone of voice. Not to mention that you seem to have forgotten my Miranda rights?”

This, too, he ignored. “Was Julian Teller with you at that time? When you entered the store?”

At five to nine? I wondered fuzzily. Why would he do that? This detective was being too damn aggressive, I thought angrily. I lay still and prayed Lord, help me. Over and over. It helped.

“Know what?” I murmured after a few minutes. “I have a head injury. And I know a bit about your line of work, Detective Sawyer. Law enforcement isn’t supposed to question someone with a fresh head injury and no hint of Miranda. So I’m just going to wait.” My head spun. I tried to clear it, but my brain was fogged in. “I’m not going to answer a single one of your questions. And since I’m not under arrest, I’m going to call my lawyer at the hospital.”

Detective Sawyer expelled breath and slapped his notebook closed. Actually, I desperately wanted to call Tom. And if he for some reason couldn’t advise me, I would have to call Marla, not a lawyer. My own lawyer was pretty good at getting The Jerk to pay child support, but that was it. Marla, on the other hand, had the inside scoop on the moneyed and powerful in Denver, and her circle of acquaintances would surely yield connections to some of Denver’s hotshot criminal defense attorneys. On the other hand, when she heard the department was trying to nail me, or Julian, or both of us, for murder, I would have to make my next call to her cardiologist.

The ambulance pulled to a stop. What had felt like an hour in the vehicle had only been a few minutes, as Southwest Hospital was near Westside Mall.

I couldn’t read the clock inside the Emergency Room, no matter how hard I tried. A headache raged in my skull like a thunderstorm, complete with flashes of lightning. How long had I been out? I did not know. What I did know was that every muscle and bone in my body cried out with pain and fatigue. I cursed my helplessness. I balked when a nurse poked, prodded, and questioned me. While waiting for the doctor, I disobeyed orders to stay put. Instead, I hobbled out to the reception area and called Tom’s cell. No answer. Fearful the nurse would come out and claim me, I put in a call to Marla.

There was no answer at her home. I tried her cellular.

“You’re not going to believe—” I began.

“Oh, yes I am!” Her dear, husky voice crackled. “I just talked to Julian. I’m on my way to the department. The sheriff’s department.”

I held the phone away from my ear. “I’m at the hospital—”

“What?” she squawked.

“I need you to help Julian—”

“What do you think I’m doing? I’ve got an associate of Steve Hulsey’s on his way to the department to meet Julian. Hulsey himself is coming to help you.”

I shuddered. “No-Holds-Barred Hulsey?” The Denver papers were invariably filled with tales of criminal defense lawyer Steven Hulsey, of Hulsey, Jones, Macauley & Wilson. Recently, Hulsey had defended a drug dealer who’d murdered a rival in front of three witnesses, all of whom, apparently, had serious vision problems.

“That’s the one,” Marla said proudly. “Did you hear how he got Stafford Roosevelt off? It was in the papers last year. Big Bucks Roosevelt, serial rapist, supposedly. But we’ll never know, since Hulsey got him off on a technicality. And just last month, the associate who’s coming down to help Julian, Cleve Jackson, convinced a jury not to convict a fellow lawyer of bank fraud.”

“Yes,” I said weakly, “I heard about that one.” In the fraud case, Cleve Jackson had repeatedly asserted that the police had mishandled crucial evidence. For their part, Tom and the department despised any and all from Hulsey’s office.

“I’m paying the legal bills, don’t worry,” Marla yelled. “I am so pissed off. And I can’t believe what Julian…!” Her voice cracked, disappeared, came back. “He didn’t even call me until the cops had questioned him for an hour, and now he’s consented to a damn polygraph! Julian said he didn’t do anything! He wants to prove it with a lie detector test! Cleve Jackson should already be there. Julian should wait—”

“Listen,” I said desperately as the nurse signaled that the ER doc was ready to see me. “I need to go…”

Marla grumbled words unfit for Sunday school, declared that she’d bring Julian back to her place when the cops and Cleve Jackson had finished with him, and signed off.

I endured the next hour in as good a humor as possible. Detective Sawyer hovered doggedly at the edge of my vision. When the ER doc said it looked as if I had a mild concussion, I asked to see my husband. Detective Sawyer, looming, announced grimly that Tom had gone down to the department and would meet me there.

Sometime after midnight, the ambulance that had brought me to the hospital from Westside Mall arrived at the Furman County Sheriff’s Department. I had been up since dawn, I had escaped a truck accident, I had catered an event, I’d found my client dead, I’d been whacked on the head, I’d awakened in pain. And now, it seemed, I was in the thick of a criminal investigation. I was beyond exhausted, beyond wounded and bewildered. I was numb.

Mutely, I allowed myself to be escorted to one of the interrogation rooms. It was graced with a single table and four chairs, one of which held Detective Sawyer. The instant I entered the room, Sawyer flipped open his notebook.

A microphone stood like a wired totem in the middle of the table. The right-hand wall boasted a one-way mirror. Unlike what you see in movies, Tom had told me, there was no one actually behind the one-way glass, no sharp-eyed team gauging my reactions, no sharp-tongued cop asserting that I’d just told a basket of lies. According to Tom, an unmanned videocamera recorded the whole interview. I hugged myself. More than the cop’s notebook or the microphone, the image of that solitary camera rolling tape made me dizzy.

A tall, wide-bodied man swept in. I recognized Steve Hulsey from his TV interviews. The nightly talk shows loved having him on, as he put it, “to tell people the inside story of law enforcement.” Hulsey had a dark face featuring deeply grooved cheeks and thick dark eyebrows that sprouted like sails over shrewd, assessing eyes. He’d slicked his black hair into place with a glistening substance that made the strands resemble porcupine quills. His hastily donned power suit, a severe charcoal pinstriped silk, was only slightly rumpled. His voice rumbled like an approaching storm.

“I’d like this woman to step into the hall, please,” he announced to the two detectives. It was not a request. It was a command. The detectives nodded and I walked slowly into the hall.

The famous attorney introduced himself, then crushed my hand when he shook it. In somber tones, Hulsey advised me to wait after each question from the detectives. I was not to answer a single query until he gave me permission. If he didn’t like the way things were going, he would say so. Meanwhile, if he objected to anything, I was to keep my mouth shut. When I begged him for news of Julian, his face turned even more formidable. We would have to talk about that later, he concluded, and turned back to the interrogation room door.

“What about my husband?” I asked. “Have you talked to Tom?”

“Tom Schulz is off this case. His family members are involved.” Hulsey’s voice came out like a growl. “Your son is at your house. A friend is with him. Listen to me, Mrs. Schulz. If I’m going to help you, I need you not to worry about anybody but yourself. We need to focus on getting you out of this.”

“I just…OK, look,” I said with sudden clarity. “Our first problem is with the detective in there, a creep named Sawyer. He was obnoxious in the ambulance and didn’t Mirandize me—”

“A detective questioned you before you were examined by a doctor?” From down the hall, an authoritative-looking, red-haired man with a clipboard strode rapidly toward us. Seeing him, Hulsey lifted his chin and sucked in his breath, like the wolf about to blow down a little pig’s house. Then he turned back to me. His beetlelike eyes bored into mine. Forget lie detectors; this guy was the genuine article. “A policeman asked you questions before or after you were seen in the ER?”

“Uh, before. I told him I wouldn’t answer his questions.”

“Mrs. Schulz,” said Hulsey. His voice melted to chocolate, which scared me even more. “Do not fret about Sawyer. I am here. They are going to fret about us. Are we clear on this?”

Whether from fatigue, physical pain, or stress, I did not know, but I suddenly laughed and kept laughing. Were we clear? I said, “You bet. Ice-crystal clear. High-country spring-water clear.” I was grinning like a madwoman, but Hulsey ignored me. No doubt he’d seen his share of lunatics.

The clipboard-toter passed us and opened the door to the interrogation room. Hulsey and I followed.

“Gentlemen,” declared Hulsey, “my client is fatigued and injured. So let’s make this quick, OK? And,” he said with grim finality, “there will be no polygraph.”

Sawyer tapped his open notebook and gave us a blank look. The other fellow, whose few strands of red hair had been pulled across his balding head, did not acknowledge Hulsey’s request, but merely gave a brusque nod. He informed us he was Detective Collins and his associate was Detective Sawyer, and that this interview was being recorded.

I stated my name and address into the microphone, glanced nervously at the mirrored glass hiding the video-camera, and tucked my cold, trembling hands inside the big pocket of my apron.

Come to think of it, why was I still wearing the apron? I felt for my cell phone: still there. The note from Barry: also still there. But…what in the world was the small plastic jar my right hand suddenly closed over? I swallowed hard and cautiously moved the jar lower into my pocket, as deep as it would go. Unless I was very much mistaken, I was gripping a prescription bottle full of pills. Where had it come from?

Unobtrusively, I pulled out my hand and placed it in my lap. There was no way I was going to show these cops what I’d just discovered, thank you very much. Every now and then, it’s important to be smart. Which is what I wish I had been while hunting for Barry Dean in the Prince & Grogan shoe department… at least to the extent of jumping up and screaming for help when I’d first found Barry in the cabinet.

“Take us back,” droned Detective Collins. “Begin with the jewelry party. That was the last time you saw Mr. Dean alive, yes?”

“Yes.” Barry’d been quite visible at the party, I told them. There were security tapes, as well as a professional videotape, of the event. I told them the very last time I’d seen Barry alive had been toward the end of the event. No, I had not actually seen him leave. I told them about Barry’s uncharacteristic wine-guzzling. I started to describe the forcible expulsion of Teddy Fury, and Barry’s heated argument with Liz Fury and Julian, but I hadn’t even completed three sentences before Hulsey shook his head.

Had I received my check, the cops wanted to know. Barry had the final payment, I replied, which was our agreed-in-advance gratuity.

“Is that a set amount?” Collins asked.

“It’s usually twenty percent of the bill. If things go well and the client is feeling generous, sometimes we’ll receive up to thirty percent. But Barry left without giving us anything, which I was certain was an oversight—”

“We found a check to your firm in his pocket. Sorry, we need to keep it for a while. Why were you certain this was an oversight?”

“Barry and I… were old friends.”

“How were you old friends?”

Hulsey glared at me in warning.

“We went to C.U. together,” I answered tentatively. What could be incriminating about that? “He studied architecture. I was a psychology major. He sat next to me in a psych class, shared his notes with me, and asked me out for coffee. We drank a lot of cappuccino together. He called me his coffee buddy.” Collins raised an eyebrow. “We were not romantically involved. Barry told me I shouldn’t marry my first husband, and he turned out to be right.”

“How about lately?” asked Collins, uninterested in the criminal doings of Doctor John Richard Korman, my ex. “Maybe you weren’t involved with Dean in school, but lately, did things change?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Both cops gave me practiced blank expressions. “No, Detectives, we were not ever romantically involved. Never.”

“Why did Barry Dean hire an old college friend to do mall catering?”

“Because a mutual friend, Ellie McNeely, recommended me. Plus, I think he might have seen my picture in the paper.”

“Which picture was that? The one from a couple of years ago, when you found another body in Prince and Grogan?”

“No,” I said stiffly. “It was from this February, when I finished a job in Aspen Meadow. Catering for the Hydes. Heard of them?”

Collins’s lips twitched in a distinctly ghoulish grin. “You mean,” he asked, “that photo in the Suburban section, showing you all wet? After you fell into the moat at Hyde Castle?”

“I didn’t fall into the moat, I jumped into it. And that was to get away from someone who was chasing me.”

Hulsey cleared his throat. His eyes drilled into me: SHUT. UP.

Collins shifted in his chair. “But you didn’t get away from someone who hit you with a guitar. Was that because tonight, you recognized the person who was chasing you?”

“Nobody was chasing me, that I know of. I didn’t even hear the person come up behind me. If I had, I might have avoided getting whacked with a guitar.”

“Was that person Julian Teller?”

“No.”

Collins shook his head disbelievingly. “The catered event ended. You and Julian Teller made trips to take your equipment back to your van, yes?”

“Yes. And then I came back and Julian—who is one of my assistants—told me…” I could feel my anger rising. Why had they asked if Julian had hit me? “Actually, Julian handed me a note that Barry had given one of the musicians. It said he—Barry—had my gratuity for me.”

There was a silence. “We need to see that note,” decreed Sawyer.

I fished into my apron pocket, careful not to disturb the prescription bottle tucked there, then pulled out the crumpled note and slapped it on the table. So much for fingerprints, I thought belatedly.

Hulsey asked permission to see the note and to have a photocopy made as soon as possible. The cops nodded yes. My lawyer bent over the paper, pulled out a tiny brushed-gold notebook, and wrote in it. The cops announced that they were going to have the handwriting analyzed. Inwardly, I groaned. Did Barry’s script look like Julian’s?

Collins gave me a puzzled look. “I have your check, and a tip for you? You called it a gratuity.”

My frustration clouded to confusion. A tip for you. A tip like a police tip? And earlier, after the truck accident: Goldy, could we have our little chat later, at the party?

“I did think the check was our gratuity. Barry had wanted to talk to me. Earlier in the day, he had said he wanted to have a chat.”

“Wanted to chat with you about what, exactly?” Collins rasped.

“Excuse me.” Steve Hulsey’s deep rumble made me jump. “I won’t allow my client to be taken out in a boat to go fishing with you guys. Finish this up.”

Collins’s glum expression did not change. “So you went to the Prince and Grogan shoe department, in search of this tip. Any idea why he wanted to meet you in Shoes?”

“I’m warning you again, Detective,” interjected Hulsey, who moved impatiently in his chair. “Fish again, and I’m reeling in the line.”

“Mrs. Schulz,” said Collins, unperturbed and persistent. “After you received this note, did you go directly to Prince and Grogan to rendezvous with Mr. Dean?”

I had never realized how ugly the word rendezvous could sound. “No. I already told you, I had to pick up my son’s guitar at Westside Music. That took,” I added, before he could ask, “about five, ten minutes at most. After I picked up the guitar, I headed into Prince and Grogan, again, as I told you before. The store was closing and people were cleaning up, counting the contents of cash registers, like that.”