Killer Pancake

Five-Star Praise for KILLER PANCAKE and the Nationally Bestselling Mysteries of Diane Mott Davidson

“If Dick Francis is the mystery writer par excellence for horse lovers, DIANE MOTT DAVIDSON IS MYSTERY’S CULINARY QUEEN.”

—Charleston Post and Courier

“A TREAT.”

—San Francisco Examiner

“A CROSS BETWEEN MARY HIGGINS CLARK AND BETTY CROCKER.”

— The Sun, Baltimore

“Diane Mott Davidson’s CULINARY MYSTERIES CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR WAISTLINE.”

—People

“THE JULIA CHILD OF MYSTERY WRITERS.”

—Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph

“DAVIDSON HAS FOUND THE RECIPE FOR BESTSELLERS.”

—The Atlanta Constitution

“MOUTHWATERING.”

—The Denver Post

“DELICIOUS … SURE TO SATISFY!”

—Sue Grafton

“If devouring Diane Mott Davidson’s newest whodunit in a single sitting is any reliable indicator, then this was A DELICIOUS HIT.”

—Los Angeles Times

“You don’t have to be a cook or a mystery fan to love Diane Mott Davidson’s books. But if you’re either—or both—her TEMPTING RECIPES AND ELABORATE PLOTS ADD UP TO A LITERARY FEAST!”

—The San Diego Union-Tribune

“Mixes recipes and mayhem to PERFECTION.”

—The Sunday Denver Post

“Davidson is one of the few authors who have been able to seamlessly stir in culinary scenes without losing the focus of the mystery…. [SHE] HAS MADE THE CULINARY MYSTERY MORE THAN JUST A PASSING PHASE.”

—Sun-Sentinel Fort Lauderdale

“Goldy and her collection of friends and family CONTINUE TO MIX UP DANDY MYSTERIES AND ADD TEMPTING RECIPES to the readers’ cookbooks at the same time.”

—The Dallas Morning News

ALSO BY DIANE MOTT DAVIDSON

Catering to Nobody

Dying for Chocolate

The Cereal Murders

The Last Suppers

The Main Corpse

The Grilling Season

Prime Cut

Tough Cookie

Sticks & Scones

Chopping Spree

For my sisters and brother

Lucy, Sally, and Billy

Huckabucka beanstalk, Chumley!

And don’t forget the raft for

Allenhurst, Looie, and Sal!

O vraiment marâtre Nature,

Puisqu’une telle fleur ne dure

Que du matin jusques au soir!(Truly, Nature is a cruel stepmother

Not to allow such a flower to live

Even from morning until evening.)—from “Ode à Cassandre” by

PIERRE DE RONSARD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to thank the following people: Jim Davidson, Jeffrey Davidson, J. Z. Davidson, and Joseph Davidson, for their neverending love and support, and special thanks to Joe, who came up with the title; Sandra Dijkstra, for being an unbeatably enthusiastic agent; Kate Miciak, for being the phenomenally hardworking and brilliant editor she is; Katherine Goodwin Saideman and Deidre Elliott, for their insightful reading of the manuscript and their helpful suggestions; Mark D. Wit-try, M.D., Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, St. Louis University Health Sciences Center, for the extraordinary amount of time he took to share information as well as read and comment on the manuscript; Heather Kathleen Delzell, makeup artist, for introducing the author to the world of cosmetics and answering many questions; Pete Moogk of The Ground Up Espresso Bar, Evergreen, Colorado, for giving the author space and electricity; John W. Dudek, Divisional Loss Prevention Manager, Payless Shoes, for painstakingly sharing information about his field of expertise; Nancy Reichert, Ph.D., Mississippi State University, for providing much-needed scientific data; Tom Schantz of the Rue Morgue Bookstore, Boulder, Colorado, for sharing horticultural background; Lee Karr and the group that assembles at her home, for their helpful comments; Carol Devine Rusley, for great weekly conversations; Karen Johnson and John Schenk of J. William’s Catering, Bergen Park, Colorado, for insights into catering; William Weston, M.D., for information on dermatology, and as ever, Investigator Richard Millsapps of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, for providing valuable expertise, assistance, ideas, and insights.

FALL INTO COLOR WITH

MIGNON COSMETICS!

Lowfat Luncheon Banquet

Wednesday, July 1

Hot Tin Roof Club, Westside Mall,

Furman County, Colorado

Crudités with low fat dips

Turkey with hoison sauce and pine nuts in lettuce cups

Creamed cold asparagus soup

Steamed sole with spa-style hollandaise sauce

Grilled mushroom and

Japanese eggplant on field greens with red pepper sherry miso dressing

Corn rolls, breadsticks,

and Grand Marnier cranberry muffins

Nonfat chocolate torte

I was in caterers’ hell.

I groaned and surveyed the spread of crudités on my kitchen counter. If looks could kill, I asked myself, would this tray of cauliflower do the trick? Actually, the crisp cauliflowerets, delicate buds of broccoli, slender asparagus spears, and bias-cut squash, celery, and carrots looked appealing enough. So did rows of crunchy brussels sprouts, bright-red cherry tomatoes, and small, musky-tasting mushrooms. But there wasn’t a drop of rich, homemade mayonnaise, not a puff of whipped cream, not a slice of tangy cheese in sight. And forget dimpled pats of sweet, unsalted butter or luscious dollops of sour cream. Behind the vegetables stood imposing jars of low-calorie dips with horrid colors like pink (raspberry) and orange (carrot). I dipped a spoon into the raspberry, tasted it, and shuddered. Made according to the client’s recipe, it was too thin and had the metallic taste of saccharine. A similar foray into the carrot spread revealed a chunky concoction that kindergartners might make for a project on vitamin A.

In other words: hell.

I steeled myself as I washed the last flecks of broccoli off my fingers. Sometimes the proprietor of a catering business has to give herself a pep talk. As the owner of Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right! I was no exception. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I observed as I wiped my hands on my apron. I’d seen enough clients drool over six-layer fudge cake to know that folks eat with their eyes before the food ever reaches their tongues. But eating with the eyes was a concept I associated with chocolatey, creamy, and calories. Or perhaps flaky, fudgy, and fattening. Disheartened, I stepped away from the sink and cast another look at the entire first course to be served at that afternoon’s banquet.

“It looks great,” I reassured myself aloud, “… if you’re a rabbit.”

So much for the pep talk. Why on earth had I agreed to cater the July banquet introducing the fall line of Mignon Cosmetics? My irritation blossomed to frustration, a frequent occurrence when the rationale for taking a job melted away. The weather—cool in the beginning of June, when I’d agreed to cater the banquet—was now, at the beginning of July, unbearably hot. In the flat stretch of land that abutted the foothills west of Denver, the thermometer had topped 105 for the past three days. Although the mercury in our mountain town of Aspen Meadow, forty miles west of Denver, had fluctuated only in the upper nineties, that was still unseasonably warm. Definitely too hot, I had discovered, to be mucking around in the kitchen taste-testing food made with buttermilk and nonfat sour cream.

Not only that, but I had my doubts about the Mignon Cosmetics people, the same people who had provided the dip recipes. I mean, did they really think the cowboy-worshipping folk of Furman County, Colorado, longed for a lipstick named Fudge Royale? A blush named Lust? Could people truly be enticed to spend a hundred dollars an ounce for anti-aging cream fortified with kelp and placenta? Whose placenta, I wanted to ask rod-thin, pale-haired Harriet Wells, the senior sales associate who’d hired me to do the banquet. I agreed with Harriet that the more sophisticated, well-heeled customers would enjoy making their purchases in the magnificently refurbished department store of a remodeled mall, where the effects of aging, at least on a building, had been painstakingly eradicated. But structures, I pointed out to Harriet, could be restored. People are another matter.

On the other hand, maybe I was wrong. Women, Harriet Wells told me, crave the idea of fudge on their lips. And, she went on, the word lust makes them at least think of blushing. What was worse, my thirteen-year-old son Arch had recently watched a television special on advertising. To my dismay, he had dutifully reported back an ad maven’s statement: Make a woman insecure enough and you can sell her anything.

Well. I must have made Harriet Wells and the Mignon Cosmetics Company feel pretty insecure, because I was catering their banquet at an enormous premium over my cost. The high compensation I would receive had been a compromise over their strict lowfat requirement, and the fact that, over my objections, they’d supplied half the recipes for what they wanted, including the two horrid dips. For their requests for an unusual appetizer, an array of breads, and a chocolate dessert, I’d developed new recipes. At that, however, I’d put my foot down: No mashed lentils, no margarine, no egg substitute. To my delight, the appetizer and the muffin recipes I’d come up with were quite delicious, especially if no one mentioned they were lowfat. But the dessert effort had demanded a serious undermining of my cooking standards. I’d gone through seven dozen egg whites trying to develop a recipe for chocolate torte with no butter.

Perhaps hell was not strong enough.

“Goldy, it does look great,” said Julian Teller, my assistant Wallowing in fat-free self-pity, I had been oblivious of his entrance. Julian marched briskly toward the counter, dipped a spatula into the shocking-pink dip, leaned his broad shoulders and blond, sides-shaven head downward, and sniffed. The “mmm-mmm” noise he made deep in his throat was unconvincingly ecstatic. Compact and muscled from a stint on his school swimming team, nineteen-year-old Julian did not look like someone with his heart set on becoming a vegetarian caterer. Yet he was. Luckily for Goldilocks’ Catering, he wasn’t one of those fanatics who give you a dirty look if you don’t put grated carrots and soy flour in everything. Julian loved cheese, butter, and eggs as much as any traditional chef.

I let out an agonized sigh.

“It’s going to be fabulous,” Julian reassured me with mischievous eyes and an enthusiastic lift of the dark eyebrows that he had not bleached to match the hair on his scalp. He’d recently had his bright hair trimmed in a bowl shape to replace his old mohawk-style haircut. Now, instead of resembling a Native American albino, he looked like an ad for Dutch Boy paints. Ready to fulfill his function as server today, Julian wore a neat white collarless shirt and baggy black pants. The shirt had been a gift from me. The bagginess of the pants might have been thought stylish by those who did not know Julian had haggled for them, as usual, at Aspen Meadow’s secondhand store.

“Goldy,” he declared, “the Mignon salespeople are going to love you.” He grinned. “And better yet, they’re going to love me. Correction: One of them is going to love me.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s sauté the turkey.”

As mounds of ground turkey began to sizzle in wide frying pans, the scent of Thanksgiving filled my summery kitchen. I opened the first jar of hoisin sauce and took a greedy whiff. Like most people, I’d first encountered the dark, pungent stuff in a Chinese restaurant and fallen in love with it. Hoisin served a double purpose in the recipe I’d developed for the banquet appetizer: Its spicy taste and velvety texture would add richness without fat. I handed the jar to Julian, who energetically ladled it along with the contents of the other sauce jars and a mountain of cooked wild rice into a mixing bowl. I opened the oven and shook the large pan of roasting, golden pine nuts that was inside. At least this was food, I thought grimly.

“Hey, boss?” Julian’s blue eyes sparkled “If lowfat is what these folks want”—he gestured at the dips—“then give it to them! Claire says the diet stuff will be a huge hit. And it looks fabulous. Be happy. You’re going to make money! Go buy a vat of bittersweet chocolate! Buy ten pounds of macadamia nuts! Buy six kilos of—”

“Lie, lie, lie,” I replied. “You said these saleswomen subsist on a steady diet of caffeine, nicotine, and chocolate.” Which didn’t sound too bad, actually, if you took out the nicotine.

Julian shrugged dramatically and drained the turkey, then deftly stirred it into the hoisin and wild rice. Although he had been living with Arch and me for just over a year, I never tired of watching Julian cook. He was attentive without being fussy, and his ardor in food preparation was unmatched.

“Okay, okay,” he admitted as he stirred. Now the sharp smell of hoisin mingled appetizingly with the scent of sautéed turkey and buttery roasted pine nuts. “So say, today, the saleswomen slug down coffee with their chocolate torte, then step outside for a smoke. You still get paid, don’t you? Aren’t you always saying to me, what’s the bottom line here?”

“Chocolate torte? Chocolate torte?” I cried, gesturing in the direction of the desserts. “Who are you kidding? Ninety-nine percent fat-free chocolate-flavored air is more like it. I mean, what’s the point? I’m going to pack up the grilled vegetables. Want to start on the muffins?”

Julian’s high-top black sneakers squeaked across the vinyl as he energetically nipped past the counters and clattered in the cooler for the cranberries we’d chopped the night before. Unlike me, Julian was in a very good mood. And it wasn’t because he—again unlike me—enjoyed the challenge of preparing a lowfat menu. It was not even remotely likely that Julian’s good humor came from working with roughage and ricotta; he was hardly conversant with nonfat milk solids. As he folded the cranberries into the delectable Grand Marnier-flavored muffin batter, I recalled how he generally lavished dollops of creamy-anything on every dish he prepared. No, it wasn’t the food. This budding vegetarian cook, now ladling spoonfuls of cranberry-studded dough into muffin cups, would have been excited today if we’d been serving steak tartare. Julian was in love.

The current object of Julian’s affection, Claire Satterfield, Mignon sales associate extraordinaire, was due at our door any minute. Julian had assured me that Claire would have no trouble finding her way from Denver to our place off Main Street in Aspen Meadow. Claire was intelligent, Julian maintained, in unnecessary defense of this woman who was three years his senior and who had opted out of a university education to work for Mignon Cosmetics. I certainly hoped her intelligence extended to geography. Claire had arrived from Australia with her work visa only nine months before, and during that time she’d lived in downtown Denver. The mile-high city was probably not that different from Sydney, as large urban environments go. But once you get off the interstate and head for Aspen Meadow, the roads become curvy and complicated. So much so, in fact, that the best-selling map book of our area is entitled You Use’ta Couldn’t Get There from Here. Did they have mountains in Australia? I couldn’t remember.

There was a muffled banging on the front door.

“It’s me, it’s me! Hallo! I got here! Where am I, the Himalayas? Let me in, I gotta use the facilities!”

Julian heaved the muffin tins into the oven, flipped on the full wattage of his smile, and strode in the direction of the banging. Leaving him to play host, I closed the box of vegetables and turned back to the dieters’ delight. There is a reason why weight-loss cookbooks have you serve everything dripping with hot mustard, streaked with Tabasco sauce, or speckled with chopped peppers or red pepper flakes. They want to convince you you’re actually eating something. Forget your appetite, see if this doesn’t make fire come out of your ears! Of course no one can consume much of these spicy lowcal concoctions. Why willingly engage in electroshock therapy for the mouth?

In any event, I had my own Macho Jalapeño Theory of Lowfat. Men heartily dislike diet food, but will eagerly engage in I-can-eat-hotter-stuff-than-you contests. No wonder diet experts recommend spicy foodstuffs when women are trying to wean their menfolk from their beloved meat and potatoes. On the other hand, nobody cared about my philosophy, and I was defying my own jalapñeo theory today by offering classic cuisine to the Mignon Cosmetics people. But the recipes they had supplied left much to be desired. So now I was having second thoughts. I groaned again.

I decided to stash two dozen individual peach cobblers and an equivalent number of chocolate-chip-dotted brownies into zippered bags underneath the corn rolls made with—-forgive me, Escoffier—nonfat sour cream. After giving me instructions about the banquet, Harriet Wells had had the guts—skinny, washboard-ab guts—to give me her lowfat muffin recipe. I had ignored it because it called for okra. The emergency supply of brownies and cobblers was an insurance policy, I reflected, in case someone came up to me today and demanded real, honest-to-goodness comfort food.

“This is Goldy!” a smiling Julian announced as he held the door open for Claire Satterfield to step haltingly into my kitchen.

For someone who had thumped so vigorously to herald her arrival, Claire, suddenly demure, sidestepped uncertainly toward the counter. Although I’d heard a great deal about her, I’d never actually met this wonder. So I was unprepared for what I saw. Claire Satterfield was surely the most gorgeous creature on the planet. Or at least, she was the loveliest female I had ever seen. About four inches taller than Julian, the girl was svelte yet shapely, in a way reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe. Her black hair was arranged in long, shiny ringlets that brushed her tanned shoulders. Bangs framed a striking face that featured breathtaking cheekbones. With her dewy skin, irresistible face, and glossy hair, this vision resembled a landlocked mermaid. She gave me a frightened glance and mutely opened her mouth.

HOISIN TURKEY WITH

ROASTED PINE NUTS IN

LETTUCE CUPS

½ cup pine nuts

1 pound ground turkey

1 teaspoon cornstarch

7 ounces hoisin sauce

2½ cups cooked wild rice

8 iceberg lettuce leavesPreheat the oven to 400°. On a rimmed cookie sheet, toast the pine nuts for 5 to 10 minutes or until golden brown. Set aside.In a large skillet, sauté the ground turkey over medium-high heat, stirring, until it changes color and is cooked through. Drain well and return to the pan. Stir in the cornstarch and hoisin sauce. Heat and stir over medium heat until bubbly. Add the pine nuts and the rice and stir until heated through.Spoon ⅓ cup of the hot turkey mixture onto each lettuce leaf.Serves 8 as an appetizer

GRAND MARNIER

CRANBERRY MUFFINS

1¼ cups orange juice

¼ cup Grand Marnier liqueur

¼ cup canola oil

2 cups chopped cranberries

2½ cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole-wheat flour

½ cups sugar

2 tablespoons baking powder

1½ teaspoon salt

1½ tablespoons chopped orange zest

4 egg whitesPreheat the oven to 400°. Combine the orange juice, the Grand Marnier, and the oil; set aside while you prepare the batter. In a large bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and orange zest. In another large bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy. Combine the juice mixture with the beaten egg whites. Add the egg mixture and the cranberries to the flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Using a ¼-cup measure, divide the batter among 24 muffin cups that have been fitted with paper liners. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown and puffed.Makes 24

“And this is Claire,” added Julian, blushing. Blushing, I imagined, with lust.

“Pleased to meet you,” I said, and meant it Claire had been the one who had recommended me to the Mignon folks as their banquet caterer. Even though the food preparation for the event had been a mixed blessing, I very much wanted Julian to be happy. My young friend had made several false starts in the social-life department, including one with a Mignon sales associate who lived down the street. But now he had settled on Claire. Actually, he had not so much settled as fallen for her, the way a Rocky Mountain skier can plummet into an oncoming avalanche and try to swim with the wave. And I had enjoyed watching this loveswept delirium. Despite Julian’s planned departure this fall for Cornell, I fantasized about becoming the catering-trainer-landlady-of-the-groom after he got his degree. To my amazement, I had become something of a marriage booster. Maybe I’d even cater their reception.

“Pleased t’meet you,” Claire said demurely. The Australian accent hung heavily over her high, babyish voice, a voice that did not go with her sophisticated image.

While Julian and Claire conversed in low tones, I whisked together the sherry and miso for the grilled vegetable dressing. Sometimes you can put unusual ingredients together, and they work. That was certainly true for me. At age thirty-two, I had remarried just over two months ago. My new relationship was as good as my first marriage—begun at age nineteen and ended at twenty-seven—had been dreadful. So I’d decided the first time around had been an aberration. Marriage was great, I’d proclaimed. Just like stopping smoking, everyone should do it. This analogy had not gone over in a big way with my new husband, Tom Schulz. In fact, while he was trying to refurbish my hopeless garden, Tom wore a custom-made T-shirt that read: BETTER THAN A CIGARETTE.

I set aside the salad and smiled. Now that Tom and I were wed and Julian and Claire were enjoying each other’s company, the idea of romantic harmony sweeping our little household was extremely appealing. Certainly more attractive than an endless buffet table of food without fat….

“I need to talk to you about parking,” Claire announced loudly and without preamble. It took me a second to realize she was talking to me.

“Parking?” I echoed. I heaved a vat of chilled asparagus soup out of the walk-in refrigerator. “I’ll be parking by the nightclub.”

“The nightclub?” Julian sounded confused. While he was good with the cooking for these affairs, and he was a whiz in the classroom, the logistic details of catered events frequently escaped him.

I said, “This luncheon buffet is at the Hot Tin Roof Club.” Julian frowned, still not understanding. I explained, “It’s unusual to have a nightclub in a mall, but that was the only bid the mall owners got for the old Xerxes’ Magic Shop. Anyway, the Hot Tin Roof Club is geared to upper-crust single types. Since it’s not nighttime,” I continued with unswerving logic as I turned to Claire, “there shouldn’t be a parking problem.”

“Sorry.” Claire’s frowning lips were colored a purplish-tan. I wondered what color the Mignon folks had christened it: Passion Plum? or Torrid Tan? “Expecting a bit of trouble, I’m afraid.”

“A bit of trouble?” I shifted the vat uncomfortably. “Parking trouble? Or some other kind of trouble? And who exactly is doing the expecting?”

Claire closed her eyes. Her lids were shaded in a pure powdery wave of purple and brown. I was in awe. One moment she looked and sounded like a girl, the next she was a sensuous woman. “Right. See this color?” She pointed.

“Yes.” I shot a glance at Julian. He wrinkled his nose and shook his head. The connection between parking problems and eyeshadow eluded him too.

Claire opened her eyes wide. Her irises were dark violet. I wondered how many males besides Julian had gotten lost in their mesmerizing depths. “Right. According to the most recent Beastly Bulletin, Mignon Cosmetics blinded albino rabbits testing Sensual Midnight eyeshadow.”

“Beastly Bulletin?” I said faintly.

“Animal rights newsletter,” Claire announced crisply. “So the way we heard it, the BB folks have organized a task force. They’re starting a protest against Mignon.” She shrugged. A shiver went down her exposed shoulders and through her short-skirted black sheath, the kind of dress not usually seen at luncheons, the kind of dress I haven’t had the figure for since I was sixteen. “Word from store security is, they might be causing problems at the banquet. Sorry ’bout that,” she added with a nod at all the vegetables.

“Causing problems? Demonstrators? Because of albino rabbits?” I was still trying to get my footing in the cosmetics universe. “These people are protesting at today’s banquet?”

“Yeh, we think so. Their campaign’s called Spare the Hares.” As this came out speh the hehs, it took me a few beats to translate. “Yesterday,” she went on, “the animal rights people were outside the department store. Demonstrating. Y’know, Prince & Grogan carries Mignon exclusively in the Denver area. So we’re the target.” We’h the ta-get. “The demonstrators even had a picket line. Today we heard they might be made up as freaks. They could be swinging rabbit carcasses at each person who comes in—”

“Oh, for crying out loud!” I shrieked. I banged the vat down on the counter. “I give to the Sierra Club! I give to the National Wildlife Federation! I don’t even wear eyeshadow! Can’t I get some kind of safe passage or something?”

“Y’don’t know the kind of person y’dealin’ with here,” Claire observed. Her slender body slid over in the direction of the steamer. “They see you carrying in that fish over there? They’ll mark you as the enemy. A fish murderess. They’ll scatter your food trays from here to kingdom come. All for rabbits.” She giggled. “Rabbits—the scourge of Australia! My folks wouldn’t believe this one, I can tell you that.”

“Just tell us where to park,” Julian interjected placatingly before I could erupt again. “We’re not into carcasses.”

“Okay.” She puckered her painted lips. “You know where the entrance to the garage is?” We nodded. “The mall has that aboveground parking garage,” Claire explained, “and the entrance to the Hot Tin Roof Club is on the first level. There’s a glass door at the entrance, but we’re supposed to ignore that. The club’s service entrance is an unmarked door inside, next to Stephen’s Shoes. You walk through the shoe store, then come into the club.”

I had the sinking feeling I should be writing all this down. The Beastly Bulletin. The service entrance by the shoe store. A picket line. Carcasses.

“Prince & Grogan’s head of security,” Claire was saying, “has told all the Mignon people not to park by the department store or the nightclub, because of the demonstrators. We’re supposed to scatter our vehicles, but not to use the garage roof, because they’re getting ready for the food fair. Y’know. What’s it called?”

“A Taste of Furman County,” I replied dully. Starting day after tomorrow, I was supposed to be at that food fair. Starting day after tomorrow, I prayed the demonstrators would not be at that food fair.

“We just park and come into the club through the service entrance next to the shoe store,” Claire concluded triumphantly. The maneuvers in this particular war appeared to please her immensely. “The head of security will be in the garage. Name’s Nick. He told us they’ve called the police in. Just in case things get messy.”

So that was where Tom was going today. Although his official title was Homicide Investigator, there weren’t enough homicides in Furman County to occupy my new husband full-time. So he was kept more than busy analyzing robberies and assaults and going out on special assignments, like today. When I’d asked what today’s assignment was, he’d answered mischievously, “Shopping.” And more than that he wouldn’t say. He didn’t want me to worry, and I didn’t want to be intrusive. In the two months of figuring out what it meant to be married after extended periods of being single, we were both treading carefully around each other’s privacy. But honestly, the man was impossible. We could have planned a late lunch. Real lunch too, with vichyssoise and pâté, maybe a little hasenpfeffer …

“Goldy?” queried Julian. “Are you going to steam that sole up here or down there?”

“I’m going to start it here and finish it there,” I said. “It’s the last thing I have to do.” The steamer was full of water. I flipped on the burners, lowered the vat of asparagus soup into a box, and packed up the crudités. Within moments, steam bloomed plentifully and I laid the sole fillets close together on a rack above the bubbling water. When I turned around, Julian and Claire had disappeared. “What the—”

I knew Julian couldn’t, wouldn’t leave without helping me pack the supplies into the van. Buffet for forty was still just that, and it was not possible for one caterer to do all the hauling, setting up, and serving. But, I reminded myself as I vaulted out the back door to check the van, love had made Julian forgetful in the past few weeks. First he’d neglected to bring two out of three desserts to a fund-raising picnic for the ACLU. As a result, I’d survived endless jokes about no freedom of choice and had given the ACLU a hefty discount on their final tab. Julian, embarrassed, had offered to take the docked pay off his own. Of course I wasn’t heartless enough to do that. The kid was saving money to take to college, But I did promise him the next time he screwed up for the ACLU, I’d punish him with a John Birch Society barbecue.

I checked inside my detached garage. Julian’s Range Rover—inherited from former employers—sat stolidly next to my van, but neither Julian nor Claire was in evidence. I peeked around the back of the garage and remembered another example of Julian’s recent spaciness. Just last week he had managed to get into a car accident with a new client, Babs Braithwaite. Three days after Babs had booked me for her Fourth of July party, she and Julian had crashed into each other. Usually a careful driver, Julian had managed to be rear-ended by Babs in her Mercedes 560SEC. Babs said he’d stopped in the middle of an intersection. Julian said he thought he had his turn signal on. He admitted he’d been only half watching though, because moments before the collision, a giggling Claire had tried to cool off by putting her shapely feet out the window of the Rover. But it had been no joke when Julian had been judged at fault. The Mercedes had sustained a thousand dollars worth of damage, and Julian’s savings would be sorely depleted paying the deductible. It seemed that even when I tried to save him money, he ended up losing it anyway.

I touched the Rover’s bruised bumper, left the garage, and stepped onto a new flagstone path laid down by Tom. Even if finances were a little tight for proud, independent Julian, he would manage. He was rich in love, I reflected as I walked down the path. It led through a lush garden of perennials that Tom was somehow managing to coax out of what had been my barren yard. Julian had enthusiastically helped Tom compost, rototill, and plant. And owing to relentless spring snow, we were having a one-in-ten growing season. The magnificent show of yellow columbine, tiny blossoms of white arabis, and sky-blue bellflower campanula were Tom’s pride. But at the moment it was a floral display empty of Claire and Julian.

I pushed through my back door and ran upstairs. Julian really wouldn’t have brought Claire to his room, would he? I knocked gently and then peeked into the boys’ bedroom. Empty. Where in the world were they? I felt sweat bead my brow. Julian was becoming so forgetful that I was considering reneging on my promise to let him take over the catering business for the next few days while I prepared for and ran the booth at the food fair. But if Julian continued to mess up bookings, the catering business would be kaput. And I’d worked too hard for financial autonomy to allow my business to be threatened. No matter how blissful we were as newlyweds, I was not about to start depending on Tom’s paycheck. I clattered back down the staircase, removed the steamer cover, and turned off the burners. The sole had just begun to change color, but was not yet done. I headed down the front hall.

Julian and Claire were entwined on the living room couch. They were wrapped in a deep, silent kiss. Longer and leggier than Julian, Claire did not so much hug him as drape herself around his body. Embarrassed to be witnessing such passion, I hastily retreated to the kitchen.

“Okay!” I hollered diplomatically once I’d lifted out the steamer basket filled with sole fillets. “Let’s get this stuff into the van and see if we can avoid Speh the Hehs!”

After a moment the lovelorn pair sheepishly reappeared. Claire’s makeup, I observed, was miraculously intact, although Julian looked a trifle rumpled. He handed Claire a covered bowl of (lowfat) hollandaise, then hoisted the first box containing the soup. I suppressed a grin and picked up the container of turkey with hoisin. Ten minutes later the three of us started out for the forty-minute trip to glorious, newly refurbished Westside Mall, still nestled, as the recent advertisements relentlessly screamed, at the foot of the Rockies!

Children were already out riding their mountain bikes and kicking soccer balls against the curbs when our vehicles chugged out of my driveway. When we reached Aspen Meadow’s Main Street, windblown dust shimmered in the morning light, forming a translucent veil between the town and the peaks of the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve. The snow on the mountaintops had shrunk to uneven gray caps that would not completely melt over the summer. As Julian and I followed Claire’s white Peugeot in the direction of Interstate 70, we passed stores whose entrances were clogged with summer tourists seeking Aspen Meadow’s higher altitude, cooler temperatures, and claim to quaintness. Enterprising merchants had landscaped the area between the sidewalks and the street with a tangle of dianthus, daylilies, and bleeding heart. Below the stores’ intentionally rustic signs swayed hanging baskets of white petunias, red ivy geranium, and delicate asparagus fern. Nearby Vail had used this Garden-in-Disneyland-type decoration to great effect in attracting tourists, and our little burg was following suit. The Chamber of Commerce seemed to feel that the less our place looked like a real town, the less tourists would feel they were spending real money. Still, it was home, and I loved it. I usually do not enjoy heading “down the mountain,” which is how Aspen Meadow folk refer to the physical and spiritual descent into Denver and environs.

As the van lumbered eastward behind Claire’s little Peugeot, a Flight-for-Life helicopter thundered overhead going west, toward Aspen Meadow. I braked automatically and pulled into the right lane in front of a pickup truck. The driver had to swerve to avoid me. Julian and I exchanged a glance. Paranoid, overprotective mother that I was, I felt my heart race as I mentally placed Arch. My son had spent the night at a friend’s house. He was due back home this morning. As soon as we arrived I would call from Hot Tin Roof and make certain he was all right.

Forcing my mind off the helicopter and its rescue mission, I sped up again and imagined all the gorgeous women who would be attending the day’s banquet. The nightclub would be filled to bursting with blondes, brunettes, and redheads. All would be impossibly thin, impeccably made up, and fashionably dressed in suits with skirts shorter than what I used to wear when I played tennis, back when I was a doctor’s wife. Thinking of my caterer’s uniform and scrubbed face, I had a sudden attack of feeling inappropriate. Was that the real reason I resented doing this banquet—there would be all those stunning women, and then there would be me?

Disheartened, I glanced in the van mirror and gave myself another pep talk. The helicopter had droned away and was no longer visible. The pickup driver had changed lanes. My own face looked the same as always, my uniform, equally drab but serviceable. Later, I realized I’d made a mistake by not checking my reflection more closely. But at the time I was saying to myself: Relax. Nobody ever notices the caterer.

Also a mistaken assumption.

So are we supposed to follow her, or not?” I asked Julian as Claire’s car spewed a cloud of inky exhaust while passing the silvery-gray marble exterior of the Prince & Grogan store building. No demonstrators stood outside the entrance to the upscale department store. I hoped this was a good sign.

The Peugeot darted into Westside Mall’s parking garage. Julian craned his neck to see where Claire had gone. “Let’s stay separated, the way she said. In case the activists are waiting at any one place. The salespeople aren’t even supposed to wear their Mignon Cosmetics uniforms. Claire’s going to park by the crêpe place because she has some stuff to bring in. She told us to go on over by Stephen’s Shoes. She’ll take her things in while we start to unload.”

I wheeled the van past the majestic hemlocks and short, lush aspens that formed the mainstay of the expensive new mall landscaping. After a moment of confusion, I headed into the far end of bottom-level parking spaces. Hopefully we were going in the direction of empty parking spots near the chrome-and-glass garage entrance to the mall near Prince & Grogan. The space inhabited by the department store, as opulent and inviting a shopping environment as one could ever hope for, had formerly housed a Montgomery Ward. I’d come to know Montgomery Ward well during my lean divorce years, but the refurbishment and enlargement of Westside Mall had been so ambitiously undertaken that at the moment I felt completely turned around.

Not so Julian, who pointed to the garage entrance to the mall. I strained to Catch a glimpse of police cars or activists waving signs, rabbits, or Lord knew what-all. I saw only gaggles of gorgeous women, presumably the sales associates and top customers who’d been invited. They threaded through the rows of cars on their way to the Hot Tin Roof Club. Near us, a stunning hermaphroditic blonde dressed in blistering lemon yellow strutted alongside a Porsche with an empty parking place on the row just behind it. Beyond that line of cars glowed the neon sign for Stephen’s Shoes. I waited for the woman in yellow to move away, then quickly swung the van past Prince & Grogan, around the end of the row, and into the vacated spot. I checked my watch. So far we were exactly on schedule.

Guarding the doors to this level’s impressive glass-prismed mall entrance was an older-looking man in the process of instructing a couple of muscular fellows sporting slicked-back hair, matching charcoal suits, and gleaming black shoes with pointed toes. The muscular two stood nervously, feet braced, hands clasped behind their backs. As the older fellow addressed them, they rolled their massive shoulders and tilted their heads overattentively. I was pretty sure the three weren’t policemen. For the threat of riots, the Furman County Sheriff’s Department would certainly send officers in plainclothes as well as uniforms. But no matter what they were wearing, sheriff’s department deputies never acted so obviously like hired goons.

I glanced at my watch again: ten-thirty. “The mall’s open, right?”

Julian’s cap of blond hair fell sideways as he tilted his head to get a better look at the suits. “Actually, yeah. It opens at ten usually, but earlier day after tomorrow because of the food fair. Most of the stores don’t get busy until the afternoon, Claire says. Those dudes look like they’re from Mignon Cosmetics or Prince & Grogan. Or maybe they’re from some private security company.”

“I guess they’re supposed to look tough.” I turned off the ignition and pulled up the parking brake. “Maybe they figure they’ll be a deterrent if they act like they’re wearing shoulder holsters. That ought to tick off the Beastly Bulletin folks.” I couldn’t remember what the law regarding carrying a concealed weapon was in this gun-loving part of the country. Coloradans don’t like to conceal their weapons. In fact, they seize every opportunity to be exhibitionistic about them.

Outside the van, the foul, overheated garage air hit us like a slap. We’d have to hustle to get the food into a cool spot. In this heat, anything could wilt or grow bacteria. I opened the van doors, surveyed the undisturbed array of spa dishes, and wondered if the muscle-bound security men in the matching suits would go for the roast hot pepper, if I laid a few jalapenos on top and sprinkled them with cayenne.

As we began to unload the vegetables, shouts erupted from near the garage entrance to the mall. Julian and I exchanged a worried glance, hoisted our loads, and began to walk rapidly toward Stephen’s Shoes. Twenty feet away, the security guys were hollering at several demonstrators who had suddenly appeared, waving large placards. Laden with trays of broccoli, I couldn’t see if the activists were carrying anything else. From my vantage point, the demonstrators’ ages and gender were indeterminate. They uniformly sported long, unkempt nests of hair above their logo’d T-shirts, torn blue jeans, and sandals. I couldn’t hear what everyone was yelling, but I could guess it had to do with preserving small gnawing mammals with cute tails.

“Feel all right?” Julian murmured as he whacked open the service-entrance door with his sneaker and held it for me to pass through.

“Yes,” I said uncertainly. The shouts had increased in volume. “Maybe the security guys, or whoever they are, can run interference while we bring in the supplies.” I tried to sound more confident than I felt.

Julian moved to the shoe-store door and opened it wide. We quickly carried our culinary burdens past rows of brightly colored pumps and air-cushioned cross-trainers. Curious customers and gaping store employees allowed boxes of sandals and sailboat shoes to drop from their hands as we hustled past. They acted as if they’d never seen a catering duo lugging eighty pounds of food past them before.

The store manager, a tall fellow with sandy-red hair, came to our side quickly and murmured conspiratorially, “I know about the routing for the banquet.”

I wondered if he was going to ask for the password to cross enemy lines. “Sorry,” I whispered from behind the broccoli. “This’ll just take a few minutes.”

As the manager moved across the store’s carpeted floor to reassure his customers, Julian said, “I don’t know if those security guys will be able to protect us going back and forth.” He glanced back at the garage. “Just for safety, we’d better make all our runs in tandem instead of alternating.” He nodded knowingly to show how much he was learning about food service.

I didn’t return the nod. It looked as if more people had joined the altercation outside. Julian was right, though. When two caterers work an event, one usually hovers over the delivered food while the other brings in the rest of the supplies. If you leave platters out anywhere before serving time, people will take the mere presence of edibles as a sign it’s time to start consuming them, no matter how impenetrably the food is wrapped. Perhaps there would be a bar at the nightclub where we could stash all the courses below eye level.

We came out the main entrance of the shoe store and turned to enter the august beauty of the renovated main hall of Westside Mall. In the late sixties, when it opened, Westside had been a splashy, hugely successful shopping center. But Westside Mall had gone bankrupt like an F. Scott Fitzgerald hero: gradually and then suddenly. The Denver papers had been full of accounts about stores going out of business during the first phase of the oil recession. It wasn’t long before the whole mall ended up repossessed as part of the savings-and-loan mess. After several years of vacancy, the management of Prince & Grogan, a department store chain with its headquarters in Albuquerque, had agreed to provide the anchor for a redone, upscale mall. A complete face-lift of the old shopping center and construction of the multilayered garage had transformed the former shopping haven into a glitzy series of fancy stores and chic boutiques.

But Arch had mourned the loss of the old Xerxes’ Magic Shop. As I stepped across the threshold of the Hot Tin Roof Club, I imagined my son would be awed at the unquestionably magical transformation of the old store he’d loved so much. Gone were the rows of masks, the shelves of top hats, the glass counters filled with tricks. The walls of the enlarged space were painted silver and black. Under high-intensity spotlights, chrome buttons and table edges glistened. An array of overstuffed furniture had been upholstered in black leather. A slender woman with elaborately teased hair and a sheath as diminutive as Claire’s nodded in our direction and motioned us past the hostess stand.

We moved uncertainly out of the service entry and through the new foyer. Despite the fact that it wasn’t quite eleven in the morning, a palpable air of excitement filled the place. Lively music pumped out of overhead speakers. About thirty women had already arrived and were bustling about. One was setting up a slide projector. Another pulled down a screen. Two more checked on the audio system and the podium. Whether the high-pitched voices and feverish rushing around were the result of nervousness over the upcoming event—the unveiling of their fall line—or the presence of the demonstrators outside was impossible to determine. I saw Claire briefly. She seemed to have forgotten us as she giggled and squealed and moved from group to group of chattering females. On one long table, three rows of brightly colored corsages were arrayed. Some women already had them on. Others were in the act of pinning them to their stylish outfits. My guess was that the flowers had something to do with the fall colors we were about to see. I wouldn’t have minded having a corsage, I thought absentmindedly as I moved toward the bar with the heavy tray of broccoli. On the other hand, was there such a thing as a bittersweet-chocolate-colored orchid? With raspberry-colored roses to complement it? Probably not.

A sudden banging and shouting outside caused a momentary hush to fall on the bevy of scattered women. Launching into a new song, the music from the speakers blasted into the silence, overwhelming any sounds of a disturbance. I cursed silently when I thought of all the food Julian and I still needed to bring in past whatever had erupted outside.

Julian read my mind. “Stay put,” he ordered firmly. “I’m making another trip.”

“No, let me do it. I’m used to moving around with heavy containers of food.”

“No, no, I’m much faster than you,” he replied without apology. “If some demonstrator started yelling at you, you’d get into a big argument, the way you always do. You want the food in here fast? Let me get it.”

“Well,” I said reluctantly, “why don’t you see if you can get those security guys to help you?”

But Julian was already moving away. “If they’re not busy,” he replied over his shoulder. If he heard my call to be careful, he gave no sign.

I used the phone at the bar to call Arch’s friend, Todd Druckman. Todd’s mother told me the two of them were sitting in front of the television eating Cocoa Puffs and Pop-Tarts. Did I want to talk to Arch? I laughed and declined, then hung up and washed my hands in the bar sink, grateful that my concerns about my son were needless. And Arch loved eating at Todd’s; it meant he didn’t have to taste-test a single nonfat roll or experimental curry.

I poured the dips into the hollowed-out cabbages, then checked the trays. The rows of vegetables had become only slightly disheveled. I lifted the plastic wrap and reached in to straighten them.

“Oh my God, Harriet, they’re stunning!” exclaimed a low, fruity voice from the other side of the oblong granite bar. “Diamond-cluster earrings? That must have set Mignon back a pretty penny!” It was a voice I recognized. I looked up to see big-bodied, big-haired, big-moneyed Babs Braithwaite standing next to Harriet Wells.

“Top producer for May,” Harriet announced smugly.

“Wait a minute,” commanded Babs as she put a hand on Harriet’s forearm. Then she steered Harriet in my direction, and addressed me. “Goldy? You’re doing this banquet too? Are you ready for Charles’s and my party?” Without waiting for a reply, she rushed on. “Harriet, do you know Goldy of Goldilocks’ Catering in Aspen Meadow? Isn’t that a cute little name? She didn’t always do catering. She used to be married to a gorgeous doctor.”

Well, now, wasn’t this nice. I stared at Babs Meredith Braithwaite and tried to think of something to say. Babs was about fifty, although the heavy makeup she wore over pockmarked skin made her look older. Charles Braithwaite, her reclusive microbiologist husband, was younger than his wife and reportedly quite handsome, but he hadn’t inherited a fortune from the family butter company. With her bags of bucks, Babs spared no expense on decking herself out. Her large features were accented with masklike foundation and powder, dark smears of blush, black eyeliner, and long, false eyelashes. Her elaborately frosted hair was wildly poufed, and her expensive-looking dark silk dress was adorned with a fat corsage of pink roses and baby’s breath. She looked like the mother of a Barbie doll. I was again conscious of my plain apron and unstylishly curly hair, worn Shirley Temple-style.

“What was his name,” Babs continued, tapping her bottom lip with a plump finger. “Well, of course. Korman! Doctor Korman.”

“No,” said Harriet sadly. “I didn’t know.”

Incredible, really. Someone, it always seemed, was still dying to share the news now five years old. It had been that long since I divorced John Richard Korman, whose initials made up his oh-so-appropriate nickname, the Jerk. People could never understand why I’d let such a good-looking and wealthy guy get away. They just didn’t know about the violence. My descent into food service was observed with a pitying sneer. I was already working for Harriet’s company. I’d be doing Babs’s party in three days. Wasn’t that enough? Why bother with the history? Because people can’t resist being bitchy, Marla Korman, my best friend and the other ex-wife of Dr. Gorgeous, was fond of pointing out. Marla had recommended my business to Babs, so I kept mum and summoned a flat smile.

“Goldy has garnered quite a reputation in Aspen Meadow,” said Babs with a wide, explanatory sweep of her bejeweled hand, “for the success of her little business.”

“Yes.” Harriet’s saccharine tone was hard to decipher. Also around fifty, Harriet was as slender, petite, and understated as Babs was expansive. Her beehive of golden hair, impeccable makeup, and short, slender fingers with their manicured nails paired perfectly with her flared Chinese-style royal blue silk pants and matching sleeveless top. “Goldy and I have had many discussions about the lowfat food for our banquet. She was the one who pointed out that when people have fish for a main course, they always want chocolate for dessert! We’re lucky she was able to come all the way down here.”

“I come to Denver all the time,” I said, trying not to sound defensive. “I’m doing the food fair too.”

“You’re doing the food fair? You shouldn’t,” Babs reprimanded. “You might just be overburdening yourself.”

Did I look as if I wanted advice from Babs Braithwaite? I scanned the room for Julian. Maybe if I appeared busy, these women would leave me alone.

“Of course,” Babs continued, “all the major food people in Denver will be here. The food fair is one of our benefits. Playhouse Southwest, do you know the group? We used to be called the Furman County Dramatic Auxiliary. We just did The Taming of the Shrew. Sound familiar? Didn’t I tell you about it?”

I nodded vapidly. Actually, I’d talked to Babs Braithwaite on the phone only about the Fourth. We’d seen each other briefly after her car hit Julian’s. I bit my lip. Don’t say anything, I reminded myself. At least not anything nasty. The Taming of the Shrew. Sound familiar? Actually, no. Knee-deep in nonfat ingredients, I hadn’t caught any plays lately. Then again, her little auxiliary might want to have a catered function sometime in the future. If I could do John Birch Beef, I could do Shakespeare shashlik. I gave Babs what I hoped was an ingratiating grin.

“Yes. Let’s see, Dr. John Richard Korman,” she mused throatily as she touched a sapphire necklace. “Up and Coming in Denver did an article on our most recent production. You must have seen that issue, there was also an article on Dr. John Richard Korman. So—”

“I’m sorry, Babs,” I interrupted. Anything to get off the subject of the Jerk. “What’s your connection to Mignon Cosmetics?”

“Ooh!” She chuckled and gave Harriet a flirtatious look. “I’m such a good customer, they invited me. Oh, there’s Tiffany Barnes …”

And off she sailed. Man, I couldn’t wait to ask Marla about that piece of work. I put Babs Braithwaite out of my mind and set about carefully unwrapping the lettuce leaves that would form the containers for the hoisin turkey.

Claire trotted over to me. Her comely brow was wrinkled with frustration. But before she could explain, something across the room caught her attention. I looked in that direction and saw only a group of beautifully groomed chattering women, all wearing corsages. “Oh my God,” Claire groaned.

“What?”

“Nothing … Look, Goldy, I’m in trouble,” she announced “I … forgot the damn decorations. They’re Mignon bags we stuff with colored tissue paper. We call them exploding bags. Y’know? I need to go to my car and get them. Come with me? I don’t want to go out there alone.” She looked desperate. Considering the swelling group of protesters I’d seen outside, I felt a pang of sympathy for her. I wasn’t too eager to face that indignant group alone either.

“Of course I’ll come with you,” I assured her. “I might as well bring in the sole and get the steamer going, anyway. We need to make it quick, though,” I added. I lifted the trays of vegetables and hid them on a shelf under the bar. I had the feeling we were being watched, so I grabbed a spare tablecloth, unfurled it, and placed it over the wrapped food while Claire tapped her foot. I ignored her impatience. I would be damned before I came back to picked-over trays.

At the service door we met Julian. He was laden down with Nonfat Chocolate Tortes.

“Where do you two think you’re going?” he demanded as soon as he saw us approaching. “It’s a zoo out there. I couldn’t find one of those suits to help me—”

“We’ll be fine,” Claire cooed as she kissed her index finger and planted it on his nose. She swept past him in a flurry of dark ringlets and black sheath. “Just going to pick up some bags. Back in a jif.” Mimicking her touch on the nose, I followed on her heels.

The demonstrators had become a jeering, sign-waving horde. A few uniformed members of the Furman County Sheriff’s Department were attempting crowd control. I didn’t see Tom. Claire and I decided to pick up our respective bundles and meet at the column nearest the mall entrance. I made off for the van, fumbled with the keys, and rummaged around in the dark interior, looking for the steamer. At last I found it underneath the container of roasted vegetables. If I loaded myself up, this would be the last trip out to the van. Another roar went up from the angry demonstrators. I quickly surveyed all the remaining food and decided it was worth the hassle. Balancing the bowl of vegetables on top of the plastic container of greens, I picked up the steamer, then carefully made my way toward the appointed column. With the hubbub all around, I desperately wanted to look inconspicuous. Or as inconspicuous as a woman toting forty pounds of fish and vegetables can be.

Over the rumble of the demonstrators, I heard a revving engine. It was closer to me than to the cops and the crowd, and getting closer by the moment. I craned my neck around. There was no car in sight. Neither the crowd nor the cops seemed to take any notice of me, so I continued to meander through vehicles on my way to the entrance, my attention on the triple deck of supplies I was balancing. There was another shout from the crowd and behind me, a squeal of tires.

I heard the scream first, then a horrid, sickening thud. The scream echoed from the concrete walls all around. Then the engine roared again and the tires screeched. Far over at the entrance, two uniformed cops started running in the direction of the scream. I willed myself to start breathing again, and looked around for Claire. Where was she? Had she seen what happened? My skin prickled. After being momentarily stilled, the demonstrators started up again with their “hoo-ha!” shouts that sounded like an ominous pep rally.

When Claire did not appear I whacked the steamer, the bowl, and the vegetables down on the hood of a nearby Jeep. Unencumbered, I started briskly off in the area where I thought Claire had parked her Peugeot.

I saw the policemen first. One was talking into his radio. The other knelt on the pavement. A woman was lying at his feet. Had she passed out? As I came closer, I realized the body could not have landed in that contorted way from a faint.

The kneeling policeman looked up and saw me. “Get back!” he yelled. “We need to clear this area!”

But I took no heed. Blood pooled on the cement near the inert body. The woman on the pavement was Claire.

I’m going to be ill. My mouth opened but no sound emerged. A car drove slowly by behind me. In one of its windows, children’s faces gawked at the policemen. I lurched forward through a shock wave of car exhaust. Had Claire been struck by a car? But of course, that was the only explanation. There has to be some way I can help. Where was that vehicle I’d heard screeching through the garage? What were the two cops doing? Why wasn’t someone else coming? I knew I would regret walking closer, but I kept moving forward anyway. My footsteps gritted loudly. Please let her be all right.

“Go back,” said the policeman again, this time in my face. His wide shoulders and deeply lined face loomed in front of me. He was not someone I knew. I murmured Claire’s name and felt my knees buckle. Then the policeman seemed to change his mind. “Wait.” His powerful hand gripped my elbow. “Did you see what happened? Do you know this woman? Were you with her?”

“No. I mean, yes.” It came out a croak. “I only …” What? My face was wet. Tears. When had I started to cry?

The policeman’s gruff voice insisted: “The woman who was hit—you knew her or not?” So Claire had been hit. Of course. The policeman’s eyes bored into mine. Surely he didn’t think I was responsible? “Her name?” he demanded.

My mouth fumbled around Claire’s name. I did not know her address. Julian would. Oh, God. Julian.

Behind us people began to gather. The policeman sharply ordered them to stay back, then continued with curt questions: What exactly had I seen? Had I observed any vehicles before I heard the scream? Why was Claire in the garage? Not far away, the other uniformed cop continued to speak urgently into his radio. There was no movement from the twisted body on the pavement.

The man questioning me took his fierce eyes off my face and looked over my shoulder. “Oh, good. Schulz,” he murmured. I turned to see my husband walking swiftly toward us between parked cars. Relief rushed through me. Over his street clothes, Tom wore a raid jacket, a gray wind-breaker with the Furman County Sheriff’s Department logo emblazoned on the left pocket. The jacket was what the plainclothes police put on when they needed to distinguish themselves from regular folks. But distinguishing Tom Schulz from regular folks was not now, nor had it ever been, difficult.

He did not see me at first. I wiped my cheeks hard and watched him stride toward the uniformed officer with the radio, who was again kneeling on the garage floor. Tom wore his purposeful, commanding look, a look that I knew both comforted and cowed those who worked for him. It was also an expression that cut like a cleaver into a suspect’s babbling. Tom dropped to one knee to talk to the cop with the radio. The officer motioned in our direction. Tom glanced over, gave a brief, puzzled shake of the head when he saw me, then turned back to Claire.

I shivered, coughed again, and clasped my arms. I felt ridiculous in the double-breasted chef’s jacket and apron. The blood in my ears pounded as worries about Claire and Julian crowded my mind. Tom took the radio and talked into it. The policeman beside me seemed to sense there was no point in continuing his interrogation. Tom would join us momentarily and take over. An approaching siren wailed. Too soon, I thought. But of course—the new hospital was right across the street from the mall. Suddenly the red, white, and gold EMS truck careened around a cement column, then screeched to a halt and disgorged two paramedics. They ran over to Claire’s dreadfully inert body. Tom straightened and walked over to us. His face was grim.

“This is—” began the uniformed cop.

“Yeah, okay, I know who she is. Go help Rick with those demonstrators.”

The uniformed cop trotted away. Tom gave me the full benefit of his green eyes.

To my dismay, I began to cry again. “It’s Julian’s girlfriend … you know … Claire. Is she alive? Is she going to be okay?”

“No, she isn’t.” He put his arms around me. “I swear, Goldy, what are you doing out here in the garage?” When I didn’t answer, he held me closer and murmured, “She probably didn’t suffer much. Looks like she died on impact.” He released me and narrowed his eyes. They were filled with seriousness and pain. “Goldy, try to pull yourself together for a minute. Did you see it?”

I brushed the tears from my cheeks and took a shuddery breath. “No.”

“Where’s Julian?”

“Inside that nightclub. Hot Tin … you know, where they’re having … he was catering with me.” I tried to think. “What should we do, tell him? Or wait? Did the person who hit her not stop?”

“Hit-and-run. State patrol will handle it. You know, they do traffic And yes, you and I should go find Julian. Let’s not tell anybody else, though, we don’t want a general panic. Plus we need to follow procedure here, find the next of kin…. How long have you been here? You said you didn’t see this accident. What did you hear, anything?”

Haltingly, I told Tom that Claire and I had come out to get supplies from our vehicles about ten minutes before. I had not seen Claire after I got to the van. I’d loaded up and only moments later heard the growl of an engine, squealing, and the horrible thump as metal hit flesh. I pointed in the direction of the van, then remembered slapping down the fish and vegetables on the hood of a nearby car. “I guess I better go get my stuff,” I said lamely.

“Hold on.” He brought his bushy eyebrows down into a V. “The car you heard, did it honk? This squealing, was it like tires or brakes? Was it the sound of a car going around a corner?”

I chewed the inside of my cheek, trying to clear what felt like cotton in my head. “No horn. The sound was like someone going around a corner. I guess.”

Two light beige Colorado state trooper patrol cars pulled up. Tom held up a hand for them to wait. Then he pointed at the shoe-store entrance. “Get your stuff and meet me over there, would you?”

“Get my stuff?” I was incredulous. “You mean you think I still should do this stupid banquet when one of the company employees has just been killed?”

“Please. Goldy, we can’t tell her employers or coworkers yet. We’re going to have to take care of Julian. If you don’t do the banquet, the word will get out and then the journalists will make a mess—”

“Okay, okay.”

“We’ll go in to see Julian together. Avoid the demonstrators.” Then he strode off to deal with the troopers while I struggled to get my bearings. After a few shaky breaths, I turned to backtrack toward the Jeep, then turned back. Tom and the two troopers were crouched near the garage floor. Beyond them, the paramedics had hooked Claire’s body up to their telemetric equipment. Tom and the troopers were pointing at something on the asphalt.

I surveyed the garage and shivered. Could Claire really be dead? I had just talked to her, been with her, less than half an hour ago, I started to walk, then suddenly felt dizzy and reached out for one of the cement columns. How am I ever going to break this to Julian? What could I have done differently? What? Get a grip, I ordered myself. I stepped on something and stared down at the asphalt. Under my foot was the stem of a rose. At first I thought the fluorescent light of the garage must be playing tricks on me, or maybe stress arising from what I’d just witnessed clouded my vision. The rose seemed to be blue. Its closed petals were blue as a robin’s egg, blue as the color of the Colorado sky in the early days of autumn.

Without thinking I reached down for the blossom I’d crushed beneath my heel. Immediately I was rewarded with a thorn in my right index finger. Well, Tom the garden man would be interested in seeing it anyway, I thought absurdly. I held the flower up to my eyes, still unable to determine how its unique color had been applied. I turned back to see what Tom was doing. He was deep in conversation with the troopers. Twenty feet away, the ambulance, its sirens off, moved slowly out of the garage.

I walked holding the rose by its stem until my steamer and bowls were in front of me, on the Jeep hood. I put the rose on top of the salad greens, picked up the food, and started walking toward Stephen’s Shoes. Where had Tom said to meet him? Oh yes, by the entrance. Well, he’d have to come find me. He was remarkably good at that.

As I lugged the food toward the shoe store, a voice screeched.

“Hey! You! You’re one of them! You’re serving the animal-killer fascists!”

The man who accosted me was short, with a thin face framed by tightly curled black hair tucked into a small ponytail, and a wiry beard. A gold earring adorned one ear. He put his hands on his waist, cocked one hip, and glared. I made him out to be in his late twenties. He was very attractive in addition to being diminutive, but neither quality quite went with the fury emanating in my direction. Crossing his arms, he yelled, “You’re either for us or against us, you know!” His black eyes blazed. “Do you care if innocent albino rabbits are tortured for makeup? Do you? Do you think you could see if you’d had a Draize test?” He folded his arms and pushed his body forward. Taking another step, he chest-bumped the steamer and bowls I carried. “Do you care about animals or not?” he demanded.

My skin prickled hot with rage. After all I’d seen today, I was in no mood for this.

“So do you care about animals or not, bitch?” he shrilled.

I announced loudly: “I’m going to pour forty pounds of vegetables on the ass in front of me if he doesn’t move.”

The demonstrator’s mouth dropped open. Unfortunately, he quickly recovered. “You don’t know about the rabbit body-count, then? Is that why you’re serving the fascists?”

I began, “You don’t know what I’ve just seen—”

“Hey, lady! Do you think I care—”

“Excuse me,” said a familiar voice behind me.

The demonstrator’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he fell silent and looked Tom over. His glance stopped on Tom’s jacket logo. “What’s this? The storm troopers protecting capitalists?” He turned his glare back to me. “You got a vested interest in being a fascist? You think eyeshadow’s going to help your looks, Ms. Plump? Take the attention away from your blond afro?” He rolled his shoulders in a muscular, he-man sort of way. Then he reared back and once again chest-bumped the food in my hands. “Guess what?” he yelled. “I’m not going to let you go in there!”

I hauled back and thrust the full weight of myself, the vegetables, and the steamed fish into him. Too late, Tom realized what I was doing and launched himself at us. Tom’s wide hands managed to catch the steamer, a heavy metal rectangle with a rigid plastic top. The covered bowl of salad greens skittered across the garage floor. No such luck with the container of vegetables. My ponytailed irritant lay at my feet decorated with roasted red peppers, thick slices of grilled mushroom, chunks of charred onion, and blobs of cooked tomato.

“Man, lady, what is your problem?” he shrieked from the floor. “Did you see that, Officer? Wasn’t that assault? I’m going to press charges!”

Tom handed me the steamer. His face was impassive. “Do not let go of this,” he ordered in that voice of his. “Get up, you,” he commanded the demonstrator. “Go on over there with your anti-fascist friends. Don’t let me see your face by this door again. Hear?”

“You pig,” the demonstrator screamed as he scrambled to his feet and brushed off vegetables. I noticed with satisfaction that the tomatoes had left long red smears on his SPARE THE HARES T-shirt. “I’ll show my face by any door I want!”

Tom Schulz loomed over him. “You want to go to jail, Jack? Try blocking public entrances again.”

“What the hell do I pay taxes for?” the demonstrator barked over his shoulder as he scurried back to his buddies.

Tom Schulz retrieved the covered bowl of greens from the garage floor and shot me a look. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” he asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Where’d this come from?” He was staring at the rose that had miraculously stayed with the bowl of greens on its bounce across the asphalt.

“From the floor near where Claire”—I gestured—“over by that column. It’s probably been sprayed—”

“What column?”

I pointed.

“You found this fifteen, twenty feet from the body? And you picked it up?” he said, trying to clarify.

“I’m sorry. She was hit by … a vehicle, and I just saw the flower there on the floor—”

“Okay, wait a minute, let me go put it in an evidence bag.”

He strode away holding the flower delicately by its stem. When he returned, he said, “Goldy—no more violent encounters with the demonstrators, okay?”

“Look, I hit that guy with the food only because he was threatening me and he wouldn’t get out of my way. That’s justified, isn’t it? Oh, Lord.” I teetered backward. What did I care about some demonstrator?

Tom took hold of my shoulders, steadied me, and shook his head. “Goldy, I know you’ve taken a lot of crap in your life and now you don’t take crap anymore. Good for you. But don’t make more work for me than I already have. Next time hit the guy with your pepper spray, not an entire meal. Please? We’ve got big problems here, and we need to go take care of Julian. Let me get the door.”

Inside the club, rock music still throbbed against the black walls. People were gathering, expecting food. After what we’d just gone through, the shock of business as usual felt disorienting. In my absence, Julian had laid out the crudités and dips next to a stack of glass plates, and served up glass bowls of asparagus soup. The buffet line was progressing smoothly; it looked as if about half of the forty women had moved through and were seated. Julian was managing to keep the platters filled and neat as he served, smiled, and answered questions. The women giggled coyly at him, and I could guess at their whispered questions: Isn’t he cute? How long do you suppose he’s been doing this? As we entered, Julian’s eyes darted toward us. I knew we weren’t who he was looking for.

Tom took the bowl and steamer from my hands. “Just let’s put the food down. Tell him to come outside,” he murmured. “If these folks see me, they might know something’s wrong. I don’t want to start or to deal with a general frenzy.”

I moved across to the bar. Julian’s face creased in alarm when I asked him to come outside. As we moved toward the door, the women seemed to take no notice of us leaving.

Outside, Julian immediately demanded, “Where’s Claire?”

For a moment, neither Tom nor I spoke. Then Tom sighed. He said bluntly, “There’s been a hit-and-run accident. Claire was hit. I’m sorry, Julian, but she’s … she’s dead.”

Julian clutched Tom’s jacket. He cried, “What? What? What are you telling me? I don’t get it. You’re wrong. You must be wrong.” I felt my throat tighten as I put my arms around him. His hands dropped from Tom’s jacket and his muscled body started to shake. One hand slammed the wall. “Huh?” he cried. “What?” Sweat glistened over his pale skin. His eyes were wild. Shoppers from the mall stopped and stared.

“Oh, bad sign. He’s going into shock,” Tom told me. “He needs medical attention right away.” As Tom barked into the walkie-talkie that we needed another ambulance, I fumbled to undo the top button of Julian’s shirt so he could breathe more easily. I’d graduated from Med Wives 101 and knew all about shock.

At that moment the service entrance to the nightclub opened and the woman in yellow poked her head out. Her blond hair looked oily under the fluorescent lights of the hallway, and her thick makeup seemed to add years to her age. Her jet-black eyebrows gave her a menacing aspect, like Tallulah Bankhead on a bad day.

“What the hell is going on out here?” she demanded in a throaty falsetto. The mall shoppers turned their stare on her. “Where are the exploding bags? Where is Claire Satterfield?”

Tom Schulz ignored her barrage of questions. “Get back, please, ma’am. Leave us alone.”

“Oh, gawd … I suppose.” With a huge sigh and bang of the door, she disappeared. Julian slumped against the wall.

“Takes all kinds,” observed Tom as he lifted one of Julian’s eyelids to check on his state of consciousness.

Thirty seconds later the door opened again, this time revealing Harriet Wells. We were a long way from our conversation about muffins with okra and how much Mignon would pay for the banquet. Harriet looked with genuine alarm at Julian.

“Can I help?” she asked us. Her intelligent blue eyes were full of concern. She looked from Tom to me, trying to ascertain who was in charge. “Can you tell me what’s going on? Will we be one server short for the banquet?”

Julian slumped forward and began to sob. “I’ll be there to serve the food in just a minute,” I snapped as I clutched him. Harriet Wells tilted her head at me skeptically. Clearly, my tear-streaked face and smeared apron did not inspire confidence. Tom once again talked into his radio. The smell of cooking hamburgers from a mall restaurant unexpectedly wafted over us. Julian, Julian, I prayed, pull yourself together. Please.

“Can you tell me what is going on out here?” Harriet asked.

My throat closed in panic. I coughed and began to say, “You see, there’s been—”

Tom put away his radio and interrupted. “We have a crisis. Thanks for your patience. Your caterer will be there momentarily.”

“I certainly hope so,” was Harriet Wells’s parting comment as she quietly closed the nightclub door.

Julian’s face was distorted, as if he’d swallowed something and then choked on it. He pulled himself away from me, gasping for breath.

“Where should we take him?” I asked Tom. “Couldn’t you even tell that woman what happened to Claire?”

Unexpectedly, Julian reeled in Tom’s direction. Tom snagged him as the group of spectators shrieked.

“Lower him to the floor,” Tom ordered tersely. “Slowly, very slowly. Don’t hurt yourself.”

Together, we grasped Julian and helped him down. Before we had him stretched out on the floor, a shaggy-haired policeman rushed up to tell Tom a second ambulance had arrived from the hospital across the street.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” gagged a still-shivering Julian. “I want to get up. Don’t make me stay down here.”

Tom ordered the cop to get a stretcher in. Two more paramedics appeared and lifted Julian, moaning, to a stretcher. As they moved off, I felt suddenly bereft.

“Where are you going?” I called after them. “When will I hear if he’s okay?”

Tom was at their heels. “Across the street, Southwest Hospital. Don’t tell anybody what happened. I’ll call you later.” And he was gone.

The next two hours passed in a fog. I barely noticed the women I served. I found I could block out the day’s events by focusing, focusing, and focusing again on the food, on the job at hand.

Mercifully, the steamer had stayed closed when I’d heaved it at the angry demonstrator. The bowl of greens was also intact. Without the roast vegetables to garnish and dress the salad, I thinned out the carrot dip with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The resulting dressing was delicious. I had the ridiculous thought that I should have written down how I’d done it. It was such a trivial thing after what had happened to Claire. Hit-and-run. I wondered who would contact her parents in Australia.

I knew Tom was right, that he could not make a public announcement of Claire’s death to her coworkers at Mignon. Since Julian was the closest American to Claire, Tom was duty-bound to inform him. But Tom had to keep news of the death under wraps in the hope that Claire’s family could be notified by the authorities rather than a journalist in search of a juicy story. The sheriff’s department had a hierarchy of people to notify in the event of sudden death, and they stuck to it. The only folks who managed to screw this up were from the media. One of Arch’s young friends had heard over the radio of his father’s death in a plane crash. The poor child had immediately gone into shock.

Speaking of which, I couldn’t bear recalling Julian’s disbelieving face and his stricken What? What? I felt his absence by the extra amount of work I had to do: clearing dishes, refilling platters, wiping spills off the granite bar. Sometimes engaging in a load of work heals the heart. In this case, it didn’t.

The lunch took an eternity. When it was almost over, a slender, elegant woman with long raven-black hair that contrasted with her sleek beige dress and pale orchid corsage got to her feet. Sending a twinkly smile in the direction of the guests, she announced breathlessly that Mignon was going to show slides of the new line of cosmetics for autumn, and then we would have dessert. The spotlights dimmed, and soon we were looking at the luminous, enlarged faces of stunning women. Then we saw the same lovely females with their fingers caressing suggestively shaped plastic bottles. The bottles were filled with stuff you were supposed to put on your face: Magic Pore-closing Toner with Mediterranean Sea Kelp. Extra-rich Alpine Nighttime Replacement Moisturizer with Goat Placenta. Ultragentle Eye Cream Smoother with Swiss Herbs. It sounded like makeup by Heidi. Then we saw the same dramatically made-up women modeling colors of foundation, blush, lipstick, eyeshadow, and mascara. Strawberry Sundae lipstick. Hot Date blush. Foreplay eyeshadow. S’More mascara. The models’ eyes were half closed and their lips were pursed, as if they were trying to kiss the air, or at least seduce it. When it came time for the lipstick, out came the models’ tongues, just touching the tops of their mouths. The message wasn’t exactly subliminal: Buy these cosmetics and you will get sex. When the slides were over and the lights came up, there was so much clapping, you would have thought they’d just announced the Nobel for Makeup.

I wondered how Julian was doing. I wondered what phase of the investigation the police were in now. Tom had said the state patrol handled traffic, which included hit-and-run. I wondered if the driver who had struck Claire had turned himself in. I tried to imagine where Tom was, what he was dealing with….

“Okay, girls,” announced the black-haired woman, who had left her table and was standing in front of the slide screen, “that was for you!” She put her hands on her hips and wiggled them provocatively. There was more uproarious clapping. She quieted the group with a restrained Queen Elizabeth-style wave. “We’ve got the best products and the hottest line,” she continued authoritatively. “Everyone is going to be copying us—but we’ve got the jump on them because we’ve got the best sales associates and the best customers!” More thunderous applause. “And you’re going to take us into the future!” From her jacket pocket she whipped out a pair of sunglasses and put them on. This was some kind of cue, because from her table, half a dozen other women quickly donned sunglasses. “So look out, everybody!” she cried. “The future of Mignon Cosmetics is so bright you’re going to have to pull out those shades!” And then there was final, furious clapping from the audience as the black-haired woman strutted back to her seat. Wearing sunglasses, she had a hard time finding it, but someone finally took her hand and guided her back to her spot.

Out of place. That was what Tom always said he looked for, something out of place. And that was what appeared at exactly that moment: a person who didn’t fit. Someone who was usually a slob. Someone who didn’t wear lipstick or blush or face powder—ever. Someone who, as far as I knew, owned nothing but an ancient, too-large black trench coat and a ratty pair of sneakers held together with duct tape.

“Frances?” I asked tentatively as I doled out pieces of Nonfat Chocolate Torte to the women in line. “Frances Markasian?”

She smiled broadly at me and winked, then put her finger to her lips. But I was having none of it

“Why are you here?” I demanded of Frances Markasian, a reporter from Aspen Meadow’s small weekly newspaper, the Mountain Journal. Had the Mountain Journal even run one article on fashion and makeup? The only piece I remembered seeing was on hunters wearing camouflage blackface when they went looking for elk.

Frances Markasian arched one freshly plucked eyebrow at the superbly groomed women who surrounded her, and grinned broadly. She patted her dark dreadlocked hair, now pinned into a thick, frizzy bun, then wiggled fingers at the women as they surveyed her. I itched to tell them that Frances Markasian wearing sling-back heels and a spangled St. John’s knit dress was about as rare a sight as a red-tailed fox at a country club tea. But I kept mum.

As the women wandered back to their tables bearing their plates of Nonfat Chocolate Torte, I hissed, “How could you possibly have heard already?”

Frances picked at crumbs on the torte plate at the bar. “Heard what?”

Doggone it. When she finally raised her trying-to-look-innocent black eyes at me, I said evenly, “About the demonstrators. One of them tried to block the door and I whacked him.”

“You whacked him? With what? A knife or a chocolate torte pan?”

“A tray of vegetables.”

The sleek black-haired woman had taken off her sunglasses and was making a concluding announcement. The Mignon luncheon was finally breaking up. I tried to make my tone to Frances conciliatory. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here? In fact, why don’t you help me pack up my stuff while you’re spilling your guts?”

“Do you have any real food? I’m still hungry.”

I sighed. “Peach cobbler or brownies?”

Before Frances could reply, a short, slightly plump young woman with dyed orange-blond hair cut in a brushed-forward pixie style appeared at the bar. Dusty Routt, unlike journalist Frances Markasian, was not out of place at this perfumed, stylish lunch. Dusty lived just down the street from us in a house built by Aspen Meadow’s branch of the charitable group Habitat for Humanity. For a time she’d gone to prep school with Julian, but had been mysteriously expelled before graduation. She and Julian shared the bond of being scholarship students, and they’d started going out before Dusty was expelled. But a month ago Dusty had made the mistake of introducing Julian to her fellow sales associate in her new job. The fellow sales associate had been Claire Satterfield. Now Dusty’s usually cheery face was mournful and her cornflower-blue eyes pleading.

“Hi, Goldy,” she said in her singsong voice. “Where’s Julian?”

“Busy. Dusty, do you know Frances Markasian? Frances works in Aspen Meadow, at the Journal. Frances is a friend of mine,” I said. I did not add sort of a friend. Not a friend I would ever call when I had to confide something. They nodded at each other.

“You work for Mignon, Dusty?” Frances asked in such an innocent voice that it was clear to me she already knew precisely what Dusty’s job was.

“Don’t say anything,” I warned Dusty as I covered up the food trays. “Frances thinks she’s the premier investigative reporter in our little burg.”

The shorn quality of Dusty’s Dreamsicle-colored hair made her look younger than eighteen. In fact, I always thought she resembled a plump Peter Pan. “Wow! I mean, you don’t look like a reporter. You must be successful. I saw that St John’s suit in Lord & Taylor. It looks great on you. Really! Great.”

Frances shot me a spiteful look and announced she wanted a couple of brownies. Dusty said yes please, she wouldn’t mind a couple herself. I doled the baked goods out, then asked if they could help me get my equipment into the boxes. Thankfully, the nightclub staff was responsible for cleaning the tables and washing the dishes. The cosmetics crowd thinned out. When they’d swiftly polished off their brownies, Frances, in her usual trying-unsuccessfully-to-be-delicate manner, pumped Dusty for information about Mignon’s animal-testing practices as they helped me pack. Dusty shrugged. Frances reflected, frowning, as she rinsed and wrapped the steamer. Then she cleared her throat and asked how security was at Prince & Grogan. Dusty folded up the last box, said she didn’t know much about security, and moved off.

Frances, disappointed, hoisted up a box and tottered on the sling-back shoes. “Did that girl flunk verbal skills, or what? Do saleswomen talk just about what they sell?” Now it was my turn to feign ignorance. She went on: “I really shouldn’t help you, Goldy, but I need a cigarette. The anti-smoking cops in this mall will throw me in handcuffs if I light up anywhere but in the garage. You blew my cover. I can’t walk in these damn heels. And I’m going to wreck this frigging expensive dress if I carry this box anywhere. A couple of your brownies aren’t worth the aggravation—”

“Sorry about that, Frances,” I interrupted. “You are such a dear. Not only that, but you’re the only person I know who uses the phrase ‘blew my cover.’ And anyway, I’ll bet you got the paper to pay for your outfit and your lunch. What did you tell the Mignon cosmetics people, that you were from Cosmopolitan?”

“Vogue.”

“Fabulous.”

We lifted our boxes and walked out to the garage. The temperature had risen. Heat seemed to shimmer above the pavement. Three hours had passed since the accident, and everything appeared back to normal. There was no sign of either the demonstrators or the police. In another attempt at nonchalance, Frances glanced furtively in all directions. If she thought I was going to tell her anything about the day’s tragic events, she was very mistaken.

“How’s married life treating you?” she asked mildly after she’d pushed her box into my van. I noticed someone had inexpertly applied bright red polish to her stubby, much-gnawed fingernails. Part of her cover, no doubt.

“Just great,” I told her.

Frances nodded without interest and unceremoniously unzipped her dress from the collar to the chest and pulled a squashed pack of cigarettes out of her bra. She leaned against the van, lit up, and inhaled greedily, then grinned at me as she blew out smoke rings. I asked, “So how do you cover demonstrators outside a building from inside, when you’re at a banquet? And why were you asking about security? The security guys were all out here.”

“Oh, they were, were they?”

“Frances, don’t jive me.”

“And you, Goldy, are the only one I know who’d use the phrase ‘don’t jive me.’” She drew lavishly on the cigarette. “That department store has a lot of problems,” she said with an arched eyebrow. She blew out smoke, stuck the cigarette back between her lips, and used both hands to rezip her dress. “Or haven’t you heard?” When I shook my head, she shrugged. “I’ve heard some rumors. You know, got to follow everything up, check everything out. Let’s just say I thought the cosmetics place was a good place to start.”

I decided to ponder that in silence.

When she’d finished her smoke we walked back to the nightclub, picked up the last batch of boxes, and took them to the van. We chatted about the heat and how we would never in a million years spend the money Mignon was asking for all that night cream, day cream, outside—and inside—and in-between cream. Once the boxes were stacked and secured, I hopped behind the steering wheel, turned on the motor, and thanked Frances again for helping me. As I drove away, I watched her oddly stylish silhouette in my rearview mirror. Just checking out rumors, my feijoada. A new dress, high-heeled shoes, nail polish, and no cigarette for two hours of banquet and presentation? Lucky for me, I knew when she was jiving me.

Sometimes I think my van returns to Aspen Meadow by rote. And it’s a good thing too, since I was in no shape to be analytical about anything, least of all driving. I rolled down the windows and filled my lungs with hot air. It wasn’t much of a relief after the putrid-smelling warmth of the mall garage. Heat shuddered off the windows and pressed down on the van’s roof. My elbow burned the second I accidentally rested it on the fiery chrome. When I started out in the catering business, most of my jobs had been in Aspen Meadow. So of course I hadn’t bothered to get air-conditioning in my vehicle. Occasionally, like today, I regretted making that small saving.

The van wheezed up westbound Interstate 70 and soon the sultry wind flooding the car cooled. Thirty minutes later I pulled over to take a few deep breaths under a pylon of what Aspen Meadow folks call the Ooh-Ah Bridge, nicknamed for its spectacular panoramic view of the Continental Divide. A small herd of buffalo grazed in a fenced meadow near the bridge. I stared dejectedly at them and felt a fresh surge of remorse. Why hadn’t I accompanied Claire to her vehicle? Why hadn’t I insisted Julian go with her? No, that wouldn’t have been a good idea. In his lovestruck state of mind, Julian could have been hit as well. But a contingent of the sheriff’s department had been stationed nearby. Why hadn’t I insisted a policeman walk with Claire? Why?

Afternoon clouds billowed above the horizon like mutant cauliflower. Below them, the sweep of mountains were deeply shadowed in purple. My ears started to buzz. Tom would be calling. Three dark, stolid-looking buffalo eyed me, blinked, and then shuffled away. I had a sudden memory of Julian reeling out of control as his eyes fluttered shut. Julian was in shock. Next to the road, delicate bluebell blossoms bent in the mountain breeze. Claire, lovely violet-eyed Claire, was dead.

I drove home. I needed to be in my own place, needed a cold beverage, needed most of all to reconnect with my family and friends. When I came through the back door, the place felt empty and unusually stuffy. Irritation snaked up my spine. Because of the security system I’d been forced to install to keep my periodically violent ex-husband at bay, the windows stayed shut—and therefore wired—in my absence. I’d been tempted to disable the system once I was married to a formidable, gun-toting policeman. But Tom promptly vetoed that idea. You never know when he might turn up, he warned. I can’t always be around. But it was okay now, I’d protested. The Jerk wouldn’t dare bother me with a policeman in residence. Although he was ridiculously vain about being a doctor, my ex-husband was basically a coward. You haven’t seen ex-husband jealousy the way I’ve seen it, Tom replied flatly. Believe me, you don’t want to was the unspoken end of that warning.

Anyway, I’d given up trying to convince Tom to let me disable the system about two weeks after we were married this spring. Back then, during a typically frigid and snowy April in Aspen Meadow, I hadn’t thought we’d have a summer with record-shattering heat. But now it was July, and June had been the hottest since the state started keeping weather statistics in the late 1800s. Coming into the old house when it had been clamped up tight in our absence, I felt like Gretel being forced into the oven by the witch.

I opened the windows downstairs, then threw the upstairs windows open and allowed the afternoon breeze off Aspen Meadow Lake, a half-mile away, to drift in. Combined with the lilting notes of jazz saxophone coming from down the street the fresh air felt heavenly. The music came from the Routts’ place. Dusty’s grandfather played the instrument to placate Dusty’s little brother, Colin, who was born prematurely at the beginning of April, before the Habitat house had been finished. Dusty’s mother hadn’t done too well hanging on to men; I’d heard both Dusty’s father and the father of the infant had taken hikes.

Mesmerized by the music, I crossed to the windows looking out on the street and gazed at the Routts’ place. To build the dwelling, the local Habitat for Humanity had relied on funds and workers from our parish, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. The house was a simple two-story affair with inexpensive wood paneling, a tiny deck, and a room with jalousie windows off the right side. Church workers had repeatedly graded the driveway during Aspen Meadow’s muddy spring. The yard was covered with freshly excavated dirt. Red clay over the septic tank was as raw as a wound. Along the sidewalk, a stand of purple fireweed had somehow survived the construction. Unlike several of our neighbors, I’d welcomed the Routts, even if they were poor. I’d enjoyed being the church person assigned with coordinating two weeks of dinners sent in during the move and unpacking. Although I’d never met the grandfather, Dusty and her mother, Sally, had been profoundly thankful. I liked them. And at the moment I was even jealous of them: The saxophone music was coming out of open windows, something I could have only when I was home.

Maybe Tom would agree to keeping the upper-story windows ajar, at least for the summer. Even if I regretted marrying the Jerk, shouldn’t I be able at least to get a summer breeze? My ex was a wimpy, jealous, temper-tantrum thrower who had given me black eyes more times than I cared to remember. But of one thing I was sure—John Richard Korman would never scale an exterior wall to get in a window.

Downstairs, the saxophone music was louder. I flopped into a wingchair and listened to the music, taking care not to look at the couch where Julian and Claire had embraced only a few hours before. Where was Arch? I checked the kitchen, where a note in his handwriting was taped on my computer screen: Todd and I came back & now we’re doing tie-dying back at his house, just like they did in the sixties. Back around 5. Have fun today, Mom.

Arch, the most serious thirteen-year-old on the planet, always hoped I had fun. It was good he wasn’t here. I didn’t want him asking forty-five questions about Julian or Claire before I had any information. Besides, with his new activity, Arch was well occupied. At his age, my son developed enthusiasms on a biannual basis, and I had learned to go with whatever was the current wave. This had not always been the case. When he’d become involved in role-playing games two years ago, I was convinced one of us was going to end up institutionalized. When he finally abandoned constructing paper dungeons and fictional dragons, he and his friend Todd Druckman had switched to elaborate trivia quizzes. For months, Guinness books of records had spilled off every available shelf. Although Arch’s ability to spout interesting facts still had not positively affected his school performance, the trivia obsession had eventually lost its lure when Todd had refused to answer one more question about Evel Knievel. Then Arch had renewed his interest in magic. He’d been intensely serious about magic all last summer. But the magic phase had been quickly followed by a C. S. Lewis phase, complete with a handmade model of the Dawn Treader.

Now Arch was fascinated by the sixties. Posters of Eugene McCarthy and Malcolm X decorated his bedroom. The walls reverberated with the sound of the Beatles and Rolling Stones. My general attitude toward these hobby-passions was that as long as they were neither extravagantly expensive nor physically dangerous, they were okay. At least he wasn’t into gangs.

Still, I sighed. I suddenly missed him intensely, and Tom, and Julian. And I didn’t even mind solitude as much as I minded a lack of information. Why didn’t somebody call to tell me how Julian was? I took a deep breath to steady myself.

Loneliness frequently brought my ex-husband to mind. I remembered the many nights I’d waited for him. Most of the time, instead of being in the delivery room with a mother-to-be, he’d been with a waitress, or a nurse, or someone he’d just met…. Marla, who’d stayed married to John Richard Korman six years less than I, told me she’d timed the trip home from the hospital to thirty-eight minutes. Anything over that, and she knew she might as well go to bed.

Speaking of Marla, she should be showing up any moment. I filled the espresso machine with coffee and water. Because Marla was plugged into every gossip network in Furman County, she heard news at the speed of sound. If it was bad news, she heard it at the speed of light. What had happened to Claire was extra-bad news, though. Incredibly, my doorbell and telephone remained resolutely silent. I poured the dark espresso over ice cubes and milk, then dialed Marla’s number. No answer.

I downed the iced latte and told myself I had plenty to do; I could call her later. After an hour of schlepping food and dirty pans into the house, washing and putting equipment away, I called the hospital to check on Julian. Who was I, the operator wanted to know, next of kin, wife, what? A guardian? I said hopefully. A legal guardian? she asked. Well, no. Then no information could be released. Thanks loads.

I dialed Julian’s adoptive parents in Utah, told them briefly what had happened, and promised to keep them posted. Was Julian going to be all right? they wanted to know. Yes, I assured them. I told them Southwest Hospital had refused to give me any information about Julian’s condition and that they’d be better off phoning the hospital directly. Was he serious about this girl? his mother asked. My voice broke when I answered that he had seemed to be very serious about Claire. Next I called Tom at his desk and got his voice mail. I tried Marla again. Nothing.

Cook, my inner voice said. Get ahead on assignments. I consulted my calendar. Oh yes, the damn mall food fair. At the moment, I never wanted to see the mall again. But work was work. A Taste of Furman County was part of a big Fourth of July celebration the new mall owners had put together to lure people to shop over the long weekend rather than follow the more traditional pursuits of baseball and picnics. The benefit for Playhouse Southwest, at forty dollars a pop, looked as if it was going to make outrageous money. The fair would occupy the open-air top level of the mall garage. I’d taken the health department’s required course on the subject of serving food away from one’s established place of business, which was all I ever did anyway. Now all I had to do was prepare all the food.

I checked my watch: Wednesday, July 1, just before four in the afternoon. Claire’s death would surely be on the local news tonight and in the papers tomorrow. And speaking of journalism, nothing in this world would convince me that Frances Markasian was at the Mignon Cosmetics banquet for her health. Or for her beauty, for that matter. So what had she been looking for? I resolved to get going on the food. Then I’d give Tom another buzz.

I looked over the menu I’d planned for the opening day of the fair: baby back ribs with homemade barbecue sauce, steamed sugar snap peas with fresh strawberries vinaigrette, homemade bread, and vanilla-frosted fudge cookies. The barbecue sauce needed to simmer for hours before being slathered over the ribs. People can’t resist spare ribs, I reflected as thin, fragrant slices of onion fell from my knife. Ribs smelled great when they were cooking, and, like potato chips, one was never enough. When I added the onion to the simmering vinegar, tomato, and lemon of the sauce, a delectable scent perfumed my kitchen, and I began to relax. Needless to say, my newfound peace was interrupted by a jangling phone.

“You never tell me a damn thing,” Frances Markasian barked into the receiver. “I don’t know why you think we’re friends. I especially can’t understand why I helped you with those damned heavy boxes! Women can get hernias, you know.” I heard the striking of a match in the background, then a noisy inhalation. “You knew what went down at the mall this morning. And I had to wait to hear from the sheriff’s department’s public information office! The hell with you!” I could imagine Frances sitting at the edge of her ragged canvas-covered swivel chair next to her paper-strewn desk, chugging Jolt cola and working her way through the second of her three daily packs of cigarettes. Frances believed if she acted enough like a hotshot journalist, maybe she’d become one.

“The hell with me? That’s what you’re calling to tell me? You’re always saying,” I said as I stirred the aromatic sauce, “that you’re the journalist and I’m the cook. What did you want me to tell you?”

“Let’s start with what you know about Claire Satterfield. Were you in the garage when she was hit?”

I cradled the phone against my shoulder and slid the heavy, meaty slabs of pork into the oven. “C’mon, Frances, I’m already married to a cop. The last thing I need is for you to start acting like one,”

She took a drag and blew into the phone. “Uh-huh. And did you know your boarder-assistant guy, Julian Teller, was only the latest in Ms. Satterfield’s list of male conquests?”

“No, I didn’t.” And I certainly hoped Julian didn’t either. On an ordinary day I would have enjoyed sparring with Frances. Sometimes she was as good a source of information as Marla. But today was not ordinary, and I found her questions and insinuations annoying in the extreme. “Who told you Claire had other male conquests?”

“May I please speak to Julian?” Frances inquired sweetly.

“He’s in the hospital. He went into shock when he heard about Claire. Some people,” I added harshly, “have normal human emotions in response to death.”

“Oh, damn!” she exclaimed. “I’m going to have to clean up my desk, because it looks as if my heart just bled all over it. So what’s Investigator Schulz saying about the”—she cleared her throat—“accident? Anything quotable?”

“Why don’t you call the sheriff’s department and find out? Then maybe you can tell Investigator Schulz why you were down at the Mignon banquet today. Incognito. All dressed up. Exactly what rumors have you heard about the department store?”

“Cut the tripe, caterer. I’m on assignment, which should be obvious to you, even though it’s been a lot of years since you did that major in psychology. You think it was easy zipping myself into that dress? And the so-called banquet was like some kind of punishment. Diet food makes me gag. I have to eat too much of it, and that makes me feel like a bear foraging for winter. How many tomatoes can one individual consume? But the brownies were terrific.” She chuckled. Like we were such good pals. Like she had told me everything she knew and now I was supposed to do the same for her.

I took a deep breath. “You know, Frances, you did ask me if I knew about the department store’s problems. Since I assume you mean Prince & Grogan, and since I was working for their Mignon people today, I’d like to know what kind of problems would bring you down to the mall all the way from Aspen Meadow. That’s all.”

“Uh-huh. Miss Nosy Caterer. A sales associate at Prince & Grogan gets splattered all over the parking lot and you ask me what kind of problems the department store is having.”

“Don’t talk like that about Claire. It’s disgusting.”

“Oh-ho! So it’s Claire now. You did know her. In fact, you were there in the garage when someone smacked into her. Yes? Spill all, Goldy.”

“Tell me why you were at the banquet in disguise. What’s the problem with the department store?”

Frances took another drag and seemed to consider. “Let me get my pen.”

Doggone it. “No, Frances, don’t act as if we can trade information, for heaven’s sake,” I said to empty air. If anything got into the newspaper, Tom was going to be a tad upset.

Frances came back to the phone and rustled her materials about. “You knew the dead girl,” she prompted.

“You already know she was Julian Teller’s girlfriend,” I replied impatiently. “And you also know I can’t talk to you until Tom—”

VANILLA-FROSTED

FUDGE COOKIES

¾ cup all-purpose flour

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ cup canola oil

1 cup sugar

1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

4 egg whites, unbeaten

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

2–3 tablespoons skim milk, approximately additional unsweetened cocoa powderPreheat the oven to 350°. Spray a large nonstick cookie sheet with vegetable oil spray.Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt together; set aside. Mix together the oil, sugar, 1 teaspoon of the vanilla, and the egg whites until well combined. Stir in the flour mixture. Chill one hour. Using a ½-tablespoon measure, scoop the dough onto the cookie sheet, leaving 2 inches between cookies. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until the cookies are puffed and cooked through. Do not overcook.Transfer the cookies to a rack and; cool completely. Mix together the confectioners’ sugar, skim milk, and remaining ½ teaspoon vanilla until pasty. Add skim milk if necessary. Spread a small amount of vanilla frosting on each cookie. Put the cookies back on the rack, dust lightly with cocoa powder, and allow the frosting to dry.Makes 4 dozen cookies

“Ah-ha. ‘Wife of homicide investigator asks newspaper about department store scandals. Declines comment on witnessing murder of store employee.’ Your husband the investigator is gonna love it.”

“What do you mean, murder? So help me—”

“Do you know anything about those demonstrators?” she demanded.

“Of course I don’t,” I replied, struggling to sound calm. Frances had the annoying ability to make me feel constantly off balance.

“Did they get in the way of the catering? Were they near the area where the girl was hit? Or can’t you talk about that either?”

“What makes you think that—” I waved my hand in the empty kitchen, unable even to articulate the thought.

“What makes me think that Claire was run down?” she finished.

“Yes.”

“Things I’ve heard.”

“Gosh, Frances, more rumors? Maybe I should have Tom come over and talk to you.”

“Great idea. We could have lunch and chat about the Bill of Rights. You could cook. That is, if you didn’t throw vegetables around beforehand.”

“Frances, don’t.”

“The way I heard it, the fellow you threw the red peppers on was an activist by the name of Shaman Krill.”

“Why, did he talk to you? All he did was yell at me.”

“That name, Shaman Krill,” she said thoughtfully. “Think it’s short for something? Maybe it’s an alias. We’re talking about a real short guy here? Dark curly hair pulled back in a ponytail? Gold earring? Sort of a cross between a leprechaun and a terrorist? Think he was one of Claire’s boyfriends? How long had Satterfield been going with this Julian guy?”

“How do you know Claire was involved with other men?” I countered. “Why did you say Julian was the latest in her batch of conquests?”

“First you tell me something, Goldy. Did you ever get something for nothing? Listen—I’ll come visit you at the food fair, okay? Maybe then you’ll be ready to have a real chat.”

Before I could retort, she hung up. She wasn’t going to share anything she knew with me until I gave her information. And if I did that, I could just imagine the wrath of Investigator Tom Schulz. Still, he’d be interested to hear about bullying activist Shaman Krill, if he hadn’t already. Maybe you had to have a weird name to get into Spare the Hares. I slowly swished the spoon through the pot of dark barbecue sauce. There were two things Frances had been digging for: Had I known Claire was involved with other men? And who was Shaman Krill? I wondered if the two questions were related.

But that was speculation. I returned to my culinary duties to chop, boil, and beat my frustration away. I gathered cocoa powder, flour, sugar, and egg whites, and got out the recipe for the fudge cookies. The dark, delicious cookies had been one of two great inventions in my search for a lowfat chocolate torte. The other had been a lowfat chocolate soufflé that had worked not in the oven but on top of the stove. I sifted the cocoa, flour, baking powder, and salt and beat egg whites, then stirred oil, sugar, and vanilla. After combining all the ingredients, I put the cookie batter away to chill. I had just retrieved the ingredients for icing when the doorbell rang. Oh good, I thought: Marla. Finally.

I looked through the peephole prepared to see my big-bodied, big-hearted friend triumphantly holding up the bags of gourmet goodies she always brought to ease tense or troubling situations. But anticipatory delight quickly froze to dread. The Jerk’s distorted mug grinned broadly into the peephole’s circular eye.

“Let me in, Goldy,” he bellowed. “I have to talk to you!”

Fear opened a hollow in my stomach. In the years since the divorce, my ex-husband had rarely demanded to talk to me. Looking for Arch, he either barged in angrily—pre-security system—or waited sullenly for our son on the doorstep. But this afternoon Arch was doing tie-dying with Todd. I looked out at John Richard, trying to decide what to do. He drew back in a dramatic gesture from the door and held his arms out. He was wearing Bermuda shorts, Polo shirt, Top-Siders without socks—the very portrait of a rich guy.

“I’ve got news,” he shouted, pressing his face in again at the peephole. “Bad news! You want to hear it or not?” He added snidely, “It concerns somebody you care about a lot!”

I really did not want to see him. The day had been awful enough. And yet here he was, doing a typical power-trip, teasing with the possibility of bad news. I hesitated. The security system was disarmed. I could go out on the porch to talk to him. All I had to do was unlock the dead bolt and walk out the door. But when I started to fumble with the bolt, the phone rang in the kitchen. Darn it all, anyway. I dashed for the kitchen.

“Goldilocks’ Catering—” I began breathlessly. The Jerk was banging on the front door. There was a smart thwack of wood against metal. I heard the Jerk curse loudly. “Goldilocks’ Catering,” I repeated, “Where Everything—”

“It’s me,” Tom interrupted. “I’m at the hospital.”

“Boo!” said John Richard Korman as he walked up behind me. His breath smelled of whiskey. I shrieked and dropped the phone.

“Who’s that?” said Tom. Coming from the dropped phone, his voice was distant but clearly alarmed. “Goldy? Are you there?”

I stared furiously at my ex-husband, who gave me a wide-eyed mocking leer in return. Involuntarily, I glanced around for my wooden knifeblock. John Richard followed my gaze and wagged one finger at me. He moved in the direction of the knifeblock, scooped it up, and cradled it and its protruding black handles as he moved into the dining room. Goose bumps pimpled my arms. By the time John Richard walked empty-handed back into the kitchen, I’d managed to pick up the dangling receiver. “It’s … John Richard, and Arch isn’t home, but John Richard says that there’s bad—”

“For crying out loud, Goldy, what the hell is he doing there?” Tom hollered. “Get him out! Now!”

I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see the Jerk’s furious expression. “Tell me how Julian is,” I said firmly into the receiver. “Then I will.”

“I’m not calling about Julian—” Tom began.

“Hey, Gol-dy-y!” the Jerk said calmly. Nastily. “He’s not calling about Juli-a-n. He’s at the hospital and he’s calling about somebody else.”

“This is bad news—” Tom began again.

John Richard grabbed the receiver out of my hand and slammed it down in its cradle. I closed my fists and glared at him.

“Listen to me, goddammit!” Dr. John Richard Korman shouted in my face. “Marla’s had a heart attack!”

A what?”

“Are you deaf?” He lowered his voice, sat down at the kitchen table, and assumed his all-knowing tone. The mood-switch was both predictable and frightening. “She was trying to jog her lard-assed self around the lake. She got home, didn’t feel well, and called her g.p. He hadn’t seen her in five years, of course, so when she described her symptoms, he sent in some paramedics, and they called for the Flight-for-Life copter.” The phone on the counter rang again. The muscles in John Richard’s face locked in anger. I knew the look. Now he was just a time bomb. He sat at the kitchen table and said too calmly, “I would like to talk to you without interruption.”

My throat constricted with the old fear. My palms itched to answer the insistent rings. But I knew better than to defy the Jerk. As the phone continued to ring, John Richard made no move to answer it. He crossed his legs. Ever smooth, ever urbane. But I was watching. He said, “You won’t get in to see her without me.”

“That’s not true,” I said, trying to sound unruffled. “Look, you’ve been drinking.” It didn’t take much to set John Richard off. Two ounces of scotch was enough to ignite him for at least four hours. “Why don’t you just—”

“Are you interested in Marla or not?” His eyes blazed and he tightened the formidable muscles in his arms. “I mean, I thought she was your best friend.”

The phone rang and rang. I didn’t take my eyes off John Richard. “Have you seen her?”

“No, no, I was waiting to take you down,” he said with mock sweetness. John Richard leaned forward. A hard pain knotted in my chest. “Whether you like it or not, Miss Piss, as an ex-husband, I am a relative.” The phone shrilled. Tears pricked my eyes. I hated to be so paralyzed with fear. Marla. Forty-five years old. A heart attack. The Jerk, unheeding, talked. “You, as the friend who fed her all the cholesterol-filled crap that blocked her arteries, are not a relative. Friends might not be able to get into the Coronary Care Unit whenever they want. Relatives can. Are you with me so far? So if you want to see Marla at the hospital, I’m going to have to go in with you. Am I getting through to you?”

Any moment, I thought. Any moment and this man who worked out with the fanaticism of an Olympic athlete could take hold of one of my wrists and shatter it against the table with such force that I wouldn’t be able to knead bread for a year. I kept my eyes on his maniacally composed face and picked up the receiver. “I’m okay,” I said without my customary greeting. On the other end, Tom noisily let out air, a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan. “Thanks for calling back, Tom. He’s just leaving.”

“Just leaving?” Tom yelled. “You mean he’s still there? I’m staying on this phone until he’s out of that house and that door is locked and bolted. Turn that security system back on. If you can’t do that, get out. Understand? Goldy? You listening? I can get the 911 operator to call your neighbor. Have a department car there in ten minutes.”

I turned to my ex-husband. “Please go,” I said firmly. “Now. He’s going to send in the authorities. They’ll be here in ten minutes.”

Dr. John Richard Korman leapt to his feet, grabbed the box of cocoa I’d used for the cookies and flung it against the wall. I screamed as brown powder exploded everywhere. John Richard dusted his hands and gave me a look: Now why did you make that necessary?

“Get out,” I said evenly. “Leave. Nine and a half minutes, and you’re in a lot of trouble.” He’d thrown something because he was thwarted. I wouldn’t go to the hospital with him, and I had paid.

The Jerk assumed an attitude of nonchalance and shrugged. Then, without another word, he withdrew from the kitchen and sauntered his Bermuda-shorted self through the front door. I followed, pressed the bolt into place and armed the system, then ran back to the phone.

“Miss G.?” I broke out in a sweat from the relief of hearing Tom’s old term of endearment. “Will you please talk to me?”

“He’s gone,” I said breathlessly. “Can you tell me where, I mean, how long ago did she … how is she?” I remembered all too vividly Marla’s sad history, that her father had died from a heart attack when she was very young.

“She’s okay. In the Coronary Care Unit at Southwest Hospital. She had a mild heart attack this morning either before or after jogging around Aspen Meadow Lake. Since when is she a jogger?”

“Since never,” I replied angrily, “and she’s on some weird lemon-and-rice diet—”

“Not anymore, she isn’t. You coming down here or what? I probably won’t be able to stay. The investigation of the death over in the mall garage is getting under way.”

I replied that I was on my way and that he shouldn’t wait for me. I scribbled a note to Arch: Back by dinner. How was I going to tell Arch what had happened to Julian or Marla? He adored them both. Stepping out the back door, I glanced around to make sure the Jerk wasn’t lurking in the bushes. That would have been typical of him. I also checked the van’s rear area. It was empty. I locked the doors, gunned the engine, and let the speedometer needle quiver past seventy as I raced back to Denver. I wished I didn’t know as much as I did about the statistics of heart disease running in families.

My best-friendship with Marla had blossomed out of the bitterness of being divorced from the same horrid man. I shook my head and thought of the cloud of brown cocoa powder erupting as it hit the wall. To get emotional control over his cruelty, Marla and I alternately reviled and ridiculed John Richard. But through the years, the relationship between Marla and me had deepened beyond our mutual crisis. We’d formed a discussion group called Amour Anonymous, for women addicted to their relationships. I zipped past Westside Mall and headed for the parking lot at Southwest Hospital.

Our Amour Anonymous meetings had been alternately heartfelt and hilarious. And when the group petered out, as those kinds of groups tend to do, Marla and I remained steadfast to each other with daily phone calls and long talks over shared meals. Moreover, Marla’s generosity with her considerable wealth meant not only that she was one of my best clients, but that she also referred me to all her rich friends. The people in Marla’s address book had provided an endless stream of assignments for Goldilocks’ Catering, including Babs Braithwaite of the upcoming Independence Day party.

My hands clutched the steering wheel. If the Jerk was right and they wouldn’t admit me to the CCU, I was going to have to come up with some way to talk my way in. Just thinking of John Richard made my flesh crawl. How dare he break into my house and blame my cooking for what had happened to Marla? Of course, that kind of behavior was nothing new for him. John Richard Korman, whose mother had been a hardcore alcoholic, frequently had just enough whiskey to release the enraged demon that lived inside.

But there was some truth in what he said. Marla was indeed a large-bodied woman. She ate with gusto, then dieted remorsefully, never for very long or to much effect. Eventually she always resumed her passionate affair with chocolate chip cookies—and cream-filled cakes. But what worried me more than her erratic eating habits was her phobia concerning doctors and hospitals. I wasn’t surprised to hear that she hadn’t seen her general practitioner for years.

I pulled the van into the hospital lot. Southwest Hospital was a subsidiary of a Denver chain of medical facilities. When Westside Mall was in the process of being refurbished, fundraising and construction began on the new hospital. There was another irony: For all her disdain for doctors, Marla had been one of the most generous donors to Southwest Hospital’s building fund.

Inside the hospital, I followed yellow-painted footprints and then blue ones until I came to the automatic doors of the Coronary Care Unit entrance on the fourth floor. A red-haired receptionist wrinkled her brow at me.

“Name of patient?”

I tried to look both innocent and deeply bereaved. “Marla Korman,” I replied.

“She can see visitors only the first ten minutes of each hour, and that’s just past. You’ll have to wait an hour.”

I said quickly, “She’s my sister. Surely I can see her?”

“And you are …”

“Goldy Korman.”

She consulted a clipboard, then gave me a smug smile. “Is that so? When we asked her about next of kin, she didn’t list you.”

“She’d just, had a heart attack,” I said with an enormous effort at long-suffering bereavement. “What do you expect? I really need to see her. I’m worried sick.”

“I’ll have to see some ID.”

Think. I rummaged through my purse and brought out my sorry-looking fake-leather wallet with its wad of credit card receipts and expired grocery coupons.

“ID?” the receptionist repeated serenely.

Wildly, I wondered how I’d talk myself out of this one. Then I had an inspiration. Well, of course. My fingers deftly pulled out a dog-eared card. Good old Uncle Sam! I handed the nurse my old Social Security card.

“Goldy Korman,” she read, then shot me a suspicious look. “Don’t you have a driver’s license or something?”

I bristled. “If my sister dies while you’re doing the Nazi documentation routine, you’ll never work in a hospital in this state again.”

The receptionist snapped the Social Security card with my old married name onto her clipboard and said to wait, she’d be right back. Well, excuse me, after notifying the federal government of the name change to go with my social security number, I had tried to get a new card. I had called the Social Security Administration numerous times after my divorce, when I’d resumed my maiden name. Their line was always busy. Then I’d called them thirty more times this spring, five years after the divorce, when I remarried and assumed the surname Schulz. Again I’d written to them about the name change. All I wanted was a new card. The line was still busy. If people died listening to that bureaucracy’s busy signal, did their survivors still get benefits?

The red-haired receptionist swished back out. Apparently my old ID had passed muster, because she led me wordlessly through the double doors of the CCU. Curtained cubicles lined two walls, with a nurses’ station at the center. I tried desperately to summon inner fortitude. Marla would need all the positive thoughts I could send her way. I was handed over to a nurse, who motioned me forward.

On a bed at the end of the row of cubicles, Marla seemed to be asleep. Wires and tubes appeared to be attached to every extremity. Monitors clustered around her.

“Ten minutes,” said the nurse firmly. “Don’t excite her.”

I took Marla’s hand, trying not to brush the IV attached to it. She didn’t move. Her complexion was its normal peaches-and-cream color, but her frizzy brown hair, usually held in gold and silver barrettes, was matted against the pillow beneath her head. I rubbed her hand gently.

Her eyes opened in slits. It took her a moment to focus. Then, softly, she groaned. To my delight her plump hand gave mine the slightest squeeze.

“Don’t exert yourself,” I whispered. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

She moaned again, then whispered fiercely, “I am perfectly okay, if I could just convince these idiots of that fact.”

I ignored this. “You’re going to be just fine. By the way, in case anybody asks, I’m your sister.”

She appeared puzzled, then said, “I’m trying to tell you, there’s been some mistake. I had indigestion. That’s all.” Denial, I knew, is common among heart attack victims, so I said nothing. “Goldy,” she exclaimed, “don’t you believe me? This whole thing is a misunderstanding. I woke up feeling just a little under the weather, and you know how damn hot it’s been.” She twisted in the bed, trying to get comfortable. “So I went for a jog around the lake. I started to feel much better. Nice and cool. Refreshed. Of course, I wasn’t going very fast. I was even thinking you and I could go out for lunch if you weren’t busy. And then I remembered you were doing that cosmetics lunch, which I had decided to skip because I felt so fat.”

“It’s okay,” I said soothingly. “Please, don’t upset yourself.”

“Don’t act as if I’m dying, okay?” Her pretty face contorted with anger. Once more she tried to heave herself up but decided against it, and sagged back against the pillow. “It doesn’t help. You know what my worst fear was when I heard the siren bringing those damn medics? That they would check my driver’s license. They’d know the weight I put down there was a lie. All these years, whenever I hear a siren, that’s what I think. I could just imagine some cop hollering, ‘Leave your vehicle and get on these portable scales! Marla Korman, you’re under arrest!’”

“Marla—”

“So let me finish telling you what happened. Before the paramedics came. I drove home real slowly from the lake. But at home I started to feel bad again—cold sweat, you know, like the flu. So I took aspirin and Mylanta, lots of both, and then I took a shower.” Her voice collapsed into a sigh. “Finally I called Dr. Hodges and he about had a conniption fit, probably because I hadn’t called him in ages. The man is a fanatic. He jumped to the conclusion that something was wrong. Those paramedics came roaring over, and before you knew it I was in this damn helicopter!” Tears slid down her cheeks. “I kept trying to tell them, I’m just woozy. I mean, how would you feel if you had your eardrums breaking with the whump whump sound of rotary blades?” The effort of talking seemed to exhaust her, but she plowed on. “And the sight of paramedics staring down at you? ‘Excuse me, ma’am, whump whump you’ve whump whump had a heart attack’? I said, ‘Oh yeah? What’s that I hear beating?’”

“Marla. Please.”

She wagged a finger absent of her customary flashing rings. “If they don’t let me out of here, they’ve seen their last donation from me, I can tell you that. That’s what I told the ER doc when I got here. He completely ignored me. ‘Look me up on your list of benefactors!’ I shouted at him. The guy acted deaf! I said, ‘Better ask your superiors how much Marla Korman gave this hospital last year! You don’t want to be responsible when those donations dry up!’”

“Marla, for crying out loud. There must be ways they can tell whether you’ve had a heart attack. There’s your EKG—”

Her eyes closed. “It’s a mistake, Goldy. Leave it to the medical profession to screw things up. What is going to give me a heart attack is thinking about all the piles of dough I’ve given this hospital.”

“But you know it’s better to be cautious—” I started to protest, but she would have none of it and shook her head. The CCU nurse signaled my ten minutes were up. Reluctantly, I released Marla’s hand and checked her chart. Dr. Lyle Gordon, cardiologist, and I were going to have a chat. After a quick kiss on Marla’s plump cheek, I backed away from the cubicle.

When I returned to the reception desk and asked where I could find Dr. Gordon, the red-haired woman glowered, then shrugged. Very calmly, I told her I wanted to have Dr. Gordon paged. Now, please. Twenty minutes later, a chunky fellow wearing thick glasses and a white lab coat pushed through the doors of the CCU waiting room. Lyle Gordon had a high premature fluff of gray hair that did not conceal a bald spot.

“Don’t I know you?” he asked, squinting at me. “Aren’t you … or weren’t you … married to—?”

I tried to look horrified at the idea. Dr. Gordon scowled suspiciously. “I’m Marla Korman’s sister,” I told him. “Could we talk?”

He led the way and we sat in a corner grouping of uncomfortable beige sofas.

“Okay, does your mother know about this yet?” he began.

I had a quick image not of Marla’s mother, but of my own mother, Mildred Hollingwood Bear. Perhaps she would be at an Episcopal Church Women’s luncheon, or a New Jersey garden club brunch, when she was told that her daughter, the divorced-but-remarried caterer, had been arrested for impersonating the sister of her ex-husband’s other ex-wife …

“Well, no—”

“Your sister said your mother was in Europe and that finding her would be tough,” Dr. Gordon said politely, nudging his glasses up his nose with his forefinger. “Father deceased by heart attack at the age of forty-eight. Will you be able to find your mother?”

“Er, probably.” Maybe, perhaps, hopefully, I added mentally. I imagined a lie detector needle etching out mountains and valleys of truth and deception.

“Any other family history of heart disease?”

“Not that I know of.”

Dr. Gordon adjusted his glasses again and succeeded in smearing his fingerprints on their thick lenses. “Your sister’s had a mild heart attack. She’s only forty-five. And unfortunately, she’s—”

“She seems to think she hasn’t had a heart attack.”

“Excuse me. Her first EKG indicated she was having extra heartbeats, one of the warning signals. We also saw her STs were way up—”

“STs?”

He sighed. “A portion of the electrocardiogram that shows the recovery of the heart between contractions is abnormal. If the STs are up, a person’s having a heart attack, okay? The paramedics called in the copter, put her on oxygen, put nitroglycerin under her tongue. It’s a blood vessel dilator.”

“Yes … I do know about nitroglycerin.” I also knew that if the vessels could be dilated close enough to the beginning of an attack, blood could get to the heart and prevent damage, sometimes even abort the attack. I said tentatively, “Maybe—”

“We think that the nitroglycerin actually thwarted a more severe attack. Her blood tests have come back, her enzymes are up, so no matter what she says now, she was having a heart attack. Do you believe me?”

Blood rang in my ears. I felt despair closing in and weakness taking over. “Yeah, sure. Just … could you tell me if she’s going to be all right? What’s next?”

“She’s scheduled for an angiogram first thing tomorrow morning. It depends on what that tells us about blockage. If an artery is badly blocked, we’ll probably schedule an atherectomy for the afternoon. Do you know what that is?”

I said dully, “Roto-rooter through the arteries.” But not for Marla. Please, not for my best friend. I tried not to think about catheters.

Gordon quirked his gray eyebrows at me, then continued: “Has she been under the care of a physician? She gave the name of a general practitioner in Aspen Meadow. We called him: He said he hadn’t seen her in five years. That’s why her phone call to him came as such a warning signal.”

“Marla hates doctors.”

“She claims she’s a hospital benefactor.”

“My sister is superstitious, Dr. Gordon. She thinks if she gives a lot of money to a hospital, she’ll never actually have to spend any time in one.”

“And she’s not married.”

It was sort of a question. If an unknown sister turns up, a spouse may be next. “Not married,” I said curtly.

“Well, then, I need to tell you this. As I said before, her blood tests show she’s had what looks like a very minor heart attack. If all goes well tomorrow, and barring any complications, I think we’ll be able to discharge her in three or four days. If the attack had been more severe, we would have to keep her in the hospital for a week or more. But when she does go home, she’s going to have to have care.”

“No sweat. My sister has lots of—er—we have lots of money. I’ll get a private nurse. Just tell me what her prognosis is.”

“She needs to change her lifestyle. Her cholesterol was at 340. That must be reduced. Then she has a good chance. We’ve got nutrition people who can help her. There’s a cardiac rehab program here at the hospital that she can get into. If she’s so inclined, that is. And she better become so inclined if she values her life.” His tone was grim.

“Okay. Thanks. Can I see her again now?”

“Not for long. Are there any other relatives I should know about?”

Without missing a beat, I replied, “Our nephew might be in. His name is Julian Teller.”

“Is this your son?”

“No, the son of … another sister. Julian is nineteen. Actually, he’s here in the hospital. I think.”

“Looking for his aunt?”

“No, being treated. Could you check for me? Please? It’s so much easier for a doctor to get information than the rest of us peons.”

Dr. Gordon disappeared for a few moments, then sat back heavily on the beige cushions. “Julian Teller was treated for shock and released about an hour ago. Shock brought on by hearing about his aunt Marla?”

“No, something else. Another family tragedy.”

The doctor gave me a strained, sympathetic smile. “Your family is having quite a day, Ms. Korman.” He shifted impatiently in the chair. Other patients are waiting? his movement said. “It would be good for your sister if you could visit as much as possible. Good vibes, touchy-feely, all that helps.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be here every day,” I wrote my phone number on a piece of paper. “Please call me if anything unusual develops with her situation. Will you be checking on her every day?”

He wrinkled his face in incredulity. “Of course.” He looked at me unblinkingly through his spectacles that were so thick they reminded me of old Coke bottle bottoms. “She may get very depressed. It’s a common response to heart attack. Even if we can bring her back to health, she’s going to need you to give her courage and support. Are you going to be able to help with that?”

It was my turn to give him an incredulous look. I pressed my lips together and nodded.

The second time I saw Marla that afternoon she slept through the whole ten minutes of my visit. Her chest rose and fell weakly inside the drab blue hospital gown that was nothing like her customary flamboyant outfits. I closed her hand lightly so as not to disturb her. Her lips, ordinarily lush with lipstick, were dry and cracked, and her breathing seemed uneven, I had seen a young woman dead that morning. Now more than anything I wanted to hold on to this friend who was closer to me than any sister could have been.

I resolved to call our church as soon as I got home. Marla was both popular and active at St. Luke’s. She chaired the annual Episcopal Church Women’s jewelry raffle and animated the monthly vestry meetings with her irrepressible brassiness and wit. If I didn’t let the parish know what was going on, I’d be the recipient of some very unchristian phone calls. I also needed to find out about arranging for a private nurse to come in as soon as the hospital discharged Marla.

I tried to make more mental lists but ended up driving home in a stupor. When the tires crunched over the gravel driveway, I was thankful to see that Tom had squeezed his Chrysler into our detached garage next to Julian’s Range Rover. Arch bounded in my direction as soon as I came through the security system. He was sporting the result of his afternoon of tie-dying: a T-shirt big enough for a quarterback and a pair of knee-length shorts streaked with vivid orange and purple splotches. I didn’t care what he looked like. I swept him into my arms and twirled him around in a circle. When, breathless, I let go of him, he stepped back, astonished.

“Hey, Mom! Get real! What’s going on? I mean, what’s happening?” He pushed his glasses up his nose and eyed me. From his puzzled but happy response, I guessed Tom had not yet told Arch about the events of the morning. “Where’ve you been?” he continued suspiciously. “Tom brought Julian home but he’s lying down. Everybody around here is out of it. But look.” He stepped back dramatically and held out his thin arms. “Is my outfit cool or what?” A proud smile broke out over Arch’s freckled face as he waited for my assessment. I was not about to tell this just-turned-thirteen-year-old that the spotted, too-large outfit hung from his bony shoulders and small torso like something salvaged from a large person’s clothesline.

“It is cool,” I agreed emphatically. “Really. You look absolutely, positively great.”

He turned his mouth down in an exaggerated frown. “Mom? You’re not tripped out or anything, are you?”

“Do you know what being tripped out means?”

Arch scratched his belly under the shirt. “Forgetful? That’s what they used to say, ‘I can’t remember anything, man, I was tripped out—’”

“Look, I’m fine. I’m only in my thirties, remember, and I was just a kid during the period you’re talking about. Where’s Tom?”

“Cooking. I told him to fix something groovy from the sixties and he said the only groovy food he knew was hash brownies. That’s disgusting! How can you put corned beef hash in brownies?”

It was going to be a tiresome hobby. When I entered the kitchen, Tom was bent so intently over a recipe that I repressed the greeting on my lips. The walls had been cleaned of the cocoa powder thrown by the Jerk, and lump crabmeat glistened invitingly on the countertop next to a tall green bottle of white wine. A seasoned crêpier waited next to a wide sauté pan, where butter for a sauce sizzled in a slow, circuitous melt. Tom relished cooking even more than gardening. I happily let him do both. I’d take crapes stuffed with crabmeat in white wine sauce any day. Especially when it was made by somebody else.

As I watched, Tom leaned over the crabmeat and methodically nabbed and tossed bits of shell and cartilage. I felt a surge of pleasure. It was not only that I now lived in a household where people vied to prepare the food. Nor was it, because of the day’s events, that I’d developed a sudden appreciation for life. This unsettling joy surfaced because I still didn’t know why I’d been so reluctant to marry the man who now stood in what used to be my domain and was now our kitchen.

I watched the butter dissolve into a golden pool. Of course, my hesitancy stemmed from all that bad history of my first marriage. After I’d left the Jerk I’d come to relish those years of single motherhood and solitude. Except for the celibacy, which I kept telling myself I’d get used to, being single constituted the perfect life for me, I’d decided. Until Tom.

Nevertheless, transition from my fiercely maintained aloneness to daily companionship did have its glitches. There had been the financial questions. Years ago, the divorce settlement from Dr. John Richard Korman had paid for the expensive retrofit of my kitchen for commercial food service, and I couldn’t leave it and still maintain my business. So Tom had moved in with Arch, Julian, and me, and found a renter for his cabin in a remote mountain area. He insisted on putting the rent money into a vacation fund for the four of us. Of course, as a self-employed woman with the only catering business in town, I’d forgotten what the word vacation meant.

These and other material aspects we’d been able to work out fairly well. Our biggest problem was anxiety. Tom worried about me and I returned the favor. Tom had seen some of the damage done by John Richard Korman before our split. He knew my left thumb didn’t bend properly because John Richard had broken it in three places with a hammer. Tom had examined the hutch glass I’d never replaced after John Richard had shattered it in one of his rampages, and the buffet permanently dented from the Jerk’s repeated kicking when I’d been hiding behind it. After Tom moved in, one of his first acts was to replace the hutch glass and sand and refinish the buffet’s dents.

My apprehension over the dangers of his job were legion. Whenever I heard over the radio of a shooting, whenever a midnight phone call brought him out of our warm bed, whenever that midnight phone call meant that before he left he was cinching the Velcro bands around his white bulletproof vest, my heart ached with fear. My anxiety had not been eased when a murderer had kidnapped Tom for four days this spring, just as we were about to be married. He scoffed and said that had been a bizarre event. He hadn’t even believed it himself.

Nor did Tom and I quite know how to talk to each other about our work. Tom claimed he enjoyed discussing investigations with me as long as I wouldn’t get upset. Or worse, tell anybody what he or I had uncovered. To me, Tom always appeared either in control: when he was surrounded by his team in an investigation, or in relaxed good humor, when we were together and he was telling me about bloodstain patterns or check-kiting. I, on the other hand, did not relish rehashing the trials of cooking for, serving to, and cleaning up after the rich and shameless. Occasionally I would regale him with stories about the Thai guest at a reception for two hundred who’d insisted on giving me his recipe for whole baked fish—in Thai, or about the drunk Polo Club host who fell off his horse before eating one bite of the vegetarian shish kebabs.

Reflecting on all this, I’d failed to notice that Tom had stopped cooking and was staring at the cupboard above the kitchen counter, his face twisted with pain.

“Tom! What is it?”

Startled, he dropped the shell bits he was holding. I apologized and helped him wipe them off the floor. By the time he straightened up, he had assumed his normal end-of-the-day relaxed look. Still, I was taken aback. In the two months that we’d been married, I’d never seen him look agonized. Until now. Despite his disclaimers to the contrary, the job did take its toll, after all.

He forced a wide grin. “Hey there, Miss G.”

“What’s wrong?”

“No more than usual.” He rinsed his hands and dried them on a dish towel “Julian’s okay, he just needs to rest. I think he’s asleep. Did you get in to see Marla?”

I hugged him briefly and murmured that I had. Which reminded me. I phoned the St. Luke’s answering machine and left a brief message about Marla’s condition, then left another message for a woman in the parish who had once hired a private nurse. Did she have any recommendations? I asked her tape. Then I washed my hands and glanced at the recipe before retrieving some fresh garlic. Alas, the Jerk had carried off my knives somewhere.

“Marla was very angry. Claimed she hadn’t had a heart attack,” I commented over my shoulder as I looked around the dining room for my knifeblock. This seldom-used space was a monument to my former life as a doctor’s wife. It looked like a furniture store. I’d bought the solid cherry buffet, hutch, and dining room suite right after my first wedding. Then I’d feverishly crocheted an enormous tablecloth and undertaken the tiresome needlepointing of floral covers for the chair seats. I should have been taking a karate class. Better yet, shooting lessons. I hefted up the knifeblock from the table and brought it back to the kitchen.

“I’m guessing Marla will be home at the beginning of next week,” I told Tom as I sniffed a clove of garlic. The garlic was fresh and juicy; its pungent smell filled the air. I told Tom what the cardiologist had told me about Marla’s condition and her upcoming angiogram and potential atherectomy. “I’m going to go in and see her every day,” I added defiantly as I minced. But of course Tom wouldn’t be jealous if I made a daily visit to a friend. I shook my head and reached for another clove of garlic. Old reactions died harder than I thought.

Tom turned back to his recipe card and abruptly changed the subject. “How did Korman get through the security system?”

“Look, it was a fluke … I was in the middle of undoing the dead bolt, and the phone rang, and he hollered that there was some bad news … and before I knew it, he was right beside me … I just wasn’t careful.”

“Are you all right?” He glanced up from the recipe card, his mouth in a thin line.

When I said I was, he frowned disbelievingly.

“Sorry,” I amended, “it won’t happen again.” And there went my summer breeze through the unsecured upstairs windows, I thought. “What did the hospital say about Julian? Is there any special treatment?”

He dropped ingredients into the melted butter. The delectable scent of crabmeat and garlic rose from the pan. “He just needs to rest. We probably shouldn’t talk about the accident around him. Not just yet, anyway, although we’ll have to eventually.” He reached for a wooden spoon and stirred in flour to make a roux.

“Why not talk to him about it? And why will you have to eventually?”

Tom exhaled deeply. “Goldy, he looked god-awful coming home from the hospital. I just don’t want to upset him anymore. He cried off and on all the way up the interstate. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kid in tears.”

“Maybe if he talks about it he’ll feel better.”

Tom stopped stirring and gave me a half-grin. “Well, Miss Psych Major, I know that’s true. But we’ve got a lot of unknowns right now, and I’m not sure Julian should hear about them just yet.”

“Unknowns?”

He whisked broth into the sauce, set it to simmer, and then trundled over to the walk-in refrigerator. A moment later he emerged with two bottles of carbonated apple cider, one of Arch’s favorites. He opened a bottle and poured us each a glass full of spritzy gold bubbles. The icy drink was heavenly after the heat of the day.

Tom said, “This mess with Claire Satterfield looks real bad. I’m going to be tied up with it for the foreseeable future.”

“But I thought the state patrol handled traffic accidents—”

“It wasn’t an accident,” he said curtly. He drained his glass. His deep green eyes regarded me grimly. “The patrolman and I saw acceleration marks on the garage floor. They’re very different from deceleration marks. That’s what you get when somebody’s trying to stop.”

“You mean you can—wait! Acceleration? Somebody saw her? Somebody saw her and … sped up? Oh, my Lord—”

He nodded. “And our one eyewitness,” he said, “or the one person who thinks he might be an eyewitness, observed a dark green truck veer out of the garage.” He stood up to check on his sauce. “We found an eighty-seven green Ford pickup parked by the outside entrance of Prince & Grogan. Stolen. Dented on the grille where it could have hit someone. Coroner’s office will match that up with impact marks on the victim.”

I said weakly, “Impact marks? You mean bruises? And wasn’t there any blood on the grille?”

“The body doesn’t have time to bruise.” I closed my eyes. “Sometimes there’s blood on the vehicle, sometimes there isn’t,” he went on. “This time there wasn’t. The only blood was on the garage floor, from when her head hit the pavement. Unfortunately, there’s not a single discernible hair or fingerprint inside the truck. At least so far. Our guys are working on it. We’re grasping for anything.” He paused. “But here’s something. You were the closest person that we know of to the scene of the crime. Relatively near the body, you found that flower.”

“You don’t think—”

“I have no idea, it’s probably nothing. But every now and then you get a hunch. When a flower so perfectly fresh is found by the scene of what we’re now realizing was a homicide, we have to get it analyzed. So I took a picture of it and sent it to the American Rose Association.”

“Sheesh, that is grasping for straws. What do you mean, our guys are working on the truck?”

He measured out white wine and stirred it into the bubbling crabmeat mixture. “As I said, we’re now treating Miss Satterfield’s death as a homicide. State patrol’s out, we’re in.” His big body sighed. “So. Now all we have to do is figure out who would want to kill her. That’s why I’m going to have to talk to Julian as soon as he’s feeling a little better. The team’s working on the evidence too. We need to figure out who could smash into her like that and then leave. Without being seen. We’re thinking the perp either had another car right there, or went right back inside the mall.”

“I don’t believe somebody could do that without anybody seeing.”

“Believe it. People usually are just minding their own business.” He swirled Parmesan cheese into the sauce. “Poor Julian.”

“What about those demonstrators? Think this could be something they’d do out of spite against Mignon Cosmetics? Because Claire worked for them?”

“At this point, nothing can be ruled out. We’re getting the demonstrators’ names and addresses. The usual drill.”

My glass was long empty. I needed something else to do with my hands. So I set about assembling ingredients for a fruit cup—luscious, ripe cantaloupes, strawberries, grapes, bananas. I chopped and sliced and arranged the fruit in concentric circles, trying to bring a similar order to this chaos of news.

At length I poured myself another glass of cider and said, “Remember the guy I dumped the vegetables on?”

Tom’s smile was enormous: back to his old self. “One of your better moments, Miss G. What about him?”

“And remember Frances Markasian?”

“Goldy, how could anyone forget a reporter who looks like a Caucasian Bob Marley and dresses like a class in salvage?”

I told Tom that Frances seemed to have ferreted out the activist to interview him and that his name was Shaman Krill Not only had Frances somehow learned that Julian was only the most recent of Claire’s many boyfriends, but she also seemed, like Tom and the state troopers, to believe Claire’s death was no accident. Tom turned the stove off, held up one hand, and dug out his trusty spiral notebook.

“Other boyfriends. Thinks Claire was run down. How’d she come to these conclusions, did she say? Maybe I should give her a ring.”

“Right, and get an earful about her First Amendment right to protect her sources. Then she’d never tell me a thing. You should have seen her: I hardly recognized her this morning, all decked out in an expensive new dress and tame hairstyle.”

He snorted with disgust. “Why was she at the Mignon banquet? Since when is southeast Furman County the beat of an Aspen Meadow reporter?”

I shrugged and sipped cider. “She said she’d heard rumors about Prince & Grogan having problems. How that translates into attending a cosmetics lunch I don’t know. And please, don’t ask what kind of rumors, because I already asked her and she’s not saying. But I’m going down there day after tomorrow for the food fair, and tomorrow I need to pick up my check from the Mignon people—”

“Oh, Goldy, no—”

“I’m just going to ask—”

“Okay, ask.” He reached over and took both of my hands in his.

“You know I think you have a great mind for these investigations. That’s why I like to talk to you about them. I want your ideas.”

“Sure.”

He kissed my cheek. “I do, doggone it. You love to talk to people and they love to talk to you. Great. You have insights. Also great I just don’t want you getting into danger.”

“You act as if I’m trying to take over your job or something.”

He laughed. “Are you?” Then he answered his own question. “Of course you’re not. Take catering. I help you chop, right? Sometimes you even give me a little scoop to measure out cookie batter. Small jobs. Helpful jobs. ’Cuz that’s all you’ll trust me with, right? I don’t tell you what to serve or who to serve it to. Correct me if I’m wrong here. Because you’re the caterer and I’m the cop.”

“Please, Tom. Let me help Julian by asking around. He loved Claire so much.”

He frowned, then held up a warning finger. “Okay. On two conditions. You don’t go into situations that you know are going to be dangerous. And two, if I tell you to back off, you do.”

“I thought you said your work wasn’t dangerous—”

“It isn’t when I’m doing it. It could be for you.”

I set out the forks, knives, and plates before replying. Then I said calmly, “Okay. But I’m telling you, Tom, I’m going to help Julian. Frances Markasian and I are friends, remember. Or at least sometimes we act as if we are. I have an idea where she might have found out some of these things.” I told him that I’d chatted with Dusty Routt, the Mignon sales associate, at the banquet. I’d even introduced her to Frances. After hearing about Claire’s death, Frances would have felt no qualms about contacting Dusty for information.

“Routt, Routt, that name is familiar. R-o-u-t-t? There was a big bank job done in the early fifties here in Colorado by a guy named Routt. How old is this Dusty?”

“Julian’s age. She lives down the street with her mother, little brother, and grandfather. Maybe the grandfather is a bank robber, although in our little town, that’s just the kind of news folks love to spread, and I haven’t heard a thing. Not only that, but our church helped build the house they’re in. A bank robber doesn’t sound like the kind of person they like to have living in houses built with charity money and sweat equity. But … don’t you remember my telling you Julian had dated Dusty a couple of times? Then she was expelled from Elk Park Prep, and they sort of broke up. At a party on Memorial Day, she was the one who introduced him to Claire.”

“Let me get this straight.” Tom was scribbling in his notebook. “This Dusty … Routt works for the cosmetics people and used to go out with Julian? When Julian met Claire, Dusty had already been dumped? Why was Dusty expelled, do you know?”

I pursed my lips. “Nope. Julian was always too embarrassed to ask her. You know how that school is, it was all kept very hush-hush.”

“Another fact the local gossip network seems to have missed,” he observed. “And Frances mentioned Claire Satterfield, former boyfriends, and the guy you trashed with roasted vegetables in the mall garage, all in the same breath? Like she thinks there’s a connection?” He looked at his notebook and considered. “Sounds like somebody’s doing a lot of speculating.”

I ignored this. “I’m just saying the rumor is, there seem to have been former boyfriends. Would Shaman Krill have had enough time to get back up to the garage and his precious demonstrators if he’d been driving the truck that hit Claire?”

Tom stood up and ladled a spoonful of crepe batter into the hot pan. It emitted a delicious hiss. “Don’t know yet. We’re going to have to pace it out, time it. Are you going to call Arch to eat or should I? Think he should hear us talking about the investigation? Think he’d feel bored? Left out?”

“Talking about the investigation? Boring? You don’t know Arch.” I could well imagine a police-band radio becoming the next craze. When I called to the TV room that dinner was ready, Arch pleaded loudly that he was watching a rerun of Antonioni’s Blow-Up and could we just save him some on a plate?

“It’s a real complicated film,” he yelled helpfully.

Before I could say anything, Tom called back that that would be fine. I murmured that the crêpes might toughen with microwave reheating, but he shrugged my worries away.

“What about Julian?” I asked.

“What about me?” said Julian from the doorway. He slumped into a kitchen chair. He still wore his serving outfit, and his face was gray with exhaustion. I had not heard his customary footsteps on the stairs. “This looks good,” he said in a tired voice as he regarded the fruit tray. “And before you ask, I’m okay.”

I tossed a salad while Tom filled the crêpes and put them in the oven. While I poured more cider, Tom said, “Julian? How much of our conversation did you hear?”

Julian’s face reddened. “Oh, probably most of it.”

“Then I need your help,” Tom said matter-of-factly. “If you know the worst already and you’re not going to pass out on us, then maybe you can answer some questions.”

“I don’t know the worst already,” Julian shot back fiercely. He glared at Tom. “The worst I know is that she’s dead and we don’t know who did it, okay? That’s the worst so far. What else is there?”

Tom continued calmly. “Do you know if Claire had other boyfriends?”

“Yeah, she had some. I don’t know who they were. But she was here on a twelve-month visa, do you think she was just going to spend all day behind the Mignon counter and then go back to her apartment and sit around?”

“Julian, please.” I set a glass of cider in front of him. He ignored it.

“Well, do you think I knew her every move? I mean, come on!”

“Do you know any former boyfriends who were jealous of your relationship?” Tom asked.

“No.”

“Do you know anyone who could have thought of Claire as an enemy?”

Julian rubbed his brow so hard I feared he might bruise his skin. “Look,” he said finally, “I just know they were investigating shoplifting at the store.”

“Did she report any shoplifters?” Tom asked. He wasn’t writing. “No,” said Julian with a sigh. “I don’t think so.”

“What about these other men? Anybody shady that you knew about?”

“Claire just told me she’d seen other guys. But she also said she had admirers. Male admirers,” he added dejectedly.

“Who?”

“Oh, Tom, I don’t know.” Julian gestured helplessly. His bleached hair caught the light, and he looked suddenly childlike. “She used to laugh when she told me men were always after her. She said she was glad to have a glass counter between herself and them. One time she teased me and said she’d managed to get rid of the guy who pestered her most. But she was so pretty, I guess you’d have to expect …” He didn’t finish the thought. “And as for being bothered, well, sometimes she thought somebody was playing weird practical jokes on her at the counter—”

“Like what?”

“Like getting into her stuff, I don’t know … she just said some of her stuff was missing, that’s all.”

“Did she say that she suspected anybody?”

“No!” Julian snapped, and Tom backed off.

The oven buzzer went off and I took out the crepes. I requested that we put off the discussion of the investigation. Endless talk about crime can put a damper on the appetite. And we hadn’t even told Julian about Marla yet.

The crabmeat in wine sauce was succulent, wrapped inside the thin, tender pancakes. But Julian, who occasionally ate shellfish as part of his not-strictly-vegetarian diet, consumed next to nothing. He had gone from furious to sullen. Over dinner I broke the news to him about Marla. I tried to make it sound as light as possible, with a good prognosis and quick recovery.

Julian’s mood went back to anger. “What can we do? Is she going to need us to help her when she gets out? I thought heart attacks only happened to old people.”

I felt a wash of relief that he did not react with either a fit of despair or more shock. “Yes, we’ll all have to help. You especially, Julian, you know how much she adores you. And she’s not old.”

I shifted the topic to business. While Tom had a second helping of crepes, Julian and I pushed our plates away and did the final planning for catered events coming in the next three days. Despite the crises breaking all around, or maybe because of them, Julian seemed desperate to be preoccupied with food service. Maybe it was a way of reasserting control. Day after tomorrow he would do a Chamber of Commerce brunch, and we talked about preparing lamb with nectarine chutney and avocado salad. He even asked earnestly if he should be taking notes. I said no; the menu, supplies needed, cooking and serving times were all in the kitchen computer. I wanted to embrace him in his pain. But I had learned from Arch that hugging teenage boys is a precarious enterprise.

When we had finished eating, Julian made a pitcher of iced espresso, a drink we’d all taken to imbibing after dinner in the unusual heat. Since I’d had latte as soon as I got home from the banquet, more caffeine would surely wire me for the night. But worry about Marla and the events of the day ought to guarantee insomnia anyway, I reasoned. I set aside a covered dish for Arch, and took the brownies and peach cobblers that I’d stashed for the banquet out to the front porch.

I loved our porch, although the only time you could use it in Colorado was the summer and early fall. Mercifully, the evening air had complied. Savory barbecue smoke drifted through the neighborhood. As soon as Tom and I were sitting in the old redwood chairs he’d brought from his cabin, baby Colin Routt started to wail again from down the street.

“Poor kid,” Tom commented. “I just read an article about preemies. They have a hard life, all the way through.”

“Especially when they’re born at under one pound and their dad takes off for parts unknown,” I said.

Dusty Routt appeared in the tiny dirt-covered yard holding her little brother, or, more correctly, half brother, on her shoulder. She was jiggling the infant up and down, but the motion failed to comfort him. Then the mellow notes of jazz saxophone again floated out of the house’s screened porch, and the tiny baby was immediately quiet.

“Music therapy,” Tom and I said in unison, and then laughed. When Julian appeared with crystal glasses filled with espresso and ice, we thanked him and sat listening to the jazz filtering through the dusky air. I sipped the cold, dark stuff and waited for one of them to speak.

Julian popped a brownie into his mouth and pushed off on the porch swing. After a moment he addressed Tom and me.

“She was under a lot of pressure.”

“What kind?” asked Tom without missing a beat, as if we had not stopped talking about Claire twenty minutes earlier. Wisely, he didn’t reach for his notebook.

Julian shrugged. “Pressure to sell. That was the main thing. You know, Prince & Grogan carries Mignon exclusively in Colorado. Not only that, but the Mignon counter is the only million-dollar cosmetics counter in the state. If the saleswomen don’t sell there, they get fired.” He grimaced.

“Pressure to sell,” repeated Tom.

Julian sighed. “They live off those commissions. Lived.”

“Julian,” I said, “don’t—”

He waved this away. “Plus what I mentioned. You know—pressure to watch for shoplifters.” His tone was resigned. “There was a lot of theft there. It was a big problem in the store. Credit card fraud, employee theft, shoplifting, you name it. Claire introduced me to the guy who was in charge of security. Nick Gentileschi. He was okay, I guess. She was helping him with something.”

“What?” Tom said, too sharply, I thought. “Helping the security guy with what? The shoplifting investigation?”

“I don’t know!” Julian cried. “If I don’t even know the identity of this admirer who wasn’t bothering her anymore, how do you think I know what she was doing with security?”

Arch made one of his sudden appearances, probably lured by the sound of raised voices.

“Hey, guys! What’s going on? Blow-Up was too weird and complicated, I didn’t like it. Is that pancakes on my plate out there? Neat. I put them in the microwave.”

I nodded and held up one finger: I’d be there in a minute.

“She was afraid,” Julian said tonelessly, as if he were speaking from a distant asteroid.

“Who—” Arch began.

I gave him a warning look and shook my head: Say nothing. Arch crossed his arms and waited for an explanation, which he didn’t get.

“Afraid of what?” Tom asked Julian gently.

“Just yesterday she told me she thought she was being followed,” Julian replied wearily. “But she said she wasn’t sure. Oh, God, why didn’t I tell you? I just thought it was some stupid thing, like the unexplained stuff at the counter.”

“Wait,” I said. “Wait.” I thought back through the muddle of the day. Claire, her Peugeot, the helicopter. When I’d swerved the van into the right lane, I’d barely missed a pickup truck. Then when I’d looked again … the pickup had fallen back several car lengths. “Someone might have been following us on I-70 this morning. In a pickup,” I said miserably.

“Make?” asked Tom mildly. “Color? Did you see the driver?”

“No,” I said helplessly. “No … I don’t remember any of that. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”

Julian was holding his head in his hands.

“Big J.,” said Tom, “why don’t we go inside—”

Julian’s head jerked up. “There’s a part of you that’s always alone,” he blurted out. “People always have secrets, and you know they have secrets, but maybe they don’t want to tell you because they’re afraid of your reaction, or maybe they don’t want to tell you because they don’t want to burden you. She didn’t want to be a burden to me. And I didn’t want to trouble you with it.”

Tom and I exchanged a look. Inside the house, the microwave buzzer went off. My instinct told me Arch and I should leave Tom and Julian alone. Perhaps without an audience Julian would feel more inclined to talk to Tom.

“Let’s go,” I said to Arch.

“Why can’t I eat out here?” Arch asked, perplexed. But he obeyed.

“Mom?” he asked when we were back in the kitchen. He held up his plate precariously. “Should I eat now or not?”

“Sure, hon, they just need to be alone for a while.”

He took a mouthful of crêpe and said, “So what’s going on with Julian? Who was afraid and what’s the big secret?”

I told him Julian’s friend Claire had been killed in a hit-and-run accident. His eyes opened wide behind his glasses. “Do they know who hit her?”

I told him they did not but that Tom was working on it. “Arch, something else. Hon, Marla had a mild heart attack jogging around Aspen Meadow Lake today. She’s at Southwest Hospital but should be out in—”

Before I could finish, Arch whacked his chair back and bolted from the table.

“Arch, wait! She’s going to be okay!”

I bounded up the stairs after him. By the time I got to his and Julian’s room, Arch was lying facedown on the upper level of the bunk. I put my hand on the back of the awful tie-dyed T-shirt, but he shook me off.

“Just go away, Mom!”

“They can treat a mild heart attack—”

“I’m not upset about Marla. I mean, I am upset about Marla. Of course I am. It’s only that … Look, just leave, okay?”

I didn’t move. “Claire, then? You didn’t really know her, although I know you worry about Julian—”

He shot upright suddenly, his brown hair askew, his face pale with rage. “Why are you so nosy? Why do you have to know about everything?”

“Sorry, hon,” I said, and meant it. When he dropped back down on the mattress without saying more, I asked, “Want the curtains closed?” He didn’t answer and I backtracked toward the door.

“Wait.” His voice was muffled by the pillow. Slowly he sat up. He looked at the wall with his fifth-grade drawings of wildflowers, made during an intensely lonely period, the painful time before Tom came into our lives and well before Julian became Arch’s personal hero. “Could you close the door, Mom?”

I did as directed. Arch gave me a fierce, guilty look.

“I wanted Claire to leave,” he said harshly. “I hated her.”

“Why? You met her only once—”

“So? Julian was always with her or thinking about her or on the telephone with her, or something. We never had any fun anymore. I wanted her to go back to Australia.” He faced the drawings again. “Now I’m being punished for wanting her gone.”

I hate feeling so helpless. “I may not know much, Arch, but that doesn’t sound like the way punishment works.” He shook his head and refused to look at me. I went on. “Claire’s death wasn’t just a terrible accident. Somebody ran her down on purpose.”

He was silent, his eyes on his drawings, his face expressionless. Then he muttered, “I still feel bad.”

“Then help Julian over the next few days, especially when I go down to work the food fair. He’ll need your company now more than ever.”

He hesitated, then said in a resigned voice, “Yeah, okay.” After a moment he asked, “Do you think Julian will ever find another girlfriend? I mean, sort of the way you found Tom after things didn’t work out with Dad?”

It was so tempting to give him an easy answer. I said softly, “Arch, I don’t know.”

He shook his head mournfully. “Okay, Mom,” my son said finally, “it’s not helping to talk to you. Would you please just leave?”

Storms ripped through the mountains that night. Thunder boomed overhead, echoed down Cottonwood Creek, and seemed to shake the walls of our home. I woke and saw lightning flicker across our bedroom. The flashes were so constant that it was difficult to tell when one ended and another began. Rain pelted the roof and washed noisily down the gutters. I slipped out of bed to close our bedroom curtains, and found myself mesmerized by the storm. Torrents of muddy water gushed around the vehicles parked on our street, including a pickup truck blocking the end of our driveway.

As a lightning flash faded, I hesitated. Did a light turn on and then quickly off in the pickup? I narrowed my eyes. The storm slapped rain against the window. It was an unfamiliar truck; I didn’t recognize it as belonging to one of our neighbors. But people had summer guests all the time, especially in Colorado, where we were usually spared the heat that afflicts the rest of the country. In the midst of the storm’s violence, the truck was dark and still. I stared through the slashes of raindrops and decided the light was something I’d imagined.

A wave of water spewed up over the curb and surged toward Aspen Meadow’s Main Street. This summer gullywasher would dump tons of mud and gravel on Aspen Meadow’s paved roads. It would leave in its wake deltas of stone and a river of caked dirt. Driving after one of these torrents is invariably slow and treacherous. I sighed and wondered if Alicia, my supplier, would be able to get her truck up the street, to park anywhere close to the house in the morning. Especially if the pickup was still blocking the driveway.

When the tempest seemed to be abating, I glanced at the digital clock. But the clock face was dark. The storm had probably taken the electricity out. I fell into bed next to Tom’s warm and inviting body. Incredibly, he had slumbered sonorously through it all. But when I inadvertently woke him by touching his foot, we had a deliciously stormy half-hour to ourselves.

With the power out, the usual artificial reminders of morning—ringing alarms, the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee—were absent. Luckily, Tom seems to possess an internal clock I dimly registered his departure when watery morning sunshine slanted through the bedroom windows. During a homicide investigation, he always leaves at sunup for the investigative team’s strategy meetings, and returns home late. He phoned after a few hours, when I was moving slowly through the end of my yoga routine. He wanted to make sure I was okay, and that I knew the electricity was off. Yes, he’d been able to back out of the driveway, he said when I asked about the pickup, but I should be careful to avoid the mud on Main Street. I caught sight of my own short-statured, disheveled-haired, stupid-happy reflection in the mirror when I hung up. Living with someone who tried to take care of me still brought unexpected pleasure.

Thursday, July 2, my kitchen calendar informed me, was a preparation day for the events ahead—the food fair and the Chamber of Commerce brunch on Friday, the Braithwaites’ party on Saturday. Thinking of the Braithwaites, I groaned. Babs had been as snooty at the Mignon banquet as she’d been after she’d rear-ended Julian in her Mercedes and claimed it was his fault. But her personality wasn’t about to stop me from making a splendid profit on the seated dinner she and her husband were giving for July Fourth. The two of them threw this celebrated annual party on their manicured five acres atop Aspen Knoll, the high point of the Aspen Meadow country club area. Supposedly the knoll had the best view of the fireworks over Aspen Meadow Lake. Perhaps if the guests plowed through their curry early enough, I’d even see part of the display. On second thought, with Julian’s participation now uncertain, I might have to clean up until dawn.

I checked my watch: eight-forty. Alicia should arrive with seafood, meats, and produce around nine. The power came back while I was wondering about the best time to visit Marla. With her angiogram scheduled for first thing, perhaps I could visit in the early afternoon … then stop at Prince & Grogan to get the second half of my check, final payment for the banquet … that is, if Tom didn’t object to my presence there….

The phone rang. It was Tom again. “Look, Goldy, I’m sorry about last night—”

“What about it? It got kind of fun around four A.M. Of course, I couldn’t see the time …”

“Well, I’ve just been thinking about it.” He paused. “Look, Goldy,” he said seriously, “you know I want you to … think about this case. It always helps to have your input.”

“Think about the case,” I repeated.

“You know I respect your intellect.”

“Uh-huh. My intellect. My charming personality. And my cooking, don’t forget that.”

“Be serious. Fabulous cooking, charming personality, and a great intellect.”

“Gee, Tom. I wish you’d been one of my professors. Great intellect. La-de-da.”

“All kidding aside—I just don’t want you to interfere, get yourself in a compromising position. Believe it or not, Miss G., there is a difference. For example, you should ignore a demonstrator. Not dump vegetables on him.”

I glanced into the walk-in for ingredients that would make a show-stopping bread for the food fair. “Okay, no more vegetable-dumping. Promise. How’d your meeting go? Speaking of the Spare the Hares people, have you found out anything? Did Shaman Krill complain about me?”

“The strategy meeting took two hours. And how can I find out about demonstrators when I’m making conciliatory phone calls to my wife?”

“Just answer the question, cop.”

“The guy didn’t make a formal complaint. And nobody from that mall is being overly helpful. Sometimes your prime suspect is always around, bending over backward to give you advice and guidance. That’s when you have to expect to be deceived.” He made a grumbling noise. I could imagine him considering his cup of bitter sheriff’s department coffee. “So are you and I okay?”

“Of course.”

He grunted. “Julian up yet?”

“I was about to check on him. Aren’t you always telling me how the first forty-eight hours of a homicide investigation are the most profitable? I’m making bread. We’re fine. Tom, please, I can’t bear not to know why someone would do that to Claire Satterfield. Go investigate.”

As I tiptoed up the stairs to the boys’ room, his words echoed in my ear. I’ve just been thinking about it … I’m sorry … don’t want your interference. The many, many wrinkles of two single lives, of separate ways of communicating, were taking a while to smooth out. Every aspect of our entwined experiences was under scrutiny. Even the way we referred to possessions was a challenge, I thought as I caught my reflection in one of the old-but-not-antique mirrors that Tom had collected over the years. He’d hung them just last week on the wall above the stairway. Tom’s pictures, my stairway. His stove, my refrigerator, his deck furniture, my bed, his car, my house. Now I was learning to say our, our, our. I sidestepped Scout the cat, curled into a furry ball on one of the steps, and gazed into a mirror. A short, slightly plump, thirty-two-year-old woman with curly blond hair and brown eyes looked back. Our mirrors. Our life. Goodness, even our cat.

I eased the boys’ bedroom door open. Arch’s slow, regular breathing from the top bunk indicated he was still asleep. There was no noise from Julian’s bed. In the morning, his muscular limbs usually sprawled from under the covers on the lower bunk. But at the moment the navy-blue bedspread covered his inert form from head to foot. I hoped he was asleep. Somehow, though, I doubted it.

I tiptoed back to the kitchen and contemplated the egg yolks I’d been accumulating in the refrigerator. They were left over from my preparation of lowfat recipes that invariably required egg whites. I’d have even more yolks to deal with when I got going on the vanilla-frosted fudge cookies. The yolks, though, what could I do with the yolks? I mentally tasted a cake or rolls enriched with yolks, then hit on the idea that the yolks could be the mainstay of a light, sweet, Sally Lunn-type bread for the fair. I hummed to myself as I made a yeast starter, chopped fresh pecans, and measured sun-dried cranberries. When a large chunk of butter was dissolving into golden globules in a pan of milk, I peeled thin curls of flavorful zest from juicy oranges, then spooned out flour from a copper canister Tom had brought from his cabin.

I had learned a great deal about Tom, I reflected as my mixer began its slow route through the warm liquids. For example, I’d discovered that he preferred saving money to spending it, except when he could lavish exorbitant sums on antiques. I didn’t understand the point of antiques—why would you pay more for something used and old? He’d proudly showed me his cherry sideboard and announced, “Hepplewhite, 1800 to 1850.” I’d almost passed out when I learned what he’d paid for that hunk of wood. He’d bought it before we were married, though, and had vowed to purchase no more “goodies,” as he called them, until we could figure out what to do with the stock-pile of possessions we were now trying to cram into one house.

WHAT-TO-DO-WITH-ALL-THE-EGG-YOLKS BREAD

2½ teaspoons (1¼-ounce envelope) active dry yeast

¼ cup sugar

¼ cup warm water

¾ cup skim milk

¼ cup butter, melted

½ cup canola oil

1 tablespoon chopped orange zest

1 teaspoon salt

4 egg yolks, lightly beaten

3½ to 4 cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup sun-dried cranberries

1 cup chopped pecansButter a 10-inch tube pan; set aside. In a large mixing bowl, combine the yeast, one teaspoon of the sugar, and warm water. Set aside for 10 minutes. Combine the milk, butter, oil, zest, remainder of the sugar, and salt, and stir into the yeast mixture. Add the egg yolks, stirring well Add the flour ½ cup at a time, stirring well after each addition, to incorporate the flour thoroughly. Knead 5 to 10 minutes, until the dough is smooth, elastic, and satiny. Knead in the cranberries and pecans. Put the dough back in the bowl, cover the bowl, and let the dough rise at room temperature until it is doubled in bulk. Using a wooden spoon, beat down the risen dough for about a minute.Place the dough into the buttered tube pan and allow it to rise at room temperature until it is doubled in bulk.Preheat the oven to 375°. Bake the bread for 45 to 50 minutes or until it is dark golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped. Place on a rack to cool or serve warm. Once cooled, the bread is also excellent sliced and toasted.Makes 1 large loaf

In terms of money, though, these days Tom took great pleasure in setting aside funds for Arch and Julian, whom he referred to as the kids, the guys, the boys. Our boys. And he didn’t want any more children, he said when I asked. Two were enough. Which was fine by me. But now our two boys had college funds, savings funds, Christmas funds. All generously supplemented by Tom, who took a childlike pleasure in giving.

I set aside new egg whites for the fudge cookies, then mixed the butter, milk, and egg yolks into the yeast starter. I stirred flour into the rich, flaxen-colored mixture until it was thick. Once I started to knead the dough, I thought back to the second phone call from Tom this morning. He did/did not want me involved in the investigation. He wanted me to think about it. He wanted me to be willing to back off once I’d brought my great intellect to bear. I had helped him before, when an attempted poisoning closed down my catering business, then again when Julian’s mother was involved in some bizarre crimes, and again when Arch’s and Julian’s school was the scene of homicides. When Tom was kidnapped this spring and our local parish had been turned upside down by crime, I had thrown myself into the investigation with every ounce of my will. Sometimes the sheriff’s department welcomed my involvement; occasionally, they did not. At least Tom asked for my opinion, even respected it, I thought with a wry smile. He had always treated me as a resource. But unknown to him, I was very sensitive about the issue of offering my thoughts.

My vulnerability came from interaction with Husband Number One. Dr. John Richard Korman not only disliked hearing any of my opinions on things medical, he resented my occasional input. In one case, expressing my ideas had backfired so appallingly that I’d never ventured another word about his work.

I pushed the bread dough out, folded it over, pushed it out, and recalled the freckled face and wiry red hair of Nashville-born Heather Maclanahan O’Leary. She and her husband had been newcomers some years ago to Aspen Meadow and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. Heather had become pregnant with her first child almost immediately after arriving in Colorado. But in her first trimester she was so debilitated by anemia and homesickness for Tennessee that the parish had started to send in meals, coordinated daily by yours truly.

John Richard was Heather’s obstetrician. He worried aloud about the fact that her red blood cell count didn’t seem to be improving even with standard doses of iron. I brought the O’Learys their first supper—a cold roast beef and spinach salad with Dijon vinaigrette that I secretly thought of as my Ironman Special. Heather had been so happy to see me, so grateful to have a new friend, she’d insisted I stay for tea. When our teacups were empty, she showed me the nursery her husband was painting, then she proudly pointed to the framed pictures of the Maclanahan and O’Leary clans. She was going to hang this pictorial album around the baby’s crib, so that the newest O’Leary would grow up with what Heather called “ancestor appreciation.” I’d acted more interested than I really was, until one photograph caught my attention.

“Who’s that?” I pointed to an old, formally composed photograph of a couple. A very pale man—an Irishman?—stood behind a dark-haired, dark-complected woman.

“Oh,” said Heather with a small laugh, “that’s Grandfather Maclanahan and Grandma Margaretta. He was an importer and had to travel to Italy every so often. He met Margaretta on a trip to Rimini, and fell in love with her because of her great Tortellini Delia Panna. Whoever heard of an Irishman smitten by pasta?”

I stared at the picture with a prickly feeling. In those days, before I had a catering enterprise to keep me busy, I spent hours reading magazines. Friends said I was like a walking Reader’s Digest, especially when it came to food and medicine. When Heather was telling me about her grandmother Margaretta Sanese Maclanahan, I remembered an obscure article on genetic diseases similar to sickle cell anemia. I offhandedly asked Heather if she’d ever been tested for thalassemia, a blood disorder common among people from Mediterranean countries. She looked puzzled and said no. That night I mentioned to John Richard the possibility that Heather could be a carrier of this genetic blood disease. As a carrier rather than an actual thalassemic, Heather’s disorder might have manifested itself only in pregnancy. With a genetic irregularity of that kind, Heather and her husband should both be tested, I said, in case the infant would have full-blown thalassemia.

Well. John Richard hooted. He scoffed. He laughed until the tears ran down his handsome cheeks. Where did you go to medical school? he wanted to know. Then he even called one of his buddies to cackle, Listen to the little wife’s diagnosis.

The denouement wasn’t pretty. John Richard refused Heather’s request to be tested for thalassemia. She went to an ob-gyn in Denver who did the blood analysis—a very simple one, as it turned out—and confirmed the diagnosis. My diagnosis. Heather’s husband was tested—he did not carry the gene. The new doc pumped lots more iron into Heather than she’d been getting, she began to feel better, and she gave birth to a normal baby girl.

I was rewarded with a black eye.

I set the dough aside to rest. Here I was, years later, understandably ambivalent about sharing my ideas. Unfortunately, with my personality, once somebody presented me with a problem, I felt duty bound to jump in and help solve it. Arch sometimes resented this fiercely, of course, and I had painfully learned to let him take care of his own messes. Whether Julian felt the same way, I was not sure.

I kneaded the cranberries and nuts into the silky dough, gathered the whole thing up, and nestled it into a buttered bowl. Time to have some espresso and put the past aside.

As the coffee machine was heating up, Arch appeared in the kitchen with Scout draped over his shoulders. Once the dark liquid began its noisy spurt into shot glasses, Scout leapt to the kitchen floor.

“Jeez, Mom! You scared him!”

I steadied the shot glasses under the machine’s twin spurts. “It’s not as if he hasn’t heard this machine a thousand times before.”

Arch watched the ten-second process in silence. After I stopped the flow of water, I poured the espresso into a small cup.

“Gosh!” he exclaimed. “All that noise, and that’s all you get?”

I sipped the strong coffee and let this pass. “Is Julian up yet?”

Arch knelt on the kitchen floor and tried to attract the cat. Scout, however, wanted a fresh bag of cat food. This he indicated by standing resolutely next to his bowl, which held only undesirable, four-hour-old food. Receiving no response in the meal department, Scout sauntered across the floor and rolled onto his back. Arch enthusiastically rubbed his stomach.