Crunch Time

1

When I heard that Ernest McLeod had been killed, I should have packed up my knives and left. Well, not literally left, because I was in my own kitchen, poised to slice a third pile of juicy heirloom tomatoes for a buffet Yolanda Garcia and I were catering the next day.

Then again, I could have left well enough alone. I also could have kept my mouth shut. But I’ve always had a hard time with that.

Yolanda, a fellow chef and caterer, never asked me for anything. I volunteered. Maybe she was a mind reader, or psychic. Perhaps she thought if she told me some of the things that were going on with her, her great-aunt Ferdinanda, and Ernest McLeod—who’d been housing the two women when he was killed—I would say what I did, which was You and your great-aunt need to stay with us.

Back before Ernest McLeod was forced to retire, he had been a very good cop. My husband, Tom, a sheriff’s department investigator, had worked with Ernest and admired him.

While Tom was questioning Yolanda, she had repeatedly avoided his gaze. To Tom, this was a clue that more was going on than Yolanda was letting on. And as I already knew, he didn’t trust her.

When Tom listened to Yolanda’s tale, he pointed out that in Ernest’s work as a private investigator, he’d had clients. His cases, as related by Yolanda, included helping an animal activist get a puppy mill closed; searching for something for someone, which sounded suspiciously murky; and looking at the circumstances surrounding what could become a very messy, expensive divorce. Not a single one of these investigations sounded particularly dangerous, but you could never be sure.

None of this was apparent on Sunday, the thirteenth of September. That afternoon, Yolanda and I were busy slicing, dicing, and sautéing. I hadn’t gotten to the tomatoes yet. In fact, I wasn’t even thinking about them. Instead, I was wishing we could be outside, perhaps picnicking, fishing in Cottonwood Creek, or hiking in the nearby wildlife preserve. Usually, Colorado’s early fall weather is glorious—with the occasional blizzard, of course.

All summer, townsfolk had complained about our extraordinary rainfall. And then we’d had a reprieve. A warm Indian summer had unfurled over Aspen Meadow. Our mountain town is forty miles west of Denver, at eight thousand feet above sea level. Now, in mid-September, yellow cottonwoods lined the creeks. Higher up, golden aspen leaves shook like coins strung from bright branches, in stark contrast to the dusty blue spruce and deep greens of lodgepole and ponderosa pines. All the mountain gardens, including ours, were studded with sprays of purple Russian sage, bunches of amethyst viola, and brilliant daisies. The sweet air was still, as if it were waiting for the first blast of winter.

Alas, instead of enjoying the outdoor life, Yolanda and I were putting together a lunch for the following day. We didn’t talk much as we bustled around my home kitchen, which the county health inspector had once again certified I could use for my business, Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right! Yolanda was a hard worker, and I was happy to have her at my side. She inadvertently bumped into me when she was retrieving a bunch of fresh basil from the walk-in, a type of refrigerator every restaurant or serious caterer needs. She gave me a tentative smile, which I returned.

At thirty-five, Yolanda, a Cuban-American, was a knockout. She had unruly masses of curly russet hair, a stunning face, large chocolate eyes, and a figure most women wouldn’t get without a trainer. At André’s, the now-defunct restaurant where we’d labored together years ago, at parties since then, and at the spa where Yolanda had worked until recently, I’d seen men give her looks of adoration. I always found this amusing, if somewhat deflating for yours truly, who was short and pudgy, with unremarkable brown eyes and unfashionably curly blond hair.

After several hours, we became so involved with our tasks that we didn’t notice the weather turning blustery. Despite the freeze we’d had the previous night, only a few clouds had salted the sky that morning. Now, without warning, gray masses obscured the sun.

I looked out the window and caught my own reflection. If I’d slimmed down a bit in the past few weeks, it was not from dieting, but from worry. Yes, indeed: worry, unease, apprehension—I had lots of those.

I forced myself to put the anxiety aside as I checked the thermometer. The external temperature had dropped twenty degrees in less than an hour, from seventy degrees to fifty. The fir and aspen that had drooped in the motionless air now slapped the sides of our two-story brown-shingled house off Aspen Meadow’s Main Street. In the west, an ominous charcoal nimbus bloomed over the Continental Divide. Judging by the dark haze obscuring the highest peaks, it had already begun snowing above twelve thousand feet.

Hoping for a breath of coolness, I’d left some windows open when we started working. To me, the breeze was welcome, as the kitchen had become hot. The sudden scent of fall whisking through the house was as sweet as the cherries farmers sold off the backs of their trucks this time of year. When the wind became sharper, as it did before a storm, I actually laughed. Sudden blasts of cold air shrieked through the window jambs. I should have paid more attention to Yolanda, who jumped every time a chilly blast made the house moan. But my friend quickly smoothed her face each time she was startled. I wondered briefly what was bothering her, then dismissed the thought.

As if to calm her nerves, Yolanda ducked back into the walk-in. While I continued to knead the soft dough that would become loaves of Cuban bread, she brought out the last of the marinating pork shoulders, which she was about to roast.

Our plan for the next morning, Monday, was to slice the bread and the pork for the sandwiches that would be the centerpiece of our buffet. They weren’t strictly “Cuban sandwiches,” for which we would have needed several panini presses, mountains of cheese and ham, numerous jars of pickles, and a whole staff of cooks. But they would work for our guests. We were also serving prepared buffalo chicken wings and potato salad that my supplier had brought up from Denver the day before, plus sliced fruit, and Caprese salads served over tossed greens. For dessert we were bringing cookies and fudge—lots and lots of both, because our clients were teenagers.

The Christian Brothers High School had hired us to take the food down to Denver for lunch the next day. Although classes had started, scheduling glitches had prevented the school from administering the annual physicals required of students who played on, or planned to try out for, winter sports. These included basketball, ice hockey, and—most important from our family’s perspective—fencing.

On Monday, the teachers had an in-service, and a full staff of medical personnel had agreed to come for six hours. My son, Arch, who had turned sixteen the previous April and now possessed growth-spurt long arms and legs, had been on the varsity fencing team the previous year. I wanted to be supportive, but when you’re the mother of an adolescent boy, it’s hard to be helpful without your child acting as if you’re driving him nuts. So, to be encouraging without being obnoxious—I hoped—I’d happily contracted to do a buffet lunch for the would-be athletes. The lunch would be held out on the track if the weather was good, or in the gym if it was not.

I still couldn’t believe Arch was now in his junior year. His fencing coach had already confided that he’d probably make varsity again. I’d told Arch that I was proud of his accomplishments, but he needed to keep all pointed weapons away from the house.

A moment before the sudden change in weather, Yolanda and I had been joking. How many rich people does it take to screw up a catered event? One, but she has to be plastered. Then a door slammed upstairs. Yolanda screamed as if she’d been hit.

“It’s all right,” I said, puzzled. “The wind’s picked up. I’ll go shut the windows.” Before leaving the kitchen, I put my hand on her arm. “Are you all right?”

Avoiding my eyes, she shivered and nodded.

When I returned to the kitchen, Yolanda was removing one of the roasts from its marinade. When she saw me, she turned her head. I walked around in front of her. Tears had sprouted from the corners of her eyes.

“Yolanda, what is it?”

She closed her mouth and shook her head. At that point, I didn’t know what was going on. I thought, It’s only a storm coming, right? I mean, Yolanda had lived in Denver most of her life. A couple of years ago, when she became the head chef at the Gold Gulch Spa, she’d moved up to Aspen Meadow. So by now she should have been used to the mountain climate. Shouldn’t she?

I frowned when Yolanda sniffed. I wondered if her eyes were watering from ingredients in the marinade. Not likely. Was she mourning her recent job loss? Three weeks earlier, Gold Gulch Spa had been closed by the sheriff’s department. The owner, as it turned out, had been doctoring the guests’ food with illegal drugs. The guy had figured, people will love your food if you put cocaine into it. They’ll have energy, lose weight, and keep coming back, right? You bet they will, until your long-term clients go home and writhe through drug withdrawal. Then you get caught. As Arch would say, duh.

When the spa closed, Yolanda had called me, begging for a job. She said no place in Aspen Meadow would hire her, despite her impressive résumé. I’d hesitated, because three weeks earlier, financial anxiety had begun to claim me, too.

Unfortunately, the closing of Gold Gulch Spa had coincided with the national economy undergoing one of its periodic convulsions. Months earlier, housing prices had tanked; then the stock market collapsed. Recently, large-scale layoffs had put all kinds of people out of work. The two restaurants on Main Street went out of business. Unemployed secretaries, engineers, and lawyers began traipsing into the Grizzly Saloon, our town watering hole, asking for anything, jobs as dishwashers and busboys included. The Griz said they had all the help they needed. So the newly unemployed stayed to drink, demanding the cheapest booze available. They peppered one another with questions: Know anybody who’s hiring? Heard of any temp openings?

Oddly, the kitchen manager at Aspen Meadow Country Club had told Yolanda he couldn’t have her working in his kitchen because he’d heard she had hepatitis C. Stunned, she protested that she was perfectly healthy. He hung up on her. Later, I called the guy myself, said who I was, and defended Yolanda. He said, “I don’t care whether she’s healthy or not. I can’t hire anybody, period.”

It’s not as if I didn’t know things were bad. Financial meltdowns make wealthy clients cancel bookings, either because they’ve lost their jobs, are afraid of losing their jobs, or think flaunting their money makes them appear insensitive. I’d made it through the summer relatively unscathed, as people still wanted me to cater their wedding receptions. But in the previous three weeks, I’d had so many parties called off, my brain was spinning like a cotton candy machine. I’d given up trying to sleep. I’d lost ten pounds, and not because I wanted to.

Tom, on the other hand, had suffered no decline in his work. Our local paper, the Mountain Journal, gave dire weekly reports on how crime was escalating. People were breaking into houses, dealing drugs, shooting at hikers in the wildlife preserve, and perpetrating every kind of financial fraud. In the previous month, Tom had heard all excuses imaginable for thieving, drunk driving, assault, you name it. And everyone, including yours truly, blamed their problems on the economy.

Still, I insisted to Tom after Yolanda called asking for a job, she was in worse shape than I was. I couldn’t just let my old friend be thrown out of work when her great-aunt Ferdinanda—whom Yolanda simply called her aunt—depended on her. Ferdinanda was seventy and confined to a wheelchair after an accident. Yolanda had COBRA benefits and Ferdinanda was on Medicare. But they had no income. I couldn’t just ignore my friend’s needs, could I?

Tom had cocked one of his cider-colored eyebrows at me, the same way he had since before we were married. He shifted his mountain-man build and gave me the benefit of his kind sea-green eyes. Usually when I want to do something he doesn’t approve of, he exhales, thinks for a few minutes, then patiently tells me how completely and totally wrong I am. But when I talked about Yolanda, Tom said nothing, which unnerved me. So I ramped up my argument, pointing out that Yolanda and I had been friends since Arch was in grade school. Furthermore, Yolanda had helped me land my very first job cooking professionally, doing prep under the tutelage of Chef André, my deceased mentor. When Tom still remained silent, I demanded that he say something.

Tom said, “I don’t trust the people she hangs out with.”

“Who does she hang out with?”

“Never mind.”

“Tom! That’s not fair. Does she associate with known criminals?”

Tom shrugged. Sometimes he could be infuriating. “Miss G.,” he said, “you don’t have a whole lot of actual work to offer Yolanda.”

“Don’t change the subject. Who does she hang out with?”

“Forget it. If she hasn’t told you, then I shouldn’t.”

“Well, I need her. Or I will need her, so I should hire her now. And if she doesn’t mix with folks you like, then that’s her business.”

Tom sighed. “Goldy, just do what you want. You know you’re going to anyway.”

I’d called Yolanda and said she was hired. Tom had not brought up the subject again.

So here we were, on Yolanda’s first day of working with me. On the phone, she’d seemed grateful. Now she was crying. Had she come to regret her decision? That, as Arch would say, was cold.

“Do you want to tell me what’s bothering you?” I asked, my tone gentle. “Is it this storm moving in? I closed all the windows.”

“You’ve been so nice to me. I just—” Her voice caught. She whacked the pork onto the counter and raced to the first-floor bathroom.

Oh-kay, I thought as I moved back to my bread. The bathroom fan couldn’t quite muffle the sound of Yolanda weeping. I didn’t want to intrude. All right, in all honesty, maybe I was a tad nosy about what was going on with her. But I would wait until she wanted to talk.

I finished the kneading, tucked the dough into a buttered bowl, and placed it over a pan of hot water in one of our turned-off ovens. I washed my hands, dried them, and leaned against the marble counter Tom had installed when he’d had to take over the remodeling of our kitchen from an incompetent contractor. I loved my new kitchen. Never mind that Tom had cursed to heaven when he’d put in the cabinets, and never mind that over the past few years, the catering business had encountered a few bumps. We’d gotten through it all, and I was determined that this would continue to be true.

I felt my face set in a scowl. Yolanda’s sobs seemed to get louder. Was she worried about the national economy? I wanted to tell her that I was positive things would pick up soon. They always did, as I’d been reminding myself for the past three weeks. If a caterer ended up shorthanded and missed the wave of bookings that would occur once things turned around, that caterer wouldn’t be doing all those profitable parties during the hectic Halloween-to-Christmas season. When everyone started whooping it up again, I did not want to be without help.

That was one of the reasons I’d offered Yolanda the job. Julian Teller, my longtime assistant, had returned to the vegetarian bistro in Boulder that employed him. The bistro owner always took August off, but once students returned to the University of Colorado, the owner demanded Julian’s time. With him gone, I would need another professional at my side. Eventually I would need that professional. I didn’t allow myself to wonder if or when clients would resume their celebratory ways, at least not during the day. Night, though, when I anxiously stared at the dark ceiling, was a different matter.

I took another glance out the window over the deep double stainless sink, also installed by Tom. Now the thermometer had dipped to forty-five. I sighed. Soon the doors to our local grocery stores would be flanked with spills of pumpkins. People would be calling, wanting to sign up Goldilocks’ Catering for their holiday bashes. . . .

In the bathroom, Yolanda was blowing her nose. Whether there was a resurgence in bookings or not, I was beginning to have doubts about hiring her. Julian, at twenty-three, was even-keeled and mature. Yolanda, twelve years older than Julian, and whom I thought I knew well, was falling apart her first day on the job.

Could this be about the people that Yolanda hung out with, the people to whom Tom had referred? Who were these people, and why wouldn’t Tom tell me more about them? I had no idea, but I resolved to interrogate my husband at the earliest opportunity.

Eventually Yolanda returned to the kitchen, her eyes puffy and her cheeks cinnamon red. She was wearing black capri pants under a plain white chef’s jacket, and as usual, she looked like a model, not a cook. She seemed oblivious to how gorgeous she was. She hadn’t cared about anyone in any deep sense until she’d met Kris. But hadn’t she told me at the spa that she’d just broken up with Kris?

Ah.

The wailing, the pork slamming, and the dash to the bathroom might be because of the breakup with Kris Nielsen. Actually, as soon as this possibility occurred to me, I was sure of it. Tom would say I was jumping to a conclusion without evidence. Even though it was Sunday, Tom had been called into work. So without him there to inject logic, I could be as irrational as I wanted.

“Is this because of Kris?” I asked, still calm, as Yolanda picked up the first roast and placed it on a rack.

“That bastard!” Yolanda shrieked, and I jumped. When she whacked the pan back on the counter, the pork sprang off its moorings and bounced twice on the counter before heading for the floor. Yolanda quickly bent sideways with her arms outstretched. She snagged the meat a nanosecond before it landed, like an outfielder diving for a fly ball. Who says Cubans don’t have God-given baseball skills?

Turning her back to me, Yolanda rinsed off the meat and returned it to the rack. Without elaborating on the bastard status of Kris Nielsen, she cleaned the counter, then washed her hands and placed the other roasts on the pan. Then she washed her hands again—caterers and chefs have the cleanest, driest hands imaginable—and preheated the oven I wasn’t using for the bread. Quickly, as if to avoid my eyes, she strode back to the walk-in and opened the door.

“Breaking up really is awful,” I called sympathetically in the direction of the cool interior. Yolanda did not reply. Was she thinking of making another dish for the kids the next day? We didn’t have extra ingredients. In fact, the only things I could think of that were new in the walk-in were racks of lamb chops that I was preparing for a church fund-raising dinner, and a ham, which Tom had bought because he wanted it for our family. We were already serving the CBHS kids pork and chicken, so we didn’t need more meat.

I returned to my own chore. With the bread rising, I needed to get going on the Caprese salad. At the sink designated for produce, I rinsed fresh organic tomatoes, which we would marinate in a basil-oil vinaigrette and serve the following day with chopped fresh basil and ciliegine—small, smooth, fresh mozzarella the size of cotton balls. I pondered Yolanda’s situation as I moved my first pile of the succulent crimson fruit to one side. All right, breaking up is awful. But not always. I actually thought Yolanda had happily dumped Kris, and not vice versa. If he had ditched her, then I could understand the tears.

So maybe it was something else.

When I heard Yolanda emerging from the walk-in, I began slicing the tomatoes. I said comfortingly, and I hoped not too nosily, “You’re right, he’s a bastard.” But she said nothing. When I looked over, she was opening the preheated oven. Her forehead wrinkled as she concentrated on sliding the roasting pan holding the pork inside.

I went back to work. I was aware of who Kris Nielsen was. Tall, muscular, and prematurely white-haired, he was a fixture around town. My best friend, Marla Korman, who was also the other ex-wife of our deceased ex-husband, unaffectionately known as the Jerk, had provided me with Kris’s background. Marla thrived on gossip; the juicier the news, the faster she drank it in. She said Kris Nielsen was in his midthirties, had become stratospherically rich when he sold his Silicon Valley computer start-up, and had moved to Aspen Meadow, where he’d bought a “huge” house. If Marla, who was no slouch in the Wealth Department, said Kris’s place was big, it was probably the size of an aircraft carrier. I hadn’t been inside the house, because Kris had never hired me to cater for him. And he’d had no reason to. Until recently, he’d had a girlfriend who was one of the all-time great chefs. I set a second hillock of tomato slices aside and turned. Yolanda had gone back into the walk-in.

I said, “So . . . Kris is out of your life now, right?”

“I wish he was, that son of a bitch.” Again Yolanda’s tone was fierce. When she slammed the door to the walk-in, a thump made me think the ham had catapulted off its shelf. Yolanda, unheeding, strode to the produce sink with bunches of basil in each hand. “I wish Kris was dead.”

I set my knife aside and entered the walk-in. The ham, still mercifully in its wrappings, lay on the floor. I set it back where it belonged, reentered the kitchen, and silently made us each an iced latte. I wish Kris was dead? This was more than idle kitchen banter.

“Time for a break,” I announced as I placed the lattes on our kitchen table. I pulled out the sugar bowl and placed it carefully beside Yolanda’s glass. The one time Yolanda’s aunt Ferdinanda had made me a Cuban coffee, she’d put so much sugar into it that I’d gagged. Yolanda always spooned four sugars into her own caffeinated drink. The first time I’d seen her do this, I’d closed my eyes.

“So,” I began after a sip, “why are you so upset all of a sudden?”

“The wind scared me,” she said sullenly, “and I’m tired of being scared.” She ladled sugar into her coffee. Not for the first time, I wondered how Yolanda could stay so thin while indulging in so much sweet stuff.

“Well,” I said, “Kris is out of your life now, isn’t he? I mean, is he . . . doing something to frighten you? Or, I don’t know, are you trying to get some of your belongings from his house, and he won’t let you in? Something like that?”

“Ha!” Her eyes blazed. Once again, I recoiled. “Having me in the same place with him is what he wants, Goldy. I told him he could take his house and shove it up his ass.”

“All right, then. No house.”

Yolanda did not smile. When I’d asked Marla for details about Kris’s place, she’d told me he’d purchased a ten-thousand-square-foot stucco, red-roofed mansion on five acres, smack at the highest point of the ritzy local development known as Flicker Ridge. So not only was Yolanda talking about an anatomical impossibility, it was an anatomically impossible feat of gargantuan proportions.

I tried again. “So you don’t want to get into his house. But he’s doing something to upset you, and you want him dead. Why?”

Yolanda lifted her chin defiantly and brushed a mass of curls off her forehead. She was wearing large gold hoop earrings. When she opened her mouth to speak, her citrus scent wafted toward me. She stopped, inhaled, then started talking. “We broke up. Do you remember? I told you about it.” When I nodded, she went on. “We were living together.” She actually blushed, bless her heart. She was Roman Catholic, and I wondered if she’d confessed this sexual tidbit to a priest. If she had, and if she’d continued to live with Kris, could the priest absolve her? Hmm. Then Yolanda spoke so fiercely that I jumped. “Aunt Ferdinanda was with us. No matter where I live, I have to take care of her! And that takes a lot of time and money. You know that.”

“I do,” I said, remembering how faithful Yolanda had been that summer at pushing Ferdinanda’s wheelchair everywhere. Ferdinanda, a steely-haired veteran—or so she claimed—of Castro’s army, had become disillusioned with communism and, in the sixties, come over on a boat to Miami. Earlier this summer, Ferdinanda had been shopping in Denver when she’d been struck by a hit-and-run driver. With her leg broken in four places, she’d been forced to learn how to use a wheelchair during the long healing process. While Yolanda had been rolling Ferdinanda around, the older woman had protested that she was strong, could take care of herself, and just wanted to be left alone. I said, “So, what’s the problem? Or what was the problem?”

Yolanda shook her head. “Whenever Kris and I weren’t physically together, with me in the same room beside him, he was on my case. When I was working at the spa? You know we didn’t get good cell phone reception out there. So Kris would call the switchboard, when the food staff and I were in the kitchen, prepping, cooking, serving, or washing the dishes. ‘What are you doing?’ he’d want to know, once I’d walked over to the office and answered the phone. ‘When will you be back?’ he’d say. Then, the very next day, he’d phone the spa real early, when we were making breakfast. So back I’d go to the office. ‘How’s it going?’ he’d say. ‘When will you be home?’ It didn’t matter what I said, how busy I told him we were. He’d phone all through the day. He always wanted to know where I was going, who I’d be with, when I’d be back. I never asked him where he was going or what he was doing. That was strictly a no-no.”

I sighed as old memories intruded. I knew the story; it was familiar, as in like-the-Jerk familiar. He would always want to know what I was up to, every minute of the day. But if I asked him why he was home so late? I’d get punched in the face.

I resolutely put these thoughts out of my head and reminded myself for the millionth time that the Jerk was dead, thank God. Hmm, that wasn’t a very nice thought. Maybe I was the one who needed to go to confession, although in general, Episcopalians aren’t big on confession. Sinning, yes. Spilling our guts in hopes of absolution? Forget it.

Yolanda took a sip of coffee, added more sugar, and pushed her curly hair away from her face. She never wore a hairnet, as required by the county. She insisted that in all her years of food service, no one had complained. I hoped she was right.

She went on. “When Kris would ask me all these questions? I’d tell him, ‘I’m in the car, taking Ferdinanda to the doctor,’ or ‘I’m on my way to the grocery store,’ or ‘I’m working, Kris, what do you think I’m doing?’ And he’d always tell me I should quit, so that he could take care of me. But I never would. I don’t care how much money he had or what he promised.”

I sipped my coffee and nodded sympathetically. When I’d worked briefly at the spa, the staff had told me how, before Yolanda and Kris broke up, someone from the office always had to summon Yolanda to the switchboard. Yolanda would want to know who was calling, and when they told her, she’d just shake her head. When I’d heard this, I’d thought Kris was calling because he cared about Yolanda, or at the very least because he was worried about her. That lasted until Marla enlightened me. She’d found out from one of her sources that Kris was seeing other women while Yolanda was at work.

Seeing other women could explain why Kris had always insisted on knowing where Yolanda was, what she was doing, and when she’d be back. But I kept that thought to myself, because I didn’t want to hurt Yolanda.

“So, you broke up,” I said, adding a bit of cream to my coffee. “What, is he taking it hard?”

“Hard? Is he taking it hard?” Yolanda gave me a look that said, You must be pretty naïve. “Yeah. You could say that. He’s taking it hard.” She glanced out our back windows, at the clouds gathering over the mountains. “At first, right after we broke up, he called our rental house and hung up, called and hung up, called and hung up. His number was blocked, but I knew it was him. Then, maybe twelve times a night, he drove that damned Maserati of his past our place. You remember our little A-frame in Aspen Hills?” When I nodded, she went on. “Luckily, I was able to get back into it after Kris and I broke up, when Ferdinanda and I moved out of his house. But then, with him calling and driving by, I was really creeped out!”

“Of course you were.”

“Weird stuff started happening. Twice, at night, Ferdinanda and I thought we saw someone looking in our windows. I talked to the owner, who also acted as the rental agent. She said nobody had asked who was in the house, and she had no idea who would be looking in the windows.”

“Did you call the police?”

“After the second time, I did. A cop came out to talk to me, and that was it.” Again she brushed the curls off her forehead. As I looked closer, I could see bags under her eyes and new wrinkles between her brows. When she felt me staring at her, she looked away. “I couldn’t afford to move, because Donna Lamar—that’s the owner/agent—said she didn’t have anything cheaper. Sales are down and rents are up, according to Donna.”

I groaned. After years of double-digit gains, the real estate market in Aspen Meadow had gotten very bad, very fast. My godfather, Jack, who’d sadly passed away the previous month, had owned the house across the street from us. The real estate agent had told us it could take up to two years for the house to sell—and that it would probably be at a loss. Jack had torn out the cabinets and closets with the idea of fixing it all up, but he hadn’t had the chance to finish what he started. If Yolanda’s rental wasn’t working out, I couldn’t imagine her being able to afford paying the unused part of a lease, making a deposit on another place, then picking up stakes, moving Ferdinanda, herself, and all their stuff yet again.

“So, are you still in the rental?”

Yolanda shook her head. “Besides working with you, I, uh, have another job.”

I didn’t follow. I hadn’t asked if she had another job; I’d asked if she was still in the rental. This was a crucial miss on my part, but at the time, I glossed over it. Yolanda rushed on. “Ernest McLeod, do you know him?”

“Oh, of course. We adore Ernest,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too enthusiastic, because I wasn’t sure how much Ernest had divulged of his history to Yolanda. Despite excellent, long-term work for the sheriff’s department, a bad divorce and a slide into alcoholism had led Ernest to rehab and forced retirement. He’d told Tom and me at the last department picnic that being a private investigator “isn’t nearly as sexy as it sounds,” which had made us laugh. To Yolanda, I said, “What are you, ah, doing for Ernest?”

Yolanda licked her lips, and her tone changed. What’s going on here? I wondered. “I, you know, oh, for a while I was just doing his dinners for him,” she said without looking at me. “He hired me because he . . . wasn’t eating right, and, you know. Oh, I might as well tell you, he didn’t say I couldn’t. Ernest is in AA. He said his sponsor—or maybe it was his doctor? Anyway, this person said she was worried about how Ernest wasn’t eating right, so she told him he should pay someone to cook for him.” Okay, so Ernest had told Yolanda his story, or at least the part about being an alcoholic. Yolanda went on. “So when the strange things started happening in the rental, and it was clear the cops weren’t going to do anything, I asked Ernest if I could do his cleaning for him, too . . . in exchange for Ferdinanda and me moving in with him. It wasn’t, like, a sexual thing—”

“I didn’t think it would be,” I said hastily, although, why not go that way, if it worked for you? Maybe because Yolanda was so pretty, folks assumed that she got stuff in exchange for sexual favors. Still, she probably wouldn’t entertain the thought, at least not right off the bat. There was that Catholic thing.

Yolanda continued. “Ernest said yes. When I told him our story, I think he felt sorry for us. Well, anyway. Then once we moved in, I remembered he was a neat freak and that of course he wouldn’t need me to be his housekeeper. So I felt guilty all over again and offered to do laundry or whatever he needed. He said just doing dinners every night would be fine, plus running errands now and then. He said he needed to work with his hands. He liked to clean, he liked to putter around his garden in the summer, and in winter, tend plants in his greenhouse. He said those activities kept him sane and sober.”

I said, “It’s been a while since I’ve seen him, but yes, Ernest is great.” And yes, he’s a neat freak, I added mentally. “He used to be partners with John Bertram, who’s still on the force. John bought the land below Ernest’s property, then built a place for himself and his wife.” I thought, but did not say, And John Bertram is no neat freak, trust me. “The two of them, Ernest and John, worked for Tom.” When Yolanda said nothing, I prompted her. “So . . . you moved in with Ernest? When? It must have been recent, since you just broke up with Kris.”

She stirred her coffee, which she had stopped drinking. “Couple of weeks ago. Ferdinanda adores him. So do I, actually. It’s been a long time since I had a man who was a real friend, you know, not trying to get something from me. And Ernest, well, he has that big house that he ended up getting in the divorce, so it’s good for him, too, I suppose.”

“You suppose? Don’t you know?”

Yolanda swallowed some coffee. “Ernest’s house is scary, too.”

“Why?” I asked, my voice low, although no one was around except for our dog and cat, and I had no idea where they were.

“His clients.” She looked around the kitchen, as if someone who had hired Ernest were about to jump out of the pantry. “He doesn’t tell me much about them, but they frighten me.”

“Why?”

Yolanda shivered. “Well, somebody’s going through a bad divorce, and Ernest needs to get proof about something with that. We have no-fault divorce in this state. Why do you need proof of anything? Then, you know, maybe I’m just paranoid, but it seems to me that unfamiliar cars are always driving past his house and slowing down.”

“You think this is someone from the divorce case?”

“I don’t know. Ernest also has an animal-activist lady who wants him to look into a puppy mill. Why didn’t she just call the cops? You know, Furman County Animal Control? Or the SPCA?”

“Because those people need proof,” I said, as I picked up my knife and started slicing tomatoes again. “They need evidence if they’re going to move in and close somebody down. And anyway, don’t worry. Ernest can take care of himself. Did he tell you he was investigating anything that would put him in danger? Or put you and Ferdinanda in danger?”

Yolanda shuddered. “He says he’s looking for something for someone.”

“Looking for something for someone? Looking for what, and for whom?”

She said, “I’m not sure, Goldy.” Something about her tone of voice made me stop slicing and turn around. No one was there. When I faced her again, her big brown eyes were round. “Ernest didn’t come home last night.”

I asked, “Is that unusual?”

“Yes,” Yolanda whispered. “He said he’d be back in the afternoon. I was fixing him seafood enchiladas for supper, and he said he couldn’t wait. And then he didn’t show up. I couldn’t reach him on his cell. With his cases and his clients and my worry about Kris, I had a bad feeling. So did Ferdinanda. You know, she believes in Santería.”

“I thought she was a communist.”

“No! She’s a Catholic.” Yolanda continued softly. “It’s not something you can explain. It’s not like that.”

I had to lean toward her to hear what she was saying. I was saying, “Not like what?” when Jake, our bloodhound, started howling.

Yolanda tensed, then hugged herself. “Does your dog always go off like that?”

Before I could answer, Tom and John Bertram, a fortyish, well-built cop with a head of close-cropped fair hair, came around the back of the house. Tom’s gaze penetrated the row of windows he’d put up along the rear wall of the kitchen. John Bertram, Ernest McLeod’s ex-partner, saw only me. When he waved, I waved back with my free hand. Then his gaze snagged on Yolanda, and his arm fell. Yolanda got up, walked over to the sink, and stared into it.

I pointed the knife at the ceiling and gave Tom a what’s-up gesture. He ignored me. He kept his eyes on Yolanda as he came through the back door.

“Tom!” I said. “John! It’s so good you’re here early, because we’ve made a lot of food, and you can taste-test—”

“Miss G., I’m working,” Tom said.

“It’s Sunday. Can’t you just stay for a little while?”

Tom said flatly, “Ernest McLeod is dead. Yolanda, you need to come with us.”