Crunch Time

10

I tried to keep my teeth from chattering as we dashed to the van. Neither of us had worn a jacket that was thick enough. It was my fault; I should have packed us each a down parka and a pair of waterproof boots. I guess I really hadn’t believed that a storm of this magnitude could happen in the middle of September. Clearly, I’d been in denial.

There was no denying this, though: Heaven was blowing snow down on us with unmitigated ferocity. I piloted the van to Eighth Avenue and headed west. Traffic was heavy. It was just past five, so we were in the full grip of rush hour. All around, taillights glowed like rubies in the mist.

Every now and then, the snow would sift downward in a straight, fast-falling curtain. Most of the time the wind buffeted the tiny flakes crazily, first from one side, then from the other. The drivers around us braked carefully, even allowed people in when they turned. In general, Coloradans try to help one another during storms, for which I was thankful.

I asked Yolanda if she was all right, and she said she was fine. She was shivering, though, so I insisted she snuggle under an old blanket kept stashed in the van’s back. She nabbed it and wrapped it around herself.

The radio announced that a genuine winter storm was upon us. Gee, d’ya think? Denver was due to get high winds and up to a foot of snow by midnight. Up to eighteen inches was predicted for the mountains, including Aspen Meadow. People with four-wheel-drive vehicles were asked to bring doctors to local hospitals, in case they were needed. Some ski resorts, the announcer breathlessly concluded, were hoping to open in October. At least some people were happy.

The van inched westward. I gripped the steering wheel while trying to make out the shapes of the cars around us. I hoped, but did not really believe, that Gus’s grandparents would cancel the dinner they’d planned for the boys. I tried Arch’s cell but was connected to voice mail. I left him a message asking that he call when he was on his way home.

“Would it be all right if we phoned Ferdinanda?” Yolanda asked.

“Of course.” I handed her the cell.

A moment later, Yolanda was talking to Ferdinanda, once again in Spanish. I understood “¿Cuándo?” and “¿Marla?” and “Tres,” and that was about it. Eventually, she promised we’d be home in about an hour, if we were lucky, two if we weren’t. Or at least, that’s what my limited command of the language made out.

“Ferdinanda’s fine,” Yolanda informed me. “So are the puppies. When it got cold this afternoon, she brought them inside and cuddled them in her lap. Oh, and three people came to your house.”

“Three people? All together? Or one after another?”

“I got the impression they were all together. Judging from the way they were dressed, she thought they might be from a real estate agency. But she wasn’t sure. Anyway, she didn’t answer the doorbell, because she was afraid that if they were bad people—her words—they could overpower a person in a wheelchair and come inside and rob the place.” I glanced over. Yolanda was rubbing her forehead. “I know, I know. She’s paranoid.”

I thought, She’s not the only one, O smasher of pickle jars, but said only, “Somehow, I think Ferdinanda could handle three people. Was there something in there about Marla?”

“Yes, she called, and Ferdinanda answered that one. You’re supposed to return the call ASAP. Ferdinanda says there might be other messages on your machine, but she’s afraid to mess with voice mail. She’s not exactly a technological whiz,” Yolanda said apologetically.

“Don’t worry about it.” I asked her to hit the speed dial for Marla, and a moment later, I felt relieved to be connected with my best friend. But if I expected succor after my long day of running around, catering, and surviving an ethnic grocery donnybrook, I was mistaken.

She began with, “Where the hell have you been all day?”

“Down in Denver at Arch’s school, then at an ethnic grocery store, why?”

“An ethnic grocery store? Buying what?”

“Guava marmalade and sour pickles, Marla. Now, what’s going on? If you have an emergency, why didn’t you call my cell?”

“It’s not really an emergency. Or group of emergencies, rather. I just kept thinking you’d be home. Well, first. I wanted to tell you I’d given Yolanda’s location to Humberto Captain. I’m so sorry. He woke me up early this morning, and the phone discombobulated me. He insisted he had some things for Ferdinanda and Yolanda, and that he just couldn’t wait. Was that okay?”

“The ship on that one has sailed, Marla. He did come over this morning. Early. But Tom was still there. And what he had was a care package.” I eyed Yolanda, but she was looking out the window at the falling snow. “Please, please don’t tell anyone else she’s staying with us.”

“All right, all right. Sorry,” Marla mumbled.

“While we’re on the subject of this person, ah, that you just mentioned—”

“Oops! You’ve got Yolanda right there next to you?”

“Yes. I need you to find out what he does for a living. Where he gets his money, to be more exact.”

Marla said, “I thought he owned a little export-import business.”

“Besides that, if anything.”

“Ooh, juicy. I’ll work on it. I thought he didn’t do anything, really, besides just, you know, acting rich. Well, never mind, I’ll dig into it.”

“Thanks.”

She went on. “Couple more things I need to talk to you about. Rorry Breckenridge called me. She only has your home phone number. I figured you’d be mad at me for telling Humberto where Yolanda was, so I didn’t give Rorry your cell.” Marla waited to be congratulated for this odd bit of illogic. When I said nothing, she rushed on. “Rorry’s frantic. She’s had to add four people to the dinner tomorrow night, you know, the one that raises money for the church? She wanted to make sure that was okay.”

“Does this include the two extra people that Sean already told me about?”

“Don’t know. She said it would be eighteen people total.”

“Omigod.” This did include the two Sean had added. So now we were up to eighteen people for the church’s fund-raising dinner, and it was snowing like gangbusters, which would mean no way to get extra supplies. I groaned.

“You don’t sound happy,” Marla said.

“I’m not.” I mentally reviewed what I was making for the dinner. Back when we’d thought it would be held on a warm September evening—ha!—and that the twelve guests—ha! ha!—would be eating outside—ha! ha! ha!—Rorry Breckenridge and I had agreed on an assortment of cheeses, crackers, and fruit for a first course; lamb chops with garlic, mint jelly, salades composées, and hot rosemary focaccia for the main course; and a flourless chocolate cake for dessert. I calculated what was in the walk-in. I could thaw some more lamb chops and stretch out the salad ingredients I already had on hand. But I’d have to make an extra cake and an extra loaf of bread. This was not my idea of fun.

“Goldy?” Marla said. “You there?”

“Yeah, sorry. I was thinking about how to readjust my menu.”

“No need for that. Rorry told me that Sean insisted that one of the guests was willing to pay an extra thousand dollars if you’d make Navajo tacos.”

“Navajo tacos?” I asked, incredulous. I said flatly, “Navajo tacos are not gourmet food. Besides, I don’t have a recipe.”

“Oh, so what if it’s not something a French chef would serve? And call Julian for a recipe. Didn’t he come from Bluff, Utah? Isn’t that in the middle of Navajoland?”

“Yes, but Navajo tacos have meat in them, and Julian’s a vegetarian—”

“Details, girlfriend.”

“All right, all right! I’ll figure out how to do it,” I said, “since it’s for the church.”

“That’s the stuff.”

I said, “Do you know the names of the people she’s adding, by any chance?”

“Well, the four she added today are Humberto Captain and a date, and Tony Ramos and his wife.”

“Who?”

“Goldy, jeez, are you not getting a cell phone signal down there? You didn’t think I’d have her tell me about four extra people, and that I would say I’d call you, until I knew who these folks were, did you?”

“Sorry to be grumpy. Is that it?”

“No.” She took a deep breath. “I heard through the grapevine that Jack’s house sold today.”

“Jack’s—” I couldn’t breathe. I actually braked, even though we’d entered Sixth Avenue westbound, which was an expressway with no red lights. Luckily, no one honked, and I accelerated cautiously. If Jack’s house sold, then that would mean he was really gone. “Do you know who bought it?”

“Nope. My source said she thought it was a family with kids, but she wasn’t sure. Something about wanting to get in before the school year really got under way. I think the parents were going over there today with the real estate agent.”

Could this be the three people who showed up? But why would they come over to our house? I said, “I can’t stand this.”

“I know, I know. Jack was so great. But I thought you’d want to hear it from me.”

“Anything else?”

“No, except we’re getting a boatload of snow up here. Are you almost home?”

“I just got on Sixth Avenue. Listen, I need you to do a little more research for me. A few items, and they could be . . . fun for you.”

“Make my night.”

“Could you dip into the Brie Quarles story a bit? I’m wondering if the person she’s fooling around with is Tony Ramos.”

“Brie?” said Marla, disbelieving. “Brie Quarles? There’s no way she’d go for an ordinary high school athletic coach. No way. She’s a barely practicing attorney who thinks of herself as high society. I haven’t had the heart to tell her there is no high society in Aspen Meadow. There’s money and there’s no money, with all the shades in between. But now Tony’s made himself a load of dough, so maybe Brie’s interested in him. Who knows? Brie equates money with status, poor girl. All right, I’ll look into it. What else have you got?”

“Do you know anything about Charlene Newgate having a new boyfriend? One with a lot of money?”

“Charlene Newgate? Remind me.”

“Oh,” I said, without referring to the hard time I’d had bringing Charlene to mind myself. “She used to get money and food from the church, until she started a secretarial service?”

“Charlene Newgate, right. Just saw her at my lawyer’s office a couple of weeks ago. That woman gives me the creeps. She wears resentment like a second skin. She has a boyfriend? What, is she in junior high?”

“She told me she had a new boyfriend,” I said as the van crawled through the snow.

“I hate being the last to know something. I suppose Charlene would have had the chance to meet plenty of men, but still, Charlene Newgate? She’s a bitch who’s worked for every lawyer, doctor, and other well-moneyed professional in this town. I’ve never heard of anyone being interested in her. Whenever she sees me, she tells me that while she has to work, I am a wealthy, overfed layabout who’s done nothing with her life. Which may be true,” Marla admitted, “but I don’t need Charlene Newgate to tell me.”

“That’s an extremely cruel and untrue thing to say about you.”

“Thanks. But anyway, what guy could possibly want someone so negative for a girlfriend?”

“My question exactly.”

Marla said, “This one will be fun. Anything else?”

I paused before asking, “Do you know any doctor in town who’s prescribing medical marijuana? Or anyone who’s using it?”

Marla laughed. “I know country club parents whose kids use plain marijuana, and the only thing that ails them is their need to get stoned.”

I glanced at Yolanda, whose face above the blanket held an amused expression. “Can you make some discreet inquiries?”

“I can make inquiries, but I passed discreet when I was in my twenties, and I’ve never looked back. Anything else?”

“Ernest was looking into a divorce. And no, I don’t know whose, and I don’t know whether his client was the man, the woman, or someone else.”

Marla said, “Uh, that’s not much to go on. But I’ll try.”

“Thanks, girlfriend. See you tomorrow night at the Breckenridges’.”

“Sounds good. I’ll bring highbrow beer to go with your lowbrow tacos.”

We signed off, and Yolanda said, “I know how to make Navajo tacos. But here’s my question: If the food business doesn’t work out, you’re going to grow weed?”

“Why not?” When she gasped, I said, “Just kidding.”

What I didn’t mention to Yolanda was the thinking I’d done that afternoon, after I’d met Peter, the member of Arch’s fencing team with leukemia.

Ernest McLeod had been getting thin, and he needed Yolanda to prepare meals for him. Maybe it wasn’t Ernest’s sponsor who’d suggested he hire a cook; maybe it was his doctor. And if he’d been in pain? I’d have to ask Tom about how the laws worked, but it was possible Ernest had been growing marijuana for his own—legal—use.

And, most significantly of all, if Ernest had learned he was terminally ill with cancer, he might have decided to change his will.

I didn’t mention any of these theories to Yolanda. There was no point.

Aspen Meadow looked like a wonderland, albeit the kind you might find in Siberia. The lights around the lake glowed in the fog. Snow fell steadily. In winter, we get huge amounts of the dry, powdery stuff that is much prized by skiers. But after the initial fall of tiny flakes, this storm had brought a foot of fat, wet flakes, the kind that blanket our town in the fall and spring.

My van, which had good snow tires but no chains, groaned when I turned off Main Street and tried to climb the hill to our house. I slid one way, then the other, and finally backed down to the nearly empty parking lot of our town’s Chinese restaurant. We were half a block from our house, and I figured we could traipse uphill the rest of the way. I threw the van into Park and prepared to abandon ship.

“But your leftovers!” Yolanda protested.

“Not enough to amount to anything. Take the blanket, put it over your head.”

We jumped out of my vehicle and moved up the hill to where I judged the sidewalk to be. Since the snow was so deep, our progress was reduced to a shuffle. A drapery of white was still streaming down, and the streetlights were enclosed in gossamer. The neighborhood was hushed. Flakes stung my cheeks, eyes, and unprotected neck. My feet, which were still in caterer’s walking shoes, became numb as I pushed through the drifts the wind had sculpted between the street and people’s front fences.

When we finally arrived at our driveway, I noticed our garage door was open. I wondered idly if Tom was home, if he’d gotten out the snowblower and for some reason it hadn’t worked, so he was working on it inside. Arch’s Passat, with a veil of snow blown over the trunk, stood in the garage next to the lawn mower, hedge clippers, and gardening tools, none of which we would need for at least six months. I prayed the Vikarioses had excellent tires and chains and would get Arch home safely.

“There you are!” Ferdinanda cried when we came through the door. The wonderful aroma of a home-cooked meal filled the house. I hadn’t realized I was hungry until that moment, and I almost fell to my knees in thanks. “I got some dinner going.” She looked us over. “You two need hot showers right now, else you gonna catch your death of colds.”

Yolanda gave me a worried look. “Is there enough hot water for the two of us?”

I said, “Sure. You go first.”

Ferdinanda eyed me up and down. She wore a sheriff’s department sweatshirt and pants. Whether they were gifts from Tom or Boyd, I knew not. “Goldy, you need to go put on dry clothes at least. Don’t want you gettin’ sick so you can’t work.”

“Yes, I do have to be able to work, doggone it. What’s the delicious scent?”

“Sense?”

“What’s the wonderful smell?” I asked, a bit louder. I’d forgotten Ferdinanda complaining to us about having trouble hearing.

Ferdinanda put on one of her sly looks. “Nothing around here but ham, bread, eggs, and cheese, plus a can of chiles and a jar of picante. So I threw them together and put it in your refrigerator. Yolanda said you’d be home between one and two hours, so I waited an hour, then put it in the oven. It took you an hour and a half to get back,” she said, concluding triumphantly, “so it should be about done.”

I moved to embrace her, but she drew away. “Oh, you Americans with your hugs! Just go, put on some warm clothes. And hurry up about it.” But she was grinning.

“Is Tom here?” I asked. “Working with the snowblower?”

“What is it Americans say? Nobody here but us chicken?”

“But . . . do you know why the garage door is open?”

“Nope.”

“All right, let me go close it.” I zipped myself into a hooded jacket and traipsed outside, where the snow was still coming down fast. At the side of the detached garage, I pressed four-one-five into the panel. The door obediently closed. I realized with a pang that I had forgotten to buy more batteries for the accursed remote.

Back inside, I asked Ferdinanda, “Have you heard from Arch?” The niggle of worry about my son was spreading.

“No. But I haven’t been answering the phone since Marla. I was afraid Kris might call, and I didn’t want to give us away.”

I wasn’t up to telling her that thanks to Penny Woolworth, that ship had sailed, too. Instead I took the puppies outside. They didn’t want to stay long, and they seemed to have figured out that if they did their business, they could come in and be cleaned up and fed. I did both, then went to look for dry clothes.

While rummaging around, I remembered that I hadn’t ratted on Penny to Marla, although I’d meant to. I thought I’d save that threat for when I really needed it. Still, I had to do something about Penny’s treachery.

I nabbed my cell phone and called her house. She sounded tired when she answered. When I identified myself, she said, “Uh-oh.”

I said, “When are you cleaning Kris’s house this Thursday?”

“Early afternoon,” she said meekly. “But he won’t be there, so you can’t—”

“I don’t want to see him. I just want to look around.”

She cursed, but agreed.

“Another payment for your betrayal of Yolanda,” I said blithely, “will be your tidying whatever house we use for a get-together to commemorate Ernest’s life. Don’t worry, I’ll pay you.”

She cursed again, but said she’d do it. When I thanked her, she hung up on me.

I disrobed, scrubbed myself with a wet washcloth, and shrugged into a turtleneck and sweatpants. Then I hopped back down the stairs.

Ferdinanda was rolling herself around the kitchen, snagging bananas, apples, and Italian plums to slice for a fruit salad. Without a cooking duty, I pressed the phone’s playback.

The first two messages were from Rorry Breckenridge, who was very apologetic to be calling just after eight in the morning, but she desperately needed to talk to me about the dinner the next night. In the second message, she said she would try Marla. The third was from Trudy, our next-door neighbor, who’d also called this morning. Trudy said she’d just had a “strange” visit from a real estate agent and an older couple, who said they were buying Jack’s house. They’d heard the famous caterer lived across the street, and they wanted to meet me. Now here, according to Trudy, was the strange part: She’d asked for their card so good old Goldy the caterer could call them, and they’d said no, they would just come back later. I shook my head.

Also on the voice mail was an afternoon call from Tom, saying he would be late, and that he’d given a sweat suit to Ferdinanda, and for me not to worry, as he had plenty. He also told me not to be anxious because of the snow. He could be home as late as ten, and that someone with four-wheel-drive would bring him.

There was nothing from Arch. I put in another call to his cell, which went unanswered.

“Ferdinanda?” I asked. “About the garage door. During the day, did you see anyone fooling around out there, trying to get in?”

“I told you. No.” She was slicing bananas with one of my ultrasharp Japanese stainless steel knives, and did not lift her eyes from her task. “Why?”

“Somebody got in there and left the big door facing the street open. Tom doesn’t usually do that.” I did not mention that actually, Tom never did that. That was why we’d had the flap about the remote with no batteries, and the code for the panel. There was a false wall at the far end of the garage, beside his power tools. In the wall, Tom’s gun was in a compartment that acted like a medicine cabinet: The hinges were hidden, and you had to know just where to press on the uninsulated part of the wall to get it open.

There was also a side door that faced our backyard. We kept a key to that door under a nearby rock, in case we just wanted a rake or hoe in summer, or the snow shovel or blower in winter, and didn’t have the remote, batteries, or memory of the numbers on the side panel for the big door.

“Probably Boyd left it open,” Ferdinanda said, moving on to the plums. “He was in a hurry to get out of here.”

This was equally unlikely, but the last person I wanted to argue with about anything was Ferdinanda. Instead I put another call in to Arch.

“Yeah, Mom, what is it?” he said with a note of impatience, as if we’d just been speaking ten minutes earlier and I’d called to remind him of something.

“Hon, I’m so worried about you! Where are you?”

“I’m at the Vikarioses’, I told you.” He lowered his voice. “Peter came, too. We’re having pizza.”

“Are you still coming home tonight?”

He groaned. “Yes. School hasn’t been canceled yet, and I’m out of clean clothes. Gus’s grandmother offered to wash what I have on, but I feel bad asking her to do that. And anyway, Peter lives on the other side of Cottonwood Creek, and he has to get his medication tonight. So I don’t want him to feel as if he’s the only one who has to go home.” Someone called to Arch, and he about broke my eardrum when he yelled, “Yeah, I’ll be right there!”

“Okay, go have fun with your pals. Please tell the Vikarioses our road hasn’t been plowed. They might want just to leave you off on Main Street.”

“Oh, great, and me with plain old shoes.” Someone nearby spoke in the background. “Never mind,” Arch said. “Gus just came into the living room to find me, and he’s going to loan me a pair of snow boots. Gotta run, Mom.”

And with that he was gone. I looked out our front window and checked the street. It was still snowing. I glanced over at Jack’s dark house. An older couple, with young kids about to start school? Well, a lot of folks didn’t start having children until later these days. I would have to ask Trudy more the next day.

Ferdinanda’s ham and cheese casserole was delicious. I’d give her this: She could do wonders with egg-soaked bread. That morning she’d served us a bread pudding with rum sauce. The dinner featured layers of cheddar melting over ham and buttered sourdough, over which she’d poured a mixture of eggs, cream, and spices, and on top of which she’d sprinkled green chiles and picante. She’d garnished the dish with fresh chopped cilantro, which gave it a snazzy gourmet appearance. The fruit was a perfect complement, and it looked lovely on the plate. For the first time, I realized that it was probably Ferdinanda who’d given Yolanda her passion for food preparation.

I opened one of Marla’s extra bottles of red wine to go with our dinner. Beer would have worked better with the Mexican food, but we didn’t have any. Anyway, with all the snow outside, it was more of a red wine kind of night.

Neither Yolanda nor I mentioned the incident with Father Pete at the ethnic grocery store, which was probably just as well. Instead, Yolanda talked about how nice the kids were at Christian Brothers High School, and how much they’d appreciated the food. Ferdinanda beamed; she knew CBHS was a Catholic school.

It was then that I ventured to ask her about our trio of visitors. Ferdinanda’s face darkened. “They had a bad aura,” she said. “They were bad people.”

“Is that your professional opinion?” I asked, pouring us all more wine.

Ferdinanda set her chin. “I know about these things.”

I didn’t ask her if she’d been able to read Raul and Fidel Castro’s auras, too, and what they had told her. We were having a relaxing evening after a long day, and I wasn’t going to wreck it. Arch was coming home soon, and Tom would be along.

Ferdinanda again insisted on doing the dishes. “I’ve been doing nothing all day—”

“No,” I said, interrupting, “you haven’t been doing anything except making a wonderful dinner and—”

“Whatever you say, Goldy,” she said, interrupting me right back, wagging that crooked index finger of hers at me, “I am more stubborn than you and will last longer—”

“You’ve been up since half past four!”

“I had a nap!” she retorted as she piled plates in her lap and wheeled toward the sink. “Now go make phone calls or something! Yolanda, you look terrible. I know you didn’t sleep well. I heard you thrashing around. Go to bed.” Once I handed Ferdinand the throat of our faucet, which was placed at the end of an expandable hose, she was able to squirt water on dishes and then expertly pivot to put them in the dishwasher.

Yolanda yawned. “It’s only eight o’clock.”

Ferdinanda said, “So?” I had the distinct impression she won every one of these discussions.

While Ferdinanda banged about in the kitchen, I took the phone and my wineglass out to the living room. Was it too late in the evening to build a fire? I knew that after getting up early, cooking, catering, running hither and yon, and then slogging home in the snow, if I now sat down on the couch with a second glass of wine, it would be about ten minutes before I was fast asleep. So I fancied myself actually exercising as I moved around the living room, piling up logs and kindling, crumpling newspaper, and finally setting a match to my creation.

It was for Tom, I told myself, and Arch. The fire would welcome them home from the blizzard. I said this to myself as I settled on the couch in front of the blaze and took a sip of my wine. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes before I was in Slumberland.

I awoke to a horrific scream. It was not the shriek of a woman, either. I listened carefully and heard another prolonged “Aargh!” It was as if someone were being tortured, and nearby, too. It was a grown man’s voice, and now he was yelling, “Stop it! Hey!” This was followed by yelling and . . . banging. Where were these noises coming from?

A loud thud crashed against the side of the house and rattled the windows.

Yolanda and Ferdinanda both were screeching. Groggy, I looked at the clock. It was twenty to ten. Arch wasn’t home, and neither was Tom. Or at least I hadn’t heard them. With Yolanda and Ferdinanda yelling, I raced into the dining room first. Blinking madly, I thought I should have picked up the phone en route.

“What is it?” I cried. It was still dark in there, so I turned on the light, a used chandelier I’d bought at a garage sale and Tom had rewired. “What’s wrong?” I persisted. “Why are you screaming?”

They both pointed at the dining room window. This was my house, damn it. Undaunted, I walked across the room and looked outside.

The light spilling from the window illuminated Arch’s face. He was wearing a woolen hat. My son stood facing me, knee-deep in snow, openmouthed. He blinked. In one of his hands he was holding Tom’s long, sharp-pointed weeder. It was covered with blood, and the blood was dripping into the snow.