Prime Cut

Buffet LunhMERCIFUL MIGRATIONS CABIN BLUH SPRUCE, COLORADOMONDAY, AUGUST 18

Models’ Mushroom Soup

Asian Spring Rolls

Savory Florentine Cheesecake

Endive, Radicchio, and Arugula with Red Wine-Pear Vinaigrette

Honeydew and Raspberries

Parker House Rolls, Cornbread Biscuits, Sourdough-Thyme Baguettes

Burnt Sugar Cake, Whipped Cream

Sparkling Water, Fruit Juices, Coffee, Tea

Five-star Praise for the

Nationally Bestsellins Mysteries

of Diane Mott Davidson

“The Julia Child of mystery writers.”—Colrado Springs Gazette Telegraph

“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—her tempting recipes and elaborate plots add up to a literary feast!”—The San Diego Union-Tribune

“Mixes recipes and mayhem to perfection.”—Sunday Denver Post

“Davidson is one of the few authors who has 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 DavidsonCatering to Nobody

Dying for Chocolate

The Cereal Murders

The Last Suppers

Killer Pancake

The Main Corpse

The Grilling Season

Tough Cookie

Sticks & Scones

Chopping Spree

In loving memory

of Ann Ripley Blakeslee

1919–1998

Wonderful teacher, brilliant writer, unfailing friend

They shall perish, but you [Lord] will endure;

they all shall wear out like a garment;

as clothing you will change them,

and they shall be changed;

But you are always the same,

and your years will never end.

PSALM 102: 26-27

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to acknowledge the help of the following people: Jim, Jeff, J.Z., and Joe Davidson; Kate Miciak, a fabulous editor; Sandra Dijkstra, a superb agent; Susan Corcoran, an outstanding publicist; Amanda Powers, a brilliant factotum; the great Lee Karr and the wonderful group that assembles at her home; John William Schenk, a wonderful chef and teacher; Karen Johnson, who fuels the author with truffles and culinary information; Thorenia West, who came up with the idea for this project and allowed the author to work in her domain; Meiko Catron, a phenomenal artistic director; all the talented people at Independence Pass Productions: Kit De Fever, Larraine Todd, Evan Waters, Errol Hamilton, Ludovic Chatelain, Levente, and Greg Griner; Aaron Bixby, for sharing insights; Katherine Goodwin Saideman, for her diligent reading of the manuscript; Ellen Shea, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Richard Staller, D.O., Elk Ridge Family Physicians; Sergeant Robert Knuth; Carol Devine Rusley; Triena Harper, assistant deputy coroner, Jefferson County, Colorado; Jim Dullenty of the Rocky Mountain House in Hamilton, Montana; Sybil Downing, and Richard “Pat” Patterson, for sharing their knowledge of the historic West; Brian Lang, curator, Hiwan Homestead Museum; Elaine Mongeau, King Soopers Pharmacy; and, of course, for continuing to be an unending source of patience and information, Sergeant Richard Millsapps, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, Golden, Colorado.

“No woman can be too thin or

too rich.”

ATTRIBUTED TO

THE DUCHESS OF WINDSOR

Chapter 1

Like a fudge soufflé, life can collapse. You think you have it all together—fine melted chocolate, clouds of egg white, hints of sugar and vanilla—and then bam. There’s a reason things fall apart, my husband would say. But of course Tom would say that. He’s a cop.

On the home front, things were not good. My kitchen was trashed, my catering business faced nasty competition, and my fourteen-year-old son Arch desperately missed our former boarder, twenty-year-old Julian Teller. For his part, Tom was embroiled in a feud with a new assistant district attorney who would plea-bargain Hermann Goring down to disturbing the peace. These days, I felt increasingly frantic—for work, for cooking space, for perspective.

Given such a litany of problems, life had brightened somewhat when my old cooking teacher, Chef André Hibbard, had offered me a one-day gig helping to cater a fashion shoot. My clients—the ones I still had—would have scoffed. Catering to models? You must be desperate.

Maybe I was. Desperate, that is. And maybe my clients would have been right to ridicule me, I reflected, as I pulled my van into the dirt lot at the edge of Sandbottom Creek. Across the water stood the Merciful Migrations cabin, where the first week of the photo shoot would take place. My clients would have cried: Where are you going to hide your butter and cheese? I didn’t know.

The cloudless, stone-washed-denim sky overhead and remote-but-picturesque cabin seemed to echo: You’re darn right, you don’t know. I ignored a shudder of self-doubt, jumped out of my van, and breathed in air crisp with the high country’s mid-August hint of fall. It was only ten A.M. Usually I didn’t arrive two hours before a lunch, especially when the food already had been prepared. But show me a remote historic home and I’ll show you a dysfunctional cooking area. Plus, I was worried about my old friend André. This was his first off-site catered meal since he’d retired four years ago, and he was a basket case.

I opened the van’s side door and heaved up the box containing the Savory Florentine Cheesecakes I’d made for the buffet. I expertly slammed the door with my foot, crossed the rushing water, and carefully climbed the stone steps to the cabin. On the deck, I took another deep breath, rebalanced my load, then pushed through the massive wooden door.

Workers bustled about a brightly lit, log-lined, high-beamed great room. I rested my box on a bench and stood for a few minutes, ignored by the swirl of activity. Frowning, I found it challenging to comprehend my surroundings. Two workers called to each other about where to move the scrim, which I finally deduced was a mounted swath of fabric designed to diffuse the photographer’s light. The two men moved on to clamping movable eight-foot-square wood screens—flats, I soon learned—into place. The flats formed a three-sided frame for “the set.” Meanwhile, other folks rushed to and fro laden with hair dryers, notebooks, makeup trays, tripods, and camera equipment. Hoisting my box, I tried to figure out where André might be.

As I moved along, the models were easy to spot. Muscular young men and impossibly slender women, all with arrestingly sculpted faces, leaned against the log walls or slumped in the few stripped-bark bentwood chairs. The models’ expressions were frozen in first-day-of-school apprehension. And no wonder: They were about to undergo the cattle call for the famed Prince & Grogan Christmas catalog. Prince & Grogan was an upscale Denver department store. Auditioning to model Santa-print pajamas for their ads had to be anxiety-creating.

I plowed a crooked path to what I hoped was the kitchen entrance. As I feared, the dark, cramped cooking space featured plywood glued along the one wall not covered by cupboards. Above the plywood, a dusty lamp hung to illluminate the battered sink. Next to the sink, buckled linoleum counters abutted a gas oven that didn’t look much newer than a covered wagon’s camp stove. In the center of the uneven wood floor, short, paunchy, white-haired André Hibbard surveyed the room with open dissatisfaction. As usual, my old friend and mentor, who had made a rare compromise when he’d immigrated, anglicizing his name from Hébert to Hibbard, sported a pristine white chef’s jacket that hugged his potbelly. His black pants were knife-creased; his black shoes were shiny and spotless. When he saw me, his rosebud mouth puckered into a frown.

“Thank goodness.” His plum-colored cheeks shook; the silvery curls lining his neck trembled. “Are these people pigs, that I have to work in this trough? I may need money, but I have standards!”

I put down my box, gave him a quick hug, and sniffed a trace of his spicy cologne. “André! You’re never happy. But I’m here, and I brought the nonmeat entrée you requested. Main-dish cheesecakes made with Gruyère and spinach.”

He tsked while I checked the ancient oven’s illegible thermostat. “The oven is hot. Whose recipe is it?”

“Julian Teller’s. Now training to become a vegetarian chef.” I lifted the cakes from the box and slid them into the oven to reheat. “Now, put me to work.”

I helped André pour out the tangy sauces that would accompany the delicate spring rolls he’d stuffed with fat steamed shrimp, sprigs of cilantro, and lemongrass. Then we stirred chopped pears into the red-wine vinaigrette, counted cornbread biscuits, Parker House Rolls, and sourdough baguettes, and discussed the layout of the buffet. Prince & Grogan was the client of record. But the fashion photography studio, Ian’s Images, was running the show.

“Ian Hood does fashion photography for money,” André announced as he checked his menu, “and nature photography for fun. You know this?”

In André’s scratched, overloaded, red cooking equipment box—one I knew well from our days at his restaurant—I pushed aside his garlic press and salamander, and nabbed the old-fashioned scoop he used to make butter balls. “I know his pictures of elk. You can’t live in Aspen Meadow and miss them.”

André pursed his lips again and handed me the tub of chilled butter. “The helpers are day-contractors working for Prince & Grogan.”

The word contractor, unfortunately, instantly brought my trashed kitchen to mind. Forget it for now—you have work to do. I scraped the butter into dense, creamy balk. I wrapped the breads in foil while André counted his platters. Because the cabin kitchen was not a commercially-approved space, he had done the bulk of the food preparation at his condo. While he gave me the background on the shoot, we used disposable thermometers to do the obligatory off-site food-service tests for temperature. Was the heated food hot enough? The chilled offerings cold enough? Yes. Finally, we checked the colorful arrangements of fruit and bowls of salad, and tucked the rolls into napkin-lined baskets.

When the cheesecakes emerged, golden brown and puffed, they filled the small kitchen with a heavenly aroma. André checked their temperature and asked me to take them out to the buffet. I stocked the first tray, lifted it up to my shoulder, and nudged through the kitchen door. When I entered the great room, a loudly barked order made me jump.

“Take off your shirt!”

I banged the tray onto the ruby-veined marble shelf that a note in Andre’s familiar sloping hand had labeled Buffet. The shelf, cantilevered out of the massive log walls, creaked ominously. The tray of cheesecakes slid sideways.

“Your shirt!”

I grabbed the first Springform pan to keep it from tipping. This was not what I was expecting. Because the noise outside the kitchen had abated, I’d thought the room was empty and that the models’ auditions had been moved elsewhere. I was obviously wrong. But my immediate worry was the cheesecakes, now threatening to toboggan downward. If they landed on the floor, I would be assigned to cook a new main dish. This would not be fun.

With great care, I slid the steaming concoctions safely onto the counter. Arguing voices erupted from the far corner of the great room. I grabbed the leaning breadbasket. The floor’s oak planks reverberated as someone stamped and hollered that the stylist was supposed to bring out the gold chains right now! I swallowed and stared at the disarray on the tray.

To make room on the counter, I skidded the cheesecakes down the marble. The enticing scents of tangy melted Gruyère and Parmesan swirled with hot scallions and cream cheese spiraled upward. The thick tortes’ golden-brown topping looked gorgeous, fit for the centerfold of Gourmet.

Best to avoid thoughts of gorgeous, I reminded myself as I placed a crystal bowl of endive and radicchio on the marble. Truth to tell, for this booking I’d been a bit apprehensive in the appearance department. Foodie magazines these days eagerly screamed a new trend: Today’s caterer should offer pretty servers in addition to beautiful food! Submit head shots along with menus!

I pushed the butter balls onto the counter, keenly aware of my unfashionably curly blond hair and plump thirty-three-year-old body beneath a white shirt, loose black skirt, and white apron. I hadn’t submitted a photo.

Of course, neither had André, who was now fuming at a kitchen intruder. I sighed and moved the plate of juicy honeydew melon and luscious fat raspberries onto the counter. With one hand still gripping the tray, I inhaled uncertainly, then parted the cloth folds of the breadbasket. The tower of butter-flecked rolls, moist cornbread biscuits, and sourdough-thyme baguettes had not toppled, thank goodness. Self-doubt again reared its head. Will the fashion folks eat this?

“And while you’re at it, take off your pants!” the same female voice barked.

“For sportswear?” a man squealed in dismay.

I turned and peered past the bentwood chairs and sleigh-bed frames the workers had piled higgledy-piggledy in the dusty, sun-steeped space. By the far bank of windows, a solitary, beautiful young man stood in front of a trio of judges. The judges—two women and a man, all of whom I knew—perched on a slatted bench. None of them looked happy.

Nearest was Hanna Klapper—dark-haired, wide-faced, fiftyish, recently and unhappily divorced. Hanna was familiar to me from my stint as a volunteer at Aspen Meadow’s Homestead Museum. With her authoritarian voice and exacting ways, Hanna had designed exhibits installed by trembling docents, yours truly included. She had demanded that we put on surgical gloves before moving woven baskets or antique Indian pots even two inches. If we forgot, or, God forbid, dropped an item, she’d kick us out faster than you could say Buffalo Bill’s bloodstained holster. According to André, Hanna had been appointed as the new artistic director at Prince & Grogan. I was amazed to see that she had shed her gingham-smock-and-sensible-shoes wardrobe for an elegant black silk shirt, tie, and pants. Her mahogany-colored hair, formerly pulled into a severe bun, was now shaped into a fashionably angled pageboy. This wasn’t just a new job. It was a metamorphosis.

Hanna opened and closed her fists as she chided the male model. The gorgeous fellow, whose hair might have been a tad too black to be real, argued back. I wondered how Harma’s exhibits on Cattle-Rustling Meets Cowboy Cooking and Gunslingers: Their Gripes and Their Girls had prepared her for ordering models to strip. In any event, I certainly wouldn’t want her judging my body.

Savory Florentine Cheesecake

2 cups dry bread crumbs, preferably made from homemade brioche bread

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach

3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

¼ cup whipping cream

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon prepared Dijon mustard

4 eggs

1¼ cups freshly grated Gruyère cheese (about 4 ounces)

1¼ cup freshly grated imported Parmesan cheese

¼ teaspoon paprika

⅛ teaspoon cayenne

¼ cup chopped scallions

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Combine the bread crumbs and melted butter and press on the bottom and sides of a buttered 9-inch spring-form pan. Bake for 8 to 12 minutes, or until very lightly browned. Set aside to cool.

Cook the spinach according to package directions, place in a strainer, and press out all the liquid. In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, cream, salt, and mustard until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each addition. Add the spinach, grated cheeses, paprika, cayenne, and seallions. Beat on low speed until well combined.

Pour the mixture into the prepared crust and bake for approximately 1 hour and 5 minutes, or until the filling is set and browned. Cool for 15 minutes on a wire rack. Serve with sliced fresh fruit and a green salad with vinaigrette dressing.

Makes 12 servings

The woman next to her on the bench was a bit younger. Leah Smythe, small-boned and delicate-featured, wore her blond-streaked black hair in a shaggy pixie cut. She had jumped up and was now holding out her hands in a pleading gesture to the model. André had confided to me that Leah was the big cheese here today, the woman with the power: the casting director for Ian’s Images. Leah also owned the cabin. When Ian’s Images was not engaged in a shoot, Leah allowed Merciful Migrations to use the space for elk-tracking, fund-raising, and salt-lick distribution.

The beautiful young man who wouldn’t take off his shirt looked as if he could use a lick of salt, especially on the side of a glass of tequila. My heart went out to him.

The man seated next to Hanna and Leah, photographer Ian Hood, had a handsome, fine-boned face, wavy salt-and-pepper hair, and a trim beard. Ian’s photos of trotting elk, grazing elk, big-buck elk, and mom-and-baby elk graced the libraries, grocery stores, post offices, banks, and schools of Aspen Meadow and Blue Spruce. My best friend, Marla Korman—the other ex-wife of my ex-husband—had sent Ian a dozen elk burgers when he’d criticized her fund-raising abilities. He hadn’t spoken to her since.

“Do you want this job or not?” Hanna brusquely asked the model. Seeming to take no notice, Ian squinted through the lens of a camera.

No, as a matter of fact, my inner voice replied. I don’t want this job. No matter how much I tried to deny it, my heart was as blue as the gas flame on André’s old restaurant stovetop. Quit fretting, I scolded myself as I counted out glasses and lined them up.

I sneaked another peek at the male model still being appraised by Ian, Hanna, and Leah. He was in his mid-twenties, indisputably from the Greek-god category of guys. His ultradark curly hair, olive complexion, and perfectly shaped aquiline features complemented wide shoulders above an expansive chest, only slightly paunchy waist, and long legs. But his handsome face was pinched in frustration. Worse, his tall, elegant body—clothed in fashionably wrinkled beige clothing—didn’t seem too steady on its feet. Hands on hips, Hanna looked intensely annoyed. Leah sadly shook her head. Ian gestured angrily and squawked something along the lines of You have to be able to compete. If you can’t compete, get out of the business.

“I hate competing,” I muttered under my breath.

Apollo-in-khaki put his hands behind his head and scowled. He snarled, “We’re having a few problems. So what? I’m the best guy for this job, and you know it.”

I smiled in spite of myself. A few problems?

“Didn’t your agent tell you about the cruise section?” asked Leah Smythe, in a pleading tone. Ian Hood popped a flash, then stared quizzically at the camera, a Polaroid. When nothing happened, he lifted the apparatus and thwacked it loudly against the bench. I gasped.

“Spit out the picture!” Ian yelled at the camera, then lofted it back to his eye. Another flash sparked; no photograph emerged.

From the cabin’s far door, footsteps and the clank of tools announced one of the workers who’d set up the scrim. Tall and gangly, this fellow traipsed into the great room hauling a load of bulging canvas bags. He writhed to get loose of his load, then dropped the sacks and thoughtfully rubbed a beard so uneven and scruffy it looked pasted on his ultrapale skin. After a moment, he picked up a framed picture and centered it on the wall. I broke out in a sweat and turned back to the buffet.

Please, I prayed, no hammering. Unfortunately, the crack of metal hitting log wall conjured up my commercial kitchen—retrofitted into our old house—as it was being destroyed by our general contractor, Gerald Eliot. One of the reasons I’d been interested in catering here at the cabin was that, apparently, Merciful Migrations had hired Gerald to do some remodeling, then fired him before paying him a cent. I wish I’d been that smart. I’d told André I didn’t mind dealing with models; it was remodelers who’d made my life a living hell.

As the hammer banged methodically, I pictured Gerald Eliot, his yellow mane spilling to his shoulders, his muscled arms broadly gesturing, blithely promising he could easily install a new bay window—my ex-husband had destroyed the original—over my sink. Won’t take more than three days, Eliot had vowed at the beginning of August, with a wide grin.

The pounding reverberated in my skull. Eliot had brandished his power saw, destroyed the window’s casing and surrounding wall, then accidentally ripped through an adjoining cupboard. The entire cabinet, along with its load of dishes and glasses, had crashed to the floor. Just an additional day of work to fix that, he’d observed with a shrug. No extra charge. Start first thing tomorrow.

I groaned, checked my watch, and turned my attention back to the tray. Swiftly, I plugged in the electric warmer and moved the cheesecakes on top. I was here; I was working. I would even be paid. And I needed the money. Before Gerald Eliot had sliced into our kitchen wall, the new catering outfit in town had cut my business by thirty percent. And unfortunately, on Day One of the two days Gerald Eliot had actually worked for me, he’d pocketed the full seven-hundred-dollar down payment on the new window installation. On Day Two, he’d covered the gaping hole he’d made with plastic sheets, hopped into his pickup truck, and roared away.

I straightened the row of spring rolls bulging with pink shrimp. Focus. At least at this cabin there’s a kitchen—although it wasn’t in very good shape, either.

“What else?” I asked André cheerfully when I strode back into his domain. He was fingering the plywood on the wall beside the oven.

“Drinks, serving utensils, and ice.” He looked up from the wall, his wide blue eyes merry. “Guess what I just found out? They fired Gerald Eliot for sleeping with a model!” I sighed; André loved gossip. It was one of the reasons he’d despised retirement.

I swung back out to the buffet with my newly loaded tray. Sleeping with a model, eh? At least he was getting some sleep. This was not the case with my friends the Burrs, whose house was to be the site for the second part of this fashion shoot. Neither one of them was getting much sleep at all these days, thanks—once again—to good old Gerald Eliot.

In April, Cameron and Barbara Burr had been convinced the sun room Gerald Eliot was adding onto their house would be completed by August. That was when Ian’s Images was scheduled to set up the P & G catalog’s outdoor shots, using as a backdrop the Bum’s spectacular view of the Continental Divide’s snow-capped peaks. Gerald Eliot had already been working on the sun room for eleven months—admittedly, off and on—but what was left to be done?

Ah, but the windows had been delayed; for some reason, the drywall couldn’t go up until the windows were in; Eliot had had a cash flow problem; he’d sailed off to his next job. Mountain breezes swirling through the house at night had forced Barbara Burr into the hospital—with pneumonia. Cameron Burr had moved into their guest house. The last I’d heard, Barbara’s pulmonologist had put her on a ventilator.

Maybe when the P & G catalog was done, all of Gerald Eliot’s former clients could have lunch and form a chiseled-by-a-contractor support group. But not today. Today, I was catering with André, watching models undress, taking food to malnourished, depressed Cameron Burr, trying to think of new ways to make money, worrying about my husband’s conflicts with an arrogant prosecutor, and calling down to Lutheran Hospital to see if Barbara Burr had died.

I admired the beautiful dishes on the buffet. That was enough for one day, wasn’t it? Don’t ask.

Chapter 2

The angry voices on the far side of the room intensified; I glanced out the picture window above the counter. A hundred feet below the cabin, a crowd of young men and women streamed through a stand of white-skinned aspens profuse with lime-colored leaves. The waiting models had briefly taken their nervousness outside, apparently, but now they were coming back. Clouds of cigarette smoke obscured their faces as they ascended the stone steps. Behind them, the rippling creek glittered in the morning sun.

I hustled back to the kitchen. I was surprised that so many young people had even been able to find this turn-of-the-century cabin. The six-mile dirt road that led to it meandered beside a long-abandoned stagecoach trail. In summer, the narrow byway alternated between treacherous mud and sandstorm-thick dust. In winter, the road was closed.

When I returned with the knives and forks, the popping noise of a battery-operated screwdriver ceased abruptly. Hanna’s enraged voice grated through the still air. “One last time, do you want to do swimwear or not? You know the rules! We have to see your body.”

I glanced around to see the Greek god slowly unbuttoning his shirt. The faces of the three judges swiveled; their eyes drilled into me. Embarrassed, I whirled and clattered together a batch of serving spoons.

“Go away!” Andre’s strained voice rose from the kitchen. “No food until later! Guard my buffet, Goldy!” A door slammed.

My palms itched. I glanced at the spread on the marble, then back out the window. Guard the buffet? How? The models, massed at the cabin door, were filtering inside. Beyond the aspens, a warm August breeze wrinkled the dark expanse of the creek, which bent in a ragged U-shape around the cabin. Sunlight played over a huge boulder abutting the creek. I smiled and briefly wished Arch were with me: My son would have instantly pointed out how much the enormous rock resembled an elephant. And it did.

I clattered the ice bath onto the marble shelf and topped it with the gold-rimmed china bowl of butter balls. Carefully, I smoothed plastic wrap over the bowl and unloaded the pewter bread-and-butter plates. Next to these I set the container of red wine-pear vinaigrette. I picked up the tray and tried to summon up some of the old resolve I felt so lacking these days.

“You know, Bobby, we don’t really care that you were out partying last night,” Hanna was saying earnestly to the Greek god. “We don’t care why you’ve gained ten pounds. And we can’t care that you drank a lot of coffee waiting for us. Your stomach’s not flat and your eyes are bloodshot. Bloodshot and bloated don’t sell swimwear.”

“You’re too damned hard to please!” Bobby-with-the-slight-paunch shrieked.

I sighed, checked all the foodstuffs one last time, and squared the cheesecakes between the spring rolls and breadbasket. With infinite care I turned back, determined to invite Bobby over for a bite to eat and a glass of sparkling water.

Too late. Bobby, his beige shirt open, was pulling up his trousers. Now his much-criticized stomach hung over his undies like a hot-water bottle; his thighs jiggled as he grappled with the pants waistband. Clasping his trousers closed with one hand and his unbuttoned shirt with the other, he pushed his way clumsily through the rustic furniture. Suddenly, he tripped and flailed wildly.

“What is this damn thing?” he yelled as he regained his balance and savagely kicked a piece of equipment resembling a cannister vacuum across the room.

“Sorry, sorry,” muttered the screwdriver-wielding construction worker. He loped across the wooden floor and yanked at the cannister’s cord. “It’s not our air compressor,” he apologized to Bobby, who ignored him. “It was left here by Gerald Eliot.” As if on cue, everyone groaned at the mention of the infamous contractor.

Bobby’s no-longer-handsome face was wracked with fury and humiliation. As he rushed across the room, his ebony curls whipped behind him and his khaki shirt flapped open. What is the deal with this guy? I wondered.

“Please—” I began, gesturing toward the array of food.

“Forget it!” Bobby barked as he swept past me.

Across the room, Leah, Hanna, and Ian conferred. Hanna bellowed, “Peter!”

Beside the windows, the scruffy-bearded handyman pushed the air compressor aside and plugged in an ornament-bedecked Christmas tree. Sparkly lights flashed as a breathtakingly tanned male model, the presumptive Peter, strode across to the bench and the trio seated there. He was dressed in a snowy-white shirt and blue jeans. His very straight, very shiny brown hair swung forward as he bent to say a few words. When the judges responded, Peter’s plump lips curved into a confident smile. He flipped the glossy hair out of his eyes and handed what looked like an oversized scrapbook to Leah. She leafed through it briefly while Hanna looked over her shoulder. Ian Hood murmured to Peter, who quickly started unbuttoning.

This time, the white shirt dropped swiftly past muscled shoulders, a well-built chest, and concave, washboard abs. While the shirt puddled noiselessly on the floor, Peter undid his pants and dropped them. He hooked a thumb around the side of dark, shiny bikini briefs and struck a pose. I hastened back to the kitchen.

“Did you keep the marauders away?” André regarded me impatiently, then turned back to the stove.

“I tried to, but nobody … They’ve started to …”

He grunted, shook his head, and whacked his wooden spoon on a plate. Then he gave me the full benefit of his heart-shaped face with its button nose and sharp, dimpled chin. “Do you think I came out of retirement to fail? Are you going to doom me to playing checkers and visiting the cardiologist? To making small talk with my wife’s nurse?”

I sighed. “André, I’m sorry—”

“Close the door,” he ordered sternly. “Four people have already interrupted me this morning. Looking for cups of soup!” His silver eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Does this look like a deli?” His forehead wrinkled in disgust as he lovingly swirled a spoon through the steaming pot of his thick, herb-scented mushroom soup. “Now. My cake. It needs to be served warm, with cream.” He paused and considered the pan on the front burner. “Ah, Goldy, I’m not certain I taught you to make this syrup. You must be very quick….” André touched the scar on my arm where I’d accidentally burned myself years ago retrieving a batch of Cornish hens from his restaurant oven. He’d never forgiven himself for not showing me how to handle his oversized roasting pan.

“André, listen, you’re not supposed to make a cake in an off-site kitchen—”

“Phh-t.” His chin trembled dismissively. “This, must be fresh. And do you want to hear about the first boy? A very juicy story—”

“Well—”

“I had to listen to him. He is extremely immature, cannot even cook for himself.” He glanced at his row of utensils, then commanded: “Please put away the first stirrers and hand me my candy thermometer.” I did as directed. “His name is Bobby Whitaker, and he is the young half-brother to Leah Smythe, who feels sorry for him. But not sorry enough to teach him to make low-fat turkey loaf.” André dramatically poured sugar into a cast-iron pan and set it aside. “Bobby has started to peddle real estate. He must attend many fattening luncheons, he says. He finally had his first sale last night and celebrated. He was hung over, he wanted to go back to bed. But he claims his true love is modeling, not being the salesman.” André checked his recipe in his notebook, then pushed his thumb into wrapped butter sticks to make sure they were soft. “All this I had to hear while Bobby drank cup after cup of my coffee. He asked me if I’d been to Milan. He said he did his book there. I told him I was the pastry chef for a huge celebration outside the cathedral. At another cathedral, I made my crème brûlée for a hundred clergy. Where was that, he asked. In my town of Clermont-Ferrand, I told him, where, when I was eleven, I helped smuggle a Milanese Jewish woman and her French husband, also Jewish, out of the town. They went to Switzerland and then America. Do you think Bobby cared about my stories? No. He asked me if it was hard to make pastry and custards for so many people, and had I ever catered a lunch for top producers. I said, what is that? A meal for hens?”

“I care.” I smiled. “I love your stories.” Early on, I had learned the habit of nodding seriously while appearing to listen to Andre’s tales of his culinary history, his dessert-making ability, the many well-heeled clients he’d had, or even his childhood capers during the war. I was convinced these tales were all exaggerated. But if you ignored André, you had a short career in André’s kitchen. I asked thoughtfully, “What book did Bobby have made in Milan?”

André sniffed. “His portfolio. All the models have them. Hanna and Leah have to look at it first to see if they like the look of the model in different clothes.” I tapped the counter and shook my head. “Goldy. Remember when I taught you to inspect meat? It is the same.”

Assessing cuts of steak was like judging people’s bodies? Was that where they got the term beefcake? I asked, “If Bobby is Leah’s half-brother, why didn’t she stick up for him out there?”

He paused over a cardboard box of eggs and grinned. “She tries, I think. Leah is the longtime lover of Ian,” André announced. This tidbit I already knew—from Marla, of course. “Although,” André continued thoughtfully, “those two don’t seem to be getting along very well.” The kitchen door opened; he scowled. “What pig wants something now?”

Models’ Mushroom Soup

5 tablespoons butter, divided

1 large carrot, chopped

1 large onion, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

8 ounces fresh mushrooms, thinly sliced

4 tablespoons all-purpose flour

6 cups homemade chicken stock (preferably the low-fat chicken stock made from the recipe in Killer Pancake)

2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme

1 tablespoon chopped fresh marjoram

2 tablespoons whipping cream

6 tablespoons dry white wine salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a large skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter and cook the carrot, onion, and celery, covered, over medium-low heat for 15 to 25 minutes, until the vegetables soften. Set aside to cool.

In a small skillet, melt 1 tablespoon of butter and sauté the mushrooms briefly until they are cooked through and begin to yield some juice. This takes less than 5 minutes. Set the mushrooms aside.

In a blender, puree the carrot, onion, and celery. In a large skillet, melt the last 2 tablespoons of butter, stir in the flour, and cook this paste, stirring constantly, over low heat until the flour bubbles. Slowly whisk in the stock. Cook and stir over medium heat until hot and thickened, about 10 minutes. Stir in the thyme, marjoram, whipping cream, mushrooms, wine, and pureed vegetables until hot and bubbly, about 5 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

Makes 6 servings

“Help me,” pleaded a female whisper from the doorway.

“Pah!” howled André, without pity. He slid the sugar-filled iron pan to an unlit burner. “Go away!”

“What do you need?” I said quietly to a russet-haired woman whose large brown eyes glowed from within a gaunt, high-cheekboned face. She was stunning as well as very thin and tall. Despite the season, she was dressed in an oak-brown cashmere sweater, a long clingy brown wool skirt, and gleaming brown leather boots. She teetered precariously on the boots’ stiletto heels.

Her cocoa-colored lower lip trembled. She drew her haunting face into an expression of intense pain. “Please—”

I said, “Are you okay?”

“Coffee,” she whispered. She grinned uncertainly, affording a glimpse of brilliant teeth. “I just need a tiny sip. If you don’t mind,” she added.

André hrumphed and shrugged. I reached for the glass pot, but it held only an inch of metallic-smelling brew. My next job after heating the savory cheesecakes, laying out the spring rolls, mixing the vinaigrette, and arranging the buffet, would be to brew a fresh pot of coffee. I wondered vaguely how André would have managed if I hadn’t agreed to help today.

“Do you have powdered nondairy? Nonfat, that is?” the young woman inquired. Under the thick makeup, I figured she was about nineteen.

“Well, André keeps cream in his cooler—”

“No! Just give me that.” She wobbled across the uneven floor toward me, eyes fixed greedily on the coffeepot. I sighed and poured the viscous liquid into a foam cup, which the model immediately grabbed, along with ajar of powdered creamer from a wooden shelf abutting the plywood over the sink. André frowned. The model ignored him, shook a dusty layer of creamer across the surface of the murky liquid, swirled it with a polished green fingernail, and took a noisy slurp.

“I’m Goldy.” I kept my voice low in the hope that André would go on with his work and ignore us. “And you’re—?”

“Rustine,” she whispered over her shoulder as she clutched her cup and swayed toward the wooden door. She turned and gave me a vaguely flirtatious look. “Goldy? You’re the famous caterer, right?”

“Uh,” I said, mindful of André’s ego, “not exactly.”

Rustine mock-kissed the air. “I can’t wait for lunch.” She raised the coffee cup in salute. The door swooshed shut behind her.

Great, I thought as I turned back to André. Instead of continuing with the burnt sugar cake, however, he was penning another sign: DO NOT DISTURB OR YOU WILL NOT EAT!

“Put this on the door!” He thrust the sign at me. “Then we will make our syrup!”

I reluctantly thumbtacked the sign to the outside of the heavy kitchen door. In the cabin’s small foyer, a dozen handsome young people huddled mutely, waiting to be called. Rustine put her cup to her lips and avoided my eyes. In the bright sunlight, her hair shone like an orange-gold cloud around her face. I nodded at the models and quietly shut the door.

“All right, we are ready. You must watch.” André moved the iron pan back to the burner and adjusted the flame. “Sugar can kill you,” he warned in a low voice. His very blue eyes, slightly bulbous above reddening cheeks, concentrated on the heating pan. He clutched the padded handle in a death grip. I stepped up beside the cabin’s ancient stove and dutifully watched. Andre’s wooden spoon moved rhythmically through the white crystals as they turned to slush.

“The sugar melts.” The red folds on his neck trembled. “It is molten lead. It is lava. The burns to the skin are deep. Instantaneous.” He shook the pan and glanced again at my scar, then at the lid and towel that lay on the wooden countertop. There was a knock at the closed door.

“Not now!” I called, ignoring Andre’s scowl. The knocker went away.

The thick mass of muddy brown crystals melted under Andre’s determined stirring. He reached for the beaker of water he had poured before starting the caramel.

“Of course you must never use water from the hot water heater.” His small nose wrinkled. “Minerals in the filtering process.” He shuddered, as if the minerals were radioactive. His eyebrows quirked upward as he poured the water onto the pan’s molten mass. A nimbus of mist erupted as the pan’s contents hissed. “The steam, mind!” he cried, and I made a great show of pulling back. Andre’s free hand slapped the lid onto the pan.

“Very impressive,” I said, with genuine admiration.

“My strop caramel,” he announced triumphantly. The dimple in his chin deepened as he smiled. “Now I will make my burnt sugar cake.” The beater on his electric mixer hummed and twirled through the softened butter. “You will tell me about your fight at the Soiree tasting party with this horrible competitor, Litchfield,” he ordered. He pronounced it leachfield.

I sighed. For the last five years, my business—Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right!—had been the only professional food service in the mountain area. And for each of those years, I’d been the caterer of record for the September Soiree, the annual fund-raiser for Ian Hood and Leah Smythe’s charitable enterprise, Merciful Migrations. But now there was Upscale Appetite, and its proprietor, Craig Litchfield, was working diligently to steal the Soiree from me. Worse yet, Litchfield was cute. He always submitted a head shot.

“Dark brown hair, drop-dead gorgeous. That’s Craig Litchfield,” I began, as André showered sugar into the bowl. “Women love him. He started the caterers’ version of a food fight in June. Ads, promotions, underbidding. He went after my customers with a vengeance. How he got my client list with all my schedules and prices, I don’t know.”

André shook his head and dropped an egg into the batter. “I should have come to the tasting party at the Homestead. My doctor is an idiot.” Another egg plopped beside the whirling beater.

“We were in the Homestead kitchen when Litchfield lost his temper with Arch.”

André poured cake flour into his mixture. “How can a chef lose his temper with a fourteen-year-old while he’s cooking?” Teenagers, in André’s view, did not figure in the world of food preparation.

I shrugged. “Litchfield’s no chef. He was heating frozen hors d’oeuvre when Arch asked who his supplier was for phyllo triangles. Litchfield said Arch was being disrespectful, implying the food wasn’t fresh. Arch argued, Litchfield yelled at him, then grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the kitchen. I calmed Arch down, told him to wait in the van. Then I marched back and told Litchfield to back off. But when Arch came in later for a snack, Litchfield shoved him out the back door so hard that he actually fell to the ground. I was so mad I banged my marble cake plate over Litchfield’s head. Didn’t hurt him. Broke my plate.”

I groaned, remembering. Craig Litchfield had been unharmed; my son had recovered; the tasting party had been postponed. Litchfield, calling me an “unattractive, overweight harpy,” had reported the incident to the Furman County Sheriff’s Department. The investigating officer had told me I’d used undue force, even if I had been concerned about my son. The cop said I was lucky Litchfield hadn’t pressed charges.

“Poor Goldy,” murmured André, as he dribbled the burnt sugar syrup into the batter. Tom, too, had sympathized with my plight. Even Arch had felt bad.

André poured the batter into parchment-lined pans. Another knock, this one sharper, reverberated through the decrepit kitchen. “No!” André roared.

The door banged open. I stepped back. André grimaced and thrust his pans into the oven.

“What in the world is going on in here?” Leah Smythe demanded, her voice managing to be hurt, upset, and indignant all at once. Her shredded black-and-gold hair quivered as she regarded us. Stunned, neither André nor I answered her. She blew the bangs off her forehead and crossed her arms. Short and slender, she was dressed in faded blue jeans and a black cotton sweater.

“Well—” I began.

Leah studied me with an up-and-down look. Recalling my work on last year’s Soirée? No. She said flatly, “You’re not looking to work as a model.”

I blushed. “No, I’m helping André with the lunch—”

“Then please don’t give any more models coffee! Then everybody wants some and everybody complains about unfairness and nothing gets accomplished. And you’d better move that food outside to the deck. Hanna and Ian are terrified the set will be covered with crumbs. By the way, people have already started eating those burritos. The break hasn’t even been announced! Why did you put out the food?”

Andre’s face wrinkled with rage. “My spring rolls,” he retorted loudly, “are not burritos, Miss Smythe. Goldy! Rescue my dish.”

“I’m sorry, truly I am,” I murmured to Leah. “I’ll get it right now.” Conflict with competitors is one thing. But the first rule of food service is that you avoid fights with clients.

In the great room, I snatched the spring rolls and slid them onto a tray. One was missing; one had been dug into. I scanned the cabin’s interior for the culprits, squinting suspiciously at the scruffy man in overalls who’d moved Gerald Eliot’s air compressor. Still engaged in set construction, the fellow was hanging a snakeskin on the wall between the Christmas tree and the far windows. Next to the skin, he’d hung a weapon I recognized: It was a Winchester, just like Tom’s. Rattle-snakes and rifles. Now that’s what I called the spirit of the holidays.

Leah quick-stepped to rejoin the judges. She, Hanna, and Ian peered dubiously at a sharp-faced blond woman wearing white pedal pushers and a halter top. The woman’s extreme thinness, her bony hips, her distinct rib cage, contrasted bizarrely with her high, full breasts. The other auditioning models were nowhere in sight. Still, the smell of cigarette smoke told me they weren’t far off.

Clutching the tray, I hustled back to the kitchen. Andre was cleaning up his beaters and bowl. I grabbed a clean pair of tongs and removed the gutted spring roll. To my chagrin, the tongs snagged unexpectedly. I carefully pulled them up; between the tongs was the violated roll and a cilantro-tangled piece of … hair. With a silent curse and surreptitious haste, I opened the tongs over the trash. Then I quickly covered the dishes with foil and rewashed the tongs and my hands. I had never seen André make such an error of hygiene. My doubts about his ability to shift from retirement to catering went from sea-level to subterranean.

I scooped up the covered dishes, slipped into the foyer, and stepped briskly past the dozen young people who’d suddenly reappeared. Rustine held the front door of the cabin open for me.

“The blonde’s had her breasts enlarged. Plus she’s wearing flesh-colored falsies,” she whispered.

“I beg your pardon?” I whispered back, startled.

“And that photographer’s a prick.”

“What?”

She gave me a Mona Lisa-mysterious smile. “You’re the caterer who figures things out, right?”

“I don’t understand—” But the door was already closing. Figures out what? Gratefully, I stepped out into the pine-scented fresh air.

When I darted past racks of clothing, a sapphire-winged hummingbird swooped by. Sixty feet off the deck, the creek gurgled over a bed of rocks. Two mountain chickadees flirted on the elephant-shaped boulder. When a breeze tossed the aspens’ lacy tops, movement caught my eye. Across the creek, a small herd of elk lowered their long necks to graze in a meadow that sloped to a broken wooden fence. Everything was serene and ordered: utterly unlike the contentious scene inside.

The redwood deck wrapped around the cabin. I made a path through the clothing racks and deck chairs, then arrived at another row of windows. I carefully placed the covered cheesecakes and spring rolls on a picnic table and checked my watch: ten more minutes. I trotted back to the front door.

Suddenly, the deafening noise of breaking glass split the air. Two feet in front of me, the picture window exploded. Shards burst over the deck. Across the creek, the elk bolted. I froze and waited for my heartbeat to slow. The projectile that had done the damage lay on its side among sparkling slivers of glass. It was Ian Hood’s Polaroid.

I wondered if we’d ever get to lunch.

Chapter 3

Inside, all was chaos. The models whispered fearfully. The handyman, his hammer in his hand, gaped at Ian Hood. Ian was shaking his fist at the shattered window.

“How many times have I asked for three new Polaroid cameras?” he screeched. “And I go to look for one, and trip over that damn compressor! Rufus, get the hell over here!”

Leah Smythe made soothing noises while the scruffy construction worker dropped his hammer and trotted to Ian’s side. Hanna Klapper stood with her hands on her hips, judging the scene. Her face was a mask of fury.

I looked in horror at the buffet. The camera had cut a straight path through the food. The salad lay upended on the floor. Vinaigrette had spilled down the row of napkins and now dripped on strands of endive. Liquid-soaked rolls had landed topsy-turvy on the marble shelf. I scooted toward the kitchen.

André was leaning against the doorjamb with his arms crossed. He gave me a dry, appraising look. “Eccentric diners always provide the best stories,” he observed. “Is my lunch canceled?”

“Let me check.”

Ian Hood stomped past me, headed for the cabin door. Leah Smythe followed at his heels, urging, “C’mon, baby, we’ll get the compressor out of the way, you won’t trip over it again, don’t give up—”

“Any chance we’re still going to try to—” I began. But Leah ignored me and raced down the steps after the seething Ian.

At the buffet, Hanna delicately picked up the ruined rolls and piled them back into the basket.

“Ah, Hanna?” I ventured. “Goldy Schulz. I worked on your museum exhibits. Congratulations on your new job with P & G.”

“Thank you.” She sniffed and smoothed her clipped hair behind her ears. Her dark eyes challenged mine. “Do you know what my duties are?” But before I could answer, she went on, “Choosing the clothing to be photographed. Arranging the catalog layout. Selecting models. Overseeing the shoot.” Not temper-tantrum cleanup, in other words.

“Leave the pick-up to me,” I exclaimed cheerfully, as if photographers flung cameras through windows and ruined my buffets all the time.

“We promised the models lunch.” The authoritarian tone I knew so well was like a steel shaft through her voice. I nodded meekly, booted the metal housing that had come loose from the compressor back toward the rustic furniture, and leaned over to snatch a lettuce leaf from the floor. Hanna continued, “We must serve it.”

Of course, I instantly recognized the clients’ universal we, which means you, caterer. “It won’t take ten minutes to set up on the deck.” I turned and winked at her. “André is incredibly versatile,” I lied.

“That is certainly a good thing,” Hanna muttered skeptically.

In the kitchen, André had flicked on the oven light and was peering at his cake. “Lunch or no?” he demanded impatiently.

“Yes.” I dumped the garbage and washed my hands.

He grurnted. “You should take the backup food, and leave.”

Right, I thought as I set a kettle of water on to boil for the chafing dish, and leave you with this mess. Within two minutes I had checked on the soup, loaded another tray with the backup platters of salad, vinaigrette, rolls, and butter, and was whisking it out to the picnic tables. I checked my watch: five past twelve. We weren’t doing too badly, considering. I filled the chafer’s bain-marie with the boiling water. André poured in the mushroom soup, then retrieved the burnt sugar cake. The smell was divine and I told him so. A rap at the kitchen door preceded Hanna’s entry. Imperiously, she tapped at her watch.

“Right now,” I promised as André lofted the cake platter and I picked up the bowl of whipped cream.

I half expected the lunch to be rocky. The red-haired crew member with the thin beard introduced himself to me as Rufus Driggle, set-builder and still-life photographer. He told me to call him Rufus; he hated his last name. The work made him a hearty eater, Rufus went on to inform me, but he never gained any weight because he always had indigestion from dealing with Ian. He paused and stroked his beard. “I prefer working with the elk, actually.” I nodded vaguely and replenished the buffet as the male models piled their plates high with cheesecake, salad, baguettes, and spring rolls.

The female models depressed me. Eschewing the cheesecake, breads, and salad dressing, they uniformly arranged a few greens on their plates next to one or two Asian spring rolls. Then, like bio-class dissectors, they pulled the rolls apart to extract the shrimp. I hoped André wasn’t watching, but of course he was. He hrumphed and concentrated on cutting the cake.

Hanna curtly announced that the cattle call for that day was over except for two more female models: Rustine and Yvonne. The agents of the remaining models would be called later about a resumption of auditions. A groan went up from the group. Then all the women except for Rustine and the sharp-faced blonde, who I assumed must be Yvonne, made a beeline for André’s burnt sugar cake. They sliced themselves fat wedges, smothered them with whipped cream, then skulked to faraway chairs to eat in solitary silence. I started transporting dirty dishes back to the kitchen.

To my surprise, André stood waiting at the front door. He held a basket bulging with a zipped bag of salad, a plastic-wrapped platter of spring rolls, and a steam-clouded jar of soup.

“Take this to your friend whose wife has pneumonia,” he told me. “Your check is inside. I know what it is to have a sick wife, Goldy. Cater to your friend, and forget these other men upsetting you.” He waved his free hand and enumerated them. “That idiot builder. That conniving caterer, Litchfield.”

“You’re the best,” I replied, and meant it. I took the basket and thought of the pork butt I’d already roasted and wrapped. Cameron Burr would have food for three days. If only food could make his wife well again …

André murmured, “Where is the much-praised Julian Teller? Can’t he help you beat this monster Litchfield?”

I shook my head. Two months ago, Julian had finished his freshman year at Cornell. He’d considered himself lucky to land a summer kitchen job at a swank upstate New York hotel. “Julian was supposed to come visit, but he never showed up. And his classes start next week.” We had all been disappointed not to see Julian this summer. Arch, though, had felt Julian’s absence most acutely.

“Go see your friend, Goldy. Have him tell you one of his stories of Nazi treasure. And stop worrying so much.”

Clasping the basket, I hugged André and hurried down the stone steps. Once across the creek, I trotted between the mud-blackened bank, the granite boulders, and a thickly packed heap of dry twigs, monument to the industry of beavers. A rising wind whistled through a nearby stand of yellow-tinged cottonwoods.

Most of the models had departed. The elk had returned to the meadow to graze. Beside my van, the breeze whiplashed a slew of white-faced daisies. Leggy thistle branches waved bright pink-purple tops and spilled hairy nests of silver seeds. The breeze shifted and wafted my scent toward the elk. They lifted their racks and trotted cautiously toward the safety of the trees. I unlocked the door, shoved the picnic basket onto the front seat, and thought of André’s words. Forget the men who were bothering me? How?

I revved the van. What I really needed was help from the main man in my life—Tom. I was terrified the county health inspector would descend on our home at any moment and deem that the cabinet-window mess left by Gerald Eliot wasn’t technically a commercial kitchen repair, but a remodeling. Remodeling was illegal without pulling a permit and closing the kitchen. Tom had promised to help. But Andy Fuller, the prosecutor who was such a thorn in Tom’s side, had just plea-bargained down to reckless driving a drunk driver’s killing of six people on 1–70. Tom’s long, tempestuous meetings with Fuller precluded home maintenance.

I carefully negotiated the rocky road leading back to Blue Spruce. At the intersection with the highway, preoccupied with thoughts of Tom’s troubles with Andy Fuller, I gunned the van and nearly hit a paint-peeled board announcing Swiss Inn Apartments—Seven Miles Ahead, West of Aspen Meadow, next to a Real Estate For Sale sign plastered with an Under Contract!!! sticker. I slowed and sloshed through the mud. Worry muddled my brain. Where was I? Oh yes, taking food to Cameron Burr, president of the Furman County Historical Society, an old friend whom I loved dearly, especially for the many tales of Aspen Meadow he’d told my son Arch. And the story André had alluded to was Arch’s favorite: the improbable myth that somewhere in the Colorado mountains, the Nazis had buried a stash of gold. Before Barbara got sick, she’d told me she and her husband were going to have to find that money, if they were ever going to pay off Gerald Eliot.

I turned at the road running by the You-Snag-Em, We-Bag-Em Trout Farm, drove another three miles, then rocked over the Burrs’ puddle-pocked driveway. My apprehension grew. The last time I’d been to visit Cameron, he’d been home in the middle of the afternoon, battling anxiety with tranquilizers that he washed down with hot chocolate while listening to old Ravi Shankar tapes. He’d told me how he’d tried to help Gerald Eliot with his cash flow by getting him a job as a security guard at the Homestead Museum. But he still didn’t come back to finish our sun room, Cameron had moaned. Join the club.

I pulled up in front of a contemporary-style, green-stained A-frame house. Its roof was pitched steeply to the ground, like an oversized tent. Jutting out the back was the unfinished sun room; the few panes of glass Gerald Eliot had left untouched winked in the sunlight. Across the driveway from the main dwelling was the guest house, a miniature replica of the green A-frame. Cameron’s maroon pickup truck was parked at an angle in front of the guest house door.

Standing on the van’s step, I could just see the panoramic view of the Continental Divide’s icy peaks beyond the A-frame. The photographer wants a view of snow, André had asserted over the phone. And I am to make a treat for the homeowner with the view of snow. Do you think he would like my strawberry tart? Maybe with chocolate sauce and a Valium, I’d thought.

“Cam?” I called when there was no response to my knock at the guest house door. “You in there?” I listened for the twang of sitar music but heard none, thank goodness. Unfortunately, there was no hum and pop of Cameron’s printer, either, which I found more worrisome. Cameron wrote articles on the historic West; according to Marla, who knew everything, he hadn’t written a word or made a sale in the past sixteen months, not since Gerald Eliot had made such a mess of their home. That, combined with his mounting depression and Barbara’s illness—she might not be able to return to her teaching job—were distressing. For politeness, I knocked again, although it was a point of pride for Cameron that he always kept his door unlocked. I turned the knob and the door opened.

One of the sloped, wood-paneled walls was given over to the TV, the computer-printer setup, a kitchenette, and a tiny bath. The other featured a long shelf chock-ablock with framed photographs of Cameron and Barbara visiting ghost towns, abandoned mines, and historic sites. In the pictures, stocky, jovial Cameron and blond, plump Barbara looked as excited as kids.

But these photos did not reflect the way Cameron looked now. Disheveled, grizzled, he was snoring loudly on an unmade sofabed pushed up against the wide part of the A. His gray hair, pushed askew like windblown barbecue ash, desperately needed cutting. Mouth open, his chunky body contorted, he looked more like a wrestler on the skids than a historian. One shoe lay on the floor; there was no sign of a second. He wore muddied socks, rumpled dark chinos, and a denim shirt. He’d wrenched a patchwork quilt around him so that it knotted his middle.

He snorted, then jerked violently awake. “What? Who’s there?”

“I’m sorry, I’ll leave. It’s just Goldy Schulz.”

He scratched his scalp, then sighed. “Come on in, Goldy.” His leathery face was even more deeply furrowed than the last time I’d seen him; his red-rimmed eyes lingered on the kitchenette side of the room. “Checking on me again, eh?” With sudden decision, he yanked the quilt around him and stumped toward the tiny bathroom. “Be right back.”

Shower water began to run. I unpacked the basket and checked the refrigerator. It smelled terrible and contained only a green-edged, muddy-brown package of ground beef. When had Cameron had his last meal? For that matter, when had he last had contact with the outside world? I checked the bottles of pills on his bedside table: Librium and Restoril—tranquilizers and sleeping pills. The message light on his phone was blinking. On the floor next to his discarded shoe lay a half-empty bottle of Bacardi, a nibbled bar of chocolate, and a box of crackers. Great. The man obviously needed coffee and decent food, in that order. I knew from my previous food-bearing trips that Cameron kept an old-fashioned chrome percolator beside the kitchenette’s yellow ceramic cannisters. Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s your coffeepot?” I called.

“Oh, hell,” he yelled over the spray. “The coffeepot? Let’s see.” For a moment all I heard was the hiss of shower water. “I was watching one of those home improvement shows. You know, where they teach you to glaze your own windows? So I thought, why not?” The valve squealed as he turned off the water. “See any aspirin out there?”

I scanned the counter, the tables, even the tops of the TV and computer: no aspirin. “Nope. I’ll go get you some, if you want.”

“Aspirin would be in the main house bathroom. The coffeepot’s in the sun room.” He grunted, undoubtedly pulling clothes on over damp skin. “I bought some old window frames and glass … thought I’d do the glazing myself. Made a pot of coffee, started working, broke two pieces of glass, got frustrated. Poured some rum into the coffee. Then I cracked a window frame. Went into town to buy more supplies, but the hardware store was closed.”

So you got sloshed instead. I looked down at the blinking message machine. “How’s Barbara?”

“Don’t know, need to call the hospital. You making that coffee?”

I trotted out the guest house door. When I rounded the corner of the big A-frame, I heard what sounded like cars starting up Cameron’s driveway. Visitors? I wondered how many cups Cameron’s coffeepot made, and if it would be enough for a slew of guests.

An orange auxiliary power line snaked out of the concrete foundation for the sun room. On the near side, glass of different hues filled the completed windows: one was slightly pink, one gray, one blue. This, Cameron had told me, was the result of Gerald Eliot trying to get a better deal by ordering windows from three different places. On the far side of the sun room, the plastic-swathed framing looked more like a ruin than a building-in-progress.

I took hold of the orange cable and stepped onto the concrete floor. I hopped gingerly over another empty Bacardi bottle, pieces of broken window glass, and several open boxes of nails. The cord wormed over one sawhorse and under another, then disappeared beneath a pile of broken drywall. I yanked on the cord: Chunks of drywall skittered across the floor, as did a jagged piece of cornice molding, a nail gun, rope, measuring tape, boxes of tools, a cutting blade, and glazing material. I finally located the coffeepot and picked it up. Then I dropped it.

Hanging by his blond hair between a pair of studs was Gerald Eliot. His stiff body was clothed in filthy jeans and a bloodied white shirt. His face was dark. His tongue protruded from his mouth.

He was dead.

Chapter 4

I backed up and promptly tripped over a pile of two-by-fours. My hand came down hard on broken glass. Pain snaked up my arm. A fist seemed to be pushing my voice into my throat. From between the studs, Gerald Eliot’s dreadful face and unseeing eyes looked at nothing. Bits of drywall clung to his hair, as if someone had broken a piece of it over his head. His forehead had dark, bloody marks on it and I involuntarily glanced at the nail gun. Oh, God, I prayed, no.

I leapt ungracefully off the subfloor and onto the ground, then cried out as I stumbled over a tree root and landed painfully against the house’s foundation. Where was I going? What was I supposed to do? My rubbery legs would not move. Nor would my brain cooperate. Where was my cellular? I gained my balance and started to run back to the van. Then I stopped.

Two Furman County Sheriff’s Department cars had pulled up beside Cameron Burr’s maroon truck. Assistant District Attorney Andy Fuller and three uniformed deputies slammed out of the first vehicle. Out of the second came my husband, followed by Furman County coroner Dr. Sheila O’Connor and another deputy I did not recognize.

“Tom!” I yelled frantically, then waved my arms. “Here! Tom! It’s Gerald … back there—” I pointed mutely in the direction of the sun room.

Andy Fuller barked an order at Tom: Tom shook his head. What is going on, I wondered. Did they know about Eliot already? With one of the deputies in tow, Andy Fuller strode toward the guest house door. Tom trotted in my direction. He motioned me away from the big house. Dr. O’Connor and another deputy followed Tom at a slower pace. The other two cops grimly surveyed the main house and surrounding property. One pointed toward the Burrs’ garbage receptacle beside the driveway. As they walked toward the trash, the cop who had pointed talked into a radio.

“Goldy.” Tom hugged me. I clasped him like a life preserver. “Goldy, what is it?”

So they didn’t know yet. “Gerald Eliot … He’s … he’s … in the sun room…. He’s …” I choked. “Dead.”

“That’s what we heard. A hiker called in a while ago from a pay phone at the parking lot by the boundary of Furman County Open Space. By the Smythe Peak trailhead.” Tom took a deep breath, then added curtly, “Eliot worked at the museum, where there’s been a break-in. Looks like a botched robbery. The hiker saw Eliot’s body here … hanging up. Is it back there?” His head indicated the rear of the A-frame. I nodded and he frowned. “They’re going to ask what you were doing out here.”

“Bringing Cameron food, then getting his stupid coffeepot and some aspirin from the main house. He was fast asleep when I arrived, and he sent me to get his percolator—”

“We got a complaint that Gerald Eliot and Cameron Burr fought at the Grizzly Saloon last night.” Tom fell silent as Sheila O’Connor, tall, oblong-faced, her black-and-gray hair pulled into a taut ponytail, walked by with the deputy, whom I did not know. We nodded to them. Then Tom continued: “It wasn’t the first time that had happened, but this time Burr brought a window frame into the bar. Apparently he was half in the bag already. Yelled something at Eliot like, Hey! I saw your pickup out front and wondered if you wanted to do a little glass work. We’ve got guys talking to the bartender now. Anyway, Burr threatened Eliot, and Eliot left for his night-guard job at the museum. That was the last time anybody saw Eliot alive.”

“Cameron didn’t do this, Tom. His wife is in the hospital. Please. He couldn’t have. Are you listening to me?”

Tom chewed the inside of his cheek. His green eyes and handsome face filled with concern and worry. “Goldy, we need to get you taken care of. Somebody will ask you questions in a few minutes, then I’ll take you home. I knew you were bringing Burr food today. But I thought you had another job—”

“I just … it was over early.” A wave of shivers washed over me.

“Good God, Goldy, your hand is bleeding.”

Blood dripped from my palm onto the ground. To my amazement, I saw that it had also splattered and smeared up my arm, probably from when I’d tripped over the tree root.

“I fell and hit some glass. I need to get Cameron that aspirin….” While Tom whipped a handkerchief out of his pocket to tie up my wound, my eyes traveled to where Andy Fuller and the remaining uniform were leading Cameron Burr out of the guest house. “Why is Fuller here? And how could a hiker have seen Gerald? I didn’t even see him until I’d spent a few minutes poking around in that mess.”

Tom put his arm around me. “Hold your hand up.” I obeyed and he began to walk with me back to the van. “Fuller thinks he’s going to be a hero in this case, make up for his past mistakes. The guy has political ambitions, Goldy. So he’s got a case of—”

“Case? Case of what? He hasn’t even talked to, to … Hold up.” I fought dizziness. I turned my face toward the sun room: Dr. O’Connor and the deputy stood near Gerald Eliot’s body. A late afternoon breeze swished through the pines near the house, and a pattern of shadows played over the pink window. My vision blurred. I need to get away from here. I need to get Cameron that coffee.

One of the uniforms called to Fuller from the Burrs’ green trash receptacle, piled high with construction debris. A hundred feet from us, Andy Fuller, chin up, hands thrust deep into his trench coat, strode resolutely toward the cop. The thin, metallic blond hair over Andy Fuller’s red scalp shone in the sunlight as he peered down at what the cop had found. Fuller nodded, checked a radio on his belt, then asked the cop for his radio. I knew that the frequency used by the district attorney’s office was different from the one used by sheriff’s department deputies. So Fuller was trying to call a cop. Tom’s radio crackled on his belt. Shaking his head, Tom pulled away from me and tugged out his receiver.

“Looks like the item the curator reported missing from the museum is here.” Fuller’s nasal voice crackled. “Schulz, I need you to come down here and arrest Burr.”

Tom pressed the radio button. “It’s too soon,” he replied calmly. “Let me talk to him first, see what his side of the story is.”

“This is no time for your shilly-shallying, Schulz!” Andy Fuller’s shriek was laced with static. “Burr faked the museum robbery so he could kill Eliot. Get your fat ass down here and arrest this guy!”

Tom’s shoulders tensed. He said, “Fuller, wait. Think. Why would Burr bring Eliot back here, to his own home, if he’d gone to the trouble to fake the robbery? Don’t you even want to ask him? Before you have to Mirandize him, risk he gets a lawyer?”

“He was going to get rid of the body later. Didn’t you hear me the first time? Get down here and arrest this, guy!”

With my good hand, I pressed Tom’s handkerchief onto my throbbing palm.

“Take Burr in for questioning, Fuller,” Tom argued. “Or you’ll do something you’ll regret.”

“What’s your wife doing here, Schulz? Burr says the victim worked for your wife, too. Did the two of them do him together? You want to arrest her, too? Or maybe you could get her down here to do your job for you, how about that?”

I pressed my lips together. I hated Andy Fuller.

Tom dropped the receiver to his side and muttered, “One thing I won’t regret is when that dummy finally runs for Colorado Attorney General and quits this new tactic of his, trying to turn every case into a TV show.” Too late, I saw his finger was still pressing the radio button. I grabbed Tom’s wrist with my bloodied palm. He cursed silently and shook his head.

Down at the guest house, the other deputy read my old friend Cameron Burr his rights. Cameron’s face was wan under the tan, his wide shoulders slumped. His eyes roved frantically, like a startled wild animal’s, as he was cuffed. Then he was led to the first police cruiser. Andy Fuller, his back to us, talked to the uniformed cops. One cop was holding a plastic evidence bag. Inside the bag was … a book? Something from the Homestead Museum robbery? I shuddered to think how Hanna Klapper would frown over the cops’ handling of the museum’s precious historic items, even if it wasn’t her job to do that frowning anymore.

At the van, Dr. Sheila O’Connor joined us. In a low, crisp voice, she asked Tom, “Can you talk?” Tom glanced at me, then nodded. Both moved away from the van door.

Left: alone, I frowned at the cop with the bag. Plastic bags mean the evidence is dry. Paper bags are used when evidence is wet. So Cameron Burr, a historian, masked his murder by stealing a valuable book from the museum and then putting it into his garbage? But he was careful enough not to get it soiled or wet? If you stole something to cover up a murder, why wouldn’t you throw the evidence out onto the road? Nothing about what was going on here felt right to me.

One of the uniformed officers approached me. Andy Fuller turned to watch.

“Mrs. Schulz? I’m Sergeant Chambers.” The officer was very young, with orange hair, a pie-shaped face, and a complexion like dough. His pale, nail-bitten fingers clutched a notebook and department-issue ballpoint. “I need to question you—” His voice cracked. Questioning the wife of the county’s champion investigator was apparently somewhat daunting. Chambers cleared his throat, clicked his pen, and eyed my bloody hand, still wrapped in Tom’s handkerchief. “Briefly. If you’re up to it.”

“May I run some cold water over my hand, while we talk?”

“This won’t take long.” Chambers’ tone was apologetic. “We can’t go into the house because it’s a crime scene. Just tell me why you’re here, when you arrived, and what you saw.” He clicked his pen again.

I told him the purpose of my visit and politely added that he could look at the basket of food on the kitchenette counter if he didn’t believe me. I told him Burr was asleep in his clothes when I arrived at two o’clock.

“How did he act?”

“Exhausted. As if I’d just awakened him from a very deep sleep. When he went to take a shower, I offered to fix him coffee. He said his percolator was out in his unfinished sun room.” I pointed with my unwrapped hand. “When I got there, Gerald Eliot’s body was … hanging between the studs. But I didn’t see it there right away. If I didn’t see Gerald Eliot’s body, how could a hiker have seen him?”

Andy Fuller sidled up beside Chambers. “Just answer the questions, Mrs. Schulz. All right?” His expression was arrogant, defensive.

I said, “If Cameron had murdered Gerald Eliot, he would hardly have sent me straight out to where he’d hung up the body, would he? What kind of sense does that make?”

Fuller raised an eyebrow at Chambers, as in Don’t let this pushy woman take over the interview. Then, without responding to my questions, he turned on his heel and headed back to the patrol car in which Cameron now sat, cuffed and accused of murder.

Chambers held up a soft, plump hand. “Please, Mrs. Schulz. Did Burr mention anything about Eliot when you got here today?” I shook my head. “What do you know about their relationship?”

I exhaled in exasperation. “Gerald Eliot had promised to finish the Burrs’ sun room four months ago. He pulled out the wall between the addition and the house, did a subfloor and some framing, and put in three windows. Then he took off for parts unknown.” Chambers glanced over at Andy Fuller, whose expression as he stood next to the first cruiser was stone-faced. I hurried along: “At night, it’s cold up here at eighty-five hundred feet. Even in the summer. Barbara Burr got pneumonia from the chilly air in the house. She’s on a ventilator down at Lutheran.” Impatience crawled under my skin. “This is common knowledge, Sergeant.”

Chambers nodded in a way that told me if it was common knowledge, it wasn’t common to him. “Just tell me what else you saw, Mrs. Schultz.”

This I did, up to the time of the arrival of law enforcement. Meanwhile, Sheila O’Connor talked on to Tom. Finally he turned his handsome face and nodded at me. I felt a wash of relief followed by the deep urge to leave, to get my hand cleaned and bandaged, to find a way to help Cameron. Get me out of here, I pleaded silently to my husband. Unfortunately, not only did my telepathic message not connect, but Andy Fuller chose that moment to sashay up to the van.

He pointedly eyed my wrapped hand. “Did you do anything to try to help Burr? I mean, in his smear campaign against Gerald Eliot, general contractor? Just curious.”

Tom lumbered up to Fuller’s side. He said, “Leave her alone. She’s a witness. She needs a victim advocate.”

Andy Fuller whirled to face him. “Oh, really? Why can’t you follow my orders, you slob? What’s going on here, Schulz?”

Tom’s face froze in a bitten, narrow-eyed look that made my heart sink. Fuller shifted his weight, took an angry breath, then leaned in close to Tom.

“Schulz! What did you think I was going to do that I was going to regret? You don’t think I can hear you when your radio’s on? Are you trying to threaten me?”

“What?” Fuller’s fury seemed to baffle Tom.

“How dare you threaten me in front of fellow officers!” stormed Fuller.

“I’m not sure I did,” replied Tom evenly. “Goldy, get in the car.” My skin iced; I couldn’t move., Tom didn’t seem to notice. His deep voice rumbled softly, “What are you saying, Fuller?”

“I’m saying you compromised this case!” Fuller shrieked.

“What?” snarled Tom.

Fuller took one look at Tom’s face, then stepped back. I glanced around helplessly: The uniforms were in the first car; Dr. O’Connor was walking back to the sun room, presumably to Eliot’s corpse.

“My wife’s been hurt,” Tom pressed Fuller. “I don’t have time for your stupid theatrics.”

Andy Fuller took a step in Tom’s direction. Tom slammed the van door shut. At that moment, even though he was two feet from Tom, Fuller staggered.

“You’re incompetent, Schulz,” Fuller crowed once he’d recovered. “How many times have we gone over this?”

“Are you saying I can’t do my job?” Tom replied, undeterred.

Fuller hunched his shoulders, as if he were gathering himself into a cannonball. “I’m saying what I’ve said lots of times before, that I’m your boss. You just don’t seem to be able to accept it. Maybe it’s time you did.” Tom glared at him.

“Stop, please stop,” I cried. I looked frantically down at the first car. The windows were up. The motor was running. There was no way the other cops would hear me if I called for them to come intervene. “There’s no reason to—”

“Shut up!” Fuller barked at me.

I’d heard about their arguments before: Tom had told me how vicious and unreasonable Fuller could be. But I’d never witnessed one of their conflicts. And this one was getting out of control. God forbid that Fuller would lay a finger on Tom. If Fuller were that foolish, my husband would manhandle him so quickly that Fuller would wish he’d bypassed law enforcement altogether.

“Fuller,” said Tom, “get into your car. Get the hell away from this crime scene.”

“You are intent on ruining this case for me!” Fuller’s indignant voice howled. His hands were clenched into tight fists.

“No,” I whispered. “Don’t—”

“Aren’t you?” Fuller cried, lunging toward Tom.

Without thinking, I jumped between them.

“No!”

But Tom’s warning came too late. I lost my balance. Andy Fuller and I slammed against my van, then hit the ground. Beneath me, Andy Fuller struggled weakly. “Help,” he gasped. “I’ve been assaulted!”

“Goldy, Goldy, oh, Goldy,” Tom murmured as he gently lifted me off the assistant district attorney. “What have you done?”

I don’t remember much from our trip home. Just leave, Fuller had told us, red-faced and indignant. Watching from their car, the other cops had seen Fuller come at Tom first, had seen me stupidly try to intervene. Still, Tom was very angry. With me.

“Don’t you think I can take care of myself, Goldy? Don’t you think I’ve spent enough time in police work to sidestep some five-foot-tall creep? What on earth were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t thinking anything,” I answered honestly. “Tom, I’m really sorry. I just—”

“Why didn’t you get in the van, the way I told you?”

I pressed the handkerchief into my oozing palm and didn’t respond. After all, what could I say?

When we arrived at our house, bedraggled, tense, and silent, we found Arch on the phone with his friend Todd Druckman. The two fourteen-year-olds were avidly discussing telephone encryption: whether they needed it, how much it would cost, whether girls would be able to decode their conversations. Still short for his age, Arch was dressed in an oversized burgundy T-shirt and sweatpants. He shook the straight brown hair off his forehead. “It would be worth it if you thought a girl was tapping your phone,” he observed. “You know how those girls in our class can be”

I washed my hand and bandaged it, then asked Arch to hang up. He pushed his smeared tortoiseshell glasses up his freckled nose and sighed. To Todd, he said, “Later.”

Ordinarily, our family has heart-to-heart conversations in our kitchen. But in the rosy light of early evening, the plastic-draped hole where the window had once been gave the space the discomfiting feel of an abandoned stage set. The kitchen was no longer the heart of our home, thanks to the late Gerald Eliot. Since we weren’t able to retrieve the leftovers from Cameron Burr’s guest house—the cops were going through it—Tom and I set the living room coffee table with bowls of cheese, cold chicken, sliced hard rolls, romaine leaves, chutney, and mayonnaise.

“Julian called,” Arch announced morosely. “He didn’t sound very good. I guess he’s not coming.” My son threw himself down on the couch and surveyed the spread. “He really wants to talk to you, Mom. Anyway, he said he was going to call Marla.”

“Was he in New York?” Tom asked. Arch shook his head and mumbled something about Julian’s being on the road.

“I’m sorry, Arch,” I said, then asked, “Did André call? Is he doing all right?”

“He left a message,” Arch said uncertainly. “He’s okay, I guess. Says he’s not going to make enough on the shoot to pay the cost of caring for his wife if some guy wrecks all the food. What’s the matter with his wife?”

“She has macular degeneration, which is a problem with the eyes. She’s virtually blind, and needs a full-time nurse. It’s expensive—”

“Who wrecked the food?”

“Just some guy on our job today. Is André’s message still on the tape?”

“Sorry. I erased it because Todd and I were doing some experimenting with dialing. You’re just supposed to call him back. What’s the matter, Mom? You said your hand was just scratched.”

“Remember the guy who made the mess in our kitchen?”

Arch smeared mayonnaise on half a roll. “Gerald Eliot? The builder scratched your hand?”

“No, hon. He’s dead.”

Tom added, “They found his body out at Cameron Burr’s place.”

“No kidding?” asked Arch, incredulous. He put down his roll. “What happened to him?”

“We don’t know yet,” I replied, then hesitated. “Anyway, while we were all out there, I … had a somewhat … physical argument with the assistant district attorney. I … sort of lost it when they arrested Cameron,” I added.

Arch bombarded us with questions. How did Eliot die? Mr. Burr didn’t kill Gerald, did he? I said I couldn’t imagine that he would have. Was Mr. Burr okay? Probably, I replied. Did Mrs. Burr know Mr. Burr had been arrested? It was possible Barbara was too sick to be informed of this news, I told him; it might just make her worse. Arch loved the Burrs. He couldn’t process what this would mean for them. Instead, he decided to focus on my altercation with the assistant district attorney.

Arch’s father, Dr. John Richard Korman—dubbed The Jerk by Marla and me—was currently in jail for assault. Would he now have two parents in jail? Arch asked. Jail time for me was unlikely, I assured my anxious son, after I’d made us steaming cups of hot chocolate and brought them out to the living room. The other deputies had seen Andy Fuller come at Tom first.

“So who’s in trouble?” Arch asked pragmatically. It was hard to tell, Tom and I told him.

The phone rang: Tom held it up so we both could hear.

“Hey!” came a hearty voice. “You should have knocked Fuller out with one of your frying pans!”

“Boyd,” Tom announced, and I smiled and nodded. Despite my increasing worries, it was good to hear our old friend, barrel-shaped and straight-shooting Sergeant Bill Boyd. Despite his perfectly serviceable first name, to us and everyone he was always “Boyd,” since there were too many sheriff’s department deputies with the first name Bill. Boyd had told us he’d gotten tired of getting the wrong call and worse, the wrong pizza. Now, he was glad to hear we were all right. He promised to stay in touch and hung up.

Ten minutes later, Tom’s new captain—a fair-minded, all-business administrator—called. Their conversation was tense and brief. Eliot was being autopsied in the morning; Cameron Burr was being held without bail; his wife was indeed too ill to be notified of the arrest. Moreover, things did not look good vis-à-vis Fuller. We’d know more the next day.

My sleep was predictably fitful. At seven A.M., the phone bleated. Tom, who’d been up and dressed since six, snatched it. He listened and scribbled in his spiral notebook while I hugged a heap of pillows and pretended to be asleep. My hand throbbed. So did my head. I wondered how Cameron was doing. I wondered how I’d gotten so mixed up in this mess, when all I’d done was try to take food over to a friend.

When Tom hung up, he stood, paced, then slumped down on our mussed bed. His face, ordinarily ruddy, was pale. “Problem?” I asked gently.

“Fuller’s demanded a full investigation.” He shook his head.

“Of what?”

Tom took a deep breath. “I’ve been charged with insubordination. And with compromising a homicide investigation.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it. My buddies protested, of course. Some even threatened to quit.”

“Good.”

“Don’t say that, Miss G. The department has a ton of work to do, even if Fuller is screwing things up. Now listen. You’re not in trouble. The deputies all say they saw Fuller swing at me before you got in the way. Still, because this is the bad end of a lot of problems with him, I’m the one being investigated. The process will take four to six weeks.”

“Oh, for crying out loud!”

He held me with his gaze. “During that time,” he continued, “I’ll be suspended without pay.”

Chapter 5

Tom hugged me and told me not to worry. I held his handsome face in my hands and kissed him. Of course I would worry. And feel guilty. If I hadn’t interfered, he wouldn’t be in this mess. Tom kissed me, then said he’d fix me an espresso if I’d stop trying to take the blame for the world’s wrongs. I followed him to our topsy-turvy kitchen.

“What happens to Cameron?” I asked. “Can you tell me? Or am I considered a witness?”

“I can tell you. It’s Cameron Burr who shouldn’t get in touch with you.” Tom filled the espresso machine with water, pawed through the pile of china on the counter, and finally placed two Norwegian china demitasse cups under the doser. “I’m waiting for a fax from Boyd. He’s sending me a map of Blue Spruce showing the Burrs’ place in relation to Open Space.” He pressed the button and a moment later handed me a small, crema-topped drink. “The scenario Fuller is going with is this.” He sipped his coffee. “The window frame incident at the Grizzly Saloon occurred just before eleven the night before last. Fuller thinks Cameron Burr followed Gerald Eliot from the Grizzly to his nighttime security guard job at the Homestead Museum. By the way, it was a job Burr got for Eliot. That doesn’t look too good, Burr knowing exactly where to go.”

The dark, luscious espresso ignited the perimeter of my brain. “Lots of people knew Eliot worked there,” I observed. “Marla told me the museum board wasn’t happy with Eliot’s performance. If she knew where he worked, so did the whole town.”

“Fuller thinks Burr broke into the museum, strangled Eliot, faked a robbery, threw Eliot’s body into the back of his pickup, and drove out to the unfinished sun room. There, Fuller claims, Burr stabbed his building contractor with molding, broke a piece of drywall over his head, and hung him up by his Samson-style gold locks. Supposedly, Burr then shot his contractor through the head with a nail gun. For good measure.”

I flinched and set down my cup. I thought back to my entry into the sun room, my confusion in trying to find the coffeepot, seeing Gerald’s body … “What about that hiker who supposedly saw Gerald? Do you know his name? I don’t believe you could see the body unless you were ten feet away from it.”

Tom shook his head. “The hiker called from the Open Space parking lot by the trailhead. He didn’t give his name. It could be a setup, Goldy. We always have to consider it. Although, with Fuller bucking for higher office, he might not consider it.”

“Has Sheila O’Connor come up with anything yet?”

“Sheila said Eliot’s neck and face were badly bruised when he was strangled. Glass in his scalp is consistent with one of the two breaks in the glass-fronted display cases at the museum. Time of death probably not too long after one A.M. The evidence that Cameron’s pickup was used to transport the body is pretty convincing, too.” He drank more coffee. “Looks like Eliot’s T-shirt snagged on a protruding piece of metal in the truck. A fragment of the T-shirt fabric is still in the back of the pickup. Plus there’s grease on Eliot’s face and clothing, very similar to the grease in the vehicle.” He sighed. “We have no way of knowing if somebody borrowed Cam’s truck. He always leaves the keys in it. And it’s been so dry, there aren’t tire tracks we could analyze. Sheila’ll know more after the autopsy, you know how that goes.”

I nodded and got up to fix us both more coffee.

The fax rang. Tom removed the wall of dishes surrounding the fax machine, pulled out the slick sheet, and perused it. He looked up. “Here’s the layout from the fence separating Burr’s property and the trail to Smythe Peak.” He slapped the smudged map of Blue Spruce next to the cluttered sink; I peered down at it. Most prominent was the Smythe Peak Open Space area, the two thousand acres that surrounded the mountain. All of the land had been sold to the county by the Smythe family. Cameron Burr’s property was marked with a rough rectangle. According to thick hand-drawn lines and numbers, the framed sun room was only fifty feet from Cameron’s fence.

Tom said, “Cam’s lawyer is going to want to know why a killer would strangle a guy, take the time and trouble to rob a museum, and drive the dead or near-dead guy out to his own house. Then the killer tortures Eliot or defiles his corpse with building materials, and shoots him with a nail gun? I don’t think so. You can be really drunk or really angry. To do all that, you couldn’t be both.” He shook his head.

I slugged back the espresso. “Cameron didn’t do it, I’m telling you. Yesterday André told me Leah Smythe—or somebody at the cabin—fired Eliot for sleeping with a model. Maybe they broke up.”

“So you think some skinny model killed big, strong Eliot? Then hung him up in Cam’s sun room?”

“Not necessarily.” I tried to think. “I’m just suggesting other people besides Cameron disliked Gerald Eliot. Take me, for instance, although I didn’t really want to see him dead. But there might be more to Gerald Eliot than Fuller wants to see. Did you have a look at the Homestead?”

Tom nodded. Before he could elaborate, the phone rang and he answered it. He murmured a couple of questions, took notes in his spiral pad, then hung up. “Interesting update. I’m going to heat muffins. Sound good?”

“Sounds great.”

“Okay, early yesterday morning the call came from Sylvia Bevans about a break-in at the museum. My team covered the call, by the way. I just hadn’t told you about it; it seemed so routine. Sylvia was beside herself, babbling about a missing cookbook.”

“Cookbook?”

He smiled and spread frozen cinnamon-raisin muffins on a cookie sheet. “Yeah, I thought you’d take some professional interest in the theft. Sylvia Bevans, of course, reamed us out, but good.”

“Oh, brother.” Now this was a scenario I could imagine. The much-feared, seventy-year-old curator of the Homestead Museum would have ushered the cops into the sacred precinct of her cluttered historical society office and puckered her already thin-lipped mouth in fierce and undisguised disapproval. One of her seemingly endless wardrobe of pastel linen dresses—lilac, lime, or pink—would have strained at mother-of-pearl buttons over her ample body as she indignantly demanded the authorities find the culprit immediately!

Tom cleared his throat. “Two of the glass-fronted display cases were smashed. Sylvia told us one cookbook was missing. Today, she’s screaming about four cookbooks being stolen. They were part of an exhibit. She didn’t realize they were missing at first, she was in such a state.” Tom chuckled. “Only one book was in her initial report, so now Fuller’s accusing her of insurance scam. She chewed him out, said the Homestead’s not insured ‘cuz the county’s too cheap to pay the premiums.”

I thought of the book in the evidence bag found at Cameron Burr’s home. “So have they found all four cookbooks?”

“They found one in Cam’s trash and a second one underneath drywall in the sun room. Sylvia’s up in arms about their historic value, but as far as we can determine, each is only worth a couple hundred dollars.” He peered into the oven. “They’ll keep looking, don’t worry.”

Thinking of poor Cameron in the backseat of the police vehicle, I rinsed out our cups and the doser, then ground more espresso beans. I asked, “What’s Fuller’s big push to nab Burr?”

Tom flipped off the oven light and straightened with a sigh. “He’s caught a lot of heat for the plea bargains, and he sees this one as easy. Plus the rumors about him trying for state attorney general have been getting stronger lately. This could be a high-profile case. He’d get a lot of press for being a crime fighter, that kind of thing.”

I measured the coffee into the doser, pressed the button, and waited for the espresso to spurt out. “Would they have to find all four cookbooks up at Cameron’s house for him actually to be prosecuted?”

Tom shrugged. “Fuller’s got a half-dozen investigators sniffing around the museum and Burr’s place. Our guys usually find everything. If they don’t, and Burr’s defense claims shoddy investigation, Fuller can argue that anything not found is excess evidence and unnecessary in prosecuting Burr.”

It was my turn to sigh. “So what exactly were these cookbooks?”

He peered at his notes. “The first one we found is American Cookery by Amelia Simmons. Famous for its johnnycake recipe, according to Sylvia. This one wasn’t the original 1796 edition—apparently the museum’s was a nineteenth-century copy—but someone donated it to the historical society, and they put it on display.”

Of course the Homestead would put a cookbook on display that contained the seminal recipe for Western Cooking 101. Johnnycake or Johnnie cake, also known as journey cake, had been slapped together and cooked over fires by thousands of folks coming out in covered wagons to Colorado and points west. When I’d served as a docent at the museum, I’d ushered many a class of Furman County fourth graders into the Homestead kitchen to make a cider version of the moist coffee cake.

“The other cookbook they found is a 1903 edition of The White House Cookbook. So we need to find a 1910 volume called The Practical Cook Book by one Elizabeth Hiller, valued in the range of sixty bucks. The fourth book is something called the Watkins Cookbook, from 1936. Worth fifty dollars.” He handed me a plate of muffins. “Watkins Cookbook? That’s not something Sherlock Holmes’s sidekick put together in his spare time, is it?”

“No,” I replied, “it’s not an English cookbook. And the sidekick was Watson, remember? Thanks for the treat.” I bit into the hot, sweet muffin and remembered the humble red spiral-bound volume with its battered cover and spattered pages. “The Watkins man came out to Western ranches once a year in his horse and buggy. After the invention of cars, he drove a Model T truck. He brought peppermint, vanilla, liniment, whatever ranch folks needed, including simple recipe-books put out by the Watkins company, based in Minnesota, but with a reach all across the West. Everybody loved to see the Watkins man come,” I said with a smile. “And every rural household had a Watkins Cookbook.”

“Aha! I’m so glad you worked in that museum, Miss G. I never know when I’m going to learn something.” He paused. “Anyway, I’m off the Eliot case. I told them my wife’s friend was arrested, so if they’ve got anything, to let me know. How’s that?”

“Thank you. For everything. And especially for not staying mad at me.”

“You need to stop worrying, Miss G.” He pondered the gap above our kitchen sink. Just as he’d done at the cabin, Gerald Eliot had glued plywood over the plaster crevice. He’d certainly never be back to repair the damage. “Think Arch would like to join me for a trip to the hardware store? Better yet, would you like to join me?”

I took another bite of muffin. Was I in the mood to look at galvanized nails after I’d just seen a corpse defiled by them? No. I urged Tom to go and take Arch with him. They could do some male bonding. Tom grinned.

Arch, wearing a faded yellow T-shirt and a pair of too-large red Cornell sweatpants—gifts from Julian—warned that they might be out for a while. He needed to be dropped at the Druckmans’ house so he and Todd could finish their conversation on the subject of sending encrypted messages.

“Can you tell me what these messages are?” I asked mildly. “Or would that destroy the reason for the encryption?”

Arch opened a new bag of kibble for his bloodhound. “It’s no big deal,” he replied in a bored tone. “But if you want to come outside while I feed Jake, I’ll tell you.” I poured Arch a glass of o.j. and followed him through the back door to the deck area designated for his dog. I tried not to glance up at our roof, where the remains of Arch’s ham radio—his attempt to communicate long-distance with Julian in the Navajo language—lay like the spokes of an abandoned umbrella. Arch had been fascinated with learning the language because Navajo radiomen had foiled Axis cryptanalysts in World War II. But Julian had only succeeded in teaching Arch Ya’atey—hello—when a fierce windstorm had split the radio antenna in two.

Now Arch scooped nuggets into Jake’s bowl and began explaining the latest reasons for his interest in encryption. Jake kept his eyes on his food bowl. “School starts in a couple of weeks. Todd and I are wondering which eighth-grade girls will be available to be girlfriends, and which ones will just make fun of us.”

“The girls have high-tech equipment on their phones?”

“Nothing would surprise me, Mom.”

From the deck railing, Scout—a cream-and-chocolate stray cat we’d adopted several years ago—kept a watchful eye on Jake and the speed with which he was emptying his bowl. Arch ignored the animals, drank the juice I’d brought him, and checked his appearance in the reflection in the window overlooking our backyard.

The comforting noise of Tom’s revving Chrysler floated out of the garage toward us. Jake raised mournful eyes to Arch: leaving so soon? “I’ll be back,” Arch consoled him. “Look, Mom, double-check the gate, okay? Yesterday, Jake got out somehow. He was barking at elk and got out of control.”

“Okay, hon,” I promised. Arch hopped down the deck steps. The Chrysler roared away, carrying my family. As if on cue, a sudden cracking noise indicated a dozen elk were shattering branches underfoot as they plodded through our neighbor’s yard. Jake, of course, instantly began to howl.

“Stop, Jake. Come on, boy, come in.”

But the hound would not budge. Nor would he be quiet. I went inside, closed the door against the canine uproar, and shook my head. In late summer, the huge dun-and-brown elk herds flood through Aspen Meadow, fleeing the first wave of hunters. No respecters of property lines, the elk leap fences, use their powerful necks and big tongues to tear out strawberry plants, strip fruit trees, devour flowers, and gobble bushes. Then they defecate happily and plod on. Our neighbor occasionally bags one with his rifle, hunting season or no.

Only Tom had managed to outsmart the marauders. With great care, he’d lofted nets over our Montmorency cherry trees and tied the nets to the trunks. While awaiting his captain’s call the previous night, Tom had patiently salvaged the last of the scarlet fruit. Through the back window, I watched the elk quizzically appraise our trees. Nothing there, boys, time to move out.

I crossed to the counter, moved the faxed map showing the location of Eliot’s body, and surveyed with a sinking heart the clutter of glasses, plates, and measuring cups. Before Gerald Eliot had revved up his saw, he’d asked me to empty the cabinets on the left side of the window. Then he’d crashed through the window and the right-hand cabinet, and the contents of those shelves had ended up in smithereens.

The next day, Eliot had bounded up my front steps all smiles, sketchy plans for a new kitchen tucked under his arm. He’d claimed he could have my new kitchen done before the first snow. Ha. Although it was always difficult for me to believe that people could so heartlessly try to take advantage, I’d been forced to accept Tom’s assessment of constructor sabotage. I’d stonily told Eliot to fix the window; my husband would repair the cabinet. Now my remaining glasses teetered in stacks; the broken cabinet stood on its side in the hallway. How many other people had Eliot tried to cheat this way? And had any other clients wanted to strangle him the way I’d longed to?

I took a steadying breath of the sweet, fresh air pouring through gaps in the dusty plastic. With The Jerk and his violent nature temporarily locked up in jail, I had taken for granted the fact that we could finally relax with our windows open. Or rather, relax with our windows missing. I refilled my espresso machine with water, ground a handful of fragrant coffee beans, and rinsed Tom’s bowl of homegrown cherries.

As the water gushed over the fruit, my mind snapped back to the traumas of the last two days. What would happen to Cameron now? Had Cameron murdered Gerald Eliot? What could I do? Interfere and you’ll get Cameron, Tom, and yourself into more trouble, my inner voice warned.

I sharpened a knife, started pitting the cherries, then washed my hands and put in a call to Lutheran Hospital to check on Barbara Burr. I was told she could not be disturbed. Next I phoned the sheriff’s department to see if they could tell me anything about Cameron. Burr was being processed, I was told. Like liverwurst? I longed to ask.

I energetically mixed the pitted cherries with sugar and cornstarch. I loved the Burrs; both had been extraordinarily kind to Arch when he was eight and I was doing my docent work. Cameron, then president of the county historical society, could talk about Aspen Meadow’s history the way some people can croon show tunes. The times I’d had to take Arch with me to the museum, Cameron had kept my son spellbound with stories of local outlaws, ghosts, Indians, and untold, priceless treasure buried in Aspen Meadow. Arch had been rapt. I hadn’t been immune either.

I laid the fruit in a buttered pan and thought back to the photos on the Burrs’ guest house walls: Cameron and Barbara with shovels and maps. In the thirties, Cameron had told Arch, Aspen Meadow and Blue Spruce had been aswarm with treasure hunters. A persistent Depression-era rumor held that a stagecoach robber had buried a coffee can chockful of gold pieces in a mine shaft in Aspen Meadow or Blue Spruce. Forget that there was no mining in Aspen Meadow or Blue Spruce; Arch had subsequently insisted we follow a trail that—legend had it—led to the gold at the top of Smythe Peak. We’d dug for hours, to no avail, and our only company had been Steller’s jays squawking at us for invading their domain.

I beat butter with sugar for the cobbler topping, and recalled Arch’s wide-eyed plea that we visit a local ranch where longhorn steer were raised. There, contrary to recorded history but according to Cameron Burr, Jesse James and his gang had buried fifty thousand dollars at the foot of a lodgepole pine. The trick was finding the right tree. Jesse James himself had supposedly pointed a knife downward to the treasure, and embedded the weapon in the pine tree’s trunk. If he had, both the knife and the fifty thousand were still there, because Arch hadn’t found them.

I measured flour with baking powder, remembering the time Cameron and Barbara had accompanied us on one of the many treasure hunts Cameron had sparked in my too-imaginative son. The Burrs, Arch, and I had crawled through the crumbling Swiss-built inn west of Aspen Meadow where the Bund—Nazis and their sympathizers, posing as bicycling tourists, the story went—had allegedly met during the Second World War. The inn, empty for years and recently renovated as apartments, had given us permission to search the place while the construction crew worked on new plumbing. Alas, to Arch’s intense disappointment, we’d uncovered no stash of deutsche marken below swastikas carved—by squatters? Or by frustrated treasure seekers?—on closet floors.

Now, at fourteen, Arch didn’t drag me out on treasure hunts anymore. Instead, he listened to pounding rock music, worried intensely about his appearance, and yearned for Julian to move back. And though he would never admit it, the only thing Arch truly wanted was a girlfriend.

I stirred egg into the cobbler dough and dropped spoonfuls of the thick, golden batter on top of the glistening cherries. No treasure, no girlfriend, and the Burrs in deep trouble. Gerald Eliot dead. And I needed catering business. I slid the cobbler into the oven and contemplated my booking calendar.

This was Tuesday, August nineteenth. Unfortunately, my slimy catering competitor, Craig Litchfield, had so severely cut into my bookings that I had no work until a week from today. And even more unfortunately, that work was unpaid. Tuesday, the twenty-sixth of August, was the date of the rescheduled tasting party at the Homestead. This time, the catering competition for the Merciful Migrations September Soiree would be silent. I would be up against André and Craig Litchfield. The Soirée committee included my frequent catering clients Edna Hardcastle and Weezie Harrington, as well as Marla. How had the committee arrived at the decision that they even needed to put the event out for bids? I had no idea.

I loved André. I would enjoy working by his side even if he won the competition. Still, I was sure Craig Litchfield had somehow forced the issue of a contest. What I couldn’t imagine—and what was troubling me—was the means he would employ to try to win it.

I made another espresso, wished I had one of Julian Teller’s indescribably flaky, bittersweet-chocolate filled croissants to go with it, then stared glumly at my calendar. The day after the tasting party was Wednesday, the twenty-seventh of August. That night, I would be doing a birthday dinner party for twenty for Weezie Harrington. Wealthy widows and divorcees always worry that no one will remember their birthdays, so they often give a party for themselves. Weezie was no exception, although she’d had a friend issue the invitations.

I moved my finger across the calendar. My next booking after Weezie’s party was Saturday, August thirtieth. That day, Edna Hardcastle’s daughter Isabel would finally, finally be married, and I would cater the twice-postponed reception. But two booked events and one tasting party would not be enough. With Tom suspended, and no money coming in, I had to find more work.

I put in a call to André’s condominium and got the caregiver for Andre’s wife, Pru. Pru’s handicap made her extremely shy. I had only met her once, as she disliked going out or having people over. Dealing with Pru’s condition, plus the cost of her maintenance, had contributed to Andre’s concerns after his retirement.

“Yes? What is it?” Chef Happy sounded even more brusque than usual.

I told André about discovering Gerald Eliot’s body at the Burrs’. I also told him about Tom’s suspension. In order to avoid digressing, I left out the details. But André clucked that the Ian’s Images people had already had a fit when the police canceled the shoot at the Burrs’ house. I told him I was desperate for work. If he could bridge me in to work part-time on the shoot, I promised to take only two dollars over minimum wage.

“Goldy! You worry how the models demean themselves, and then you do it to yourself,” my old friend chided. “Yes, come on Friday.” He tsked. “They have agreed to pay me double for that day. Which I am happy to take, since the cost of living in the mountains is so exorbitant.”

“Double? For what?”

“The shoot has many problems. I have had much overtime. Ian Hood broke his lens. He already destroyed one of his cameras, but does he care? No. The police are at the Burrs’ house. So the studio will move up the shooting at their third location, the place Hanna secured for them, the living room at the Homestead Museum. They will do the children’s clothes there on Friday—if the police are through there. Leah will rent a Santa Claus and the children will sit in his lap. But will the little ones eat what we prepare? Who knows?” He exhaled in disgust. “The models complain the meals are too fattening. Rufus Driggle, the handyman? He likes the blond one, Yvonne. But Yvonne does not like Rufus. Someone put pickles on my crab cakes. But they always want my food. They are pigs.”

For Friday, I penciled in Cater at H. museum on my calendar. Might give me a chance to snoop a little bit, see if Gerald Eliot had indeed met his untimely end there. “When should I show up?”

“Coffee break, nine o’clock? This kitchen is approved for commercial use, thank the good Lord. Yogurt, fruit, and we will make a sweet.”

I hung up and out of habit called Marla. I checked the cobbler—strictly taboo for her, as she’d barely survived a heart attack the previous summer—and listened to her husky-voiced message: “I’m out being persecuted by the federal government. Leave a message, unless you think they’ll trace this call and make your life a living hell, too.”

Ah, yes. Starting this week, Marla was being audited by the IRS for last year’s taxes. She had promised to stop by to fill me in on all the odious details.

My business line rang. I sent a quick appeal to the Almighty for a new client.

“Goldy, it’s Sheila O’Connor.” My heart froze: the coroner. Where were Tom and Arch? “Don’t worry,” she said, immediately sensing my concern. “I have a job for you, if you’re interested. Lunch this Monday.”

“What?”

Sheila’s laugh was earthy and much-practiced. Working with Sheila, Tom had always told me, you developed a sense of humor or you died. Coroner joke. “I’m serious,” she went on. “Monday is always the worst day at the morgue. You’ve got work from the weekend, unidentified bodies piling up, it’s a mess.”

“Ah,” I said, sympathetic. “I see.” Not that I really wanted to.

“I’ve been wanting to treat the staff.” Was she trying a bit too hard to sound cheerful? Her words came out in a rush. “So I was wondering if you’d like to cater a lunch for us? Monday? Here at the morgue?”

Tom had always had enormous respect for Sheila O’Connor. Now I did, too, as she wanted to give me work. She must know about Tom’s suspension without pay. “Sure,” I said, “I’d love to.”

“About fifteen dollars a person sound good? We have a soft drink machine, so it could be sandwiches, burritos, whatever you want. Plus dessert. The six of us usually eat around noon.”

“Sounds perfect. Listen, Sheila, what’s going on with Andy Fuller?”

“Fuller’s a problem,” she replied tersely. “He doesn’t know how to build a real case. Yesterday was a perfect example.”

“But … will he get Cameron Burr convicted?”

She snorted. “Unlikely.” She hesitated. Then she added, “I’m sorry about Tom,” and hung up.

So was I. I amended my calendar for Monday, August twenty-fifth. Lunch for Six, Furman County Morgue. A catered coffee break at the site of a murder and a lunch at the morgue. Things were looking up.

Chapter 6

The doorbell rang. Through the peephole Marla Korman’s lovely, wide face grimaced grotesquely at me. I swung open the heavy door, then stared.

For the start of the IRS audit, Marla had apparently decided on a poverty-stricken look. Ordinarily, twinkling barrettes would have held her brown curls in place. Now her hair resembled an ostrich-feather duster. Not a dab of makeup covered her creamy complexion. Instead of the usual rhinestone-studded designer sweatsuit and sprinkling of precious-gem jewelry, she wore a drab gray housedress. The huge dress featured gleaming white buttons, an uneven midcalf hem, and a tear along the shoulder seam. She’d shunned her handmade Italian shoes and stuck her wide feet with their perfectly manicured toenails into hot-pink plastic thongs. Her bright eyes regarded me merrily.

“Marla—” I began.

She gestured for me to stop with empty-of-sapphires fingers. A telltale white line striped her tanned right forearm: no Rolex. I sniffed appraisingly and realized she wasn’t wearing any deodorant.

She said, “So you didn’t like the prosecutor.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m starving and I want to hear all about it. I’m telling you, Goldy, I dated Andy Fuller. I didn’t even jump on him.”

“I appreciate your sharing that, Marla. So, how are the IRS guys?”

“Sons of bitches, they went to a Denver steakhouse. Made a point of telling me about an expensive five-star restaurant on the way, where they could drop me off. I thought the IRS only audited poor people.” She swept down our hallway, headed for the kitchen. “They never did mention what a good person I was, doing fund-raising in my spare time.”

“I don’t think they care about charity work,” I said as I followed her. “Especially since you didn’t join the committees until you got the audit notice.”

She snorted self-righteously. “Well, guess what? From the moment I left their office my cellular has been ringing. Seems the whole town knows about your mauling Fuller.”

I refused to be drawn in. “Did you drive the Mercedes over here?”

She flopped into a chair. “Yes, but the IRS henchmen didn’t see it.” She gave me a rueful look. “Word is that Tom’s not going to be paid for a while. With Litchfield on the prowl, I tried to hustle up more assignments for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” she said matter-of-factly. “How’s your cash situation?”

“Not great.”

She stood up and pulled me in for a smelly hug. “The bastards have frozen my accounts. I had my aunt overnight me some cash, and I keep it in a shoe box under my bed. That’s how I’ll pay Julian’s first tuition bills. I’ll get a money order, I guess. Goldy, if things get bad, you need to swallow your pride and take some money from me.”

Not in this lifetime. But I murmured another thanks and poured her a glass of sparkling water. She flipped on the oven light and ooh-oohed over the baking cobbler.

I said, “It’ll be ready in twenty minutes. But it’s not for coronary patients.”

She fluffed out the gray housedress and sat back down. “Speaking of coronary patients, how’s André doing?”

“Not very well. Lots of thin, temperamental people to cater to,” I observed as I scanned the Ours section of my walk-in refrigerator for low-fat lunch ingredients.

“Don’t say the word thin to me,” she wailed. “These days, I can’t do what I love most. Eat out. Spend money. It’s a prison sentence.” She eyed the demolished window. “Ah, speaking of jail? Heard from John Richard?”

I emerged from the refrigerator balancing a crystal pitcher and two plastic containers. “He calls Arch. Tom or I take him down to visit.”

She downed the sparkling water and nodded at the pitcher of iced tea. “I heard the case against Cameron Burr is weak. I want to personally kiss him for ridding the town of Gerald Eliot.”

“Marla!”

“Oh, don’t. Eliot was a fraud. Did you get a look at the Merciful Migrations cabin kitchen? Eliot was supposed to put in a row of windows. But he fell for a model instead. They didn’t just roll in the hay. They frolicked between four-by-fours, screwed in sawdust, porked on plywood—”

“Marla!” I gasped in mock surprise. Then I asked, “Do you know the model’s name? Or who caught them—er, frolicking?”

“All I know is that it got Eliot canned.”

I shook my head. “How’d he keep getting jobs? How come you didn’t tell me he was so bad?”

She sighed noisily. “I didn’t know you were going to hire him until after he’d made this mess.” She gestured at my gutted wall. “Plus, other people hate to admit their failures with contractors. When Cameron wanted to hire Eliot as a night guard at the Homestead, I was in charge of doing the background check, but I was only supposed to find out if he stole stuff, not if he was a good contractor—Cameron already knew his shortcomings in that department. I called his last three jobs. The only thing that disappeared from people’s homes was Gerald Eliot himself.”

“Nobody told me.”

She shrugged. “He was a terrible guard at the museum. He swore he’d broken up with that model, but he was pouring tequila for somebody into the society’s antique shot glasses. Monday morning, we’d come in for a meeting? The place would smell like a bar.”

I shook a dollop of nonfat cottage cheese into a crystal cup and surrounded it artfully with sliced strawberries. When I put it in front of her, she smiled her thanks and reached for a spoon.

“Okay, enough chatter,” she said after a few bites. I groaned, but she pressed on: “What’s going to happen to you? Will you still be able to pick up half of Julian’s college expenses?”

My shoulders slumped. I’d forgotten about our responsibility for Julian’s expenses. Before we were married, Tom had promised to pay half of our young friend’s tuition, room, and board. Marla paid the other half. Also, I realized with a start, I had no idea if John Richard had made any provision to pay for Arch’s fall tuition at Elk Park Prep. Before he’d gotten himself into jail, he had been ordered by the court to pay Arch’s tuition bills. How could he fulfill his financial obligations if he was behind bars?

“Have you heard from Julian?” I asked Marla. “He called here yesterday but didn’t leave a number.”

She downed a strawberry and raised her eyebrows. “Talked to him last night.”

“You did? Where was he? Is he coming to visit?”

She shrugged noncommittally. “Don’t know where he was exactly. He sounded better than he did a few weeks ago, when I told him about the audit and my plans to act poor and virtuous. He even recommended the secondhand store between Mountain Rental and Darlene’s Antiques and Collectibles. That’s where I found this creation.” She smoothed the gray dress and struck a pose. “But it’s my turn to ask you questions.”

“What about Julian? What did he say?”

“Not much, I keep telling you!” She finished her fruit plate and nudged it aside. “So much for the money situation. Does Arch have a girlfriend yet?”

“No. And please don’t ask him, he’s extremely sensitive.”

“Well, then, if we can’t discuss cash or young love, is that cobbler done yet?”

“I thought you were going to be virtuous.”

“I am being virtuous. It’s exhausting me.” She stood and brought her bowl to the sink, where she ostentatiously rinsed it, to underscore just how virtuous she was endeavoring to be. “Don’t worry, I’m not having any of your yummy, artery-clogging cobbler. I need to take you somewhere. So finish your cooking.”

“Take me where? To book an event with the IRS? Audit-Time Appetizers? Penalty-Plus-Interest Pizza?”

Her eyes twinkled. She did look much younger without makeup. “Can’t tell you. It’s a surprise.”

Groaning, I slid the puffed, golden cobbler out of the oven and set it aside to cool. Marla, who stubbornly refused to explain further, led me out my front door and motioned down the street. The warm, sweet summer air swished through the aspens and evergreens as we trekked the short block and a half to Main Street, then turned left and climbed the sloped steps to the Grizzly Saloon. There, Marla pointed to one of the old wooden benches lining the porch. She scrutinized the street in both directions. After a moment, she sat down, frowning. Evidently, whatever it was she intended to surprise me with hadn’t yet arrived.

The pungent smell of spilled beer and old wood wafted out the saloon doors. Tourists clutching shopping bags came and went from Darlene’s and the secondhand store. A runner trotted very slowly down our street, then turned left by the Grizzly. An emerald-green halter top and pants clung to her tall body and set off her gleaming chestnut hair, drawn up in a ponytail. It was Rustine, the model. I was not aware that she lived in Aspen Meadow, much less made slow jogs along Main Street. She glanced up briefly and I smiled. She immediately looked away, as if she didn’t recognize me. Maybe this time she didn’t need any coffee.

“Why are we here?” I asked Marla after another five minutes. “Are we waiting for somebody?”

“Secret,” she said knowingly. “Ah, here we go.”

An ancient Toyota with New York license plates sputtered to the curb. A moment passed while the driver and passenger conversed. Then the passenger-side door creaked open. A handsome young man with longish dark hair and a square jaw climbed out of the car, squinted at the bright sunlight, and scanned the front of the saloon. He held his hand up to his forehead to shield his eyes, and frowned. Then he spotted Marla and me and waved.

It was Julian.

He’d let his hair grow out from its bleached Dutch-boy cut. The short, tough, muscled body that I’d usually seen plowing down the lap lanes of our community pool now seemed thinner beneath a faded blue T-shirt and tattered jeans. When he let the hand shielding his dark eyes drop, I could see they were smudged with fatigue.

“Goldy!”

By the time I stood beside the sputtering car, Julian had already unloaded three boxes and a tattered duffel bag from its trunk. Marla trundled up beside me, beaming. The Toyota growled, belched a cloud of exhaust, and chugged away. I hugged Julian tightly. Marla embraced both of us.

“We thought your summer job wasn’t over, or that you weren’t coming—” I stammered.

Julian pulled away from me. He seemed awkward and disoriented, as if he’d just disembarked from a long flight. His cheeks turned pink. Was he embarrassed? Happy to be home? Impossible to tell.

He said, “Good to see you all, too.”

“Marla didn’t tell me,” I went on, “and I had no idea …”

“Marla.” Julian grinned. “Great outfit,” he told her.

“Thanks,” she purred.

The three of us were suddenly silent. Julian swallowed and shifted from foot to foot. Something is wrong, I thought.

Marla chirped, “I’m going to let you two visit. I’ll go get my car.” She took off before I could protest. Get her car for what?

Julian’s voice cracked when he asked, “Is Arch … at your place?”

“He’s just doing some errands with Tom,” I replied. What was going on? His face fell. “What is it?” I demanded. He said nothing. “Listen, let’s go home, okay? How long can you stay? We were just talking about you and—”

He lifted his jaw and I saw a trace of the Julian I’d first known. Rebellion, hostility, and insecurity raged below a forced external calm. “I’m warning you,” he said stiffly. “You’re going to be very disappointed in me—”

“Never.” But I felt increasingly uncertain. So much had been going wrong lately. “What is it?” I asked lamely.

“I quit my summer job at the hotel restaurant. The owner was weird, wanted me to take over the kitchen while she took off. Even the other employees told me I should pack it in. I was wondering if you, if you would be willing …” He cleared his throat. “Could you take me back for a while? Just until I get my act together.”

I wondered vaguely about the opening of school, but jumped in with, “Of course! Why would you even think we wouldn’t—”

He held up his hand. “Wait.” His voice crackled with defiance. “Before you say yes, there’s something you should know. It’s not for a short time. I … didn’t just quit my job. I dropped out of Cornell.” His eyes were wet. “I was miserable.”

I said, “Welcome home, Julian,” and hugged him.

This time, he didn’t pull away.

Chapter 7

Marla’s Mercedes purred to the curb. We loaded Julian’s boxes and bag into the trunk and took off.

Jake barked ecstatically when he spotted Julian, even though the dog had only met our former boarder briefly at Christmas. But no matter. When we came through the back gate, the hound jumped up, howled, sniffed Julian’s neck and licked his face. Arch was always telling us that bloodhounds belong to the canine equivalent of Mensa. Now Jake seemed to remember that Julian was the great friend and protector of his beloved Arch. In any event, Julian seemed pleased to be so effusively welcomed.

Inside, he eagerly accepted the offer of warm cherry cobbler piled with scoops of vanilla ice cream. Marla and I drank iced coffee and gingerly worked our way toward asking what had gone wrong.

He began by saying he’d wanted to go away to college. He’d been eager to try a new place, far away from the West. But he’d quickly become disillusioned, and missed Colorado. His assigned roommate smoked, watched television till midnight, then snored until noon. So Julian couldn’t study, breathe, or sleep. Worst of all, he’d become intensely lonely.

“I didn’t have anybody to eat with.” His spoon traced a circle on his empty plate. “It’s something you don’t think about, you know? How much of eating is just being with other people. I always thought the important thing was the food, how it tastes. But it isn’t.”

Contemplating these problems while Jay Leno squawked each night on the roommate’s TV, Julian had resigned himself to self-doubt. He’d felt his confidence ebb away. His misery had exacerbated the embarrassment he already felt over Marla and Tom paying so much for him to be in college. With the illogic of the desperate, he’d stopped going to class. He’d begun waiting tables at a coffee shop in Ithaca. Working in a kitchen and being around other food workers had helped his frame of mind. Unfortunately, all those skipped classes and missed assignments had wreaked havoc on his freshman transcript.

At the urging of the coffee shop owner, Julian had taken a high-paying summer job in an upstate New York hotel. But his new boss had required eighteen-hour workdays. Julian had thought about quitting, but he hadn’t wanted to return to his hometown of Bluff, Utah. Although he’d learned to make candy and Navajo tacos there, the town possessed few prospects for a food service career. He’d finally phoned a Cornell administrator and talked to various deans. All the university folks had been very understanding; they’d told him to stay in touch. Officially, his departure was classified as a leave of absence. To Julian, it was escape from a black hole.

“So,” he said finally. He registered the distress in my face. “Don’t take it so hard, Goldy. I’ll go back to college eventually. I’ll even get better grades. Now, though, I can help with any food job you can think of.”

“I don’t care about the transcript,” I replied. “I’m just sorry you were so unhappy.”

Marla interjected, “You know that here in Aspen Meadow, you don’t ever have to eat alone.”

“Yeah, okay, enough about my problems.” Julian pointed to the hole over the sink. “Who did that, your ex-husband?”

“Yep,” Marla and I said in unison.

I added, “Right before he was arrested. He’s still in jail though, so don’t worry. And anyway, the hole was actually made a lot worse by a kitchen contractor. And he’s dead, I’m sorry to say.”

Julian exhaled. Then he appraised Marla. “You look so different,” he observed. “I mean, besides the dress. Where’s all your jewelry?”

“In a strongbox in my garage.” Marla giggled. “I’ve got twenty thousand in hundreds under my bed, too. You want to live at my place? You can be my chef and yard man. Be paid in cash,” she stage-whispered, “and have untaxed income!”

“Thanks,” Julian said with heartfelt appreciation. “But I need to do more work with food.” He cleared his throat, then turned back to me. “So, will you have me? Do you still need an assistant?”

“We want you. You’re part of our family. And of course I can use you,” I replied. “You’re one of the most talented cooks I’ve ever met.”

“Ooh-ooh,” said Marla. “High praise from Miss Golden Butter herself.”

“How’s the business?” Julian asked. “I applied to a catering outfit in Ithaca. It was a huge operation. But they said they couldn’t justify another guy, even for a few hours a week. They said times are really tough for caterers.”

“For heaven’s sake,” I replied. “It doesn’t matter how the business is.”

He raked his long hair with his hands. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?” He narrowed his eyes. “What’s going on? Is it good news? Bad news? I’ll work for room and board, if that’s easier.”

His questions dangled while I tried to think of an honest way to inform this proud, easily irritated young man about the recent downward course of events. There wasn’t an easy way.

“Better tell him, Goldy,” Marla said glumly.

I picked up his plate. Only a few cobbler crumbs remained. “Okay. Tom’s been suspended. Charged with insubordination. Scratch his salary. So if you want extra cash, you might have to cut Marla’s lawn.”

“Wait a minute, you skipped the good part!” Marla charged. “Miss Caters-With-Cholesterol attacked the assistant district attorney herself. He really ticked her off.”

“What?” said Julian.

“Oh, it’s a long story.” I gave Marla a furious shut up look. “Plus, business is down,” I admitted before Marla could jump in again. “You know, the competitor I told you about. Craig Litchfield. Somehow, he got ahold of my client list—”

“Your client list? With all your prices and menus?” interrupted Julian. “That’s stealing, isn’t it? How’d he do that?”

The phone jangled. I reached for it without answering Julian.

“This is Craig Litchfield.” The imperious tone sawed in my ear. Startled, I glanced at Julian, afraid he could tell who was on the line. But Julian was angrily clanking silverware into the dishwasher. Litchfield continued, “I’m coming over. I have something to talk to you about.”

“I’m not really prepared to—”

“You’re never prepared,” he quipped back. “I’ll be there in five minutes.” The line went dead.

I sighed and hung up. “Well, gang, Litchfield’s coming over.”

“Ooh, fireworks, fireworks,” trilled Marla.

Julian banged the dishwasher door shut. He regarded me warily. As a new but unpaid hireling, he did not want to appear nosy. His voice was sharp. “I’ll just do some food prep.” With that, he started unpacking gleaming red tomatoes from one of his crates.

“You brought vegetables?” I asked.

“Bought them at a farmer’s stand in eastern Colorado.” He placed a bunch of leeks next to the tomatoes. “I didn’t know whether you’d take me back or not. But if you did, I wanted to fix dinner for everybody. There’s plenty for you, too, Marla.”

Marla checked her wrist, then frowned: no watch. She glanced at my clock. “The IRS hit men said they’d be back at two, so I can only stay a bit longer. Thanks for the invitation, though. If my confrontation with the bureaucratic bottom-feeders ends before next week, which they warned me it wouldn’t, I’ll take you up on it.” She reached out to squeeze his hand. “It’s good to see you, Julian,” she said warmly. Julian grinned and worked zealously on the vegetables. I poured Marla more iced coffee.

Once the tomatoes and leeks were stacked in glistening heaps, Julian filled the sink with shiny scallions, nugget-sized new potatoes, slender green beans, stalks of asparagus, and fragrant bunches of basil, dill, and rosemary with soil still clinging to the roots.

“So tell me how this Litchfield guy got your files.” His voice had an edge. Water gushed into the sink as he began to scrub the rest of the vegetables.

“I honestly don’t know,” I replied.

“After all that security stuff you went through with The Jerk, you’re saying you have no idea how he broke in?” he demanded. “What else has he done?”

Marla took a sip of iced coffee and advised, “Remember, Goldy, twenty-year-olds think the world can be fixed.”

I took a deep breath. “Litchfield tried to steal one of my suppliers and one of André Hibbard’s. Remember my old teacher?” Julian nodded. “He’s moved to a retirement community in Blue Spruce. I’ll be competing against both André and Litchfield next week, for the Soirée booking. Anyway, Litchfield offered higher prices to our suppliers, and guaranteed orders, if he could be the suppliers’ sole client in Aspen Meadow.”

Julian muttered, “Some people.”

“All of Goldy’s energy has gone into fighting this guy,” Marla interjected. “And that’s why she’s so on edge and why she clobbered the assistant district attorney. At least that’s my theory—”

Before she could elaborate, however, a howl erupted from outdoors. Jake. The dog brayed again.

“Maybe Arch is home,” I said hopefully. We all listened, puzzled. But this barking was not the usual glad-to-see-you woofing. I headed for the front door. Had I locked the gate? Arch would scold me if I’d forgotten it.

“Sounds as if he’s in the street,” Marla called. Cursing under my breath, I stepped onto the front porch in time to see Jake tackle Craig Litchfield.

“Jake!” I cried. “Stop! Get down!”

With his massive paws planted on Craig Litchfield’s chest, Jake turned and gave me mournful eyes. Mud splotched Litchfield’s coal-black shirt. His face was spattered with mud, too, and what wasn’t was purple with rage. In the moment I called to Jake, Litchfield smacked the hound hard across the jaw. Squealing, Jake rolled across the lawn.

“Oh, Lord.” I ran down the porch steps and across the grass toward our poor dog.

“Stop, stop!” I shoved Litchfield away and dropped to my knees beside Jake. Marla and Julian appeared on the porch and started yelling at Litchfield to back off. “There, there, boy,” I murmured. I cradled his head in my lap. Jake whimpered and licked my hand. A thin stripe of blood oozed out of his nose. He shivered with fear. “What do you want?” I demanded of Litchfield. “Why did you do that?” I could hear the shrillness in my voice.

With studied nonchalance, Litchfield tugged a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his dirty shirt. With his matching black pants and slicked hair, he looked like a toreador. He shook out a cigarette and flashed a silver lighter out of a pants pocket. He lit the cig, inhaled deeply, and regarded my house like a reluctant buyer. Jake showed his teeth and growled, the last vestige of his police training.

Litchfield blew out a stream of smoke. “That animal is bad news,” he announced contemptuously. He lifted his chin, picked at a strand of tobacco on his lower lip, then spit it onto my lawn. “You know, there’s a leash law in Furman County.”

I stroked Jake’s silky ears. “The dog was on our property, so he was perfectly legal.” When Jake wriggled in my arms, I pushed his rump down and spoke to him under my breath. He’d always had trouble holding a command to stay. I needed Jake to sit close by me until this visitation from the enemy was over. I didn’t trust myself not to do more damage to Litchfield than I had to Andy Fuller. “What do you want?” I repeated coldly. “Tell me and then go. Better yet, go. Write me a letter.”

“Yeah, write a letter, you creep!” Marla was glaring.

Litchfield blew smoke at her while appraising the gray housedress and pink thongs. “Who’re you? A caterer’s helper? Or the maid?” He took another drag on the cigarette. “You can go back to your dusting now.”

Marla Korman, the richest woman in Aspen Meadow, head of the committee for the Merciful Migrations September Soiree, laughed in delight. “Hey, baby!” she called back in an uncanny imitation of Litchfield’s condescending tone. “How ‘bout I start by cleaning your clock?”

Litchfield muttered, “Bitch.” He tilted his head and raised a dark eyebrow at Julian, who had stalked down to the sidewalk. He stood beside me, his lean body tensed and ready to strike. Amused, Litchfield grinned. “And who might you be? Another caterer’s helper?”

“I am Julian Teller.” Julian bit each word. “I’m telling you so that when I kick your ass, you’ll know it’s me.”

Litchfield chuckled. “Aha! First a threat from the domestic help, then one from the great Julian Teller! The brilliant young vegetarian chef who used to work for Mrs. Schulz. The power behind the throne, you might say.” Jake let out a low growl. Litchfield blew out smoke and contemplated Julian. “I heard you were off in college somewhere. Want to come work for a real caterer? At twice your current salary?”

Julian’s voice knifed the soft summer air. “You are so dead. You don’t even realize it.”

“What do you want, Litchfield?” I demanded for the third time. I gripped Jake’s collar.

Litchfield screwed his handsome baby face into a sourpuss. “Well, now,” he said. He held his cigarette at his side and bent forward. “I heard about your troubles. I’ve come to offer you cash. For your business. Your suppliers, booking schedule. Recipes, not that those are worth anything. Two-year no-compete agreement.” He studied the glowing tip of his cigarette. “Fifty thousand dollars.” He smiled. “Take it or leave it.”

I was nonplussed. It was like the devil offering cake to a starving person. Still restraining Jake by the collar, I wiped the blood off the dog’s nose with my free hand and tried to steady my breath.

“Go away,” I said quietly to Litchfield. “And don’t ever, ever come back. For any reason.”

Craig Litchfield flicked his cigarette butt into Tom’s roses. An arc of smoke hung briefly in the air as he thrust his hands into his pockets, rocked back on his heels, and considered us.

“Okay, Goldy Bear Schulz,” he said at last. “We go up against each other again a week from today. You change your mind before that, call me.”

Chapter 8

Julian and I coaxed Jake up onto the porch. Marla went inside for a clean, wet washcloth. I dabbed Jake’s wound; the poor dog squirmed and refused to keep still. Promising to call later in the week, Marla reluctantly left for her match with the IRS. Shortly thereafter, Tom and Arch returned. Arch’s joy at Julian’s arrival turned to distress when he saw Jake. Tom insisted on taking Jake to the vet; Arch refused to stay home and went with them. Returning to the kitchen, I mentally swore revenge on Craig Litchfield’s black heart.

“How does he know about me?” Julian demanded as I rinsed the pork chops I’d bought for the evening meal. I had no idea what to serve meat-shunning Julian. As if reading my mind, he began scrubbing large baking potatoes. No doubt he would conjure up a vegetarian dish more inspiring than anything in my repertoire. “I mean,” he went on, “how does he know my background? About college? How does he know what kind of cooking I do?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted as I covered the chops and put them into the walk-in refrigerator. “But I’m wondering if he has a rich aunt. He runs huge ads and charges less than the cost of ingredients. He must be losing money on events. Then he offers you twice an unknown salary to work for him. How does he do it?”

“He’s a creep,” Julian said fiercely as he fitted my food processor with the grating blade. “Don’t worry—we’ll beat him. We’re just going to have to cook better than he does, that’s all.”

I smiled at him. “That’s what André said.”

“I just wish I knew how he gets his information.”

“Julian, so do I. The man’s making me paranoid.”

Julian shook his head, then savagely pushed a hunk of fresh Parmesan cheese into the growling food processor. “You’ve got an open window right over your sink. Your computer’s right on the counter. You have a password for your programs?”

I thought of Arch and his fascination with encryption. “No.”

“Install one,” Julian said grimly.

Tom and Arch returned with Jake, whose wound had been cleaned and smeared with antiseptic. Tom repeated the vet’s warning that we were to watch the hound over the next few days for signs of fever or swelling, indications that an infection might be setting in.

Arch watched Julian’s skillful moves as he organized a meal on the scratched Formica counter. “I am so happy you’re here,” he said awkwardly. At fourteen, Arch did not initiate physical affection.

Julian set aside the grated Parmesan and grabbed Arch in a bear hug. “Hey, man, great to see you, too. Still doing magic? What’s your latest project?”

Jailbreak Potatoes

4 large baking potatoes

2 tablespoons (¼ stick) unsalted butter

½ cup whipping cream

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon or more white pepper

½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Scrub and prick each potato 3 or 4 times with a fork. Bake the potatoes for 1 hour, or until flaky. Remove from the oven and cool slightly.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, place the butter, cream, salt, pepper, and cheese. Using a sharp knife, cut at a 45-degree angle to remove an oval of skin and potato from the flat top side of each potato. Using a spoon, scoop most of the potato out of the interior into the bowl with the other ingredients. Leave a thin layer of potato inside the skin. Scrape the potato from the back of the removed ovals of potato skin into the bowl.

Using the whip attachment, whip the potato mixture until smooth. Taste and correct the seasoning.

Dividing the whipped potato mixture evenly, spoon it back into the skins. Place the stuffed potatoes on a buttered, rimmed baking sheet and bake an additional 15 minutes, or until the filling is thoroughly heated.

Makes 4 servings

“Well … Todd and I are working on some hightech stuff. I have a whole display of it in my—our—room,” Arch replied shyly. “First I have to show you the cat’s new spot. Want to see both?”

“You bet.”

I followed them upstairs. Tom, mumbling vaguely about woodwork, retired to the basement. While I unfurled clean sheets, Arch proudly showed Julian how Scout the cat had made a hidden home under Julian’s old bed. Scout had fled inside during the Litchfield encounter. Now he eased from his spot to rub against Julian’s stubbly cheek. Julian howled with laughter. Arch’s wide grin made me smile.

Back in the kitchen, I pored over my computer manual and eventually chose and entered a password. Rock music reverberated from the boys’ room overhead. At four o’clock, Julian came down to help with the evening meal. I shaped, knotted, and covered rolls from a recipe André had laboriously copied out and given me. Julian put the potatoes in to bake, finished trimming the other vegetables, and set the table. While the rolls rose, I seared the chops and swirled in Dijon mustard with melted currant jelly for a sauce. Julian scooped out the baked potatoes, whipped the steaming mass with cream, Parmesan, salt, and white pepper, refilled the skins, and placed the delicious-looking concoctions back into the oven to puff to a golden brown. While he was cleaning up, I told him about the previous day’s modeling shoot, working with André, finding Gerald Eliot’s body, and the arrest of Arch’s and my old friend, Cameron Burr. Cameron was now sitting in jail while his wife labored to breathe. Julian frowned. Perhaps thinking of Cameron, he dubbed his dish Jailbreak Potatoes.

Just after six o’clock, the three meat-eaters dug into the tender chops, while all of us dove into the rich, tangy potatoes and magnificent array of fresh asparagus, leek, tomatoes, and corn braised in white wine and broth. We smeared butter on the feather-light, golden-brown rolls, ate, and talked about Arch’s upcoming school year and how long it would be before Tom could be cleared.

We avoided mention of Cameron Burr. We also skirted the subject of Julian dropping out of college. As his self-appointed aunt-cum-godmother, this move of his did bother me. No matter how gifted a person was at cooking or anything else, a well-rounded education would help him navigate through life. But this was not the time for parental advice. Julian was a very intelligent, very good kid. I trusted him. If he didn’t make a move to go back to school within six months, we’d have a heart-to-heart. For the moment, even under the clouds of Cameron’s arrest and Tom’s suspension, we could concentrate on enjoying a long-delayed family reunion.

When the dishes were done, Julian ordered Tom, Arch, and me to sit on the back deck while he put together a dessert tray. The sun slipped slowly behind enormous, salmon-colored clouds that hovered over the mountains’ silhouette. With a flourish, Julian produced a tray of his trademark fudge, a dark, impossibly luscious concoction dotted with sun-dried cherries. I closed my eyes, bit into the velvety chocolate, and allowed happiness to infuse my senses. The smooth, silky combination of bittersweet and milk chocolate combined with tart, chewy cherries and crunchy, toasted hazelnuts made my spine tingle. My kitchen was a mess, my bookings were down, a friend of ours had been arrested, my husband was suspended. But there was tomorrow, I reminded myself. If Scarlett O’Hara could look to better times, why couldn’t I? Plus, Scarlett hadn’t had her spirits bolstered by Julian Teller’s company—not to mention his fudge.

On Wednesday and Thursday we waited for Tom’s fellow officers to update us on the Eliot case. No information—not even the results of the autopsy—was forthcoming. Since Eliot’s murder was a capital case, Cameron Burr was formally denied bail. One call from the police captain’s secretary yielded the information that Tom’s suspension was being written up for formal review. The Mountain Journal speculated endlessly about the homicide. The headline Local Cop Suspended Pending Probe made me flinch.

For my part, I spent the two days drinking coffee, agonizing with Julian over the Soiree, testing menus, and making phone calls. At the Furman County Jail, Cameron either didn’t get my messages or ignored them. Lutheran Hospital still insisted Barbara couldn’t talk. I also tried—in vain—to hatch more jobs.

When Julian was off at the grocery store on one of our experimentation days—I felt slightly guilty to have such a willing helper—I decided to follow his suggestion and try an autumn-type dish for the Soiree. While I was peeling a Granny Smith apple, Kathleen Druckman—Todd’s mother—called to ask about the prospect of Arch and Todd joining a cotillion. While I was chopping the apple, Arch came into the kitchen; I ran the idea by him and he said to forget it. Defeated, I wondered what the mother of a fourteen-year-old was supposed to do. Then again, I remembered as I melted butter and mixed the chopped apples with moist, crumbly brown sugar, I’d sworn off involvement in Arch’s social life.

I sifted flour with cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice—and recalled the beginning of the previous February, when, for the second year in a row, Arch had been approached by a female classmate and asked if he wanted to be her boyfriend. Since it was not the same girl as the preceding year, I’d kept my mouth shut as Arch had again ecstatically said, Sure! He’d love to be her boyfriend! Last year, he’d begged Julian to make a heart-shaped chocolate cake with the girl’s name and his written in frosting, which he’d given to the girl. This year, he’d enthusiastically spent his money earned from chores on a Valentine’s Day basket for the new love. On February fourteenth, he’d floated off to school, bearing his load of chocolates and stuffed animals, and made his offering. By February twentieth—both years—he’d been told that he was boring and the relationship was over.

I stirred the dry ingredients and an egg into the mixture, then slid the whole thing in the oven. When the fragrant scent of autumn spices rolled through the kitchen thirty minutes later, I took the pan out and set it aside to cool. Then I reluctantly called Kathleen Druckman back and said, no cotillion. Thanks anyway. I didn’t know whether Arch was unusual in receiving the cruelty of prepubescent females, or whether all the boys suffered from the same gullibility. Whatever had been the reason for the Valentine’s Day fiascoes, Arch needed to build up his armor in the gender wars.

Each day, Tom disappeared to the hardware store. He always returned home with bulging paper bags and a secretive, satisfied look. I didn’t know what he was up to as he banged away in the basement, and I didn’t dare ask. As I felt the reverberations through the kitchen floor, I decided the hammering must be Tom’s therapy, like the pro football player I’d seen on TV. With great glee, the athlete had said the NFL was the only place you could beat the daylights out of somebody and not go to jail. And he didn’t use the word daylights.

Arch followed Julian around like a shadow. As for Julian, he still heaped four teaspoons of sugar into his morning espresso and bounced culinary ideas around until he came up with something he wanted to try. And he cooked. We had ground shrimp poached with herbs and encased in brioche, the savory cheesecake I’d made for André, crisp-fried crab cakes paired with tangy coleslaw, and grilled fish tacos on homemade tortillas with papaya salsa. Meals were heaven, and a welcome break from the worry over unreturned calls to Cameron Burr, the lack of information about Barbara, and our general lack of employment.

Each evening, Tom and Julian and Arch and I would sit out on our deck and indulge in desserts that ranged from peach pie to bread pudding. We would eat, that is, until Julian’s worry about whether he was being helpful enough burst forth in a slew of questions: Had we developed enough recipes for the Soirée tasting party? Would he be allowed to help me at future catered events? I invariably replied in the affirmative. I’d always told my Sunday School class to love unconditionally. The only problem arose when you were dealing with somebody who felt he had to earn your love. No matter how many times we showed Julian that we loved and accepted him, he was always looking around wildly and pleading, Let me do more.

At seven-thirty Friday morning, while Tom and Arch were still asleep, Julian and I were just beginning to look over our offerings for Andre’s coffee break when the call came.

“This is Rufus Driggle,” the husky voice identified himself. “I’m over here at the Homestead.” He paused. Then he said, “I think you better come over and help old Mr. André.”

My skin rippled with gooseflesh. “What’s wrong?”

Rufus exhaled. The receiver clunked and I could just make out some angry whispers.

“Hello?” I demanded.

“This is Ian Hood. André says he’s fine. He gave us your number. But the old guy grabbed his chest when he was putting out the coffee cups.” Ian sighed with impatience. “I think he’s got a bit of pain down his left arm, he’s sweating, and every time I come out to the kitchen, he’s sitting down like he’s exhausted.”

“Did you call nine-one-one?” I demanded.

“They’re on their way.”

“So are we.”

I gripped the dashboard as Julian rocked his Range Rover, inherited from former employers, to the Homestead. Stay calm, I ordered myself. André might need you. We could get there before the ambulance. I had taken a course in cardiopulmonary resuscitation after Marla had her heart attack. When I’d unexpectedly come on the dead body of my ex-husband’s girlfriend earlier in the summer, though, the emergency operator had asked if I knew CPR, and I’d mumbled a negative. Crises will do that: make you forget what you know.

We drew up to the Homestead service entrance. A two-story log octagon with timbered additions and a peaked roof, the former ranch owner’s residence-turned-museum always reminded me of one of Arch’s Lincoln Log constructions. As I vaulted out of the Rover, two paramedics trudged out the back door. I confronted one of them: a tall, chunky bald man with a ruddy complexion and a large nose.

“How is he? What happened?”

“He’s fine,” the man reassured me. “Mr. Hibbard had a little indigestion. He checks out completely.”

“What do you mean he checks out?” I echoed, dumbfounded. “Did he take some of his nitroglycerin? How come you’re not taking him down to the hospital?”

“He didn’t take the nitro because his doctor’s told him he’s sensitive to it. Mr. Hibbard was very angry with us, and insisted he’s been told not to take a pill unless he’s sure he’s having an attack, which he wasn’t. And we’re not transporting him anywhere because he’s not sick and not in danger,” the paramedic said firmly. “Somebody pushed the panic button, that’s all.”

“Are you sure he’s all right?”

“He’s fine. If he has more symptoms, he knows to put a tablet under his tongue. The nitroglycerin opens up the—”

“I know what nitroglycerin does.” Reminders of my enforced passage through Med Wives 101 never helped my mood.

“He seems to think he’s in excellent shape,” the paramedic added with a chuckle. “Are you okay?”

I assured him that I was, thanked him for checking André out, and trotted to the glass-paneled back door. Julian followed close behind.

Fussing loudly, André sat perched on a wooden stool by the Homestead kitchen’s massive oak table. He was buttoning up his crisp white chef’s jacket. Ian Hood and Rufus Driggle hovered nearby.

“—and I don’t understand why the two of you can’t go and take care of Saint Nicholas and the children,” André fumed as he elbowed Rufus away from him. “Just wait for us to serve you! I am fine! Stop being such busybodies!”

I nodded to Rufus Driggle, whose neon-orange sweatsuit hung in wide folds from his lanky frame. The carpenter sidled over to Julian and me.

“Goldy, we’re so glad you’re here,” he whispered, as if we were old friends. I blinked: Despite the crisis atmosphere, I couldn’t help noticing how the orange suit clashed painfully with please-call-me-Rufus’s orange hair and pale skin. “We were kind of worried about old André here—”

Ian Hood was giving André a thunderous, impatient look. “Listen, old man,” he reprimanded André, “I saw you grab your chest.” I cringed. “Maybe this work is too demanding for you. Maybe you should go home and rest. We can order in some doughnuts.”

André folded his arms across his copious stomach and glared. Rufus reached for a glass from an old wooden cabinet and ran water into it. He offered the drink to André. André ignored him.

“Did you hear me, André?” Ian demanded loudly. “Can you hear me?”

“I may be old, but I am not deaf!” André shouted at Ian. When André swiveled away from Ian, he knocked the glass of water out of Rufus’s hand. Miraculously, the glass clattered to the tile floor without breaking. André directed his fury at the carpenter. “You imbecile! Why did you put that there?” he bellowed, then glared at the two of them. “Didn’t you hear the medical people say I was fine?” He caught sight of me. “Now look what you have done! Made my student worry!” He batted Rufus Driggle away with a fleshy palm. “Go spray rocks! Move furniture!”

Ian ran his strong fingers through his thick gray hair, rolled his brown eyes, and tapped his foot. His sensitive features pinched as he worked his mouth slowly from side to side. He was more attractive than I remembered from the first day of the shoot; perhaps then I’d been overwhelmed by the models’ good looks. He seemed on the verge of saying something, but then changed his mind and merely shrugged.

I said, “I’m here now, André.” I tried to make my voice comforting rather than condescending, which would have made him more upset than he already was.

“Yeah,” Julian piped up unexpectedly as he appeared at my side. “I’m Julian Teller, her student, Mr. Hibbard. I hope it’s okay that I came. Goldy was so worried about you. She’s always talking about her teacher,” he made his voice appropriately awestruck, “‘a real master,’ she says, ‘that’s André Hibbard.’” With great seriousness, Julian perused the oak island: a rack of cooling muffins sat neatly next to containers of flour, unsalted butter, brown sugar, and eggs. “Are you doing a coffee break cake? It looks super. Goldy was working on one this week. Is it okay if I stay and help?”

André nodded at him and beamed at me. He threw a haughty, I-told-you-so look at Ian and Rufus. Ian wordlessly slammed out of the room, clearly irritated beyond control. I breathed relief.

“I need this scrim adjusted!” he shouted from the Homestead interior. André hrumphed and raised a silver eyebrow. Rufus hustled out the door.

“The coffee break is at ten,” said André without moving from the stool. He sighed. “Thank you for offering to help. The Santa is allergic to strawberries and needs a separate bowl of fruit. There are three shots this morning, for three children’s outfits.” I shook my head: so much work. Why hadn’t he asked me to come at eight? “Before you scold me, Goldy,” André went on, “let me tell you, I was not having a heart attack. When they asked if I had pain down my arm, I told them to go away. And when I told them to leave me alone, I was gasping. So they told the medics that I was short of breath! Nonsense.” He inhaled deeply, as if to prove his point.

“So how are you now?” I asked.

“Fine! The only reason I placed my hand on my chest was because I was listening to the curator’s terrible tale … she is quite upset with your husband,”—he wagged a finger at me—“about that robbery by the security guard. I was being sympathetic, not having an attack.”

“Aha,” I said. Upset with my husband? About that robbery by the security guard? You mean, the security guard who was murdered five days ago? I said, “Why is she upset with my husband?”

André wafted a hand. “She had to go down to the sheriff’s department. I invited her to our coffee break. She will be back later, do not fear, and you can ask her all about it.”

André assigned Julian to trim the fruit bowl components while I prepared the baked snack. Lucky for me, there were apples in with the fruit André had brought, and he’d thought to bring extra aprons, which we donned. Perched on his bar stool, sipping a fresh espresso, offering a wide range of commentary and directions, André appeared not only healthy, but entirely in his element.

“So how are you doing with the fashion models?” I asked him as I tried to recall how I’d put together the apple cake earlier in the week. “Have they been eating the food you’ve prepared?”

“Phh-t. I do not understand why people with no talent earn twelve hundred dollars a day to model clothes, while I struggle to pay my bills.”

“But they struggle too, don’t you think?” I ventured.

“Listen, and I will tell you.” Oh, boy, here we go, I thought. Andre’s lectures, I was convinced, energized him. And his strongly held, vehemently expressed opinions proved to him that he was not old, after all. He rapped on the island with his espresso cup and waited until Julian and I had put down our knives and given him our full attention.

“You cannot become a model the way you become a chef,” he began, “through work and talent. A woman needs only a skinny body and a pretty face. And what destruction this wreaks! What I used to see at my restaurant was hundreds of teenage girls who would not eat. Why would they not eat? Because they wanted to be like the models in the magazines. But they could never become models because they did not have pretty faces.” He sipped his espresso thoughtfully. “Do you know what I have observed this week?”

“Pretty faces?” I said. “May I finish chopping the apples while we listen? So we can offer the snack to those who will eat?”

He nodded. “The male models are strong. They work out and have big muscles.” To demonstrate, he flexed the arm not holding his espresso cup. “The women may do some exercise, but when they come in to model, they are half dead, always begging me for caffeine.” He held up the cup. “How can I converse with these women, when I give them coffee?”

Uh-oh, I thought as I set about mixing melted butter with eggs, brown sugar, and chopped apples. To André, converse usually meant you listen; I’ll talk.

André went on: “And so I ask you. What is the message of this Christmas catalog?” He raised his voice. “‘Look like this and you will be happy.’ But this is not true. You can only be insecure. You can only be hungry.” He sighed and finished his coffee.

“They won’t be hungry with you around,” Julian supplied.

“Yes, young man.” André slid off the stool and began to lay out the platters.

“Goldy told me that before you were a chef, you were in the Resistance in the Second World War.” Julian’s voice was filled with awe. “Can you tell me about it?”

Mercy! Now André would love Julian forever. I dropped an egg into the batter. André launched into his tale of the secret network he’d helped build to keep Jews from being deported from Clermont-Ferrand during the Vichy régime. I did not disbelieve my teacher when he talked about this work he claimed to have done fifty-some years before. But if you did the math, André was only eleven while he was helping to build the network he referred to. Still, I would not dare interrupt him.

“They had to avoid contact with police,” André said matter-of-factly. “They had to have places to hide, and our network would send messages when the deportation trains were arriving.” His tone turned boastful. “The Nazis would come expecting to get two hundred Jews for a work camp. They would leave with a handful, very angry.”

Listening attentively, Julian trimmed fresh pineapple, papaya, banana, kiwi, and grapes for the fruit bowl. While I stirred together the thick cake batter and prayed that I’d remembered all the ingredients from my experimentation earlier in the week, André cast appraising glances at Julian’s prep job. Mindful of the stories of French chefs lashing the fingers of kitchen helpers who did not slice, dice, and julienne properly, I felt a bit nervous. But Julian, precision-slicing the fruit, appeared to take no notice of André’s scrutiny.

Within twenty minutes, a delicious aroma completely filled the room. We made coffee, arranged the muffins in pyramids, and filled the bowls. I iced the apple cake with a creamy citrus frosting, and dubbed the creation Blondes’ Blondies—in honor of the models. The treats weren’t truly blondies, but then again, some of the models weren’t truly blondes.

“Are you really feeling all right?” I asked André as we prepared to serve the food.

“Goldy!” he admonished me. “When will you learn to believe me? My doctor says I am fine, much improved now that I have begun to work again. What am I always telling you?”

“Let the mood fit the food,” I replied promptly.

“All right, then,” my mentor fumed as he readjusted his tray. “Stop thinking all the time about death.”

Chapter 9

Just before ten, we carried the frosted blondies, the platter of Andre’s sour cream muffins, the tureen of yogurt, and a silver bowl piled with fresh kiwi, pineapple, cantaloupe, and a variety of berries to the mahogany table in the Homestead dining room. The dining room was a high-ceilinged space that had been added to the original 1866 ranch house by later occupants. Bright sunlight filtered through the row of wavy-glassed windows and shone on polished dark wood paneling. Along the opposite wall, light glinted off glass-fronted hutches displaying Old West artifacts. Unfortunately, the shelves of two battered cabinets lacked their glass and had gaps where the missing cookbooks had been displayed. Yellow police ribbons cordoned off the space.

This room, I thought with a shudder, was where Gerald Eliot had been attacked and probably killed.

“Won’t it bother the Ian’s Images folk to be eating in here?” I asked André in a low whisper. “It seems sort of, well, macabre.”

Blondes’ Blondies

2 cups peeled and diced Granny Smith apples

1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 egg

1½ cups cake flour (high altitude: add 1 tablespoon)

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon allspice

½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts

½ cup raisins

Creamy Citrus Frosting (recipe follows)

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Butter a 9 × 13-inch metal (not glass) pan.

In a large mixing bowl, mix the chopped apples with the brown sugar. Set it aside while you prepare the other ingredients. In a small pan, melt the butter and set it aside to cool. In a small mixing bowl, beat the egg slightly. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.

Whisk the melted and cooled butter into the egg; stir this mixture into the apple mixture. Stir the flour mixture into the apple mixture, mixing just until incorporated. Stir in the nuts and raisins. (The batter will be thick.) Spread the batter in the prepared pan.

Bake for 18 to 22 minutes, or until the blondies test done with a toothpick. Cool in the pan, then frost with Creamy Citrus Frosting. Slice and serve.

Makes 32 servings

Creamy Citrus Frosting

2 tablespoons (¼ stick) unsalted butter, softened

2 tablespoons orange juice

1 to 1½ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Beat the butter with the orange juice until the butter is very soft (they will not mix completely). Add the sugar until the desired consistency is reached. Spread on the cooled blondies.

“I asked Hanna myself,” he replied with a sniff. “She said the contract with the models says she has to provide the coffee break food in a suitable area and this is what suits her. She also said the models today probably do not know about Gerald Eliot’s death, and they most certainly will not care.”

“Nice folks,” commented Julian with a wry smile. “Shall we do the coffee, Chef André?”

On the far side of the dining room, Julian and André carefully poured steaming coffee into the gleaming silver urn. I inched up to the cordoned area and looked at the cabinets that I had shown to so many Homestead visitors during my docent days. The shelves of the undamaged display cases were chockfull of holsters, knives, and cowboy hats, as well as photographs of early cabins, camp stoves, and other utensils brought across in covered wagons. The cookbooks had occupied the top shelves of the two vandalized cabinets.

I leaned in close to the first cabinet and read the forlorn, skewed label showing the former placement of American Cookery. Hanna had put the exhibit together with great care, coupling the cookbooks with old letters that mentioned them or their use. A letter next to the empty spot for American Cookery was from a founding member of the German-American Foundation of Colorado, who rhapsodized about his great-grandmother using the book when she first came to Colorado. Dear Great-gran had struggled more with the language than she had with the recipes.

I moved several inches along the police ribbon and winced: The second cabinet had been dented in several places. I could imagine the police report: signs of a struggle. On the shelf was the label for The Practical Cook Book and a letter from Charlie Smythe, one of the earliest landowners in Aspen Meadow and grandfather to Leah Smythe and Weezie Smythe Harrington, my clients. Old, hapless Charlie had died in Leavenworth Prison. It was from Leavenworth that he had written to his wife, Winnie, and remorsefully recalled her “cookery book” and the bread she used to make in their cabin.

I smiled: Visitors had always relished hearing the tale of a thief who had robbed for the fun of it, although Smythe’s life had not ended nearly as romantically as it sounded. The label summed up Charlie Smythe’s beginnings as a signalman who’d come west after the Civil War, bought land, become bored with ranching and timbering in Aspen Meadow, and taken up thieving for amusement. He’d apparently robbed successfully until he’d reached his late sixties. Unfortunately, in his last outing, Charlie’s gun had discharged unexpectedly—at least he’d so maintained in court—and he’d killed a bank teller before the robbery had even gotten off the ground. He’d died of flu in prison in 1918, at the age of seventy.

I perused the shelves. It had been a long time since I’d worked as a docent, but it didn’t appear that any other familiar items were missing. If Sylvia Bevans was upset, then Andy Fuller’s investigators must be communicating badly with her. But my husband was not the one to be blamed for the museum’s woes. If Sylvia hadn’t heard that bit of news, I intended to enlighten her before we left the premises.

I inched to the end of the wall to get a glimpse into the high-ceilinged area that had served as the residence’s living room and now contained more Old West artifacts donated to the museum. On a buffalo-hide-covered wing chair next to the massive stone fireplace, a brightly lit, scarlet-suited, genuinely plump and white-bearded Santa sat staring glumly at the camera crew. Behind the camera, Ian Hood shifted his weight, readjusted the legs of the tripod, and appeared to be checking and rechecking what he was seeing through the lens. Nearby, Rufus, Leah, Hanna, and several other people, including children, fidgeted, whispered, and cast nervous glances in the direction of the tiny office housing the Furman County Historical Society. The strident voice of Sylvia Bevans pierced the air. She sounded very upset with one of her volunteers.

“I have been gone all morning,” Sylvia complained, “and these fashion people are still here?”

“I have to have quiet!” Ian Hood screamed as he stomped away from his tripod. “Qui-et!” he shrieked meaningfully in the direction of Sylvia’s voice. Julian and André, who had been whispering about the placement of cups and glasses, glanced up, startled. I shrugged.

Sylvia Bevans, her wide face flushed and her silky-haired bun askew, bustled out of the historical society office. When confronted with the hostile faces of the Ian’s Images crew, she hrumphed, turned on her heel, and banged back into her office. The door slammed.

The photo folks refocused their attention on the Yule-tide scene by the stone hearth.

“All right, try again,” Ian said wearily.

A large woman standing on the sidelines scooped up a toddler and placed her next to the fireplace. Santa beckoned to the girl, a pajama-clad, curly-haired brunette with rosy cheeks and an unsmiling bud of a mouth. “Come closer, honey,” Santa implored. The girl would not budge.

“Go see Santa, sweetheart!” the large woman pleaded. She was thirtyish, with the same brunette hair and pink cheeks as the child model. “Rosie, I know it’s summertime, but go tell Santa what you want!”

“I need a smile,” Ian warned from behind the camera. “Is that too much to ask?”

“Look at Mama, baby doll!” called Rosie’s mother. “Smile, honey!” Rosie glanced at her mother; the camera clicked on Rosie’s grim, unsmiling young countenance.

“Look at what I have!” called Leah Smythe, as she waved a Barney doll high in the air. Little Rosie gave the doll a poker-faced stare and made no response.

“Hey!” cried Hanna, “Look at this, Rosie!” Hanna, beautifully dressed, as usual, blew a perfect strand of iridescent soap bubbles across the room. A startled Rosie opened her eyes wide as Santa laughed. Again Ian Hood’s camera clicked and flashed, clicked and flashed.

“How’s André feeling?” murmured Rufus Driggle at my elbow.

“Fine,” I whispered back. “He just gets a little overwrought sometimes.”

Rufus shrugged. “Sorry if I worried you. Between him and that lady curator, we’ve got our hands full, I can tell you.” He stroked his scraggly red beard and gave me an unhappy look. “Anyway, we’ve got a guy bringing Ian’s lens to the cabin today, and another guy fixing the picture window. We’ll be able to get back in front of our own Christmas tree tomorrow.” He tilted his head to indicate the ribboned-off cabinets. “Looks like we aren’t the only ones who need help in the glass-replacement department.”

Yeah, they need a contractor, I thought, but said nothing. If Rufus did not know how the glass had been broken, I wasn’t about to enlighten him.

He whispered, “So what do you think of our set?”

I dutifully appraised the fireplace scene. The errant scrim had been set up over Santa’s head to reflect the light. Flats framed both sides of the tableau. A blond boy of about six had replaced Rosie. Perky and obedient, he wore a pair of reindeer-print pajamas as he sat uncomplainingly in Santa’s lap and offered wide, toothy smiles to Ian. Leah and Hanna frowned at the scene while Ian clicked furiously.

“Looks super,” I told Rufus.

“We’ll put flames in the fireplace on the computer, make the two fireplaces look as if they belong together.”

“Look as if what belong together?”

Rufus smiled, showing straight, yellow teeth. “The two fireplaces, of course.” He raised his voice to a lilt. “Both from the country home of the same wealthy, but not too ostentatious family, with their cute kids and their gorgeous clothes. Having their fantastic Christmas.”

“Ah.” I decided to plunge in. “Rufus, did you know Gerald Eliot?”

He shifted his eyes to the cold fireplace. “Yeah, we used to work together, I’m sorry to say.”

“When?”

“Oh, long time ago. Five years, maybe. We hadn’t been together six months when he went off on his own and I came to work for Ian.”

“And why are you sorry to say?”

He shifted his weight, suddenly uncomfortable. “You know he’s dead? The police came to question me.” I nodded. “Well, I felt bad for Gerald. He always sounded so good talking about his skill at carpentry and all that, and how much money we could make together. Then he’d complain about people not paying him, and about supplies not coming in, and pretty soon I realized he was only working three or four hours a day at the most, and the reason supplies hadn’t come in was because he was too lazy to go pick them up.”

“Why in the world did Leah hire him?”

Rufus frowned. “Oh, hell, I went to Phoenix to see about a job. Leah knew he worked here at the Homestead and happened to mention that she wanted some windows put in, although I think it was her brother Bobby who had the idea. Anyway, Gerald did his usual snow job and they hired him. Of course, it just turned into a big mess. Which I could have warned them about if they’d ever listen to me.” He sighed.

“Do you know why the police questioned you, if you hadn’t worked with him in so many years?”

Sylvia Bevans barreled out of her office before Rufus could reply. Short, cylindrical, and bristling with energy, she wore a calf-length pale-green dress, beige silk stockings that had seen better days, and beige shoes, ditto. We moved out of her way as she marched past us into the kitchen. Within a few seconds she was whining, and I heard the clinking of a cup and saucer.

Rufus sighed again. “He owed me money. I’d complained about it in town a few times. I still think Leah and Ian should have waited for me to come back from Phoenix to do the work, but it’s almost as if they hired Gerald out of spite.”

“Spite?” I asked as Ian clicked away at Santa, now working with a young Asian-American girl.

Dismay clouded Rufus’s face, as if he’d already told me more about his private life than he’d intended. “Ian’s been losing jobs to New York and Miami for the last decade. With sunny Phoenix so close, a big percentage of the department stores are moving their fashion shoots down there. At least, that’s what they tell us. Ian’s never been the easiest fellow to get along with. He hates change. Hates the fact that the elk are being driven out of Aspen Meadow by all the newcomers, new apartments, new houses, you name it. He’s been dropping hints about concentrating on the nature photography, and saving the elk so he can have more nature to photograph. So I went to Phoenix to look for a new job. I like Ian but hey, a fellow’s got to look after himself, doesn’t he?”

Leah eyed the two of us narrowly. Was she listening? Hard to tell. André accompanied Sylvia Bevans out of the museum kitchen. She grasped a plate that she piled with goodies from the table.

Rufus went on: “So in comes this macho guy, Gerald Eliot. First he screws up Leah’s job, then he says he has to do some consulting on wiring around the windows. Charges Merciful Migrations six hundred bucks delay time. They say they’ll pay him and they don’t. Maybe Leah finally paid him out of her pocket. But nothing happened because by that time he was getting it on with Rustine. He had to do something with his delay time, right? So Leah fired him, but I’m sure Hanna put her up to it, since she was always telling us what a crummy guard Gerald was at the museum, even though she didn’t work here anymore. You know, she still thinks of the place as hers.”

“What about Leah Smythe? How did she feel about Gerald?”

Rufus whispered, “Well, how would you feel? She had broken plaster and a century of dirt all over her cabin. Maybe she was personally out six hundred for the demolition and six hundred for the delay. Ian had to deal with a model who was pissed off because her boyfriend lost his job. But do we have a single window in the kitchen?”

Leah shot Rufus a dirty look. He closed his mouth.

I whispered, “Wow. Would you like some coffee, something to eat?” I motioned to the spread. “Or do we have to wait for Prince Ian to call the break?”

“Prince? Please. Emperor, at the very least. Czar, maybe. And no, thanks, I’ll wait.”

“Break!” called Ian Hood from the far room. Had he heard us? I hoped not.

The crowd all made a beeline for the coffee and snacks. I checked that Santa had his separate fruit bowl and scampered to the kitchen door. André and Julian were listening attentively to Sylvia, who was drinking a cup of coffee and gesturing with a roll.

“And of course,” she went on, “the murder investigation has been hampered by that incompetent at the sheriff’s department, Tom Schulz—”

“Ah, excuse me,” I interrupted as I stepped boldly into the kitchen. “Sylvia? What are you talking about?”

She turned slightly pink. I folded my arms and waited for a response. André thrust a tray of blondies into Julian’s hands and muttered an order to check the buffet. Julian, glad to be relieved of listening duty, obeyed. André, of course, was desperate to hear the story about Gerald Eliot’s murder from someone in the know. He clucked sympathetically to Sylvia, refilled her coffee cup, and motioned for me to sit in the chair vacated by Julian. This I did, wondering why André could manage to be courtly toward the curator of the Homestead, who was not a client, but couldn’t be bothered to be civil to the folks who were his clients.

“My husband is off the Gerald Eliot case,” I said to Sylvia once I had my own coffee cup in hand. I didn’t sound defensive, did I? Well, perhaps a tad.

“Off the Gerald Eliot case?” she huffed. “I thought he was just avoiding me. But his co-workers are accusing me of theft. Now they say I must have misplaced the last cookbooks, since I didn’t put them into the original report as missing, and the police are too incompetent to find them.”

“Did the police ask you about Cameron Burr?” I made room on the counter as Julian returned to the kitchen with an armload of dirty dishes, slid them into the sink, and started running hot water. “Do you know how Cameron’s doing?”

Sylvia needed no prompting. She shuddered and clinked her milky cup of coffee into the saucer. “Yes, of course they asked me about Cameron, and no, I don’t know how he’s doing. But the most important thing,” she announced, “was that the police know about Gerald. That he was a terrible guard. One time I came in early and found him here with a woman, for goodness sake! The police asked me what her name was! What? Did they think I came in and asked, ‘Whore? What is your Christian name?’” She sipped her coffee, lofted a pinky, and took a tiny bite of blondie. “I should have fired Gerald Eliot right then, but I didn’t have anybody else to hire, and Cameron Burr said Eliot needed the money.” She sighed gustily, delighted to have an audience for her tale of woe. “Would you like to see exactly where Gerald and his killer had their fight?” she asked with a trace of … what? Naughtiness? … in her voice. I nodded, and André eagerly replied that he would, too. Sylvia downed the last of her coffee and bustled out to the dining room, scooping up another blondie as she departed. Julian ignored us and kept washing dishes. I walked behind André and tried to look inconspicuous.

Except for Hanna, the Ian’s Images people were laughing, eating, and talking happily. Hanna was staring at the police ribbons and shaking her head.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t have eaten in here,” Hanna said morosely.

Sylvia cleared her throat. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have come, Hanna, dear. You should just go back to your little department store job.”

Hanna shot us an enraged glare, then stalked across the room to have a whispered conference with Leah.

“The police say Gerald and Cameron struggled right next to the cabinets. The glass broke, then Cameron strangled him,” Sylvia said in a low, confidential tone to André. She pointed. “Here is where our historic cookbooks were displayed.”

André drew his mouth into a pucker. “Very sad.” He peered in at the shelves. “What are these letters, then?”

“We put all artifacts that were related to the cookbooks in the exhibit. Cameron and Barbara Burr donated the Watkins Cookbook and The White House Cookbook. The Practical Cook Book was donated by Leah Smythe and Weezie Smythe Harrington.” She lifted an eyebrow in Leah’s direction. “American Cookery was donated by the German-American Foundation of Colorado. As you can see, Eliot’s murderer didn’t see fit to steal our letters, only our books.”

Suddenly, André gasped. He tried to inhale and reluctantly clutched his chest.

“Oh, dammit! What is it?” I cried as André wheezed. He staggered and I grabbed him. “Julian! Help me!”

“I am fine, I am fine!” André said over Sylvia Bevans’s squawking that someone needed to call an ambulance again. He recovered his composure and checked the alignment of buttons on his chefs jacket. “I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“By what?” I demanded.

His eyes had regained their mischievous look; he giggled.

“Goldy?” Julian’s worried voice was at my shoulder. “Want me to call nine-one-one on the cell?”

“Goldy! Stop fussing!” André said gaily as he trundled toward the kitchen with Sylvia walking importantly beside him, steadying him by the elbow. “If you want to help, pick up dirty dishes.” As if to demonstrate he was just fine, he began an a cappella rendition of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”

“I can’t believe you worked for that guy for a whole year,” Julian muttered in my ear. “I mean, you never know where he’s coming from. He nearly keels over, then he’s fine. Now he’s humming Christmas carols in August, for crying out loud. I want to finish the dishes and leave.”

I wanted to leave, too. Just clean up and then you can clear out, my inner voice commanded. I picked up dirty cups from an end table, then started toward the buffet. With the sudden disconcerting feeling that I was being watched, I stopped.

The models, their minions, the hair and makeup people, all had ambled back to the living room. But Ian Hood, Leah Smythe, Hanna Klapper, and Rufus Driggle stood at the entryway to the dining room. Hanna glared at the area where André had had his second miniattack, then shifted her reproachful eyes to me. Rufus moved from foot to foot, as if he, like me, wanted to clear out. Leah and Ian conferred, then shook their heads, as if I’d said something incredibly stupid. Confused, I felt suddenly embarrassed to be clutching a nest of empty cups.

“Goldy!” Hanna exclaimed. The authoritarian tone of the former director of docente still had the power to freeze my spine. “What just happened?”

“André just wanted to see the crime scene,” I commented lightly as I rebalanced the cups. “He’s fine! Don’t worry.”

Not one of them said a word.

Chapter 10

Finally Leah blinked, as if she were coming out of a reverie. She raked her streaked, shaggy hair with her fingers. “Well, fine. We’re done for today. Please tell Sylvia I’ll see her on Tuesday. And you and André too, I guess.”

I nodded. Hanna closed her eyes rather than look at the violated cabinets, somehow managing to convey her conviction that neither the burglary nor the murder would ever have happened if she’d still been in charge at the museum. Ian gruffly ordered Rufus to start packing up the lights and the set. I hustled my tray to the kitchen and asked André how he was feeling. He again assured me he was fine. As if to prove it, he delicately placed plates into the tublike porcelain sink that Julian had filled with soapy water. Sylvia, once so desirous of our company and our coffee, now did her best to shoo us off.