Fatally Flaky

“Which guy did you see?” I asked.

“Aw, I don’t remember his name,” Todd said.

“You’re such a wuss,” Gus interjected, which brought some spectacular left jabs from Todd. “Okay, okay, you’re not a wuss!” Gus hollered in defeat.

“So did lifting the weights help?” I asked.

“Not even, Steven,” Todd replied. “I did those stupid weights every day for a couple of weeks, and by then the upper part of my left arm felt as if it was falling off.”

“Hello?” said Arch, as he measured out buttermilk. “Your upper arm can’t fall off. Only your whole arm can fall off.”

“And it’s called resistance training, Todd,” Gus said, laughing.

“Thanks for the updates, guys,” Todd replied. “Okay, it felt as if my whole arm was coming off when I did resistance training, how’s that? Anyway, my mom took me someplace else, and whoever was in charge there said I needed an MRI, which showed, duh, that I had a torn rotator cuff. And so I had surgery. I told her we should sue Spruce Medical, but she said people make mistakes all the time, and I should just cool it.”

Gus sighed dramatically. “Don’t we live in a litigious society? That’s what my grandparents say. I had no idea what that meant, so I looked up ‘litigious.’ It means we all sue each other too much.”

Arch said, “Will you guys quit yakking and get out the butter and the maple syrup? They’re both in the walk-in refrigerator.”

When Marla arrived, Arch, Todd, and Gus had polished off seconds in the pancake department, and I was just starting on my own. They were delicious: Arch whizzed cottage cheese in the blender to add to the batter, and this gave them a nubbly texture, a modicum of protein, and a tangy taste that people invariably asked about. By the time I started on my second stack, my mood had improved considerably.

“Ooh, flapjacks!” Marla cooed as she admired the table. “Are these from Arch’s extra-special recipe?”

Arch blushed but said they were, and he’d made lots of batter, and would Marla like some?

“You bet.” Marla put her hands on her hips, which were swathed in an ample burnt orange and lime green Marimekko shift. When she wiggled, I noticed she was wearing large dangly lime green earrings. She looked like a big orange tulip. “I’ve already had lunch, so this will count as my dessert, I guess. Maybe I’ll have to break down and visit Gold Gulch Spa one of these days, eh?”

While Arch was frying Marla’s “dessert,” Todd and Gus did their dishes, then told Arch they were going out to the Passat to get their stuff. Meanwhile, I gave Marla an abbreviated version of that morning’s trip up to Gold Gulch.

“Smooching with Smoothie?” Marla asked. “Sounds like a horror novel.”

“It wasn’t Smooching with Smoothie—”

“Oh, don’t get technical.” She shoveled in the last bite of pancake. “That was great. You know that T-shirt, Life Is Short, Eat Dessert First? What else have you got around here?”

“Marla, I have to make sure I really do have enough crab cakes, even if Billie adds another fifty people to her hundred and fifty guests—”

“So, make your sauce gribiche, then keep going on the crab cakes, give me the first one to taste, and I’ll tell you whether it has too much salt, that kind of thing.”

“I try to put in somewhat less salt than a dish might need, then—”

“There you go getting technical again. You want to hear my news or not? You’re going to like it. The first part has to do with Doc Finn and your godfather. The second is incredibly juicy, and has to do with this wedding you’re doing tomorrow.”

I hauled out industrial-size jars of mayonnaise, bulbs of fresh garlic, and other things I would chop to go into the sauce.

“Uh,” I said to Marla, with her dubious cardiac history, “maybe you shouldn’t be having this.”

Marla tsked. “Okay, remember I was having that fund-raiser for the church at my place last night?”

“How could I forget? It was just dessert, right?”

“Oh, hell no. Well, actually, I thought it was just dessert, but then somebody called and said did I remember it was snacks and dessert? Think, light dinner, heavy dessert. I don’t know. And I cursed and said I didn’t have any snacks, and she said to just put out what I had. Well, I didn’t have enough wine to serve thirty people, and I did have cheese for an appetizer, but I didn’t have more than twenty crackers, that’ll teach me. But! I did have a case of hundred and ten proof vodka, which I could serve either neat or as martinis. Plus, I had lots of olives. Nut-stuffed olives, pimento-stuffed olives, kalamata olives, you name it. And when people haven’t had dinner but only have olives and vodka? You get great gossip.”

“I hope nobody was driving.”

“No, Goldy, they all walked to my house and then stumbled home. For crying out loud! One of the perks of this little event is that I had the car service again, in case people needed to be ferried to and fro. I’d forgotten the wine and appetizers, but I’d remembered the cars. You can’t have everything.”

“Marla—”

She heaved a voluminous sigh. “Are you going to let me tell my story or not?” When I said nothing, she went on, “You know Lucas Carmichael?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Marla’s ears perked up. “Why unfortunately?”

I tried to make myself sound nonchalant. “He just doesn’t like me.”

Marla cocked a knowing eyebrow. “He’s jealous of how much love, attention, and money Jack’s lavished on you.”

I sighed. “’Fraid so.”

“Well. You know Lucas’s ex-wife Paula is an attorney?”

“Yeah. Down in Denver?”

“Yup.”

“Then why was she at—?”

Marla held up her hand. “Paula has kept her membership at St. Luke’s, which was the reason she was at the fund-raising shindig. She even told me it’s her way of keeping tabs on wealthy potential clients. After three martinis and only a couple of olives, what Paula also told me is that she’s still unbelievably pissed at having to pay spousal support to mousey little Lucas. But if she has to dish out dough, she can also dish dirt, eh? And check this out: now she does prenuptial agreements exclusively. She didn’t do one for herself, but now, oh, man! The irony!”

I couldn’t imagine where this was going, but I’d already been bawled out enough by Marla for interrupting that I just printed out my recipe for the crab cakes, and began spooning mayonnaise into glass measuring cups.

“Yesterday, Paula had a hard day in the trenches trying to keep money away from grasping potential spouses,” Marla went on. “Or at least so she said. I’m telling you, she kept slinging back dirty vodka martinis so fast, she was like the Before poster for Alcoholics Anonymous. I even told her to take it easy, and you know I never do that. She laughed and said she wanted to get her money’s worth, five hundred dollars a person for new cabinets for the church kitchen? And no dinner for the donors? Well, she was pissed, in every sense of the word.”

“Marla—”

“I’m getting there, Goldy, hold on to your gearshift. Okay, you know how we ex-wives occasionally are weak enough to sleep with our ex-husbands?”

“Not among my finest moments after kicking out the Jerk,” I admitted.

“Nor mine,” Marla agreed. “But anyway, Lucas and Paula got all intimate a couple of weeks ago, and Lucas confided that he’d been hoping Paula would not be having to pay alimony to him much longer.”

“He’d been hoping?”

“Yup.” Marla raised an eyebrow. “He’d asked Jack if he could have his inheritance, or part of it, early. But Jack said no. It seems Lucas was quite bitter, in spite of just having scored free sex.”

“Nice talk. Good thing Arch is out of earshot.”

Marla waved this away. “Anyway, according to Paula, your dear godfather Jack had not only told Lucas he couldn’t have any money now, Jack was also thinking of changing his will completely. Changing it, that is, so that Lucas was cut out, I should add. And the proponent of the change, according to Lucas? Dr. Harold Finn.”

“Doc Finn?”

“One and the same. Doc Finn went to Duke University Medical School, and apparently he’d convinced Jack to stop in Durham after one of their drinking-and-fishing trips back East.”

“I knew this,” I said. “Jack told me about the trip, that he almost got eaten alive by mosquitoes.”

“Did he tell you the med school wined and dined him? Did he tell you the powers that be promised him that if he donated twenty million to the school, they’d name a building after him?”

“No. But I’m not sure I believe all this, or even any of it. There’s no way Jack has twenty million dollars. Jack and Lucas don’t always get along, and this sounds like some joke Jack is playing on his son.”

“You think?” Marla looked around the kitchen. “Any chance of some espresso? If I’m going to think, I need some. I might have had one or two too many martinis myself. Plus, I’ve got such a damn headache, my cranium feels as if it’s been splitting rocks all night.”

Shaking my head, I dutifully fixed my friend a double espresso. I knew Jack had enough money to live comfortably. But I simply could not believe he had twenty million smackers squirreled away somewhere. Otherwise, why buy a house that needed to be gutted and redone? Why not just buy a new place in Flicker Ridge, plus a house in, I don’t know, Belize or someplace, for the snowy months?

Finally I said, “Sounds to me as if my godfather just wanted to stop Lucas from asking for money. I think he was also pulling his son’s leg.”

“I voiced those very sentiments to Paula. She shrugged. She’d told Lucas the same thing, but he was disconsolate. First, he was pissed that Jack would even have twenty mil that he hadn’t shared with his own young whippersnapper—”

“He sent him to physician’s assistant school,” I inserted.

“And second, that he would even think about leaving it to, as Lucas put it, some stupid med school.”

“Oh, dear. Sounds as if Lucas is still bitter that he didn’t go to med school.”

“But wait,” Marla said after slurping some coffee. “It seems young Lucas’s main beef was not with his father, but with Doc Finn. According to Paula, after she and Lucas had their roll in the hay a couple of weeks ago, it was all Lucas talked about—how much he hated Doc Finn.”

No. I just wouldn’t admit to the sickening possibility that was turning my gut.

“So I was thinking I should tell you,” Marla concluded.

I sighed and looked out the window over the sink.

There had been the nighttime call from Southwest Hospital that had summoned Doc Finn. But before he’d gotten there, his car had landed in a ravine. Perhaps he’d been hit from behind?

Then somebody had traipsed down into that ravine, and killed the old doctor.

I said, “I’d better call Tom.”

11

Tom still wasn’t answering his cell phone, but a helpful person at the sheriff’s department informed me he’d just left to run some errands. After that, he’d said, he was going to come home for a few hours.

I looked at the clock. It was just after two. If Tom was only coming home for a little bit, that meant he and his team were going to be working late, very late, and he wanted to give me the bad news in person. Or maybe it was something else; I didn’t know. Still. Usually when there was a fresh homicide, Tom worked the case almost continually for at least forty-eight hours.

“You haven’t heard the rest of my news,” Marla said, pouting.

“Ah yes, this is something juicy about the wedding I’m doing tomorrow?”

“Juice is my middle name, girl. Given the food connotation, maybe it should be yours, I don’t know. But it’s mine. Your middle name can be Coffee.”

I gave her an exasperated look and began to chop the celery for the sauce gribiche. Then I drained the capers. A pungent, fresh scent filled the kitchen.

“All right, getting to this wedding you’re catering tomorrow. Ever heard of an old-fashioned dowry?”

“Of course I have, silly.” I paused. “Don’t tell me Billie Attenborough has a big old dowry.”

Marla waved a dismissive hand. “Not exactly, honey bunch. But you’re close. Anyway, they don’t call it a dowry these days. They call it making a marriage contract that involves a lot of money.”

“What in the world are you talking about?” I had to be careful that I didn’t slice my hand open with the knife. But Marla’s revelations were messing with my head. The information she had gleaned sounded distinctly fishy, and made me think the sheriff’s department should attend more church fund-raisers. I put the knife down and faced her. “Is there a prenuptial agreement between Billie Attenborough and Craig Miller that involves lots of dough?”

“Ah, my dear, not between Craig and Billie. Between Craig and Charlotte.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded. “And who was your source of information this time?”

“Same drunken one as before. I told you Paula Carmichael, Lucas’s ex, did those kinds of contracts, right? After the whole story about the alimony that isn’t going to end because Jack won’t give Lucas money, Paula said I couldn’t imagine how boring her work was. I murmured sympathies and poured her some more vodka. This time, she waved away the vermouth and olives and asked if I had a bigger glass. So I gave her a big tumbler, with a few ice cubes thrown in.”

Thank God for the car service, I thought. I would hate to think what could have happened if Paula Carmichael had downed that much liquor and then gotten behind the wheel. Reflecting on Arch driving while drunk drivers were wreaking havoc on the roadways was almost more than I could bear.

“Are you telling me that Paula Carmichael got so smashed she just happened to spill the details of a prenuptial agreement?” I picked up my knife and moved on to the smooth, pale cloves of garlic, which I began to crush.

“It wasn’t that easy,” Marla huffed. “I had to dig for it, darling. Lucky for me, it was after Charlotte Attenborough had left.”

“Lucky for you?”

“Wait for it. What happened was that I said to Paula, ‘Always boring? What about prenuptial agreements between really, really rich people? Can’t they be pretty exciting?’ She said, ‘No, they’re depressing, because they always remind me of what I should have done before marrying Lucas.’ Then she got all pensive, as if she was thinking hard about whether to tell me something, but she was so comprehensively inebriated, I could have gotten anything out of her, I think. She was slumping precariously on my sofa, and I had to prop her up with one hand. Finally she said, ‘I did do a contract, not prenuptial. It wasn’t like anything I’d done before. But it did involve a marriage, or it will when the wedding takes place.’”

“She made sense like that?”

“Not really, I’m interpreting. But after a while, Paula said, ‘Okay, picture this: a woman has a loudmouthed brat for a daughter, and that daughter has just turned thirty-six, with no marital prospects in sight. I mean, who would want to marry a monster?’”

“Try catering for her.”

“Then Paula says, ‘So this mother goes to her doctor for bunions. The doctor is a cute young thing, age twenty-eight. And he complains to Charlotte about his medical school loans, and how he’s never going to get out from under the debt load, never be able to afford a house, never be able to raise a family, et cetera, et cetera.’”

“You know,” I said, folding the ingredients into the sauce base, “it just breaks my heart how doctors can’t make ends meet in this country.”

“Cry me a river,” Marla agreed. “Lawyers can’t make any money either, according to Paula, but that’s only when they’re stupid enough to have to pay spousal support ad infinitum.”

“So,” I said, trying to hurry Marla along, “Charlotte’s left your party, so Paula can spill this dirt, although she doesn’t say the person she’s talking about is Charlotte. But anyway, there’s Charlotte with her doctor—did Paula ever tell you it was Charlotte when she told you this story?”

Marla raised her eyebrow. “Give me a little credit, Goldy. I figured that part out. See, hanging out with you and Tom has really sharpened my deductive skills—”

I gave her an absolutely sour look, and pulled out my long knife, plus the cutting board.

“You don’t need to threaten me with sharp instruments,” Marla said in mock horror. “Anyway, back to this doctor. Charlotte, hereinafter known as the client—”

“Marla!”

“Okay, okay. Charlotte described the doctor to Paula as very attractive, just without money. And there Charlotte is, with lots of money and an unattractive, unwed daughter. This daughter has no job, a fluffy education at a second-rate school, where she got Cs, and no skills apart from spending money. Up until that moment, Charlotte must have been thinking she was never going to be able to catapult Billie out of the family homestead. So after Craig moaned and groaned about his financial situation, Charlotte said, ‘I have a lovely daughter I’d like you to meet. I mean, you’ve been such a great doctor to me, taking you out to dinner would make this old lady so happy.’”

I stopped slicing. “Charlotte called herself an old lady?”

Marla nodded, grinning broadly. “I guess she wanted Craig to feel sorry for her. You know, with her bunions and all.”

“So they had dinner, and Craig and Billie fell in love—”

“Ha! You’re such a romantic, Goldy. Billie might have fallen in love, but Craig would have to be living in the next solar system to think Billie is someone he’d want to spend the rest of his life with.”

“Try the next galaxy.”

“So after this dinner,” Marla continued, “which went okay, apparently, Charlotte found out from her boyfriend Jack about his ex-daughter-in-law, Paula, who does prenuptial agreements. Charlotte called Paula for clarification on how to set things up. Then Charlotte called Craig with a proposition. ‘I want to do a contract with you,’ Charlotte said. ‘It’s not a prenuptial contract, because that’s just between a bride and a groom. This is a regular old contract. Marry my daughter, stay married to her for at least five years, and I’ll give you four million dollars on signing and another million a year after the five are up.’” Marla crossed her arms in triumph.

“Jeez!” I exclaimed. “I’ve heard of the cost of free agency in baseball, but this is ridiculous!”

Marla raised an eyebrow. “Do you think? Paula still hadn’t told me who the doctor and the lady with the problematic daughter were, but at the end of the story, she said, ‘I did the contract. And the doctor and the lady’s daughter are getting married this Sunday, right here in Aspen Meadow.’ So that’s when I fired up Ye Olde Deductive Reasoning again and concluded, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that the couple she was talking about consisted of Billie Attenborough and Craig Miller.”

I carefully blended the crab cake ingredients in an enormous bowl, then began forming and rolling. As Marla ran water over her dishes, I remembered earlier in the day, when Craig had circled Jack’s Mercedes. At the time, I’d wondered why I couldn’t decipher the motivations of love. A cute late-twenties doctor bonding with a difficult midthirties woman? I think I finally had the answer to the motivation, and love had nothing to do with it.

MARLA LEFT NOT long after relating all her gossip. I called Yolanda through the main switchboard at the spa, and asked her if she’d had a chance to look at the menus and arrangements. She said yes, and that all would be well. She apologized for yelling at Billie, but I told her to forget it.

After I’d finished forming the final batch of crab cakes, I hopped up the stairs to check on Arch and his pals. There were murmurings going on behind the door, so I knocked. When Arch opened up, I noticed that the boys were stuffing their backpacks with M&M’s, granola, salmon eggs, hooks, and other hiking and fishing essentials.

“Going on an expedition?” I asked. “It’s a mite late in the day to be starting out.”

“Time is relative, Mom.” Arch frowned, his brown eyes serious. “These days? The sun doesn’t set until after eight. Todd is going to Montana on Monday, and we’re trying to take advantage of the last days of summer.”

I took a deep breath. “So, where are you going?”

“Up into the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve. Don’t worry,” he said, smiling, “we’ll be back in time for a late supper. We’re hoping to snag a few trout that we can grill.”

“Take rain gear,” I advised. “You never know. And cell phones, you know how I worry.”

Once Arch and his pals had roared off in the Passat, I finished the gribiche and took a shower. By the time I was out and getting dressed, Tom had arrived home. Incredibly enough, I didn’t have any more cooking to do for Billie Attenborough’s wedding, as Julian was doing the extra food, including the rest of the rolls, which he could get from a marvelous Boulder bakery, the green beans vinaigrette, and the cake. The first batch of rolls was made and frozen. Perhaps before the boys got home with our fish to grill, Tom and I would have a chance to kick back, have some fun together—

One look at Tom’s face, exhausted and slack with worry, made me cancel the have-some-fun idea. Even though it was only four o’clock, he sat at the kitchen table with a glass of scotch in front of him.

“Tom?”

I knew better than to ask whether he was all right. Clearly, he wasn’t. He was a veteran; he’d headed hundreds of death investigations. I didn’t know how he could do what he did, but he kept on, claiming he loved the work. He spoke for the dead, he said. He championed them. But the work took its toll, and I was looking at it.

“Tom, what can I do for you? Is there something I can get for you?”

He looked up and gave me a rueful smile. “Nothing except yourself, Miss G. Come sit down with me.”

First I poured myself a glass of water, then I sat next to him and sipped my water. Mindful of the story Marla had just told me about overimbibing, I didn’t want to be tempted to overindulge. Anyway, I knew that after Tom told me what was going on—which was his way to unburden himself—I was going to want to cook. Not have to cook. Want to cook.

I put my glass on the table, sat down, and scooted my chair over by Tom’s. Then I gave my husband a long, wordless hug. He embraced me back, holding tight.

When he let go, he looked around the kitchen as if registering his surroundings for the first time. “Don’t you have prep to do for the wedding tomorrow?”

“It’s done. I did extra crab cakes and gribiche, just in case. Julian offered to do the rest of the extra cooking for the added guests. Arch and his pals are here, though, or at least, they’re in the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve, ostensibly fishing for dinner. We’ll see. Maybe I should get out some steaks.”

“Good idea. If the boys bring home trout, great, I’ll throw it on the grill.” His expression turned pensive. “I can eat here, but then I have to go back. To night.” He smiled thinly. “Got any salad to go with grilled trout?”

“Tom, I’ve got enough fancy balsamic vinegar to make a salad to serve the entire armed services—army, navy, air force, coast guard. The Attenborough wedding reception will only consume enough for an army, I think. Plus, with it being held at Gold Gulch Spa, maybe the guests will feel guilty and not touch the potato salad. They’ll see all that exercise equipment and figure they should be losing weight instead of stuffing themselves.”

“Gold Gulch Spa, eh?” Tom was perusing the contents of the walk-in. “That’s where the reception is?”

“Tom, I told you, remember? Bridezilla decided she was having an extra fifty people, and moved the whole show out to where she was trying to lose weight to fit into her wedding gown. She just neglected to tell me until yesterday.”

Tom shook his head, lost in thought. “Yeah, I remember, and that’s why Jack picked you up this morning. Listen, I want Boyd to go with you.”

I thought, but did not say, Oh, brother, here we go. But Tom was right in being suspicious, I supposed, as some of the people who’d apparently disliked Doc Finn were going to be at the wedding, making it a volatile situation.

Tom smiled at me. “Why don’t you fix that salad now? I don’t remember having any lunch. I’ll cook after I’ve had some of your good food, how’s that?”

I returned his smile, wrapped a baguette in foil, and put it in the oven. Then I melted a knob of butter in my sauté pan, cracked in three organic eggs, salted and peppered them, and made a quick salad of frisée and arugula, which I drizzled with a freshly made balsamic vinaigrette. I brought out the baguette, which was steaming, put it on one side of the plate, then arranged the frisée on the other side. Finally I slid the luscious-looking eggs on top of the frisée.

“Wow, Miss G. I wasn’t expecting all this.”

“Do you want to talk about the case?”

He nodded, and talked as he ate. “It ticks me off when people kill other people, but I especially get ticked off when someone kills a child or an older person. Especially a nice older person like Doc Finn, whom almost everybody seemed to love.”

“Yeah, almost everybody.”

“Did you hear that?” Tom glanced out the window. Sure enough, periwinkle gray clouds were darkening the horizon, but I hadn’t heard thunder. I frowned and hoped Arch would have the sense to stop fishing if it began to storm.

“So, Tom, have your guys figured out any more particulars about who didn’t like Doc Finn?” Of course, I had a couple of answers to that myself, but I would wait until Tom finished telling me what he’d learned.

“Since you mention Gold Gulch, Miss G., I’ll tell you first off that Doc Finn was out there the day he died. Thursday.”

“Doing what?” I imagined the easygoing, flinty-faced doctor out at the spa, frowning at all the baby boomers tearing up their tendons and muscles, and putting way too much stress on their joints.

“Having a fight with Billie Attenborough, apparently.”

“I know Billie didn’t like him. Do you know why they were fighting?”

“Nobody seems to remember that, exactly. Doc Finn was talking in low tones. But everybody could hear Billie. He would say something, and she would yell at him to mind his own business. Then he would start to talk, or try to, and she would scream at him not to be so nosy.”

I sighed and got up to wash the pan I’d used to fry Tom’s eggs. Charlotte Attenborough’s magazine, Mountain Homes, had recently run an article entitled “How to Spot Good Breeding.” She should have had a caption: “Don’t Look at My Daughter.”

I said, “Won’t Billie tell you what Doc Finn was talking to her about?”

“She says he told her she was losing weight too fast, and that it wasn’t good for her.” Tom took a last bite of his lunch. “Thanks, that was great. Here’s the deal with Billie: She’s lying. I’ve been in this business long enough to be able to spot that. So I took a different tack and told her we’d heard she was angry when Doc Finn ran off her two fiancés. She shrugged. Plus, we’ve got access to Finn’s files, and Billie wasn’t even a patient of his. When we asked her when the last time she’d seen a doctor was, and when exactly he had weighed her, she clammed up and told us that if we wanted to talk to her further, she needed to have her attorney present.”

“Did you tell her you were in the middle of a homicide investigation, for God’s sake?”

“She already knew. The higher-ups in the sheriff’s department thought we should announce that Doc Finn’s death was a homicide. No particulars, of course, just the usual, that we were looking for help with the investigation. But none of that made any difference to Billie.”

“Oh, God. That means Jack knows.”

“Probably.”

“Do you think I should go over there?”

“No. If he wants to contact us, he will.” He looked expectantly around the kitchen. “I know you’ve got some cookies stashed around here somewhere.”

I shook my head. “You’re not going to want any trout.”

“Speaking of which, you better get out those steaks. I think I just heard hail on the roof.”

I don’t know where Tom got his supersonic sense of hearing, but just at that moment, a flash of lightning and an almost simultaneous loud clap of thunder announced that, indeed, a hailstorm was upon us. The lights went off, then came back on again.

In the walk-in, I found half a dozen individually wrapped filets mignon, which was a good thing. If I knew Arch and his pals, they’d come racing home from their fishing trip, soaked, starving…and, if the hail kept up, empty-handed.

“Do you want some cookies?” I asked Tom. “We don’t have anything on hand. I could bake some, though.”

“Please don’t go to the trouble. I was just wondering.”

“I’ll do some baking while you’re barbecuing, how ’bout that?”

“Super.”

“Now, Tom,” I said, as I began to melt butter with brown sugar, “tell me why you want Boyd to go out to the spa with me. Is it just that Finn and Billie fought out there?”

Tom opened his palms. “No. It’s more of a feeling. Too many things going on that don’t add up. Doc Finn goes out there and has a big fight with a spa client. Then that night, somebody makes a bogus call to him from Southwest Hospital. The rear of his Porsche Cayenne was badly dented, so we figured someone ran him off the road. And get this: we found a towel from Gold Gulch in the back of Finn’s car.”

“Maybe he had a shower out there.”

“He didn’t, we checked. Plus, the towel was behind the seats. Who takes a shower and then puts the towel in the very back of his SUV?”

“Nobody I know.”

“Exactly. And guess what else we found in his car? Not with the towel, mind you, but on the floor of the front seat. A pair of women’s shoes.”

The hail was hammering on the roof now. “No name inside, I suppose.”

“No, but when we went to talk to Billie Attenborough, we took the shoes, and asked her about them. She recognized them, no question, but she wouldn’t say whose they were. Then her mother walked into the living room, and said, ‘Oh, there are my silver pumps. Did you borrow them, Billie?’”

“They were Charlotte’s shoes? So, did Billie borrow them?”

“Who knows? ’Cuz just at that moment, Billie said, ‘Don’t say or do anything, Mom.’”

“Jeez, Tom.”

“I know.”

I said, “I certainly hope their house gets broken into, so the sheriff’s department can answer their call with, ‘We can’t say or do anything.’ Is there anything else you found out?”

Tom said, “Out at Doc Finn’s house? There was a vial in the trash can out back. We also found a note to himself that said, ‘Have analyzed.’”

“What was in the vial?”

“Don’t know yet. We’re trying to see if there are traces of anything in there that we can send off for analysis. We also don’t know if the note goes with the vial.”

“Hmm. That’s it?”

“So far.”

“All right, well, listen.” I told him about Jack charging around in the Smoothie Cabin, apparently looking for something.

“I don’t suppose he told you what he was looking for.”

“Nope, but I’ll bet you it’s related to what ever was in that vial in Doc Finn’s trash. Do you think Victor’s hiding drugs out there? That he’s some kind of dealer?”

Tom said, “Hmm. So we’ve got a faked call from a hospital, a dented car, an argument at Gold Gulch Spa, a pair of shoes, a towel, a vial, a cryptic note, and Jack rummaging around in the Smoothie Cabin. All very strange.”

I removed the cocoa-butter mixture from the stove to cool, then measured out oats, baking powder, and salt. “And none of it adds up,” I said as I began beating an egg in our mixer, “at least not yet. But listen, I have some things to tell you.”

I wasn’t five words into what Marla had learned at her fund-raiser when Tom pulled out his notebook and began to write down what I was saying. When I got to the monetary details of the contract between Billie’s mother and Craig Miller, Tom whistled.

“Have you ever heard of such a thing?” I asked.

“Nope. Jack’s son’s ex-wife, Paula, the drunk lawyer with the big mouth? Did Paula mention if she’d shared this information about the four million with anyone else, specifically, Billie Attenborough?”

“She didn’t say. Why?”

Tom tilted his chin. “I was just wondering how Billie would have reacted. I mean, how would you have felt if your mother had paid John Richard to marry you?”

“I’d have gone ballistic.”

“What do you think it would have told you?”

“That my mother didn’t have any confidence that I could attract anyone on my own.”

“Uh-huh. Now I’m wondering if Doc Finn could have gotten wind of the contract somehow, and told Billie about it. That could have made her go ballistic.” Tom rubbed his forehead. “But if Billie wouldn’t even let her mother talk about a pair of shoes, she sure as hell isn’t going to tell us what she and Doc Finn really talked about.”

I looked at all the ingredients I’d assembled, unsure of exactly what kind of cookie I was going to make for Tom, Arch, and the boys.

“You had something else to tell me?” Tom asked. “’Cuz I’d like to go have a shower before I get called upon for grilling duties.”

“Do you know anything about Doc Finn’s will?”

Tom seemed surprised. “We’ve had a preliminary talk with his lawyer. Doc Finn left everything to Duke University Medical School.”

“Right. Well, according to Lucas, or rather, according to his inebriated ex-wife, Paula, Lucas was upset that Doc Finn was trying to get Jack to change his will to leave everything he has to Duke, too.”

“What?”

I spooned some flour into the cookie batter. “Yup. And Lucas was very put out about it, because if Jack did that, it meant Lucas would never get out from under depending on Paula for spousal support. Which isn’t that great for the old ego.”

“Yeah, why rely on spousal support when you can inherit money? Sounds as if Lucas might have had a reason to hate Doc Finn.” Tom stood up and reached for the phone.

“I thought you were going to take a shower! Who are you calling?”

“Southwest Hospital. I’m going to find out if Lucas was on duty Thursday night.”

12

No, Lucas Carmichael had not been on duty. Interestingly, though, the nurse to whom Tom identified himself mentioned that she had seen Lucas in the cafeteria around ten Thursday night. She was sure of the time, because her nephew had called her during her dinner break, which began at a quarter to ten. She’d been in the cafeteria drinking coffee, asking herself if it was ever going to stop raining, when her cell phone had buzzed.

Lucas had been there, too, the nurse remembered. He’d been alone, looking out the dark window. Before her cell phone beeped, she’d been thinking that Lucas, too, might have been wondering if the rain was going to go on forever.

How long had Lucas stayed there? Tom asked. The nurse didn’t know. She’d gone outside, under a porch roof, to get better reception on her cell; also, the hospital didn’t like people to use cell phones in the building. When she came back, Lucas was gone.

Tom promised to follow up, then called his office to get someone to go over to Southwest Hospital, to talk to the nurse, to other medical personnel, to anyone who could have seen Lucas Carmichael using the phone in a specific maternity-ward room on the fourth floor. It was from that room that the call had come to Doc Finn’s home phone just after ten Thursday night. The maternity ward, incidentally, was not far from the cafeteria entrance. Then he directed one of his investigators to go talk to Lucas Carmichael, to feel him out, get his alibi, and see if he acted guilty, defensive, or both.

“Thursday night it was pouring like nobody’s business,” I observed. “I don’t suppose you found any usable footprint in the ravine.”

“No, that’s part of the problem.” He rapped his fingers on the counter. Then he put in another call to the department, and asked the fellow on duty about Finn’s impounded car. Had the computer on board the Cayenne yielded any more information? If so, he needed to know ASAP, he said.

“That might help,” Tom concluded after hanging up the phone. “We work out times and who was where when, we might have something.”

I’d decided to make chocolate lace cookies for the boys, then sandwich ice cream between them for a very special dessert. To Tom, I said, “Charlotte? Billie? Lucas? You looking at anyone else who might not have liked Doc Finn?”

Tom shook his head. “According to the elderly receptionist who still works for Spruce Medical Group, everyone loved him. Former patients, church friends, you name it. And before you ask, no, nobody from Duke University Medical School has shown up on our radar.”

“Hey, Tom, take it easy. You’re always telling me you have to look for the person due to benefit from someone’s death.” I hesitated. “I just can’t believe that Lucas is a murderer. That he would have killed Doc Finn. I just can’t.” And, I wondered, if he would kill Doc Finn to keep him from convincing Jack to bequeath these questionable millions to Duke, was Jack safe? I shook my head. No, I didn’t believe it.

Tom tilted his head. “How’s Jack doing?”

I thought back to Jack’s antics that morning. “Would you say rummaging around in the spa’s Smoothie Cabin, then smooching a much younger woman was normal behavior for someone grieving?”

Tom cocked an eyebrow at me. “Normal for Jack, I’d say.”

“Yeah, well, by the time I’d driven Jack and Charlotte home, they’d made up. And get this: the Smoothie Cabin has a one-way mirror, with security cameras pointed inside and out, just to make sure nobody steals the vitamin C.”

“Hmm. Not enough for a search warrant, I’d say, but enough to go ask Victor Lane some more questions.”

“Did you ask Victor Lane about the vial you found at Finn’s place?”

“Miss G., we don’t even know if the vial came from Victor, and so far, we don’t know what was inside it.”

I reflected for a moment, remembering Jack and Isabelle’s frantic search through the drawers and cupboards of the Smoothie Cabin. “What do you suppose Jack and Isabelle were really looking for?” I asked.

Tom shook his head. “Maybe something to do with Doc Finn, maybe not. Maybe something that makes you lose weight. Maybe drugs. Unfortunately, knowing Jack, I’d say, first guess?” He raised his eyebrows at me. “Booze.”

BY THE TIME Tom returned to the kitchen, showered and wearing clean khakis and an open-necked white shirt, I had made and refrigerated a tomato salad with fresh basil and chopped garlic, Brie, and balsamic vinaigrette. I’d baked the first batch of cookies. Once they’d cooled, I reasoned, they would taste deliciously crunchy and flaky with either the ice cream I’d planned, or frosting as the cookie sandwich “filling.” Or at least, I hoped so. As I was putting the second sheet of goodies into the oven, Arch, Gus, and Todd traipsed onto the deck. Gus triumphantly held up a line of brown trout.

Predictably, Jake and Scout made a sudden appearance. They then began their own chorus of howling and meowing. We weren’t the only ones who were going to get fish, they insisted.

“Yeah, yeah, down, boy,” Arch called to Jake, who would have devoured every fish on the line if allowed to do so.

“Okay, boys,” said Tom, “who wants to learn how to clean fish?”

“Oh, man, I need a shower,” said Arch.

“Me, too,” Todd and Gus chimed in. Soon the three of them were clomping madly up the stairs. Anything to avoid fish guts, apparently.

“Do not clean those fish with your lovely clean clothes on,” I told Tom. “You start the fire, and I’ll do the fish.”

“Forget it,” said Tom. “Make some more cookies, will you, please? I’ll start the fire and then find my rubber apron that I keep expressly for this purpose.”

I sighed but started filling the next batch of cookies with ice cream, then freezing them. As I rummaged around for the tomato salad, I figured one of us had put the covered glass salad bowl as deep in the dad-blasted walk-in as his rubber apron must be in the garage. When I finally located the bowl, I tasted a few tomato slices, deemed the concoction exceedingly wonderful, and spooned the whole thing onto a bed of lightly dressed field greens circling a crystal platter. By the time I’d set the table for five, Tom had made the fire and cleaned the fish. The man was a marvel.

The boys appeared looking freshly scrubbed, if a bit sheepish for skipping out on fish-gutting duty. They promised to do the dishes, to which I added a mental uh-huh, but said nothing. I didn’t want them to have to clean up, as it was almost the end of summer. Todd was leaving on Monday for the Montana trip. Gus’s grandparents had fussily informed me that they were planning to spend the last couple of weeks before classes buying Gus back-to-school supplies, a task to which I never devoted more than a single evening. And anyway, now that Arch could drive, I figured I would give him some cash and he could buy his own supplies. There were some benefits to having a teenage driver in the family, after all.

The dinner was fabulous. I shoved the steaks back in the refrigerator so the boys would never know we’d doubted their fishing abilities. Tom’s grilled trout was succulent, with crisp skin and lusciously moist flesh. The boys scarfed it down faster than you could say, “Freshly caught and grilled fish taste remarkable!” Gus, ever the diplomat, said the tomato salad was so delicious, he just knew his grandmother would love the recipe, which Tom promised to print out. Todd said he was going to save room for dessert.

As soon as we finished, I shooed the boys upstairs and told them I would do the dishes, no sweat. They hustled off before I had a chance to change my mind.

“You sure you’re all right cleaning up all this?” Tom asked as we cleared the table. “I promised the guys at the department I’d be back by eight.”

“I am absolutely fine,” I assured him. “The prep for Billie’s wedding is done. Go down to the department and find out what happened to Doc Finn.”

“Remember, Boyd is working with you tomorrow,” Tom warned.

“That really isn’t necessary,” I protested.

“I’ll decide what’s necessary,” Tom said quietly. “And you’ll have a free pair of hands to help you with the serving and whatnot.”

Well, I wasn’t going to argue with him. Still, having Boyd underfoot in the small Gold Gulch Spa kitchen wouldn’t be quite as wonderful as Tom envisioned. Like allowing Arch and his pals to do the dishes, sometimes having an extra person to help with the work was more trouble than it was worth.

After Tom left, I took the boys a plate of ice-cream-filled cookies to share while they watched television. Then I put in a call to Julian to make sure all was set for the next day.

“You bet, boss. Just think, tomorrow night at this time, we’ll have Billie Attenborough out of our hair, forever.”

“Maybe I’ll shave my head, to commemorate the occasion.”

Julian waited for me to tell him I was kidding, which I finally did. We promised to meet at the spa at noon, even though the wedding wasn’t until six.

“Tomorrow at this time,” Julian repeated.

“Bring a razor.”

Immediately after I hung up, the phone rang. With dread, I checked the caller ID. But it was not Billie; it was Marla.

“Well?” she demanded. “Have you learned anything about this prenuptial agreement?”

“You mean the four mil? I thought you said it wasn’t technically a prenuptial—”

“All right, all right, this contract,” she conceded.

“How can I find out anything when you’re the source of my information?” I pointed out.

“Oh, for God’s sake, can’t Tom get a subpoena or something?”

“Marla,” I explained patiently as I boxed up the leftover cookies, “in order to get a subpoena, you have to have a reason—”

“Stop right there,” she interjected. “Legal terminology gives me a headache. So…what are you serving at the wedding tomorrow?”

Although the last thing I wanted to do was discuss yet again the menu for Billie Attenborough’s dinner, I did it anyway. Marla loved to anticipate food.

“Omigod, it sounds yummy,” she said when I finished. “I’d better wear a dress that’s a size too big.”

“You know you can have any of this you want, anytime. You don’t have to wait for a wedding!”

“Yeah, yeah. I don’t even have a date for this thing. Date? Listen to me. My invitation said ‘Marla Korman and Escort,’ like I was going to hire a male prostitute.”

“Oh, Marla, come on. By the way, Sergeant Boyd will be there. He’s supposed to be helping me in the kitchen, but I’d just love it if you asked him to dance with you.”

“Really?” she said cautiously. “He is cute.”

“Oh, Lord, if you could take care of him, that would take an enormous load off my mind.”

“But won’t he be wearing a caterer’s uniform?” she said dubiously. “Black pants, white shirt? And oh man, I can just imagine what Charlotte would say if I started waltzing around the spa dining room with a cop wearing an apron.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll have him remove his apron. He’ll look smashing, and if anyone threatens to disrupt the proceedings, say, like Billie herself, well, we’ll have a built-in cop, which is what Tom wanted anyway.”

“If you’re sure it’s no trouble,” Marla said plaintively, and I realized then, painfully, how much Marla wanted to have male company for the wedding, and how unwilling she was to ask for it.

“No trouble at all,” I assured her.

“It’s just that Victor Lane made me feel so damn insecure the last time I was out there,” she blurted out.

“What are you talking about?”

“Like all the rest of society, he’s nice to the slender women, and mean and judgmental to the overweight ones. And to think he owns a damn spa! He told me if I exercised and lost some weight, I’d have a much better social life. I asked him how did he know I didn’t have a smashing social life, thank you very much?”

I shook my head. “He’s a son of a bitch. Always has been, always will be.”

“I resolved never to go out there again. I mean, if I want abuse, I don’t have to look any farther than talk radio.”

“I’m so sorry, Marla.” Then, mischievously, I added, “Maybe in the not-too-distant future, I’ll be catering a wedding for you.”

She made exaggerated choking noises. “No way, I’m done with being married. Once is enough. Oh, but wait! I thought of something I meant to tell you!” She inhaled for dramatic effect. “There I was out at Aspen Meadow Country Club today, resolved to do some laps at the pool but indulging in a lobster roll instead, and you’ll never guess what I heard through the grapevine.”

I couldn’t imagine. Marla’s grapevine stretched and twined through every layer of Aspen Meadow society.

“Charlotte Attenborough told her bridge club that she expects to get married soon, maybe next year!”

“What? Get married to whom?”

“Why, your dear godfather, Jack, that’s to whom.”

I glanced around the kitchen and shook my head. “I don’t think so. Furthermore, Charlotte’s aware of Jack’s stance on this. Jack is as confirmed in his determination to remain single as you are.”

Marla raised her voice to a singsong. “That’s what Charlotte said.”

“Well, I don’t believe it,” I asserted. “Not for one second.”

“Yeah, me either. But I thought you’d be interested to hear.”

“Thanks. Maybe I should warn Jack about what Charlotte is saying behind his back.”

“I think your godfather can stand on his own two feet.”

We signed off, and I put the finishing touches on the clean kitchen. Then I printed out my schedules for the next day, along with the list of all the foodstuffs we would need. Feeling slightly self-indulgent, I crept upstairs and drew myself a hot bath. I was determined to be as relaxed as possible for Billie’s ceremony, knowing full well that she would turn anything that did not go well around to being my fault.

But Charlotte marrying Jack? How could Charlotte ever get such a crazy-ass notion? Jack didn’t love Charlotte, of that I was sure. More than anything, he seemed to upset her, which he made up for by pandering to her. This wasn’t love, it was masochism.

But if it suited them, I thought as I sank into the steaming, bubbly water, why should I worry? Jack, as Marla had pointed out, was fully capable of taking care of himself.

All right, I promised myself as I toweled off, no more obsessing about Jack’s future.

Sufficient unto the day are the evils thereof, I thought as I buttoned myself into my pajamas.

If only I’d had any idea just how bad those evils were actually going to be, I’d have canceled Billie’s wedding myself.

13

The alarm burbled at six, and it seemed to me to be very far off. A distant rendition of Handel’s Water Music made me imagine I was floating on a raft down Cottonwood Creek. Tom had come in very late, and I’d only vaguely registered his warm presence beside me. Now I wanted him on the raft with me, so I rolled over and curled myself around him. He responded by pulling me in close.

“Could you turn off the music?” he murmured. “I’d enjoy this more.”

So I did. We made slow, affectionate, and very quiet love. I doubted we would wake up the boys, but still, I didn’t want to risk it.

Afterward, I thought, That was the best thing that will happen today.

“Boyd’s meeting you out at the spa at noon,” Tom whispered warmly in my ear.

“That is so unnecessary. We’ll be fine.”

“It’ll make me feel better to have him there.”

“Tom. Julian will be there. Jack will be there.”

“Miss G., I doubt even a twenty-two would fit underneath what ever natty outfit your gun-loving godfather is wearing. Then again, he could whack someone over the head with a liquor bottle.”

“Go back to sleep.”

I tiptoed into the bathroom, where I took a long, hot shower that felt great. Back in our bedroom, I slid onto the floor and began doing yoga. I’d already told myself my routine should be twice as long as normal so I could build up a reservoir of calm before the day’s stresses began.

Feeling serene, cool, and unable to be ruffled, I crept down to the kitchen, fired up the espresso maker, and pulled four shots, which I used for a high-test Summertime Special. I might feel composed, but I needed to get the old energy going, that was certain.

I’d turned the ringer on our phone off when I’d gone to bed, and it was a good thing, as two messages had come in while we were sleeping. After turning the volume to Low, I pressed the button. The first message was from Charlotte Attenborough. Of course I wasn’t surprised.

“Goldy,” she whispered. “Jack’s fixing me a drink in the next room, but I just wanted to let you know how sorry we are that we had to change the venue at the last minute. It was because of all the rain. Since Billie had wanted guests to be inside and outside at your center, she was afraid everyone wouldn’t fit inside if the rain kept up.”

And the fifty extra people? I wondered. Where did they come from? But that was coming.

“The extra people are all my best advertisers. I decided at the last minute that they should be included, and they all said they wanted to honor Billie and Craig.”

I giggled so suddenly that I choked on my latte. Right! You mean you were hitting them up for big donations to your daughter’s wedding-gift haul! Well, she would need presents from other people, as that four mil you used to pay off Craig must be putting a dent in your finances, eh, Charlotte?

That message had come in at eleven o’clock the previous evening. If my godfather was fixing Charlotte a drink then, the likelihood of her getting enough beauty sleep was slim.

But then the second message was from Charlotte, too.

“Goldy,” she said urgently. “Billie’s having a meltdown. Craig’s been trying to calm her, to no avail. So she’s going out to the spa this morning.”

My heart sank. Billie underfoot in the spa kitchen? That was all I needed.

“I told her she’d feel better if she had something to do, so she’s going to oversee the putting up of the decorations in the spa dining room.”

Better and better, I thought. Not.

“I’m going to take her dress and veil out there. I don’t want to leave that up to her. I figured, better safe than sorry.”

Man, I was already sorry. I slid a new, chilled glass under the espresso spout and watched four more shots spurt inside. I dumped in more cream and ice cubes, and wondered if Marla had any Valium in the massive pharmacopeia she kept in her house. But would it be better if I took it, if I gave it to Billie, or both?

After printing out the last of my checklists, I started packing the boxes I would be taking out to the spa. A sudden sharp rap at the back door startled me so that I spilled the latte all over the floor. First I choked on it, then I spilled it on the floor.

“Jeez, boss,” said Julian when he came through the back door, “you look like you saw a ghost or something. What’s wrong?”

“This wedding, that’s what’s wrong,” I replied bitterly. I glanced at the clock: 7:30? Julian was supposed to meet me out at Gold Gulch.

“I was worried about you getting everything packed up. My Rover’s full, but I can help you get your gear out to your van.”

“Thanks,” I said, and meant it. Catering was always a hundred times easier with Julian there.

“I took an early call from Charlotte Attenborough this morning,” Julian said, heaving up a box and giving me a mischievous grin. “I mean a very early morning call. Try half past five.”

“Oh, Lord, Julian, I’m sorry. I wish a thousand times over that I’d never agreed to do this wedding.”

“Oh, no, man, it’s great! The stories we’ll have for the next twenty years, are you kidding me? We’ll be saying, ‘Remember when Billie bit the other lady who wanted her dress at the sample sale?’”

I sighed. I hadn’t heard about that, which was probably a good thing. “She bit somebody?”

“Yup.” Julian placed his box in my van. “Marla told me, I can’t believe she didn’t tell you. Apparently, the two of them, Billie and this other girl, wanted the same dress, and Billie placed her chompers on the other gal’s arm and bit down hard. The shop owner called the cops, the bitten lady filed a complaint, and Charlotte had to hire a lawyer to bargain the charge down to misdemeanor assault, with probation. And the other lady got to buy the dress. Plus, Billie had to pay the lady with the bite marks a pretty hefty fee.”

“I can only imagine.”

We traipsed back to the house, where Julian fixed himself a quadruple espresso, which he then doused with four teaspoons of sugar. I tried unsuccessfully not to shudder. Warming up to his tale, he went on about Billie.

“At the O’Neal wedding?” He slugged his coffee, then put the cup in the dishwasher. “When Billie appeared and threatened to mess that up? I think that’s why Craig came with her. He didn’t want her biting again. He even said so, you know, in that low voice of his. ‘I don’t want a repeat of the bridal shop situation,’ he muttered, and Billie loudly exclaimed, ‘I’d bite that bitch again in a heartbeat!’”

“Wonderful.” We picked up the last two boxes and started out to my van. “So what did Charlotte want this morning?”

“I’ll show you.”

We placed the boxes in the van and Julian led me over to his old Range Rover, inherited from former clients. He leaned into the front seat and pulled out a florist’s box. Inside was a large bridal bouquet.

“You didn’t have to make that,” I protested.

“At five this morning? No way. But I did take some of the ingredients over to this florist I know, and she put it together.”

“A florist you know? A new girlfriend?” I speculated.

“I’m not telling you anything about my social life. But take a sniff of the bouquet.”

I did as ordered. The fragrance was pungent, and…culinary. “It smells like something you’d put in a stew.”

“Garlic, bay leaves, and chives,” Julian reported. “Charlotte was insistent and is paying me big bucks to bring it today, to replace the one she already ordered.”

“Why the garlic, et cetera?”

“In medieval times,” Julian said, “at least according to Charlotte, that mixture warded off evil spirits.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

“Yeah, well, I thought I’d tell Father Pete, see what he thinks.” He closed the door to the Rover. “All right, let’s bounce.”

I’D GOTTEN USED to Julian-speak, and sometimes it even helped me with clients in their early twenties. We were bouncing up to Gold Gulch Spa, i.e., we were driving, and once again, weak sunshine lit the way. The weather was cool, though, in the low fifties. I hoped the guests would bring jackets. I didn’t know if rain was predicted again, and cared even less. All I wanted was for this thing to be over.

My cell phone buzzed when we made the turn that led to the spa.

“Where are you?” Charlotte Attenborough demanded.

“Charlotte, I’m almost at the spa. I’m getting ready to set up. Where are you?”

“At home, at home. Jack’s here with me, and I’m just so worried.” Her voice was mildly hysterical. “Billie’s not answering her cell!”

“Cell reception out here is pretty bad. You want me to go look for her?”

“Yes! Then call me!”

“Okay, but Charlotte—”

I’d either lost the signal or she had disconnected. Somehow, I suspected the latter. There had been no please, no thank you, just do it. As if that was what she was paying me for. One thing I was beginning to learn: where Billie got her bitchiness from.

I told Julian what was going on. He rolled his eyes and said I should go look for Billie; he would unload our boxes.

The spa had been transformed. I had to give it to Aspen Meadow Florist: They’d done wonders with the designs Charlotte had given them. Had Billie helped? I wondered.

Garlands of lights hung on every aspen and pine that surrounded the main building of the spa. Ropes of fresh white flowers and ivy had been draped at six-foot intervals under the eaves of the building, and the main door itself was also bedecked with flowers.

The dining room had undergone an even more spectacular metamorphosis. The theme of Billie and Craig’s wedding was medicine, I guess so Billie would be sure everyone knew she was marrying a doctor. Even though I thought that was as tacky as a bride, even a biting one, could possibly get, Aspen Meadow Florist had once again outdone themselves. The tablecloths had a black underskirt and a white tablecloth on top, onto which rows of buttons had been sewn, à la lab coat, with Billie and Craig machine-embroidered in fanciful black script in between. In the center of each table, stethoscopes had somehow been placed upright, and they were surrounded by lilies and ivy.

In the front of the dining room, where the ceremony would take place, bright white-and-black slipcovers festooned the chairs, which had been placed in neat rows. A new dance floor had been placed over the dining room’s old cement one, and there were more swags of white flowers and ivy between the rows of chairs. Aspen Meadow Florist must have worked all night.

But there was no one in the dining room. Specifically, there was no Billie in the dining room.

The clang of pans issuing from the kitchen told me someone was here, though, so I headed in that direction.

Yolanda, her face creased with exhaustion, was working with three other cooks. Julian, who was piling up the boxes, gave me a warning look: Don’t ask. But I was puzzled, and upset that she was even here.

“Yolanda!” I exclaimed. “You really didn’t have to be here. Julian and I already have all the food for the wedding reception made, and we have all kinds of helpers coming—”

Yolanda tossed her head. “Yeah? Well, I need to keep my job, okay? And Victor said that Charlotte, the mother of that bitch, the bride, what’s her name—?”

“Billie,” Julian and I supplied in unison.

“Yeah, well, Charlotte told Victor, who’s my pendejo boss, that I upset Billie the Bitch, so my punishment is that my cooks and I have to make three more appetizers for this stupid reception—”

“But, Yolanda,” I protested, “we’re already making two appetizers—”

“Now you got five, then,” Yolanda said. “We all got five appetizers, right, girls?” she asked her crew.

“Yeah, we got five,” they replied.

“Yolanda, I’m so sorry—,” I began.

Yolanda put her hand on her hip. “What they gonna do with five appetizers if you’re giving them dinner, too?”

I shook my head, then took a deep breath. “You happen to know where Billie the Bitch is? She was supposed to be decorating the dining room.”

“The dining room’s all decorated,” Yolanda said. “So Billie couldn’t find anything to do, or anyone to bother, and I wouldn’t talk to her, I’m telling you, when she came out here. She seemed all smug and whatnot, being happy that I had to do all this extra work, so she started asking me questions, ‘Where is this and where is that?’ But I said, ‘No hablo ingles, chingada.’ And then I just spoke Spanish to my girls here, didn’t I?”

“Sí,” they replied.

I swallowed and said, “Please tell me you didn’t really call Billie a chingada.” Beside me, Julian was laughing. I sure as hell hoped Billie didn’t speak Spanish.

“Yeah, I did.” Yolanda was defiant. “And she finally left.”

“Her car’s still here,” Julian pointed out.

“I hope she’s up in the gym exercising,” Yolanda said. “And that she’s sweating so hard it hurts.”

“Better stick to Spanish,” Julian advised before he and I took off for the gym.

But the gym was locked and dark, as was the entrance to the indoor pool. The guest rooms were arrayed on three floors of large houses, or dorms, and each floor boasted a large front porch. Cleaning crews were working their way through the guest rooms, as their carts were lined up on different porches, and people in uniforms ducked in and out of the rooms. Since I very much doubted Billie did cleaning of any kind, I figured the dorms were a no-go.

My cell phone beeped: Charlotte Attenborough again. So in some spots out here, I did get a signal. I ignored it anyway.

“We should split up,” Julian said. “There are hiking trails all over this place.”

“Wait,” I said. “Did you see the sign for the Smoothie Cabin?”

“Yup.”

“Try there. It’s easy to find. I’ll go up to the hot pool. Maybe she’s relaxing, or trying to.”

Julian took off down the sidewalk that led back to the spa’s main building, while I began to negotiate the rocky path that led to the geothermal pool. Trees lined the path, and I thought that if you became really relaxed in the ultrahot water, a single misstep on the way back to your dorm could be, if not fatal, at least injurious.

Not far down the path, a thick cloud of steam billowing through the trees indicated I was getting close.

“Billie?” I called tentatively.

“Yes?” came her response. Her voice sounded, for once, positively languorous. “Who is it? I’m taking a break.”

“It’s Goldy.”

“What do you want?” she asked, back to her normal sharp-glass vocal intonation. “I’ve already checked in with the kitchen. Everything’s moving forward.”

“Your mother can’t reach you,” I replied as I finally reached the side of the pool. The steam had made the pavement slippery, so I backed off a bit.

Billie heaved a voluminous sigh. I finally saw her, naked, in the pool. Great.

“Hand me a towel, honey,” Billie said.

I looked around for a towel, then realized suddenly that she wasn’t talking to me. Craig Miller was with Billie. I could barely make him out, but it looked as if he, at least, was wearing a bathing suit.

“Here you go,” said Craig. Through the steam, he appeared to be handing her a towel.

“Take these dishes and glasses, Goldy,” Billie ordered. “Victor made us some Bellinis and sandwiches and cookies. He said he’d be back up for everything, but I don’t want him to be bothered.”

Of course, it was okay for me to be bothered. But I was used to Billie by now. I’d get her damn dishes, and soon, as Julian had pointed out, this day would be over.

“Call your mother,” I barked. “She’s worried about you.”

“She’s always worried about me. To hell with her.”

Oh-kay. No wonder Charlotte was willing to pay four mil to be rid of her thirty-six-year-old brat. This time, I noticed, Craig hadn’t been able to say he was sorry for the way Billie was acting. Too bad. Better get in the habit of always apologizing for your wife, buddy!

As Craig and Billie strolled back down the path, giggling and murmuring to each other, I edged over to the table from which Craig had picked up the towels. There were at least half a dozen glasses and dishes, sets of silverware, and crumpled paper napkins. Apparently, Craig and Billie hadn’t been the first couple to think of having a minipicnic up here. Of course, I had not brought a tray with me, which would have proved helpful.

The dishes were littered with crumbs and were already attracting rows of ants. Wonderful. One of the glasses was almost full of a pink liquid; a drowned bee was floating in it. Other glasses were empty or almost so, and hadn’t yet attracted any insect life. I started stacking up the dishware, then thought better of it.

I pulled out my cell and punched in Charlotte’s home number. To my surprise, not only was the cell connected, but Jack answered on the first ring.

“Where’s Charlotte?” I demanded.

“Happy to speak to you, too, godchild.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Sorry. It’s just that Charlotte sent me on a wild goose chase to find Billie, and I found her, up in the spa’s hot pool. She was with Craig. She’s fine, or as fine as any monster about to be married can be.”

“I’ll tell her, sweetheart. Calm down, will you? You sound stressed out.”

“I am very stressed out. When will you be here?”

“Around four, Charlotte says. I’ll come looking for you.”

“Thank God for that,” I said. “You’re the best,” I added impulsively.

“As are you,” he replied. “Just hang in there. Weddings are like olives. They can be the pits.”

I didn’t mention that Charlotte thought she and Jack themselves were soon to be wed. I was pretty sure that would be news to him. If so, would their wedding be a kalamata or a California olive?

“See you soon,” I said.

“Will Tom be there?” he asked suddenly. It sounded like a casual question posed as an afterthought, but I knew Jack too well for that. He’d probably seen my caller ID on Charlotte’s phone, and immediately picked up just so he could inquire about where my husband would be and when.

“Why?” I asked.

“I’d like to see how he’s making out on the Finn case, that’s all.”

“He’s working the Finn case today, actually. I know he’ll keep you posted, Jack.”

“Will anybody else from the sheriff’s department be at Billie’s wedding?”

I paused for a moment. What was going on here? I had the feeling Jack was fishing for information, but for what kind of information?

“One of Tom’s associates will be here,” I said cautiously. “His name is Sergeant Boyd.”

“Is he a guest?”

“No, he’s helping me in the kitchen. Jack, what is going on? Why are you asking me these questions? You know, you can always leave a message for Tom if you want to.”

“Hey, Gertie Girl, back off!” He laughed. “I just want to know what they’ve found out.”

“I doubt Boyd will know anything.”

“All right, then.”

We signed off, and I continued piling up the dishes and silverware. The conversation with Jack troubled me. Did he know something about Finn’s death that he had withheld from the sheriff’s department? If Finn was his friend, why not tell all to Tom?

I tried to put these questions aside as I worked on figuring out how to balance all the plates and glasses. I started with the dishes, then put the napkins on top, then the glasses, then the silverware inside the glasses. I was immensely proud of myself when I’d constructed a mountain of china that looked like something out of Arch’s old magic books.

With great care, I picked up the whole thing. Unfortunately, I hadn’t figured on the hot pool’s steam covering the surrounding flagstones and my carefully constructed stack with condensed moisture. I slipped, fell on my knees, and watched in despair as my castle of dishware plunged into the depths of the pool.

I cursed, rubbed my knees, and tried to think of what to do. I peered into the murky water, but could not see the glass. The famous Creek-side Ranch hot pond, about fourteen feet across, was fed by genuine geothermal springs. There were two ladders, but the bottom was invisible because the soaking pool was constructed of dark, and undoubtedly slippery, rocks.

“Dammit to hell,” I muttered.

What would happen if someone drank to excess at the wedding reception, came up here, and decided to have a soak? And what if he or she cut a major artery on broken glass? Unlikely, perhaps, but I didn’t carry enough insurance to cover stupidity, my own for losing my grip on all those dishes, or others’, for drinking too much.

I prayed that no one, absolutely no one, was anywhere nearby. I pulled up my sleeve, knelt, and reached into the steaming water.

It was so hot that I gasped. But I got used to it after a few moments. Scooting forward and feeling a couple of feet down along the edge of the pool with my fingers, I realized that a bench of some kind had been constructed around the inside perimeter. Marvelous. Only one plate had landed—and broken—on the bench.

I decided to make another grabbing circuit of the hot-spring pool. Unfortunately, when I extended my right arm as far as I could, my knees gave way yet again on the slippery stones and I fell in.

Cursing as wildly as one can while one’s mouth is full of foul-tasting water, I tried to get some purchase on the bottom. Underneath the bench was another shelf, probably meant as a footrest. I used it to propel myself upward, where I emerged, choking and coughing.

I heaved myself onto the pool’s bench, shivering and thinking. Thank God I kept a clean change of catering clothes in my van.

Since I had dropped the load in the first place, Victor would no doubt blame me—endlessly—for the broken dishes and glasses.

What the hell, I was already wet.

I took a deep breath and plunged down, down, down. How deep was this thing, anyway? Finally, at a depth that I judged to be about eight feet, I touched an uneven bottom. I pushed off and up for more oxygen, as I didn’t want to risk hurting my eyes by opening them. Then down I went again, and began to feel, ever so carefully, for more dishes and glasses.

The water was hot, really hot, and I wondered if anyone ever scalded him- or herself. There was only one warning sign indicating that the very old or very young should not expose themselves to extreme temperatures for more than ten minutes. Peachy.

After what had to have been twenty minutes of probing, I had found four glasses and five plates. Had there been more? I could not remember. My hair stank of sulfur, and I was so light-headed I thought I might pass out. Had I just heard Julian yelling for me?

I had. He seemed to be hollering from a distance that might not be too far off. Was he on the path, maybe?

“Yeah, I’m here!” I croaked, sputtering.

“Goldy?” he called.

“Yeah, I’m in the pool! Just don’t come all the way up, ’cuz I fell into the water and my clothes are stuck to me!”

Julian laughed, sounding relieved. “All right, I’ve got my back turned. Jeez, it’s misty up here.”

I clambered out of the pool and immediately felt even more light-headed. “No kidding,” I said.

“I couldn’t imagine what had happened to you! Look, why don’t you have a shower in the spa gym? They’re cleaning in there and it’s open. I’ll bring you your clean clothes from the van. We’ve got lots of work in front of us, boss.” He paused. “What’re you doing up here, anyway?”

I told him about finding Billie, then being ordered to pick up all the dishes and glasses, then dropping all of same into the pool, then feeling guilty and worried and reaching for the stuff, and finally, falling in, which was when I started looking everywhere for the still missing glasses, et cetera.

“This is easy,” Julian called from the path. “We tell Victor about what happened. He puts a sign up saying the pool is being cleaned or something, and then he finds somebody to fix the problem. I’ll meet you in the gym in ten minutes?”

“Okay,” I said reluctantly. I clomped down the path toward the gym.

I simply could not wait for this day to be over.

14

Sergeant Boyd, whom we’d always only ever called “Boyd,” had arrived and immediately gone off looking for me up one of the hiking trails. Billie, apparently, had not bothered to tell anyone where I was.

“Man, I thought I was going to lose my job over you being abducted or something,” he said, running his carrot-shaped fingers through his unfashionable black crew cut when I reappeared in the kitchen, showered, shampooed, and dressed in clean clothes. “In fact, lose my job? Forget my job. Schulz would’a killed me.”

Julian just shook his held. Yolanda, who wore her hair up in an intricate cascade of curls, giggled. Apparently, she thought Boyd was kidding. Yolanda looked happy, anyway. After their set-to the other day, maybe Billie was giving Yolanda a wide berth.

“C’mon, Sergeant,” she said playfully, “taste one of these. You won’t want to go looking for anyone else the rest of your time here.”

She plucked a paper napkin from a pile and put what looked like an empanada on top. I peered more closely at the napkins. They said, Billie and Craig, in embossed silver letters. I supposed with all the scheduling changes, Charlotte had given up on having a date printed on them.

“Here’s one for you, Goldy,” Yolanda said demurely. “Julian won’t want one, because it has meat in it.”

I tasted her offering: it was crunchy on the outside, with a smooth pork filling and a chile finish with a definite kick. “Yum,” I said. After all my time in the hot pool, I was strangely famished. I was also strangely dizzy. When black spots appeared in front of my eyes, I reached for the kitchen counter and swayed.

Julian grabbed me. “You need to drink some water or a sports drink or something. You’re dehydrated from being in that hot pool for so long.”

“You were in the pool all that time?” Yolanda demanded. “Why?”

I gave them an abbreviated version of Charlotte’s request to find Billie, my hunting expedition, the mishap with the plates, and finally, my sulphur-water diving escapade.

Yolanda held her hand up in an almost-closed position, as if she were handling an invisible potato. “Ay, that woman Billie! I curse her and her wedding—”

“You don’t need to go that far,” I protested, ever wary of evil people bent on providing real curses. “We’ll all be fine.”

Yolanda lifted her chin. “I curse her anyway.”

Boyd and Julian, who were apparently impervious to Yolanda’s cursing, ducked out of her way as they ferried plates from the spa cupboards to the counter where Julian had taped my signs showing where everything should go.

“Victor told Isabelle she had to help with the serving!” Yolanda said, her face ablaze. “We’re going to have too many servers as it is, and now Isabelle? And it’s all because Charlotte complained about her, too.” Yolanda lowered her voice. “Isabelle? She was kissing the boyfriend of Charlotte?”

“Well,” I began, “he was kissing her…I’m just so sorry you and Isabelle are having to give up your Sunday.”

“Don’t be,” she said, playful again. “I kind of like your friend Boyd. I just broke up with my boyfriend, so I’m available. And Boyd is cute! Get it? Boyd-friend?”

I didn’t mention that I’d half-promised Boyd to Marla for a dance at the reception. Man, these things could get complicated.

But before we could chitchat further, Julian bolted into the kitchen.

“Boss man’s coming,” he hissed.

Yolanda immediately turned back to her deep fryer, and I opened the first box I could find, which contained the chilled crab cakes.

“I see you’ve begun working,” Victor boomed. “Yolanda volunteered to help you,” he went on, and only I could hear Yolanda’s tiny groan at this blatant lie. “Isabelle will be along around five. She’s also offered to help.”

“I really don’t need them—,” I began, but Victor held up his hand.

“They absolutely insisted,” he lied again. He squinted at me. “You want to tell me what you were staring at inside the Smoothie Cabin?”

I shrugged. “I was looking for my godfather, Jack.”

“And what was he looking for in there?” Victor pressed.

“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “Have you asked him?”

Victor pursed his lips and gave me an angry look. “You just happened to be going by there just when your godfather just happened to be scrounging around for something, after breaking into private property—”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Julian said. “Speaking of breaking? There was an accident up at the hot pool.”

Victor blanched. “An accident? Was someone hurt? Did you call an ambulance? What happened?”

“If you’ll be quiet, I’ll tell you,” Julian said evenly. Everybody else was cowed by Victor Lane, but not my assistant. Hooray.

“Young man, what is your name? Maybe we need to clarify your relationship to this spa,” Victor said. “You are here because I allowed you to be here. I can easily ban you from the premises, starting right now.” Victor snapped his fingers to make his point.

“You want to hear about this accident, or not?” Julian said, unfazed.

I really, really needed Julian to help me with this wedding reception, so I plunged in with, “Billie and Craig were up at the pool with some dishes and whatnot. They asked me to pick up after them, which I did, but the dishes slipped out of my hand and into the pool, and I couldn’t find them all, so they’re probably at the bottom of the—”

Victor Lane turned on his heel. As he stomped out of the kitchen, he shouted over his shoulder, “This is why I refused to hire you!”

“And you’re showing why she wouldn’t work for you!” Julian called after him.

I closed my eyes. When I opened them, Julian and Yolanda were laughing so hard, Julian was doubled over and Yolanda had tears coming out of her eyes.

“Since this is undoubtedly the last time I’ll be working here,” I said calmly, “could we please, please get going on this reception?”

“Sure, boss,” said Julian. His face had turned bright pink from all the delirium, but he made an effort to read over my checklist.

Boyd shuffled back into the kitchen. “What’s so funny?” he demanded. “Victor Lane told me he wanted some mulch spread in the new flower beds. So I spread the mulch, rewashed my hands, and now I’ve missed out on the big joke.”

I told Julian to take Boyd out to the dining room, along with their checklist, if the latest tale in the Victor Lane saga absolutely, positively had to be repeated. Spreading mulch in the new flower beds? What was the matter with Victor Lane, anyway?

Thank goodness, I couldn’t contemplate that question because we had too much to do. We worked diligently over the next two hours, making sure every detail was being attended to. Yolanda kept us supplied with scrumptious Mexican appetizers, and Julian had even brought some nonalcoholic beer that we could have with them.

The ceremony itself was due to start at six, which meant guests would start to show up around half past five. Charlotte and Jack arrived, but I didn’t get a chance to visit with Jack, as the photographers showed up at the same time. Charlotte, who was wearing a flounced scarlet blouse and black pencil skirt, told the photographers to take lots of pictures of the spa exterior until it was half an hour before the wedding, at which point they were to come and find her. She then announced that she needed Jack to help with getting the groomsmen ready. Jack, who looked dapper in a white shirt and navy suit, winked at me.

Charlotte caught the wink and cleared her throat. She said she was just checking in the kitchen to make sure we were on schedule. Then, once Jack was helping the groomsmen, she was off to make sure the hairdresser and makeup artist were hard at work on Billie and the bridesmaids.

“Billie and the Bridesmaids!” Yolanda singsonged. “Sounds like a rock group!”

Charlotte narrowed her eyes at Yolanda, unsure whether she was being made fun of, which of course she was. But clearly, Charlotte had more important things to do at that moment than force Victor to punish Yolanda again. Everyone departed for various dressing rooms, Julian announced he was going to start the grill for the artichoke skewers, and I was glad once again to be working with Boyd and Yolanda.

Various servicepeople arrived. Boyd showed the bartender to his lair in the dining room. The bartender, a tall, slender fellow with a bald pate, began arranging the glasses, ice, sliced fruit, and bottles of wine and hard liquor to his liking. To my question when Boyd returned to the kitchen, he announced that the bartender was sober. This in itself was cause for rejoicing.

Father Pete poked his chubby face into the kitchen. “I’m looking for a handout.”

“Ooh, the priest!” Yolanda trilled. “You like quesadillas, Father?”

“Do I!”

While Father Pete was feasting on Yolanda’s offerings, Boyd once again checked every table; every place card; every setting of china, silverware, and crystal in the dining room. He reported that everything looked A-OK.

Billie had insisted on a miniature organ being set up in the room’s far corner. When the opening strains of Jeremiah Clarke’s “Trumpet Voluntary in D Major” startled me, I asked Boyd to make another quick check. He disappeared and returned, saying the organist was just warming up.

“Still, though,” he cautioned, “one of the ushers warned me that the guests will probably start arriving in about ten minutes. You ready?”

I surveyed the kitchen. Yolanda’s offerings of empanadas, quesadillas, and fish minitacos were ready to be slid into one of the spa’s large ovens. The enticing scent of wood smoke drifted through the windows; this meant Julian’s fire would be ready in time for the artichoke skewers. Like the caviar-topped deviled eggs, the rémoulade sauce was still in the spa’s enormous walk-in refrigerator, as were the crab cakes—also on baking sheets, ready to be heated—the new-potato salad, and the haricots verts, with their vinaigrette only needing a final shake. The butter and baguettes were covered with plastic wrap on the center island. And the cake, another of Julian’s phenomenal creations, was on a separate wheeled cart, along with a stack of plates, napkins, and dessert forks.

“We’re ready,” I said under my breath, just as the organist started in on Jeremiah Clarke in earnest, and the murmurings of guests being led to their seats beside the makeshift aisle began. Before long, the strains of the processional indicated the bridesmaids were making their way toward Father Pete. And, at long last, Wagner’s “Wedding March” commenced.

Julian popped into the kitchen through the back door. “Fire’s ready. Oh, man, you should see Billie. That dress does not fit her. She looks like a whale inside a white girdle that’s, like, two sizes too small.”

I groaned. “Don’t say that. If she thinks the guests are judging her, she’ll be in an even more vile mood than usual.” I gave him a worried look. “Will they notice?”

He shook his head confidently. “Not if they’re blind.”

Boyd snickered. “Man, I’d like to work with you people every day. You’re certainly a lot more fun than the sheriff’s department.”

Yolanda tilted her chin provocatively. “We would like to have you work here. In fact, I would like it very much.”

“Is that so?” Boyd asked. “How are your cheese enchiladas?”

This banter went on for about twenty minutes as we worked. When we took a short break, I handed out the tip money from Dodie O’Neal, including Yolanda and her servers in the disbursement. Then, suddenly, from out in the dining room, Father Pete’s sonorous voice announced something, and the guests clapped.

“Boy, that was quick,” Julian said in surprise. “Guess the bride and groom didn’t write their own long, elaborate vows. I’ll go start the skewers.”

As prearranged, Boyd and the rest of the servers worked to move the chairs away from the aisle. That side of the big room would be the dance floor, while the dining tables and their chairs would be reserved for people who just wanted to sit and relax. The wedding party, meanwhile, was outside having their photos taken.

Yolanda worked with alacrity on her appetizers, while out in the dining room, the sound of popping corks came in quick succession. Luckily, the weather was cool, so guests wouldn’t be tempted to down multiple glasses of champagne just to slake their thirst. I’d seen that happen more times than I wanted to count, and the vision of guests passed out in the spa’s flower beds—newly mulched by Boyd—was not something I wanted to contemplate.

Jack made an unexpected appearance in the kitchen. “How you doing, Gertie Girl? Anything I can help with?”

“Oh, thank you, but no,” I said quickly, intent on the tray of Deviled Eggs with Caviar in front of me. “We’ve got everything under control. Why don’t you just go enjoy the party?”

“I’d rather not. Where’s your bodyguard?”

I gave him a quizzical look. “You mean, Sergeant Boyd? What makes you think he’s my bodyguard?”

“Gertie Girl, I may have been born at night, but I wasn’t born last night. Where is he?”

“Moving chairs,” I said impatiently.

“I want to talk to him,” Jack said.

I took the rémoulade out of the refrigerator and stirred it, then began to spoon it into small crystal bowls. “Jack, please. If you want to talk to Sergeant Boyd, he’s out there somewhere. But please, please don’t give him a lecture on taking care of me. He will.”

Jack held up his hands in protest. “Okay, okay!” He grinned widely, then disappeared.

I forgot about Jack, Billie, Charlotte, Victor, and everyone else as our crew worked quickly to serve the appetizers, then start the crab cakes heating and get everyone seated. I didn’t know who was making the first toast and didn’t care. Julian gave me the high sign when it was time to start serving the dinner, and the servers whisked away with their trays.

The satisfying clink of silverware against china mixed with the incidental music being provided by Aspen Meadow’s one disc jockey, who had arrived without my noticing. The organist had apparently been dispatched, and this had not made a ripple in my consciousness, either.

“How’re we doing?” I asked Julian when all the dinners had been served.

“Great. The guests are loving the food. When we were serving the appetizers, several people asked if you’d share the recipe for the deviled eggs. I’ve never had that happen before.”

“Julian!”

“I mean, they’re great, boss.” He colored, then smiled. “It’s just that people don’t go to the trouble to make deviled eggs so much anymore, that’s all.”

When the conversational noise rose again, it was a sign that the meal was coming to a close. The servers zipped out of the kitchen with trays and began what I hoped was a subtle clearing of the tables. Yolanda filled the kitchen’s tublike sinks with scalding water and soap, and, with one of her coworkers, began a quick, quiet, professional dishwashing enterprise. After ten minutes of clearing, one of the servers announced that the tables were ready.

“I’m taking out the cake,” Julian announced as he rolled the cake stand toward the dining room.

“The ice cream!” Yolanda shrieked as she peeled off her rubber gloves. “We never have it here in the spa, and I forgot to let it soften!”

“If that’s the worst that happens during this meal,” I said, “then we’ll be in good shape.”

But it was not the worst that could happen. The toasts did not take long, nor did the serving of the cake, which was a miracle, considering Julian had to use his swimmer’s arm muscles to dig ice cream out of the big containers. I helped Yolanda with the dishes, and soon the dance music began. I didn’t see Billie and Craig perform their first waltz, which was probably just as well.

But I was genuinely surprised when Lucas Carmichael slammed into the kitchen and marched right up to me. I pulled away from him, which only made him lean in close to my face.

“Did you sic the cops on me?” he demanded. He wore a pale blue suit that must have had heavily padded shoulders. Instead of making him appear more fit, which was probably the effect he was after, the suit made him look like a kid who’d been dressed up for a Sunday School presentation. “I’m really tired of you and your manipulations, Goldy. I mean, we both know my father’s an easy touch. So you worm your way into his affections,” Lucas said, “with all your crying and moaning about your ex-husband. Then, when he decides to move out here, you convince him to buy a decrepit house across the street from you, not near me.”

“I didn’t!” I protested. “I didn’t even know Jack was leaving New Jersey until he was practically here.”

But Lucas had closed his eyes and was shaking his head. “You feed him food full of stuff he shouldn’t have.”

“I don’t,” I tried again. “I try to give him heart-healthy meals.”

Lucas pointed his right index finger at my nose. “And if all that weren’t enough, you tell the cops that I was involved in the death of Doc Finn—”

After my years with the Jerk, I’d learned to stand my ground. “You are exaggerating, Lucas,” I said evenly. “You’ve got problems with your father? Or with law enforcement? Those are your issues, Lucas. Not mine.”

But Lucas was going to have his say. “This past Thursday night, I happened to be at Southwest Hospital checking on a patient on my own time, not calling Doc Finn to set up…eek!”

Sergeant Boyd had come up quietly behind Lucas, circled the young man’s chest with his powerful policeman’s arms, and lifted him off the floor. Lucas’s feet flailed wildly, and he was suddenly finding it difficult to breathe, much less bawl me out.

“Listen up, pal,” Boyd said huskily into Lucas’s ear. “You don’t belong in this kitchen, understand? It’s for food workers only. Got it?”

When Lucas did not reply, Boyd loosened his grip a tiny bit.

“Put me down!” Lucas managed to squeak.

Boyd retightened his hold on Lucas. “Got it?” the sergeant repeated. Yolanda and two of the servers were frozen, their mouths open, staring first at Boyd, then at Lucas, then back at Boyd again. I wasn’t doing much better. I wanted Lucas out of the kitchen, but I certainly didn’t want to alienate the young whippersnapper any more than I already had.

Into this unfortunate scene Marla happened to appear. She breezed into the kitchen wearing a rosy pink satin designer dress with a matching shawl; in her hair and ears and around her neck were barrettes, earrings, and a necklace constructed of masses of pink sapphires. She smiled at our little tableau.

“Well, well, Lucas Carmichael!” she exclaimed, as if she ran into cops holding physician’s assistants in death grips every day. “When I saw you slip in here, I knew you weren’t coming for another crab cake. Now, Sergeant Boyd,” Marla scolded mildly, “what ever it is you want from Lucas Carmichael, I can guarantee he’ll give it to you. Right, Lucas?”

Boyd released Lucas, who despite his light weight dropped heavily onto the kitchen floor.

“C’mon, Lucas,” Marla spoke down smoothly to where Lucas was kneeling on the floor, coughing, panting, and rubbing his eyes. “It looks as if they want you out of the kitchen. Am I right or am I right? Okay, I’m right. And anyway, I want you to dance with me.”

“I, I—” Lucas struggled to his feet, narrowed his eyes to give me a dark look, then glanced over at Boyd. Boyd crossed his arms and raised his thick black eyebrows in a threatening manner. “Okay,” Lucas said grudgingly, straightening his pale blue tie. “But I was just trying to—”

“Don’t start with the excuses, buddy,” Boyd said. “Or I’ll lift you up by your ankles.”

Marla tapped her foot. “Lucas? I’m waiting.” She leaned over and whispered in Boyd’s ear, I suspect to say she was going to take Lucas off Boyd’s hands instead of asking Boyd to dance. “Lucas?” she asked again. “Are you going to dance with me?”

“God, Marla,” Lucas said, recovering himself, “dance with you? You’re old enough to be my mother.”

“Take it easy, dear boy,” Marla said, taking Lucas’s arm. “Does your mother have a ten-million-dollar slush fund?”

Lucas gazed at Marla with sudden interest. “Do you?”

Marla’s expression twinkled as brightly as her sapphires. “Well, I suppose you’ll have to dance with me to find out!”

Yolanda, her coworkers, and I hadn’t worked more than ten more minutes when Julian stuck his head in the kitchen.

“Boss,” he said to me, “you’d better come have a look at this.”

“Oh, hell, Julian, if it’s Lucas Carmichael again, then I’ll bring Boyd with me, and we can—”

“It’s not Lucas,” Julian replied. “It’s Jack.”

“Oh, crap,” I muttered under my breath. Jack and Lucas fighting? Jack and Billie fighting?

When I sidled into the dining room, which had been skillfully turned into an enormous dance floor, I tried to focus on the crowd, to look for Jack. It was a slow dance, which was unusual for a wedding, and made distinguishing people via their backsides somewhat challenging. Finally, though, I saw him. He was dancing, very close, with Isabelle. Again. Oh, hell. She was supposed to be there in a server capacity, not a guest capacity. Yes, the serving was over, but I could imagine the kerfuffle if Victor saw Isabelle with Jack again.

Aw, jeez, now it looked as if Jack was whispering something in Isabelle’s ear. When she turned away to laugh and shake her head, I noticed she wore a red lace dress with lots of décolletage.

So Isabelle was breaking all kinds of rules here. First of all, nobody at a wedding was supposed to wear lace except the bride. And no one, no woman anyway, is supposed to look sexier at a wedding than the bride. Take it from me, I’d heard from plenty of mothers of the brides who were outraged at the provocative dresses some of the female guests had turned up in, that this was a huge no-no. Worst of all, Isabelle was dancing and flirting with a man—okay, my godfather—who was old enough to be her father, and he had come with Charlotte Attenborough. Plus, Isabelle was a server, not a guest…

Which all might have been okay in this day of relaxed standards. But leaning against a nearby wall, Charlotte Attenborough was ostensibly talking to a friend—someone I recognized from a Mountain Homes photo display—while casting murderous glances at Jack.

Would he never learn?

15

I repaired back to the kitchen, where any crisis was worth dealing with as long as it didn’t actually involve the wedding. Boyd and Julian were engaged in a conversation that was important enough that they’d stopped washing the cake dishes. Julian finally faced me with the bad news.

“Four guests have come in saying they smelled pot smoke coming from the area of the Smoothie Cabin,” he announced.

I glanced at Boyd. “Do we have to do something about it?” I said, ever one to duck responsibility when it came to law enforcement at catered functions.

“You don’t,” he said simply. “How do I get to the Smoothie Cabin?” I told him. “Keep an eye on her,” he ordered Julian, “don’t let her out of your sight.” Then he checked that his cell phone was working and marched out the back door of the kitchen.

I eyed the remains of Julian’s cake. There wasn’t much left. “What should we do with this?”

“Charlotte came in and said we were to wrap it well and put it in our van. She didn’t want any hungry spa guests delving into it, and she wants to save some for a magazine staff meeting tomorrow morning.”

I sighed. “Of course.”

Five minutes later, Boyd had not returned, but Julian and I had wrapped the lowest cake layer in plastic.

“I can take this to the van,” I told Julian.

“The hell you say. I’m sticking to you like, well, what? Epoxy? Cement?”

“Dried royal icing.”

“Fine,” he conceded. “Let’s boogie.”

We, too, marched out the back door, with Julian holding the cake and me being, well, his escort. There was indeed a strong scent of marijuana drifting from somewhere, but it was hard to tell from where. Where was Boyd? Had he decided to get stoned with the party? Unlikely.

After we’d stowed the cake, Julian and I were walking back to the main house when we heard a soft, low moaning.

“Somebody having sex?” Julian whispered to me. “They needed the grass to get them going?”

“Wait. Listen.”

The low groaning was there again, along with faint coughing. It did not sound as if whoever-it-was was enjoying himself.

“Could it be Boyd?” I asked Julian fearfully. “Maybe he caught somebody smoking, and whoever it was hit him, or something.”

“I think Boyd can take care of himself.”

The moaning was there again, less distinct this time. But I was sure it was a man in pain.

“I want to find out who’s hurting,” I said firmly.

“We’ve got a lot of dishes still to do,” Julian warned as I set off in the direction of the newly landscaped area.

“They’ll keep!”

Julian cursed under his breath, but true to his promise, stuck close to me.

“Where are you?” I called into the night. “Boyd? Are you hurt?”

There was a kind of whimpering coming from the bushes. Oh, how I wished cheap old Victor Lane had installed some real perimeter lighting instead of relying on Christmas-in-summer strands of lights.

“Boyd!” I called again when the sounds stopped. “Where are you?”

“I’m right behind you,” Sergeant Boyd announced, and Julian and I almost jumped out of our epidermi.

“Did you find the pot smokers?” Julian asked.

“Nope.”

“Well, we heard somebody moaning and groaning and crying,” I said. “Somebody’s hurt.”

“More like somebody’s drunk or having sex,” Boyd said.

But it was neither. Beside the bushes, a body was sprawled at an unnatural angle. It looked like a man clad in dark colors. In the strings of lights, he was visible by his bright white shirt. Julian and I rushed over.

“Oh, Christ,” Julian said. Breathless, I fell to my knees beside the man.

“Gertie Girl,” Jack Carmichael managed to say before he lost consciousness.

BOYD WAS RIGHT behind us, and quickly took command of the scene. Thank God, he got a cell signal. He summoned an ambulance and law enforcement, while Julian judged Jack’s condition.

“His heart’s beating fine,” Julian said to me. I was still speechless, but I was vaguely aware of tears streaming down my cheeks. “It just looks as if he was knocked out or something. Oh, Christ,” he said again, as he reached around to the back of Jack’s head. When he pulled his hand back, he held it up to show me. His fingers were covered with blood.

I’d seen plenty of trauma in my day, but it was different when it was someone you loved. “Jack!” I called down to the inert form. “Please, Jack!”

“Move away, Goldy,” Boyd ordered. “You, too, Julian.”

“He’s been hit in the back of the head, and he’s bleeding,” Julian said. “I should hold on to the wound until the medics get here.”

Curious wedding guests were gathering outside to watch the drama before them.

“Dammit,” Boyd muttered when he saw the crowd. “All right, then, Julian, stay where you are. But do not move a muscle from that spot. Goldy, I’ve called Tom. We had a bad connection, but he’s coming. Now, I want you to move these people back inside. Get Yolanda to help you. Victor, too. Tell everyone…tell them Jack’s had an apparent heart attack and we need the guests to stay away until the ambo gets here. You got it?” he asked. “You going to be all right to do that? You’re not going to pass out on me, are you? Or throw up?”

I pressed my lips together and nodded. “I am fine,” I said evenly, “and I’ll do exactly what you want. But what the hell happened? Is he going to be all right?”

“He’s going to be fine as long as you can keep people out of here. Oh, and isn’t the groom a doctor? Get him out here. ASAP.”

“All right,” I acquiesced. “But,” I continued stubbornly, “why would someone do this?”

“Goddamn it, Goldy,” Boyd said angrily, “I don’t know. Isn’t your godfather wealthy? Maybe someone wanted his wallet.”

“His Rolex is gone,” Julian said. “Uh-oh, he’s conscious now. And he’s going to puke.”

“Roll him on his side,” Boyd commanded. Julian did as commanded, and I really did think I was going to pass out when my godfather began to throw up weakly into the grass. Boyd shouted, “Get the damn doctor, Goldy!”

I blinked, overcame my immobilization, and walked quickly over to where the crowd was gathered. “Please go back inside,” I begged them. “Someone is just sick, that’s all.”

“Serves him right,” a guest commented.

“I’m sure as hell not having any more of that punch.”

“Cake either!” Someone else cackled.

“Does anybody know where Dr. Miller is?” I asked, my voice suddenly high and imperious.

“Inside, I expect,” an anonymous voice from the crowd announced. “Which is where all of you should be.” The voice was Victor Lane’s. “Let’s go, everybody. The show’s over.”

Victor was better at directing people around than I was, perhaps because he’d had more practice.

I pushed through the crowd, future clients be damned. “I need Dr. Craig Miller,” I said urgently to Victor.

“He’s still inside, Goldy. At least, he was the last time I saw him.”

I sped through the dining hall doors and searched the hundred or so faces. Near me, Isabelle was listening uncomfortably to a lecture from Charlotte Attenborough. Out on the dance floor, Marla was swaying jovially from side to side, while Lucas Carmichael tried desperately to find the music’s rhythm. He seemed as ill at ease as Isabelle. I threaded my way through the tables and immediately was aware of people’s glares. Now what does she want? Isn’t the dinner over?

Finally, Billie’s loud laugh exploded from the far side of the dining room, and I made a beeline toward that noise. I realized I hadn’t yet seen her in the fancy cream wedding dress that, when you included all the fees for change orders, Marla reported had cost over two thousand bucks.

“Craig, you are so funny!” Billie announced loudly, and the doctor, obviously pleased with amusing his bride, broke into a wide smile. Father Pete, who sat with them, wore a perplexed expression, as if the joke had entirely eluded him.

“Excuse me, Dr. Miller,” I said, trying to sound as formal as possible. “One of the guests is sick, and we need you. Please. Sergeant Boyd thinks this guest may be having a heart attack—”

“Goldy!” Billie shrieked at me, her face ugly with rage. “Go find another doctor!”

And then, all the months of dealing with Billie Attenborough’s narcissism caught up with me, rising in my throat like so much bile.

“There isn’t another one! I need Dr. Miller,” I cried. “Please, Craig, Jack has been hurt. If you could just come out to the side entrance—”

Billie Attenborough sprang to her feet, and with her wide body encased in the cream dress, she blocked my view of her new husband. Unheeding, I peered around her to Craig Miller, who looked as if he’d swallowed half a dozen goldfish, live. “Dr. Miller,” I began again, “please—”

Before I knew what was happening, Billie Attenborough reared back and slapped me across the face.

Tears exploded in my eyes. Still, even though my cheek flamed with pain, I was so frantic about Jack’s condition, and so desperate to get Craig Miller’s help, that I ignored my own distress.

When Billie saw I wasn’t going to react to her, she began to sob.

“Dr. Miller!” I screamed over Billie’s blubbering. “We need you outside! Jack’s hurt!”

“Don’t go, Craig!” Billie wailed. “I need you!” With great drama, she fell to the ground.

“Goldy,” said Father Pete into my ear. “Tell me where this sick person is, and I’ll take Dr. Miller to him. Then I want you to go out to the kitchen, and stay there.”

“I am not going into the kitchen,” I said, my jaw firmly clenched. “I’ll take Craig out to Jack. You can tend to Billie Attenborough. Please,” I added, as tears stung the slap on my cheek.

“All right,” said Father Pete, resigned. He knelt next to Billie, who lifted herself slightly, then crumpled onto him.

“Let’s go,” Craig Miller said from beside me. He’d regained his composure, thank God. “Show me where this patient is.”

I grabbed his upper arm and pulled him toward the closest exit, which happened to be about ten steps away. Billie was still doing her fraught moaning, and Father Pete was speaking to her in low, comforting tones. Better him than me, I thought, and I wondered if Craig Miller was thinking the same thing.

By the time we got outside, the ambulance had arrived. Thank God. Craig Miller hurried his pace toward Jack. To my surprise, Lucas Carmichael had magically appeared at Jack’s side, too. He must have heard me yelling at Billie that it was his father who was hurt.

Despite the presence of two paramedics, Craig Miller was able skillfully to take control of the scene. He assessed Jack’s injuries and ordered the medics to get a stretcher and a brace to stabilize Jack’s neck. The medics sprinted back to their vehicle and returned with the stretcher. Boyd, standing over Jack, shook his head. This brought a fresh onslaught of tears down my stinging cheek, although no sound issued from my mouth.

“What happened?” Lucas demanded first of Boyd, who shook his head again, and then of me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “He was moaning. Julian and I heard him, and came over. His scalp is bleeding.”

“His Rolex is missing,” Lucas said to me, his tone angry. “Do you know where it is?”

This time I knew better than to say or do anything. I’d already lost my cool with Billie Attenborough, and the fact that the only thing Lucas could think about was Jack’s expensive watch made me realize once again, for at least the hundredth time since I’d known him, that what Lucas really cared about was his father’s possessions. The brat. Poor Jack, I thought, to have such a grasping materialist for a son—

“They’re taking him now,” Craig announced to Boyd, Lucas, and me.

“I’m going in the ambo,” Lucas announced. “Does he have his wallet? He’ll need his insurance card at the hospital.”

I prayed to God to give me patience with Lucas. But this was just the way he was. Still, Craig Miller called to the medics, who stopped in their tracks with the stretcher.

A moment later, Craig called back to us, “No wallet!”

“Motive was probably robbery,” Boyd said, his tone low. “It might not be here.”

“Oh, look,” Lucas said, reaching down. The wallet was right at his feet. “I’ve got it. Let’s go.”

“Let me come with you,” I begged Lucas.

“I’m family,” Lucas said. He seemed to be savoring the moment, and his superiority over me. “You’re not family. And there’s not enough room in the ambo for all of us.”

“Will you call me?” I pleaded.

Lucas didn’t answer me, but merely hurried along behind the stretcher. Openmouthed, I watched them go.

“Who was that smarmy guy who said he was family?” Boyd wanted to know.

“Jack’s son, Lucas. He’s a creep.”

“No kidding. Was that wallet right there at his feet?” Boyd asked. “’Cuz I didn’t see it when I was here with Jack.”

“I didn’t notice,” I said truthfully, although it did seem a bit coincidental that Lucas had arrived and suddenly found Jack’s wallet right in front of him.

A police car pulled up, lights flashing. Two cops jumped out and called to Boyd, who started walking toward them.

Meanwhile, I turned and trudged slowly back toward the dining hall, Billie Attenborough, and all her guests. I so didn’t want to go back there. And I wished, desperately, that Tom was here.

A glimmer in the muddy grass distracted me. I bent down and saw, barely, the gleam of gold. I didn’t look around to see if the cops were watching me. I just fluffed out my apron and scooped up Jack’s Rolex from the dark spa lawn. Working to appear casual, I stood up, straightened my apron, and dropped the watch into one of its pockets.

Robbery was the motive? I wondered.

16

Somehow, Julian, Yolanda, the servers, and I finished the reception. Billie had left with her mother, one of the servers informed me. Craig Miller and Father Pete had accompanied them.

“They said they were going to Southwest Hospital,” the server said. She gave me a quizzical look. “Why would a bride and groom go to the hospital?”

“Was it the bride’s mother’s idea?” I asked.

“Actually, I think it was. But why wouldn’t you just leave on your honeymoon?”

Because the bride’s mother pulls the strings, I supplied mentally. In this case, Charlotte Attenborough pulled purse strings, as strongly wired as a ship’s ropes. If Charlotte said, “Drive me to the hospital, Billie,” then that was where everyone was going to go.

“Take my keys and go home,” Julian said, once we were down to washing pots and pans. “Wait there for someone to call you about Jack. The cell phone reception out here sucks, so how would you know if someone was trying to call you? We can handle the rest of the cleanup.”

“That’s not what she’s being paid for,” said Victor Lane, who’d swished through the kitchen doors.

“Victor,” said Yolanda, pointing a crimson-painted fingernail at him. “You want me to keep working for you? I did all this wedding, no charge. Now, let Goldy go. This man who was hurt on your property? He’s family for her. I know you don’t want to upset the family of someone who was hurt on your property.”

Victor heard the threat in Yolanda’s words, the threat that a family member might sue him for allowing someone to be hurt on spa property. Victor seemed to waver for a minute, then looked at me defiantly. “I’m going to have to tell Billie Attenborough that you left before everything was cleaned up.”

“Victor!” exclaimed Yolanda.

“No, that’s fine, Victor,” I said, my voice flat. “Tell her. Tell Billie all about it, I don’t mind.” I would be so happy if I never had to work for Billie Attenborough again, in any capacity.

“What did you do to your cheek?” Victor demanded, staring at me. “Did you hurt yourself on spa property? And while we’re at it, could you please tell me what you were doing yesterday, when you were looking through the glass into the Smoothie Cabin?”

“I told you. I was searching for Jack,” I said. “He was inside the Smoothie Cabin with Isabelle, as you no doubt noticed when you checked the film.”

“Jack is her family,” Yolanda said. “He’s the one who’s been seriously injured on your property, and now he’s on his way to the hospital. And you’re asking her a bunch of questions? Why don’t you let her go, and let us finish here?”

Victor was unmoved. “I want to know what you did to your cheek.” His tone was still stubborn.

“I didn’t do anything to my cheek,” I replied. “Billie the bride did that.”

“Christ,” said Victor Lane.

I ignored him and stalked out. Meanwhile, Yolanda was peppering Victor with reasons why he should just leave, so she could prepare the kitchen for the new guests coming in that morning, actually, since it was past midnight. I didn’t wait to hear a reply. Victor Lane was a pill, but my money was on Yolanda in any conflict.

“Wait. Maybe I should come with you,” Julian said from behind me.

“You gave me your keys. You don’t need to baby me, big J.”

“Yeah, and what if the same person who attacked Jack attacks you? Then Tom really would kill me. Which wouldn’t work for his career, him being a homicide cop and all.”

Outside, a gentle rain had begun to fall. The cops had cordoned off the area where we’d found Jack. They’d set up a spotlight that shone in the mist. An investigator was talking to one of the valets. Should I tell them about the Rolex? Probably. But I didn’t. I wanted to tell Tom.

“You have your cell?” Julian asked.

I felt in my other apron pocket, the one that didn’t have a fifty-thousand-dollar watch in it. “Yup.” I rummaged in my purse, and handed Julian the keys to the van. “Thanks for loaning me your Rover.”

“No sweat. Soon as you get out on the road, you should get good reception. I’d feel better if you called Tom and told him you were on your way.”

“All right. Jeez, Julian, you’re as bad as he is.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Now get going, will you?”

And so I took off in Julian’s Rover, which splashed through the muddy ruts in the dirt road leading to the spa. When the rain intensified, I was blinded by it, and when I failed to find the windshield wipers, I pulled over. Once I located the interior lights, I managed to turn on the wipers. But still, I sat.

I didn’t want to go home, even though every muscle in my back and legs, and my swollen cheek, said that was exactly what I should do. I felt helpless and hopeless. I hated not having any information on how Jack was doing. I told myself I would call the hospital when I arrived home. If I had to get Tom on the phone with them, I would pry out some information on Jack’s condition.

I figured out how to turn on the wipers and got going again, slowly. Eventually I reached the main road back to Aspen Meadow. When my cell phone rang, it startled me. I pulled over again, and prayed that this was not bad news about Jack.

“Miss G.” Tom’s voice was as comforting as dark chocolate.

“Where are you?” I hadn’t checked the caller ID.

“Home. You out on the main road yet?”

“Yes, Julian gave me his—”

“I know,” Tom interrupted me. “I called the spa’s land line.”

Terror rose in my throat. “What’s going on?”

“First of all,” said Tom, “I heard about Jack going out for a smoke and being attacked and robbed. And a little while ago, Lucas Carmichael called here,” Tom went on, with amusement in his voice. “It seems your Uncle Jack woke up in Southwest Hospital and had a request.”

“Request?”

“Actually, Lucas said Jack stopped breathing in the ambo, and the paramedic had to give him a trake. At the hospital, the first thing Mr. Impatient Attorney wanted was a pad of paper.” I laughed with relief. This was so typical. “Wait,” said Tom, “there’s more. It sounded as if what really upset Lucas was the fact that Jack wrote your name down as soon as he got the pad. Apparently, the person he wants to see is you, his goddaughter. Not Lucas, his son.”

“I’m going down to Southwest Hospital.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d say that. I tried to tell Lucas that would be what you wanted to do, and would he allow you to see Jack. He said he would.” Tom paused. “Will you call me when you leave there?”

“Sure. And, Tom? I have to tell you something.”

“Uh-oh, sounds like confession time.”

“Well, first of all, I sort of got into a physical fight with Billie the Bride at the reception.”

“Super. Did you get your final check before this altercation?”

“’Fraid not. I was trying to get to Craig Miller, so he could come help Jack. Billie wouldn’t let me through. She ended up slapping me.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. You were trying to get to a doctor. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. But the second thing is, this wasn’t a robbery.”

Tom’s voice was immediately sharp. “What makes you say that?”

“I, uh, picked up Jack’s Rolex from the grass.”

“Goldy, I swear, you never learn.”

“I didn’t touch it with my hands!”

“Better and better. You had an evidence bag with you, and you gave the cops on the scene the watch, inside the bag.”

“Well, no.”

“Where is it now?” Tom asked.

“Inside my apron pocket. Sorry, Tom.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay, I want that watch. Do not touch it.”

“I never did!”

“Uh-huh.”

We signed off, and I headed through the dark, rainy night to Southwest Hospital. Why would you rob someone, and then not take his expensive watch and his wallet? Was the robber interrupted? Or was he up to something else?

Once I’d parked in the hospital lot, I pulled off my apron, folded it, and stowed it on the floor of Julian’s Rover. The rain was still falling, so I hunted around for a slicker of some kind, and found a folded plastic poncho in Julian’s glove compartment. I opened it, pulled it over my head, and trotted into Southwest Hospital.

After assuring the receptionist that I was not here about my swollen cheek, I was directed to the fourth floor, and Jack’s room.

I knocked on the door, which was pulled open by Lucas. He looked incongruous in his fancy suit that had become muddy and creased. Since I was ensconced in the brown poncho, a look of incomprehension wrinkled his thin face.

“It’s me, Goldy,” I said.

Lucas’s face dissolved into irritation, which I tried to ignore. “He’s conscious, but I just don’t have the feeling that he knows what’s going on. He choked on his own vomit in the ambulance; that’s why they had to give him the tracheotomy. Then he was moaning and groaning, as if he was in pain, so they’ve given him morphine in his IV, for the head injury.”

“Stitches?”

“Not yet. Not until he’s stabilized. They butterflied it.”

“I’m so sorry, Lucas.”

“Yeah,” he said bitterly. “I’ll bet you are.”

As usual, I couldn’t read Lucas’s vinegary tone, and didn’t want to waste time trying to.

“You might as well come in, then,” Lucas said.

I’d had more enthusiastic invitations in my day, but again, I didn’t care. I was so eager to make sure Jack was his old hale and hearty self that I plunged into the room, then recoiled when I saw how gray and helpless he looked. His eyes appeared rheumy, but when he saw me, he motioned me forward.

“Don’t upset him,” Lucas warned me, as if I would.

“Jack,” I said gently. “I’m so glad to see you.”

Jack reached out the hand with the IV in it and clasped one of mine.

“I don’t suppose you’ve washed your hands anytime recently,” Lucas’s voice intoned from behind me.

I turned. In a low voice, I said, “Lucas? Shut. Up.”

“All right, listen,” Lucas said, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Here’s what happened. We got him here, and he woke up, and because of the trake, he couldn’t talk. But he was acting all impatient in that way he does. So I gave him the pad of paper and a pen. He wrote, ‘Gold.’ And I said, ‘Goldy?’ And he shook his head no, but then he nodded yes. I’m telling you, it’s the morphine.”

Behind me, Jack’s ring banging on the bar of the hospital bed brought me back to his side. He had a yellow legal pad—where had the hospital found one?—and on the same piece of paper that he’d written “Gold,” he now penned, “Feel bad, Lucas. Need time with G.”

Lucas, who after months had finally shown me a teensy bit of politeness and restraint, raced out of the room in a huff.

“You know, Jack,” I said, attempting humor, “you might want to try to be nice to Lucas so that he and I could get along and share you—”

Jack grunted and tapped the legal pad. I said, “Do you want something?”

He groaned and made a scribbling motion with his hand. Where had the pen gone? Eventually I found a pencil in a table drawer. He took it and tried to get purchase on the pad of paper, then looked at it in puzzlement. He growled in frustration.

“Do you want me to write something down for you?” I asked. “Do you want to tell me who hurt you?”

Jack frowned and shook his head. His gray face and the wrinkled skin of his chest visible above the hospital gown made me feel sick to my stomach. Hadn’t Jack just told Lucas he felt bad and needed to be with me? What did he need me for? What was he trying to say? Unable to decipher his grunts and movements, I felt as frustrated as he clearly was.

The door swished open. I thought it must be Lucas, back already. He’d been gone only a few minutes, which might upset Jack. Still, for once I was grateful that Lucas was showing up. Maybe his presence would clarify what ever it was Jack wanted to write to me—

But it was not Lucas. To my astonishment, Charlotte Attenborough, Craig Miller, and Bridezilla Billie all swept into Jack’s room. Charlotte was still wearing her mother-of-the bride outfit, but Billie had changed into a navy blue skirt and paisley blouse. Craig looked as dapper as ever in khaki pants and a maroon shirt. But why were they here? What the hell was going on?

“What do you want?” I asked, suddenly angry that they would see Jack looking so vulnerable.

“Shut up, Goldy,” Billie scolded.

“Shut up yourself,” I replied. “Jack doesn’t want to see you, trust me.” As if in complete assent to what I was saying, Jack let loose with a mighty groan.

“You see, Goldy?” Charlotte’s voice was triumphant. “He does indeed want to see us, or at least me, because I am the one he really, really loves—”

“We just wanted to check up on you, old boy,” Craig said with exaggerated cheer. “I told Billie there was no way we could go back to the reception right after you’d been hurt so badly—”

In response, Jack picked up the pencil and finally, finally scribbled something. His hand shaking, he passed the pad to Craig. Billie grabbed the pad first. She read aloud, “‘Go on your honeymoon’. You see, Craig, I told you the old coot would be just fine.” She tossed the pad back on Jack’s chest, and he moaned in pain.

Omigod, I hated this woman. But I wasn’t going to upset Jack any more than necessary. My godfather’s two previous heart attacks loomed large in my mind.

“Do you miss me, Jack?” Charlotte asked. To my astonishment, tears pooled in her eyes and spilled onto the hospital sheets. “Do you want me to stay? I will, you know. I’ll stay forever.”

She must be drunk, I concluded. I hadn’t seen how much booze people had imbibed at the reception, although I usually kept a close check on the alcohol consumption. I’d had too many buffets and cakes ruined by inebriated guests not to know when to tell the bartender to slow things down. But too much had been going on at Billie’s wedding. There had been half again as many guests as I usually had to deal with, and too much had happened in too short a time.

“Don’t you want me to stay?” Charlotte demanded of Jack. “I will, you know.” Jack closed his eyes and shook his head. “Jack,” Charlotte implored, “won’t you even look at me?”

In reply, Jack moaned and kept his eyes closed.

“He might be in pain,” Craig Miller said. “Perhaps it would be best if we left.”

“Why does she get to stay, then?” Billie demanded, pointing at me. The fact that she’d changed her mind about wanting to go on her honeymoon hadn’t seemed to occur to her. Billie should be a politician, I thought, she flip-flopped so often.

“Come on, everybody,” Craig said, finally showing a bit of leadership ability. “Charlotte? Billie?” He gave his new wife a penetrating look. Billie, demure in the face of—spare me—actual authority she respected, flounced out. Charlotte, sobbing, followed her.

“Craig?” I asked, once the two women were in the hall. “Why did all of you come down here?”

“Charlotte insisted,” he said, shaking his head. “She’s had too much to drink, as you can no doubt tell, and I didn’t want her to drive. So we all came.” Behind us, Jack groaned again. Craig gave him a worried glance. “Should I get the nurse?”

“I don’t think so. He has the call button right next to him, and he knows what to do if he’s in pain. He’s trying to communicate something, but I don’t know what. He seems confused.”

Craig’s face scrunched in alarm. “I don’t like the sound of this.”

“I’ll go ask him,” I said. “But if you could just take Charlotte and Billie away, I think that would be the best thing.”

Craig nodded and swept out.

“Jack?” I asked him. “Do you need the nurse? Do you want pain medication?”

This time his head shaking was unequivocal. He did not want the nurse or meds. But what did he want?

As if in answer, Jack’s hand went to the legal pad. Swift and sure, he wrote a word, then tapped on the paper for me to come see.

He’d written “Keys.”

“You want your keys?” I prompted.

Jack, looking confused again, wrote “Fin.”

But the door was opening. No wonder people said they couldn’t get any rest in the hospital. Jack quickly tore off the piece of paper, handed it to me, and gestured to the hospital closet.

“Oh, Dad,” said Lucas. “Did she finally leave you in peace?”

Next to the closet, with Jack’s piece of paper in my hand, I froze. As if in answer to Lucas, Jack let out his most fearsome groan yet. I pushed the paper into my pants pocket and turned around. Instead of meeting a chilly stare from Lucas, I saw him leaning over the bed, trying to read what Jack was writing now.

“Pain?” Lucas asked. “They just put morphine into your drip, Dad, I don’t think—”

But Jack groaned again, and Lucas, cursing, took off through the door. As soon as he was gone, I opened the closet and began showing Jack pieces of his clothing.

Jacket? He shook his head impatiently, and sure enough, there were no keys in either pocket. Shirt? No keys. When I held up the pants, Jack grunted, and I felt in each of the pockets. Finally, I pulled out his bundle of keys. They were covered with a gritty substance. Jack nodded, so I put the keys into my pocket, next to the piece of paper.

“Okay, here we are,” Lucas said as he reentered with a uniformed male companion. Doctor? Nurse? I had no idea. Nor did Jack seem to care, as he just closed his eyes again.

“I’ll be going,” I announced. Jack’s eyes didn’t flicker. “Get well soon,” I called to him. He didn’t open his eyes.

THE NEXT MORNING, our doorbell clanged very early. It was so early, in fact, that as I stared at our bedroom clock, I was convinced that the alarm had gone off by accident. It was not quite half past five.

Tom was not beside me. So he’d gone in extra early to work on the Finn case? Where was he?

The doorbell continued to ring. I squeezed my eyes shut tight, trying to remember the events of the night before. When I’d come home from the hospital, I’d found a note Arch had left me. Since Todd and his family were on their way to a fishing trip, he and Gus were going to the Rockies game with Gus’s grandparents, then staying at Gus’s place. He would call.

Not continue to press and press and press the doorbell. Cursing mightily, I pulled on a robe and half-raced, half-tripped down the stairs.

My peephole revealed Father Pete. His gray face was unusually somber; his clerical collar was as tight as a noose.

Oh, God, I thought. It’s bad news about Jack.

My mind immediately developed into denial. Didn’t Father Pete have to go get ready for church? No, wait, it was Monday, not Sunday…

I opened the door and avoided our priest’s eyes. “Father Pete, I don’t understand—”

“Let’s go into the living room, Goldy.”

I wished desperately for coffee, for Father Pete not to be here. But I moved into the living room anyway, and turned on two lamps. When Father Pete sat heavily in a wing chair, I lowered myself onto the edge of the couch.

My denial threatened to slither away. “I don’t want to hear bad news,” I said weakly.

Father Pete’s eyes were filled with sadness. I cursed inside. I cursed and cursed, waiting for his announcement. “I’m sorry, Goldy, I do have bad news. Very bad, I’m afraid. Your godfather, Jack Carmichael, died last night. He had a heart attack.”

17

I’m very sorry, Goldy,” Father Pete said. I blinked and blinked at him. “Would you like me to come sit next to you?”

“No.” My voice sounded disembodied.

“I’m so sorry, Goldy.”

“I don’t believe you. I don’t believe something has happened to Jack,” I said. In the distant reaches of my brain, a tiny voice said, Yeah, but he’d had two heart attacks already, he was a smoker, and he looked like hell when you saw him. Why are you surprised? I told the inner voice to shut up. “There’s been some mistake,” my actual voice said weakly. “An error. I just saw him a few hours ago. He was getting better.”

“I know, I know.” Father Pete’s voice seemed to be coming from far away. “But he had a history of heart attacks, and—”

“Who called you?” I whispered.

“Lucas,” Father Pete said gently, keeping his large eyes on me. He leaned forward in the chair. “Lucas was with Jack when he died. The hospital staff tried and tried to revive him, but it was just too sudden and too strong an attack—”

I groaned.

“I couldn’t reach Tom,” Father Pete persisted. “But one of his associates said he’d find him and tell him to come home. Meanwhile, I called Marla, and she’ll be over here shortly. She’s going to stay with you until Tom gets here.”

“Are you wanting me to help with funeral arrangements?” I asked.

“Goldy. Eventually, we can talk about that, if you want.” Father Pete’s big, brown, Greek eyes regarded me. “I know how much he meant to you, and how much you meant to him. He often told me—”

“Please, don’t. Not now.” Tears were sliding down my face, but I was as unaware of where they had come from as I was aware of my irrational desire to get Father Pete out of our house. I made a fist and pushed it against my closed mouth.

“I will call you later.” Father Pete stood up. “Again, Goldy, please know how very sorry I am. Marla is supposed to phone me and tell me whether or not you want meals sent in.”

I took a deep breath and removed my fist from my lips. “I don’t want or need food.” Then I forced myself to say, “Thank you.”

“Goldy.” Father Pete was hovering next to the couch. I didn’t want to look at him, so I closed my eyes. “You need to take time to grieve. I will be at the church if you need me. Call anytime. If I’m not at the church, you can call my cell…”

I said, “Thank you.” I forced myself up, and wordlessly saw Father Pete out.

The front door closed behind him with a soft chook.

I waited for something to happen, but nothing did. A car rumbled by outside, then another. I went back out to the living room and sat down. When Father Pete had been here, the light in the living room had been wan, the illumination of early morning darkened by the incessant cloud cover that had marked the unending rain.

When I stood up again, I still felt as if it wasn’t quite my body that was moving, not really my own hands that were punching the espresso machine. I pulled myself four shots, added an ounce of Irish whiskey, then drank that down straight, no cream.

Then I moved without thinking over to one of the kitchen cabinets Tom had installed. I opened it and pulled out a large crystal bowl, an item I’d splurged on after Jack had sent me his generous check. I looked at it in my hands, then let it fall to the floor, where it crashed and broke into smithereens.

By the time Marla pounded on our front door, I almost had the mess cleaned up. I would have been ashamed to tell her what I was doing, or what I had done, so I took an extra few seconds to wet a paper towel, then wiped up the last of the shards. “Just a second, just a second,” I said under my breath. But Marla would not quit banging.

“Sheesh!” I said. “I’m alive, if that’s what you were worried about.”

Marla, who wore a sparkly purple sweat suit, lifted an eyebrow as she appraised my bathrobe, tear-streaked face, and, I saw too late, a cut on my foot that had left bloody streaks in the hallway.

“Barely alive, apparently.” She used her plump self to push the door all the way open, then pointed at my foot and the scarlet trail back to the kitchen. “I’ve heard of stigmata, but this is ridiculous.”

I couldn’t help myself: I laughed.

Marla, meanwhile, had made her way to the kitchen, where she was assessing the damage. “Okay!” she called. “This is interesting. What did you break?” I started to walk toward her. Suddenly my right foot hurt like the dickens.

“A bowl. A crystal—”

Marla turned back toward me and held up her hand. “Stop where you are. I’m going to get a wet washcloth, some alcohol or peroxide or something, and have a look at that foot.”

Truly, she is a great friend, I thought as I sat on the hall floor and waited for her to come back. The tears were still slipping down my face, and I was snuffling, trying to catch my breath.

“Denial, anger, bargaining, grief, acceptance,” said Marla as she inspected my foot and used the washcloth to gently remove a sliver of glass. She’d filled a large porcelain serving bowl with warm water and dipped my foot into it, then blotted the foot with—typically Marla—a cotton ball soaked with Irish whiskey. “Sorry, this was all I could find in a hurry. All right, where was I? You, o psychology major, should know about those stages of grief, brought to you courtesy of Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross.” She patted my foot dry and placed a bandage on the worst cut. “I’d say the broken bowl was anger. Father Pete called my cell, as he was convinced you were still stuck in denial. You’re moving along quickly, you precocious girl.”

I couldn’t help the high-pitched giggle that escaped my lips. “Marla, don’t make me laugh.”

“No way. But what I am going to make you do is go take a shower. Go on, I’ll clean the kitchen floor, as you missed a few spots. Then you’re going to make me something to eat, because I am ravenous.” She leaned in to my face and I recoiled. “You’ve been drinking,” she accused.

“Not much. Just—”

“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I may have to get half lit just to do some mopping. Say, how do you use a mop, anyway?”

“Marla, stop—”

“I will if you’ll just get your butt upstairs and hop into the shower. When you come back down, I’ll inspect your foot and make sure I don’t need to take you in for stitches.”

Southwest Hospital, I thought, as my throat closed again. I wasn’t sure I was up to going back there anytime soon.

I ran the hot water, took my shower, which actually did help me feel better, and got dressed in a clean polo shirt and much-laundered sweatpants. A breeze ruffled the curtain and I walked over to the window. I couldn’t help it: I looked out, across the street to Jack’s house.

He’d wanted to start his renovation on the outside, although Tom and I tried to dissuade him from doing so. It had snowed off and on all through April in Aspen Meadow, as it always did. Jack, ever cheerful, had said okay, he was willing to wait until summer to work on his house, after I’d told him for the umpteenth time that we didn’t really have “spring” in the mountains. So off Jack had gone with Doc Finn, who’d promised to teach Jack ice fishing. Occasionally, they brought their catch to us, and along with Arch, the five of us had some merry pan-fried-trout suppers, with Jack holding forth on how much fun it was to spend cold days with Doc Finn.

“We’re just two old farts who like to drink and fish, not necessarily in that order,” Jack said, with a wide smile. “We get too plastered, Gertie Girl? We can just walk across the street and sleep at my place.”

“You have beds with sheets on them for you and Finn?” I asked. “Because you can always stay here.”

“Oh, dear godchild,” Jack had said with mock ruefulness. “The things you don’t know about me.” When I’d given him a puzzled expression, he’d gone on: “Of course I have beds with clean linens.”

I sighed, not wanting to think about what would happen to Jack’s house, or anything else of his, because basically I didn’t want to think. Still, as a neighbor walked her dog up our street, I thought, How can she do that? How can she just go on with her life, as if nothing has happened?

I felt dizzy and sat down on our bed. After a few minutes, Marla came looking for me. She plopped down on our bedroom chair.

“I put something together that’s vaguely eggy, and now it’s in the oven.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “Vaguely eggy, huh?”

“Only very tangentially eggy, but very cheesy. Why don’t you come down to the kitchen? ’Cuz I have no idea how long this thing should cook.”

I shook my head, but heaved myself up off the bed anyway. A moment later, I was gazing at Marla’s concoction in the oven, asking her how many eggs, exactly, she’d put into her creation, and how much cheese, and so on. She said she couldn’t remember. Well, at least a dozen eggs, she said as an afterthought.

“Marvelous,” I said, and set the timer for forty-five minutes. Since I didn’t want to be as rude to Marla as I was afraid I’d already been to Father Pete, I immediately apologized. I added, “I’m sure it’ll be great.”

“I’m not even sure it’ll be edible.” Marla paused, then sniffed. “Tom called while you were in the shower. He’s on his way.” She regarded me closely. “Tell me how you’re feeling.”

“I’m feeling like crap is how I’m feeling. I just think I should have been able to prevent this.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Goldy. Your godfather had already had two heart attacks, and he was a heavy smoker and drinker. At the wedding, he was violently mugged and lost consciousness, or at least that’s what Julian told me.” When I didn’t contradict her, she said, “Then one of our church pals from Med Wives 101 called me late last night. She was down at Southwest because her son tore his ACL playing soccer, and they were there until all hours. Anyway, while they were waiting to be seen, she’d been wandering the halls, and stopped in when she saw Jack’s name on a door. She said how awful Jack looked, because he’d stopped breathing and had to have a trake in the ambulance.” Marla took a sip of her own Irish coffee. “That’s a whole lot of stress for an older man to deal with, and you’re wondering how all that could have precipitated another heart attack? Come on.” Marla’s eyebrows rose, inverted commas surprised by my naiveté. “Jeez, Goldy, better to ask why wouldn’t he have had a heart attack?” She rose to make us each another coffee—this time with no whiskey, but with added whipping cream.

“I should have stayed with him,” I said stubbornly. “If his heart attack was inevitable, then I should have called his cardiologist and told him he had to come down to Southwest Hospital.”

“You’re going to tell a doctor what to do? Last time I looked, that didn’t work out for either one of us, even when we were married to the doctor in question.”

“I should have done something for Jack. There must have been something I could have done.”

“There was nothing you could have done. Sunday was yesterday, so would you please quit with the messiah routine? It’s aggravating.”

Marla was the only one in the world who could talk to me like this and get away with it, and actually, I treasured her for it. Father Pete had done the right thing to call her, and for that, too, I was thankful.

“Hey!” I noticed for the first time that the whole kitchen floor was immaculate. “Thanks for cleaning the floor. I’m surprised you could find the mop—”

“Every now and then,” Marla rejoined as she got up to set the table, “even a blind chipmunk runs into an acorn. Or a mop, as the case may be.”

“You should let me set the table,” I began, but shut up when Marla gave me a withering glance. I sighed, and suddenly felt tears sting my eyes again. When a sob left my lips, Marla turned suddenly.

“Okay, okay! You can set the table!”

I half-laughed, half-sobbed as Marla pulled me to my feet and hugged me. I allowed myself to cry. Into this scenario walked Tom. I hadn’t even heard him drive up.

“Miss G.,” he said as Marla passed me off to my husband. “I’m so sorry about Jack. I really, really am.”

“I know. Thanks for coming up.”

“I’m going to have to go back down in a bit.” He gave me a hooded look that said, Not in front of Marla, which she immediately interpreted.

“Why don’t you just use your cell to call Goldy from the living room?” Marla queried. She turned to the oven and brought out her puffy, golden pan of whatever-it-was. “Then you could tell her what it is that’s such a big secret.”

“I’ve gotten used to you, Marla,” Tom said jovially.

“Oh, hell,” said Marla, as she plunged a spoon into the pan and pulled up a serving of her concoction, only to have a puddle of uncooked egg pool out like batter from the center of the dish. “What did I do wrong?”

“Not let it cook long enough?” asked Tom. “Want me to fix us some ham and eggs?”

And so, twenty minutes later, we had Marla’s egg dish in front of us, as well as an enormous ham-and-egg omelet, courtesy of Tom. Unfortunately, I took one bite of Marla’s concoction, and simply could not swallow it. Not that it wasn’t good; it was. I not only wasn’t hungry, I suddenly thought I was going to puke. When I put my fork down, Marla gave me a worried look.

“That bad, huh?”

“No, Marla, I’m just not that hungry. Thanks anyway.”

A worried glance passed between Tom and Marla. I never lost my appetite.

Marla’s cell buzzed. It was Father Pete, wanting to know how I was doing. Marla said I was okay, considering. Then Marla said, “Well, I’m sure she didn’t mean to hide them. I mean, I’m sure they’re not hidden, they’re just…not where you can find them. There’s a difference.” I could hear Father Pete’s despairing voice on the other end of the line. Then Marla said, “All right, all right, let me come help you.”

When she disconnected, she said, “Are you going to be all right, Goldy, now that Tom’s here? Because Father Pete says there are letters from the diocesan office he can’t find in the church files, and was wondering if I could go help him try to figure out how the new secretary’s mind works. Since I recommended that he hire this woman, it’s all my fault, apparently, that the diocesan letters were placed in some random file drawer instead of on Father Pete’s desk. I even warned him she had ADD, but he just said he didn’t think that would mean needing CIA assistance to find some random letters from the diocesan office.”

“It’s fine, go,” I said. “Thanks for coming.”

“Oh,” she continued, “and Father Pete told me to tell you you should take a few days off from catering, maybe get Julian to fill in, so you can grieve.”

“Wonderful,” I said, unable to conceal my sarcasm. “That just sounds super, grieving all day. And anyway, I don’t need to take off from work, because I don’t have any catered events until next weekend. And I’ve got plenty of money from all the work I’ve been doing lately, so I don’t have to go out and drum up business.”

“Do you want some work?” asked Marla as she gathered up her purse. “If we don’t find those diocesan letters, I’ll bet the position of St. Luke’s church secretary will be opening up mighty quick.”

I said, “Gee thanks!” We hugged again and she rushed away.

Tom said, “I know how much Jack meant to you, Miss G.” He regarded me with his wonderful sea green eyes, then pulled me in for a hug. “Tell me what I can do to help,” he murmured in my ear.

I exhaled. “I don’t know. Truly, Tom, I don’t. One thing I do know, though, I don’t want to sit around and grieve.” I pulled away from him. “You tell me—when you have a case that’s really bothering you, that you can’t get over, what do you do? I know you don’t grieve.”

“People grieve in different ways, Miss G. Some people need to sit around and cry. Other people need to be doing something, something they find meaningful, that will help them deal with a death. I fall in that second category. As do most homicide investigators, I might add.”

I canted my head at him. “What did you just call me?”

Tom, genuinely surprised, tucked in his chin. “Miss G. The way I always do. Why?”

“Because Jack always called me Gertie Girl. He never called me anything but.”

“And this is significant because…?”

Where was that piece of paper Jack had scribbled on in the hospital? “Hold on a sec.”

I raced upstairs and found Jack’s note, and his keys, as well as—oops—his Rolex, which I’d meant to give Tom first thing, except the news of Jack’s death had intervened. I wanted to give Tom the watch and show him the note, but I certainly didn’t want to hand over Jack’s keys until I knew exactly why he had wanted me to have them in the first place.

With only a small pang of guilt, I stuffed Jack’s keys into my pajama drawer, then brought the note, plus the watch, still wrapped inside my apron, down to the kitchen.

“‘Gold. Keys. Fin,’” Tom read, after he’d shaken his head, given me a dubious look, and put the Rolex into a brown paper evidence bag. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I don’t know, but he sure was eager to be writing something for my eyes only,” I said. “Lucas called and told me about the trake Jack had had in the ambo, and how he seemed to be wanting to talk to me, because he’d written ‘Gold.’ Lucas thought Jack wanted him to summon Goldy. But Jack never, ever called me Goldy. He called me Gertie Girl.”

“And what do you think he meant?”

My shoulders slumped. “I haven’t figured that out. Something gold in his house?”

“Did he give you keys to get into his house?” Tom raised one eyebrow at me. “So you could go in there and get what ever it was?”

“I don’t know why he wanted me to have an extra set of keys. I already had a set of keys to his house.”

“You’d better hand over those keys he gave you, Goldy.” He held out his palm expectantly.

Tears streamed down my cheeks. “He didn’t want anybody else to have these keys. He wanted me to have them. Don’t make me give them up, Tom. Please.”

“Don’t use either set to go into his house, Goldy. If he died as a result of this attack on him, then it’s felony murder, and we’ll be going through every inch of that house.” He paused. “Somebody broke into Finn’s house after he was killed.”

“Oh, no.”

Tom said, “Oh, yes. We don’t know what was taken, if anything. But at this point, please, please don’t screw things up for us. I’m begging you.”

“I won’t,” I promised.

Tom groaned, then looked back at the note. “What do you suppose he meant by Fin? Talking about his pal, Doc Finn?”

“I don’t know. You know, sometimes you see that at the end of French movies. Fin. It means the end. Maybe he had a premonition he was going to die.”

“You ever know Jack to go to a French film, read all those irritating subtitles? I sure didn’t. And anyway, I think if he meant End, then that’s what he would have written.”

“Maybe. Except he was pretty out of it at the hospital.”

“Out of it enough to misspell his best friend’s name?”

Tom’s cell phone buzzed, and he answered it. Meanwhile, I stared at the cryptic note my secrecy-oriented godfather had left for me. “Gold. Keys. Fin.” I had no idea what Jack had been trying to say.

“I’ve got to go back down to the department,” Tom said. He gave me a worried look. “Let me get Trudy over here to be with you.”

“Gosh, what am I, an invalid? First Father Pete, now you. I’ll be fine.” I glanced at the clock: 7:40. “How about this? I’ll go to church and help Marla with some stuff she’s doing for Father Pete. Finding letters either to or from the diocese, I’m not sure which.”

Tom appeared unconvinced.

“I’ll be fine, Tom,” I assured him.

“Church.” He waggled a warning index finger in my direction.

“Church!” I replied. “For crying out loud, give me a little credit!”

He eyed me skeptically. “Yeah, yeah. I don’t give you too little credit, Miss G. I give you too much credit.”

Once I’d heard Tom’s Chrysler rumble away, I went upstairs, pulled out the set of keys I’d taken from Jack’s jacket in the hospital, and stuffed them into my sweatpants pocket. I slammed my pajama drawer with such violence that it startled me.

Cool it, I said to myself.

All right. I needed to think, and to cook. These would help me grieve, not sitting around crying. In any event, going to St. Luke’s was the very last thing I wanted to do, of that I was sure.

18

In the kitchen, I located my recipe for coeur à la crème. I’d had to give the one I’d made earlier for Tom to Marla for her shindig, so I needed to make another one. No, I thought after a moment. I’d make another coeur, and then…a plain old cream pie for someone else I’d suddenly decided to see. I sighed, then told myself to get going.

The walk-in offered up mascarpone and whipping cream, and the pantry held confectioners’ sugar and imported Mexican vanilla. I beat the cheese, sugar, and vanilla to a smooth, delectable mass, then set it aside and whipped the cream. I lined a sieve with cheesecloth, set it over a bowl, folded the two mixtures together, and scraped half of this concoction into the cloth-lined sieve. After I’d placed one of these into the refrigerator to drain, I put the second mixture—the one for the cream pie—into a separate bowl. Then I located fresh berries of all varieties. These would go on top.

I wanted to offer the cream pie as an attempt to elicit information.

I hoped offering the coeur to Tom would allow him to forgive me for doing stuff behind his back as I tried to figure out what in the hell had happened to my godfather.

And, I added mentally, I wanted to find out what had happened to my godfather’s best friend, Doc Finn. Because now the two deaths, one definitely a murder and the other a death possibly as the result of an attack, seemed more and more inextricably linked.

I made myself a quadruple espresso for a heavy-duty Summertime Special. Then I went out to the living room to think. I unfolded Jack’s note. “Gold. Keys. Fin.” Jack’s clutch of keys jangled as I dropped them onto the table.

As I’d told Tom, it was extremely doubtful that Jack had meant to summon me to the hospital when he had written “Gold.” So what did the “Gold” stand for? Did he have a stash of gold somewhere that neither Lucas nor I knew about? Was he trying to alert somebody to that stash?

What other possibilities were there?

I hiccuped violently and succumbed to a fresh onslaught of tears and sobbing. I wished suddenly for Arch to be here, just so I could hug him and tell him how much I loved and needed him. Maybe I should have let Tom summon Trudy to be with me.

You’ve got to move forward, Gertie Girl, Jack had said to me before he’d sent the fifty thousand that had gotten me into my own business and out of the marriage to the Jerk.

I nabbed some tissues, splashed cold water on my face, rubbed it virtually raw, and looked at my tired eyes and red-slapped cheek. Beauty contest? No. Able to move forward? Yes.

I went back to the living room, took a healthy slug of the iced latte, and looked again at the note. “Gold.” Think. Move forward.

Gold could stand for Gold Gulch Spa. Jack had been digging around in the Smoothie Cabin just a couple of days ago. Had he found what he was looking for? And what exactly had he been looking for?

I made a note to talk to Isabelle. Unfortunately, I didn’t even know her last name. What had she and Jack been up to? When Jack had heard someone coming in, he’d grabbed Isabelle and started smooching her. Then at the reception, he’d been snuggling up to her again. Why?

Jack was secretive, that was certain. Maybe he hadn’t told Isabelle anything. Maybe this note didn’t mean anything; maybe it was just, oh, I didn’t know what.

Doubt squeezed my heart again as I looked at the word “Fin.” Doc Finn had been lured out onto the highway at night, hit from behind, and then killed. Jack Carmichael, his closest friend, had been attacked three days later in a robbery-that-wasn’t-a-robbery. I had to believe the sheriff’s department would demand an autopsy on Jack’s body to determine the exact cause of his death. If the injuries sustained in the attack had led to Jack’s death, then it was felony murder, as Tom had said. Maybe the sheriff’s department was already investigating, and I didn’t even know about it.

I exhaled in frustration, then stared at the extra set of Jack’s keys. Why had he wanted me to have them? I saw the Mercedes keys on this set, plus some others I didn’t recognize. Had he wanted me to go back out to Gold Gulch Spa and get his Mercedes? If so, then why not write that down? Had his mind been wandering so much in the hospital that his notes, and his desires, didn’t really make any sense?

A shiver went down my spine. What if his beloved car was not the issue? If he had wanted Lucas, who already had a set of keys to Jack’s house, to go to Jack’s house for some reason, then why insist on my having this set?

I needed to think some more. First I checked for my keys. Thank God for Julian, who had returned my van during the night, and taken back his Rover.

Then I quick-stepped into the kitchen and made a graham cracker crust. Then I spooned the luscious filling into the crust, scattered blueberries on top, and melted some apricot preserves on top of the stove. Once I’d strained the liquid from the preserves onto the pie, I carefully placed the pie in the bottom of a cardboard box, stabilized my offering with crumpled newspapers, and placed the box in my van.

Then I took off for the Attenborough haunt in Flicker Ridge.

CHARLOTTE ANSWERED THE door. I’d called on the way over, saying we’d never finished our business the previous evening. Charlotte, confused, had said she didn’t know what I was talking about. As delicately as possible, I had reminded her that I had not received the last payment for the wedding reception.

“Oh yes, yes, of course,” Charlotte had replied. “I thought you meant, that is, I thought you were talking about Jack.”

“Yes, it’s very sad. I can’t stand to stay in my house. Is this, is it a bad time?”

Her breath caught when she sighed. “No. Come on over, you might as well. I’m just getting packed to go to the spa. I…have to get away. I guess I can’t stand to stay in my house either.”

“I’m bringing you something,” I said, which sounded lame, even to me.

“I hope it’s not flowers.” She exhaled so forcefully, I didn’t have the heart to ask her to explain herself.

When Charlotte ushered me into her living room, I knew immediately what the flower comment meant: at least twenty bouquets from the banquet tables were ranged around the immense living space. The place looked like a funeral parlor and smelled like a perfume factory.

“Well,” I said, unsure of what words to use.

“Horrible, isn’t it?” asked Charlotte, as she swept an arm to indicate the room. She wore a bright pink pleated blouse and designer jeans. But her face was a wreck: deep, dark bags creased the area under her eyes, her eyes were bloodshot, and her skin was mottled.

I handed her the wrapped blueberry-cream pie. “Don’t know how long you’re going to be at the spa, but this should keep a few days in the refrigerator.”

“I don’t know how long I’m going to be there either. Until I feel better, I suppose. Victor’s been trying to convince me to invest in the place. I told him before I did that, he’d have to improve the food. He said I had no idea how much it cost to provide lovely meals to the clients. But he’d let me stay for as many days as I wanted until he closed in October—” She stopped suddenly and regarded me. “Sorry, I’m running on at the mouth, which is what I do when I’m upset.” She pressed her hands into her closed eyes.

Charlotte most definitely was not someone you hugged, even in church, even if she was crying.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice low. “It’s just terribly sad. We all…we all loved him.”

“I’m not being very polite,” Charlotte said as she walked quickly into the kitchen. “Would you like some coffee?”

I thought of all the caffeine I’d already had that day, and asked if she had decaf. She said she did. Once she’d put the pie in the refrigerator, set the coffee to brew, and placed cups, saucers, spoons, cream, sugar, and an insulated carafe on her breakfast bar, she seemed to have recovered somewhat. As she poured the decaf into the carafe, she even smiled at me.

“It’s good to have company. Oops, I forgot your check.” She reached into her purse, pulled out an envelope with my name on it, and handed it to me. “With all the chaos last night, I just…”

“Don’t worry about it. Thank you.”

She took a tentative sip of her coffee and asked, “Do the police have any idea what happened to Jack when he went outside?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea. Didn’t someone from the sheriff’s department come talk to you?”

She snorted. “A young fellow asked me questions very early this morning. Did I see anyone leave the dining room with Jack? No. Did I see anyone leave the dining room right after Jack left? No. So why did Jack leave the dining room? To have a cigarette, I told this young fellow, didn’t you find a butt outside? And he said they found marijuana outside. He thought I was trying to make a joke, which of course I never would.”

“Huh,” I said noncommittally.

“Before Jack was attacked, there just seemed to be a lot of organized chaos,” Charlotte went on bitterly. “Afterward, there was just chaos, period.”

“Chaos,” I agreed.

“Oh, God, I do wish I’d paid attention, but I’m afraid I was more focused on the music getting going, the tables, I don’t know, it all seems like such trivia now. So…have they figured anything out?”

“Nobody’s told me anything.”

“It was probably one of the landscapers, staying to see if he could mug a wealthy guest.”

Inwardly, I bristled, since whenever there’s a theft or any other problem at a party, it had been my experience that the help—which includes yours truly—is always blamed. More often than not, though, it’s one of the guests who starts rifling through pockets and purses in the guest room, not a staff person. We’re much too busy. But I knew in order to get information out of Charlotte, which, I admitted, was my chief purpose in racing over here this morning, I would have to park my proletarian sensibilities at the door.

“Have they talked to the landscapers?” Charlotte demanded. “Were they smoking marijuana?”

“I don’t know. Sorry.” We were both silent for a moment. I glanced down at Charlotte’s shoes—metallic flats—and said, as if it had just occurred to me, “Oh, nice shoes. Very pretty.”

Charlotte looked at me as if I were crazy. “You’re admiring my shoes? Why, do you want to order some to wear at your next catered event?”

“Sorry, Charlotte. I just think they’re lovely. Wait a minute—didn’t Marla or someone tell me you lost a pair in Doc Finn’s car?”

Charlotte rolled her eyes. “That was another thing this young fellow asked me about. Did I remember when I had left my shoes in Doc Finn’s car? No, I told him, because I’d never been in Doc Finn’s car. I have no idea how they got there. And when I heard they’d been in the car of a person who’d died in a car accident, I wanted to throw them away, but the police insisted on keeping them as evidence.”

“Poor Doc Finn,” I said. “We waited and waited for him at Ceci O’Neal’s wedding, but he never showed. We didn’t know he was dead.”

At the mention of Ceci O’Neal, Charlotte’s eyes became hooded. Well. So…judging by Charlotte’s guilty reaction, the erased name “O’Neal” on the Attenborough blackboard meant something. I just didn’t know what.

“Do you know the O’Neals?” I ventured. “I thought I saw their name on your blackboard when I came over with Jack. But I didn’t see you at the O’Neal wedding—”

Charlotte stood up. “The O’Neals? How are you spelling that?” When I told her, she said, “No, that doesn’t ring a bell. Well, I must be getting over to Gold Gulch. Thank you for the pie.”

“You’re certainly welcome,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. I got to my feet and gathered up my purse. Doggone it, so much for active investigation as a substitute for grieving. I was zero for three in my questioning of Charlotte. She hadn’t seen anyone leave the spa dining room when Jack did—or so she said. She had no idea how her shoes had ended up in Doc Finn’s Cayenne—or so she said. And what ever her connection was to the O’Neals, she wasn’t going to share it.

I had gleaned one possibly useful nugget, though: Victor Lane had asked Charlotte to invest in his spa. So…the spa was having money problems? Was that what Jack had been looking for in the Smoothie Cabin? Indications of money problems at the spa? Why would he do that? I had no idea.

Charlotte had turned to her large living room window, where birds were flocking to her feeder. She’d pulled a hankie from out of nowhere and was dabbing her eyes. My feeling of being ill at ease increased. Funny how we get used to hugging people as a way to comfort them, and then when that’s not an option—

“Do you think he loved me?” Charlotte blurted out. She continued to stare out the window. “He never said he did.”

My mouth turned dry. In fact, I’d been unsure of what Jack’s true intentions, emotions, et cetera in the Charlotte Department had been. But what good—or bad—would it do to say that now? I settled for the verbal equivalent of a hug.

“I know he loved you,” I said emphatically. “He told me he did.”

Charlotte quickly wiped her eyes, tucked the hankie into a pocket of her jeans, and began bustling around the living room. “Take these flowers to the church, would you please, Goldy? They’ll all be faded by the time I get back from the spa.”

And so I said I would. I had to roll the windows down to dispel the pungent, cinnamon scent of the stock in the bouquets. When I got to the church, neither Marla, Father Pete, nor the secretary was in evidence. Luckily, I knew the hiding place for the key to the heavy doors. I placed all the flowers in the sacristy, wrote a quick note to Father Pete, and drove slowly back home.

But again, the thought of going back into our house was not something I could bear. Tom’s car wasn’t anywhere in evidence, but I wouldn’t have expected him to be home yet.

I turned off the ignition in my van and looked disconsolately up at Jack’s house, much as Charlotte had stared at the wild birds on her deck. Without thinking, I reached into my sweatpants pocket and felt for the keys Jack had insisted I take in the hospital. Luckily, I’d also put the note in there that he had written.

If Jack was directing me to go into that mess he called a residence, or more properly, a residence being renovated, then what did he want me to find?

I suddenly and with unexpected vividness remembered Jack coming into the spa kitchen the previous night. He’d asked if he could talk to Boyd. Jack had wanted to talk to Sergeant Boyd, who worked for the sheriff’s department.

About what?

Well. I looked back at Jack’s house. There was no doubt that Lucas, whom I perhaps unfairly thought of as a materialist, would eventually have his way with Jack’s house. Lucas was the son, the heir. Marla had heard he needed money. So Lucas would probably get in, finish the renovation as quickly and cheaply as possible, then put the place on the market. This made me extraordinarily sad. I forced my mind to veer away from this line of thinking.

The problem was, I was having trouble breathing. I didn’t want to have anything in my mind. I didn’t want to feel anything.

I pulled out the keys Jack had told me to take, and without thinking about it, jumped out of the van.

Watery sunshine was breaking through the clouds. Finally. It felt as if we’d been underwater for a month. More sadness: now that it was finally nice, Jack wasn’t here to enjoy it. Stop, I ordered myself.

A breeze shuffled through the pines and aspens as I hopped up the steps to Jack’s house, and I wished I’d worn a jacket or a sweater. But if I went back home, my nerve would fail and I would rethink the advisability of going into Jack’s house. I didn’t think it was illegal, but I certainly did not want to consult an attorney on the subject.

The key squeaked as I turned it in the lock, the mechanism itself infected with the humidity that had been our constant summer companion. I tiptoed into the house, and immediately felt as if things had changed. Things had changed? What things?

The interior was as disordered as usual. Jack had apparently left a few windows open, and the fresh scent of recent rain filled the air. Jack’s old sofa was piled with clothes and towels—a dump of clean laundry awaiting folding, probably. The end tables and coffee tables held precariously piled stacks of books and magazines.

I allowed my gaze to travel around the room, thinking the whole time: What’s different? What had Jack wanted me to see in here, if anything? If Jack had been so anxious for me to see something in his living room, then he should have been clearer about it—wait.

Beside the door was a set of golf clubs in a beautiful leather bag. Golf clubs? The clubs and the bag looked brand new. But Jack had bursitis in both of his elbows. It had pained him, and he was always rubbing in this or that new anti-inflammatory cream.

Why new golf clubs? Had Jack bought them as a gift for someone? If so, for whom? Were they for Doc Finn, Lucas, or Craig Miller, as a wedding gift? They hadn’t been here when Tom and I had come over to visit the other night.

Jack could not possibly have thought he would be able to play eighteen holes, or even nine, as his aches would have made the outing disastrous. The bursitis didn’t bother him fishing, he always told me, just doing something strenuous, like…sports. And anyway, with whom would Jack have played golf? He and Doc Finn had engaged in fishing and drinking, not necessarily, as Jack had always said, in that order.

Then I saw something else that had not been there on any of my previous visits. A small gold travel clock was folded into the open position, on a tiny end table right in front of the picture window that gave someone looking out a view of our house. If somebody were sitting on the couch, that person would look right at the clock, and then to our house across the street.

Golf clubs, when he didn’t play golf. A travel clock, when he kept no clock in his house. Hmm.

Okay, I was anxious and grief crazed, and who knew what all. But I couldn’t help seizing on the idea that Jack had left the clubs and the clock here because he wanted me to find them. They were one of his puzzles, left for me.

Without thinking about it, I moved across to the table and picked up the clock. It was not telling the correct time, and when I tried to turn the tiny crank on the side, nothing happened. Without thinking, I folded the clock back into a square, and slipped it into my sweatpants pocket. I walked over to the golf clubs, and ran my hands over the golf bag, which was made of a lovely buttery yellow leather. Maybe it belonged to somebody else? But when I looked closely, I saw a price tag dangling from the bag’s handle.

I simply would not accept what other people might have said, that the clubs and bag and nonworking clock were evidence of mental decline on Jack’s part. I supposed it was possible he had bought the golf accoutrements, then remembered he didn’t actually play golf…and then had wanted to return what he’d bought.

As improbable as it seemed, I found myself returning to the puzzle idea. I began to remove one club after another from the bag. I didn’t know what I was looking for, or even if I would recognize it if I found it.

I had just put a five iron on the floor when I felt a slight movement of air behind me. I started to turn around, but I wasn’t quite fast enough. For all my worry and care about why Jack had given me his keys, I was rewarded with a glancing blow off the side of my skull.

My knees crumpled. My mind’s eye brought up my dear Arch and Tom. But then pain exploded on the side of my head, and I thought, What the hell?

THE FIRST ODDITY facing me as I sputtered, blinked, and coughed uncontrollably was to figure out who was waving spirits of ammonia under my nose. This person had to be stopped. I screamed that I hadn’t blacked out, I was perfectly conscious, thank you very much. The ammonia disappeared.

The second problem had to do with my mother’s pet bird, a canary named George who’d lived in a cage in our New Jersey home while I was growing up. George the canary had not died, as I had been told, but had grown as large as a human and now was fully alive, leaning over me. What kind of badly scented alternative universe had I entered?

Eventually the big canary resolved into the avian facial features and yellow hair of Lucas Carmichael. Next to him were two policemen. I was looking up at them from a prone position on the floor.

“Would you please get my husband? Tom Schulz?” I asked one of the policemen, a fellow with sparse red hair who looked familiar. Then again, I’d just thought the son of my godfather was a canary, so maybe I did not in fact know this guy. Still, in as authoritative a voice as I could muster, I said, “Please call Tom Schulz. Right now. He needs to be here. Please,” I added again.

“Oh, Christ,” said the other policeman, who had dark, slicked-back hair and a youthful face. “Schulz? This is Schulz’s wife?” He looked down at me. “This isn’t Schulz’s house, is it?”

“No, it isn’t,” said Lucas Carmichael.

I narrowed my eyes at Lucas. “Please tell me you weren’t the one who hit me on the side of the head.”

“I didn’t know it was you,” he said, his tone humble. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t recognize you from the back.”

While the policeman I had spoken to summoned Tom on the radio, the other one glanced up questioningly at Lucas.

“She did break in,” Lucas protested defensively.

From my ignoble position on the floor, I fastened my gaze on Lucas. “Don’t you watch any TV, Lucas? You’re supposed to say, ‘Freeze, asshole!’”

“I am not an asshole,” Lucas said. “And do you ever think not to break into people’s houses?”

“I wasn’t breaking in, and I wasn’t calling you an asshole. Sorry, Lucas.” Suddenly, I felt consumed with guilt. Lucas appeared bleary-eyed and defeated. He’d just lost his father. “Sorry,” I said again. “I was—”

“Mrs. Schulz?” the sandy-haired policeman interrupted. His name tag said his name was Katz. “Your husband will be here directly. He was in the area and shouldn’t be long.” Officer Katz smiled at me. “So I’m finally getting to meet the infamous Mrs. Schulz.”

“She’s infamous?” Lucas asked.

“Hey, buddy?” Katz said to Lucas. “Don’t talk unless I ask you a question, okay?” To me, he said, “You want to tell me why you’re in this house?”

“Will you help me up first?”

Katz offered me a strong hand, and soon I was sitting on Jack’s couch. The dark-haired policeman, not wanting, I figured, to be bawled out by Tom for being unhelpful to his wife, scrambled to get me a glass of water from the kitchen. I felt dizzy and in pain. On the floor not far from where I’d fallen was a small brass lamp with a broken bulb and smashed shade. It was the bulb and shade, I figured, that Lucas had swung at the side of my head, leaving me stunned, confused, and lying on the floor. I wondered if he could be arrested for assault.

“I’ll tell you exactly what I was doing here.” I felt in my sweatpants pocket that held the keys, not the one with the travel clock. Seeing Katz’s immediate look of alarm, I pulled out my hand. “I’m not going for a weapon,” I assured him. “You want to feel in my pocket? I was getting the keys Jack gave me, and the note in his handwriting saying he wanted me to have them.” I gave Lucas another angry look. Lucas shrugged and stared at the ceiling.

“It’s okay,” said Katz, “I trust you. Get out the keys and the note. I’m not going to go feeling around in the pockets of the wife of my superior officer, thanks.”

I withdrew the note and the keys, which Katz studied. If he wanted to make sure the keys worked, then he could go and test them on the door. But I had the feeling he believed me.

The dark-haired policeman came over and handed me the water. His badge indicated his name was Allen. He furrowed his eyebrows at Jack’s handwriting.

I had, of course, left the travel clock securely in the bottom of my other pocket.

“This your father’s writing?” Katz asked Lucas, who stared down at the note. “These his keys?”

“Yes,” said Lucas. “I’m sorry I panicked and hit Goldy—”

“All right, then,” Katz interrupted noncommittally as he handed the keys and the note back to me.

“Don’t give those keys back to her,” pleaded Lucas. “She doesn’t belong here.”

“Could you give it a rest, please, Lucas?” I asked gently. I trained my gaze on Katz. “Let me explain. We live across the street.” My breath hitched, and I fought to maintain calm. “Jack Carmichael was my godfather.” Tears began their unwanted streaming down my face. “He…died last night, in Southwest Hospital,” I managed to say. I cleared my throat and paused to compose myself. As they’re taught to do, the two cops waited patiently. Lucas was shifting his weight from foot to foot. I went on, “Here’s what happened. Last night, Jack Carmichael was attacked at a wedding I was catering out at Gold Gulch Spa. He actually died early this morning. Our priest came to tell me, and I thought, since Jack had insisted in the hospital that I take the keys, maybe he wanted me to…I don’t know, water his plants, feed a pet—”

“But he has no plants and no pets,” Lucas interjected. “As you very well know, Goldy.”

“Lucas,” I began again, “could you please just stop? Why are you here, anyway?”

He reddened. “Well, I do have keys to the house.”

I asked, “So what were you doing here, then?”

“Hold on, kids,” said Katz. He and Allen exchanged an unreadable look. Before Lucas and I could keep arguing, there was a sharp knock on the door. Lucas and I both jumped. Allen held up both hands, indicating everyone should stay where they were. Then he walked over quickly and opened the door. When Tom strode into the room, my shoulders relaxed in relief, while Lucas groaned even louder.

“Schulz,” said Katz. “Thank God.” He was clearly relieved not to have to sort out what was going on between Schulz’s wife and the dead man’s son.

But alas. Tom did not seem relieved. I recognized the attitude he assumed, but was usually successful at concealing, when he was mightily ticked off. He gave me a bitter look, and I could just imagine the questions he’d pepper me with as soon as we got back to our house: So, how’d you do with Marla at St. Luke’s? Get those diocesan letters straightened out, did you? Oh, wait, you didn’t do that.

The cops briefed Tom as to Lucas’s phone call to 911: he’d heard an intruder in the living room, who had been me, and he needed law enforcement to come as quickly as possible. Then he proceeded to sideswipe me with a lampshade.

“I want this house sealed,” Tom said to Katz and Allen. “Nobody else comes in except our guys, understand? We’re looking into a suspicious death, and this residence is off limits to anyone not involved in the investigation.”

“Oh no, you are not going to seal this house,” Lucas protested. “My father had a history of heart attack and he had another, fatal one early this morning. It is simply not fair for you to—”

Tom’s stance—not menacing, but not even close to conciliatory—his penetrating green eyes, his lifted chin, all these he trained on Lucas Carmichael, who closed his yappy mouth. Thank God.

“Okay, everybody out,” Katz ordered, and I was only too glad to meekly follow Tom out of Jack’s house.

“GOLDY,” SAID TOM, once we were in our kitchen and I had downed some aspirin for my sorely aching head. “What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t really thinking.”

“That much is obvious. Down at the department, they’re going to have a field day with this. ‘Schulz’s wife broke into the house of a guy whose death was suspicious. What d’you suppose she was looking for?’”

“Katz and Allen will say all that? Why?”

“Because they’re cops, Goldy, and they’ve got to talk about something when they come off their shift. And the more trouble you get into, the more news you make, Miss G.”

“I wasn’t getting into trouble! I just wanted to find out why Jack left me his keys!”

“And did you?” Tom moved over to the espresso machine.

“No.”

There was a pause while we looked at each other. Then Tom exhaled, smiled, and shook his head. “You want some coffee?”

“I’ve been thinking I should switch to decaf.”

Tom laughed. “You?”

“All right, all right, the good stuff.” While Tom rattled around retrieving cups, I said, “There was a new set of golf clubs in his living room.” I didn’t elaborate, as I didn’t want to mention the clock. Stealing merchandise from a potential crime scene? Not something I wanted to share with Tom. My head hung, and I felt an acute sense of misery. I could barely form the words, but I had to know. “So did Jack die, you know, naturally? Of a heart attack, I mean. Or was the death suspicious?”

“Miss G.” Tom pulled shots of espresso for each of us, brought them over to the table, and sat down. “Why are you doing this to yourself? You know that since Jack was attacked, and died shortly thereafter, his death is suspicious by definition. I’ve already called down to Southwest Hospital to have the body sent up to our pathologist. We have to determine cause and manner.” He reached out for my free hand. “You know this.”

Yeah, okay, I knew it, but the knowledge just increased my misery. The mental image of Jack being cut open, his parts being dissected and weighed, made me ill.

“Drink your coffee,” said Tom, as he placed an espresso in front of me.

Just to placate him, I took a tiny sip. It was hot and scalded my tongue. “Have you found out anything else?”

Tom said, “We’re still working on getting the analysis back on the vial from Finn’s trash. These things take time. But we found out a bit more about the break-in at his house.”

“What?”

“A neighbor came forward and said she saw someone over there on Friday afternoon. Don’t know why she didn’t call us sooner, but people get scared.”

“Any description?”

“Nope, just a man, she thought. Maybe older.”

“Was it Jack?”

“We don’t know who it was. If the woman had come forward sooner, we’d know more. We still don’t know what he took, if anything. The neighbor says the person wasn’t carry ing anything when he—or she—came out of Finn’s house. So that’s why the analysis on the vial is so important.” Tom stood up. “I have to go back. Will you promise me, pretty please, with a cherry on top, that you’ll stay home until I get back? I can call Marla to come over and be with you.”

“I’ll call her. Just hand me the phone.”

“Goldy,” said Tom seriously, “do not go back into Jack’s house, understand? It has been sealed.”

“I won’t.” Almost as an afterthought, I said, “Before Billie’s wedding last night, Jack said he wanted to talk to you.”

“About what?”

I shrugged. “You think he was going to tell me why he wanted to talk to you? You know how he was.”

“I do indeed.”

“Then he wanted to talk to Boyd. Do you know if he found him?”

Tom shook his head. “I asked Boyd if he’d seen Jack, or talked to him, and he said he had not. Sorry, Miss G.”

Tom kissed me and left.

I drained my coffee, called Marla, got her voice mail, and invited her over. I had no idea when or even if she would show up. Then, very carefully, I pulled out the nonfunctioning travel clock.

I was still convinced, or I wanted to be convinced, that Jack had left this for me, as a puzzle. And if he had, then by God, I was determined to figure out what it contained.

There were initials, very faintly visible, I noticed belatedly, embossed in gold on the leather case: hwf. I blinked, and then it came to me. This old travel clock had belonged to Harold William Finn. Had Jack taken this out of Finn’s house? But why? And had the brand-new golf clubs been Finn’s, too? Why would Jack have those?

One thing at a time, I told myself. I turned the neatly folding travel clock over in my hand. I had to know why Jack had had it. Jack was not sentimental, and it seemed extremely unlikely to me that Finn would have given Jack a small travel clock to remember him by.

I opened the case once more and folded it into its triangular shape. Nothing.

Hans Bogen, the master jeweler at Aspen Meadow Jewelers, had fashioned the rings for Billie and Craig Miller. He had vociferously complained to me about Billie’s constant changes of mind concerning the setting of her engagement ring, the size of the diamond(s), and the color of the metal: White gold or yellow? Or should we have platinum? Could Hans order the Versace china Billie had picked out, and give them a discount? Why not? And would he take back the “hideous” desk clock somebody had given them as a wedding present, even though the clock had not been bought from him? Like me, Hans had learned that when dealing with Billie, one had to become adept at caller ID.

But after the third change of mind about the setting for Billie’s engagement ring, Hans had had enough. He’d told Marla that he’d informed Billie to take her business down to Tiffany’s in Cherry Creek. “Enough is enough,” said Marla, imitating Hans’s Swiss accent.

Luckily for me, Hans Bogen and I had become partners-in-pain. He liked me, and had even ordered his wife’s birthday cake from me, which I’d given to him gratis. He’d promised I could call on him if I had any jewelry problems, of any kind. Call him whenever I wanted to, he said.

He lived nearby, and after I’d dropped off his wife’s cake, he’d repeated that Tom and I should drop in anytime.

Which was exactly what I intended to do, as Hans Bogen’s specialty was clocks.

19

This time, I had the sense to put on a cardigan before venturing out. While we’d been having all that rain earlier in the month, I’d actually relished going outside, as the wet pines and aspens had filled the air with a delicious scent. But I was still having trouble catching my breath, and my head continued to throb, so it was hard to smell anything. Jack’s death had left me without the ability to use any of my senses, apparently. But I was determined to use my head, or at least that part of it that hadn’t been smacked by Lucas Carmichael.

Anyway, using my head—that was what would get me through this mess. I couldn’t even call it grief. If I did, that would mean Jack was really gone.

At the end of our street, I stared at the signs and tried to remember where the Bogens’ house was. Finally I turned right, figuring I would recognize the Bogens’ red-painted, white-trimmed Alpine-style A-frame, even if I couldn’t remember the address.

And I did. When Hanna Bogen, brown haired, of medium height, and in her midforties, opened the door, she blinked. She wore a denim skirt and a T-shirt that read, will teach for food.

“Goldy,” Hanna said, without a trace of the Swiss accent that lay so heavily over Hans’s speech, “you don’t look so hot. Come in.”

Within moments we were in Hanna’s snug kitchen, which was so clean and scrubbed I wondered if I could hire her to help do cleanup for Goldilocks’ Catering. But I knew she would never jump ship to catering, as she was dedicated to—of all things—teaching English literature at Elk Park Prep. She set down two steaming mugs of cinnamon tea, a plate of ginger cookies, sliced peaches, and a wedge of Swiss cheese.

“I’m not hungry,” I protested. Mentally, I added, And the day I drink herb tea is the day they have to put it in my IV, when I’m in a coma. “But thank you.”

“Pfft. When was the last time you had anything to eat? You look as if you’re going to pass out.”

“All right, thanks,” I said, and downed a slice of peach. I’m sure it was wonderful, and under ordinary circumstances, I would have enjoyed the sweetness. “Is Hans around? I need to talk to him about a clock. It’s really, really important, and after I, uh, made your birthday cake, he said I should come over anytime if I had—”

Hanna held up her index finger. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that Hans will never be here when clients drop in with their timepieces.”

Omigod, please spare me the Jane Austen quotations at this moment. “Do you know where he is? Or, uh, when he’ll be back? This is really, really important.”

“Hans takes Monday off. Today, he went fishing. He usually doesn’t get back in until the evening. And anyway, he would need all the tools he has at the shop.” When she saw my downcast face, her brown eyes filled with sympathy. She said, “Look, I can loan you a clock, Goldy.”

“It’s not like that,” I found myself protesting. “Could I leave Hans a note?”

Hanna produced pen and paper, and I wrote Hans a message that I hoped conveyed enough bafflement and desperation that he’d get cracking on Finn’s travel clock, but not call the police. My godfather, I said, had left me the clock as sort of a puzzle. I don’t know why it doesn’t work, I wrote, but I’d like you to open up all the machinery, if that’s what you call it, and see if there’s anything else in there, something that doesn’t belong. What ever that thing is, that’s what I need. I know you’re busy, but I really need this to be done as soon as possible. Not knowing why my godfather left me this clock is driving me batty. Thank you, Hans. I signed it simply Goldy, with my business and home lines.