Dying for Chocolate

14.

In the relationship with John Richard, I had learned I was a physical coward. There was no way I was going outside. If you weren’t secure, why call it a security system, anyway? The perimeter motion detector would scream if the house was violated. I crept back to bed and turned out the light.

The next morning, I de-activated the security system and stepped outside to look around and call for Scout the cat. Lime-green aspen leaves clicked in the early breeze, like the sound of tiny hands clapping. It did not sound like a splash.

I had the feeling of being watched. There was no sign of anything or anyone who might have been by the pool after Arch came in. My eye found Scout. He was sitting very still, watching me from inside the French doors leading to the patio.

“Lot of help you are,” I said. He looked up with reproachful pale cat eyes. He was still too spooked by the dogs he’d encountered during his tenure of homelessness to have been last night’s noisemaker. Don’t venture into the world, his impassive face said. It’s dangerous out there.

Adele gleefully announced we had a go for the Audubon Society picnic. Wednesday and Thursday I finished planning and ordering the food for that affair and Adele and Bo’s wedding-anniversary party on the fourteenth. Philip’s absence was a hole to be filled with work. Keeping busy helped deal with grief.

Bo and Adele were also preoccupied—with phone calls, committee meetings, buying and planting flowers for the garden. The general was one of those rare men who love to shop. Late Thursday afternoon he surprised me with a package of fresh sole fillets. He asked if I could do something with them for dinner the next night. He began a long explanation about becoming an Episcopalian when he married Adele. But there really is no such thing as a former Catholic, and could we start having fish on Fridays? In case Vatican II had been wrong.

We eat for different reasons, I said with great seriousness. Fish was no problem.

Friday morning I awoke with a heaviness in my chest. It’s not the day of a funeral that’s most difficult, or even the next day or the next. I did my yoga routine, turned off the security system, and made my way to the kitchen. No, the first few days you have the memory of the church service, of the casseroles afterward, of the conversations you had with friends when you remembered the person who died. Within a couple of days, though, the reality of the loss hits. The person is gone. Forever.

I set about making Julia Child’s Fish Fillets Silvestre for the evening meal. Adele and the general were taking a break from all their activities by making a day trip to Vail. Outside, the rhythmic slap-slap of Julian’s arms hitting the water started up.

I poached the fillets and made the sauce—all but its final butter enrichment—and set the whole thing to chill. I looked around the kitchen and tried to figure out what to do next. It was still too early to start breakfast for the household.

I made a double espresso. I put a call in to Schulz. He was not at his desk; I left a message. I hadn’t thought of anything, nor did I know anything new, but I missed him.

I sipped the espresso: Lavazza. General Bo had picked some up for me when he bought the sole. However, the caffeine was not doing its perk-up job. My heart felt as if it were in the grip of a vise. I phoned Marla.

“Want to do lunch?” I said.

She said, “It’s too early in the morning. I can’t believe my ears.”

We agreed on Aspen Meadow Café, near Philip’s office. Well, I was going to have to go back to that part of town sometime. As soon as I hung up, Schulz called.

“That was quick,” I said.

“Are you in a good mood or a bad mood?”

“Good, of course,” I said. “Why?”

“Then you haven’t seen the paper, I take it.”

I had forgotten. “Don’t tell me.”

He exhaled deeply. In sympathy, I thought. Schulz’s voice sounded far away when he said, “I’m not going to read it to you again, Miss G., and risk having my head blown off. Why don’t you bring Arch over tonight. We’ll cook out.”

I reflected. I liked sole, but not that much.

“Sure,” I said. “I’d love to.”

“I know you feel funny. . . with that fellow you were dating gone—”

“I need to get my mind off the accident. Philip and I had just been seeing each other for about a month. It wasn’t that big a deal.” Without thinking, I added, “Probably I imagined more than was actually there.”

Schulz was quiet. Then he said, “Well. I might need to talk to you about our friend Dr. Miller.”

“Talk.”

“Confidential, you understand. You were his friend.”

“I told you. I’m beginning to think I didn’t know that much. What’s your question?”

“We found something in his briefcase. Thought it was a drug at first. Had to send it off to be analyzed.”

“And?” ’

“Ever heard of cantharidini”

You bet I’d heard of it. I said, “Spanish fly. Deadly as can be. Did it show up in the autopsy?”

“No, that’s the weird thing. You have any idea why he would have something like that?”

Just for the slightest fraction of a moment, I thought I heard someone else on the line. Not the CIA listening in, but someone breathing. My body went cold. Three nights ago it was sounds outside. Now it was eavesdropped conversations. That would teach me to read Edgar Allan Poe.

“None whatsoever,” I said, “but let’s talk about it tonight.” I tried to put some urgency into my voice, something he would read as my having to hang up.

“Before you rush off,” he said, “you might like to know that because of finding this substance, they’ve given me the go-ahead to investigate this as a suspicious death.”

I was quiet. Could I hear anything on the line besides Schulz’s voice?

After a moment I said, “I can’t talk about this any more right now. I’m looking forward to tonight.”

I listened on the line after Schulz had hung up. Perhaps there was a very gentle clicking off. It was hard to tell. What had Philip said the last time we’d talked? Not on the phone.

Great.

• • •

STRAWBERRY SUPER PIE

CRUST:

¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, melted

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar

¾ cup chopped pecans

TOPPING:

2 pounds strawberries, divided

½ cup water

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

FILLING:

1 ¼ cups whipping cream

¼ pound cream cheese, softened

¾ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup confectioners’ sugar

Preheat oven to 375°. For crust, mix melted butter with flour, confectioners’ sugar, and pecans. Press into a buttered 10-inch pie plate. Bake for 25 minutes or until light brown. Allow to cool completely.

Start topping by mashing enough strawberries to make 1 cup. Cut tops off rest of strawberries and set aside. Place mashed berries in a saucepan and add water. Mix sugar and cornstarch into crushed berry mixture and bring to a boil on top of stove, stirring. Boil about one minute or until clear and thickened. Set aside to cool.

For filling, whip cream until stiff. In another bowl, beat cream cheese with vanilla and confectioners’ sugar. Carefully fold whipped cream into cream cheese mixture. Spread in cooled crust and refrigerate.

When crushed berry mixture is cool, pie can be assembled. Stand whole (or halved, if you prefer) strawberries on top of cream filling, cut side down. When entire filling is covered with whole berries, carefully spoon cooled crushed berry mixture over all. Cream filling should not be seen between whole berries. Once the crevices have been filled, do not overload the pie with the crushed berry mixture, as it will just drip over the sides. Any leftover crushed berry mixture is delectable on toast or English muffins.

Makes 8 to 10 large servings

The household separated for school and Vail. I made a nut short crust, folded whipped cream into beaten cream cheese for a mountain of filling that I then dotted with rows of fat strawberries. A final glaze of crushed, cooked fresh strawberries was the finishing touch for the Strawberry Super Pie I was taking to Tom Schulz’s. I cleaned the kitchen and headed out to meet Marla. With dismay I noticed that Arch had neglected his one chore: rolling the garbage can to the end of the driveway. Too bad household chores were resistant to his magic.

The Aspen Meadow Café is an attempt to bring continental cuisine to our little portion of the map. Originally a real estate office that had gone under during the 1985 oil slump, it was rumored that the new place had been remodeled à la Nouvelle Bistro. As I waited for Marla, my purse pleasantly stuffed with the tip from Monday’s barbecue, the window displays beckoned.

On the inside shelves, baskets filled with every sort of bread crowded the shimmering expanse of plate glass. Braided loaves, round loaves, loaves freckled with poppy and sesame seeds, baguettes, muffins, fragrant nut breads, and oversize whole-wheat loaves crowded over and under each other. Decorously placed in one corner of the window was an Elk Park Prep decal: GET INTO THE SWIM!

The chimes attached to the glass door jingled cheerfully as I pushed through the door to look for Marla. Heady smells of roasting chickens and baking cakes mingled in the air. Above the glass cases filled with carryout items, there was a blackboard with the day’s specials chalked in: Red Onion and Basil Tart, Grilled Chicken Santa Fe, Crevettes aux Champignons. Past the glass cases and around a corner there was a seating area. I strolled back. No Marla. She was not at any of the tables, where fresh arrangements of freesias and daisies adorned each white tablecloth. Lunch business was brisk: waitresses bustled about in the dining area. A waitress whispered that she would be out to help me at the counter in a moment and apologized that they were shorthanded today.

I walked unhurriedly around the corner to the counter area and turned my concentration back to the day’s specials. I had just decided on the tart when I was whacked from behind.

I did not see who hit me. One minute I was reading the blackboard. The next I was shoved into a pastry case. I felt the glass crack beneath my chest. Shards splintered over tortes and pies. I careened off the glass. My head hit the metal of the bread shelves. I groped wildly for the bread baskets, the shelves, anything to keep from landing on the tile floor. My attacker rammed me again. This time I fell on a small marble table. It clattered to the floor and broke beneath my weight.

Loaves of bread toppled down as I landed on the broken table and tile floor. My body screamed with pain. I couldn’t see; I could only hear my voice howling, even as I knew the sound was muffled by loaves of bread.

A husky voice came in close to my ear. It said, “Let Philip Miller rest in peace.”

Then I heard abrupt jingling as the door to the café was flung open in haste. My attacker had rushed out.

I began to push loaves of bread away from my face and chest. My head throbbed from the fall; my back and chest ached from the relentless shoves.

“Hey! Hey!” came Marla’s voice from far above me. “What happened here?”

Hands groped through the piles of bread to pull me up. I opened my eyes and thought I saw stars. But it was just a pantsuit covered with embroidered galaxies: Marla’s sweat suit showing the summer constellations. A waitress and a cook were standing next to her, and they all stared down at me. Their questions tumbled out: What happened? Are you all right? Do you need a doctor?

I laughed at that last one. But that made everything hurt worse. My arm was bleeding. My chest felt as if it had caved in. The rest, luckily or unluckily, would be bruises. I gasped for breath. Something in my chest would not open up.

While Marla fetched clean wet towels for the cut, I told the assembled onlookers that I had been shoved. Had anyone seen anything? I looked into their surprised faces. One waitress said she’d seen someone leave in a hurry, but just assumed I’d lost my balance getting out of that person’s way. The most description I could get was dark long hair that could have been a wig, black shirt and pants. She couldn’t even say whether it had been a male or female. How tall? Not too tall.

“Should we call your cop friend?” asked Marla.

I shook my head. “Later. Without a description, license plate, or other ID, they’re only going to record it anyway.”

“Still feel like lunch?” she asked in a low voice.

“Let me pull myself together for a minute.” Two of the kitchen staff were cleaning up the bread and marble mess. Broken glass shimmered all across the floor. I clamped the towel around my arm. Several diners eyed me as they left the café. Marla told me I was creating a curiosity slow-down. I said if she would help me around the corner to the seating area, we could get settled.

We limped together slowly through tables of women in tennis clothes and men in fringed leather shirts, jeans, and tooled cowboy boots to a table in the corner.

“I was hoping to avoid the rodeo crowd,” Marla mumbled as she lowered me into a chair.

Good old Marla. It was so much easier to smile at her complaint than to think about my own pain. Coming from Connecticut, Marla had a hard time with the male crowd on any given day in any given Colorado eating establishment. Whether they were bankers, real estate agents, surveyors, or petroleum engineers, a large number would be sporting ten-gallon hats, hand-tooled cowboy boots, fringed leather jackets, and turquoise Indian jewelry. Today was no exception, although I somehow couldn’t see how western apparel jibed with Belgian endive and peppercress.

“You sure you’re okay?” she wanted to know. When I nodded she said, “We need to get Amour Anonymous started up again.”

Our version of AA had to do with being addicted to relationships instead of liquor. Unfortunately, Marla and I were the only steady members, and virtually every one of our conversations was devoted to our problems anyway.

I said, “Why?”

“Because otherwise,” she hissed, “I don’t know what’s going on in your life until something like this happens.”

“I’ll let you know the time and date of my next mugging.”

She waved that off and gave me a look of deep concern. “The Jerk been bothering you lately?”

I told her about the clay pots and the general’s timely appearance.

She said in a low voice, “Think this could have been him?”

“Hard to tell. He usually behaves himself in public. Plus I don’t know how I could have pissed him off.” I felt my spirits sink, as if the adrenaline generated by the attack suddenly had worn off. Had I ever known what pissed off The Jerk?

Marla helped herself to a large slice of French bread from the basket on our table and slathered it with butter. She offered it to me and I took it with my free hand. But I wasn’t ready to eat yet.

“I have to admit,” Marla said, “I mean if you don’t mind talking about it, that when I heard Philip had been killed I immediately suspected our ex.”

Sweat prickled across my brow and under my arms. I said, “You must be joking.”

“No. So I called The Jerk’s office Monday morning, got the secretary, gave the name of one of his patients, and said I had a problem with my checkbook. What day had I come in? Said I thought it was last Friday morning. She said no way because the doctor was at the hospital for an induction at eight.” She paused. “So I called a nurse I know at Lutheran and got a confirmation.”

I took a bite of the sliced baguette. It was warm, moist, and could not have come out of the oven more than twenty minutes before. Minced fresh basil speckled the unsalted butter. Food always made pain recede. I said, “Why did you think John Richard would even care what Philip did?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, don’t. You can’t possibly be that naive.”

“How could he be jealous? We’ve been divorced for four years!”

Marla spread the soft herbed butter to the edge of another chunk of baguette. She said, “You’re joking. You start going out with Miller. The Jerk starts driving by your house, making anonymous phone calls, giving you a hard time. Jealousy, I’m telling you.”

“Ready to order, ladies?” said the same waitress who had helped me get up. “Or do you still need a little time? That was a horrible thing out there. Unbelievable.” While she was talking, the manager came up to see if I was okay. In a tone I tried not to think of as accusing, he said the rest of the staff was out cleaning up the mess. Then he swished off and we quickly ordered the tart, greens with vinaigrette, and coffee.

I turned Marla’s words over in my mind as the coffee arrived. It tasted like sludge. When the waitress had gone, I said defensively, “I went out with Tom Schulz for four months.”

Marla waved off this comment with both hands. “Please. The Jerk is not going to be threatened by a cop who looks as if he belongs in the woods with a camouflage suit, a high-powered rifle, and a six-pack. A gorgeous professional fellow, a wealthy shrink fellow at that, is another thing altogether.” She signaled the waitress.

I said, “I never thought dating would cost me the installation of an expensive security system.”

The waitress rushed up.

“Darling,” Marla said to her. “My friend has just been mugged and she needs better coffee than this. Was it made from ancient beans? Do us all a favor and make a fresh pot. Please,” she added with a smile that fooled nobody.

The waitress sniffed. “We serve one hundred percent Colombian coffee.”

Marla opened her eyes wide. “Really. Then it must be from the District of Columbia, honey, and I’m not drinking any more of it. Neither is my friend. So either make us some fresh or bring us tea. Your choice.”

“I’m sorry,” the waitress said, although she didn’t sound it. “Things have been crazy. During your. . . accident the people at that table over there,” she motioned, “stiffed us for a twenty-two-dollar tab. Comes out of my salary.” Before we could say anything, she whisked away.

I said, “Poor woman. Don’t be hard on her.”

“I swear,” said Marla, “I wish that damn food critic would come to this place.”

“That reminds me—”

“Don’t. You don’t want to see it. Have your lunch first.”

“Marvelous. Let me get sick on a full stomach.”

Marla tsked. She said, “Before we got sidetracked by coffee, we were going to have a little mini-meeting. Talk about relationships.”

“Apart from a strained friendship with Schulz, I don’t have any at the moment.”

“But you did.”

Our salads arrived. I thought of Philip, the balloons and chocolate, the lovely inviting smile. I remembered sitting on the deck of my old house each morning. Somebody loves me. I thought of Philip’s rumored affair with Weezie Harrington.

I said, “I cared about him. I thought he cared about me.

“But you’re not sure.” I did not answer. She went on, “You wanted something.” She began on her salad. “Did the two of you do things with Arch? Hike, go to a movie?”

I felt a flood of embarrassment. I was unmasked. I said, “I’ve just been physically attacked, for God’s sake.” I paused. “No, nothing with Arch. Philip used to say things like, It’s nice to have you to myself. Besides, we’d only been seeing each other for a month, and he seemed so interested in knowing all about me. I just was hoping so much for . . .”

She leaned across the table, held my hand snugly in hers.

“Hoped for more than was there? Forget about it, Goldy. Maybe even hold out for the cop.”

I pulled my hand away. “Can we change the subject?”

“Tell me how you’re getting along with my sister.”

I looked at Marla, my best friend. Her probing did not bother me. I knew she cared. Living with an abusive husband all those years had revealed my own skills at denial. Especially when it came to men.

“Are you doing okay with Adele?” she asked again.

I said, “Fine.”

“The general?”

I said, “Ditto. He’s odd, but nice.”

Marla was shaking her head. “I don’t understand their attraction. Of course, I really don’t know either of them very well.”

I said, “Your own sister?”

The red onion tart arrived. The smell of basil was deep and wonderful, and I remembered that, with its high concentration of plant oils, basil was a reputed aphrodisiac. Marla murmured an apology to the waitress, something along the lines of bad coffee making her crazy. The waitress accepted this with a nod and set a pot of tea on the table.

“Take this back pain, for example,” Marla said as she dug into the steaming tart. There was bitterness in her voice. She said, “Fifty-year-olds don’t walk with a cane.”

“The heck they don’t.”

Marla gestured with her fork. “Repressed emotion, if you ask me.”

“What’s this, the psychological.explanation of illness? Give me a break.”

The waitress came up to check if we were okay, and Marla ordered two glasses of chablis. Whatever it was she wanted to talk about, she needed wine to do it: the psychological explanation of alcohol.

Marla waited until the glasses arrived.

“Adele and I were close when we were little,” she said after a few sips. “I mean, we fought, you know, and she was so much older. But we cared enough about each other that when she left for college there were lots of tears, hugs, and daily letters. That kind of thing.”

“And when you weren’t little anymore?”

She lifted one shoulder in a tiny shrug. “You go your separate ways. Her first husband was a doctor.” She laughed harshly. “Runs in the family.”

“Divorce?”

Marla drank again, shook her head. “He died. Massive heart seizure at a cocktail party. One minute Dr. Marcus Keely was talking to his lovely wife Adele, the next minute he was dead in her arms.”

“Good God. How old was she?”

Marla pursed her lips in reflection. “Nineteen years ago. She was thirty-one.”

“How old was he?”

“Late thirties. History of heart disease in the family. High blood pressure, type A, all that.”

To my surprise, Marla had tears in her eyes.

I said, “I thought you didn’t know him.”

She shook her head, drank more wine. “I didn’t.”

“Well?”

She put her glass down and leaned toward me. “Goldy, if you had a sister you’d grown up with, and cried with every time the two of you had to part, and told about the first time you kissed a boy and all that, wouldn’t you think that one of you would seek out the other one when her husband died?”

“And she didn’t?”

Marla sniffed and delicately wiped her eyes with her napkin. “She came out west to visit when our parents retired here. The doctor left her a lot of money. Her way of dealing with grief was to spend it. She bought a place in Sun Valley and part ownership in a condo in Aspen. That’s probably worth a mint. She should sell it. You can’t ski Aspen if you walk with a cane.”

I nodded. It usually worked the other way around, though. You skied Aspen, you ended up with a cane.

“She spent some time with me, even bought some land here, where their house is now. But did she talk to me about how she felt? Did she cry in my arms? Did she need me? No.”

“Well,” I said slowly, “maybe she only did that when you were little.”

“I wanted to help her,” Marla said. Her eyes were red and leaking again.

I remembered the flicker of judgment in Adele’s eyes when Marla had appeared at her house last Friday. And then there had been Marla’s bent head, her embarrassed acceptance of that judgment. For a moment, I had seen Marla as she must have been afraid her slender, perfectly groomed older sister saw her—as too heavy, too scatterbrained, too frowsy, too frivolous.

I said, “Adele doesn’t like others, even Bo, to help her. Well, unless it’s for some greater cause, like fund-raising. She doesn’t like to seem dependent, I think.”

“It’s not the same.”

I said evenly, “You wanted her to love you—”

“Don’t say it.” Marla dabbed her eyes, blew her nose.

We had finished our lunch. The heavy conversation was over. Our waitress brought us lemon mousse, on the house, she said, to make up for the coffee.

Marla insisted on paying for lunch. As we began to walk out, I told her I had forgotten something at the table. I hobbled back and left the waitress a twenty-two-dollar tip.