Killer Pancake

“Were you planning to take your clients over to Hotchkiss Skin & Hair?” I inquired.

Dusty put her finger to her lips and looked both ways. Harriet and Reggie were indeed watching us. “Shh! You want to get me into trouble?”

“Tell me this,” I said in a very low tone. “Did you take the receipt out of my bag at Hotchkiss Skin & Hair while I was getting my facial?”

“Goldy! God! What’s the matter with you? What receipt?”

I decided to cast the bait out one more time. “I’m sorry, I guess it’s just because of your grandfather, and because you were expelled from Elk Park Prep. For stealing.”

She colored deeply. “Ex-cuse me?”

“Well, why were you expelled from Elk Park Prep? Wasn’t it for stealing?” I had a sudden, devastating thought. “Or because you were pregnant? With Colin?”

She turned around and closed the book with a dramatic thwack. “I’m like … who told you that?”

“Well, Julian wasn’t sure….”

Dusty rolled her made-up eyes dramatically. “It wasn’t for stealing. And my mother was pregnant, not me. I told you, the woman does not know the meaning of birth control. I was expelled for drinking. I mean, Julian should know, he was there!”

“For drinking.”

“Yes—in that stupid bio class we had together. We had to do some dumb test about chlorophyll. We were putting sugar into grain alcohol and then placing strawberry leaves in the solution, and then we had to wait for something to happen, God knows what. I mean, it was way boring.” She lifted her hands and shook them like a frustrated Italian shopkeeper. “So I figured, hey. We’ve got strawberries, we’ve got sugar, we’ve got booze. We’ve got daiquiris! So I … Goldy, what’s wrong?”

What was wrong? My knees felt rubbery. My hands were trembling. Damn, but I must be more tired than I thought.

“Okay, look,” I said impatiently. “Just show me how the printout compares to the ledger. Please,” I added.

Dusty flipped the ledger back open and then shuffled the fingers of her free hand through the printout. When she came to the right pages, her pretty face wrinkled in puzzlement as she looked first at the ledger, then at the printout, then back at the ledger.

“Something’s wrong here,” she said, exasperated. “The printout has Claire’s figures for June much lower than what she put in the ledger, because of some big returns—”

There was a sudden pop. I looked incredulously at the top of the sales ledger. It had been torn … it had been shot.

Dusty looked over her shoulder and grabbed me.

Pop! went another bullet, smack into the glass case containing makeup. The glass shattered and tan-colored stuff began to spill down the shelves. What in the …?

“Move away from that book, Dusty,” said Harriet’s voice.

Holding me tight either to protect herself or me, Dusty let out a small shriek. Together, we stumbled backward. I couldn’t see Reggie Hotchkiss.

Harriet was holding a small gun. She shot at my hand that had pulled the ledger down off the counter. I dropped the book and dived into the aisle.

“What the hell, Harriet!” Dusty crawled over to my side and glared at the other saleswoman. “What the hell is the matter with you? Put that down! We weren’t doing anything. Go away!” she yelled at Reggie, who was advancing down the aisle. “Reggie, help! We’ve got a gun here!”

Reggie shouted something unintelligible and ran toward the exit. I started to crab-walk sideways toward the entrance of the shoe department.

“You just had to know,” said Harriet acidly as she came steadily toward me. “Questioning Nick. Sucking up to Dusty. Going after Reggie. You said he was the one who knew too much. That’s why I told him to come here this morning. But it’s you. And now you’re getting into the printouts. Did you view the films, too?”

“Put the gun away, Harriet!” Dusty yelled. “Look out, Goldy!”

Harriet pivoted and strode toward Dusty. Again the little gun went pop.

“You bitch!” shouted Dusty. Crimson blossomed on the sleeve of her Mignon smock. “You shot my arm! God-damn you!” Holding her arm, Dusty scrabbled toward Shoes.

I tried to move my legs, to get them underneath me. Harriet turned back and walked carefully in my direction. Why couldn’t I move? Why did my hands and feet tingle? I knew foods … I knew poisons … Something grown right near here.

“Hemlock,” I said as loudly as I could as she neared me once again. “You put hemlock in the muffins. You made them and were waiting to give them to Reggie after he blabbed about all he’d learned about Mignon. Only, he didn’t know anything.”

“Right,” said Harriet, and fired again.

I thanked God she was a lousy shot when the bullet ripped through the upholstery of one of the seats in the shoe department A deafening clang split the air. Someone—Dusty?—had tripped the fire alarm. Startled, Harriet whipped around, momentarily distracted, and I grunted ferociously and mustered every bit of strength to bring my legs underneath me. I was only five steps away from the escalator. With the few people left in the store now heading for the exits, I floundered toward the moving steps. Where was I going? My body was going numb. Was it the hemlock? Or had Harriet actually shot me? Where the hell was Security? It felt as if I were being taken over by Novocain. I’d figure out what to do if I could just get to the second floor. The steps moved. I tried to duck.

Harriet was whirling around, confused. Looking for me. I went lower on the steps, under the escalator’s metal railing. Had she seen me? Hard to tell. I felt my heart beating as I thought hard. The sales figures: Harriet had been the leading sales associate, but Claire had been closing in fast on her, according to what Dusty had shown me in the ledger. Claire had reported her client cards had been stolen. I knew who had committed the theft. And maybe it was the theft of the client cards that Nick Gentileschi had seen on the tapes. Or perhaps he’d seen, on closeup, who it was that was carefully palming cash receipts and giving herself the stolen refunds, while charging the returns to other associates’ numbers.

Half prone, I scrambled up the cold metal steps of the escalator, which seemed to be moving with preternatural slowness toward the second floor. Yes, Harriet knew the ins and outs of this business. She knew what Nick Gentileschi was up to behind the mirrors in the women’s fitting room. She’d probably offered to trade her knowledge of his illegal activities for his silence and the photos of Babs. It wouldn’t have been too hard for Harriet to convince Mr. Kinky Gentileschi that she was willing to have some kind of interesting encounter up in the blind. Hell, she’d probably offered to bribe him in the way he enjoyed best. Then she’d put the incriminating photos in his pocket, I wagered, to implicate the Braithwaites in his death.

“Goldy!” Harriet shouted. “I just want to talk to you!”

Yeah, sure. Like when she followed us down to the mall to see where Claire parked so that she could order her out to get something from her car. Like when she threw bleach water on me when I’d started snooping around. Or when she’d watched outside my house, so she could see if I headed down for the mall and the telltale printout sometime, maybe early in the morning, when she wasn’t personally working at the cosmetics counter.

Finally I was at the top of the moving stairs. Not yet sure of how much muscular control I still had, I rolled wildly onto the floor and hit a china display. The whole thing toppled over with an ear-splitting crash. I cursed and hauled myself to my feet. I had an absurd vision of Socrates: How much time did hemlock take to kill someone? But I knew something the doomed philosopher hadn’t. Thank God for Pete the espresso man’s advertising. I’d learned the antidote for hemlock from his pamphlet. It was one of my favorite substances: coffee. And I’d had enough of it this morning—a four-shot latte and a big, strong cup after church—that the poison wasn’t having the swift, lethal effect Harriet envisioned. I just needed more caffeine, and quick.

I could hear her heels rap-tap-tapping up the escalator. I tottered recklessly through the bathing suit department. Harriet would be up here any moment with her little gun. I didn’t have time to get to the exit. She’d see me and catch up. Damn, damn, damn. Then I noticed the dressing room. Hope bloomed. Could I still have the stolen key in my pocket? I certainly hoped so.

Moving seemed a little easier at this point, and I had the absurd thought that perhaps hemlock was like heroin. If you kept propelling yourself around during an overdose, things might not end up so badly. I groped in my pocket, found the key, and fumbled to unlock the door to the storage room. I turned the handle and prayed. It opened. I careened into the darkness.

“Goldy!” came Harriet’s voice again over the blare of the fire alarm. “Come out now!”

I wasn’t in the mood to provide her with a better target. With renewed determination I wobbled in the direction that I hoped would lead to that other door, the one on the left that I now realized led to Nick Gentileschi’s office. The space was not pitch-black. Light seeped downward from a distant skylight. I banged into the wall painfully, fell to my knees, and began to grope. I came to the moulding and then the door handle. I heard Harriet come into the darkness behind me. I turned the handle.

The door was locked.

“Goldy! Quit running! You just don’t understand—I had to do what I did.”

I felt the wall, wondering if Harriet had reloaded. My hand touched metal. Metal steps. I was confused. A metal staircase to what?

“I’m going to find a light!” Harriet warned, close, too close. “I’m going to turn it on!”

I scrambled up the steps. There had to be some exit up there at the top. And then I remembered Frances Markasian sitting on something—a raised box or platform that was just there, on top of the roof. Had it been the Prince & Grogan roof? Oh, please let that be it, I thought desperately. Some exit that they used for repairs. Please, anything. Up, up I climbed.

Thin fluorescent lights blinked once, then came on just as I reached the top step. Oh, Lord. The raised box was fastened with a schoolhouse lock. I glanced down. Harriet had the pistol pointed up at me.

She shouted, “Goldy, come down now!” Then she fired again.

The bullet ricocheted deafeningly off metal. I twisted the lock and pushed vertically with all my strength. The heavy door groaned. I was on the roof, I was out. The fair organizers were in the throes of breaking down the tents. Nearly everyone was gone. But I thanked the powers that be that Pete’s Espresso Bar was the last tent standing. The King of Advertising wasn’t going to be the first to leave, especially when volunteer crew members might want to buy coffee.

I ran awkwardly across the concrete and fell at Pete’s ankles.

“Espresso—straight—at least six shots—quick,” I panted.

Pete switched on the machine and looked down. Today’s T-shirt said I’M LEAN, MEAN, AND FULL OF CAFFEINE. “I swear, Goldy,” he said. “I wish every customer was like you.”

And then we heard a pistol shot.

It was over.

When Tom showed up with an investigative team at the department store, I was being discharged from the hospital across the street. I’d been given charcoal tablets, which I dutifully swallowed. The year before, I’d had an unpleasant encounter with the highly toxic—not aphrodisiac—substance known as Spanish fly, and I knew you had to get your system filtered, and quick. I wasn’t going to have to stay in the hospital, the ER doc told me, but he repeatedly remarked how lucky it was I knew the antidote for hemlock and was able to get it so quickly. I couldn’t agree more.

Tom scooped me up in his arms and hugged me long and hard. Julian had returned home and found Arch had already returned from Keystone. They’d called Tom on his cell phone and said they were on their way to see Marla.

“Sounds good to me,” I said as I got into Tom’s car.

He told me they’d found Harriet’s body behind the security room door. Self-inflicted wound, but I knew that already. I didn’t want to hear the details.

“She couldn’t stand the competition,” Tom observed. “I guess Claire was just too successful for her to deal with. After all, Harriet had been Mignon’s number-one salesperson for years, and now Claire was about to surpass her effortlessly. Surpass Harriet, that is, unless Harriet could relentlessly charge returns to her competitor’s number. And I’ll bet Harriet’s cash-receipt scam is what Claire was helping Gentileschi with.”

“You bet, huh?” I said. “Why don’t you bet with something I really want?”

“Oh, woman,” he said laughingly as we pulled into Marla’s driveway, “you are going to regret those words.”

Marla was walking very tentatively down the rock steps by the entryway to her house. Her skin was still sallow. She wore a brightly colored muumuu and her normally frizzy hair was pulled back into pigtails held with sparkling barrettes. The clothes and hair were courtesy of the nurse, no doubt. As she moved haltingly forward, Julian held one of her arms and Arch the other.

Four days ago, while I was preparing food, I’d reflected that beauty was in the eye of the beholder. It was something I’d always said, sort of offhand, the way the mind runs over a cliche without ever really examining its meaning. And yet if what was visually appealing did depend on what the beholder valued, who set the standards? How were the values determined?

In the past five days I’d seen and felt more pain than I cared to contemplate. John Routt had spent the best decades of his life blind. Nick Gentileschi’s twisted desire to capture voluptuousness had gotten him killed. The Braithwaites’ unhappiness with each other had led both to pursue goals of beauty that were unattainable, or easily destroyed. Reggie Hotchkiss had stolen and plotted and intimidated, trying to sell women expensive products that promised everything and did next to nothing. And Claire had been so gorgeous, so enthusiastic in her selling of overpriced, worthless goods, that it had gotten her killed.

Marla arrived at the bottom of the stone staircase. She let go of Arch and Julian and sank to rest on one of the steps. I rushed over.

“You’re here!” she squawked. “I can’t believe it.” She held out her arms, and I scooted up and sat on a cold stone to embrace her. She murmured, “I feel like hell. And I look worse, I know.”

“You look absolutely wonderful,” I said, and meant it. “You look like heaven.”

INDEX TO THE RECIPES

RECIPE

Hoisin Turkey with Roasted Pine Nuts in Lettuce Cups

Grand Marnier Cranberry Muffins

Vanilla-Frosted Fudge Cookies

What-to-Do-with-All-the-Egg-Yolks Bread

Lowfat Fettuccine Alfredo with Asparagus

Fudge Soufflé

Killer Pancakes

Turkey Curry with Raisin Rice

Lowfat Chicken Stock

Shrimp Risotto with Portobello Mushrooms

AUTHOR’S NOTE: All the recipes contain less than 30 percent fat “What-to-Do-with-AU-the-Egg-Yolks Bread,” while technically “lowfat,” is not low in cholesterol.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DIANE MOTT DAVIDSON lives in Evergreen, Colorado, with her family. She is the author of ten bestselling culinary mysteries and is at work on her eleventh, Chopping Spree.

If you enjoyed Diane Mott Davidson’s Killer Pancake, you won’t want to miss any of the tantalizing mysteries in her nationally bestselling culinary mystery series!

Look for CHOPPING SPREE, the newest mystery, at your favorite bookseller’s.

CHOPPING

SPREE

by

Diane

Mott

Davidson

Turn the page for an exciting preview….

Success can kill you.

So my best friend had been telling me, anyway. Too much success is like arsenic in chocolate cake. Eat a slice a day, Marla announced with a sweep of her plump, bejeweled fingers, and you’ll get cancer. Gobble the whole cake? You’ll keel over and die on the spot.

These observations, made over the course of a snowy March, had not cheered me. Besides, I’d have thought that Marla, with her inherited wealth and passion for shopping, would applaud the upward leap of my catering business. But she said she was worried about me.

Frankly, I was worried about me, too.

In mid-March I’d invited Marla over to taste cookies. Despite a sudden but typical Colorado blizzard, she’d roared over to our small house off Aspen Meadow’s Main Street in her shiny new BMW four-wheel drive. Sitting in our commercial kitchen, she’d munched on ginger snaps and spice cookies, and harped on the feet that the newly frantic pace of my work had coincided with my fourteen-year-old son Arch’s increasingly rotten behavior. I knew Marla doted on Arch.

But in this, too, she was right.

Arch’s foray into athletics, begun that winter with snowboarding and a stint on his school’s fencing team, had ended with a trophy, a sprained ankle, and an unprecedented burst of physical self-confidence. He’d been eager to plunge into spring sports. When he’d decided on lacrosse, I’d been happy for him. That changed when I attended the first game. Watching my son forcefully shove an opponent aside and steal the ball, I’d felt queasy. With Arch’s father—a rich doctor who’d had many violent episodes himself—now serving time for parole violation, all that slashing and hitting was more than I could take.

But even more worrisome than the sport itself, Marla and I agreed, were Arch’s new teammates: an unrepentant gang of spoiled, acquisitive brats. Unfortunately, Arch thought the lacrosse guys were beyond cool. He spent hours with them, claiming that he “forgot” to tell us where he was going after practice. We could have sent him an e-mail telling him to call, Arch protested, if he only had what all his pals had, to wit, Internet-access watches. Your own watch could have told you what time it was, I’d told him, when I picked him up from the country-club estate where the senior who was supposed to drive him home had left him off.

Arch ignored me. These new friends, he’d announced glumly, also had Global Positioning System calculators, Model Bezillion Palm pilots, and electric-acoustic guitars that cost eight hundred dollars—and up. These litanies were always accompanied with not-so-tactful reminders that his fifteenth birthday was right around the corner. He wanted everything on his list, he announced as he tucked a scroll of paper into my purse. After all, with all the parties I’d booked, I could finally afford to get him some really good stuff.

And no telling what’ll happen if I don’t get what I want, he’d added darkly. (Marla informed me that he’d already given her a list.) I’d shrugged as Arch clopped into the house ahead of me. I’d started stuffing sautéed chicken breasts with wild rice and spinach. The next day, Tom had picked up Arch at another friend’s house. When my son waltzed into the kitchen, I almost didn’t recognize him.

His head was shaved.

“They Bic’d me,” he declared, tossing a lime into the air and catching it in the net of his lacrosse stick.

“They bicked you?” I exclaimed incredulously.

“Bic, Mom. Like the razor.” He rubbed his bare scalp, then flipped the lime again. “And I would have been home on time, if you’d bought me the Palm, to remind me to tell the guy shaving my head that I had to go.”

I snagged the lime in midair. “Go start on your homework, buster. You got a C on the last anatomy test. And from now on, either Tom or I will pick you up right from practice.”

On his way out of the kitchen, he whacked his lacrosse stick on the floor. I called after him please not to do that. I got no reply. The next day, much to Arch’s sulking chagrin, Tom had picked him up directly from practice. If being athletic is what success at that school looks like, Tom told me, then maybe Arch should take up painting. I kept mum. The next day, I was ashamed to admit, I’d pulled out Arch’s birthday list and bought him the Palm pilot.

Call it working mom’s guilt, I’d thought, as I stuffed tiny cream puffs with shrimp salad. Still, I was not sorry I was making more money than ever before. I did not regret that Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right! had gone from booked to overbooked. Finally, I was giving those caterers in Denver, forty miles to the east, a run for their shrimp rolls. This was what I’d always wanted, right?

Take my best upcoming week, I’d explained to Marla as she moved on to test my cheesecake bars and raspberry brownies. The second week of April, I would make close to ten thousand dollars—a record. I’d booked an upscale cocktail party at Westside Mall, a wedding reception, and two big luncheons. Once I survived all that, Friday, April the fifteenth, was Arch’s birthday. By then, I’d finally have the cash to buy him something, as Arch himself had said, really good.

“Goldy, don’t do all that,” Marla warned as she downed one of my new Spice-of-Life Cookies. The buttery cookies featured large amounts of ginger, cinnamon, and freshly grated nutmeg, and were as comforting as anything from Grandma’s kitchen. “You’ll be too exhausted even to make a birthday cake. Listen to me, now. You need to decrease your bookings, hire some help, be stricter with Arch, and take care of yourself for a change. If you don’t, you’re going to die.”

Marla was always one for the insightful observation.

I didn’t listen. At least, not soon enough.

The time leading up to that lucrative week in April became even busier and more frenetic. Arch occasionally slipped away from practice before Tom, coming up from his investigative work at the sheriff’s department, could snag him. I was unable to remember the last time I’d had a decent night’s sleep. So I suppose it was inevitable that, at ten-twenty on the morning of April eleventh, I had what’s known in the shrink business as a crisis. At least, that’s what they’d called it years ago, during my pursuit of a singularly unhelpful degree in psychology.

I was inside our walk-in refrigerator when I blacked out. Just before hitting the walk-in’s cold floor, I grabbed a metal shelf. Plastic bags of tomatoes, scallions, celery, shallots, and gingerroot spewed in every direction, and my bottom thumped the floor. I thought, I don’t have time for this.

I struggled to get up, and belatedly realized this meltdown wasn’t that hard to figure out. I’d been up since five A.M. With one of the luncheon preps done, I was focusing on the mall cocktail party that evening. Or at least I had been focusing on it, before my eyes, legs, and back gave out.

I groaned and quickly gathered the plastic bags. My back ached. My mind threw out the realization that I still did not know where Arch had been for three hours the previous afternoon, when lacrosse practice had been canceled. Neither Tom nor I had been aware of the calendar change. Tom had finally collected Arch from a seedy section of Denver’s Colfax Avenue. So what had this about-to-turn-fifteen-year-old been up to this time? Arch had refused to say.

“Just do the catering,” I announced to the empty refrigerator. I replaced the plastic bags and asked the Almighty for perspective. Arch would get the third degree when he came down for breakfast. Meanwhile, I had work to do.

Before falling on my behind, I’d been working on a concoction I’d dubbed Shoppers’ Chocolate Truffles. These rich goodies featured a dense, smooth chocolate interior coated with more satiny chocolate. So what had I been looking for in the refrigerator? I had no idea. I stomped out and slammed the door.

I sagged against the counter and told myself the problem was fatigue. Or maybe my age—thirty-four—was kicking in. What would Marla say? She’d waggle a fork in my face and preach about the wages of success.

I brushed myself off and quick-stepped to the sink. As water gushed over my hands, I remembered I’d been searching for the scoops of ganache, that sinfully rich mélange of melted bittersweet chocolate, heavy cream, and liqueur that made up the heart of the truffles.

I dried my hands and resolved to concentrate on dark chocolate, not the darker side of success. After all, I had followed one of Marla’s suggestions: I had hired help. But I had not cut back on parties. I’d forgotten what taking care of myself even felt like. And I seemed incapable of being stricter with Arch.

I hustled over to my new kitchen computer and booted it up, intent on checking that evening’s assignment Soon my new printer was spitting out lists of needed foodstuffs, floor plans, and scheduled setup. I may have lost my mind, but I’d picked it right up again.

“This is what happens when you give up caffeine!” I snarled at the ganache balls. Oops—that was twice I’d talked to myself in the last five minutes. Marla would not approve.

I tugged the plastic wrap off the globes of ganache and spooned up a sample to check the consistency. The smooth, intense dark chocolate sent a zing of pleasure up my back. I moved to the stovetop, stirred the luxurious pool of melting chocolate, and took a whiff of the intoxicatingly rich scent. I told myself—silently—that everything was going to be all right. The party-goers were going to love me.

The client for that night’s cocktail party was Barry Dean, an old friend who was now manager of Westside Mall, an upscale shopping center abutting the foothills west of Denver, I’d previously put on successful catered parties at Westside. Each time, the store-owners had raved. But Barry Dean, who’d only been managing the mall for six months, had seemed worried about the party’s dessert offering. I’d promised him his high-end spenders, for whom the party was geared, would flip over the truffles.

Maybe I’d even get a big tip, I thought as I scraped down the sides of the double boiler. I could spend it on a new mattress. On it, I might eventually get some sleep.

I stopped and took three deep breaths. My system craved coffee. Of course, I hadn’t given up espresso entirely, I was just trying to cut back from nine shots a day to two. Too much caffeine was causing my sleeplessness, Marla had declared. Of course, since we’d both been married to the same doctor—consecutively, not concurrently—she and I were self-proclaimed experts on all physical ailments. (Med Wives 101, we called it.) So I’d actually heeded her advice. My plan had been to have one shot at eight in the morning (a distant memory), another at four in the afternoon (too far in the future). Now my resolve was melting faster than the dark chocolate.

I fired up the espresso machine and wondered how I’d gotten into such a mental and physical mess.

Innocently enough, my mind replied. Without warning, right after Valentine’s Day, my catering business had taken off. An influx of ultrawealthy folks to Denver and the mountain area west of the Mile High City had translated into massive construction of trophy homes, purchases of multiple upscale cars, and doubling of prices for just about everything. Most important from my viewpoint, the demand for big-ticket catered events had skyrocketed. From mid-February to the beginning of April, a normally slow season, my assignments had exploded. I’d thought I’d entered a zone, as they say in Boulder, of bliss.

I pulled a double shot of espresso, then took a sip and felt infinitely better.

I rolled the first silky scoop of ganache into a ball, and set it aside. What had I been thinking about? Ah, yes. Success.

I downed more coffee and set aside the porcelain bought-on-clearance cup, a remnant of my financial dark days. Those days had lasted a long time, a fact that Arch had seemed to block out.

When I began divorce proceedings against the ultra-cute, ultravicious Doctor John Richard Korman, I’d been so determined that he would support our son well that I’d become an Official Nosy Person. Files, tax returns, credit card receipts, check stubs, bank deposits—I’d found and studied them all. My zealous curiosity had metamorphosed into a decent settlement. Wasn’t it Benjamin Franklin who’d said, God helps those who help themselves Old Ben had been right.

I bathed the first dark ganache globe in chocolate. OK, I’d replaced marital bitterness with bittersweet chocolate and bitter orange marmalade, right? And my life had turned around. Two years ago, I’d married Tom Schuk. As unreal as my newly minted financial success might seem, I did not doubt the miracle of my relationship with Tom, whose work as a police investigator had actually brought us together in the first place. Tom was bighearted and open-armed toward both Arch and me. So far, Tom and I had passed the tests that had been flung our way, and emerged still together. In this day and age, I thought, such commitment was commendable.

I rolled ganache balls, bathed them in chocolate, and set them aside to dry. Scoop, bathe, set aside. Marla could grouse all she wanted; I savored my new success. I was even considering purchasing a new set of springform pans, since I’d already bought a new computer, printer, and copier, not to mention new tableware, flatware, and knives—a shining set of silver Henckels. I relished no longer renting plates, silverware, and linens! I laughed aloud when I finished the twentieth truffle, and made myself another espresso. The dark drink tasted divine. No wonder they called financial solvency liquidity.

I rewarded myself with a forkful of ganache, which sparked more fireworks of chocolate ecstasy. I did a little two-step and thanked the Almighty for chocolate, coffee, and business growth.

Roll, bathe, set aside. I was appreciative that I had scads of new clients. In hiring me, they offered testimonies from friends (Marla in particular), or claimed they’d caught the reruns of my short-lived PBS cooking show. Some even said they just had to hire this caterer they’d read about, the one who helped her husband solve the occasional murder case. Well, why they hired me didn’t matter. New clients were new clients, and glitzy parties paid the bills. It had been stupendous.

For a while.

Now I looked and felt like zabaglione, frothy after being beaten too hard. And I was unsure of what was going on with my son. I rolled, bathed, and set aside more truffles, all the while avoiding my reflection in the kitchen window. I knew what I’d see there: a haggard face with licorice-black bags under bloodshot eyes, not to mention a fretwork of worry-wrinkles. My freshly shampooed, too-busy-to-get-a-cut blond hair, which people had always likened to Shirley Temple’s corkscrew curls, now gave me the look of a soaked poodle.

You’re obsessing again, I scolded myself as I set the thirtieth truffle on the rack. You’ll just make things worse.

I took a deep breath and ordered myself not to indulge in another taste until all sixty of the chocolates were made. Instead, I had to start planning Arch’s birthday.

At the moment, Arch was still asleep, as the Elk Park Prep teachers were meeting for an in-service. School that day didn’t start till noon, my son had announced the previous night, and could we spend the morning shopping? I’d said no, I had to work. And besides, where had he been the previous day? He’d sighed. Then he’d pushed his glasses up his nose so he could give me the full benefit of his pleading eyes, which seemed huge against the background of his shaved head. Had I started purchasing any items on his birthday list? he asked.

I swallowed. I’d only bought the Palm; I hadn’t had time for anything else. Arch had hoisted his bookbag and stalked out of the kitchen. I yelled after him that no matter how much money you had, it was never enough. He’d called back something unintelligible.

I rolled another ball of ganache and longed to stuff it into my mouth. Instead, I dipped it into the dark chocolate. Marla’s warnings haunted me. What, exactly, was enough! On our day of planning, Barry Dean had told me about the jewelry-event-cum-cocktail-party guests, members of Westside’s Elite Shoppers Club. The “Elites,” as Barry called them, spent a minimum of a thousand dollars a week at the mall. Membership in the group guaranteed special coupons, special sales, valet parking, and events like the jewelry-leasing extravaganza I was catering that night. One thing I had asked Barry: Where did the Elites put all the stuff they bought? He’d winked, done his endearing-bachelor shrug, and said usually they rented storage sheds.

My business line rang. I put down the truffle, swiped my fingers on my stained apron, and actually prayed that this was not another new client.

“Goldilocks’ Catering—”

“You’re working,” Marla accused.

“No, really, I was sleeping in. Then my best friend called and woke me up.”

“Yeah, sure.” She swallowed something. I guessed it was her latest version of hot chocolate, which consisted of hot cream, cocoa, and low-cal sweetener. Even though Marla had had a heart attack almost two years before, she’d had little luck losing weight on a low-fat, high-carb, low-protein diet. So now she was trying a some-fat, some-carb, high-protein diet. She claimed she’d lost six pounds and felt much better. When I’d asked what her cardiologist thought of the new regimen, she’d hung up on me. You had to be careful with Marla.

Now I said, “OK, I was trying to roll truffles, until my best friend called and forced me to smear chocolate all over my new apron.”

“Quit bellyaching.” She started munching on something, I didn’t want to imagine what. “Yesterday I gave Arch a package for you. It’s in your freezer. I want you to open it.” I sighed, thinking of all the work I had to do. “While I’m talking to you, if you don’t mind.”

I knew my life would be much easier if I just tucked the phone against my shoulder, wrenched open the freezer door of the walk-in, and did as bidden. So I did. After a moment of groping, I pulled a very cold brown paper bag from a shelf. The bag contained—oh, joy—a pint of Haagen-Dazs coffee ice cream, hand-labeled “A,” and a brown bottle of time-release vitamins, marked “B.”

“OK, get a spoon and a glass of water,” Marla commanded when she heard the paper rustling. “Take a spoonful of A, then a capsule of B. Now”

I again followed orders. The ice cream improved my mood, no question. But when I tried to swallow the vitamin, I choked.

“I can’t believe you’re doing the event tonight,” Marla cried, not heeding my wheezing gasps. “You’ll wreck my shopping experience, and everyone else’s. You think people want a caterer who looks half dead? Shoppers want to escape reality, Goldy. They want to feel rich. They want to feel young. They’ll take one look at you and say, Why should I shop? She’s gonna die and so am I.”

I finally swallowed the vitamin and croaked, “Are you done talking about me kicking the bucket? ’Cuz I’ve got truffles to coat.”

Marla went on, her husky voice laced with anger: “I was going to lease the double strand of diamonds for the first month. They’re perfect for the March of Dimes luncheon. But six thou a month? What’ll I have left to give the March of Dimes?” She paused to devour more food. One of the whole-grain muffins I’d made her? Unlikely. “Then I heard that Page Stockham, also an Elite Shopper, wanted the same necklace. So now I’m trying to decide between a ruby chain and an emerald set in three rows of diamonds, in case Page gets it first. Oh, Page Stockham just makes me so angry. And to think I asked her to go with me to tonight’s event.”

“To think,” I murmured sympathetically.

She ignored me. “Making matters even worse, Ellie McNeely wants the double pearl strand with the aquamarine, which I’ve had my eye on forever to go with a dinner I’m giving in May, that I was hoping you’d cater, if you’re not dead. Wait a minute, there’s someone at the door.”

Waiting for Marla to return to the phone, I kept on with the truffles. Six to go. Roll, bathe, set aside. What had I been thinking about? Oh, yes, money to burn. I wasn’t resentful, though, because moneyed folks were my best clients. And anyway, who was I to judge anyone else’s shopping!

My eyes traveled to the carved wooden cupboard hanging over our kitchen table. I truly did not want to look down on folks who engaged in retail therapy. The reason was that during my divorce from The Jerk, and despite near-dire financial straits, I’d been a shop-to-feel-better gal myself. On weekends when it was John Richard’s turn to have Arch, I’d visited every shopping center I could find. I’d strolled through perfume-scented air, by gorgeously stacked goods, past gaggle after gaggle of smiling, prosperous people. I’d loitered in front of brightly lit displays of embroidered baby clothes, rainbow-hued designer sheets, sleek copper pots and pans, even sugared, sparkling cinnamon rolls. I’d allowed myself to feel rich, even if my bank account said otherwise.

Come to think of it, maybe that was what Arch had been doing the previous day: shopping. Still, there weren’t any luxury shops on East Colfax.

I retucked the silent phone against my ear, rolled another truffle, but stopped again to ponder the cupboard shelves. On each of those long-ago shopping trips, I’d bought myself a little something from the “Drastically Reduced” tables. My white porcelain demitasse cup and saucer, a tiny crystal mouse, a miniature wooden car laden with painted wooden gifts—all these had made me uncommonly happy. At home, I’d placed my minuscule treasures on the old cupboard’s shelves. Without the stores’ strong overhead lights, the little crystal mouse had not looked quite so brilliant; the cheap china cup had lost its translucence. But I’d never cared. Each piece had been mine, something for me, a small token of an inner voice, too long silenced, saying, “I love you.” So who was I to judge Marla or her friends, Page Stockham and Ellie McNeely? They all wanted someone, even if it was themselves, to say, I really, really care about you! And to prove it, have this!

Marla came back to the phone and said Ellie had arrived, and she had to go. Before the event, she, Ellie, and Page, who was driving down separately with husband Shane, would be getting the mud soak, the coconut-milk bath, and the vegetable-and-fruit wrap at Westside Spa.

“I’ll watch for a moving luau.”

“I’ll catch you at the party,” Marla retorted, undaunted, and signed off.

I rolled the fifty-eighth truffle. Then, lowering the scoop of ganache into the melted chocolate and setting it aside to dry, I made another espresso. To the far west, just visible out our back windows, a bright mist cloaked the mountains of the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve. On the nearer hills, white-barked aspens nestled between dark expanses of fir, spruce, and pine. I peered at our thermometer. The red line was stubbornly stuck at twenty-nine degrees. So this is Springtime in the Rockies? newcomers always asked. This is it, I invariably replied. In June, you can take off your snow tires.

I slugged down what I vowed would be my last coffee. Once again, worry surfaced. Where had Arch been yesterday?

I disciplined myself to roll the next-to-last truffle. It broke into two pieces when I dunked it in the dark chocolate. Oh, darn! Guess I’ll have to eat it, maybe with a fifth espresso! I pulled out the chocolate chunks swimming in the dark coating, placed them on the rack, then refilled the espresso doser. I rinsed the old porcelain demitasse cup and closed my eyes. Worry for Arch nagged at me, I balanced on one foot. I was so tired …. And then my much-loved cup slipped from my fingers. It shattered on the floor with a heartbreaking crash. Shards raced across the wood; bits of china smashed into the molding and sent reverberating tinkles throughout the kitchen.

My best shopping treasure was gone. Later, I tried not to think of it as an omen.

This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition.

NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.

KILLER PANCAKE

A Bantam Book

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Bantam hardcover edition published November 1995

Bantam paperback edition / September 1996

Bantam reissue edition /June 2002

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1995 by Diane Mott Davidson.