Double Shot

I moved on to beating the eggs and mused about the fact that some folks do need to cling to the idea that by doing this or that they will prove that they are superior. Far be it from me to shatter their illusions. Folks in the catering profession nurture dreams of grandeur, right? It’s our bread and butter.

I fixed myself another espresso and doused it with cream. I’d been intending to cut back on the dark stuff, but I rationalized my current overload by reminding myself that espresso contained much less caffeine than regular coffee. And, at the moment, I needed it for medicinal purposes.

I clicked to a new file in the computer. The next day’s committee breakfast should be a no-brainer. I’d worked in the Aspen Meadow Country Club kitchen before, and the staff—unlike the members—were very friendly. But after the breakfast, I had a larger and more much challenging affair: the retirement picnic for Nurse Nan Watkins.

The Southwest Hospital Women’s Auxiliary had commissioned the party, and I’d been glad to get the booking. Nan was Marla’s and my old friend. Not only had she survived working for John Richard, she was able to do dead-on impersonations of him. Since Nan was five-two and weighed in at two hundred pounds, these were invariably hilarious. There was John Richard’s frightening steely look, which Nan would imitate as she snapped her fingers in your face and shouted, “Did you hear me?” Sometimes we could convince her to do his seductive routine, which involved Nan running her plump fingers through her short gray hair, tossing her head as she thrust her hips to the side and growled, “You’re new to this hospital, aren’t you?” You couldn’t help but love her.

Nan’s retirement as a longtime ob-gyn nurse at Southwest Hospital promised to bring together many of the same people who’d been at Albert Kerr’s funeral lunch. Nan herself had been at the lunch; she’d nodded to me and given me a thumbs-up. But we hadn’t had time to visit.

I didn’t know how I felt about Nan’s picnic coming on the heels of John Richard’s suddenly turning up dead. Everyone would be buzzing with questions, and I was in no mood to be thinking of answers.

What I did want to know the answer to, though, I reflected as I whisked cream into the beaten eggs, was what it was going to take to restore the relationship with my son. I set aside the silky egg mixture. My stomach protested, so I sliced myself a slab of the luscious fontina. It was heavenly.

Tom and Arch clomped down the stairs while I was chopping scallions. To my dismay, they departed by the front door without saying good-bye. I could just make out Arch saying that his clubs were still in my van from the day before, and would it be all right if he brought his hockey stuff, too? Tom murmured assent, and after some clanking and banging, they were off.

At ten after eight, I slid the first batch of garden-club-meeting quiches into the oven, closed the door, and dialed Julian. Yes, he whispered, he had heard about John Richard. Two investigators were sitting in his apartment. They had driven to Boulder that morning and knocked on his door at seven. They should be leaving soon, Julian said guardedly.

Julian said he was sorry this was happening to me. Was I okay? I told him I was coping, but Arch was not. He cursed under his breath. He’d committed to a full day and evening of work at the bistro. Could he come over first thing tomorrow morning? he asked. He wanted to be with us.

Absolutely, I replied, relieved. I was desperate to know if he’d seen anything at the lunch, anything at all suspicious. But that would have to wait until he didn’t have a pair of Furman County’s finest breathing down his neck. We signed off.

As the quiches baked, I got down to the serious work of prepping the pork chops for Nan’s picnic. Back in the mists of time—that is, in my childhood—everyone’s mother, including my own, had fried pork chops and served them for dinner. But since then pigs had been bred to be so lean that if you tried to fry one of their chops today, you’d end up with a piece of leather. Enter the brine, and as we sometimes say in the catering business, it’s a good thing. Brine recipes had been passed from caterer to caterer like secret codes, and I’d finally found one I liked. The idea of chops rather than the usual hamburgers and hot dogs had intrigued the women’s auxiliary, and we’d settled on them for Nan’s meat main dish.

After the brine tenderized them, I would put them into a garlic-thyme-balsamic-vinegar marinade and cook them until they were golden. The worst part of this particular specialty of Goldilocks’ Catering was getting all the pork chops into and out of the large quantity of brine. If I could manage all that without incident, it would be great. Another good thing.

I had finished mixing what felt like a hundred gallons of brine and was just easing the chops into the solution when the doorbell rang. I groaned: reporters? Irritated, I washed my hands and resolved that they were going to get nothing out of me by coming to the house.

At our front door, I peeked through our peephole.

It was not reporters. It was Marla, whose glare indicated she hadn’t had any caffeine yet. I let her in.

“Is your house bugged?” she whispered.

“Not according to Brewster’s security guy. Come on, I’ll make you an iced espresso and cream.”

She sighed and followed me. “I know I’m early.” She squinted at the vats of pork chops. “But Brewster has been calling you and you’re not answering your phone or listening to your machine.”

My shoulders slumped. Why did being a suspect have to be so exhausting? “Tom turned off all the ringers. Look, don’t say any more until I’ve fixed us both something to eat. I can’t take any more bad news without some breakfast.”

Marla groaned in agreement. She perked up ten minutes later when I handed her a quadruple iced espresso and cream and a plate of steaming-hot Julian-made chocolate-filled croissants.

“Thank God and thank you.” She took a bite of croissant and rolled her eyes. When my own teeth sank through the flaky pastry, warm chocolate spurted onto my tongue. I felt better already.

I said, “All right, now I can take some news.”

“Brewster wants you to come up with a list of enemies you and John Richard had in common. He also wants you to try to write down the names of any folks who were just the Jerk’s enemies.”

“Is that all?”

“Very funny. Brewster also says you and Tom need to start working on your defense. As in be prepared, that kind of thing. He also wants to know if we can recall the history of the Jerk beating up other girlfriends.”

“Does Brewster mean girlfriends who lived?”

“I think he means all of John Richard’s lovers or women or whatever you want to call them,” Marla replied. “I’ve got my list, and if you don’t have time to do one, I’ll just give him mine, which is probably more complete than any you could come up with. Do you know if the Jerk beat up Sandee? Not that that would be a good thing, but it might make things easier for you.”

“Sorry, but I know next to nothing about his relationship with Sandee.” I fortified myself with more chocolate croissant, then washed it down with a final espresso.

The doorbell rang just as the buzzer went off for the quiches. Marla held up a chocolate-smeared finger. “I’ll get the door. You get the oven.”

The quiches were puffed and golden brown. I laid them carefully on cooling racks and closed the oven door.

“It’s Frances Markasian and another reporter from the Mountain Journal,” Marla announced. “They’re even wearing press badges! I didn’t let them in. What do you want me to do?”

“Tell them I have no comment, except that they should go away!” I threw the pot holders on the counter. The heat on my face wasn’t coming from the oven. Reporters were showing up to question me, the prime suspect, at half-past eight in the morning? My criminal attorney wanted to start working on my defense? My own son wouldn’t talk to me?

When Marla returned from tongue-lashing the press, I asked her to accompany me to our detached garage. Then I stuffed Brewster’s business card, my new cell phone, and my newly printed inventory sheets into my canvas tote. After checking that there were no journalists out back, I sloshed furiously through the wet grass with Marla on my heels.

It was time to figure out why someone was trying to frame me.

10

I flipped on the garage light. With Marla growling, we pulled out all the boxes from the back of the van. After we’d gone through two of them, I used my new cell to call Brewster’s office.

“Aw, Goldy, you’re not on your old cell phone, are you? Gossip columnists can be such a hassle!” Even when Brewster was irritated, he couldn’t manage to sound upset. Aw, man, you’re not telling me you forgot the beer! Dude! I could just picture him, leaning back in a sleek leather executive chair, his blond curls framed in a halo around his head, his eyes contemplating an oil painting of a snow-boarder catching air.

“Don’t get paranoid on me, Brewster. I’m using the new one.” I creaked open the door to the garage and glanced all around. “Nobody’s hearing this except Marla. My home phone line started ringing at oh-dark-thirty, and now there are reporters at my front door. I may not be a criminal, but I sure feel like one. So what do you need?”

“How about a self-defense angle?”

“Brewster, he was already dead when I got there.”

“We’re just talking theories, Goldy. I might need to know how he beat you up, how you responded, and his history of assaulting other women.”

Suddenly chilled, I wished I’d put on a jacket over the sweatshirt. “Tell you what. If the cops arrest me, you and I can talk. In the meantime, I’ll keep running my business, and Marla will work on a list of John Richard’s ex-girlfriends and what she knows he did to them. Will that work?”

Reluctantly, he agreed. We signed off.

I pulled out my inventory sheets from the previous day and squinted at them. As usual after washing and drying each piece of equipment, Julian and Liz had meticulously checked off every single knife, serving spoon, grater, and other kitchen doodad before stowing it in three cardboard boxes. Marla and I wrenched open all the boxes. The cops had gone through them, all right, but it looked as if they’d put everything back, even if in a somewhat jumbled fashion.

The previous afternoon, someone had gone into my van looking for something. Maybe they’d found what they were looking for, and also taken my gun, as a bonus.

I peered at the top of the inventory sheets, and began to rattle off items, which Marla then found and laid to one side. Two butcher knives, check. Three paring knives, check. Two graters, check. Butane torch, check…

Twenty minutes later, we found the answer, but I was even more perplexed than I had been when I’d begun. Finally, I called Julian at the bistro. The bangs and shouts of a restaurant kitchen echoed behind him as he assured me that yes, he’d put the item into the van. He remembered wiping them off and stowing them.

But what, I wondered, as I stared at my inventory sheet, would anyone hope to do with my kitchen shears? Had the killer wanted to use the scissors as a murder weapon, then found the gun and decided to use that instead? But just in case, he or she had stolen both?

As Marla nabbed her cell phone to make a call, I put all the equipment back in the boxes. Then, filled with resolve, I stashed the inventory papers in the canvas bag. The two of us traipsed back to the house, Marla still jabbering, me thinking about how to proceed.

Okay. After Marla and I hit the Rainbow Men’s Club to question Sandee, I wanted to meet with my client of the previous day, Holly Kerr. I felt guilty, calling on a widow right after I’d catered the funeral lunch for her dead husband, but I wanted to refund her payment and needed the guest list from the Roundhouse event. If Holly did not have a printed list, I’d ask for her best memory of who had attended. Kleptomaniacs included.

“Listen up,” Marla said as she clapped her phone shut. “I found out some good stuff from Frances and her sidekick. They wanted a ‘Do you confirm or deny’ statement. I promised that if she left, I’d call her back, which I just did. I traded a couple of tidbits about the Jerk’s girlfriends for facts we couldn’t have weaseled out of the cops.” Marla paused for effect. “The reporters have already canvassed the neighbors. They didn’t hear anything. No yelling or fighting, no shots. But someone saw a woman, or someone who looked like a woman, wearing heels, a black raincoat, and a black scarf. The neighbor noticed the rain gear because it was dusty and windy, which he thought was weird. Anyway, the Jerk roared up the driveway in the Audi, and then this woman raced up after him.”

“ ‘This woman’? What woman?”

“Good question. Apparently, after the lunch, Sandee arrived with him at his house. She stayed in his car for a while—I think we can guess doing what—then got out and drove off in her VW. Not two minutes later, this other person ran across the cul-de-sac and up the driveway. The neighbor figured it was somebody who knew him, because she was carrying a shopping bag. As if she was going to give him a present or something.”

“Yeah, slugs in the chest. But the neighbor didn’t hear anything?”

“Nada. Someone shooting inside a garage, with a wind howling outside? Gunshots could easily get muffled.”

I bit the inside of my lip. “So are all the reporters gone?”

“Nope. Three of ’em from the Furman County Monthly haven’t had this hot a news item since they caught eight real estate agents having a sex orgy in an empty house.”

I smiled. “I need to change into something respectable. Those nut cookies I made last night are in a tin on the counter.”

Marla didn’t need a second invitation.

Upstairs, I rummaged through my closet, crammed myself into a black skirt and top, and put in a call to Holly Kerr.

“I’m just on my way to water aerobics,” she said, with what sounded like forced brightness. “Everyone tells me that…after the death of a loved one, it’s important to keep the routine going.”

I thought of Arch and Tom out on the golf course. “This will just take a moment,” I promised. Marla called up that she’d eaten the cookies and I needed to haul out to her Mercedes with her! I closed my eyes. “Holly, I was wondering if you had a list of the people who were invited to the lunch yesterday.”

“There wasn’t a list. That’s what I told the police.” I stifled a gurgle of dismay. “Apparently there was some trouble afterward, they wouldn’t tell me what. I told them that you don’t invite guests to a funeral. You call people up, tell them about it, and guess how many will be there. Remember, I told you to make food for sixty? We had fewer than sixty, I think. I have the guest book here somewhere. A friend brought it over. I don’t know if everyone signed it. As soon as I find it, I’m supposed to call the police so they can come get it.”

“Besides the guest book, did the police ask you to make a list of the other people you remembered who were there?”

“Yes, but why are you asking me this? Do they want you to make a list, too?”

“Holly, John Richard was killed after the lunch.”

She gasped.

“I’m the one they suspect—”

“You? But Goldy, why?”

“I don’t know. I did not do it. So I’m begging you, please, give me a copy of the list of guests before you give one to the cops. I need it more than they do, trust me. Could you?”

She groaned. “Oh, of course. Lord! And he looked so happy with that girl! She was awfully young for him. Do you think it could have been a jealous husband?”

I swallowed and remembered the hot breath in my ear at the Grizzly Bear Saloon. Sandee Blue is my girlfriend. “I don’t think so.” How would Sandee’s other boyfriend look in a black scarf, heels, and black raincoat?

“My dear, the aerobics class is going to start without me. The police are coming back this afternoon at four.”

“I’ll be there in the early afternoon,” I promised, and signed off. I grabbed a pad of Arch’s school paper and a pen, and headed down the stairs. On the way out, I pushed past three reporters, one of whom identified himself as being from the Furman County Monthly.

“Mrs. Schulz—

“We’ve heard—”

“Do you have any—”

“Hurry up!” Marla cried, beeping her Mercedes horn. At least she didn’t scream, We don’t want to be late for the strip show! I trotted to the Benz and tucked myself inside. We peeled away from the curb with a squeal of tires and another long beep, for good measure.

Overhead, a thick cloud cover made the morning sky smooth and bright, as if someone had pulled luminous gauze across the heavens. A wire strung across the lake’s waterfall provided a flock of newly arrived cormorants with a place to preen, flutter, and stretch their wide wings. Not a hundred yards from the lake house, a heron lifted himself up and up, while a crowd of birders pointed and focused their binoculars. Ahead of us, a small herd of elk seemed to be waiting to cross the street. Beside them, a boy who looked just like Arch was looking both ways, as if he intended to hold up traffic to allow the elk to pass.

“Hey!” I cried involuntarily. I pointed. “Arch told me he was going to play golf with Tom!” The elk chose that moment to make a mad dash across the street. The boy scampered across beside them.

“Where’s Arch?” Marla cried as she hit the brakes. The Mercedes skidded sideways, into the oncoming lane. Two elk bolted across; three more balked and cantered back to where they’d come from. “Damn elk!” Marla shouted. She hit the gas a bit too hard, which made the Mercedes roar forward. The trio of elk that had made it back to their starting point gazed in surprise. Marla honked, buzzed down her window, and shouted at the elk, “Where are the hunters when you need them?” The elk lumbered back toward the water, while Marla, still furious, overcorrected her steering and sent the Mercedes careening toward the ditch on the right side of the road.

“Goldy, would you quit distracting me while I’m trying to drive?” Marla reprimanded me, once we were back in our lane. “I didn’t see Arch.”

“Okay,” I said with as much calm as I could muster. “Where were we?”

“Looking at something that wasn’t there. Before that, the Jerk’s exploits. Don’t worry, I already e-mailed Brewster my old catalog.” She tilted her head and gunned the engine again. “What I still can’t figure out is why someone would sabotage your food, whack you out of the way, and then steal your kitchen shears. Was our killer going to hack the Jerk to death after shooting him?”

“Who knows? And anyway, who could hate both John Richard and me?”

“I’m going to have to ask around about that one,” Marla mused. “I don’t suppose you have any theories.”

“Holly Kerr wondered if Sandee might have a jealous significant other hanging around,” I told Marla about the hostile fellow whispering in my ear while I was stumbling around the Grizzly. “Maybe he thought the Jerk and I were colluding to keep Sandee away from her boyfriend.”

“Hmm. Need to check in with the gossip network on that one. Can you hand my cell over, please?”

I did so. Marla glanced at her phone, punched in some numbers, and nearly sideswiped a garbage truck—all in the space of fifteen seconds.

By the time we reached the Rainbow Men’s Club in Denver, Marla had learned that Sandee had dumped her boyfriend, Bobby Calhoun—aka lead singer of Nashville Bobby and the Boys—in favor of the Jerk. Marla’s sources asserted that Bobby’s black pompadour was a wig. But the muscular body that he rubbed with Vaseline before unbuttoning his satin shirt at performance time was real. Reportedly, Bobby Calhoun loved three things: singing, firefighting, and Sandee. When he’d saved up enough money, he was going to pack up his sequined suit, steal Sandee away from the Rainbow, and head back to Tennessee.

“And where did John Richard figure in this little scenario?” I asked. “Or me?”

“Apparently, neither of you did. None of my people seems to have heard Bobby complain about the Jerk or you.”

“But I’ll bet anything he was the guy at the Grizzly who warned me away from Sandee.”

Marla raised her eyebrows.

“Since John Richard was killed, our little Sandee has moved back into Bobby’s condo, outside Aspen Meadow.”

Marla stopped talking as she peered through the windshield at the club door. “Doesn’t the Rainbow have valet?” When it was apparent that they didn’t, Marla started backing the Benz into a metered parking space. She cursed as she hit the bumper of the pickup behind us, jumped her car forward into the rear lights of a Subaru wagon, and came to a halt a foot from the curb. “Think I should leave a twenty under the wiper, in case a cop comes?” she asked.

“It’ll get stolen.”

With immense relief, I got out of the car and glanced up and down the street. The previous night’s hail had cut shallow gullies into the curb’s detritus. Remnants of torn paper cups, newspapers, and pizza boxes lay in the mud. We were less than two miles from the glass atria, sidewalk cafés, and bustle of suits that characterized downtown Denver. But here, everything looked scruffy, from the black fronts of bars to the shifty-looking men and women prowling the sidewalks.

Marla had finished clinking coins into the meter and was already bustling through the Rainbow door. I followed as quickly as my still-sore legs and neck would allow, and tried not to think about what we were doing, where we were going, and what we hoped to accomplish.

The Rainbow entryway was darker than a cave, and I had the sudden paralyzing thought that my only experience with an abundance of naked women had been in gym locker rooms. For crying out loud, I was a Sunday-school teacher. What if Father Pete saw me? What if I saw Father Pete?

As Marla leaned over a dark glass counter, I blinked at the large display of signs telling what you could and could not do inside the Rainbow. One sign screamed that “Public Fighting Is Illegal in Denver.” Thank God for that!

I gaped at the older woman who was manning the cash register. She was the same heavily made-up, raven-haired lady from the funeral lunch, the one who’d asked me if I’d played a trick with a glass, when I almost dropped one. And she still looked vaguely familiar, but I was trying to focus on her question and couldn’t place her. She said, “You know this is a men’s club, ladies?”

Marla retorted, “We’re coming in anyway, because we both belong to ACLU, thank you very much. My pal here even caters for them sometimes. So! We’ll take two all-you-can-eat buffet tickets, and before you say it, I can read that there’s a two-drink minimum. Not to worry, we’re going to need all the booze we can get. And before you ask, no, neither of us has video-recording equipment stuffed in our purses.” Before I could say anything, Marla asked, “We want to see Sandee with two e s. Where would she be?”

“The table closest to the buffet,” the woman replied, smiling. She stashed a huge wad of cash in the register, looked up at us, and hesitated. “Don’t either one of you remember me?”

“I do,” I said suddenly as a memory flashed. The Jerk had treated her. “Sorry. Lana Della Robbia, right? You were one of John Richard’s patients.”

She nodded. “And Dr. Kerr’s. Dr. Kerr delivered my babies. Fifteen years later, Dr. Korman removed a cancerous growth from my female plumbing. I owe him my life.” She smiled. “I was at the service for Dr. Kerr yesterday,” she went on, “and at the lunch you did.”

At the Roundhouse, she’d been wearing a black designer suit; her hair had been swept up in a tight chignon. She’d been seated at the table with the jokesters who’d brought their own booze. Next to Lana had been that wide-shouldered, tan guy with the bodybuilder physique, the one who’d offered to juggle glasses. What had she called him? Dannyboy. I also remembered Dannyboy’s long, brown-blond hair that fanned out around his unattractively ruddy face and gave him the look of a hungry lion. Lana, Dannyboy, and the liquor drinkers had been only a few tables away from John Richard and Sandee.

“It was a nice event,” Lana said, but her voice was hesitant.

“But?” I prompted. Behind me, a gaggle of guys was protesting and telling me to hurry it up.

Lana glanced at the rowdy fellows and lowered her voice. “I guess I was surprised to hear Ted Vikarios give a speech, since he and Albert Kerr had that big falling-out all those years ago.”

“ ‘That big falling-out’?” I repeated, before the crowd jostled one of the guys into my side.

“Come visit us at our table!” Marla offered, tugging me into the club’s interior.

“Why did you do that?” I shouted to Marla over the pulse of rock music. “I was just about to find out something!”

“You were just about to get trampled!” Marla replied as she pulled me down a dark hallway past a cloakroom.

I said, “Lana must have thought highly of the Jerk if she referred to him as Dr. Korman! Maybe she fixed him up with Sandee.”

Marla raised an eyebrow at me. “More likely our ex came here. Water seeking its own level, that kind of thing. Let’s sit down at one of these little tables.”

The club’s spacious interior encompassed six black-mirrored, raised hexagonal platforms. On top of each mirrored surface, a naked-except-for-a-thong young woman danced. Well, you couldn’t really call it dancing. It was more like stepping-in-place-while-wiggling-hips-and-boobs.

And what boobs they were. I wondered how they’d phrased their requests to their surgeons. Maybe using fruit analogies? I’ve got tangerines now, but could you give me oranges? Grapefruit? And melons! The dancers were shaking everything from cantaloupes to pumpkins. I would have sworn a red-haired woman in front of us had asked for honeydews. I didn’t know if docs would ever be able to bestow watermelons, but science was always advancing.

Around each of the black-mirrored mini-stages, men sat watching the naked lady in front of them. Electrified chandeliers flashed red, blue, green, and yellow along with the beat of the music. There was a bar on the far side of the space, plus a sprinkling of small tables ringing the place. We sat at one of these. After watching the goings-on for a bit, I noticed that the men seated around the large mirrored tables were expected, at regular intervals, to put a greenback into each dancer’s proffered thong. Then the dancer dropped the greenback into a small hole in the center of the black table.

“There was a young woman who graduated from Elk Park Prep a few years back,” Marla leaned over to tell me. “Her parents were strict—fundamentalists, I think. The girl turned eighteen two days after graduation. She announced, ‘Forget it, I’m not going to college, I’m gonna be a dancer.’ She works here.”

“These girls are all so young!” I exclaimed.

“What did you expect?” Marla asked. “Forty-year-olds?”

“I don’t know what I expected,” I said, suddenly dizzy.

I had not expected to see a group of young women—only a couple of whom looked a day over twenty-five—parading in front of men who appeared to be between forty-five and sixty, with the preponderance of them in their fifties. Uh-oh, now they were doing something new. When they weren’t doing the half wiggle, the dancers leaned their ponderous breasts over first one, then another of the faces of the men sitting around the tables. The men were expected to come up with more bucks for the boobs-in-the-face routine. But how they could breathe in that narrow space, much less rummage for their wallets? It would be like trying to do a nighttime sail through the Strait of Magellan.

We looked for Sandee but couldn’t spot her. At the nearest table, the red-haired woman-with-the-honeydews was dancing in a more animated way than the other strippers, who looked as if they might be on drugs. A ruby-red light focused on the redhead, revealing that she was a bit older than her compatriots. The light made her hair glow almost purple, and also highlighted what I thought was a desperate look in her eyes. Each bill she received made her gyrate even faster. When her shift was over, she stepped down and approached us.

“Uh, what’s happening?” I asked Marla as Big Red made a beeline for our table.

“I don’t know,” Marla replied, “but I hope she puts on a bra before she gets here. This table won’t support both of those.”

Thankfully, the red-haired lady did put something on, a black wrap shift that she fluffed out and tied before arriving beside us.

“Ladies?” she said. “May I sit? I’m Ruby Drake. I think we have something in common.” As I opened my mouth in protest, she said, “I knew your ex-husband, John Richard Korman.”

“Ruby Drake,” Marla repeated. She frowned, as if trying to remember something. “You were his fifty-second girlfriend.”

“I was never Korman’s girlfriend,” Ruby Drake replied, her tone icy. “Far from it. In fact—”

Before Ruby could finish, Lana sashayed over to our table and interrupted her. “Ruby, you’ve got some men asking for you on the far side of the room.” Lana pointed a lacquered nail at one of the Rainbow’s dark corners, and Ruby slunk away.

“Dammit to hell,” I said under my breath. “We try to find stuff out here, and all we get is interrupted. Don’t folks come here to relax?”

“I don’t know,” Marla replied as she waggled her fingers at one of the platforms. “But check it out. There’s Sandee.”

Sandee Blue was wriggling seductively at one of the far mirrored tables. Through the cloud of cigarette smoke, I could make out a substantial crowd of men gawking at her. And what was she covered with, shortening? Her skin had a bright sheen, and I wondered if she’d learned that trick from her Elvis-impersonating boyfriend. A neat trick, if it was true.

“Why would John Richard,” I asked Marla, “who could have any wealthy tennis-playing socialite he wanted, go for a young stripper who has no money, no brains, and a pair of breasts that could be mistaken for Crenshaw melons?”

“The Crenshaws, silly.”

“But look at those guys ogling her. Don’t you suppose the Jerk got jealous of all the male attention Sandee received?”

“Nah,” Marla muttered. “It probably turned him on. C’mon. While we’re waiting, let’s eat. Gotta warn you, though, I doubt people come here for the buffet.”

“Sort of like buying porn magazines for the articles.”

Ten minutes later, I was trying to cut a fatty piece of what had been labeled “Prime Rib au Jus.” Marla had ordered us each two glasses of dry sherry, which the waitress had never heard of. Not wanting to cause a scene—for once—Marla settled for five-dollar soft drinks, which we sipped as we watched Sandee fling herself around. Finally, still wearing the high heels that were de rigueur for the dancers, she reached into the hole in the middle of the table, gathered up her cash, and stepped into a black shift similar to Ruby’s. Sandee wobbled down a set of steps beside the hexagonal table, but was stopped at the bottom by a short, bald, acne-faced young man who whispered in her ear. Whatever he said to her, it made her giggle, which made all the other parts of her jiggle. The man whispered some more. Sandee acted attentive, then nodded. She finally saw us waving to her and took her leave of the bald fellow.

“Hi-yi,” Sandee said when she arrived at our table. “I didn’t expect to see you two here.” She looked over her shoulder, scanning the club.

Marla said, “The golf shop sent us over. They said you found higher-paying work elsewhere.”

Sandee flinched. “Well, uh, John Richard told me to say I worked there. You know, in case people asked? He thought it would look better, you know, with him sponsoring the golf tournament. Anyway, I hated that shop! Who would buy those sucky old-lady clothes?” She shuddered as her eyes flicked around the club again.

I put down my fork. Was she looking for someone? “Sit down, Sandee,” I urged, and flashed Marla a warning look. “We just want to talk for a bit.”

Marla, unheeding, plunged onward as soon as Sandee had snuggled her thinly clad rear end onto one of the chairs. “You know John Richard is dead? Shot and killed?”

Sandee’s eyes immediately filled with tears. “I heard,” she whispered. “Two detectives asked me a bunch of questions. They said they’d be coming back today.” Again there was the scared glimpse in all directions.

“Any ideas about who could have killed John Richard?” Marla asked.

“No way,” Sandee croaked. She reached for a paper napkin, then dabbed her eyes. She cried for a minute, making a sound that was halfway between a cat mewing and a human choking. Then she honked into the napkin. “The detectives wanted me to think some more about who John Richard’s enemies were. You know, if anyone argued with him at the lunch? Stuff like that.”

Marla gestured to me with a bejeweled hand. “Speaking of the lunch, Goldy’s making a list of the guests. We know most of the people from Southwest Hospital, but there are some people”—she nodded in Lana’s direction—“who we’re not sure about.”

Although I didn’t put a whole lot of stock in Sandee’s memory, I obligingly reached for the pad I’d stashed in my purse.

“Oh, I totally don’t remember anybody.” Sandee frowned at the empty pad. She made another furtive scan of the club interior. Could Marla not be noticing? Was Sandee not allowed to be talking to us? Was she looking for Ruby, Lana, the bald guy? “The only person I knew at the lunch was John Richard,” Sandee said, her voice halting. “I mean, besides Lana, you know, and Dannyboy. You know, and some other Rainbow people.”

“What did you do after you left the lunch?” I asked gently.

“We went back to his house and, you know, messed around in the car for a while. But not for long, I mean, I had to go back to work.” She raised mournful eyes. “Later, you know? He was taking Arch to the club. The golf club.” Her chin trembled, her eyes filled, and she again began mewing into the napkin. Marla rolled her eyes. I was thankful for the clink of glasses and pound of music around us.

“Sandee,” I said, as calmly as I could over the cacophony, “what are you worried about? Lana told us it was okay to talk to you.”

“She did?” Sandee seemed surprised, but looked around again, as if to confirm that Lana was not hovering.

“We just need to ask you about his money,” I continued. “John Richard’s money.”

At that moment, we were interrupted again. This time it was the bald guy, who leaned his pimply-faced, hunchback-of-Notre-Dame body over the table, nuzzled in next to Sandee’s neck, and whispered more words in her ear. Then he handed her some cash, which she thrust into an unseen pocket of the black dress. She smiled up at him, gently turned his wrist to see what time his watch said, then whispered something back.

Marla raised her voice. “Sandee!” The bald guy jumped, then trundled off. “Remember that day,” Marla continued, “when we came over to John Richard’s house and you asked us if we’d brought money? What was that about?”

“Uh, let’s see.” Sandee dabbed at her smeared mascara. “I asked you for money?”

“Yes, you did,” Marla replied evenly. “And then when Goldy showed up at John Richard’s house yesterday, a tall guy driving a blue sedan was parked out front. He asked Goldy if she had his money. Now, John Richard had no job, but he was living a fancy lifestyle that included a house, an Audi, and a cute…how old are you?”

“Twenty-eight,” Sandee replied, blushing.

“Twenty-eight-year-old,” Marla continued, giving me a raised eyebrow. “He also forked over major bucks to sponsor a golf tournament. We are his ex-wives, Sandee. His expensive ex-wives. We know his money situation coming out of incarceration was not good.”

“Incarceration?”

“Jail,” we ex-wives said in unison.

“You were living there, Sandee,” Marla went on. “How did he have an income? Was he borrowing money? Were people demanding that he repay it? Do you think that’s why he got killed?”

“I don’t know,” Sandee insisted. She crumpled the napkin with fingernails painted a glittery green. “You know, his cash? He just had lots of it. That’s all.” Her tone turned morose. She glanced in the direction of the front door. “Know what? I don’t care what Lana told you. Club policy is, I can only stay at one table for two minutes. Besides, I gotta go fix my makeup.” With that, she took a deep breath, pushed out her chair, and clattered away.

“Let’s get out of here,” Marla said abruptly. She looked down with distaste at our barely touched plates. “We can stop for sandwiches and ice cream on the way home. Think, prosciutto and arugula. Think, butter-roasted pecan ice cream. Think, no one making a declarative statement and posing it as a question. Think, fudge sauce.”

But for once I wasn’t pondering food. I was mentally totting up the lies I was sure Sandee had told: She was closer to twenty-one than twenty-eight, and she had asked Marla for money. Did this prevarication mean that Sandee knew more than she was letting on? Or was she just a flake who lied about her age and couldn’t remember anything? And where had Ruby Drake disappeared to?

The sudden appearance of Lana Della Robbia distracted me from these questions.

“Lana!” I said. I could see now that she, too, was wearing the clingy black signature dress of the women who worked at the Rainbow. “Tell us more about the Kerr-Vikarios conflict.”

“It was a long time ago, after I had my babies. I heard they had some kind of falling-out, right around the time Dr. Kerr and Holly left for England. I don’t know what it was about,” Lana concluded dramatically.

Marla and I exchanged a glance.

“That’s interesting, Lana, really,” Marla said. “Just out of curiosity,” she plowed on, “how did John Richard come to get hooked up with Sandee? He came over to receive your thanks for saving him? Then he picked a nubile filly from your little stable? I mean, she did have a gun-toting boyfriend, right? The singer? Am I wrong?”

“Dr. Korman was a good customer,” replied Lana, her tone diffident. And yet now it was her turn to scan the club, looking nervous. “Anyway, that’s not why I came over to your table.”

A young woman running the cash register called to Lana for help. Lana, who was clearly the boss, turned and beckoned with that formidable-looking, scarlet-painted acrylic nail for us to follow. Did everybody in this place have killer nails?

Marla sighed audibly, but we obliged. Once she was at the front counter, Lana dealt with the crisis—a group of twenty handsomely dressed guys in their forties were arriving for a late lunch. The adding machine had frozen up and Lana needed to count the cash and hand the guys their tickets.

“They look like lawyers,” Marla said in disbelief, eyeing the suits.

“They are lawyers,” Lana muttered under her breath, frantically counting bills.

“So what happened to American Express?” Marla asked. “Visa?”

“We take ’em,” the young woman who’d called Lana over said mournfully. “But the guys don’t want their wives checking the statements. I mean, how would you feel if your husband ate lunch at a strip club?”

“Our ex-husband did,” Marla and I said in unison. The young woman shrugged, as if to say, See?

“Goldy and Marla,” Lana said softly, rubber-banding the bills. “Do you know when Dr. Korman’s funeral will be?”

“Not yet,” Marla replied. “Probably sometime this week. You can call St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Aspen Meadow for more info.” And with that, Marla hustled me out the exit.

“Are you out of your mind?” I shrieked at Marla once we were striding along the gritty sidewalk.

“No, I’m hungry,” she said. “By the way, did you notice that Lana never asked who we thought killed the Jer…Oh Christ,” she said, when she spotted her car. She grabbed my arm.

I thought she must have gotten a parking ticket, or been sideswiped by a garbage truck, maybe retaliating for that morning. At the very least, the Mercedes must have a flat.

But no. The unattractive bald man, Sandee-the-

stripper’s admirer, lay sprawled across the hood of Marla’s Mercedes. Ringing started up in my ears. I trotted across the gritty sidewalk, feeling in my pocket for my new cell phone. As I got closer, I could see blood streaming out of the man’s nose and mouth.

He wasn’t moving.

11

Before I’d pressed the 9 in 911, Marla wrenched the phone from me.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

“This guy is bleeding—”

“Forget it. You can’t see that because you’re not here.” She closed my phone and handed it to me, nabbed her own cell from her big Vuitton bag, and punched buttons. As she did so, she leaned down over the injured man and shook his back. He groaned. Marla then held up a warning finger while informing Denver emergency response that a man had been beaten and left on the hood of her car. Yes, he was conscious. Yes, there was blood, lots of it, all over the place. No, it didn’t look like a gunshot or a stab wound…well, a wicked bloody nose, not something you could do to yourself. Marla gave an approximation of our street address, then closed the phone while the operator squawked, “Please don’t hang up, ma’am, we need to know your name and the man’s identity if you happen to know—”

The bald man moaned again and struggled to turn his head. I scrambled over to him.

“Don’t move!” I barked while assessing his bloodshot eyes. I tried to make my voice reassuring. “Help is on the way.” The man moaned more loudly.

“Hey!” Marla hollered, her head next to mine. “Who hit you, guy?” When the man didn’t answer, Marla raised her voice. “Whoever beat the crap out of you left you on my car!”

With great effort, the bald, bloodied man focused on us. He blinked. He burbled something. Marla and I edged closer and said, “What?”

The man wheezed. He announced, a tad louder, “Elvis.”

Marla and I looked at each other.

Marla said, “Goldy, you need to scram. Let Denver PD handle this. If the Furman County detectives get wind of what’s happened here, and that you were involved, they could haul down the mountain and demand to know why you were here questioning Sandee. As for Sandee, she knows more than she’s letting on. Looks to me as if her jealous boyfriend Bobby could be snagged for assault, end up doing the jailhouse rock.”

“Sandee was checking around that club like a parakeet looking for the house cat. She and Lana both. I should have known something was up.”

“Something’s always up at a strip club,” Marla commented somberly.

“We shouldn’t joke,” I said. “This poor guy”—I gestured at the fellow groaning on the hood of her SL—“probably got beaten up for paying attention to Sandee with two e s. Think our ex got whacked for the same reason?”

Marla shrugged. I slumped against our parking meter and tried to think. Why would Nashville Bobby have stolen my kitchen shears? Had he beaten me up prior to killing John Richard, just for good measure? Or was my being assaulted incidental to the theft of my kitchen shears and my thirty-eight? The theory of Bobby-Elvis as the killer was intriguing, if mystifying. Then again, we didn’t yet have the autopsy results. Maybe Marla was right, and John Richard had been shot and then stabbed with the shears. I shuddered.

Worry for Arch solidified into a hard pain in my chest. How was he doing? Shouldn’t I be trying to comfort him over the death of his father instead of racing around Denver trying to figure out who had killed his father?

I tried to stand up straight, felt dizzy again, and grabbed the meter. Arch was blaming me this morning. For not locking up my gun. For not calling paramedics. And yet this was the same Arch who saved half his allowance for a soup kitchen. He’s not himself, Goldy, Tom had said. And then instead of feeling dizzy or worried, I realized I was experiencing something else: a rising panic, a raw fear that only figuring out who had murdered John Richard would restore my relationship with Arch.

“Damn the Jerk!” I jumped away from the parking meter and started kicking it. “Damn him!” The meter clanked more loudly inside its concrete hole each time my foot whacked it.

“Now what?” Marla cried.

“I hate him! He wrecked my life while he was alive. And now he’s screwing it up from the grave!”

“Take it easy, will you?” Marla cried, inserting her large body between me and the meter. “There’s a fine for destroying Denver city property, you know.” She seized my shoulders. “When the Jerk is actually in the grave, you and I can go dance on top of it. In the meantime, go stand there by the bald guy. Kick my tires if you want.”

I stalked over to the Mercedes, crossed my arms, and fumed. I hated John Richard Korman more than ever, with his schemes, his libido, his lying, and all his excuses and justifications for bad behavior. Now he was dead, and I was the prime suspect in his murder.

When was all this going to end? But I knew the answer to that: when the cops, or I, or someone figured out who had killed John Richard. And why. Oh, yes, and then there was that dancing-on-the-grave bit.

“I just called you a limo,” Marla announced as she snapped her cell phone shut. “They’re right around the corner, and I ordered you an express. In a few minutes, you’ll get transported back to the mountains in style.” She frowned. “You look awful.”

“I don’t care.” I stared at the Mercedes hood and the poor bloodied bald fellow, who was still moaning. “Look, I don’t need a limo. I’ll take an express bus to Aspen Meadow and walk the twenty minutes to my house.”

“The hell you will,” Marla retorted. “There’s no way I’m letting you brave those reporters camped on your porch. The driver’s going to escort you right to your door. And I am going to stay here and deal with the Denver police. Not to mention whatever city agency oversees parking-meter destruction.”

I frowned at the meter, now listing toward the street. And then, for the second time in two days, sirens wailed in the distance, and they were coming toward a crime scene that involved yours truly. I kicked the parking meter again.

“Will you stop?” Marla hollered. “Pay attention. I need you to tell me what to say to the cops. Quickly. Should I tell them about this bald guy”—she pointed at the man on her hood—“and his connection to Sandee’s boyfriend, Nashville-Bobby-the-Elvis-impersonator, and Sandee’s connection to the Jerk?”

“You already said you didn’t want Denver PD to connect this to Furman County. So don’t mention Sandee Blue or Bobby Calhoun.”

The guy on her hood moaned. “It was Elvis.”

“Why not?” Marla demanded. “It wouldn’t involve you.”

“Look. If you say anything about this guy somehow being connected to John Richard’s murder, Denver PD will call the Furman County detectives, who will roar down here and demand to know what your connection is to the Jerk and his death. And by the way, they’ll ask, ‘What were you doing here, Mrs. Korman? Who was with you?’ Then they’ll talk to everybody in the Rainbow, demanding to know how long you were in there and if you were alone, on and on until we’re all hauled in for questioning again. This would not make Brewster-the-criminal-lawyer happy. Marla, please. I’m thankful you got me a limo. Trust me with the cop stuff.”

“But—”

“Listen. Let Denver PD do a simple assault report. Tell them this fellow who got beaten up said the guy who hit him looked like Elvis. Then say vaguely that you think the Elvis impersonator hangs out around here, and if the Denver cops go into the Rainbow, they might be able to get the name of the assailant. The end.”

A silver stretch limo rounded the corner and flashed its lights.

“But how will they ever connect the beating of the bald guy with the Jerk’s murder?” Marla protested.

“Anonymous tip. As in, you call Furman County later and leave one.”

Marla rolled her eyes, then bustled me and my cell phone, purse, and sore kicking foot in the direction of the limo. A tall, smiling driver held the door open. The limo’s plush red interior was frigid from air-conditioning. I shuddered and stared out the darkened windows that filtered what was now murderously brilliant sunshine. Without warning, the limo floated away from the curb. Twenty yards from the Rainbow Men’s Club, we sailed past two shrieking black-and-whites and an ambulance.

There was chaos on the street. I closed my eyes. Again anxiety gripped me. There was chaos in my soul, no question. My life had turned into one big chaos soup, and I was not happy about it.

As we headed west, I tried to think. Form a plan, I told myself. Luckily, I still had Holly Kerr’s phone number and address, off Upper Cottonwood Creek Drive, entered in my Palm. Sometimes I was grateful I’d entered the Age of Technology, I thought as I retrieved my new cell and punched in Holly’s numbers. Yes, her voice crackled, she was back from her class, and she’d be happy to see me now. When I asked for directions, the driver interrupted to say he had an onboard navigation system. I whispered for him to wait as I tapped directions into the Palm—five dirt roads and a curvy mountain turnaround. I closed the cell and informed the driver that the Age of Technology did not extend to finding remote areas and landmarks of Aspen Meadow, Colorado. We’d had whole passels of bewildered tourists toting their handheld Global Positioning Systems as they searched for abandoned gold mines and cowboy hideaways. They invariably became lost. Just last week, the forest service had helicoptered out six rock-climbing orthodontists from New Jersey, and told them never to come back.

Forty minutes later, the driver was cursing under his breath as the limo bounced along a cratered single-lane dirt road that meandered off Upper Cottonwood Creek Drive. Melting hail had rendered the byway an obstacle course of stone-washed gullies, soft dirt, and mud-filled holes. Rocks and gravel scratched mercilessly against the sides and underbelly of the sleek silver vehicle as we splashed through the puddles. I wondered how much paint had been scraped away, and if they’d charge Marla for it. Finally, we ran aground in front of a dirt driveway that climbed upward at a forty-five-degree angle.

The limo guy eyed the steep driveway and shook his head. “Lady, it’s not happening.”

“I can walk.” We both disembarked. The driver squinted in all directions, at aspens, pines, and rocks. There wasn’t another house in sight. “An hour or so, okay?” I asked.

“It’s your dime. Where are we, Wyoming?” He rubbed the toe of one of his formerly shiny black shoes to get off the dust. “There’s something else,” he added.

“Go ahead,” I said, trying not to sound impatient.

“It’s just that I’ve got a job tonight, and I wasn’t figuring on driving all the way up here, and…well…if the lady you’re visiting is passing out extra sandwiches—”

My own stomach was growling, so I understood. “If she doesn’t give me something for you, I’ll fix you an Italian sub at my place.”

He nodded shyly. I began hoofing my way up the driveway, a mile-long affair that led to Holly Kerr’s fabulous home, a manse of the genus Mountain Contemporary. Cantilevered out over granite out-croppings, the wood-and-glass home possessed an unparalleled vista of Upper Cottonwood Creek, the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve, and the plum-shadowed peaks of the Continental Divide. All this made me even more grateful that Holly had decided to have Albert’s memorial lunch at the Roundhouse. Getting supplies up this driveway would have been as the driver said: not happening.

I’d visited Holly at the beginning of May. That was when she’d first moved here, bringing Albert’s ashes with her from Qatar. While we were working on the lunch menu, she told me she’d been able to snag the house in less then a week after her arrival. Word was, the country-music singer living in the big place had just been dumped by his label. It seemed strange that the childless widow of a missionary would want to settle so far west of town, where the snow fell to greater depths and the plows rarely visited. But Holly told me that her one criterion for a retirement home was that she would never again have to live anywhere near the equator. To each her own.

I’d submitted to her enthusiastic tour of all seven thousand square feet of glass, wood, and stone. I’d oohed and aahed over the high ceilings pierced by skylights, the ten fireplaces, the twelve bedrooms. With her photo and Christmas card collections, her Save the Rainforest work (another oddity for someone who’d been living in Qatar), and her many weaving, jewelry-making, and craft projects, Holly had filled up the place with…well, with stuff. Lots of stuff.

Later, Marla had told me that Holly had inherited enormous parcels of land in Nebraska and Colorado. For decades, her parents had owned a chain of feed-and-farm-equipment stores. With the profits, they’d quietly bought up defunct farms in both states, and held on to them. When they’d died two years ago, the sale of the land had netted Holly eight million dollars. Not only that, Marla had reported, but Holly had bought the country-music star’s house right after the season’s first forest fire had come raging down from the wildlife preserve. The star had told his real estate agent to make any deal he could. Without irony, Marla said that Holly had gotten the place for a song.

I began huffing and puffing up the driveway again. Unlike most wannabe buyers, Marla had said, Holly had not been spooked by the fire. Still, worry that the whole town would be engulfed in an even bigger conflagration had translated into a flood of homes for sale and a panic within the insurance industry. Within two weeks, companies had stopped writing policies for fire insurance. Holly, Marla repeated, had been lucky.

At the top of the driveway, I gulped air, wiped sweat off my face, and looked longingly down at Cottonwood Creek. Truth to tell, I would have preferred to be in the creek.

“You made it!” Holly cried when she swung open the massive front door. I trudged inside, barely able to murmur thanks. I was immediately greeted by the scent of baking bread threaded with a hint of citrus. My stomach howled, and I worried for my poor limo driver.

“I made brioche yesterday and was just heating some up,” Holly said, her friendly, sun-aged face smiling. Her petite frame was clad in a gray sweatsuit that matched her short, bouncy gray hair. “Are you hungry? I never eat before class and am always famished afterward. I was just making a late lunch.”

“Sounds divine.”

I followed Holly as her tiny gym shoes bounced forward over plush, burgundy-patterned wool rugs. She and Albert had “picked some up in Saudi Arabia,” she’d told me offhandedly the last time I’d visited. After the inheritance came through, it seemed Albert and Holly had made numerous jaunts throughout the Middle East, picking up “stuff,” as Holly called it. The “stuff” had been in boxes when I’d visited before, but now it was everywhere. And I do mean everywhere.

Tapestries and artwork bedecked the wood-and-rock walls. Holly had arrayed ivory and wooden knickknacks over a dizzying number of wooden shelves. Afghans and coverlets spilled off leather couches, leather chairs, even leather ottomans that traversed the huge living room like a line of tugboats. The artwork, I noticed as Holly began banging around in the kitchen, consisted mainly of nineteenth-century prints, hammered gold-and-pearl jewelry, and antique china plates. Holly had shown me one of her own craft pieces on my first visit, an intricate weaving involving silk knots, pearls, and gold beads. I’d never seen anything like it in any macramé class, that was certain. Now there were at least a dozen of these bejeweled masterpieces hanging on the walls. Holly had told me that without kids or work, she’d had lots of time for craft work. No kidding.

After a mile hike on an empty stomach, I didn’t want to look at artwork. I joined Holly in her pale yellow kitchen, where high walls, maple cabinets, and gold-streaked granite counters were mercifully free of ornament. While Holly prepared plates of warmed brioche rolls, shrimp salad, and tomatoes vinaigrette—ah, how I loved it when somebody else prepared food for me!—I washed my hands.

“Marla hired a driver to bring me up here,” I said, accepting a towel from Holly. “Any chance I could take him some food?”

“Of course.”

“And something else,” I said as I placed an envelope on her counter. “Here’s your check back from yesterday. I’m not cashing it, since we didn’t have the menu you ordered.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Holly exclaimed. “Now eat your salad!”

I shrugged and dug into the salad she placed in front of me. It featured fat, succulent shrimp combined with fresh dill, diced celery, scallions, and artichoke hearts, all wrapped in a velvety homemade mayonnaise, salmonella be damned. The light, feathery brioche rolls, their centers folded around a smear of orange marmalade, were a perfect accompaniment. After I’d polished off a second helping of salad, two more rolls, and several glasses of iced tea with embarrassing quickness, Holly cleared our plates and waved away my thanks. She disappeared from the kitchen, then returned with a clipped packet of papers, which she handed to me.

“Here are copies of the guest-book pages. Most of the people I invited were folks from Albert’s doctoring days, when he and Ted Vikarios were co–department heads at Southwest Hospital. I was surprised by how many people came, really.”

I nodded. How could I ask her about a long-ago falling-out between Albert and Ted without seeming rude? “You were able to get in touch with a lot of people,” I commented.

Holly smiled. “When you have nothing to do in a hot Arab country where you can’t even go out, you do tend to write a lot of letters. You remember the old hierarchy in teaching hospitals, Goldy. Department heads, attending physicians, fellows, residents, interns. And of course there were the charge nurses, any students I had addresses for, plus some of Albert’s patients who’ve kept in touch over the years. I invited them all.”

I frowned at the sheets. There were Lana Della Robbia, Courtney MacEwan, Ted and Ginger Vikarios. Nan Watkins, R.N., Dr. John Richard Korman, Marla Korman. No Bobby Calhoun. Had I registered an Elvis impersonator lurking at the edges of the lunch? I didn’t remember.

I riffled through the pages. If the key to who had killed John Richard was there, it was not readily apparent. I folded the papers, tucked them into my bag, and resolved to look at them when my head was clear.

“Before you leave, Goldy, I want to show you something. You’re doing Nan Watkins’s retirement picnic tomorrow afternoon, right?”

If I can manage, I thought, but said only, “Yes. You’re coming, aren’t you?”

“Nan was always a great help to Albert. I found an album you might like to borrow. It has some photos you might enjoy. Med wives never throw anything away, right?” She disappeared for a moment, then returned with a thick volume sporting a faded, hand-quilted cover. “Have a look.”

I flipped open to an early page. “You weren’t just a med wife, were you? In his eulogy, Ted mentioned that you were a nurse.”

She stopped beside one of the tables and gave me a bright smile. “Not a real nurse. Albert was an only child. His parents were disappointed, since they’d wanted lots of kids to help with the farm. They were also Christian Scientists. Remember what John Richard used to say?” Holly managed a tight smile. “Christian Science was neither Christian nor scientific.”

I closed my eyes. The Jerk and his insults. May he not rest in peace.

“And so you nursed him?” I asked.

“You could say that.” Holly opened a cupboard and pulled out a plate containing, to my surprise, half of one of the flourless chocolate cakes from the previous day’s funeral lunch. “According to your friend Julian, this was all that was left after the guests departed. Care for a piece?” I again thought guiltily of my driver. “Don’t worry,” Holly said brightly, “I’ll pack some for your driver.”

“Great. Thanks.”

She cut each of us slices, then sat back down. “The Kerrs didn’t get immunizations, wouldn’t see a doctor. One time when they came into town for supplies, they caught a harsh influenza virus. Albert’s parents were both dead within a month.”

“That’s terrible.” I flicked a glance around the kitchen, hoping for a coffee machine. “How old was he?”

Holly turned to a page of photos. “Thirteen. Here he is when he came to live with our family.” I looked at a tall, earnest-looking boy clad in farm clothes. “He had to come to school with me, and he immediately got sick.” She pointed to another picture, this one of Albert sitting up in bed, smiling, with spots covering his face.

“He got chicken pox and roseola,” Holly said. “Measles. Mumps. He would have died, he used to say, if I hadn’t taken care of him. It was a story he loved to tell,” Holly said, a quiver in her voice.

“You probably saved his life.”

She lifted her chin. “I brought him homework and homemade chicken soup and we fell in love along the way. He had money from the sale of his farm, plus loans and scholarships, to get him through college and medical school.” She closed the book. “Payback to his parents, I guess you’d say. Albert became a medical doctor and an Episcopalian, and got a flu shot every year.”

I tried to reach for a cliché about things coming full circle, or something along those lines, but what I really wanted was to delve into the conflict between her and her husband and the Vikarioses. Could the food sabotage and resulting assault on me have been a product of that feud? I had gotten in the way, and so, somehow, John Richard had, too? I wondered. I was worried about my limo driver, but I needed, somehow, to keep Holly talking. I said, “I didn’t know him, Albert, too well when he turned to religion.”

“You were busy with Arch. He was just a newborn, and John Richard was at the hospital all the time, along with Albert and…and Ted.” Her voice caught. “Oh, Goldy!” Pressing her lips together, she turned away. I moved quickly to her side and folded her in a hug. Maybe it had been a bad idea to come over here for something as trivial as a guest list. And there was no way I’d hear about any conflict between Albert and Ted Vikarios now, with Holly getting upset so easily. I felt like a complete heel.

“I’m sorry,” I soothed. “I apologize for coming over, truly. Dear Holly.”

“No, it’s all right.” She cleared her throat. “Going through the photographs for Nan’s retirement brought it all back.” Her blue eyes were full of tenderness. “Imagine Ginger’s and my surprise to see Arch all grown up! And so handsome, just like his fa—Oh God.” Her voice cracked, but she held on. “He must need, you must need…”

“I’m fine, Holly, really.” Ginger’s and my surprise? So whatever conflict they’d had had been patched up, and now they were pals, talking about Arch and the old times? I hesitated. “Do you want me to call someone from the church to come over here to be with you?”

“No, thanks. I’m all right. You’re very dear to stay with me for a bit and share a meal.” She rubbed her eyes with her fingertips. “I suppose I’m just not looking forward to talking to the detectives.”

That made two of us. If the cops saw me, they’d want to know the reason for my visit. Still, I was reluctant to leave Holly when she was not doing well emotionally.

“Let me fix that food for your driver,” she said, suddenly decisive. Clearly, she didn’t want me to feel sorry for her. She organized plastic containers and filled them. “Be sure to check the photos in there from Southwest Hospital. There are some from when Arch was born. Don’t you remember, when John Richard passed out bubblegum cigars? You were both so happy.”

“I’ll…look at them.” I struggled for more words, but couldn’t find any.

Within five minutes, I was toting a bag bulging with containers of shrimp salad, rolls, and cake. I thanked Holly and promised we’d chat more at Nan’s picnic. I did not add, If I’m not arrested first. She reminded me that she’d be seeing me at the tree-planting fund-raising breakfast the next morning. The committee had surprised her with an invitation to join! She seemed happy about this, and didn’t seem to realize that fund-raising groups almost always beg wealthy folks to be a part of their efforts. Still, mention of the committee breakfast only reminded me of how much work I still had to do. I forced a smile to match hers and hightailed it out of there.

The chauffeur was puffing on a cigarette, stomping from foot to foot, and hollering into a cell phone that it was three hours past his lunch break and he was out in the middle of the wilderness and he was so starved he was ready to shoot an elk and eat it raw! At that very moment, apparently, his connection was lost, and he hurled the phone into the forest. Fortunately, there were no elk passing by that he could have hit. I sidled up to him and handed him the food. Then I settled myself in the backseat while he dug in, grunted, chewed, and moaned until he’d polished off the whole thing.

Within moments, the limo was banging and shuddering back down the dirt road. I felt a sudden wave of exhaustion. I remembered being on the Jersey shore as a kid, when the occasional huge breaker would knock me over and grind my face in the sand. I blinked at my watch: Could it really be 1:30? I had two events to prep, a list of funeral guests to investigate, and a body still aching from the assault. I closed my eyes. But not for long.

My fingers were inexorably drawn to Holly’s photo album. I had to see the pictures. I had to face those memories before going through them with Arch.

I came to a page labeled “Arrival of Archibald Korman!” Eight photos were arranged on facing pages. There was John Richard, as handsome as ever, and youthful looking, too, without the strain that had crept into his face over the years. And me! Had I ever been that young? My face did look weary, but my hair fifteen years ago had been quite a bit bouncier and, alas, blonder. Arch, a tiny bundle, was being held up to the camera by a pretty, uniformed girl, who was also beaming. Was she a candy striper? Oh yes, wait. She was Talitha Vikarios, daughter of Ted and Ginger. I barely remembered her.

John Richard, clutching a fistful of blue bubblegum cigars, wore a T-shirt given to him by Drs. Kerr and Vikarios. In capital letters, the T-shirt screamed “PROUD PAPA.” Albert Kerr and Ted Vikarios, beaming in the background, looked as happy as if they, too had just had little boys.

Arch, with his little wizened face and tiny wrapped body, seemed to be giving a puzzled look to the camera. I held the photo closer. Pretty Talitha Vikarios, her candy-stripe uniform setting off her rosy cheeks, clutched the sides of Arch’s baby blanket. I opened my eyes and took in John Richard’s tanned face and arms, how they contrasted with the white T-shirt. I looked closely at Arch. His eyes had been blue then, of course, before they’d turned brown and needed glasses. Was I just reading a look of intense worry on my son’s infant face, or had he seen disaster coming?

I shifted on the leather seat, trying to get comfortable. Spending an hour with Holly Kerr had been too much. The bumps in the road, the shrimp salad and cake, the bleeding bald guy outside the strip club, the strip club itself; they had all been too much. And now these photos. Our beautiful family. Right.

I looked at the last snapshot. Arch, John Richard, yours truly.

What’s wrong with this picture?

I closed the photo album. I shut my eyes, lay my head back on the seat, and let the tears slide down.

12

Half an hour later, the long silver car slid slowly down Main Street. I looked out the window and tried to pull myself together. The plastic flowers in their hanging baskets shook in the fresh, dusty breeze. Tourists bunched and drifted along the sidewalks. They licked ice-cream cones, chewed taffy, and munched on popcorn from paper bags. Out of nostalgic habit, I glanced at Town Taffy, where Arch had pressed his nose against the glass on many a summer afternoon. The subject of his fascination had been the taffy machine’s arms as they stretched and pulled impossibly long strands of bright pink, green, blue, and white candy.

And there he was. Arch was once again standing in front of Town Taffy, his eyes fixed on the mechanical arms moving around and around with their thick ribbons of candy.

What was the matter with me? How bad a bump on the head had I gotten at the Roundhouse?

“Mister!” I called to my driver, regretting that I didn’t know his name. “Do you see a kid, there, a kid!” Unable to describe what I was sure was a phantom, I pressed down the window button. “Hey, Arch!” I screamed. “Arch, over here, in the limo!”

“Lady, do you want me to pull over?”

I watched as the kid, Arch, or whoever he was, moseyed off down the sidewalk, where he met up with an older, dark-haired man whom I could see only from the back. They were absorbed into a group of tourists who were heading up toward the lake.

“No, that’s okay,” I told the driver. “I was mistaken. It’s been a long day.”

“And it’s not even over,” the driver muttered.

He piloted the limo off Main Street and up our road. My eyes searched hungrily for our brown-shingled house. I finally picked out our newly painted white shutters and trim shimmering in the bright June light.

“Mrs. Schulz?” asked the limo driver. “Is this home?”

My mind again blanked as I looked out at the reporters and photographers crowding our small lawn. Was this a vision, too, only a bad one?

“Mrs. Schulz? Do you want me to help you to your front door?”

When he braked, the tires squealed. A sea of hungry journalists surged toward the curb.

“Keep going!” I cried. A wave of eager faces called to me. “Hit the gas!” I hollered.

As we screeched up the street, I tried to think. My reflection in the rearview mirror did not look good. Holly’s dirt driveway and my unwanted tears had left my cheeks a dusty gray. The last thing my business needed—besides my being convicted of murder, of course—was a photograph of my smudged and soiled self sprinting toward our door.

“Turn left and see if you can circle the block,” I said. “There’s an alley that cuts behind our house.” I couldn’t go to Marla’s or anywhere else, because hiding out was not on the agenda. With any luck, the journalists wouldn’t have thought I could sneak in the back without them seeing me. But I had to get into my kitchen. In the Life Goes On department, I was a caterer until further notice.

“Okay, just a quick left,” I told the driver once we’d reached the alley. Even with the drought, profusely blooming branches of Alpine roses arched over the alleyway and almost concealed our brown-shingled garage. Thorny branches scratched the windshield and sides of the formerly pristine limo. “Once we get there, could you run me to the back door?”

The driver nodded assent, then eased in behind our garage. I readied my keys and grabbed my bag. Once we were out of the car, the driver took my elbow and we quickstepped toward the house’s rear door. We were halfway through Tom’s back garden when the shout went up.

“She’s coming in around back!”

Dammit.

“Mrs. Korman, did you kill your husband?”

“What are those papers sticking out of your bag, Mrs. Korman? Do they have something to do with the case?”

Ignoring the shouted questions, I repeated the mantra, “Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee,” the last few steps to the back door, until I had it unlocked and the security code entered.

“Thanks,” I told the limo driver, and meant it. I suddenly realized I had no money for a tip. I imagined the headline: “Caterer Refuses Fellow Service Person Gratuity.”

He read my mind. “Don’t worry, a twenty percent tip’s included.”

From behind him, a third reporter shouted, “Did you kill your ex-husband, Mrs. Schulz?”

I ignored him and turned to go in the house. The limo driver gently caught my arm.

His low voice murmured, “If coffee is the password to your security system, you better not be saying it so loudly. People could break into your house.”

“It’s okay,” I whispered, and patted his arm. “Thanks for everything. You’ve been great.”

I slammed through the door. Once inside, I raced through each ground-floor room, pulling down shades, curtains, and blinds. Then I took a few deep breaths, fixed myself a double shot of espresso, and used it to down four ibuprofen.

Wherever Tom and Arch were, playing golf or touring Main Street, they were still out. I sloshed a medicinal amount of whipping cream into a second doppio and booted up my computer. Within moments I had opened a document and was assiduously typing the names of all the funeral-lunch guests from Holly Kerr’s photocopied guest list. I didn’t want to call the document “Jerk Death,” in the remote event that Arch went trolling through my database. I finally just gave it the initials “JRK.” Because I had learned a thing or two from Tom, I also typed in every conversation I’d had with anybody—right from the beginning of the previous morning. The memory is a slippery thing, Tom often said. We tend to reshape dialogue after the fact, and details slide away. I was under suspicion for my ex-husband’s murder and I was estranged from my son. I couldn’t afford to let anything slip.

I sat back, reread what I’d written, and tried to come up with some ideas, or at least a strategy, as I’d promised Brewster I’d do. How could I get the cops to investigate Bobby Calhoun? And more pressingly, what intersection of my life and John Richard’s had precipitated the attack at the Roundhouse, and perhaps also John Richard’s death? I returned to the computer and typed in those questions. I noticed one thing: In the department of the Jerk’s mistresses, my memory had not only slipped, it had deleted all those names except the most recent. I didn’t know if that was good or bad.

The fact that I had food to prepare weighed heavily on my mind. I also felt like absolute hell—from my aching body to my throbbing head. But I reminded myself that Furman County investigators were out there gathering evidence, trying to decide whether to arrest me. Maybe they were merely waiting for the firearms report and GSR results. Oh, joy.

I checked my answering machine—the only message was from Trudy, next door. A flower arrangement had arrived. She thought the presence of reporters had driven more well-wishers away. We were welcome to eat at their house, if we wanted. Otherwise, she’d bring some goodies over when the coast was clear.

More troubling, though, was the fact that there was no message from Brewster Motley. What was the point of Marla’s paying him so much money if his investigators couldn’t come up with information to exonerate me? Just how good a criminal defense attorney was he?

I opened another computer document. I had the names and conversations; now I had to type up everything that had happened so far. I figured if the cops wanted an exact chronology, I should have one, too. I began in late April, when John Richard had reentered our lives as a free man.

On April the twenty-second, the day John Richard had walked out of jail, I’d been catering another lunch, a bittersweet remembrance requisitioned by Cecelia Brisbane. She’d invited the entire Mountain Journal staff to her house for what would have been the sixtieth birthday of Walter Brisbane, her dead husband. Three years before, while Cecelia was at a Women in the Media convention in Las Vegas, Walter Brisbane, the ultracharming publisher of the Journal, had killed himself with one of his own firearms.

According to the Journal, the police had confirmed an accidental suicide. Only one bullet had been missing from Walter’s twenty-two, the one that had entered his skull. There had been gunshot residue on Walter’s hands, the twenty-two had been at an odd angle, not entirely consistent with intentional suicide. A neighbor had heard the single shot and called the police. There had been no sign of forced entry. Walter had apparently been alone, and he had not left a note. According to Cecelia, he had been happy, their family had been happy; everyone at the Mountain Journal had been happy, happy, happy!

Yeah, right, I had told Tom while he helped me put salmon on the grill for this year’s posthumous Brisbane birthday. Still, no other story had surfaced. Tom had shared the tantalizing fact that Walter had had a phone call from a Denver pay phone not twenty minutes before he died. But without more, Tom said, we’d never know what had really happened.

The Brisbanes’ daughter, Alex, short for Alexandra, was serving on a nuclear submarine deployed in the Mediterranean. A navy chaplain had called Cecelia and relayed the message that Alex could not be notified of her father’s death for at least a month, and thus would miss the funeral. At this April’s birthday lunch, I’d seen a photograph of a solemn-looking Alex on Cecelia’s coffe table. The brown-haired young woman, wearing a navy pea coat and sailor cap, standing at some distance from the camera, had been pointing at a Greek temple. Recently, when the Aspen Meadow library had opened a photo exhibit featuring “Local Men and Women in the Armed Services,” Cecelia had had the photo blown up for the display. It was now pinned next to a picture of the Vikarioses’ son, George, who was serving in the army in Germany. I’d never met George Vikarios, and I supposed the army kept him busy. But I did wonder about the navy being so demanding of Alex that they would never allow her home for the yearly posthumous birthday parties Cecelia insisted on having for her dead husband. Then again, there were many reasons for family members not appearing at anniversary functions. Moreover, family absences at parties was such a sore subject, most caterers wouldn’t touch it with a pole the length of the Alaska pipeline.

In any event, the whole Walter Brisbane thing was weird, Tom had said. In addition to the mysterious phone call, Walter Brisbane had been very careful with his guns; he’d been a seasoned hunter. And there had been no witnesses to the shooting. That’s why we’ll never know what happened, Tom had told me, as he magnanimously flipped the salmon.

I’d hated doing that lunch, as much as I’d hated doing that birthday celebration every year since I’d been in business. I’d hated parking beside Cecelia Brisbane’s dumpy old wood-sided station wagon that she refused to get rid of. I’d hated seeing Cecelia Brisbane’s bespectacled, shovel-shaped face crumple in grief, as it did every year when we sang “Happy Birthday.” Most of all, I’d hated Marla bursting into Cecelia’s pine-paneled kitchen, ashen-faced, her voice cracking.

“Goldy. The Jerk’s out. Forever. The governor commuted his sentence.”

Yes. I’d hated that most of all.

Marla had peppered me with questions for which I’d had no answers. No, I didn’t know if he’d be settling down alone. No, I didn’t know where he was going to live. And no, I didn’t know what he was going to do for money. But we should have guessed.

He’d found a woman, of course. Courtney MacEwan had become his girlfriend almost immediately. Where did he find such willing females? Unlike Val, a vampy former girlfriend who’d been charged with murder herself, Courtney belonged to the country club and had a tennis figure to die for. I hadn’t seen any pictures of Courtney in Holly Kerr’s album, but back in our married days, John Richard and I had known Courtney and her hospital-CEO husband well enough to make small talk. Last year, the sudden death of Courtney’s husband had netted her those big bucks, and John Richard had begun to salivate.

I reached for a couple of cookies to go with the last of my coffee. The buttery crunch of nut cookies helped jog my memory of the events of May.

On Saturday, May the seventh, Arch had called me from John Richard’s house and asked me to come get him, since his father was “busy with a move.” When Marla had accompanied me to take Arch over for a golf lesson the next week, Sandee with two e s had answered the door. Would Marla know the exact timing and rationale for the swap of one girlfriend for another? I made myself a note to ask. In any event, after the girlfriend switch, things had been fairly calm with John Richard, at least by Jerk standards, except for this obsession with teaching Arch to play golf, Tuesdays and Thursdays, one o’clock on the dot or risk being yelled at. Except for yesterday, when he’d wanted me to bring Arch at four because of the lunch screwing up the timing.

And then there had been the funeral lunch the previous day, where all hell had broken loose. Actually, Hades had erupted before the lunch had even begun. Someone had thrown the switches on my compressors Monday night, the sixth of June. Why? By Tuesday morning, my food had spoiled. Why go to such trouble? Did someone really hate Albert Kerr and want his memorial lunch wrecked? Or did someone want me embarrassed, not to mention shoved out of the way and chopped on the neck?

My mind kept circling around the same question: What could be the reason for that attack? John Richard hadn’t had any current conflicts with me that would have led him to bust me up, had he? Then again, when had I ever been able to figure out the Jerk? Maybe he’d been ticked off over something I didn’t even know about. This would have been typical. Still, he’d usually let me know exactly what transgression brought on a beating. I shuddered, remembering, and touched the thumb he’d broken in three places with a hammer. The only thing I could figure was that these days he knew I’d report him, and that he’d face jail time again. That might have made him keep his assault “anonymous.”

I chewed on an ice cube and recalled the theory put forward by the detectives, that John Richard had beaten me up Tuesday morning, and I’d gone over to his house and shot him for revenge. That was ridiculous, of course…but say someone was carefully setting up this crime, and framing me. You beat up Goldy, steal her gun… Had the person who burgled my van been looking for the kitchen shears or the gun? If that person wanted the gun, he or she would have to know I kept it in the glove compartment. I had to face the fact that my best friend was the most notorious gossip in town. Could Marla have “let it slip” that I kept a thirty-eight in the van glove compartment?

I closed my eyes and rubbed them. Yes, of course she could.

And then there was Brewster’s question: Who would have been mad at both of you? Under this theory, whoever had sabotaged my food and hit me had then gone on to shoot the Jerk. I wracked my poor little brain until it hurt. The only person I knew of who held a grudge against both the Jerk and me was Courtney MacEwan. According to Marla, Courtney claimed that I had ruined her chances with the Jerk. But that was ancient history, wasn’t it? And would gorgeous Courtney know about freezer compressors and the math of spoilage? Would she be brave enough to handle bags of mice? I thought not. Talk about grasping at straws.

I stared at my blinking computer screen. Back to the chronology. At the memorial lunch itself, I typed, Courtney MacEwan had been upset, Ginger Vikarios had seemed tense and unhappy, and Ted Vikarios had been talkative, then angry with John Richard. What had that been about? Unfortunately, after that conflict, the Jerk and I had had a very public argument about a new tee time for Arch—with the funeral guests looking on. I’d gone home, driven to Lakewood to pick up Arch, and taken him over to John Richard’s rented house in the country-club area.

Wait. First I had stopped by the clubhouse to leave brownies for the PosteriTREE bake sale. And Cecelia Brisbane had sought me out. All right, then, while I was in the straw-grasping business, what was it Cecelia had been referring to regarding files on John Richard? I was willing to believe that she was paying someone to listen in on cell phones or calls to the sheriff’s department, so that she’d heard about the Roundhouse break-in, and surmised that the Jerk was the culprit. But what had she meant when she’d said she had different files from the police?

I put in a call to the Mountain Journal. Cecelia Brisbane was not at her desk. I left a message for her to call me, but didn’t hold out much hope for that happening. Belatedly, I thought to dangle the idea of a hot piece of gossip for her column, but the receptionist had already hung up.

I needed to cook, and I still hadn’t finished writing up the events of the previous day. My fingers paused over the incident with the skeleton-faced man waiting in the cul-de-sac. Mrs. Korman, do you have my money? I’d written down that guy’s license-plate number. Surely someone at the sheriff’s department had tracked down the plate by now. Even better, maybe that someone would know what funds the guy had been after.

Who at the sheriff’s department could help me with the license plate? I called Sergeant Boyd, but he was not available. I cursed voice mail silently and left a purposefully vague message for Boyd to please, please, call me back ASAP.

I took a break and tiptoed onto our back deck to feed Scout the cat and Jake, our bloodhound. The chatty reporters had reconvened on our front porch. Both animals seemed to know something was up, and I murmured to them to be quiet. Scout ignored his food and rolled on his back, demanding that his stomach be rubbed. Sometimes I thought that cat could read my mind. My own need for comfort, he seemed to be saying, could be assuaged by comforting him. Jake, meanwhile, gobbled his food, stepped on the cat to get to me, and whined as his tongue slobbered kisses on both of my cheeks. I told him, “Okay, boy, okay,” and turned my face away. He whimpered and started licking my hands and arms. Well, my animals loved me. When you’re a suspect in a murder case, you’ll take affection wherever you can get it.

I went back inside, took a shower, and changed into clean clothes. Reentering the kitchen, I resolved to put the life and untimely death of John Richard Korman out of my mind—for a few hours, anyway. I needed and wanted to prepare food for others. My eyes caught on two things I had not noticed that had fallen out of my bag, along with the guest list: the envelope with Holly Kerr’s check to me, and a recipe. Holly had written:

Thought you might enjoy this. It’s the recipe for the brioche! And thanks again for a lovely lunch in remembrance of my dear Albert. Goldy, I am sure all will be well soon.Holly

That was nice. I glanced over the recipe, which seemed straightforward enough, and would give me the opportunity to work with my hands, as in pretending I was wringing the neck of…whoops! Wasn’t going to think that way for a while. From our walk-in refrigerator, I took out yeast, eggs, milk, and unsalted butter, then searched the cabinets for bread flour, sugar and salt, lemons and oranges, extracts, and a jar of glistening honey from a local producer.

Soon the yeast was proofing and I was creaming the butter, honey, and eggs into a fluffy, fragrant mixture—the beginning of the journey into making bread. I kneaded in the flour, and didn’t pretend it was anybody. I allowed myself to float into the meditative, repetitive movements that cause bread making to be so therapeutic. Soon the dough beneath my wrists was a lovely, silky, smooth texture. It took me several moments to realize the phone was ringing. Marla must have turned on one of my ringers.

“Uh, Goldilocks’ Catering?” My hands, covered with flour and bits of dough, inadvertently let the receiver slip away. I fumbled it as I tried to wipe one hand clean on my apron. The phone banged hard on the floor.

“Goldy!” came Sergeant Boyd’s curt voice from far away. “What’s going on over there? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine!” I called. No question, I was having trouble with phones these days. I picked up the receiver, clutched it to my ear, and made my tone as normal as possible. “Thanks for calling back. Did you find out anything?”

“You never heard any of this from me.”

“Sergeant Who?”

“All right. Looks like your ex was in the money-laundering business.”

“What?”

Boyd blew out air. “We don’t know for whom, and we don’t know how much cash we’re talking about, because we only caught that one Smurf.”

“That one—?” Balancing the portable phone against my ear, I moved the dough into a buttered bowl, placed a cloth on top, and transported the whole thing out to the dining room.

“That’s what we call them. Smurfs, like the toys. You met one at Dr. Korman’s house right before you found the body. The Smurfs deposit chunks of cash their captain gives them. Korman was captain of we don’t know how many Smurfs, and we don’t know who he was working for. That’s the whole point of hiring these Smurfs to work for you. You keep them out of the loop.”

I looked out the window over the sink, the only one that had no shade or curtain. Had I detected a movement in the lilac bushes outside? I’d cracked the window before starting to knead the bread. This was summer, after all, and the kitchen was hot. The hail had evaporated, and our dry, dusty, fire-feeding weather had returned.

“Wait a sec,” I warned Boyd. I tiptoed into the first-floor bathroom, where the window was shut and covered by a curtain. “Okay, now I can talk. You mean, my ex-husband was running a money-laundering business out of his country-club home? Did he set up this business while he was incarcerated? Was it drug money? Proceeds from illegal gambling? Could a Smurf have shot and killed John Richard?”

“Hold on, hold on. We don’t know anything. That Smurf you met doesn’t know anything, either. He was supposed to pick up his usual forty-five hundred dollars, and that didn’t happen. The investigators are looking at all of Dr. Korman’s known associates, the guys he hung out with in jail, that kind of thing. Someone had a lot of cash that they didn’t want to pay taxes on, that’s for sure.”

Hold on. I gripped the towel bar. Duh. I’d seen lots and lots of cash, you bet I had, all over the place, because businessmen didn’t want their wives seeing these bills on their credit cards. And yes, John Richard had had some known associates in that business, the business where women didn’t wear clothes. Was this grasping at straws, too? Or could it be true?

“Listen,” I said, “this is a stretch. A big stretch. But John Richard’s girlfriend, Sandee, works for the Rainbow Men’s Club. It’s a Denver strip joint run by a woman named Lana Della Robbia, a former patient of John Richard. Her sidekick is a mean-looking, muscle-bound guy named Dannyboy. Anyway, Lana worshiped the ground John Richard walked on. And the Rainbow was swimming in cash when I visited today.”

There was a pause. “This is when I’m supposed to ask you what you were doing at the Rainbow strip club where Dr. Korman’s girlfriend works. What you were doing there today.”

“Watching the show,” I said innocently. “Look, I’ve got a lot of cooking to do.”

“You’ve always got a lot of cooking to do when I start asking you questions.”

“Could you get back to me when they have the autopsy and ballistics results?”

“Oh! She wants autopsy and ballistics results! Why, yes, ma’am.” But there was affection in his voice. When he signed off, I knew his only challenge would be figuring out a way to say that someone had tipped him off to the remote possibility that the Rainbow Men’s Club was laundering cash through Dr. John Richard Korman, deceased.

Even I thought it sounded a bit ridiculous. Still, Lana Della Robbia had been rolling, drowning, really, in currency. Also, Marla should have called in her anonymous tip by now, so Furman County investigators might even be on their way to the Rainbow at this very minute, to search for an Elvis impersonator. Did possible money laundering plus a possibly jealous boyfriend add up to homicide? I had no idea.

I put in another call, this one to the Rainbow. After asking my name and putting me on hold for five minutes, the woman who answered said Lana Della Robbia was unavailable. When I told this gal I didn’t believe her, she hung up. Not to be outdone, I slammed my phone down, too. What had clammed Lana up? Was she getting nervous about the case? Had the cops been asking her too many probing questions? And more important, how could I find out if the Jerk had been killed for his part in a money-laundering scheme? Would Sandee be willing to tell me anything? Sandee Blue was most emphatically not the brightest bulb in the box, but maybe she’d know enough to share information. I left a message for Marla—did anyone answer their phone these days?—asking her to find Sandee and offer to take her to John Richard’s funeral service, whenever that was. I’d be coming, too, I added, then pressed End.

Time to concentrate on food.

I tiptoed out of the bathroom—just in case the reporters had their ears pressed to the walls to see where I was—replaced the phone, and started on the pies for Nan Watkins’s retirement picnic. I’d been experimenting with crusts this summer, and for this event I’d concocted a crunchy mixture of butter, toasted filberts, confectioners’ sugar, and flour. I’d already made these crusts and frozen them. I set them aside to thaw while I whipped cream into soft, velvety clouds. Then I beat cream cheese with vanilla and a bit more powdered sugar into a thick, smooth mélange, folded the cream into the cream-cheese mixture, and carefully spooned this luscious-looking concoction into the crusts. Wrapping the pies to chill overnight, I checked that I had plenty of irresistibly fat, fresh strawberries that would be cooked into a topping for the pies. I did. In fact, I washed one strawberry and popped it into my mouth. My excuse? Caterers need to test everything.

Without warning, John Richard’s face loomed in my mind. All my aches and pains began hurting at the same time, while rage and anxiety again reared their noxious heads. What was going to happen to me? To Arch? Gooseflesh ran up my arms. I pulled the phone off its cradle and tried to reach Tom on his cell. Hearing his voice would help. But as with everyone else, there was no answer. I slammed the phone down without leaving a message. The municipal golf course was in cell phone range. Where was he?

Once again, I saw movement and heard rustling in the lilac bushes outside our kitchen window. I cranked the window open even wider.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Beat it! I’m married to a cop! He eats reporters for lunch!”

The lilac bushes were still.

I crossed my arms and stared out the window. Should I call 911? No; whoever it was would make a fast retreat as soon as the police showed up. Unfortunately, those detectives still had my thirty-eight…and I really wasn’t sure I wanted to go find one of Tom’s guns so I could shoot into the bushes. What if the movement was from a fox or a family of birds? Then I’d feel terrible. How would I feel if I shot a reporter?

Hmm.

In any event, I kept a sharp eye out the window. I was not going to be intimidated anymore, doggone it.

I returned to picnic prep. The pork chops were brining. The dough was rising. Whoever-it-was-in-the-

bushes had been yelled at. I made the cooked strawberry topping for the pies and set it aside to cool. Was I done? Alas, no. I remembered that I had one more dish to think up for the committee breakfast.

I washed my hands and reflected on the inherent problem in serving food to any group of women: One has to deal with dieters and non-dieters. The dieter demands low-cal food; the non-dieter feels deprived if she isn’t served a three-course meal complete with guacamole, béarnaise sauce, and crème anglaise. Complicating matters was the current popularity of high-protein diets. Any caterer worth her sea salt had to provide a protein source that could be lifted or scraped from its carbohydrate base. I had promised the head of the committee, Priscilla Throckbottom, that I could provide three such dishes. The entrées would appeal to dieter and non-dieter alike. I had two kinds of quiche. Now I just had to come up with one more recipe.

At first I had thought I would fry bacon and alternate it with strips of cheese on top of the split mini-croissants I had ordered. But the funeral lunch debacle had left me with numerous packages of untouched Gruyère and Parmesan cheese. Another rule of catering: Waste not.

I preheated the oven and split a croissant. After some thought, I sliced some juicy, fresh scallions Liz had brought from the farmers’ market. Checking the walk-in, I realized I had many cans of luscious pasteurized crabmeat and, oh joy, jars of marinated artichoke hearts. I chopped the artichokes, flaked the crab, and grated the cheeses. Then I bound those ingredients with mayonnaise and spread it on the croissants. For a finishing touch, I crushed a garlic clove and gently sautéed it in butter along with fresh bread crumbs, then added judicious amounts of chopped parsley and dried herbs. I sprinkled this crumb topping over the crab-slathered croissant, and slid the pastry into the oven. I kept checking on my creation until the cheese was melted and bubbling, and the croissant looked crisp and brown around the edges. Even the scent was enticing. How long had it been since my lunch at Holly’s? I couldn’t remember.

Someone started banging on the front door. Now what? I groaned, slipped the croissant onto a cooling rack, and trotted down the hall. One check of my peephole revealed a gaggle of six stubborn reporters still hanging out on our front porch. Frances Markasian was back, and was acting as spokesperson.

“What is it?” I yelled.

“Look, Goldy,” Frances pleaded, “we’re starving. We’ve been here for hours, and we can smell something wonderful in there. Our editors won’t let us leave until you at least say, ‘No comment.’ Can we make a deal here? Little snack, ‘No comment,’ and we leave? Please?”

I suppressed a giggle. “All right, I suppose. Just give me a minute to do a taste test!”

I raced back to the kitchen and sank my teeth into the pastry. It was heavenly: The rich crab, creamy mayonnaise, and tang of cheese melded perfectly with the crispy croissant and crunchy herbed crumb topping. I swooned, composed myself, and began carefully splitting croissants and slathering them with the crab mixture. Funny how the little crescents, when you put them next to each other, resembled a tool from law enforcement. Oh, dear. Maybe I wasn’t repressing things as well as I’d hoped.

The croissants looked just like handcuffs. Well, I had a name for my recipe, anyway: Handcuff Croissants. It had a ring to it, somehow. A metallic one.

Once I had the croissants baking, I took out one of the cream pies. I’d made plenty of them, and I knew a sweet treat should follow a savory one. These people were reporters, after all, and even if they printed, “No comment,” they might preface it with “After Mrs. Schulz generously served the press some delicious snacks courtesy of Goldilocks’ Catering…” Yes!

I spooned the strawberry topping onto the pie, then pulled out the croissants. They emerged puffed, flaky, and golden. I placed them next to the pie on a large wooden tray, along with piles of plastic forks, paper plates, and napkins, and headed for the porch.

“Oh my God!” Frances cried when I swung through the front door.

“Will you look at this!” another one yelped.

“I could eat all of these myself!”

And so on. I placed the tray on the porch table and glowed. Twenty-four mini-croissants disappeared faster than the hail had melted. I worried that the journalists might get sick. But I didn’t say anything; I just beamed.

“Mrs. Schulz,” said one, his mouth full, “do you think the killer might be a former patient of your ex-husband? Say there was someone with a medical gripe who couldn’t sue because of his HMO or something? Maybe she’d be waiting for him to get out of jail so she could kill him?”

My mouth fell open in surprise. Why hadn’t I thought of that? All the reporters stopped chewing, waiting for me to reveal—

“Now, just a minute! Just a minute!” Someone was screaming, pushing through the lilac bushes at the side of our house, then crashing into the front yard. “Stop! Stop eating this second!” He was covered with leaves and tiny branches, which he was trying to brush off with his clipboard. Clipboard?

Oh holy God. Please, let it not be. But it was. Roger Mannis, the district health inspector, was making a surprise visit! To do a surprise inspection! Surprise!

He straightened his back and marched up the steps to the porch.

“I insist that you allow me to inspect that food that you are serving to the public!” he announced. His dark hair, usually slicked back, was mussed from his time in the lilacs. He wore shiny, silvery-gray polyester pants that were an inch too short, black socks and shoes, and a short-sleeved white shirt complete with plastic pocket-protector, all of which still had bits of twig, leaf, and lilac clinging to them. His bladelike chin trembled, a meat-slicer about to fall.

But I was not going to take this. Not here, not now. It couldn’t be legal for this man to hide in the bushes beside our house and then just pop out when he wanted to. It was nuts. Maybe Roger Mannis wasn’t just anal. Maybe he was insane.

“No,” I said, keeping my tone quiet but firm. “You may not perform an inspection now. These people are my personal guests, and this is not a convenient time for me. I am not serving the public. I am serving friends.”

The reporters gaped. I noticed a couple of them surreptitiously reaching for tape recorders and notepads.

Roger Mannis stepped toward me. He towered over me, his face twisted into an expression somewhere between disbelief and hatred. “What did you say to me? I can do an inspection wherever, whenever I want.”

I held my ground and swallowed. “You can’t do one here. Not now. It’s not convenient.”

Before I could think, Roger Mannis was right in front of me and grabbing my left arm. Hard. “Listen, girlie, don’t you dare tell me what to do. Because I—”

Hit groin. Hit eyes. My self-defense course, which had deserted me at the Roundhouse, rushed back. But I couldn’t manage to knee him between the legs. Nor could I free my left arm from his viselike grip. Without thinking, I reached sideways with my right hand. Then I picked up the strawberry-cream pie and smashed it full in his face—just in time to be caught by the photographers from three newspapers.

I don’t remember much after that. Mannis scuttled away in the direction of his white Furman County van. Muttering curses and threats, he stopped on the sidewalk and bent over as he tried to wipe glop from his face. The reporters avoided my eyes as they picked up their recorders, camera equipment, notepads, pop cans, foam cups, and assorted detritus. I realized I never had said “No comment.”

As I eyed the broken pie plate, bits of crust and filling, and berry topping now flung in all directions on the porch, I did hear another reporter chastise Frances Markasian.

“Dammit, Frances! Why couldn’t you have grabbed that pie before she got it? I really was looking forward to that!”

“He called her ‘girlie,’ Jack.”

“That’s worth a slice, maybe,” Jack replied stubbornly. “Not a whole pie, for Chrissakes.”

13

It didn’t take me long to clean up. It never does when an idea has sprouted in my head. Marla, Brewster, and even the cops had been thinking about the Jerk being plagued by ex-girlfriends and a need for money. But he’d been a doctor, after all. Could an old patient with a grudge still be out there? I wondered if this, too, was grasping at straws. In any event, there was something I really didn’t want to wonder about, and that was the story and photograph of me pie-slapping the district health inspector.

I checked my watch: 4:10. Shouldn’t Arch and Tom be back by now? Perhaps they’d gone out for a snack. Even so, I still had dinner to make. And before I got to that point, a few odds and ends for the next day’s catering remained. Still, I had promised to call Brewster if I heard anything.

My criminal lawyer was in a conference, so I left a message on his voice mail that I’d heard “from a cop friend”—no sense getting Boyd in trouble—that John Richard had been involved in a money-laundering operation. Remember the older man who’d asked if I had his money? He’d been waiting for forty-five hundred in cash from John Richard. So, I concluded, it was possible that whoever John Richard was laundering cash for had killed him. At least, I hoped the investigation was turning in that direction. And if it wasn’t turning that way, maybe Brewster could prod it. Also, I added, Sandee Blue, late of John Richard’s harem, had a jealous boyfriend named Bobby Calhoun. And Bobby was prone to violence, I concluded. Just ask Marla.

I punched down the bread dough, divided it, and formed it into rolls for the second rising. That done, I set a fine-mesh strainer over a bowl and carefully spooned a gallon of vanilla yogurt on top, to drain overnight. I would fold the resulting ultrathick, delicious mass into whipped cream to layer with fresh fruit for breakfast parfaits. The rest of the committeewomen’s muffins and breads I had frozen, so with minimal preparation in the country-club kitchen the next morning, I was in good shape. Trudy, my next-door neighbor, brought over the arrangement, a beautiful bouquet of spring flowers sent by a group of moms from Arch’s new Catholic high school. Trudy apologized for there being no casseroles, but she said everyone was afraid to cook for a professional caterer.

Let’s see. For dinner, I could make a shellfish salad like the one I’d enjoyed at Holly’s. I opened the walk-in and saw something that Tom had made a few days ago, during one of his blue periods. The label read “Happy Days Mayonnaise.” For some reason, this piqued my anger all over again.

I calmly walked over to a cabinet filled with jars to be recycled. I picked out two big ones and threw them onto the floor, where they broke with a satisfying crash. My sneakers crunched over the broken shards as I reached up onto the shelf and nabbed two more jars. These I hurled at the back door.

“Happy? Yeah, I’m happy!” I yelled as I chucked another pair of jars onto the floor. They splintered into a million pieces. “I’m happy now!”

Jake the bloodhound was howling. Immediately remorseful that I’d scared him, I let both animals out through their enclosure door. No way I was letting them into the trashed kitchen. Jake slobbered all over me again, worried that the woman-who-brings-dog-

food was losing her marbles.

I went back into the kitchen and sank into a chair, exhausted. “Happy Days Mayonnaise,” indeed. Happy, what a word. I remembered how ecstatic I’d been when Arch had been born, how it had seemed that every day was as fizzy with delight as a flute of sparkling champagne. After I’d brought him home, I’d proudly shown him off at church, at the library, even at the grocery store. People would look at me and say, “You look so happy!” And I had been. I had thought, This is happiness, the rest of my life will be just like this, this is the beginning of it all!

Uh-huh. I surveyed the layer of broken glass that now covered the kitchen floor. Jake had put his paws up on the exterior windowsill and was staring in at me and the mess I’d made. I didn’t care; I wanted to break some more glass. And then I wanted to drive down to the morgue and shake John Richard’s dead body until it told me who had killed him.

Yeah, well. Then the reporters really would have a field day. And I still had to figure out the evening meal for our family. My tantrum had drained me of all cooking energy. All right, I reasoned as my sneakers again cracked over the shards, I could resort to that great salvation of the American housewife: the frozen casserole.

I pulled out a frosty glass pan covered with foil, labeled “Whole Enchilada Pie.” In a remarkable bit of foresight, I’d doubled the recipe of this favorite of Arch’s and frozen the extra one. The recipe itself had come about one night when Arch had wanted enchiladas and I hadn’t had any tortillas. So I’d thrown together a ton of Mexican ingredients, improvised layers with corn chips, and told him the dish had everything, “The Whole Enchilada”! He’d loved it.

I put the pan into the microwave, set it to defrost, and grabbed my broom. Of course, I’d managed to make one unholy mess. I swept up shards and dumped them, swept and dumped, swept and dumped. Then I sprayed a disinfectant solution onto the floor and mopped up the tiniest bits of glass with paper towels. With every swipe of the floor, I muttered, “You Jerk. You damn Jerk,” or some variation on that theme.

When I’d finished washing the floor, I leaned back on my aching knees and surveyed the glowing wood. My heart was still pounding. Echoes of the curses I’d been muttering rocketed around in my head. I knew I needed to move from rage to a more productive emotional state, one that would bring rational thought and action. Problem was, I couldn’t because I didn’t want to. Whatever happened to anger, denial, bargaining, grief, acceptance? Maybe Elisabeth Kübler-Ross hadn’t analyzed the emotional aftermath of the death of a jerk. I sprayed additional disinfectant on the floor and began scrubbing even more energetically than before.

Eventually, clouds moving in from the west obscured the sun. A welcome breeze cooled the kitchen and brought in the scent of lilacs. With every muscle aching, I surveyed the spotless floor. It was almost six o’clock, and I was exhausted. I stood up slowly, washed my hands, and slid the defrosted casserole into the oven.

There was a knock at the back door. Again wary of reporters, I peeked through the shade, only to see one of Trudy’s freckled kids holding a covered casserole dish and a plastic bag.

“My mom made this for you, Mrs. Schulz,” the kid—ten-year-old Eddie—said. “She said it’s called Mediterranean Chicken.”

“Thanks for bringing it over, Eddie.”

“Well, my mom said I had to. Oh yeah, she put your mail in this bag.”

“Want to come in for some pie, Eddie?”

“No thanks. My mom says if I want to go fishing tomorrow, I’ve gotta clean up my room. All these jobs, it’s worse than school! Sometimes I hate summer.”

I thanked him again, but he was already trudging back toward his house. I stowed the chicken in the refrigerator. Then I turned my attention to the mail.

It was the usual assortment of bills and ads. A manila envelope from the Mountain Journal, with my name and address hand-lettered, took me aback. It had been postmarked the previous day. But the contents provided a much greater surprise.

I pulled out two pieces of paper. One was a note with the printed superscription: “From the Desk of Cecelia Brisbane.” The scribbled words were in the same handwriting as was on the envelope:

Here’s what I was talking about at the bake sale. Do you know if the authorities ever followed up on this? I got it a couple of years ago, but your ex was already incarcerated. With him getting out unexpectedly, I thought maybe it would bear looking into. Would you please call me? C.B.

Clipped to this was a piece of faded paper, frayed at the edges. A short, typed message, with no greeting, read as follows:

Dr. John Richard Korman raped a teenage girl when she was a patient at Southwest Hospital. It was a long time ago. Are you afraid to research this? Are you afraid to write about it? You could start by asking his ex-wife Goldy if he did it to her, too. Once you get the facts, it’s your JOB to expose him….

Whoa. I read the typed note two more times, then reread Cecelia’s short message. She’d had this typed note for two years and hadn’t done anything about it? That was not like Cecelia. On the other hand, this was an explosive allegation.

Cecelia certainly hadn’t done what the writer recommended: Start by asking his ex-wife Goldy…

I reread the note. This was an allegation of something so awful that it was hard to process. John Richard Korman raped a teenage girl when she was a patient at Southwest Hospital…a long time ago. I closed my eyes.

Did I believe it was possible that John Richard had done such a thing? I did. He had forced himself on me more than once. But I’d never heard of him being interested in teenage girls.

And yet now this note, which alleged he had raped a very young woman a long time ago, was surfacing. Why would this story emerge right after John Richard had been murdered? Why had Cecelia sent the note to me instead of to the cops?

I was skeptical about the whole thing. Someone was, or had been, trying to frame me. And now suddenly Cecelia Brisbane was throwing suspicion elsewhere.

In any event, this note cast no light on anything I knew about John Richard being killed. Yes, I was going to phone Cecelia.

But my first call went in to Detective Blackridge at the Furman County Sheriff’s Department. He said he’d drive right up to get the note. And doggone it, he told me not to try to contact Cecelia Brisbane.

But he didn’t order me not to call Marla. Using my new cell, I punched the buttons for her home phone. As usual, I got the machine, to which I posed the first questions I’d written down: Did she know the timing and rationale for John Richard’s breakup with Courtney? What was the cause or even the correlation between the dumping of Courtney and the subsequent involvement with Sandee? And then I dropped the bombshell: Did her list of the Jerk’s sexual conquests include a teenager whom he’d raped? She’d been a Southwest Hospital patient when it had supposedly happened.

If there was anyone who could dig up dirt on the Jerk, it was Marla.

I closed the phone, filled my deepest sink with hot suds, and carefully washed the bowls and beaters from the pie making. Would anyone else know about this allegation against John Richard? Other physicians, possibly, but they were notoriously closemouthed when it came to criticizing their own, even when a crime was involved. I read the typed note again.

A patient in Southwest Hospital would not necessarily have been a patient from the Aspen Meadow practice. The note written—pointedly, it seemed to me—hadn’t said “while I was a patient of his.” And even if the teenager had been one of John Richard’s patients, I knew I’d never get any records out of the doc who’d bought the Jerk’s practice. Nor was Southwest Hospital in the habit of being forthcoming about patient records. On the other hand, would a young woman who’d been raped want this kind of thing in her records?

I set the table and tried to think. Who else would have an inkling about this? John Richard had employed a number of nurses in the Aspen Meadow office he’d shared with his father, but none of them had stayed more than a year. Wait: the deliveries. There was one other person who’d known and worked with John Richard over the past decade and a half: the longtime head nurse of ob-gyn at Southwest Hospital. I was doing the retirement picnic for her the next day.

Would Nan Watkins remember the specifics of any wrongdoings on John Richard’s part? If she did, would she tell me about them? Maybe the cops would have already questioned her. Somehow, I doubted it.

I placed the risen rolls for the committee breakfast into the oven. Then I picked up the phone and punched the buttons to reach Nan Watkins, R.N.

She was not home. Would she talk to me about this allegation at her retirement picnic? I would just have to find out.

I set about cleaning up the kitchen. My stomach growled, so I allowed myself a few bites of Trudy’s Mediterranean Chicken. The meat was tender and juicy, the sauce a delectable mélange of garlic, onion, sherry, and tomato. Yum!

I stowed the chicken and took the hot, puffed citrus rolls out of the oven. They looked as light as clouds, and perfumed the kitchen with a heavenly scent. I turned on all the fans, which meant I almost didn’t hear the doorbell when Detective Blackridge rang. I invited him in and offered him a therapeutically sized piece of cream pie. He declined. I might be able to snow reporters, but cops were another thing altogether.

“I’ll just see the two notes, please.”

I’d put them into two zipped plastic bags. He read them both, his face impassive.

“And you just happened to receive these today?”

I bristled. “Here’s what they came in.” I handed him the manila envelope.

He squinted at me. “So did he?”

“Did who?”

“Did your ex-husband ever force himself on you?”

I exhaled. “Yes. I always just…went along with it. I mean, we were married.”

“It’s all very convenient for you, isn’t it?” Blackridge asked, a ghost of a smile curling his lips. “He’s killed, then an allegation of rape magically surfaces, and so it looks as if—”

“Why don’t you ask Cecelia Brisbane about it?” I retorted.

Detective Blackridge turned toward the door, clutching the plastic bags and the manila envelope. “We tried. She’s not at her office and not at her house. That’s convenient for you, too. Isn’t it?”

He shot a questioning look back at me. I said nothing. But I resolved that I would be damned before I gave him any more information on this case.

After the detective drove away, I went out on our front porch. In the Rocky Mountain summer, the sun seems to hover over the western horizon for hours before setting. The only hint that evening is coming is the gradual cooling and sweetening of the air, as Alpine roses and chokecherry release their perfumes into the coming night. I breathed in, looking up and down the street. The good news was that the reporters seemed to have dispersed. The bad news was that Tom’s sedan was nowhere in sight. Not only did I miss Tom and Arch, I was getting worried. And I needed to talk to Tom. The events and news of the day had been too complex for me to sort out on my own.

I returned to the kitchen, where the clock read 6:45. Could they possibly have decided to play an extra round of golf? Somehow, that did not seem likely. Then again, Arch had taken his hockey gear. If he’d wanted to skate the day after his father died, Tom probably would have indulged him. Although I wished they would let me know what was up, I resisted putting in a call to Tom’s cell. I could just imagine Arch rolling his eyes when the phone beeped.

Must be Mom, checking up on us!

I shuddered, then jumped when our own phone rang. The caller ID said it was my old pal Frances Markasian, pie-deprived reporter of the Mountain Journal. She was calling from home. I had to hand it to the woman, she was persistent.

“No comment,” I sang into the receiver.

“Very funny,” she groused. “The whole press corps is blaming me for not grabbing that pie before you whacked Roger Mannis. The Mountain Journal is still working on the caption for the photo. I think they’re going with ‘Stressed-out Suspect Splats Inspector.’ I preferred ‘Caterer Creams Killjoy.’ ”

“Frances, you all aren’t really going to run an article showing me hitting the district health inspector with strawberry-cream pie, are you?”

“Not if you can give me something more substantive.”

I groaned. “Such as?”

“Such as, Goldy, what the cops have on you. Such as, if they have anything substantive, why aren’t you under arrest? Such as, do you or Tom know if they have any other suspects besides…” She paused, doing her best imitation of being tantalizing.

“Yeah, besides who? Don’t play games, Frances.”

“How about this game? Quid pro quo.”

“What’s your quid?”

“Let’s go with the quo first,” she said innocently. “What do the cops have on you, Goldy?”

I could act innocent, too. And smooth! Oh, baby, I could be silkier than that cream pie Frances never tasted. I cleared my throat and tried to adopt an appropriately rueful tone.

“At the end of the memorial lunch for Albert Kerr, witnesses saw me arguing with John Richard outside the Roundhouse. John Richard was trying to set up an appointment for me to take Arch over, and it wasn’t prearranged. When I finally agreed, he took off.”

“That’s no quo. It’s old news, Goldy.”

“When I took Arch over,” I went on, ignoring her, “I found John Richard in his garage, in his car, dead. Arch was outside. I was alone, so it looks to the cops as if I set the whole thing up to protect my son.” That was as far as I was willing to go. With the phrase potential jury pool rocketing around in my head, there was no way I was spilling my guts to any newspaper about my missing thirty-eight, the errant mice, or the GSR test.

“I heard there was a problem with a firearm,” Frances said.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Was it a gun of yours that killed John Richard?”

“Good question. Now what’s your quid? I’ve got a lot of cooking to do.” This woman was tiring me out.

“How well do you know Ted and Ginger Vikarios?” she asked.

The question took me off guard. “I haven’t been in touch with them for a long time. Ted was—”

“Yeah, yeah. Co–department head of ob-gyn at Southwest with Kerr more than a decade and a half ago. Then the Kerrs and Vikarioses found religion at the same time and went their separate ways. The Kerrs sold their worldly goods and sailed for seminary in England. Ted Vikarios figured he didn’t need further study or ordination. All he needed was his message of morality and that mesmerizing voice of his. So he set up shop in Colorado Springs, where he constructed a multimillion-dollar tape-and-CD empire, selling Family Values and Victory over Sin for fifteen ninety-five a boxed set. Their own family wasn’t in such good shape, though. You know about this?”

“I know he went under, and that there was some kind of scandal. That’s it.”

“Okay, family values, right? Ted and Ginger insisted their family was a marvel, the gold standard. Their only daughter, Talitha, ostensibly virtuous, was off doing health-worker volunteer work in South America. Meanwhile, when the money began to roll in from the tapes empire, Ted and Ginger mortgaged themselves into the high life—four BMWs, a ranch, a ski condo. That was until oops, one of our competitors in the newspaper biz got hold of the story that their daughter’s sole connection with missionaries was the missionary position.”

“Frances!” I remembered Talitha Vikarios’s shining face and innocent smile. She’d been wearing her candy-stripe uniform proudly. She’d loved little infant Arch so much, she’d become weepy when she doted on him.

“Oh, so you were acquainted with Talitha?” Frances demanded.

“I was, but it’s been a long time. Back when she was a candy striper, she helped out at Southwest Hospital. She was great when Arch was a newborn.”

“Uh-huh. Fifteen years ago? Talitha was, oh, eighteen then? Well, by the time the tabloids unearthed Talitha at age twenty-two, she was living in a hippie commune in Utah. She had a boyfriend and a child without, shall we say, the benefit of marriage? Hello! For the oh-so-pompous Vikarioses, everything went south. They lost the tape empire, their loans were called in, they had to sell everything. We’re talking broke, broke, and very broke.”

“I don’t see how this pertains to John Richard.”

“Background, Goldy. Ted declared bankruptcy four years ago. He and Ginger had been living in a friend’s guest room until ten months ago. Then, what do you know! Guess who gives them cash to buy a country-club condo in Aspen Meadow? Their old friend Holly Kerr, who inherited big bucks, as it turned out, and can’t turn her back on her destitute friends. Christians sharing the wealth, you get the idea. Or is it?”

“Frances—”

“You heard about the Kerrs and Vikarioses having a falling-out, Goldy?”

“I have. I just don’t know what it was about.”

“Neither do I, because nobody from Southwest is talking. But my theory is that Holly is now making up for it with her land-sale money. Whatever it was, Ted and Ginger, according to one of their pals in the country club, are living on a small stipend from Holly. How did the falling-out get resolved, Goldy? Do you know?”

“I sure don’t,” I said. But I wish I did, I added mentally.

“Ted is too old to start a new practice,” Frances went on. “But he can collect on an old debt. So when his former subordinate, Dr. John Richard Korman, gets out of jail, and suddenly gets his picture in the local paper as appearing to have enough dough to start a bakery, well! Let’s say our Dr. Ted becomes curious. Here’s this convicted-felon doctor sponsoring a local golf tournament and driving an Audi and living with a floozy in the country-club area. So! Let’s also suppose Ted figures it’s time to collect.”

Outside, I heard Tom’s Chrysler crunching along the gravel toward our detached garage. Impatience raced up my spine.

“Frances,” I demanded, “what are you talking about?”

“Goldy,” she cooed, “did you ever wonder where John Richard got the fifty-thousand-dollar down payment for your little house? The same house you got in the divorce settlement?”

My entire body went cold. “He told me his parents gave it to him for graduating from medical school.”

“I don’t think so,” Frances replied. “They may have given him a cash sum, but he squirreled it away somewhere, or spent it on his girlfriends, or whatever. A little birdie told me that for the down payment on your house, Dr. John Richard Korman borrowed fifty Gs from his old friend Dr. Ted Vikarios.”

“I don’t believe it,” I snapped. “Who’s the little birdie?”

“Actually,” she said with the tiniest shade of uncertainty, “that particular factoid came from an anonymous tip on my voice mail.”

“From a man or a woman?”

“Couldn’t tell. So are you going to confirm or deny?”

“Deny. Emphatically.” But still, I felt as if I’d been punched. Fifty thousand dollars? John Richard might have incurred a debt I’d never even heard of? To some people who were now bankrupt? Was this before or after he supposedly raped a teenager? Outside, Tom and Arch called to each other and shuffled their equipment out of the car and toward the house. Another wave of chills enveloped my body. “Did Ted Vikarios keep some documentation of this loan?”

“Nope,” Frances replied. “At least, not according to Holly Kerr.”

“Did Holly Kerr confirm the fact of the loan, Frances?”

“Well, actually,” Frances admitted, “she just said if there was a loan, it was a gentleman’s agreement.”

“You’re telling me Holly Kerr agreed to be interviewed by you?”

“Not exactly. But my Jeep made mincemeat of that driveway of hers, and I can camp out on somebody else’s porch as easily as I can camp out on yours.” She chuckled.

I shook my head. If I hadn’t been afraid it would get into the papers, I would have said, Frances, sometimes you can be a first-class bitch.

“All right,” Frances went on blithely, “think about this. The Vikarioses’ financial woes began at about the same time that your ex-husband started downhill, moneywise. And then of course he had those bothersome trips to jail. But all of a sudden, his sentence was commuted. And he had a big argument with Ted Vikarios, or at least a heated discussion, right before you and Korman went at it. Sort of puts that last conflict with your ex into better perspective, doesn’t it? Him flying off the handle at you all of a sudden…seems a bit odd, doesn’t it?”

Tom and Arch were punching the numbers on the deck-door security box and peering in. “No, Frances,” I replied. “It wasn’t a bit odd. In fact, him flying off the handle at me all of a sudden was the entire problem of John Richard’s and my relationship. In a nutshell.”

“Of course,” she said slyly, “maybe you did know about the loan and its lack of documentation. Then you’d have had even more reason to shoot—”

“Look, I need to go,” I lied. “If I find out anything, I’ll call you.”

While she was still squawking, I hung up. Her quid, in addition to being unsettling, hadn’t made much sense. Besides implying that I would have had further motive to kill John Richard, was she saying it was possible that Ted Vikarios, unable to extract fifty Gs on the spot from John Richard—after not seeing him for nigh on fifteen years—had driven over to his house and shot him? Whatever chance Ted Vikarios would have had of extracting cash from the Jerk would have been extinguished with those shots in the garage.

When Tom and Arch traipsed through the door, I immediately knew that something was wrong. Tom’s look was hooded. Arch’s hair was matted to his head; his face was flushed, streaked, and glossy with sweat.

Arch nodded and acknowledged me with a “Hi, Mom! How’re you doing?” that was way, way too enthusiastic. “Check it out! Tom bought me a new hockey stick I’ve been wanting! And a jersey, too!” He bounced past, mumbling something about needing a shower.

Wait a minute. Stick? Jersey? I glanced after him, but he was gone.

“Couldn’t get a tee time?” I said lightly to Tom, who was washing his hands at the sink.

“Oh, we got a tee time, all right,” Tom replied.

“But the two of you changed your minds?”

As if thinking over his answer, Tom said nothing. He began calmly fitting candles into crystal candlesticks for the table. Eventually he lowered himself, somewhat wearily, into a kitchen chair. Finally he gave me the full benefit of his sea-green eyes.

“I have news for you. Arch cannot play golf. He doesn’t even know how to hold a club.”

“But that can’t be,” I protested. “He’s been playing twice a week with John Richard for the last month. John Richard hired the pro to work with Arch—”

Tom’s look was even and steady. “I don’t think so. Your son didn’t tell me what he and his father were doing those two afternoons a week. But I can tell you this. Arch has never played golf in his life.”

My fragile relationship with Arch at that particular juncture, i.e., right after the violent death of his father, did not permit me to interrogate him on the subject of what, exactly, he and John Richard had been doing every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon for the last month. When we came together at the candlelit dinner table at half-past seven, I thought I’d wait until we were all eating before posing any questions.

A sudden wind brought the temperature down twenty-five degrees, perfect Mediterranean- and Mexican-food weather. When I placed Trudy’s hot, juicy chicken platter next to the steaming enchilada pie, Arch and Tom dug in with enthusiasm. The chicken was succulent and not too spicy. The Mexican-pie mélange of beef, garlic, onions, refried beans, and hot sauces also featured corn chips and enough melted cheese to smother Pancho Villa’s entire army. I’d set out a bowl of rice and dishes of sliced fresh tomatoes and avocados, chopped lettuce and scallions, and a mountain of snowy sour cream. If nothing else, ice hockey did have a way of cranking up the appetite.

“Arch,” I began, “I was wondering—”

But Tom warned me off immediately with one of his He’ll talk when he’s ready looks. Arch gave me a studiously blank stare. If he wanted to discuss his father, the funeral, or anything else, he gave no indication. When the plates were empty, I asked if anyone wanted strawberry-cream pie. Both Tom and Arch groaned and said that they were too full. And then Arch scraped back his chair and asked to be excused. When I acquiesced, he mumbled, “Thanks, Mom,” and took off for his room.

“I know he’s trying to be polite,” I commented to Tom as we cleared the table. “But not only is Arch withholding evidence, he’s going back into the infamous adolescent shell.”

Tom put down a pile of dishes and gathered me into a hug. “We talked a lot this afternoon. He’s torn up, all right.” He kissed my neck and held me tighter. “Miss G., I’m more worried about you. I pulled out the trash container, and saw it was filled with glass shards. What’s that about?”

“Rage. I have a lot to tell you.”

He let go of me. “Rage about what?”

I gave him the executive summary of the morning: the strip club, Lana, the bleeding bald man left on Marla’s car. Then I told him about the afternoon: seeing Holly, encountering the reporters, pie-slapping Mannis. Afterward, I’d broken a few jars in anger, yes. And then I’d read the notes from Cecelia Brisbane. Tom had listened this far without comment, but he held up a hand.

“Stop. Do you have these notes now?”

“You’ll be happy to know that I turned them over to Detective Blackridge. But I did make copies,” I added. I pulled out the copies I’d made of the notes, and again was thankful that Tom had given me a small photocopying machine for my birthday.

“Oh, my Lord,” Tom said, shaking his head. He put down the copies and gave me a hard look. “Do you think it’s true?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. Someone is or was trying to frame me for John Richard’s death. And now, all of a sudden, stories about him start surfacing.”

“Are there other stories!” Tom asked.

I told him that Frances Markasian might have unearthed an old debt, to the tune of fifty thou. According to an anonymous source who’d called Frances, Dr. Ted Vikarios had loaned the Jerk the down payment on this very house in which we now found ourselves. The same source said the Jerk had never paid it back. Ted and John Richard had argued outside the Roundhouse, Frances’s theory went, because the Jerk refused to cough up the funds. The implication was that this debt had given Ted the motive to fire a couple of bullets into the Jerk.

To my surprise, Tom laughed, a wonderful long, rumbling guffaw that made the dishes on the counter shake.

“I’m so glad to provide humor for you so soon after my ex-husband has been shot to death.”

Tom wiped his eyes. “Miss G., you’re trying too hard to get into the head of too many suspects. That is a very dangerous place to be. Don’t get into the mind of a killer, either. It’ll make you crazy.”

“I appreciate the pep talk, Hannibal. May I say good night to my son now?”

When I knocked on Arch’s door, I couldn’t tell if he was talking on the phone or if the radio was on. He called, “Just a minute,” immediately ceased the conversation or broadcast, shuffled around a bit, and then invited me in.

He was sitting up in bed, knees to his bare chest, writing in his journal. The lamp on the desk beside his bed was switched on. His window was open, and a cool breeze filled the room. He glanced at me, then at the wall opposite his bed.

“Yes, Mom?”

“I just wanted to say good night.”

“Okay. Good night.”

“Sweetheart, please.” I gripped the door. “You know the cops suspect that I had something to do with your father’s death. But you were right there with me. You know I didn’t shoot him. So…could you please tell me what you and your dad were doing two afternoons a week for the last month?”

He glanced at his desk. In the poker world, this is known as a tell. He said, “Nothing. I mean, well, I can’t.”

I ignored the desk. “May I give you a quick hug, hon?”

After a moment, he pushed his glasses up his nose and gave me a long look. “Sure. Just, please, you know. Don’t start crying.”

I briskly crossed the room, awkwardly placed my arms around his neck, and hugged his head. I managed this without tears, for which I was thankful.

“See you in the morning.” I released him before he could pull away.

He placed his glasses on his nightstand, closed his window, and snapped off his light. Then he scooted underneath his sheet. I didn’t see what he’d done with the journal—I would never read it or go through his desk, I’d have gone to jail first—but I did notice that he still had the black-and-gold quilt. He pulled it up around his ears, then turned away from me.

“When you leave,” his muffled voice said, “could you please close the door?”

14

Thursday morning I awoke to birds squawking, chirping, and singing their way through their June mating ritual. The only thing that bothered me was that this louder-than-usual cacophony started soon after four A.M. I had dreamed of nothing, for which I was thankful. Tom’s warm arms were still holding me. I didn’t want to move, and yet the merry avian racket and chilly air sweeping through the room made additional slumber impossible.

I eased out of bed, tiptoed across the cold floor, and peered outside. The hail had finally coaxed out a spurt of late spring growth. Leaves clothing the aspens’ bone-white branches had opened from tightly closed fists to a chartreuse cloud. Periwinkle columbines bobbed along our sidewalk. Pearl-white anemones floated above the mulch that Tom had lovingly patted into place in front of our house. Even the lush native chokecherries between the houses seemed to have doubled their blossoms. The profusion of tube-shaped blooms gave off a sweet, heady scent. A fat robin hopped along the curb where the reporters had beaten their retreat.

I moved through a slow yoga routine. Yes, my body still ached, but getting the circulation going would offer more healing than any visit to the doctor. After breathing and stretching, I showered and put on a cotton shirt, shorts, sweatpants, and zippered sweats jacket. The morning was very cool—right at fifty degrees, according to the outside thermometer—but food preparation would have me shedding layers before long. Still, who cared? Come to think of it, why was I in such a good mood all of a sudden?

I frowned. Wait a minute: the windows. The lovely breeze was flowing into our bedroom because Tom had left the window cracked. For the first time since I’d had the security system installed, Tom had turned it off. A lightness filled my head and a buzzing invaded my ears. With John Richard dead, would we really, truly not need the system anymore?

No, wait. We would need it, at least until my attacker and the Jerk’s murderer were apprehended. Maybe Tom had thought we’d all be fine for one night, with him at home to protect us. Maybe he’d forgotten to set the system. I breathed in another lungful of fresh air and closed the window.

In the kitchen, I brought myself back to reality with a double espresso poured over steamed half-and-half. There was the troubling matter of figuring out who had sabotaged my food and attacked me outside the Roundhouse. When we figured out who had done that, maybe we’d be able to sleep with the doors open.

I booted up my computer and printed out the list of food preparation for that morning. First up was the PosteriTREE committee breakfast. After splitting from the garden club, I wondered why they didn’t call themselves the Splinter Group.

I checked on the vanilla yogurt: It had drained and left behind a thick, smooth, custardlike mass. I whipped a mountain of cream, folded it into the yogurt, and set the soft mixture back in the refrigerator to chill. Then I trimmed and chopped peaches, nectarines, and strawberries to layer with the yogurt mixture in crystal parfait glasses when I arrived at the country club.

With the fruit chopped, wrapped, and chilling, I checked my watch: 5:50. Would Marla be awake yet? Probably not. I desperately wanted the chance to visit with her away from the ever-eavesdropping ladies of the tree-planting committee, but if I phoned too early, her wrath would outweigh her desire to share gossip. I sighed. Next on the agenda was the croissants, and I was debating whether to fix those at home or put them together in the country-club kitchen while the quiches were heating. I couldn’t decide, so I switched computer files from “Committee Breakfast” to “JRK.”

Quickly, I typed in my new questions: Is independent confirmation available that JRK raped a teenage girl? If so, then who was the girl, and when did this happen? Did Ted Vikarios loan John Richard 50K for the down payment on this house, and never get it back? Are these two stories meant to throw the cops off the scent of the real killer? And then there was: What in the world was Arch doing with John Richard for the last month, when they were supposed to be playing golf?

If it was too early to call Marla, it was certainly too early to call the Vikarioses. And besides, what would I say to them? Did my ex-husband betray you, too? And by the way, did you shoot him? I fixed myself another espresso and stared at the computer screen. Poor Holly Kerr. Who knew how much she’d told Frances Markasian, just to get rid of her?

I switched back to the problem with the croissants. As all caterers knew, How does it look? is the number one issue in food service. How does it taste? is number three. With the croissants, I was face-to-face with number two, to wit: How does it hold up? This was a general problem with breakfast and brunch food, but since complaining and worrying only makes the caterer’s job seem longer and more frustrating, I set to work chopping the scallions and artichoke hearts, slicing the croissants, whisking together the crab-mayonnaise mixture, and melting the butter for the delicate crumb-herb topping. If these delectable open-faced sandwiches couldn’t be totally assembled in advance, I decided, then I’d just do the last-minute work in the club kitchen.

And speaking of assembling things, I wondered, just where were the cops in their investigation? The rule of thumb in law enforcement was that murders that were not solved within twenty-four hours generally went unsolved. And yet here we were, at thirty-six hours.

Neither detective had told me a thing. Blackridge had been downright hostile. Tom had announced that Sergeant Boyd would be meeting me at the Roundhouse, and then we would drive to the club together. Boyd would be staying with me through both catered events today. He even wanted to help with the catering! I heartily disliked the idea of a chaperone, but Tom had been insistent. The upside was that Boyd might have new information. The key word there was might.

Meanwhile, once Julian arrived, Tom’s plan to keep Arch busy included picking up Todd Druckman and taking the three of them to one of Denver’s giant public pools. I’ve always felt that those pools, which feature wave-making machines and gargantuan slides, are meant to make kids puke up their hot dogs, chips, and milk shakes. That way, parents are forced to buy twice the amount of overpriced food than they would have anyway. But Tom had ordered me to not worry about what I couldn’t control. After the pool, Julian would come to help me with the picnic, while Tom saw what else Arch and Todd wanted to do. Bless Tom. What would we do without him?

My stomach growled. It was six-fifteen and I hadn’t had anything but coffee. I couldn’t look at the croissants and yogurt. Here again, though, I was saved by Tom.

“Oh, Miss G., do I have a surprise for you.” He swaggered into the kitchen with a sudden confidence that I hadn’t seen for a while. He wore a black polo shirt and khaki pants, and looked utterly spiffy. “I did a very, very big shopping yesterday. Please sit down.”

This I did, while Tom pulled out—from one of the secret corners of the walk-in, where he kept goodies just for the family—thick-sliced applewood-smoked bacon, eggs, and cream. Then, after he perused a new cookbook, he brought the bacon to sizzling and made the lightest, flakiest biscuits imaginable. These reminded me of the biscuits served at the Southern boarding school I’d attended. For some reason, this brought tears to my eyes. I sure seemed to be doing a lot of crying these days.

Tom used his thumbs to wipe my tears away, then gently kissed my cheek and told me to eat while the food was hot. Then he put in a call to someone at the department. After a few “Uh-huhs,” and several requests along the lines of “Well, could you put me through to her?,” and then “Yeah, yeah, hmm,” he signed off. Frowning, he washed his hands and sat down with his own plate of bacon, biscuits, and jam.

“Want to know what the department has so far?”

I almost choked on a biscuit. “Don’t tell me you got through to the coroner.”

“Yup, and not only her. It wasn’t a busy week, and the autopsy’s done. John Richard was killed between one and three P.M. He was shot two times at close range. In the chest and in the genitals.”

The espresso, biscuit, and bacon made a sudden turn in my stomach.

“Strange thing is,” Tom went on, “whoever killed him cut off a big chunk of his hair. Like a scalping.”

“A scalping?”

Tom chewed thoughtfully. “Well, not exactly. More like, I want a chunk of this blond hair as a souvenir.”

Deep breaths, I told myself. I looked outside, where bright sunlight was coaxing dandelion pods to release their seeds. As if on cue, thousands of tiny white fluffs floated toward the sky. They’re like aliens, Arch used to say when he was little, all being launched at once. Another time, he’d said, It’s snowing up. But the tiny, featherlike seeds always eventually floated back down, a gentle precipitation that accumulated in roads, piled up in ditches, and rolled like dust-balls down our dry hills.

“Miss G.?” Tom’s voice seemed far away. “Do you not want me to talk about the autopsy anymore? I mean, not at breakfast?”

I met his green eyes. “I’m not sure. Thanks for the delicious food, though. It’ll help me survive my events today.”

“You know,” Tom said as he rinsed the dishes and gave me sidelong glances, wanting to make sure I was all right, “they do have good people working on this case.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s their job, Goldy. They’re not in it for the right or wrong of it. The morality part. All they do is law enforcement. Catch a killer and preserve evidence so that justice can be done—that is, so that a conviction of murder will hold up.”

“Yes, yes, I understand.”

“Okay. That guy you and Marla discovered on her hood? He’s fine. Had a bloody nose, a few bruises. They nabbed that guy Bobby Calhoun, and asked him a bunch of questions, but he denies everything. They can’t make him get his Elvis getup on for a lineup.”

“That figures.”

Tom shrugged. “They had to let him go. He’s a volunteer fireman, and the Aspen Meadow Fire Department is fighting a new fire in Black Mountain Canyon, right next to the preserve. They beeped him several times while he was being questioned. Meanwhile, the bald guy we think he beat up has been released from the hospital and is home with a big bandage on his nose.”

“Thanks for the update. Do you know what they found out about Courtney MacEwan? Did she have an alibi for the time John Richard was shot?”

Tom tilted his head thoughtfully. “Supposedly, around one she was unloading cupcakes for that bake sale. She was in and out until three, according to the lady manning the cash box, who admitted she was too busy to be able to account for Courtney’s every minute.”

“Hmm. Think I could or should talk to her?”

“No, Goldy. I believe if you say a single word to Courtney MacEwan, those hostile detectives will try to get the two of you on conspiracy to commit murder.”

“Come on.”

“Conspiracy after the fact, then.”

“Oh, wonderful.”

Tom finished the dishes in silence and announced that he was going up to get Arch moving. I nodded and brought up my “Nan Watkins Retirement Picnic Prep” file. First I put water on to boil for the pasta that would form the base for the picnic salad. The salad, light and delicate on the tongue, had to be freshly made. Next I hauled out a mountain of cherry tomatoes, rinsed and dried them, and began slicing them in half. When was the last time I’d had my knives sharpened? I tried to remember. Careful, I told myself, be very careful. It was important for caterers to keep all their knives extremely sharp. It was the dull ones that were dangerous.

Dull knives, sharp knives. Neither one had shorn John Richard’s hair. But who had, and why?

The juicy, ripe tomatoes fell into neat halves as I sliced. I didn’t know who or why, but I could guess as to when. Whoever had stolen the thirty-eight from my van had also nabbed the kitchen shears. Within the next couple of hours, the thief had shot John Richard in the heart and the groin and used my scissors to lop off a chunk of his blond hair. And of course, I’d seen something out of place on John Richard’s scalp, I just had not registered it. Something had been strange about his dead body, and the butchered hair was it.

Cherry tomato, slice in half. Tomato, slice. Tomato, slice.

Okay, why? Why would a killer keep a chunk of hair as a souvenir? Had the FBI profiled hair-collecting killers? I knew fans and friends of Beethoven had surreptitiously lopped off chunks of his hair after he died. But presumably, that was because they admired him.

Upstairs, shower water began running. Would Arch find out this horrid detail? I certainly hoped not. I sighed and kept on working.

John Richard had always been very proud of his hair. In fact, the way he felt about his hair brought to mind that biblical term vainglorious, a particular favorite of my Sunday-school class. What did it mean to be vainglorious about your hair? Well, you could use it to great advantage when seducing members of the opposite sex. (Of course, I didn’t talk to the Sunday-school class about that. But they’d guessed what Jezebel was up to.)

I wished Tom had told me exactly where on John Richard’s head this chunk of hair had been cut. Maybe our killer just wanted him to look unattractive in death. Closed casket, that kind of thing.

I shook my head and finished the tomatoes. Then I rinsed the cilantro, patted it dry, and spread it out on the cutting board where it looked like green strands of…

John Richard had always demanded that his gorgeous blond hair be cut just so: He’d have the stylist snip and rework his bangs until they were perfectly cantilevered over his forehead. While leaning toward a woman to ask, “So are you new to this hospital?,” or to offer some confidential endearment, he would run one or both hands through his blond hair. The women had swooned.

I had to stop thinking about this. My knife guillotined the cilantro. Soon I’d made a deliciously scented pile of teensy-weensy green bits. I drained the pasta and set it aside to cool, then chopped fragrant scallions and crunchy daikon. I popped one of the leftover cherry tomatoes into my mouth, and was rewarded with sweet juice, firm texture, and eye-rolling lusciousness. I whisked together fruity olive oil, tangy red-wine vinegar, and Dijon mustard, then set all the salad ingredients aside to wait for the pasta to cool.

I switched gears to the committee breakfast, and began packing up those boxes. Because Sergeant Boyd would be there to guard me as well as help, I had told Liz to take the morning off. Julian was going to be with Arch. My two staffers would be working the picnic, though, and for that I was grateful.

The pasta was finally cool, so I gently mixed the salad together and set the whole thing in the walk-in. It was almost seven o’clock. Time to pack up the van and get cracking. After I loaded the last box, I took four ibuprofen. Then I waved to Julian, who was chugging up our street in his inherited Range Rover. I was so glad he would be with Arch and Tom today. I revved the van and headed toward the lake, where I passed a trio of boys casting their lines into the sparkling water. I wished I was with them. In fact, I’d rather be anywhere than catering to the most forbidding group of women in Aspen Meadow.

A transformation had taken place at the Roundhouse. To my great surprise, a team of workers from Front Range Rental had already shown up, and was putting up the large tent that would be the site for Nan Watkins’s retirement picnic. And I felt secure from early morning attackers, because Sergeant Boyd had already arrived, and he would stay with me to help as well as guard me. The enormous mirrored sidelights of Boyd’s dark sedan shone like beacons in the early morning sunlight. Those lights, and the ominous low-slung sedan itself, seemed to holler Back off! I’m an unmarked police car. And as if that wasn’t enough to deter any would-be assailant, a deputy in a sheriff’s department black-and-white had pulled up next to Boyd, in that way cops do when they’re having an important conference on the highway. Even I was intimidated, and I was just the caterer.

Boyd stopped conversing long enough to hand me the keys to my newly secured domain. I walked around to the side of the Roundhouse. The security cage Tom had had installed around the compressors was truly impressive: A cube of chain-link fencing, secured by a large padlock, gleamed in the sunshine. The awe-inspiring new back door, made of solid oak and sporting two locks, looked equally impregnable. My sore body, two days after the attack, was healing; my soul was thankful for such a great husband.

“See you, Boyd,” called the deputy before he roared off.

“Let’s rock!” I said to Boyd. And we took off for the club.

We parked near the service entry and hopped out of our vehicles. Not far away, the plonk-plonk of tennis balls had already started up. Ambitious Colorado players lost no time getting to outdoor courts, once the snow melted. I wondered if I would see Courtney.

To my dismay, a white Furman County van occupied a space near ours. Not Roger Mannis, I prayed. But I couldn’t be too careful.

“Sergeant,” I murmured to Boyd. “There’s a certain man I’m trying to avoid…” I described Mannis and his secretive tactics, and how much I needed him not to be allowed into the committee meeting.

Ever amiable, Boyd used his carrotlike fingers to smooth the wrinkles out of his white polo shirt and black trousers. “I’ve got it covered, Goldy. Any guy tries to get into the women’s meeting, I’ll demand ID. I turn up a guy named Mannis, I’ll pull rank on him and send him packing.” He nodded emphatically, and I gave him a quick hug. Boyd looked and felt as if he’d gained about twenty pounds since the last time I’d seen him. As I flung open the vandoors, I wondered if he could still pass the rigorous physical regimen that was part of the department’s yearly accreditation program. Still, he looked extremely pleased with himself, weight gain or no.

“Tell me what you need me to do, Madame Caterer!”

I smiled and handed him a box. I automatically headed for the kitchen entry, with the sergeant at my heels. By seven-fifteen, and with no sign of Mannis, we had carried in all our boxes. The club didn’t serve breakfast, so we had the kitchen to ourselves. In the wood-paneled private dining room, Boyd and I pushed together two tables to make one long one for twelve.

“Now,” Boyd announced, “I have a couple of surprises for you from Tom.”

“What?”

“This is why we’re called undercover cops,” Boyd announced as he pulled a wrapped package from beneath his shirt. No wonder he’d looked heavier, he’d been hiding a bulky something…. The bundle contained, joy of joys, a new white Battenberg lace tablecloth. We unfurled it across the dark tables. It looked stunning.

Without the hidden tablecloth to slow him down, a greatly slimmed Boyd could move much more quickly. He trotted to his sedan and returned, holding a breathtaking floral centerpiece. There was simply no way that the wealthy-but-penny-pinching ladies of the tree-planting committee had ordered this fanciful arrangement, an abundance of spring flowers ingeniously set into the length of an aspen log. This second gift from Tom, Boyd explained, was meant to add a thematic touch to the breakfast.

“He knew you had some flowers at the house, but he thought you needed another arrangement,” Boyd commented in his usual laconic way as he carefully placed the flower-filled log in the center of the table. “Silverware next.” He about-faced and headed for the kitchen. I stared at the table.

Tom. I pulled out a chair and sat down. Oh, God, Tom.

Back when John Richard and I were engaged, and my mother finally met the ultrahandsome, ultracharming doctor-to-be, she’d trembled with excitement. She’d asked, “What does he see in you?” I hadn’t quite known how to respond to this query, so I hadn’t. My mother had shaken her head, eyed John Richard, and cooed, “Ooh, Goldy! You are so lucky! You must have done something fabulous to deserve such a wonderful man.”

Bulldozing all irony into one of AMCC’s golf course sand traps, I now wondered, truly, what I’d ever done to deserve Tom. Maybe the Hindus were right, after all, and there was some kind of karmic balance to the universe, the good stuff following the bad. My understanding of this theory was that the worse the bad stuff was, the better your good stuff would be. This theory would be harshly criticized by the old guard at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, I reflected, as I quickstepped to the kitchen to finish setting up for the breakfast. I hesitated, glanced back at Tom’s gorgeous tablecloth and flowers, and thought, To hell with the old guard.

An hour later, when the first ten members of the committee arrived and started berating me, I had to remind myself that I didn’t care about the old guard. They were in fine fettle, I had to say. While I offered trays of mimosas and coffee, the women eyed each other’s casual summer outfits—de rigueur silk and cotton suits—and jewelry—single gold strands, double rows of pearls, and a few tiny gems—and settled into earnest bickering.

They ranged in age from thirty to sixty. I knew most of them from catering events or committee work at St. Luke’s. The church meetings had been much harder than the parties, as parish youth-group parents or Sunday-school teachers or even vestry members often ended up stalking off. Behind their backs, each set of enemies claimed their adversaries weren’t good Christians.

I took a deep breath. It could be a long morning.

Marla, looking gorgeous in a turquoise wrinkled-silk pantsuit adorned with turquoise feathers, came bustling up to me. My friend glowed with good health; tiny turquoise barrettes glimmered in her hair as she bent close to my ear. “The Jerk raped a young girl? How long have you know about this?”

“Look, I don’t know if it’s true. Have you dug up anything? A name, a date?”

“No,” Marla replied, “but I’ve got my spies trolling the hills. Okay, I do have news about Courtney MacEwan. I just saw her downstairs, by the way. She’s on her way up here for the meeting.”

Oh, joy. I concentrated on making Marla on alcohol-free mimosa. “Can you come over to the Roundhouse with me when this is over?”

Marla chugged her drink. “Sure. I could even talk to you here when there’s a break in the action. I’d rather turn my back on a firing squad than give these women the chance to talk about me when I’m not in the room.”

I nodded and moved efficiently around the table distributing the parfaits. The glittering crystal glasses filled with alternating layers of the creamy yogurt mixture and the rainbow of juicy fresh fruit made the flower-bedecked, lace-covered table worthy of a Bon Appétit centerfold. When I was done, Marla held up her glass as if she needed a refill. I sidled up to her.

“What?” I said under my breath.

“You need to explain who Boyd is and why he’s here. Somebody just said that as soon as Cecelia Brisbane got here, she was going to tell Ye Olde Gossip Columnist that you were having an affair with a guy who thinks a mimosa is a flower.”

I blew out air and glanced around the room. Maybe I should have called in sick.

At ten to eight, the women decided not to wait for their three missing members. As they sat down to eat, I introduced Sergeant Boyd as one of my new helpers. The women squinted at him. Boyd and I set about serving coffee, iced tea, and juice, then began fielding demands for low-cal sweetener and skim milk, apple juice instead of orange, and no fresh fruit in the parfait, but on the side.

No question about it, Priscilla Throckbottom—actually one of my longtime catering clients—was in a bad mood. I knew from experience that she could be difficult without trying very hard. Plus, I had forgotten to call her back the previous day. When elegantly coiffed, white-haired Priscilla, dressed in an exquisite red linen suit with white piping, began to lay into Boyd about something, I quickly stepped in.

Priscilla was holding up her parfait glass by her fingertips, as if it were a dead snake. “Goldy! Please bring me some eggs and bacon.”

Boyd, immobilized, gave me a blank look. We didn’t have eggs and bacon. I tilted my head knowingly toward the kitchen; Boyd followed me. I told him we weren’t a restaurant and not to worry about any off-the-wall demand. This kind of thing happened. You just nodded, ignored the request, and went on with the event. If possible, you also stopped serving booze to whoever was making demands.

Boyd smiled and saluted.

Within moments, Boyd and I were again circling the table, this time with platters of the hot slices of quiche and the crab-and-cheese croissants. All the food was a huge hit. Courtney still hadn’t shown up, and I didn’t care. But I did feel sorry for Cecelia Brisbane and Ginger Vikarios, the other two missing members of the committee. Cecelia came for the gossip—that was why she’d been at the bake sale—and the women were afraid of what would be printed about them if Cecelia wasn’t included. Poor Ginger Vikarios was the one who’d asked Holly Kerr to join. Holly, dressed in a black suit and looking miserable, undoubtedly wondered how a group of women could be so famished that they wouldn’t wait for all the guests to arrive before plunging into their food. And really, it should not have surprised me that these women did not wait before plunging into something else.

“Goldy!” called Priscilla when I appeared with a pitcher of iced tea for refills. “We have some questions for you!”

Winks raced around the table. Only Holly Kerr appeared perplexed. Marla opened her eyes wide in warning. Too late, I realized I should have sent Boyd out with the tea.

Priscilla adjusted her oversize eyeglasses to get a good look at me.

“Do the police know who killed your ex-husband?” she demanded.

“No.”

“But surely your new husband, that…that policeman”—she waved a hand—“has told you something,” Priscilla persisted. “Or at least has provided you with some theories. Some ideas.”

The women waited, forks poised.

I stared at the pitcher in my right hand and the glass in my left. I resolutely poured in tea. “Ah, no. I wish it were so, but it is not.”

“I heard John Richard Korman fathered half a dozen bastard children in several states,” Priscilla hissed to her colleagues. “I also heard he owed over two million dollars to creditors, and that there was a malpractice suit pending against him.”

Say nothing, I ordered myself. Keep your eyes down. Avoiding eye contact, I’d always noticed, was the best way to become invisible. Not only that, but a humble, servantlike pose was a good way to learn interesting facts. But were these stories fact or fiction? I hoped for the latter. Still, in matters pertaining to the Jerk, I’d learned to expect the worst.

Holly Kerr’s face was drawn into a look of horror. Her hands had gone to her throat, as if she were choking on a chicken bone. I noiselessly walked over to her.

“Holly, are you all right?” I whispered.

“More tea, please?” she squeaked. I poured some into her almost-full glass.

“Now,” Priscilla went on, “has anybody else heard about Dr. Korman’s outstanding house loan—”

“Uh, ex-cuse me!” Marla’s voice was shrill. “Whatever happened to our agenda? I thought we were here to discuss planting trees! How about a few aspens along that ugly concrete wall they’ve put up next to those new condos—”

“And that reminds me, speaking of bastards!” Priscilla interrupted. Her eyes widened behind the huge glasses. “Will someone please tell me who appointed Ginger Vi kar ios to this committee? I thought I was the chairwoman, and then Ginger showed up at the bake sale with baklava, and I didn’t know what to do!”

Marla interjected, “Oh, Priscilla, for heaven’s sake! Ginger is trying hard to reconnect with the community since Ted’s empire went belly up. Let’s not be uncharitable.”

Since being uncharitable was just a stone’s throw from being called un-Christian, the women frowned. They seemed deep in thought, pondering ways to gossip about Ginger while still appearing charitable.

Priscilla said, “In her column a few years back, Cecelia said Ginger Vikarios had a child out of wedlock.”

“Goldy?” Holly Kerr squeaked from nearby. “Do you know where the ladies’ room is?” I gestured, and she tip-tapped away.

Another woman announced, “Ginger didn’t have a child out of wedlock. Her daughter did. Not many people in Aspen Meadow remember, although some of us think they should.”

Marla, sensing approaching chaos, sighed and flicked a glance in my direction. I quickly busied myself with the rolls and butter.

“Hey, girls!” Courtney MacEwan called from the door. “Who said you could start without me?”

There was a collective intake of breath as the women gaped at Courtney, who looked sexy and chic in a black linen pantsuit with an embroidered bolero jacket. Her shiny brown hair was swept up in a French twist, and she was draped with more gold chains than a professional wrestler. After pausing a moment for effect, she strutted to an empty seat and glared at me. I gave a questioning look, as in, What can I bring you? In response, she held out a muscled arm and snapped her fingers at me.

“Get me a mimosa and black coffee. Now.”

I stared at her, immobilized. Back in my doctor’s wife days, Courtney and I had played tennis together. We’d gone to hospital parties with our then-spouses. Even the day before yesterday, at the Roundhouse, she’d joked with me about having sex after funerals. And now she was giving me orders?

I said, “Whatever,” then turned and walked toward the kitchen.

Priscilla Throckbottom began to hyperventilate. “Girls! Girls! Has anyone else heard this rumor about the Vikarioses—”

The kitchen doors swung closed. I turned on the fans—I was sure steam was coming out of my ears—and wondered if Boyd could finish the breakfast. No, I couldn’t do that to him…

“You bitch!” Courtney hissed from behind me. “What do you mean, whatever?”

“Get out of this kitchen.” I faced her and made my face impassive. “You’re violating county health regulations.”

Her cheeks flared. “You implicated me to the cops. Who do you think you are? I didn’t kill John Richard!”

I picked up one of the cookie sheets we’d used for the croissants and checked it for crumbs. “Then you have nothing to worry about. Now leave.”

“You’re the one who made his life miserable,” Courtney insisted. She placed her hands on her hips. Clearly, she’d determined to have a fight and wasn’t planning on going anywhere.

I said, “You shouldn’t have believed his lies, Courtney. He made his own life whatever it became.”

“That’s not the way I heard it. I loved him. We were going to get married. Then you screwed it up with your threats to cut off his visitations with Arch.”

“Is that why you sabotaged my food and attacked me?”

She turned scarlet. “You’re crazy.”

“How did you manage to steal stuff from my van?”

“I didn’t take anything of yours and you know it.”

“Right. But John Richard took something from you, didn’t he? Marla thought it was a hundred thou, but she was going to ask Cecelia Brisbane if it might have been more—”

“Shut up!”

“And while we’re at it, Courtney, where’d you go after the funeral lunch, exactly?”

That did it. In a cloud of bolero jacket and gold chains, Courtney wheeled around, whacked through the swinging doors, and was gone. By the time I’d picked up a crystal pitcher of iced tea and moved back into the dining room, Courtney had stalked out. The committeewomen snickered, exchanged murmurs, and gave me questioning looks.

Holly Kerr, looking only slightly revived, had returned to her seat. The women, unwilling to move to their agenda, tried to remember the last thing they were complaining about.

“I still haven’t heard a satisfactory reason for Ginger Vikarios to be invited on to this committee,” Priscilla huffed.

Holly Kerr looked earnestly around the table. “How can you say such a thing? She asked me to join so we would have time to work together and raise money—”

“I should think Ginger Vikarios’s time should be spent raising money for a better wardrobe,” Priscilla interjected. “Did you see what she wore to your husband’s memorial, Holly? She looked like an orange Popsicle!”

Holly Kerr gasped. I wasn’t sure she was going to make it through this meeting.

Priscilla continued, “Denver has any number of dress boutiques—”

“God dammit, Priscilla—” Marla interrupted.

“Now regarding swear words,” Priscilla threatened, “I announced at the beginning of our work together…”

I moved noiselessly around the table, serving seconds on rolls and butter, offering refills on coffee, sugar, cream, iced tea, and lemon. No more mimosas for these ladies.

Beads of perspiration were forming on Marla’s forehead. She glanced longingly at the flip chart Aspen Meadow Nursery had set up at the far end of the private dining room. When I leaned in to fill her iced tea glass, she whispered, “Can’t you do something to get these bitches onto their agenda?”

“Like what?” I whispered back.

“Announce that it’s time! Don’t you think this damn country club has a dinner bell somewhere?”

“Sorry. The only bell Coloradans use is for calling in cows.”

Priscilla interrupted by asking Sergeant Boyd how she was supposed to stir sugar into her iced tea if he didn’t bring her an iced-tea spoon? He swallowed, his expression somewhere between bemusement and dismay, and asked what an iced-tea spoon was. I quickly murmured to Priscilla that I would get one from the kitchen.

“Whitewash,” Priscilla was proclaiming when I returned. She waved with one hand and adjusted her glasses with the other. “We still don’t know what really happened. And Cecelia really is so odd, isn’t she? We invited her to this meeting, and yet she can’t be bothered to come. Maybe Walter wanted a woman who would be more like a real wife, not a silly gossip columnist.”

“Walter Brisbane was such a charmer,” another woman commented. “It must have been over another woman, don’t you think?”

“Maybe another man!” Priscilla squealed.

A sudden banging and rush of footsteps kept me from dumping the pitcher of iced tea on Priscilla’s head. The discussion came to an abrupt halt. Ginger Vikarios, her orange-red hair disheveled, her stockings askew, her appearance incongruously froufrou—she was wearing the same orange taffeta dress and matching orange heels she’d worn to the memorial lunch—stepped timidly toward the table.

“I’m terribly sorry to be late.” Her voice cracked as she eyed the leftover crumbs on the woman’s plates. “I hope…you haven’t begun to discuss our work together. I’ve been looking forward to it—”

Priscilla Throckbottom fidgeted with her fork and knife. “Of course we’ve been waiting for you, Ginger.” She eyed Ginger’s outfit. “You know, my dear, I can take you to Denver—”

“Priscilla!” Marla shrieked. The women jumped in their chairs, startled. Priscilla drew her mouth into a moue of protest.

“I…thought the meeting was at eight-thirty.” Ginger fidgeted with her too-large double strand of pearls and glanced apologetically around the table. “And then I looked at my calendar, and said to Ted, ‘Oh, no…’ ”

“We all make mistakes,” said Priscilla, with a knowing glance around the table. “In fact, some of us have made many mistakes over the course of our lives.”

Ginger blushed and slithered into a seat. Marla caught my eye, and in that awkward moment, hollered, “It’s time to get to our agenda!”

I headed for the kitchen.

Okay, there was one good thing that had come out of my divorce and involuntary demotion from the country-club set to the servant sector.

I’d been able to quit every committee I’d been on.

15

I ignored the scathing looks I received when I brought Ginger Vikarios a fresh plate of parfait, quiche, croissants, and rolls. She was almost pathetically grateful. As Boyd and I began to clear the rest of the dishes, Priscilla Throckbottom grabbed my elbow and pulled me down next to her.

With her mouth next to my ear, she whispered, “Ginger arrived too late to be served breakfast.”

Balancing two stacks of dishes, I tried in vain to release myself from her pincer grip on my arm and hot breath in my ear. It occurred to me that even though I’d quit my committees, and even though I’d learned to handle aggressive men, I was a tad behind the curve on handling aggressive women. I resolved to ask Tom about this.

My pal Marla, however, knew how to handle aggressive women because she was one. Sensing I was in trouble, she bustled around the table and grabbed Priscilla’s forearm. The dirty dishes in my released hand made a precipitous slide toward another woman’s frothy hairdo and pale pink suit.

Dear Lord, I prayed, help me out of this.

And He did, using my best friend as his instrument. Marla murmured a few choice words to Priscilla about exhibiting Pharisaic hypocrisy regarding feeding Ginger Vikarios. We didn’t want that to get out, now did we? Especially since one of Marla’s pals was the current editor of the St. Luke’s newsletter. Of course, there was no way Father Pete would allow Marla or anyone else to put a bitchy tidbit into the church newsletter. But the women had all seen the power of Cecelia’s gossip column, and Priscilla was properly intimidated, for once. She harrumphed and turned away. Boyd, again taken aback, cleared the rest of the dishes with miraculous swiftness.

But Marla was not finished with Priscilla, because she held on to her arm the way that Priscilla had held on to mine. She must have threatened something truly damaging, because Priscilla cleared her throat and stood up. Then she walked timidly in the direction of the flip chart.

For a moment, the women were stunned, as they seemed to think their leader was stalking out of the meeting. But Priscilla stopped abruptly, smiled nervously at her colleagues-in-gardening, and tapped the first illustration with her pointer.

“Root systems!” she gargled. The committeewomen frowned. Priscilla began lecturing apprehensively on the different trees’ adaptability to rugged climate, sunshine, and shade. I tiptoed away with my last load and pushed into the kitchen. We would rinse the dishes as quietly as…no, I would not think of mice, not after what had happened on Tuesday. Boyd and I began scraping the plates and gently running water over them. I thanked him again for helping me out, and he waved this away.

“You can’t imagine all I’ve learned today,” he replied solemnly. “If I didn’t before, I now have a genuine fear of, and respect for, the opposite sex.”

“Right.”

When Boyd and I had finished stacking the rinsed dishes and I was brewing a fresh carafe of coffee, Marla slid into the kitchen.

“From all committees, good Lord, deliver us,” she announced, raising her hands in a gesture of prayer. All the feathers on her suit quivered. “Is there a back door out of here?”

“I thought you didn’t want to turn your back on this committee.” I finished drying the last cup. “You were afraid they’d talk about you during even the teensiest absence.”

Marla exhaled. “I didn’t bank on Priscilla doing a presentation on composting. Two of the women are asleep, and the rest are yawning. I figured it was safe to leave.” She tilted her head coquettishly and batted her eyelashes at Boyd. “Why, Sergeant! You did an admirable job out there, and survived to tell the tale.”

For the first time since I’d known him, I saw Sergeant Boyd blush. “Well, thank you, Mrs. Korman.”

She poured two glasses of orange juice, handed me one, and held up her glass as a toast. “To Sergeant Boyd, for surviving his first women’s committee meeting.” We raised our glasses and sipped as Boyd’s cheeks turned even darker. “Now, Sergeant Boyd,” Marla went on, “one more thing. Could you keep an eye on the ladies out there, pretty please? I need to have a heart-to-heart with my girlfriend here, and we need to be warned if they start talking about us. Or if they want more food, God forbid.”

Boyd nodded and mumbled that it would be no problem. Before he was even out the kitchen door, Marla started talking.

“What’s this about the Vikarioses?” she demanded. “Mr. and Mrs. Family Values had a child out of wedlock?”

I shook my head. “That wasn’t what I was hearing. Priscilla said the Vikarioses had a bastard grand child. But she also said John Richard owed a couple mil to creditors, so I don’t know how reliable her sources are.”

“Neither do I, but I’m going to start digging.”

I sighed. “So, what were you able to find out about Courtney MacEwan?” Ever so quietly, I began to load the dirty plates into the club’s commercial dishwasher.

“All right,” Marla began. “The way Courtney tells it, she and John Richard were going to get married before the end of the year. He just needed some money. Also, he was starting a new business and was wondering if Courtney would be willing to ‘help him out with it.’ ”

I groaned. “Why do I feel as if I know where this is going?”

Marla put her hand on her chest. “You haven’t heard it all. Courtney was designing a big new house for the two of them in Flicker Ridge. She even promised to get new boobs for him.”

“Marla, don’t.”

Marla sipped her drink and rattled the ice cubes. “This is to let you know her motivation. She was so in love with him, not only was she ready to have surgery, but as we know, she also loaned him that hundred thousand bucks after they hooked up. She also rented him the Tudor house, ostensibly so that you wouldn’t scream about him living with another woman when Arch came to visit. Really, of course…”

I said, “Yes, yes, she was naive.”

“Courtney had given him a lot of money, which probably meant he saw her as getting controlling.” Marla paused and raised her eyebrows. “And by the way, the Jerk said, he couldn’t actually marry her anytime soon. Are we not surprised at this, either?”

“He wanted his freedom. He wanted to examine his options,” I said dully. “See if he could trade up, so to speak.”

“So to speak. Depends on how you look at a stripper who’s ten years younger than Courtney.” She did a little dance around the kitchen. “Okay. Remember the Mountain Journal of…of…Friday, the sixth of May?”

I slid in a dirty dish and paused. “Was that the one with the picture of John Richard sponsoring the golf tournament? Twenty-five thou to charity and you’re suddenly back in the bosom of society?”

“Oh, darling, don’t talk about the bosom of society, talk about Courtney and her upcoming boobs and her money, and Cecelia’s column from that same issue, which precipitated the breakup. Do you not remember it? What local tennis-playing merry widow is living with an ex-con? Could that be where the ex-con, an infamous local doctor, is getting the wherewithal to squeeze back into everyone’s good graces and have them forget about the past? Are we as willing to forgive and forget a crime against a woman? Courtney drenched herself in champagne cocktails and sobbed to me all about this at the club last night. She blames you and Cecelia for what happened to them. Although she ought to blame the Jerk, as usual,” she muttered.

“I saw the column,” I admitted. “I take it the Jerk objected to being gossiped about?”

“Courtney had been staying at the Tudor house, and only left when you brought Arch over. But the Jerk kicked her out the morning after the column was published,” Marla said. “He said between dealing with you and the Arch-visitation issue, and facing negative publicity, they were through.”

“Whoops.” I wanted to feel sorry for Courtney, but couldn’t. She had certainly proved to me that she was a bitch.

“Okay.” Marla put down her iced tea and poured herself a cup of coffee from our drip machine on the counter. “What the Jerk said to Courtney was that they were officially broken up. Over. Kaput.” Marla gestured with the coffee and slopped half of it onto the counter. “After the breakup, Courtney sobbed how over John Richard had said it should be. She should not call. Not write. No e-mail! And Courtney cried, oh, God, she cried.” Marla blinked and drank a bit more coffee. “She demanded her hundred K back, but not that day. And guess what happened when Courtney went to her lawyer to get her money back?”

I said, “I can’t imagine.”

“The Jerk told his lawyer Courtney’s cash wasn’t a loan, it was a gift.”

“Pretty big gift.”

Marla smirked. “No kidding.” My friend’s tone turned serious. “Goldy, do you think Courtney could have shot him?”

I stopped loading the dishwasher and shook my head. “I don’t know. When she came in here, she was furious. You have to suspect anyone with a temper like that.” I remembered one of the places John Richard had been shot: the genitals. “I know Courtney’s alibi is about as solid as carbon dioxide. In and out of a crowded bake sale five minutes away? But if she were ever caught, the negative publicity from Cecelia Brisbane would be nothing compared to being convicted of homicide.”

“Let me ask you this, then.” Marla picked up her purse. “Do you think Courtney would hire someone to kill the Jerk?”

“She’s got the money, certainly.”

“Yeah. And the motive.”

Something in Marla’s tone made my skin turn to gooseflesh. “Why? Do you know something? What have you heard?”

Marla chewed the inside of her cheek. “I haven’t heard a word. But I did see something unusual when I arrived this morning. I walked around to the club service entrance, because I thought we could visit before the breakfast. You weren’t there, but guess who was? That food inspector you hate so much—”

“Roger Mannis?” I interrupted, stunned. “A guy who looks like a weasel with an ax for a chin?”

“The same. And sitting in the passenger seat of the van, handing him an envelope, was Courtney MacEwan.”

Marla said she hadn’t seen anything else. She hugged me and took off, while I fought the knot in my stomach.

After checking that the committee meeting was finally on track, I asked Boyd back into the kitchen. I shared what I’d heard from Marla, and my questions. How much had Courtney resented me for supposedly breaking up her affair with John Richard? Could Mannis have been the one who’d attacked me outside the Roundhouse? He would certainly know about sabotage, or he could have tutored Courtney in what to do. And then perhaps Roger, or Courtney, had driven over to John Richard’s house and shot him.

“Could be,” Boyd mused. “You always have to be open to theories.”

“Do you think I should say anything to Reilly and Blackridge? They’ve been really hostile to me.”

“Let me do it.” Boyd nodded decisively. “They know I’m here guarding you, and I can say one of the women saw Ms. MacEwan give Mannis an envelope. Then it’ll be up to them. You probably don’t want them knowing you’ve got this information, anyway.”

Plus, I thought, I sure didn’t want Courtney MacEwan to know I had even more reason to suspect her. That woman was dangerous.

An hour later, the committeewomen began to wrap up their meeting. Boyd and I were in the last stages of cleaning up from the breakfast. Priscilla Throckbottom did not give me an extra gratuity for Boyd, despite his hard work. I would do it myself, I resolved, when he departed from the Roundhouse this afternoon. And he was going to be there, he’d insisted. He’d informed me he was sticking with me until Julian and Liz arrived to help with the picnic. Ordinarily I would have bristled at being chaperoned, but I really did not want to go back into the Roundhouse alone, thank you very much.

At the end of the meeting, two things surprised me. First of all, the women actually did agree to do something. Lot purchases of trees were to be had at half price at Aspen Meadow Nursery, this week only. With their many donations and the success of the bake sale, PosteriTREE was buying sixteen dozen blue spruce, twenty dozen aspen trees, and fifty dozen lodgepole pines. They were going to organize volunteers to plant them in the burned areas of the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve. Since the canyon fire had just jumped over to the preserve, the women thought a replanting scheme would be a worthy goal. I didn’t know what volunteers would be willing to work for these women, but no one was asking me.

Tipping the emotional scales over to misery was the second surprise: the sight of Ginger Vikarios sobbing in her battered Taurus. The meeting had not yet ended when I’d finished cleaning and slipped out the service entrance with the trash. The food inspector’s van was gone, of course, but I did spot a desolate Ginger when I rounded the corner to the club’s Dumpster. Her flyaway orange hair was bent over the steering wheel; her body heaved with sobs. I tossed the trash into the Dumpster and headed in her direction to see what was wrong, to comfort her, something. But she heard my footsteps on the gravel and glanced up. Startled and gasping, she turned the key, pushed the old car into gear, and took off.

When Boyd and I finally finished, we were dismayed to see that two Cadillacs had been carelessly parked in such a way as to block the service lot exit. Cursing under my breath, I climbed into my van and revved the engine. With Boyd guiding me, I did a sixteen-point turn to get around the Caddies. Chuckling, Boyd hoisted himself into the passenger seat and we took off. As we drove up toward the tennis courts, we both saw Courtney MacEwan racing toward us. Oh, hell, I thought. Not again.