The Cereal Murders

The Cereal Murders Diane Mott Davidson

October College Advisory Dinner for Seniors and Parents Headmaster’s House Elk Park Preparatory School Elk Park, Colorado SKEWERED SHRIMP LEEK AND ONION TARTLETS SALAD OF OAK LEAF LETTUCE AND RADICCHIO WITH RASPBERRY VINAIGRETTE ROAST BEEF AU JUS YORKSHIRE PUDDING PUREE OF ACORN SQUASH STEAMED BROCCOLI EARLY DECISION DUMPLINGS IVY LEAGUE ICE CREAM PIE

1

“I’d kill to get into Stanford.” A you’ve-got-to-be-kidding laugh snorted across one of the dining tables at the headmaster’s house. “Start playing football,” whispered another voice. “Then they’ll kill to get you.”

At the moment of that sage advice, I was desperately balancing a platter of Early Decision Dumplings and Ivy League Ice Cream Pies, praying silently that the whole thing didn’t land on the royal blue Aubusson carpet. My job catering the first college advisory dinner for Colorado’s most famous prep school was almost over. It had been a long evening, and the only thing I would have killed to get into was a bathtub.

“Shut up, you guys!” came the voice of another student. “The only kid who’s going to Stanford is Saint Andrews. They’d kill to get him.”

Saint . .~.? Using the school’s silver cutter, I scooped out the, last three slices of pie. Thick layers of peppermint ice cream cascaded into dark puddles of fudge sauce. I scooted up to the last group of elegantly dressed teenagers.

Ultra-athletic Greer Dawson, who wore a forest-green watered-silk suit, moved primly in her ladder-back chair to get a better view of the head table, Greer, the school’s volleyball star, was an occasional helper with my business: Goldilocks’ Catering: Where Everything Is Just Right! Apparently Greer thought listing power serve and power lunch on her Princeton application would make her appear diversified. But she was not serving tonight. Tonight, Greer and the other seniors were concentrating on looking spiffy and acting unruffled as they heard about upcoming tests and college reps visiting the school. I needed to be careful with her slice of pie. Watered silk was one thing; ice-creamed, another. With my left hand J lowered plates to two boys before I balanced the tray on my hip and gingerly placed the last dessert in front of Greer.

“I’m in training, Goldy,” she announced without looking at me, and pushed the plate away.

The headmaster stood, leaned into the microphone, and cleared his throat. A gargling noise echoed like thunder. The bubbling chatter flattened. For a moment the only sound was the wind spitting pellets of snow against the rows of century-old wavy-glassed windows.

I zipped back out to the kitchen. Fatigue racked my bones. The dinner had been hellish. Not only that, but we were just starting the speeches. I looked at my watch: 8:30. Along with two helpers, I had been setting up and serving at the headmaster’s house since four o’clock, Cocktails had begun at six. Holding crystal glasses of Chardonnay and skewers of plump shrimp, the parents had talked in brave tones about Tyler being a shoe-in at Amherst (Granddad was an alum), and Kimberly going to Michigan (with those AP scores, what did you expect?). Most of the parents had ignored me, but one mother, anorexically thin Rhoda Marensky, had chosen to confide.

“You know, Goldy,” she said, stooping from her height with a rustle of her fur-trimmed taffeta dress, “our Brad has his heart set on Columbia.”

Greeted with my unimpressed look and decimated platter of shrimp, Rhoda’s towering husband, Stan Marensky, elabortaed: “Columbia’s in New York.”

I said, “No kidding! I thought it was in South America.

Refilling the appetizer platter a little later, I berated myself to act more charming. Five years ago, Stan Marensky’s fast-paced, long-legged stalk along the sidelines, as well as his bloodcurdling screams, had been the hallmark of the Aspen Meadow Junior Soccer League. Stan had intimidated referees, opponents, and his team, the Marensky Maulers, of which my son, Arch, had been a hapless member for one miserable spring.

I walked back out to the dining room with more skewers of shrimp. I avoided the Marenskys. After the painful soccer season, Arch had decided to drop tear sports. I didn’t blame him. Now twelve, my son had quickly replaced athletics with passions for fantasy-roll playing games, magic, and learning French. I’d tripped over more dungeon figures, trick handcuffs, and miniature Eiffel Towers than I cared to remember. These days however, Arch had dual obsessions with astronomic maps and the fiction of C. S. Lewis. I figured as long as I grew up to write intergalactic travel novels, he’d be okay. With my career as the mother of an athlete over, I had heard only through the town grapevine that the shrill voiced Stan Marensky had moved on to coaching junior basketball. Maybe he liked the way his threats reverberated off the gym walls.

I didn’t see the Marenskys for the rest of the dinner. I didn’t even think of Arch again until I was fixing the desserts and happened to glance out the kitchen windows. My heart sank. What had started that afternoon as an innocent-looking flurry had developed into the first full-blown snowstorm of the season. This promised icy roads and delays getting back to Aspen Meadow, where my son, at his insistence, was at home without a sitter. Arch had said it would make him happy if I didn’t worry about him any more than he worried about me. So the only things I actually needed to be concerned about were finishing up with the preppies and their parents, then coaxing my snowtireless van around seven lethal miles of curved mountain road.

The last two rows of Early Decision Dumplings beckoned; These were actually chômeurs – rich biscuit dough-drops that had puffed in a hot butter and brown sugar syrup. I had added oats at the behest of the headmaster, who insisted even the desserts have something healthful about them or there would be criticism. The parents would use any excuse to complain, he told me regretfully. I ladled each dumpling along with a thick ribbon of steaming caramelized sauce into small bowls, then poured cold whipping cream over each. I handed the tray to Audrey Coopersmith, my paid helper this evening. Audrey was a recently divorced mother who had a daughter in the senior class. Gripping her platter of china bowls chattering against their saucers, she gave me a wan smile beneath her tightly curled Annette Funicello-style hairdo. Audrey wouldn’t dream of complaining about the healthfulness of the chômeurs; she spent every spare breath complaining about her ex-husband.

“I just have so much anxiety, Goldy, I can’t stand This is such an important night for Heather. And of course Carl couldn’t be bothered to come.”

“Everything’s going to be fine,” I soothed, “except that whipping cream might curdle if it doesn’t get served soon.”

She made a whimpering noise, turned on her heel, and sidled out to the living room with her tray.

The chômeurs had steamed up the kitchen windows. I rubbed a pane of glass with my palm to check on the storm. Brown eyes like pennies, then my slightly freckled thirty-one-year-old face came into view, along with blond curly hair that had gone predictably haywire in the kitchen’s humidity. Did I look like someone who didn’t know Columbia was in New York? Well, those folks weren’t the only ones with high SAT scores. I’d gone to prep school, I’d even spent a year at a Seven Sisters college. Not that it had done me any good, but that was another story.

Outside the headmaster’s house, a stone mansion that had been erected by a Colorado silver baron in the 1880s, lamps dotting a walk illuminated waves of falling snow. The snowbound setting was idyllic, and gave no indication of Elk Park’s tumultuous history. After the silver veins gave out, the property had been sold to a Swiss hotelier who had built the nearby Elk Park Hotel. A day’s carriage ride from Denver, the hotel had been a posh retreat for wealthy Denverites until interstate highway and roadside motels rendered it obsolete. In the fifties the hotel had been remodeled into the Elk Park Preparatory School. The school had been through erratic financial times until recently, when Headmaster Alfred Perkins’ elimination of the boarding department, all-out PR campaign, and successful courtship of wealthy benefactors had put “the Andover of the West” (as Perkins liked to call it) on secure footing. Of course, one of the benefits of being a fund-raising whiz had been the current headmaster’s decade-long residency in the silver baron’s mansion.

The wind swept sudden, white torrents between the pine trees near the house. During the college advisory dinner we’d gotten at least another four inches. Late October in the Colorado high country often brought these heavy snowfalls, much to the delight of early-season skiers. Early snow, like a winning season for the Broncos, also helped yours truly. Wealthy skiers and football fans needed large-scale catered events to fuel them on the slopes or in front of their wide-screen TV s.

The coffeepots on the counters gurgled and hissed. Headmaster Perkins had given me a dire warning about the old house: any sudden electrical drain would bring the wrath of blown fuses down on us all. For safety, I had brought six drip pots instead of two large ones, then had spent forty minutes before the cocktail hour snaking extension cords around the kitchen and down the halls to various outlets. The parents had found the old house – with its Oriental rugs, antique furnishings, and higgledy-piggledy remodeling – charming. Clearly they had never had to prepare a meal for eighty in its kitchen.

After the cord caper, my next problem was finding room for salad plates and platters of roast beef as they teetered, askew, on buckled linoleum counters. But the real challenge had come in making Yorkshire puddings in ovens with no thermostats and no windows through which to check the dishes’ progress. When the puddings emerged moistly browned and puffed, I knew the true meaning of the word miracle.

From the dining room came the ponderous throat-clearing again. I nipped around the corner with the last row of dumplings as the headmaster began to speak.

“Now, as we prepare these youngsters to set forth into the fecund wilderness of university life, where survival depends on the ability to discover dandelions as well as gold.

Spare me. Headmaster Perkins, who wore tweeds no matter what the weather, was smitten with the extended metaphor. I knew. I had already had to listen to a slew of them at parent orientation. Arch’s sixth-grade year in public school had started badly and ended worse. But he had survived Elk Park Prep’s summer school to become a new student in the school’s seventh grade. To my great delight, a judge had ordered my wealthy ex-husband to pay the tuition. But as Audrey Coopersmith would soon discover and add to her list of complaints, like most single mothers, I was the one duty-bound to attend parent meetings. Already I had heard about “our trajectory toward the stars” and “harvesting our efforts” whenever things went well, or when they didn’t, “This is a drought.”

Now Headmaster Perkins intoned, “And in this wilderness, you will all feel as if you are navigating through asteroid fields,” and held a pretend telescope up to his eye. I sighed. Galileo meets Euell Gibbons.

I finished serving the desserts, returned to the kitchen and with Egon Schlichtmaier, one of my faculty helpers, poured the first eight cups of regular coffee into black and gold china cups. German-born and bred, olive-skinned Egon possessed a boyishly handsome face and a muscular physique that threatened to burst out of his clothes. The school newsletter had stated that the newly hired Herr Schlichtmaier was also highly educated, having just finished his doctoral dissertation, “Form, Folly, and Furor in Faust.” How that was going to help him teach American history to high school seniors was beyond me, but never mind. I told the muscle-bound Herr Doktor that cream, sugar, and artificial sweetener were on the tables, and he whisked out with his tray held high like a barbell. Without missing a beat I poured eight cups of decaffeinated coffee into white and gold china cups. I hoisted my tray and marched back out to the dining room in time to hear the headmaster direct his audience to “… galaxies in a universe of opportunities.”

I came up to the table where my other usual paid helper, Julian Teller, sat looking terribly uncomfortable. Julian, who was a senior at Elk Park Prep, was a vegetarian health-food enthusiast. He was also a distance swimmer, and sported the blond whipsawed haircut to match. Living with Arch and me the past four months, Julian earned his rent by cooking and serving for my business. Julian was, like Greer Dawson, exempt from service tonight because of the importance of the meeting. I had tried to sneak supportive smiles to him during the dinner. Each time, though, Julian had been involved in what looked like agonizing one-way conversations. Just as I was about to ask him if he wanted coffee, he extricated himself from the woman who had been chatting to him and half stood.

“Did you change your mind? Do you need help?”

I shook my head. It was nice to hear his concern, though. Faced with platters of roast beef, Julian hadn’t had much to eat. I had offered to bring some tofu bourguignon that he had left in the refrigerator the night before, but he had refused.

Julian sat back down and shifted his compact body around in the double-breasted gray suit he had bought from Aspen Meadow’s secondhand store. While helping me pack up for the dinner, he had recited the ranking of the thirty seniors in the class. Most small schools didn’t rank, he assured me, but most schools were not Elk Park Prep. They all laughed about it, he said, but the seniors still had one another’s academic statistics memorized. Julian was second in his class. But even as salutatorian, he would need bucks in addition to smarts to get a bachelor’s degree, as the threadbare suit made plain enough.

“Thanks for offering,” I whispered back. “The other pots are almost ready and – “

Loud hrr-hrrs rattled from the throats of two irritated parents.

“Do you have regular coffee?” demanded Rhoda Marensky, shaking her head of uniformly chestnut hair dyed to conceal the gray. She still hadn’t forgiven me for the Columbia comment.

I nodded and plunked a black and gold cup down by her spoon. I dislike giving caffeine to people who are already irritable.

Julian raised one eyebrow at me. I worried instinctively about how his close-clipped haircut would fare, or rather how quickly the scalp underneath would freeze, in the blizzard raging outside.

“Are you serving that coffee or are you just thinking about serving it?” The harsh whisper came from Caroline Dawson, Greer Dawson’s mother. Fifty-five years old and pear-shaped, Caroline wore a burgundy watered-silk suit in the same style as her daughter’s. While the style favored athletic Greer, it didn’t look to advantage on Caroline. When she spoke sharply to me, her husband gave me a meek, sympathetic smile. Don’t worry, I have to live with her. I placed a white cup at Caroline’s side with the reluctant realization that all too soon I would be catering to this same group of people again. Maybe the decaf would mellow her out a little.

“Students moving from high school to college are like – ” The headmaster paused. We waited. I stood holding the tray’s last coffee cup suspended in mid-descent to the table. ” – sea bass… swimming from the bay into the ocean … .”

Uh-oh, I thought as I put the cup down and raced back to the kitchen to pour the rest of the coffees. Here we go with the fish jokes.

“In fact” boomed the headmaster with a self-deprecating chuckle into the microphone that came out as an electronic burp, “that’s why they’re called schools. right?”

Nobody laughed. I pressed my lips together. Get used to it. Two more college advisory dinners plus six years until Arch’s graduation. A mountain of metaphors. A sea of similes. A boxful of earplugs.

When I came back out to the dining room, Julian was looking more uncomfortable than ever. Headmaster Perkins had moved into the distasteful topic of financial aid. Distasteful for the rich folks, because they knew if you made over seventy thou, you didn’t have a prayer of getting help. The headmaster had squarely told me before the dinner that such talk was as much fun as scheduling an ACLU fund-raiser at the Republican convention. Tonight the only adult not wincing at the word need was the senior college advisor herself. Miss Suzanne Ferrell was a petite, enthusiastic teacher who was also advisor to the French Club and a new acquaintance of Arch’s. I checked Julian’s face. Lines of anxiety pinched at the sides of his eyes. At Elk Park Prep he was on a scholarship that had been set up on his behalf. But the free ride ended after this year, salutatorian or no.

“And of course,” Perkins droned on, “the money doesn’t rain down the way it does in the Amazon… ” er – “

Caught in mid-simile, he attempted a mental swerve.

“Er, not that it rains on the Amazon…”

Oh, for the right meteorological metaphor!

“I mean, not that it rains money in the Amaz – “

Greer Dawson snickered. At the same table, a senior in a beige linen suit began to giggle.

The headmaster made his horrible phlegmy noise. “Actually, in the Amazon – “

Miss Ferrell stood up. Lost in a forest of images, the headmaster shot the college advisor a beseeching look as she approached the microphone.

“Thank you, Alfred, that was inspiring. Seniors already know they will be meeting with me this week to discuss application essays and deadlines.” Suzanne Ferrell looked down at the anxious young faces with a tiny smile.“We will also be setting up meetings to go over our lists.”

There was a groan. The list was what colleges the school – in the person of Miss Ferrell – would say suited “your child. Elk Park Prep called it finding a fit between a student and a college. But Julian said if you wanted to go somewhere that the school didn’t feel you fit, you weren’t going to get a recommendation, even if you donated the Harriet Beecher Stowe Underground Wing to the library.

“One more announcement, and it concerns our last speaker .” She beamed at the audience. “Our valedictorian, Keith Andrews, has just been named a National Merit, Scholar.” Miss Ferrell began the clapping. The valedictorian, a skinny fellow, got to his feet. Saint Andrews, I thought. He did look somewhat saintly, but perhaps that aura would attach to anyone who was first in the class. Keith had a head that was too small for his body, and his bowl-cut, blond-brown hair, unlike the sprouted-looking things that most of his classmates wore, shone like a halo in the light from the brass wall sconces. Nor did Keith Andrews favor the fashionable clothes of most of his peers. He was wearing a loose, glimmery suit straight out of Lawrence Welk.

Keith extended a bony wrist as he approached the microphone. A number of the parents stiffened up. They had come to see their children shine, not some National Merit nerd, buttoned inside polyester.

“What is an educated person?” Keith began in a voice that was surprisingly deep for such a slight, angular fellow. I had a sudden flash: With his awkwardness, downcast eyes, and lack of athletic presence, Keith Andrews reminded me of Arch. Was this what my son would look like in six years?

There was another squeak of laughter from one of the seniors’ tables. Standing beside Keith Andrews, Miss Ferrell gave the group a slit-eyed look. Whispers from the parents filled the close air.

“Our word education comes from the Latin ducere, to lead, and e-, out,” Keith pronounced, undistracted. “The point of education is to be led out, not to get high test scores, although we could do better in that area,” he said with a grin. More snickers erupted” as well as groans from the head table. Even I knew what this was about: a recent Denver Post article had compared Elk Park Prep SAT scores with scores from area public high schools. The prep school’s scores were lower than their public counterparts’, much to the distress of Headmaster Perkins.

Keith went on. “Is education attainable only at big-name schools? Or is our pursuit of those institutions just a function of ego?” Parents and students turned to one another with raised eyebrows. This was clearly dangerous territory. “As for me, becoming educated means I’m learning to focus on the process instead of the outcome…” And on he droned as I headed back to the kitchen with empty dessert plates so I could start organizing the dirty dishes to cart home. Predictably, the antiquated kitchen at the headmaster’s house boasted no dishwasher.

When I returned with coffeepots for refills, Keith was winding up with “… always asking ourselves, is this integrity or hypocrisy? Is this a ticket for a job or an education for a lifetime? Let’s hope for the latter. Thank you.”

Flushed with either embarrassment or pleasure, Keith left the microphone amid a smattering of unenthusiastic applause. Faint praise, if you asked me, but maybe that was because he’d come off less as a valedictorian than a political candidate.

“Well, we’ll be seeing you all later …” Miss Ferrell was saying. “And seniors, please don’t forget to check the schedule for college reps visiting this week. . , .”

My helpers were scooping up coffee cups, saucers, dessert plates, and forks. With my second tray I walked back to the kitchen. In the outer rooms the noise of people bustling about searching for coats and boots rose to a small din.

Then, suddenly, there was total blackness.

“What the – ” No way had I blown those fuses. I had just turned off all the coffeepots.

Screams and shuffling filled the sudden darkness. After I stumbled into a cabinet and nearly dropped my tray, my eyes adjusted to the shadows. Neither the oven nor any other appliance, including the refrigerator, had stayed on. I could barely see my tray, and could not see the floor at all. I was afraid to take a step in any direction.

A loud female voice cried, “Well, I guess that’s the last time the headmaster invites us!” There was more shuffling, the scraping of chairs, and shrieks of laughter. Frigid air gusted from a door or window that had been opened.

“Wait, wait, we’ll shed some light on this situation in a moment…” urged a man’s voice that sounded like the headmaster’s. There was a shuffle, a bump, and what sounded like an exceedingly creative curse, then a flashlight glimmered near me. The person holding it clomped across the linoleum and down the wooden stairs to the basement. Out in the dining and living rooms the talking, laughing voices rose in volume, as if cacophony could fight back the terror of unexpected darkness. After several moments the lights flickered. Then they came back on. There were more shouts of laughter, and exclamations of relief from the outer room.

I looked around for my helpers. Together, Egon Schlichtmaier, Audrey, and I quickly schlepped the rest of the dishes out to the kitchen and clattered stacks into cardboard boxes. I thanked them and told them both to go home; the roads would be terrible. I could load the cartons into the van myself. From the entryway with its huge carved wooden doors came the high-cheer sounds of people calling their final good-byes as they donned their minks and cashmere coats. After my helpers departed, Julian made a sudden appearance next to one of the buckled counters.

“Hey, let me help you with that,’: he said, heaving up a box holding roasting pans. “What a drag! All night I had to listen to the kid on one side of me talk about how his folks had spent a thousand bucks on a prep course for the SATs, and did I know an antonym for complaisant? Then on the other side was this girl who told me that all the women in her family had gone to Smith since the beginning of time. Finally I said, ‘I swear, those women must be old.’ But before she could get pissed off, the lights went out.” Julian looked around at the boxes scattered everywhere in the old kitchen. “You want me to close those up?”

“I’d Iove it.”

Julian folded in the flaps of the boxes containing coffee cups. When the crowd had dispersed, I trundled the first box of silverware out to the dimly lit entryway. There was no sign of the headmaster. Maybe Perkins was already off dreaming of a metaphorical Milky Way. With a groan I shoved open the massive front door. Sharp cold bit through my caterer’s uniform, and I scolded myself for leaving my jacket in the van. At least the snow had stopped. I was determined to get home as quickly as possible. After all, I still had six boxes of dishes to wash.

Luminous scarves of cloud floated across the inky sky. The moon lifted from behind a shred of silver moisture, illuminating silhouettes of mountains to the west. The bright, frosty landscape rolled away from the headmaster’s house like a rumpled fluorescent sheet. Puddles of shadow from the guests’ footprints formed stepping-stones out to the van. At one point I skidded forward into a shelf of snow and the heavy box slid from my hands. It landed with a loud metallic chink. Cursing, I decided to take my first rest of the evening. I inhaled deep icy breaths, sighed out steam, and looked around. Snow clung to the branches of the stand of pine trees next to the house. The little grove looked like an ice castle inside a Faberge egg. At the end of the grove, someone had overturned a sled and left it abandoned in the snow. Gritting my teeth, I tried to worm my hands underneath the box to get some leverage. I took a deep breath, heaved the box up with iced fingers, and headed for the van.

It was slow going. Lumps of snow fell into the sides of my shoes; pinpricks of ice melted into my ankles. Approaching the parking lot, I could see my van wore a trapezoidal hat of snow. It would probably take me fifteen minutes to warm up the engine. I lugged the carton to the van door, slid it open, and heaved it inside. The moon dipped behind a cloud. The sudden darkness sent a shiver down my back. II opened the driver-side door, turned on the engine, then flipped on the headlights. They shone on the evergreens frosted with new snow. Next to the overturned sled, half-buried in a hollow, lay a coat. I groaned. One of the unwelcome punishments that comes from catering big dinners is that you end up being the guardian of a bewildering cache of lost-and-found objects.

By the pale glow of the van headlights I trudged through snow and by trees to where the sled was, up-ended. Skidding down the slight incline, I leaned toward the edge of the coat. It was dusted with snow; perhaps it had been dragged or dropped. I brushed some of the icy powder off. Something was wrong. The coat did not respond to my attempt to pick it up. It was too heavy. My near-frozen hands moved rapidly to find edges of cloth.

I could hear my breath rasping in the cold. The night air was frigid. I turned the heavy, hard thing over just as moonlight blazed out again.

It was not a coat. It was the valedictorian, Keith Andrews. Blood from the back of his head darkened the snow. Instinctively, I felt for a pulse. There was none.

2

“Oh, no. Please.” I shook Keith’s shoulders. The boy didn’t move. I couldn’t touch his head. His slick hair lay in a dark puddle of blood and snow. The moon lit his frozen grimace. The open mouthed expression was ghastly, contorted with the fear of death. My fingers caught on an icy cord that had been wrapped around his torso and attached to the sled.

I pulled away. My voice made high, unhuman sounds. The deep snow disintegrated like quicksand as I clambered backward. I raced to the headmaster’s house, careened across the slate floor of the empty entryway, and dialed 911.

The operator impassively took my name and asked for the fire number, a standard localization procedure in the mountainous section of Furman County. Of course I didn’t know it, so I screeched for somebody, anybody, in the house. Julian appeared from the kitchen. A bewildered-looking Headmaster Perkins came tripping down the stairs from the living quarters. Behind him was a lanky, acne-scarred teenager who looked vaguely familiar the one who had made the Stanford comment. The headmaster’s tweeds were disheveled, as if he had begun to get undressed but had abruptly changed his mind. He couldn’t remember the fire number, turned to the tall boy, who crinkled his nose and mumbled off six digits. Perkins then trotted off quickly in the direction of the kitchen, where, apparently, he believed I had started a fire.

The voice on the other end of the phone patiently asked me to repeat what had happened, what was going on. He wanted to know who else was around. I told him, then asked the tall teenager his name.

“Oh,” said the boy. He was muscular in addition to possessing great height, but his acne made him painfully repulsive. His voice faltered. “Oh, uh, don’t you know me? I’m Macguire. Macguire … Perkins. Headmaster Perkins is my father. I live here with him. And I, you know, go to the school.”

I told this to the operator, who demanded to know I how I knew the boy in the snow was dead.

“Because there was blood, and he was cold, and he … didn’t move. Should we try to bring him in from outside? He’s lying in the snow – “

The operator said no, to send somebody out, to check for a pulse again. Not you, he said. You stay on the phone. Find out if anybody in the house knows CPR. I asked Julian and Macguire: Know CPR? They looked blank. Does the headmaster? Macguire loped off to the kitchen to ask, then returned momentarily, shaking his head. I told them please, go out and check on Keith Andrews, lying still and apparently dead in the small ditch in the pine grove.

Stunned, Julian backed away. The color drained from his face; bruiselike shadows appeared under his eyes. Macguire sucked in his cheeks and his ungainly shoulders went slack. For a moment I thought he was going to faint. Go, go quickly, I told them.

When they had reluctantly obeyed, the operator had me go through the whole thing again. Who was I? Why was I there? Did I have any idea how this could have happened? I knew he had to keep me on the phone as long as possible, that was his job. But it was agony. Julian and Macguire returned, Macguire slack-jawed with shock, Julian even paler. About Keith… Julian closed his eyes, then shook his head. I told the operator: No pulse. Keep everybody away from the body, he ordered. Teams from the fire department and the Furman County Sheriff’s Department were on their way. They should be at the school in twenty minutes.

“I’ll meet them. Oh, and please, would you,” I added, my voice raw with shock and confusion, “call Investigator Tom Schulz and ask him to come?”

Tom Schulz was a close friend. He was also a homicide investigator at the Sheriff’s Department, as Julian and I knew only too well. The operator promised he would try Schulz’s page, then disconnected.

I began to tremble. I heard Macguire ask if I had a coat somewhere, could he get it for me? I squinted up at him, unable to formulate an answer to his question. Was I okay? Julian asked. I struggled to focus on his faraway voice, on his anguished eyes, his pallid face, and bleached, wet hair stuck up in conical spikes. Julian rubbed his hands on his rumpled white shirt and tried to straighten his plaid bow tie, which had gone askew. “Goldy, are you okay?” he repeated.

“I need to call Arch and tell him we’re all right, that we’ll be late.”

The area between Julian’s eyebrows pleated in alarm. “Want me to do it? I can use the phone in the kitchen.”

“Sure. Please. I don’t trust myself to talk to him just now. If he hears my voice, it’ll worry him.”

Julian darted toward the kitchen with Macguire Perkins striding uneasily after him, like a gargantuan shadow. I was shivering uncontrollably. Belatedly, I realized I should have told Macguire my jacket was in the van. Moving like an automaton toward the front hallway closet to look for a blanket, shawl, jacket, something, I could hear Julian’s voice on one of the phone extensions. I pulled a huge raccoon coat off a protruding hanger. I had an absurdly incongruous thought: Wear this thing on the streets of Denver and you’d get spray-painted by anti-fur activists. As I was putting the heavy coat on, one of my coffeepots tumbled out of the dark recesses of the closet, spilling cold brown liquid and wet grounds on the stone floor. What was it doing in there? I couldn’t think. I was shaking. Get a grip. I kicked at the hanging coats to make sure no other surprises lurked in the closet comers. Then I walked down the hall, looking into each of the large, irregularly shaped rooms with their heavy gold and green brocade draperies, dark wood furniture, and lush Oriental rugs, to see if there was anybody else around.

The voices of Julian, Macguire, and the headmaster warbled uncertainly out of the kitchen. Then the headmaster cried, “Keith Andrews? Dead? Are you sure? Oh, nor I heard footsteps moving rapidly up the kitchen staircase. I stood staring into the living room, where the recent exodus of guests had left the tables and chairs helter-skelter.

“What are you doing in here? Jeez, Goldy.” Julian leaned in toward my face. “You look even worse than you did five minutes ago.”

There was a buzzing in my ears.

“Did you get through to Arch?” I wanted to know.

Julian nodded. “And?”

“He’s fine… . There was a problem with the security system a little while ago.”

“Excuse me?”

“Somebody threw a rock through one of the upstairs windows. It hit one of the sensor wires, I guess. The system went off. Once Arch found the rock, he interrupted the automatic dial.”

I tried to breathe. There was stinging behind my eyes. I had to get home. I said, “Can you find something to put on? We need to go outside… to be there when they arrive.”

He withdrew without a word. I went into the bathroom and stared at my face in the tiny mirror.

I was not a stranger to death. The previous spring I had seen a friend die in a car accident that had been no accident. I began to wash my hands vigorously. Nor was I a stranger to violence. I tested my thumb, the one my ex-husband, Dr. John Richard Korman, had broken in three places before we were divorced. Trying to bend it, I winced. The warm water stung my hands like needles.

In the mirror, my skin looked gray, my lips pale as dust. A problem with the security system. I shook droplets off my hands. My right shoulder ached suddenly. In the middle of an argument, John Richard had pushed me onto the open lower shelf of the dishwasher. A butcher knife had cut deeply into the area behind that shoulder, and I had paid for my protest over his extramarital flings with twenty stitches, weeks of pain, and a permanent scar.

Now death, violence, brought it all close again. I looked down at my trembling hands. They had touched the cold, stiff cord wrapped around Keith Andrews’ body. The water ran and splashed over my fingers, but it could not wash out the slimy feel of the wire. I thought of Keith Andrews’ angelic expression. Saint Andrews. I had stared into his lifeless face… how like Arch he had looked, thin and pale and vulnerable… . What had Keith said? [‘m learning to focus on the process rather than the outcome. Not anymore.

There was a knock at the door: Julian. Was I okay? I said yes, then splashed water on my eyes, picked up an embroidered guest towel, and rubbed the flimsy thing against my hands and cheeks until they shone red.

When I came out, Macguire called down that he and his father would be outside in a minute. I wrapped the raccoon monstrosity around my body. Together Julian and I trudged back through the deep snow to wait in silence next to one of the outdoor carriage lanterns, a respectful ten feet away from the corpse of Keith Andrews.

Tom Schulz was the first to arrive from the Furman County Sheriff’s Department. When his dark Chrysler chopped through the snowy parking lot, his headlights sent a wave of light bouncing through the cluster of pines next to the old house. There was another car directly behind his; the two vehicles stopped abruptly, spraying snow. The Chrysler’s door creaked open and Tom Schulz heaved his large body out. Coatless, he slammed the door and crunched across the frozen yard. Finally.

Two men got out of the second car; one joined Schulz. The other man came over to Julian and me. He introduced himself as part of the investigative team.

“We need to know about footprints,” he said. He looked down at my shoes. “Were you the only one to go out to the victim?”

I told him two other people had been out there. He shook his head grimly and asked which way we had gone through the snow. I showed him. He turned and pointed out a large arc around our path for the other men to take.

Schulz and the man I assumed was a paramedic approached the body. They bent over it, murmured back and forth, then Schulz walked raggedly back and reached for the cellular phone. His voice crackled through the cold air, although I couldn’t make out any of the words. The other men stationed themselves near the corpse, sentrylike, ignoring us. Julian and I stood, mute and miserable, our arms clasping our bodies against the deep cold.

Schulz walked over. He stopped and pulled me in for a mountain-man hug. He murmured, “You all right?” When I nodded into his shoulder, he said, “You want to tell me what happened?”

I pulled back to look at him, the man who had invaded my life a year earlier and stubbornly would not leave. Golden lantern light illuminated the large, unpretentiously handsome face that was now somber and grim. His serious mouth, his narrowed eyes with their tentlike bushy brown eyebrows-these showed willed control in the midst of chaos. His faded jeans, white frayed-collar shirt, and sweater the color of cornflowers indicated he’d been relaxing at something before the call came in. Now Schulz pulled himself up, his stance of command. “What happened here, Goldy?” he repeated crisply. I’m in charge here now.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I saw the sled when I was loading the van, and then I saw the coat, so I went over… Schulz’s sigh sent a cloud of steam between us. Behind us, three more police and fire vehicles drove up. He reached out and pulled the fur collar snugly around my throat.

“Let’s go in. That’s quite a getup. The two of you. I swear. Come on, big J.,” Schulz said to Julian as he put one arm around him. Behind us, strobe flashes went off like lightning. “Be lucky if pneumonia doesn’t take you both. Honestly.” Another deputy silently joined us. Schulz and the other policeman walked with Julian up the narrow path that skirted the pines and led to the big stone house. I followed, clumsily trying to step in their footsteps.

The headmaster was tripping down the carpeted front stairs when we pushed through to the house’s elegant entryway. The upturned collar of Alfred Perkins’ black trench coat framed his horrified eyes behind round hornrimmed glasses. Above his high forehead, the cottony mass of white hair was wildly askew. His boot buckles clickety-clacked as he marched across the foyer toward us. When Schulz identified himself, the headmaster demanded: “Is there any way we can keep this out of the papers?”

Schulz raised both eyebrows and ignored the question. Instead, he said, “I need some information about next of kin so we can get back to the coroner. Can you help me out?” The headmaster gave the names of Keith’s parents, who were apparently in Europe. The deputy wrote the names on a pad, then disappeared. Schulz started his characteristic swagger down the hallway, poking his head through each doorway. When he found a room he liked, he beckoned with a thumb to Perkins.

“Headmaster, sir,” he said with a deference that fooled nobody, “would you wait in here; until I have a chance to talk to you?” When the headmaster nodded numbly, Schulz added, “And don’t talk to anyone, please, sir. Press or otherwise.”

The headmaster clomped to his assigned spot. Schulz closed the heavy door behind him, then turned and asked who else was around. Julian called to Macguire, who trundled in and was assigned to another room. Perkins’ son looked deeply stunned. In a kinder tone Schulz asked Julian to sit in the living room until he’d finished talking to me. “And try not to disturb anything,” he added. “But get yourself a blanket to warm up.”

Julian’s face had a lost look that tugged at my heart. He obeyed Schulz in silence. But as we headed down to the kitchen, I heard him choke on exhaled breath.

I said, “Let me – “

“No, not yet. I’ll take you back in just a couple of minutes. We need to talk before the investigative team is all over this place.” Schulz paused, then gestured for me to sit on one of the old-fashioned wooden stools. I obeyed. After looking around the kitchen, he sat on another stool and pulled out a notebook. He tapped his mouth with a mechanical pencil. “Start with when you had me paged and work backward.”

I did. Keith’s body. Before that, the cleanup, the after-dinner talks, the dinner itself. The blackout.

Schulz raised one thick eyebrow. “You’re sure it was a fuse?” I said I’d just assumed so. “Who fixed it, do you know?”

I shook my head. “Oh, and one of my coffeepots was in the front hall closet. I didn’t put it there.”

Schulz made a note. “You have a guest list?”

“The headmaster would. Thirty seniors, plus most of the parents. About eighty people altogether.

“You see anybody you know wasn’t invited, seemed out of place, whatever?” I didn’t know who had been invited and who hadn’t. No one seemed out of place, I told him, but the senior-year anxiety had been palpable. “Anything else palpable?” he wanted to know.

I stared at him. He was all business. Anything else you could touch? He gave me just the slightest flicker of a smile. John Richard Korman always said I expected him to read my mind; Tom Schulz actually could. I wished for the two of us to be somewhere else, doing anything but this.

Reading my thoughts again, Schulz said, “We’re almost done.” Then he tilted his head back and drummed the fingers of one hand on his chin. “Okay,” he went on, “anybody who was not here who should have been?”

I didn’t know that either, and said so.

He looked me straight in the eye. “Tell me why somebody would kill this boy.”

Blood jack-hammered in my ears. “I don’t know. He seemed innocuous enough, .really more like a nerd… .”

Silence fell around us In the old kItchen.

Schulz said, “Julian fit into this scenario at all? Or the headmaster’s son? Or the headmaster?”

Miserably, I looked at the big old aluminum canisters in the kitchen, the wooden cabinets painted a buttery yellow, before replying. “I don’t know much about what was going on in the senior class, or in the school as a whole, for that matter. Julian and Macguire went back out to check for a pulse when I was on the phone with the 911 operator. I don’t know if Julian, Macguire, Keith, anybody, were friends.”

“Know if they were enemies?”

“Well.” I involuntarily thought of Julian’s recitation of the class rank. He hadn’t talked about any nastiness to the competition. I refused to speculate. “I don’t know,” I said firmly.”

The deputy stalked into the kitchen. Snow clung to his boots and clothing. Ignoring me, he said to Schulz, “We got drag marks to the gatehouse, where whoever it was got the sled. They haven’t finished with the photos, but it’s going to be a couple hours. You got a kid having a hard time down the hall.”

Schulz nodded just perceptibly and the deputy withdrew.

“Goldy,” Schulz said, “I want to talk to Julian with you there. Then I’ll deal with Macguire Perkins. Tell me if this headmaster is as much of a moron as he looks.”

“More so.”

“Great.”

Julian was sitting in the front room. His eyes were closed, his head bent back against the sofa cushions. With his Adam’s apple pointed at the ceiling, he had a look of extraordinary vulnerability. When we entered, he coughed and rubbed his eyes. His face was still gray; his spiky blond hair gave him an unearthly look. He had found a knit throw that he had pulled tightly around his compact body. Schulz motioned for me to go on over by him.

I moved quietly to a chair beside the couch, then reached out to pat Julian’s arm. He turned and gave me a morose look.

“Tell me what happened,” Schulz began without preamble.

Wearily, Julian recounted how the dinner had ended. Everyone had been putting on their coats and talking. He had stayed afterward to see if a girl he knew, who sort of interested him, he said with lowered eyes, would like a ride home. She had airily replied that she was going home with Keith.

“I said, ‘Oh, moving up in the world, are we?’ but she wasn’t listening.” Julian’s nose wrinkled. “Ever since I told her I’d rather be a chef than a neurosurgeon, she’s acted like I’m a leper.”

Schulz asked mildly, “Keith was going to be a neurosurgeon?”

“Oh, no,” said Julian. “Did I say that? I must have been confused… .”

We waited while Julian coughed and shook his head quickly, like a dog shaking off water.

“Do you want to do this later, Julian?” asked Schulz. “Although it’d be helpful if you could reconstruct the events’ for me now.”

“No, that’s okay.” Julian’s voice was so low, I had to lean forward to hear it.

Schulz pulled out his notebook. “Let’s go back. Before the girl. We have a dinner party for eighty people and a kid ends up dead. Goldy said the party was about college or something. How’s that?”

Julian shrugged. “I think it’s supposed to help people feel okay about going to college.”

“In what way?”

“Oh, you know, like everybody’s going through the same process. Have to figure out what you want, have to look around for the right place, have to get all your papers and stuff together. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Have to write your essays. Be tested.” He groaned. “SATs are Saturday. We had ‘em last year, but this is the big one. These are the scores the colleges look at. The teachers always say it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, which makes you know that it matters. It matters, man.” There was a savagery in his voice I had never heard before.

“Was Keith Andrews nervous about all this? First big step to becoming a neurosurgeon?”

Julian shook his head. “Nah.” He paused. “At least he didn’t seem to be. We called him Saint Andrews.”

“Saint Andrews? Why?”

A hint of frown wrinkled Julian’s cheek. “Well. Keith didn’t really want to be a doctor. He wanted to grow up and be Bob Woodward. He wanted to be such a famous investigative reporter that whenever there was a scandal, they’d say, ‘Better give Andrews a call.’ Like he was the Red Adair of the world of journalism or something.”

Schulz pursed his lips. “Know anybody he was investigating? Anybody he offended?”

Julian shrugged, avoiding Schulz’s eyes. “I heard some stuff. But it was just gossip.”

“Care to share that? It might help.”

“Nah. It was just… stuff.”

“Big J. We’re talking about a death here.”

Julian sighed bleakly, “I think he was having his share of problems. Like everybody.”

“His share of problems with whom?”

“I don’t know. Everybody, nobody.”

Schulz made another note. “I need some specifics on that. You tell me, I won’t tell anybody. Sometimes gossip can help a lot, You’d be surprised.” He waited a beat, then clicked the pencil and tucked it in his pocket. “So the lights came back on, the girl said no to you. Then what?”

“I don’t know, I guess I like, talked to some people – “

“Who?”

“Well, jeez, I don’t remember – “

“Keith?”

Julian reflected, then said, “I don’t remember seeing Keith around. You know, everyone was talking about the lights, and saying, see you Monday, and stuff like that. Then I came out to check if Goldy needed help.”

“Time, Miss G?”

I looked at my watch: eleven o’clock. Schulz cocked his thumb over his shoulder. When had Julian come out to the kitchen? I said, “I don’t know. Nine-thirtyish.”

“Did anyone go into the kitchen looking for Keith? This girl you mentioned, for example?”

We both said no.

“Okay, now, Julian,” Schulz said impassively, “tell me who Keith’s enemies were.”

“God, I told you, I don’t know! You know, he was kind of holier-than-thou. Smarter-than-thou too. You, know. Like, we watched an Ingmar Bergman film in English class, and the film’s over for like two seconds and Keith’s talking about the internal structure. I mean, huh? The rest of us are going, okay, but what was it about?” He grimaced. “That kind of smart attitude can lose you some friends.”

“Who, specifically?”

“I don’t know, you know, people just get pissed off. They talk.”

“What about the National Merit Scholarship?” I said before I remembered I wasn’t supposed to talk.

“What about it?” Julian turned a puzzled face to me. “It’s not like they’re going to give it to somebody else now… . Keith was number one in our class, president of the French Club. He did after-school work for the Mountain Journal. People can hate you just for that.”

Schulz said, “Why?”

“Because it makes them feel bad that they’re not doing it too.” Julian said this in a way that made it clear any fool would reach the same conclusion.

Schulz sighed, then rose. “Okay, go home, the two of you. I’ll be talking to the rest of the guests over the weekend, then I might get back to you depending on – “

“Schulz!” boomed an excited voice from down the hall. “Hey!” It was the deputy.

We found him looking at the coffeepot that had fallen out of the front hall closet.

“Oh, that’s my – ” I began. I stopped.

“Your what?” demanded the deputy.

“‘Coffeepot,” I answered inanely.

The deputy regarded me with deepening skepticism. “Y’had a couple of extension cords on it?”

“Yes, three, actually. You see, they have a problem with fuses – “

But the deputy was holding up the machine’s naked plug. Belatedly, I realized where the extension cords had ended up.

3

Julian led the way out of the parking lot in his four-wheel-drive, a white Range Rover inherited from wealthy former employers. I could see him checking his rearview mirror for me. My van crawled and skidded down the prep school’s precarious driveway. Overhead, cloud edges glinted like knives. The moon slipped out and silvered the snowy mountains. As I thought about the events of the past few hours, my stomach knotted.

At some point in the evening the tortuous road between Elk Park and Aspen Meadow had been plowed. Still, we skirted the banked curves with great care. My mind wandered back to that upturned sled in the snow.

To the look of horror on Keith Andrews’ young face. I shook my head and focused on the driving.

Gripping the steering wheel hard, I accelerated up a slight incline. I hoped Arch was okay. The rock thrown through one of our windows was worrisome. Halloween was coming up, and pranksters had to be expected. I should have told Schulz about the rock, though. I’d forgotten.

Schulz was going to call us. He would tell us what had happened to Keith, wouldn’t he? I had plodded through the headmaster’s snowy yard, found the lifeless form, touched the icy extension cord. It was like a personal affront. I had to know what had happened. Like it or not, I was involved. .

Resolutely, I veered off this thought pattern and reflected on Schulz. Somehow, his behavior this evening indicated a sea change in our relationship, from a growing intimacy back to the distance of business. I turned the steering wheel slowly while negotiating a switchback. For one breathtaking moment on this curve, all that was visible out the window was air.

Tom Schulz. We had been dating off and on, mostly I off, for the past year. Recently, however, we had been more frequently and more seriously on. This summer had brought a rapprochement, a French word for getting back together that Arch now dropped into conversation the way he sprinkled sugar on his Rice Krispies.

Schulz and I had not really become a couple. But he and I, along with Julian and Arch, had become a unit: the four of us hiked, we fished, we cooked out, we took turns choosing movies. Schulz’s light caseload lately had consisted mostly of investigating mail thefts and forgeries. giving him time to spend with us.

Insulated by the presence of the two boys, my postdivorce ambivalence toward relationships had begun to melt. I had found myself thinking of reasons to call Tom Schulz, inventing occasions to get together, looking forward to talking and laughing about all the daily details of life.

And then there had been the issue of the name change. What had started out as a small problem had developed into a symbolic issue between Schulz and me. Over the summer I’d learned of the existence of a catering outfit in Denver with the unfortunate name Three Bears Catering. They had threatened me with a suit over trademark infringement. On one of our jovial moments, Tom had suddenly asked if I would like to change my last name to Schulz. With all that that implied, I had immediately demurred. But you know what they say about parties: It was awfully nice to be asked.

Only now we had a catastrophe out at Elk Park Prep. Involving me, involving Julian, involving homicide. Something told me the future of my relationship with Tom Schulz was once again a question mark.

The brake lights of the Range Rover sparked like rectangular rubies as Julian and I continued the steep descent into town. We rounded the flat black surface of Aspen Meadow Lake, where one patch of shining ripples reflected elusive moonlight. Part of me wanted Schulz to say, Come back to my place. But another, saner, inner voice said this desire came from knowing it was impossible. A homicide investigation was when Schulz was the busiest. Mortality and the need for relationship loomed large since I had looked into the dead face of young Keith Andrews.

My tires crunched down Aspen Meadow’s Main Street. The only cars were those parked at wide angles along the curb by the Grizzly Saloon, where music and flashing lights announced it was still Saturday night. Witnessing partygoing after what I’d just seen at Elk Park Prep brought light-headedness. I rolled down the window; my eyes watered from the gush of freezing air.

Moments later, Julian and I pulled up across the street from my house. White shutters gleamed against the brown shingles. The front porch with its single-story white pillars and porch swing seemed to smile. The old place had become very dear to me in the five years since my divorce from Dr. John Richard Korman. Arriving home at night, I was always happy that the Jerk, as his other ex-wife and I called him, was gone for good, and that my brand-new security system could make sure he stayed that way.

I hopped out of the van and landed in three inches of new snow. It was less than we’d received in Elk Park, which stood another five hundred feet above Aspen Meadow’s eight thousand above sea level. A sudden slash of wind made me draw my coat close. A curse rose in my throat. I had unwittingly gone off wearing the stupid raccoon thing. I put my hand in the pocket and felt tissues and something flat and hard. The thought of a trip back to the school to return the coat brought a shudder.

I pressed the security buttons and came in out of the cold with Julian close behind. Arch, who of course had not gone to bed after Julian’s call, clomped down the stairs in untied high top sneakers. He was wearing a gray sweatsuit and carrying a large flashlight-defense against power outages. His knotted, wood-colored hair stuck out at various angles. I was so happy to see him, I clasped him in a hug that was mostly raccoon coat. He pulled back and straightened the glasses on his small, freckled nose. Magnified brown eyes regarded Julian and me with intense Interest.

“Are you guys late! What are you doing wearing that weird thing? What’s going on? All you said was that there was a problem at the headmaster’s house. Does that mean we don’t have school on Monday?” This prospect seemed to please him.

“No, no,” I said. Weariness washed over me. We were home, finally, and all I wanted was for everyone to go to bed. I said, “Someone was hurt after the dinner.”

“Who?” Arch pulled his thin shoulders up to his ears and made a face.

“Was there an accident?”

“Not quite. Keith Andrews, a senior, died.” I did not say that it looked as if he’d been murdered. This was a mistake.

“Keith Andrews? The president of the French Club?” Arch looked at Julian, full of fear. “The guy you had that fight with? Man! You’re kidding!”

Julian closed his eyes and shrugged. A fight had not come up in the questioning. I raised my eyebrows at Julian; his facial expression stayed flat.

I said, “I’m sorry, Arch. Tom Schulz and the police are over at the school now – “

“Tom Schulz!” cried Arch. “So they – “

“Arch, buddy,” said Julian. “Chill. Nobody knows what happened. Really.”

Arch’s eyes traveled from Julian back to me. He said, ” A lot of people at school didn’t like Keith. I liked him, though. He didn’t drive around in a Porche or BMW, like he was so cool. You know, the way some of the older kids do. He was nice.”

Arch’s words hung in the air of my front hall. How easily he had put the boy’s life in past tense. Finally I said, “Well, hon, I’d rather not talk about it now, if that’s okay. So … you had a problem with a broken window?”

He reached into the front pocket of his sweatshirt and pulled the rock out. So much for fingerprints. But the rock was tennis-ball-size and jagged. It probably wouldn’t have held a print anyway.

“I’ll bet it was some kids from my old school. Trick or treat.” Arch sighed.

“When did this happen?”

“Oh, late. Right before Julian called.”

I took the rock from him. Did I have any clients who were angry? None that I could think of. In any event, I was too tired to think about it. “Church tomorrow,” I said I to Arch as I pocketed the stone and started toward the kitchen.

“But it’s been snowing!”

“Arch, I can’t take any more in one night.”

“Hey, guy,” said Julian, “if you come up with me now, I’ll let you show me that model you made from the Narnia book.”

“You mean the wardrobe with the fake back?”

“Whatever.”

And before I could say anything, the two boys were racing up the wooden steps. Arch let out a howl trying to beat Julian to the room they now shared. I looked around the hall and thought about the boxes of dishes waiting in my van to be washed. It was past midnight. They would keep.

I shrugged off the coat and looked at the thing in the pocket. It was a Neiman-Marcus credit card. The name on it was K. Andrews.

I swept up the glass shards underneath Arch’s broken window, taped a piece of cardboard over the hole, slumped into my room, and fell into bed. Fitful sleep came interspersed with nightmares. I awoke with a dull headache and the realization that the previous evening, had not been a bad dream.

There was no way Schulz could have left Elk Park Prep before midnight. Rather than wake him at home, I put in a call about the credit card to his voice mail at the Sheriff’s Department. Neiman-Marcus for an eighteen-year-old? But Arch had said Keith did not show off, at least materialistically. What had he said? Like he was so cool.

On my braided rug, Scout he cat turned his chin in ‘1 the air and dramatically flopped over on his back. I obediently scratched the long white fur of his stomach, light brown hair of his back, dark brown hair of his face. While Julian had inherited his Range Rover from the rich folks the two of us had worked for, my inheritance had been the feline. I felt content with my part of the unexpected beneficence. Scout was always full of affection when it was eating time. Perfect cat for a caterer.

Speaking of which, I had work to do. For me, cats were safer than credit cards. I had never even been inside Denver’s new Neiman-Marcus store, I reflected as I began to stretch through twenty minutes of yoga. In general, Dr. John Richard Korman’s child-support payments were late, incorrect, or nonexistent. My calendar shrieked with assignments for this busiest season for caterers, the stretch between Halloween and Christmas. During November and December people were social, hungry, and flush. This was my most profitable time of year. No matter what was going on out at Elk Park Prep, I had to earn enough money for our household to scrape through the first six months of the new year. Upscale department stores were definitely no longer a part of my lifestyle.

In the kitchen, Scout twined through my legs and I fed him before consulting the calendar. Unfortunately, my first job of the day was not even income-producing, although it was a tax write-off. In a moment of weakness I had agreed to prepare the refreshments to follow that morning’s ten o’clock service at the Episcopal church. This would be followed by a more profitable half-time meal of choucroute garnie for twelve Bronco fans at the Dawsons’ house. Trick of caterers: Always use the French name for food. People will not pay large sums for a menu of sausage and sauerkraut.

No rest for the weary, especially the catering weary, I thought as I hauled in yesterday’s crates of pans and plates and loaded them into my heavy-duty dishwasher. When I was done, I washed my hands and began to plan. I had to call Audrey Coopersmith and remind her that for the half-time meal she needed to wear a Bronco-orange T-shirt.

Despite the fact that she had worked late with me the night before, I knew Audrey would be up early this Sun-day morning. With the depression brought on by her divorce trauma, Audrey rarely slept past dawn. I knew, because I was one of the people she started phoning around six. In fact, in the past few months I had become something of a reluctant expert on the life of Audrey Coopersmith.

For the mother of a high school senior, Audrey was young: thirty-eight. Her house was full of books. Despite marrying and dropping out of college at twenty, she was self-educated and extraordinarily well read. Rather than take direct care of herself, she took in strays: extra kittens other people couldn’t give away, guinea pigs, hamsters, and rabbits left over at the end of the school year, stray dogs abandoned by families moving away. She also exercised fanatically at both the athletic club and the local recreation center.

But the shelves of books, the cadre of pets, the soft body that refused to become fit, had been no help, she had sadly announced at a meeting of Amour Anonymous, our support group for women who felt they were addicted to relationships. After two years of denial, Audrey Coopersmith had finally begun divorce proceedings against her husband of eighteen years. With a deviousness that had fooled no one but Audrey, Carl Coopersmith had been supporting another woman in Denver for the past fifteen years. This other woman had children by a previous marriage, but Carl had been hanging around for so long that the other woman’s kids called him Dad and the other woman’s neighbors all thought “Dad” was the other woman’s husband. Which, when it came to financial support, made for a very confusing situation for everyone but the lawyers. With delays, requests for documents, filing motions and countermotions, the legal beagles were having a field day.

Bottom line was, Carl “Dad” Coopersmith had cancelled Audrey’s cash card, credit cards, and provided a copious supply of lies about his salary and other accounts. The court order on permanent support for Audrey and their daughter, Heather, was supposed to come down any moment. But as was typical, it had been delayed three times. Two months ago Audrey had asked me for part-time work. She couldn’t earn too much, she told me, for that would undermine what she was asking from Carl.

But she was having trouble making ends meet. She balanced the work she had from me with a part-time job at the Tattered Cover, Denver’s largest bookstore, a place she claimed to love. But as you might expect, Audrey was always exhausted, always broke, always unhappy.

The one bright spot in her life was super-achieving Heather, an eighteen-year-old science whiz who ranked third in the senior class at Elk Park Prep. To my utter dismay, there were only two things Audrey wanted in life: for Heather to get into MIT, and for Carl to come to his senses, leave the other woman, her kids, and her neighbors, and return to their home in Aspen Meadow Country Club.

” Now, this was a woman who was addicted to a relationship. Not to mention that she didn’t have too firm a grasp on reality. Audrey desperately wanted to return to the status quo. In Amour Anonymous, we had all tried to enlighten her, to no avail. Sometimes people just have to go through things.

The phone had not even rung one full time when she answered. Once she realized I wasn’t Carl, her voice went from lively to remote. Yes, she remembered that she was supposed to help me with the football party. But then she remembered that she was supposed to make a stir-fry for a small staff meeting after she filled in at the bookstore that afternoon.

I said, “Filled in?”

She gave a short laugh. “Best department.”

“Really?” I said. “Cookbooks?”

“Self-improvement.”

So I asked if she could help with the church refreshments instead, and I’d see if I could get someone else for the Dawsons’ party in the afternoon. She agreed and added that she had to get off the phone because for some reason the police were at her door.

For some reason. I hung up. So Headmaster Perkins had already given the police Audrey’s name. But that surely would not be the end of it. I looked out my kitchen window at lodgepole pine branches heavy with snow. A number of Elk Park Prep parents were Episcopalians. By the time of the service, the investigative team already would have visited some of them. The official interrogations, not to mention Keith’s bizarre death, would be guaranteed topics of conversation during the church coffee hour.

Cook, I ordered myself, you’ll feel better. I folded shiny slivers of orange zest into a pillowy spongecake batter to make Bronco-fan cupcakes for the Dawsons’ brunch. When the cupcakes were in the oven, I drained and chopped fat purple plums for a Happy Endings Plum Cake, a prototype for Caroline Dawson, who had promised to taste it at church. If she and Hank liked the cake, they’d said I could sell them at their restaurant, the Aspen Meadow Cafe.

For the rest of the church refreshments, I sliced two dozen crisp Granny Smith apples into bird-shaped centerpieces that would be surrounded by concentric circles of Gouda and cheddar wedges. I didn’t even want to think about the price of the cheeses in this little spread. I reminded myself that this was an advertising opportunity, even if it was church. To complete the cheese tray, I cut several loaves of fragrant homemade oatmeal bread into triangles and threw in a wheel of Jarlsberg for good measure. Advertising could get expensive.

Arch dressed with minimal complaining, since he didn’t want to wake up Julian, who was snoring deeply. The wind bit through our clothing as we climbed into the van. The sky was luminescent, like the inside of a pearl. Streets slick with newly plowed snow made the going slow. By the time we arrived at the big stone church with its great diamond-shaped windows, the parking lot was already half filled with Cadillacs, Rivieras, and Chrysler New Yorkers, with the occasional Mercedes, Lexus, and Infiniti.

I scanned the parking lot for my ex-husband’s Jeep with its GYN license plate, but he was not making one of his rare church appearances. The personalized tags indicated who had already arrived. The Dawsons’ matching vans advertised the presence of parents and offspring. Greer Dawson was known to her volleyball teammates as G.D., the Hammer, hence the tag GD HMR. Her parents’ more sedate tag read AMCAFE, for the Aspen Meadow Cafe. There was MR E, from a local mystery writer, and UR4GVN, from who else? The priest. I pulled in next to the gold Jaguar belonging to Marla Korman, my best friend, who also happened to be Dr. John Richard Korman’s other ex-wife. Her license tag said simply, AVLBL.

When Arch and I pushed through the heavy doors with our platters, Marla shrieked a greeting and rushed across the foyer toward us. Large in body and spirit, Marla always dressed according to the season. This morning, an early appearance of winter demanded a silver suede suit sprinkled with an abundance of pewter buttons across a jacket and skirt. Sparkly silver barrettes, my gift for her fortieth birthday, held back her eternally frizzed brown hair. She folded me in a hug that was all bangle bracelets and soft leather.

“What in the hell happened out at that school last night?” she hissed in my ear.

“How did you find out about it?”

“What, are you kidding? My phone started ringing at six-thirty this morning!”

The organist sounded the opening notes of a Bach fugue. I whispered back, “It was awful, but I can’t talk about it now. Help me in the kitchen afterward and I’ll tell you what I know.”

Marla told me she had visitors she had promised to sit with during the service, but that she could help later with the food. Then she whispered, “I heard this kid stole credit cards.”

“He did not,” said Arch in a very loud voice behind us. “He was nice.” At this, heads in the pews swiveled to stare at us. The Bach was in full swing. Marla lifted her double chin in an imperial gesture. I pretended not to know either of them and hustled the first bird-apple centerpiece out to the church kitchen.

We mumbled along through the service until the passing of the peace, when you wish the priest God’s peace and then turn to your neighbors and wish them the same. But in this parish the peace was a signal to pass along news, commentary on weather, parish illnesses and absences, and so on, until the priest halted the ruckus to make announcements. Unfortunately, the peace discussion this day was devoted to the events out at Elk Park Prep.

Happy Endings Plum Cake

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

ž cup granulated sugar

ž cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 large eggs

I teaspoon vanilla extract

2 ˝ cups all-purpose flour (high altitude: add 2 tablespoons)

2 teaspoons baking powder (high altitude: subtract ˝ teaspoon)

1 teaspoon baking soda

˝ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 16-ounce can purple plums packed in syrup, well drained, the syrup reserved and the plums chopped

confectioners’ sugar

Preheat the oven to 400°. In a large , mixing bowl, beat the butter until creamy and light, then gradually add the sugars, beating until creamy and smooth. Beat in the eggs, then the vanilla. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together. Stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture, alternating with ˝ cup reserved syrup, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Stir in the plums. Pour the batter into a buttered 9-by 13-inch pan. Bake for 25 to ‘30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Turn the cake out onto a rack and allow it to cool, then dust with confectioners’ sugar. Makes 12 to 16 servings.

When Arch and I had politely shaken the hands of all those around us, Marla surprised us by squeezing into our pew. She said accusingly, “You didn’t tell me you found him! After the dinner! Did you know the police have already been around to question some of the parents? I hear they suspect that kid living with you. You know, Julian.”

“What? Who told you that?”

“I just heard it,” she replied with a shrug of silver suede. “I can’t remember who told me. Oh, look, Father Olson’s giving us the sanctimonious eye. Can’t talk now.”

During the final hymn I noticed that Audrey Coopersmith had slipped in sometime during the service. She stood, statuelike, in the last pew with her arms clamped across her chest. Her face was fatigued, but carefully made up, and she wore a long white apron over her baggy clothes. Since her separation, Audrey had been inclined to wear oversize chamois shirts and gray pants that looked as if they’d been issued for postal service employees. She carried a purse only rarely, favoring instead a wallet in her back pocket and a chunk of keys dangling from a belt loop. Now, although everyone around her was singing, she was not. Her dark eyes were half closed. I wondered if she was praying for Carl’s return or for self-improvement. On the other hand, maybe these were mutually exclusive.

While the acolytes snuffed the altar candles, I signaled to Audrey and we quickly set up a table at the back of the church. Then I tried to spot Caroline Dawson in the bustle. The last thing I needed was for the plum cake to be decimated before she even got to sample it.

Audrey trundled up to one of the counters, her mouth turned down in a deep-set scowl. Above the cheerful din from the foyer, she said, “Greer Dawson’s mother is out there. She wants some plum dessert. I said I didn’t know anything about it. She said, ‘Well, you just better go check, then.’ ” Audrey fluttered her free hand against her chest. “Why doesn’t she ask Greer? She couldn’t even manage to help us last night, why can’t she pitch in this morning? Or is actual catering too difficult for the Hammer?”

“Audrey,” I said in a placating tone, “Greer was listening to the program last night; just like Heather, just like Julian. Let me deal with Caroline Dawson.”

Audrey grunted. Of course, she had a point. Greer D., the Hammer, was interested in working for me only as a way to appear well-rounded to admissions folks. I didn’t see why Greer couldn’t round herself out working at the family cafe, but perhaps the Ivy League frowns on nepotism.

Anyway, Audrey was correct in saying Greer hardly ever managed to fit working for me into her busy schedule. But I couldn’t afford to alienate her parents before I had wowed them with my baking. I handed an unsmiling Audrey a cheese tray. The enticing smell of cinnamon wafted up from the moist slices of plum cake. As I picked up the cake platter and headed for the Dawsons, I decided that the last thing I’d want to put on my college application was that working in food service had made me we//-rounded.

“Ooo, ooo, ooo,” crooned Marla when I breezed out into the foyer. She cast a greedy eye on the cake. “I still want to hear about last night. And let me tell you, Father Olson is in love with the spread. He already asked me if I thought you’d cater a high-powered clergy meeting.”

“As long as he pays for it, I’m his.”

“This is the church, honey.” Marla pinched a piece of cake and popped it into her mouth. “He’s not going to pay for anything.” She chewed thoughtfully, eyes on something over my shoulder. “Here come Hank and Caroline Dawson,” she said under her breath, “the king and queen of the short people. They’ll eat anything in sight.”

“Hey!” I protested. “[‘m short! And I resent – “

“Behold your monarchs, then,” Marla said with a lift of her chin. “They’re right behind you.”

The Dawson parents swept up to me. Hank’s look was knowing.

He said, “Big game today. You nervous?”

I eyed him. Hank Dawson was a square-set man – square, leathery face with a sharply angled jaw, square shoulders, square Brooks Brothers gray suit. His short salt-and-pepper hair, receding hairline, and quickly appraising Delft-blue eyes all said: No-nonsense Republican here. When we could avoid the topic of how brilliant Greer was, Hank and I chatted knowingly after church about the upcoming Bronco games. We were hard-core fans who kept a separate orange outfit for Sunday afternoons, followed the plays, trades, and strategies with our own commentary, and had a standing prescription for stomach medication when the playoff season began. Talking shop with Hank after the Episcopal church service was like finding your kinsman who speaks Zulu in the middle of North Dakota.

“Nah,” I replied. “The Vikings are sunk.”

“You’re right. The Vikings are sunk without Bud Grant.”

“The Vikings have been sunk since Fran Tarkenton retired.”

“Still,” persisted Hank, “you have to worry about any team that can sustain a two-minute offense for a whole quarter.”

“Hank. That was years ago.”

“Yeah.” He looked reassured. “That was Bud Grant’s last year.”

Then we said our refrain in unison, “And we have Elway.”

“Excuse me!” shrilled Caroline Dawson. You see, they always get upset when you speak Zulu.

I suddenly wished I were trying to sell the Bronco-orange cupcakes to the cafe, instead of the plum cake. I turned an apologetic and only slightly saccharine smile to Caroline.

The queen of the short people touched the buttons of her scarlet Chanel-style suit, which was only a shade darker than the burgundy silk of the night before. Marla had once pointed out to me that this particular hue was favored by women in their late fifties. She had dubbed it menopause red. Standing, Caroline resembled a squat, heavy column abandoned by the Greeks. The two Dawsons reminded me of Arch’s old square and round blocks that had to be hammered through the right holes.

“Doesn’t that look lovely,” Caroline murmured as she reached for a large slice. “I do hope it tastes as good as it looks.” She gobbled it down and shoved another into her mouth. Hank picked the bars up and ate them two at a time. Mouth full, Caroline finally commented, “That was quite a dinner last night. Of course, Greer doesn’t really need their college counseling. She has her pick of schools.”

“Oh, ah, really? Well. I’m glad you enjoyed the dinner. Actually, it was very successful until the end.”

They both looked astonished. Was it possible someone had not heard? Quickly, I explained about finding Keith Andrews. I prayed silently that the police did not arrive to ask their questions during the Bronco game today.

“My God,” exclaimed Hank Dawson. I think he had just swallowed his eighth slice. He turned to his wife.

“Remember what Greer said after the state volleyball championships?”

Caroline took another bite. Then she smiled primly. “I think I was too excited to notice.”

Eagerly, Hank turned back to me to explain. “Of course you know our daughter is responsible for the Elk Park Prep volleyball team being state champions.”

“My heartfelt congratulations.”

Hank narrowed one eye skeptically. “Anyway, after the final game, Greer did mention to us this rumor that Keith Andrews was having trouble with drugs… .”

I said, “Excuse me?” and momentarily lost my grip on the plum cake platter just as Caroline reached for the last slice, approximately her tenth. “Drugs? Keith Andrews didn’t seem like the type.”

Hank shrugged, world-wise. “The kind that seems the type rarely is. You know, Goldy, that’s been true for the team too.” We shook our heads together over the unspoken name of a former Bronco tight end. He had tested positive for cocaine three times in the last year, and had been banned from pro football. An All-Pro player too. At the time, Hank and I had agreed that the state flag should have been flown at half mast. “Take the headmaster’s son, Macguire,” Hank said after our moment of silence. “He looks innocent as can be, but I understand that kid’s had quite a history with substance abuse.”

“Substance abuse?” Marla sidled up to us with a tray. “What a nice shade of red, Caroline. It suits you.”

“I can tell you where I got it if you’d like, Marla.”

Caroline and Hank reached simultaneously for cupcakes from Marla’s tray.

“Oh,” trilled Marla. “I don’t think I need shopping advice – “

“Mrs. Dawson,” I interjected briskly. “do you like this cake enough to sell it in your café?”

Caroline puckered her lips and closed her eyes. For an instant, she looked like one of those little Chinese demons who brings you nothing but rotten luck. “Not really,” she murmured. “Sorry, Goldy. We do appreciate what you’re doing for Greer, though. We’ll see you in a couple of hours.” And off she and her square husband plodded, licking the last cupcake crumbs off their fingers as they departed.

“Was that a rejection?” I asked Marla.

“No, no, my dear, the royal short people have cleaned the trays. Now they need to talk to some other Episcopalians who’ve come back from the Holy Land.” I did not remember the overdressed couple the Dawsons were now chatting with as being particularly religious. Marla said, “You know, Goldy. England.” Under her breath, she added, “My question is, if she didn’t like it, why’d she have so many pieces?”

I certainly did not know. I checked on the serving table, where Audrey had deftly kept the platters refilled. Across the room, Arch caught my eye. He was standing with the tall, skinny Marenskys, who were avoiding either me or the food or both. Stan and Rhoda Marensky were the kind of people caterers dislike most: They pick at their food, don’t finish it, and then complain about how expensive it is. At that moment Stan was interrogating Arch, who shot me an imploring look that meant: Can we go? I held up my hand: Five minue’s. Then I motioned him over. The Marenskys turned their backs.

“Has the headmaster’s son been in trouble?” I demanded softly when Arch was by my side.

Arch pushed his glasses up on his nose. A bit of cheese hung on the corner of his mouth. I pinched a paper napkin and wiped it off.

“Do you mind?” Arch leaned away from my ministrations.

“Tell me about Macguire, the headmaster’s son. And his trouble.”

Arch shrugged noncommitally. “Well, he’s kind of a goof-off. I mean, with a dad like that, can you blame him if he’s weird? I don’t think he’s allowed to drive anymore. Listen, Mom, people aren’t saying very nice things about Keith today. Like he deserved to die or something.”

“Who’s saying that, the Marenskys?”

“Oh, I guess. Them and other people.” Another shrug. Arch, like Julian, wouldn’t tattle if his life depended on it. “I’m telling you, Keith was a great guy. Even though he was a senior, he would talk to you. Most seniors just ignore you.” Arch reached for another cupcake.

“I know, I know,” I said, and felt a mother’s pang over the way kids treated small-built, nonathletic Arch.

Marla sashayed up grandly. She had a piece of torte in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. She gestured grandly with her coffee cup. “Van Gogh must have had to listen to people argue about the Ivy League. That’s why he came home and cut off his ear.”

I shook my head. “Just go have a listenin on the conversation between the Dawsons and Audrey Coopersmith. Caroline was going on about grade point average being less important than extracurricular activities. Audrey replied that besides volleyball, the only outside interest Greer Dawson has ever shown was in clothes. So Caroline said, now that you mention it, maybe dear daughter Greer could give Audrey’s daughter, Heather, a few pointers in that department. For that matter – Caroline threw in, as long as she was on a roll – it looked as if Audrey herself could use a little advice in the fashion department.” I groaned. “Poor Audrey. As if she didn’t have enough to deal with.”

“Don’t worry,” said Marla. “I told Father Olson we needed a referee for a coffee hour argument. He said, Oh, theology or ethics? And I said, academics. He nodded. Said he learned all about it in seminary.”

“ReaIIy?”

But before Marla could elaborate, the head of the Altar Guild came up and asked me to start clearing the serving table, as there was going to be a meeting in the parish hall after church. Arch sidled off.

To my relief, the cheese was almost gone, the plum cake was crumbs, and the bird centerpieces had been reduced to a few slices of apple-feather.

“Oh, Goldy!” Father Olson’s face glowed with pleasure. “This was marvelous! And it gave rise to such a lively coffee hour! I wonder, could you be persuaded to do a luncheon-ministry for the Board of Theological Examiners? I’m sorry to say that we can’t really afford to – “

“No thanks!” I called back gaily, scooping up the last of the Gouda. “I’m all booked for the next three months.” This was not entirely true. But clients have to be willing to pay for their bread. I had a child to support.

“… just don’t understand why you think your daughter is the only one qualified”…” Hank Dawson was gesticulating with a wedge of Gouda. As he chided Audrey Coopersmith, his tone was judgmental. “We have looked into this extensively – “

Caroline Dawson was nodding as she stuffed the last of a cupcake into her mouth. The lapels of her red suit quivered in indignation. She swallowed and continued her husband’s thought. “Why, just the other day I was speaking with the director of admissions at – “

“And you think that makes you an expert?” Audrey fired back. Her face flushed with ferocity. “You don’t know the first thing about the value of an education.” She paused, and I felt myself chilled by the intensity of the dark-eyed glare she directed at the bewildered Caroline Dawson. Audrey’s words erupted like a spray of bullets. “You think Ben Jonson is a Canadian runner. You, you” – she paused, grasping for another insult – “you think Heidegger is a box you carry to detect radiation!”

So saying, Audrey whacked her tray down on the table and stomped out the wooden door of the church. Her chain of keys made a loud chinking sound when the edge of the door caught them. She didn’t stop to tell me good-bye. She didn’t even take off her apron.

4

Father Olson tugged on his beard. “I do wish she hadn’t made fun of Heidegger… .”

“Oh,” I said sympathetically. “She’s going through a bad time.”

Father Olson moved off to smooth the Dawsons’ ruffled feathers. Personally, I didn’t know whether Audrey needed understanding, self-improvement, or a brand-new outlook on life. But she sure needed something. Pain seeped out of her like water from a leaking dam. I resolved to say a few carefully chosen words of support the next time we worked together. Carefully chosen, because Arch always said that what I thought of as support was giving somebody the Heimlich maneuver when all they’d done was hiccup.

Hank Dawson nodded at Father Olson and maneuvered his way back to me. “Isn’t Ben Jonson a Canadian runner?” His brow furrowed.

“Yes, of course. Named after a sixteenth-century playwright, perhaps.”

“Who does that woman think she is?”

“Well, she was upset…”

Hank Dawson poured himself another cup of coffee and blew on it. He looked down his broad nose at me. “Audrey Coopersmith has distressed my wife.” This from the fellow who the night before had given me that classic henpecked look: Don’t worry, I have to live with her. Maybe the more distress Audrey created for Caroline Dawson, the more there was for Mr. Caroline Dawson.

“Well, Hank…”

“Listen. Audrey’s just jealous because of how gifted our Greer is. Heather is good in math and science, period. Greer, mind you, has been making up stories since she was eight. She excels in languages and is an athlete, to boot. She’s well-rounded, and that’s what they’re all looking for, you know that. Heather and Greer in a contest? That’s not a game, It s a rout.”

“Of course,” I said soothingly. “But you know we all feel so protective of our children. Especially after what happened last night.”

Hank swirled the coffee around and regarded me with his stern ice-blue eyes. “Oh, tell me! Nine thousand bucks a year, and then you tell me you find a dead body after a dinner at the headmaster’s house! Jesus H. Christ’”

“Father Olson is within earshot,” I murmured. Hank lifted a jaw that was so sharp it would have cut an Italian salami. He spat out his words. “Of all times for that school to get caught up in a scandal, this is the worst. These kids have their senior years, college applications, all that coming up. And what business does Audrey Coopersmith” – the blue eyes blazed as his voice rose – “who has never done a thing with her life, have judging our daughter? Greer placed fifth in the state in the National French Contest. She’s written poems… she went to a writers’ conference and studied with the writer-in-residence at Harvard “

“Greer’s wonderful, wonderful,” I lied. “Everybody thinks so.”

The king of the short people grunted, turned on his heel, and walked off.

The strange part about Audrey’s outburst was that within ten minutes Caroline Dawson had a change of heart-not toward Audrey, but toward me. Or, more accurately, toward my plum cake. Wanted to show she wasn’t all snob, I guess. Before the stragglers had left the church coffee hour, when I was cleaning up the last bird-built-of-apple slices, she bustled over and announced she’d changed her mind. What could she possibly have been thinking? Of course they’d love to have me sell plum cakes at the cafe. They were absolutely delicious, and would go over wonderfully with their clientele. Should we start with six a week?

Oh, definitely, I’d replied meekly. The cake go-ahead wrapped me in a small cloud of good feeling, so rashly informed Father Olson I’d do his clergy meeting if the church could pay for my labor and supplies. His right hand combed his beard in Moses-like fashion. He murmured that he’d check with the diocesan office. The clergy meeting was this coming Friday, and as the church bulletin announced, they were going to discuss faith and penance. So could I think of something appropriate? I gave him a blank look. What, bread and water? Then I assured him a penitential meal was no problem. I even had a recipe for something called Sorry Cake.

When Arch and I got home, Julian sat in the kitchen sipping his version of café au lait, a cup of hot milk flavored with a tablespoon of espresso. He said he’d called for a window-repair person to come out tomorrow, and he wasn’t in the mood to do his homework, so could he help with the choucroute for the Bronco lunch? He also said I’d had six calls: two hang-ups and four with messages. The messages were from the headmaster, Tom Schulz, Audrey Coopersmith, and my ex-husband, who sure sounded pissed off about something.

Nothing new there. But two hang-ups? “Did these anonymous callers say anything at all?” Julian tilted back in one of the kitchen chairs. “Nope. I just said, ‘Hello? Hello? This is Goldilocks’ Catering, who’re you?’ And all I could hear was breathing and then click.”

The air around me turned suddenly chill. Could it be the same prankster who had smashed our window last night? What if Arch had taken those calls? Was someone casing my house? Best to tell Schulz about this. But I had someone else to call first.

I reached for the phone; my ex-husband picked up after four rings. The Jerk’s uninflected voice, the one he used to try to show he was above feeling, said only that he’d been trying to get me all morning. I asked if he’d been around our house last night, maybe with a rock? He said, “What do you think I am, crazy? “

Well, I wasn’t going to answer that one. I asked what he wanted. Only this: Because of the early snow, he wanted to go skiing this coming weekend, his time to take Arch. He wanted to pick him up at Elk Park Prep early on Halloween, this Friday, to beat the rush. Just wanted to let me know.

I chewed the inside. of my cheek. Since our weekend visitation arrangement did not include Friday, John Richard had to check with me about Arch’s leaving school early. Of course, this checking actually meant announcing his plans and then waiting to see if I would get upset. Who, me? But I was concerned Arch might have other plans for Halloween. If Arch agreed, John Richard would no doubt take him to his condo in Keystone. His dad had had the locks changed, Arch had reported to me, to make sure I never used the place on the sly. Why should I be upset? Fine, I told John Richard, just let me check with Arch. I didn’t even say what went through my mind, that some people had to work on Halloween. Or at least, like the Board of Theological Examiners, be penitent. But John Richard fit into neither of those categories, so I hung up.

I phoned Headmaster Perkins next, but got his son. Macguire acknowledged that he knew me by saying, “Oh yeah, hi. That was pretty heavy last night. You okay?” When I replied in the affirmative, he said, “Dad said to tell you he’d like to see you. Tomorrow. Just come into the office anytime, and, uh, bring some coat.” He thought for a minute. “Tell him you just dropped in, you know, like a … meteorite.”

I told him to expect a hit about ten the next morning, and hung up. Before I could dial Schulz, the phone rang.

“Goldilocks’ Catering,” I chirped, “where everything is just right!”

Breathing.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Who is this?”

A dial tone, then nothing. I pressed Schulz’s number.

“How’s my favorite caterer?” he said with a chuckle when I had greeted him.

“You mean your only caterer.”

“Oops. She’s in a bad mood. Must have been chatting with her ex-husband.”

“That, and someone heaved a rock through one of our windows last night. Plus I just had an anonymous call, third one of the morning.”

He snorted. “The ex up to his old tricks?”

“He says no. The security alarm went off when the rock came through, and Arch handled it. The calls worry me.”

“You going to let the phone company know?”

“Yes. yes, of course. But what scares me is that these things happened right after the Keith Andrews thing. Maybe there’s a connection. I wish I’d never found him. I wish I’d never gotten involved. But I did and I am, in case you don’t recall.”

“I do, I do, Miss G. Take it easy, that’s why I called you. There was a message on my voice mail from you, remember? You didn’t want to wake me up, but you’d found something.”

I told him about the credit card in the pocket of the raccoon coat. He asked for the number. I fished around for the card, then repeated the numerals. He said, “Don’t return the card with the coat. Can you bring it over tomorrow? Stay for dinner?”

“Love to.” I felt guilty for speaking sharply to him. Softening, I said, “Why don’t you come here? I’ll probably have a ton of leftover bratwurst. Then if we get an anonymous call, you can bawl the person out yourself.”

“How about this… give the sausage to the boys and come out to my place around six. I need to talk to you alone.”

His tone made me smile. “Sounds interesting.”

“It would be if it were about us,” Schulz replied reluctantly. “But this is about Julian.”

Great. I said I’d be there and hung up. Packing up the choucroute, I remembered Audrey Coopersmith. Doggone it. Support, support, I told myself, and punched the numbers for the bookstore, where I asked for the self-improvement department. Part of psychology, I was told. Hmm.

“Oh, God, Goldy,” Audrey said breathily when we were connected. “I’m so glad you called. I’m a wreck.

First the police and then those damn Dawsons at the church, plus I got this terrible letter yesterday from Carl’s lawyer – “

“Please,” I interrupted, but nicely, “you know I’ve got this Bronco thing at the Dawsons – “

“Oh, well, I’ve got a huge problem. We’re having a seminar, Getting Control of Your Life, tonight and I promised to do a little stir-fry for the staff after the store closes at five and before we reopen at seven, and what with the police asking all those questions, I forgot all about the stir-fry, and they have plates and stuff here, but I don’t have any food and I was just wondering if you’d…”

Fill in the blank. I stretched the phone cord, opened the door to my walk-in refrigerator, and perused the contents. “How many people?”

“Eight.”

“Any vegetarians?”

“None, I already checked. And we’ve taken up a collection, five dollars per person. I’ll give you all the money and buy you any cookbook you want, plus do the serving and cleanup myself… .” Relief and glee filled her voice, and I hadn’t even said yes.

“Okay, but it’ll be simple,” I warned. “Simple is what they want, it’s part of getting control of your life.”

I made an unintelligible sound and said I’d be down after the Bronco game. After some thought I got out two pounds of steak, then swished together a wonderfully pungent marinade of pressed garlic, sherry, and soy sauce. Once the beef had defrosted slightly under cold running water, I cut it into thin slices, sloshed them around in the marinade, and finished packing up the choucroute and trimmings. I couldn’t shake the feeling, however, that it was going to be a long half-time luncheon.

At the Dawsons’ enormous wood-and-glass home, there was much discussion of the artificial turf inside Minneapolis-domed stadium. My appearance caused only a momentary pause in the downing of margaritas and whiskey sours and the assessment of Viking strategy. Caroline Dawson, still wearing her red suit, waddled in front of Arch, Julian, and me out to the kitchen.

It was the cleanest, most impeccably kept culinary space I had ever inhabited. When I complimented her on how immaculate everything was, she gave me a startled look.

“Isn’t your kitchen clean?” Without waiting for an answer, she peeked underneath the plastic wrap of one of my trays. I thought it was to check how clean it was until her chubby fingers emerged with a crust of potato-caraway bread. She popped the bread into her mouth, chewed, and said, “Hank and I, being in food service, feel it’s imperative to have a dust-and dirt-free environment. You know we asked you to cater this meal because, well, we’re busy with the guests, and you do have a good reputation – “

Then she scuttled out, but not without filching another slice of bread. Julian, Arch, and I began to prepare the meal in earnest. But if I thought we would be uninterrupted, I was wrong. Rhoda Marensky, as thin and leggy as an unwatered rhododendron, sauntered out first. It was well known in town that statuesque Rhoda, now fifty, had been a model for Marensky Furs before Stan Marensky married her. For the Bronco get-together, she wore a chartreuse knit sweater and skirt trimmed with fur in dots and dashes, as if the minks had been begging for help in Morse code. She stood in an exaggerated slouch to appraise Julian.

“Well, my boy,” she said with undisguised wickedness, “you must have finished your SAT review early, if you can take time out to cater. What confidence!”

Julian stopped spooning out sauerkraut, pressed his lips together, and gulped. Arch looked from Julian to me.

“Unlike some people,” I replied evenly, “Julian doesn’t need to review.”

Rhoda snorted loudly and writhed in Julian’s direction, a female Uriah Heep. She put her hand on the sauerkraut spoon handle s6 that he was forced to look at her. “Salutatorian! And our Brad tells me you’ve never even been in a gifted program. Where was it you’re from, somewhere in Utah?”

“Tell me,” I wondered aloud, “what kind of name is Marensky anyway? Where is it from, Eastern Europe?” Bitchy, I know, but sometimes you have to fight fire with a blowtorch. Besides, skinny people seldom appreciate caterers.

“The Marenskys were a branch of the Russian royal family,” Rhoda retorted.

“Wow! Cool!” interjected my impressionable son.

I glanced at the butcher knife on the counter. “Which branch would that be, the hemophiliac one? Or is that technically a vein?”

That did it. Rhoda slithered out. A moment later her husband strode into the kitchen. Stan Marensky almost tripped over Arch, who scooted out of his path and grimaced. I tried not to groan. Stan’s long, deeply lined face, oversize mouth, and lanky frame always reminded me of a racehorse. He was as slender as his wife, but much more nervous. Must have been all that Russian blood that wouldn’t clot.

“What did you say to my wife about blood?” he demanded.

“Blood? Nothing. She must have been thinking of the football game.”

And out went Stan. Arch giggled. Julian stared at me incredulously.

“Man, Goldy, chill! You’ve always told me you have to be so nice, especially to rich people, so you can get more bookings… and here you are just dumping on the Marenskys – “

Caroline Dawson interrupted his rebuke by waddling back into the room. The queen of the short people put her hands on her wide hips; her crimson body shook with rage. “What is taking so long? If I had known you three were going to be out here having a gab fest, I would have had Greer help you, or, or … I would have brought in help from the café – “

“Not to worry!” I interrupted her merrily and hoisted a tray with platters of steaming sausages. “We’re holding our own. Let’s go see how our team’s doing,” I ordered the boys.

Julian mutely lifted his tray with the sauerkraut and potato-caraway bread. Arch carefully took hold of the first serving dish of warmed applesauce. We served the food graciously and received a smattering of compliments. The Marenskys regarded us haughtily as they picked at their food, but ventured no more critical comments.

On the big-screen television, brilliant close-up shots made the football playing surface look like tiny blades. Happily, Denver won by two touchdowns, one on a quarterback sneak and the other on a faked field goal attempt. I predicted both plays in addition to serving the food.

Hank Dawson, flushed and effusive, reminded me I was booked again for next week’s game. He brandished a wad of bills’ that amounted to our pay plus a twenty-five percent tip. I was profusely thankful and divided the gratuity with Arch and Julian. Unfortunately, I knew that next week the Broncos were playing the Redskins in Washington.

Maybe I could split the tip over two weeks.

We arrived home just before five. Early darkness pressed down from the sky, a reminder, like the recent snow and cold, of winter’s rapid approach. Julian stared out the kitchen window and said maybe he should stay home and do SAT review instead of doing stir-fry at the Tattered Cover. Inwardly, I cursed Rhoda Marensky. Arch said he wanted to come along when I told him we’d be cooking on the fourth floor, usually closed to the public.

“Cool! Do they, like, have their safe up there, and surveillance equipment, and stuff like that?”

“None of the above,” I assured him as I packed up the ingredients. “Probably just a lot of desks and boxes of books. And a little kitchen.”

“Maybe I should take my wardrobe with the fake back for the C. S. Lewis display. Oh, Julian, please come with me so you can help me carry it. I know they have a secret closet there, did you? Do you think they’ll use my display? I mean, if Julian helps me set it up?” He looked with great hope first at Julian, then me. I was afraid, as mothers always are, that the voice of expedience – “They probably have all the displays they need” – would be interpreted as rejection. I said reflectively, “Why don’t we ask them when we get there?”

He seemed satisfied. Julian decided his homework and the SAT review could wait. He helped Arch load the plywood wardrobe into the van while I packed up the stir-fry ingredients. On the way to Denver, I decided to broach the topic of Arch’s weekend. Despite his basically nonathletic nature, he had learned to ski at an early age and enjoyed the sport quite a bit. For Halloween, I asked, did he want to ski early with his father, go out for trick-of-treat, what?

“I don’t have any friends from Elk Park Prep to go trick-or-treating with,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Besides, if Dad wants to ski-wait! I could go around in his condo building!”

“And dress up as … ?” Julian asked.

“Galileo, what else?”

I grinned as we pulled into the bookstore’s parking garage. Audrey was waiting for us in her silver van by the third-floor store entrance. She hopped out and swiped her security card through the machine next to the door. Arch, a security nut, had her repeat the process, which he studied with furrowed brow as Julian and I unloaded my van. While helping us haul in the electric wok and bags of ingredients, Audrey said the store was empty for the two-and-a-half-hour break between closing and reopening for the seminar. The other seven staff members present were doing some last-minute preparation… dinner was planned for six-forty, and she’d already started cooking some rice she’d found in a cupboard… was that okay?

“Is now a good time to ask her about the wardrobe?” Arch whispered to me in the elevator to the fourth floor.

We had fifteen minutes before cooking had to begin. I nodded; Arch made his request.

“A wardrobe with a false back!” Audrey cried. “You’re so creative! Just like Heather… why, I remember when she was nine, she loved C. S. Lewis too. How old are you?” Arch reddened and said he was twelve. Audrey shrugged and plowed ahead. “When Heather was nine, she wanted a planetary voyager for Christmas, and, of course, she is so gifted in science, why, one summer she built a time-travel machine with little electric gizmos right in our backyard … “

Arch rolled his eyes at me; Julian cleared his throat and looked away. I think Audrey caught the look, because she stopped abruptly and gnawed her lip. “Well, Arch, I’m sorry, but we probably can’t,” she said plaintively. “I mean, I can’t authorize you putting up a false-back display, somebody might get hurt… .”

Arch looked disappointed, but then piped up, “Can I see the secret closet, then? I know you have one, a kid at school told me.”

“Uh, I suppose,” Audrey said, hesitating, “but it isn’t exactly The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Are you sure?”

Arch replied with an enthusiastic affirmative. Arch, Julian, Audrey, and I unloaded the supplies and rode down to the first floor. In Business Books, Audrey carefully pulled out an entire floor-to-ceiling shelf. In back was a small closet. Arch insisted on being closed into it.

His muffled voice said, “Yeah, it’s cool all right! Now let me out.”

This we did. Satisfied, he returned to the fourth floor with us and minutes later was stringing snow peas to go in the stir-fry under Julian’s direction.

As I heated oil in the electric wok, Arch said, “Did you do stuff like that during the summer when you were nine, Mom? Make a time-travel machine?”

Julian snorted. I replied, “The only thing I did during the summer when I was nine was swim in the ocean and eat something called fireballs.”

Arch pushed his glasses up on his nose and nodded, considering. Finally he said, “Okay. I guess I’m not too dumb.”

I gave him an exasperated look, which he returned. The oil was beginning to pop, so I eased in the marinated beef. The luscious smell of garlic-sauteed beef wafted up from the wok.

“Thank you, thank you,” gushed Audrey. “I don’t know what I would have done without you, I’ve just been so stressed lately – “

“No problem.” I tossed the sizzling beef against the sides of the wok until the red faded to pink. When the beef slices were just tender, I eased them onto a platter and heated more oil for the broccoli, carrots, baby corn, and snow peas, an inviting palette of emerald, orange, and pale yellow. When the vegetables were hot and crisp, I poured on the oyster-sauce mixture, then added the beef and a sprinkling of chopped scallions. I served the whole hot steaming mass with the rice to Arch, Audrey, and her staff, who exclaimed over the fresh veggies’ crunchiness, the tenderness and rich garlic flavor of the steak.

“I love to feed people,” I replied with a smile, and then wielded chopsticks into the goodies myself.

On the way home, Julian ate a cheese sandwich he’d brought, pronounced himself exhausted, and lay down in the back seat. He was snoring within seconds. Arch rambled in a conspiratorial tone about the upcoming weekend, skiing, the amount of loot he’d collect trick-or-treating at his father’s condo, being able to see more constellations in Keystone because it was farther from the lights of Denver. He wanted to know, if I hadn’t read C. S. Lewis when I was his age, had I at least liked to look at stars? Did I wait until it was dark to see Polaris, and could you see a lot of stars, living near the Jersey shore? Like in the summertime, maybe? I told him the only thing I looked forward to on summer evenings when I was his age was getting a popsicle from the Good Humor man.

“Oh, Mom! Fireballs and popsicles! All you ever think about is food!”

I took this as a compliment, and laughed. I wanted to ask him how school was going, how he thought Julian was doing, how life was going in general, but. experience had taught me he would interpret it as prying. Besides, he spared me the trouble as we chugged up the last portion of Interstate 70 that led to our exit.

“Speaking of food, I’m glad we had meat tonight,” my son whispered. “Sometimes I think eating that brown rice and tofu stuff is what makes Julian so unhappy.”

Chinese Beef Stir-Fry with Veqetables

1 pound good-quality (such as Omaha Steaks) sirloin tips, cut into 1-inch cubes

1 tablespoon dry sherry

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon cornstarch

˝ teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoons and ˝ teaspoon vegetable oil

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 cloves garlic, pressed

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

2 large stalks of broccoli, stems removed and cut into florets

2 carrots, peeled and sliced on a diagonal

˝ cup beef broth

8 spears (˝ 15-ounce can) water-packed baby corn, drained

20 fresh snow peas

1 scallion, both white and green parts, chopped Marinate the sirloin at room temperature in a mixture of the sherry, soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of the cornstarch, the sugar, ˝ teaspoon of the oil, the pepper, and garlic for an hour. Heat 1 tablespoon of the remaining oil in a wok over high heat. Stir-fry beef quickly, until the meat is brown outside and pink inside. Remove.

Mix the remaining 2 teaspoons cornstarch with the oyster sauce. Reheat the wok with the remaining tablespoon oil. Add the broccoli and carrots; stir-fry for 30 seconds. Add the broth, cover the wok, and steam for approximately 1 minute or until the vegetables are tender but retain their crunch. Add the corn, snow peas, scallion, beef, and oyster sauce-cornstarch mixture. Heat quickly, until the sauce is clear and thickened. Serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.

Monday morning brought slate-gray clouds creeping up from the southernmost part of the eastern horizon. Below the cloud layer, a slice of sunrise sparkled pink as fiberglass. I stretched through my yoga routine, then turned on the radio in time to hear that the blanket of clouds threatened the Front Range with – dreaded words – a chance of snow. The reason Coloradans do not use the eastern word autumn is that October offers either late summer or early winter, with precious little in between.

I dressed and made espresso. Arch and Julian shuffled sleepily out of their room and joined me. I flipped thick, egg-rich slices of hot French toast for them and poured amber lakes of maple syrup all around. This perked them both up. After the boys left for school, I worked on my accounts, sent out some bills and paid some, ordered supplies for the upcoming week, and then took off for Elk Park Prep with the raccoon coat rolled into a furry ball on the front seat of my van.

The winding driveway to the prep school had been paved and straightened out somewhat at the end of the summer. But the approach to the magnificent old hotel was still breathtaking. Several of the driveway’s curves even afforded glimpses of snow-capped peaks. Saturday night’s snowfall, now mostly melted, had reduced the roadside hillocks of planted wildflowers to rust-colored stalks topped with wrinkled flowers in faded hues of blue and purple.

As I rounded the last curve and rolled over speed bump number three, I noticed that the school had finished tearing down the chain-link fence around the pool construction site. In its place was a decorous stone wall surrounded by hemlock bushes. Looked like the administration didn’t want kids thinking about swimming with winter coming on. Over the summer Arch had nearly drowned in that damn pool. I didn’t want to think about swimming, either.

I parked, grabbed the fur coat, and leaped out onto the iced driveway. Over by the headmaster’s house I could see two policemen methodically sweeping the ground with metal detectors. I turned away.

Someone had taped photocopied pictures of Keith Andrews onto the front doors of the school. Black crepe paper hung around each. The angelic, uncannily Arch-like face stared out from both flat photos. I closed my eyes and pushed through the doors.

In the carpeted lobby, chessboards left in mid-game were perched on tables with their chairs left at hurriedly pulled-out angles. Piles of books and papers spilled off benches. Through this clutter threaded Egon Schlichtmaier, my muscular faculty assistant from the college dinner. Today he was conspicuously spiffy in a very unFaustian sheepskin jacket. Next to him clomped the much less sartorial Macguire Perkins in a faded denim coat. Macguire’s acne-covered face had a dour expression; Egon Schlichtmaier’s baby face was grim. They had just come in from outside, and they were in a hurry.

“You heff made us late,” Egon was scolding.

“So?” retorted Macguire.

“Ah, there you are,” trilled Headmaster Perkins at me. He approached in the tweed-of-the-day, a somber herringbone. “With Mrs. Marensky’s coat. Won’t she be happy.”

Yes, won’t she. Mr. Perkins escorted me into his office, a high-ceilinged affair that had been painted mauve to match one of the hues in the hand-cut Chinese rug that covered most of the marble floor. A buzz of his intercom distracted him. I sat carefully on one of the burgundy leather sofas profuse with brass buttons. It let out a sigh.

“You and me both,” I said under my breath.

“Well!” said the headmaster with a suddenness that startled me. “Saturday night was indeed tragic.” From behind his horn rimmed glasses, Perkins’ eyes locked mine; we had the abrupt intimacy of strangers thrown together by disaster. There was the mutual, if unwanted, need to come to terms with what had happened. His usually forced joviality had disappeared; his anxiety was barely masked. “Awful, just awful,” he murmured. He jumped up restlessly and paced back and forth in front of the windows. Sunlight shone off his thick mass of prematurely white hair. “It was like a … a …” But for once the complicated similes wouldn’t come. As you can imagine,” he floundered, “our phones have not stopped ringing. Parents calling to find out what happened. The press…” He gestured with his hands and lifted his pale eyebrows expressively. “We had an emergency faculty meeting this morning. I had to tell them you were the one who found the body.”

I groaned. “Does this mean people are going to be calling me to find out what happened?”

Headmaster Perkins brushed a finger over one of the brass wall sconces before moving toward his Queen Anne-style desk chair, where he ceremoniously sat. “Not if you can tell me exactly what you saw, Mrs. Korman. That way, I can deal with those who want all the details.”

Hmm. In a small town, people always wanted all the details, because everyone wanted to be the first one with the complete story. How many stitches did George need when he fell while rock-climbing? Did Edward lose his house when he filed for bankruptcy? Did they take out Tanya’s lymph nodes? And on it went. So the request did not surprise me. On the other hand, this wasn’t the first time I’d had some involvement with a homicide investigation. I had learned from Schulz to talk as little as possible in these situations. Remembered details were for the police, not the gossip network.

“Sorry,” I said with a slight smile, “you know as much as I do. But let me ask you a question. Who would have had the keys to your house to get in before I did that night?”

“Oh.” Perkins didn’t bother to conceal his distaste. “We leave it open. This is an environment of trust.”

Well, you could have fooled me. The receptionist buzzed once more. While Mr. Perkins was again deep in similes, I glanced around his office. The mauve walls held wood-framed degrees and pictures. The Hill School. B.A. from Columbia. M.A., Yale. There was a large crackled-surface oil painting of a fox hunt, with riders in full Pink regalia hurtling over a fence. Another painting was of Big Ben. As if the life of Merrie OIde Englande were available in the Colorado high country. But these hung decorations sent a subliminal message to prospective students and, more important, to their parents. Want these accoutrements and all they imply? Go 10 this school.

The headmaster finished up on the phone and laced his fingers behind his silvery-white hair. “I have a few more things to talk to you about, Mrs. Korman. We need to move the next college advisory meeting off the school grounds. Too much anxiety would be aroused if we held it at my residence again, I fear. Can you stay flexible?”

“As a rubber band,” I said with a straight face. “And you do remember that the SATs are this coming Saturday morning? You’re making a healthful treat, something whole grain?”

I nodded. How could I forget? I would be bringing the Elk Park Prep seniors, as well as the visiting seniors from the local public high school, a buffet of breakfast-type treats, to be served before the test. Better than skiing at Keystone any day, I thought sourly.

“It’s the morning after Halloween,” the headmaster reflected, “although I don’t suppose that will make a difference. But it may spook them,” he added with a grin.

Getting back to his old self. I waited. Perkins pulled off his glasses and polished them carefully.

I said, “Well, if that’s all –“

“It isn’t.”

I squirmed on the sofa. He put on his glasses, narrowed his eyes, and puckered his lips in thought.

Perkins said: “Your son Arch is having some problems.”

Ringing assaulted my ears. Keeping my voice even, I said, “What kind of problems?”

” Academic as well as social, I’m told.” To his credit, a shade of gentleness crept into Perkins’ tone. “Arch is failing social studies. Missing most of the assigned work, is my understanding. He seems quite unhappy… not swimming with the currents of scholastic life. Reading books outside of the curriculum and wanting to report on them.”

“Failing a course? Social studies?” The mother is always the last to know.

“We wanted you to be aware of this before midterm grades come out next week. Parent conferences are scheduled in two weeks. When you come, you can ask Arch’s instructors yourself.”

“Can I talk to his teachers now? Do they know why this is happening?”

He shrugged. His gesture clearly said, This is not my responsibility. “The instructors can see you if it’s convenient. Remember, grades are only an indication of what young Arch is learning. Like the weather forecasts, this may mean a storm, but it may only be dark clouds… a wee disturbance in the stratosphere.” This last was accompanied by a wee, patronizing smile.

“The instructors can see me if it’s convenient?” I repeated. In public school, if you wanted to see a teacher, you got a conference, period. “Grades are like the weather forecasts?” Fury laced my voice. “You know what this school is like? Like… like… bottled water! You pay more for it than the free stuff out of the tap, but there’s a lot less regulation! And the product is awfully unpredictable! “

Perkins drew back. How dare I invade his field of metaphorical expertise? I stood up and bowed slightly, my way of excusing myself without speaking. There was only one comfort in the whole infuriating experience: For the meteorological analysis of Arch’s academic progress it was John Richard, and not I, who was forking over nine grand a year.

5

When I left the headmaster’s office, I noticed that ultra-thin, ultra-chic couple, Stan and Rhoda Marensky, hovering around the receptionist. This day, Rhoda’s fashionably short red hair stood in contrast to a blond-streaked fur jacket, the kind that looked as if the animals had their hair frosted. She stopped reading a framed article on the wall and turned a blank, prim face to me. Either she was angry to learn who had carried off her raccoon coat or she was still stewing about my hemophilia comment.

Stan, less like a clotheshorse than a horse who happened to be wearing clothes (in this case a rumpled green suit), paced nervously. His lined face quivered; his bloodshot eyes flicked nervously about the room. He looked at me, then away. Clearly, I wasn’t worth greeting.

“I brought back your coat,” I announced loudly, not one to endure snubs lightly.

“Hnh,” snorted Rhoda. She tilted her head back so she could look down her long nose at me, literally. “I suspected somebody had taken it. Compound grand theft with murder, why not?”

I could feel rage bubbling up for the second time in ten minutes. Now I really couldn’t wait to tell Schulz whose coat had someone else’s credit card tucked in its pocket. A dead somebody else, no less. We’d see about insinuations. To the Marenskys, I only smiled politely. I had learned the hard way not to respond directly to hostility. Instead, I purred, “How’s the fur store doing?”

Neither answered. The receptionist even stopped tapping on her computer keys for a moment to see if she had missed something. Was it possible that Marensky Furs, a family business that had been a Denver landmark for over thirty years, wasn’t doing so well? The newspapers are always full of doom-and-gloom analyses for the Colorado economy. But Marla, who was a regular Marensky customer, would have told me if the trade in silver fox had taken a hit. Perhaps .I should have asked how Neiman-Marcus was doing.

The bell clanged, signaling the end of the second academic period. I wanted to catch Arch between classes but was determined that if anyone was going to back down, it was going to be the Marenskys. Stan stopped pacing and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. He rocked back on the heels of his unpolished Italian loafers and regarded me. “Didn’t I coach your son in soccer?”

“Yes, briefly.”

“Little guy, right? Kind of timid? What’s he doing now, anything?”

“Building props from C. S. Lewis novels.” Stan Marensky continued to look at me as if I baffled him, or in some way presented an enigma. A wave of noisy students swelled down the hall. Stan Marensky said, “I understand Julian Teller lives with you now, doesn’t he?”

What was this, interrogation time? If he couldn’t eyen tell me the status of the fur trade, what was I doing recounting the doings of our household?

I said merely, “Mmm.” We were saved from open warfare by the sudden appearance of Headmaster Perkins at his doorway. He looked expectantly at the Marenskys, who turned in unison and made for the headmaster’s office. Odd. Two people didn’t need to come in to pick up an old coat. Something else was going on. But as the door to the office closed with a soft click, I knew I wasn’t going to be privy to any confidences.

The second bell rang. I asked the receptionist how to get to seventh-grade social studies and then walked pensively down one of the long halls. Pictures of the old hotel before it had become a school hung between the bulletin boards and rows of metal lockers. In the first photograph you could see the lobby in its former glory. Once this had been an expanse of pink Colorado marble with replicas of classical statuary placed tastefully here and there. Now it was covered with dark industrial-grade carpet. Other pictures showed the wide halls to the guest suites; still others, the suites themselves, lushly decorated with floral-patterned rugs, matching wallpaper, and egg-and-dart molding. The faded photos exuded an air of quiet luxury that was distinctly at odds with the bulletin boards stuffed with announcements, the battered lockers papered with pictures of rock stars, the throb of young voices pulsing from classrooms.

Through the rectangle of glass in the door to his classroom, Arch was visible in the back row of desks. At the front, a video ran on a pull-down screen. A shot of the Acropolis flickered on the screen, accompanied by some loud droning from the announcer, then a shot of the Colosseum. I could see the chalked words on the blackboard: Early Cities: Athens, Rome. Arch, turned away from the teacher, his legs splayed out in front of him, paid no heed. His glasses had ridden down on his nose as he hunched with a book held to the light from the projector. I didn’t need to see the title: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, his current favorite.

I fought a powerful instinct to slip in and lift the volume right out of his hands. He was flunking this class, for goodness’ sake. But I held back. I even managed not to rap on the door window and embarrass him. But then a sudden touch on my shoulder made me shriek. So much for my Mother of the Year Award: I lost my balance; my forehead bonked the glass. All the heads in the classroom turned. Hastily, I drew back, but not before I saw Arch put his head in his hands in embarrassment.

“What is it?” I demanded brusquely of Audrey Coopersmith, dressed this day in a periwinkle gabardine shirt and baggy pants complemented with hightop sneakers.

She winced. The perfect curls shook slightly. “Sorry,” I said, and meant it. Support, I reminded myself. “What’re you doing here?”

“Delivering books. I’ve just been to the headmaster’s office, but the secretary said you were here.” Her tone was tentative; maybe she feared I would growl at her again. “Listen, that was a great stir-fry that you did. Thanks again. Anyway, after the seminar, one of the staff people said the bookstore was having a, a … reading this Fri-day night. I thought I’d talk to Perkins about it this morning, but he’s in a meeting. The secretary let me talk to him over her phone, though, since the notice was short – “

“Notice was short for what?” I had a vision of stir-fry for a hundred people. The last thing I needed was another job in an already busy week.

“The headmaster wants to use the reading as a college advisory thing. You and I would do the treats. After the reading, of course.”

“Don’t tell me. Halloween? Clive Barker. Stephen King.”

“Nooo,” Audrey said. She shifted her weight back and forth on her high tops; the keys on her belt hook jingled. “It’s for Marshall Smathers.” To my look of confusion, she explained, “He wrote that best seller, Climbing the Ivy League. It gives tips for the admission process.”

True horror. I asked, “Will the bookstore pay for the treats?”

“No, the school will. The seniors and juniors from Elk Park Prep are all supposed to go. It’ll be over early because of the SATs the next morning. The headmaster’s office is going to call around and tell the parents. Perkins said the school would pick up the tab if you put out a little sign that says refreshments compliments of Elk Park Preparatory School. I suggested that part to him,” she said with a slight snort.

“Audrey, you’re an advertising whiz.”

She said bleakly, “I’m a whiz, all right.”

I didn’t know whether the irritation I felt was from Audrey’s cynical tone or just my increasing impatience with her chronic unhappiness. “Okay, okay,” I said. “Tell Perkins I’ll do it and that I’ll call him.” At that moment, I would have preferred to be a pelt in a Marensky coat than face another metaphor.

She said she’d leave Perkins a message because she had another meeting to go to. Then she turned and traipsed off. I went in search of Miss Ferrell. She did not teach Arch, but she did advise the French Club, which he enjoyed immensely. Maybe she could give me some perspective on his problems.

After about ten minutes of pointless wandering through mazelike halls, I located Miss Ferrell’s room. Actually, it wasn’t that difficult: it was the only door with a poster of a giant croissant on it. Above, a hand-lettered sign was posted: SENIORS: DISCUSS APPLICATION ESSAY AND ROLE-PLAY COLLEGE INTERVIEWS TODAY – THIRD PERIOD.

From inside the room came the sound of voices. I opened the door and slipped in, heeded only by five or six of the thirty seniors within. Audrey appeared to have just come in also; to my surprise, she was sitting in the back. The Marenskys, apparently finished with their powwow with the headmaster, plus the Dawsons and several other sets of parents, were seated over to the side. A couple raised eyebrows at my entrance. I shrugged. Just me, the caterer. I noticed that a number of the seniors were mourning their valedictorian with black armbands.

A short, round fellow whispered, “Did you bring any food?” When I shook my head, he reluctantly turned his attention back to the front of the room.

Miss Ferrell’s toast-colored hair was swept up into a;:’ large topknot held on the crown of her head by a trailing red scarf that matched the red of her tent dress. The dress itself was one of those bifurcated triangles, half bright red, half raspberry pink. She looked like a pyramid of sherbet. I took the one empty chair at the back of the room. Julian gave me a high-five sign and I smiled. Guess I had shown up at the right time.

“Okay now,” said Miss Ferrell, “it seems to me that too many of you are becoming obsessively worried about what colleges want – “

A hand shot up.

“Yes, Ted?”

“I heard that for the most selective schools, if you aren’t in the top ten percent of your class, you are dead.”

There was a collective sharp intake of breath at Ted’s infelicitous choice of words. Miss Ferrell paled slightly and reached for a response.

“Well, the ranking may have some effect, but it also helps to have good grades showing your effort…”

“But what about a composite SAT score between 1550 and 1600?” prompted another student fiercely. “Don’t you have to have that too?”

“I heard you had to play varsity soccer, basketball, and lacrosse,” catcalled another, “and get the good sportsmanship award too.”

There were whispers and shaken heads. Miss Ferrell gave her audience an unsmiling look that brought a hush.

“Look, people! I could tell you that the ideal applicant walks a minimum of six miles each way to school! That he’s a volunteer vigilante on the subway! Is that going to make you feel better or worse about this process?”

“There’s no subway in the mountains! Good or bad?” Audrey Coopersmith decorously raised her hand. “I heard that the ideal applicant comes from a low-income single-parent family.” Over the murmurs of protest, she raised her voice. “And I also heard that if the applicant’s after-school job helps support the family financially, it shows character, and that’s what top colleges are looking for.”

Cries of “what?” and “huh!” brought another stern look from Miss Ferrell. Did Heather Coopersmith have an after-school job? I couldn’t remember.

“That is one possible profile.” Miss Ferrell drew her mouth into a rosebud of tiny wrinkles.

Hank Dawson raised his hand. “I heard that the top applicants had to do volunteer work. I don’t think it’s safe for Greer to hang around some soup kitchen with a bunch of welfare types.”

“Nobody has to do anything,” replied Miss Ferrell crisply. “We’re looking for a fit between a student and a school… .”

Rhoda Marensky raised her hand. Her rings flashed. She’d draped her fur over her lap. “Is it appropriate for the applicant to discuss minority connections? I understand there is renewed interest in applicants with Slavic surnames.”

Hank Dawson bellowed: “What a crock!”

Greer Dawson cried, “Daddy!” Caroline Dawson gave her husband and daughter a be-quiet look which made both droop obediently.

Macguire Perkins swiveled his long neck and smirked at his classmates. “I flunk. I quit. Guess I’ll be at Elk Park forever. You can all come visit me here. There’s no way any school’s going to let me in.”

“You’ve already demonstrated how not to get in,” said Miss Ferrell quietly. There were snickers from the listeners, but I missed the joke. Miss Ferrell demanded of Macguire, “Did you write to Indiana? I asked you to have it ready by today, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said under his breath. “I would like you to share it with us, please.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Macguire, let’s go.”

Macguire grumbled and slapped through an untidy folder until he found some papers.

“Up here, please,” commanded Miss Ferrell. “Now, everyone, quiet, please. As I’ve said numerous times, honesty and creativity are what we value in these essays. Parents” – she nodded meaningfully at the tense adults in the back of the room – “would do well to remember that.”

Macguire groaned again. Then he unfolded his long body from his desk and slouched to the front of the class, where he towered over the diminutive Miss Ferrell. The holes in his tight jeans showed muscled flesh. His oversize shirttails hung from beneath his sweatshirt. He gave a self-deprecating grin and blushed beneath his acne. It was painful.

Miss Ferrell warned, “If there is any disturbance during Macguire’s presentation, the offender will be excused.”

Macguire gave a beseeching look to the class. Then, reluctantly, he lifted several crumpled pages and started reading.

“‘I want to go to Indiana University because their basketball team needs me. I have always been a fan. I mean, you’d never catch me yelling at the TV during the NCAA finals, “Hoosier mother? Hoosier father?”

Someone snickered. Macguire cleared his throat and continued.

“ ‘I’m using my essay to apologize for the way I acted when I came for my campus visit. And also to set the record straight.

” ‘It started off because some of my basketball teammates from last year’s senior class are at I.U., and they all pledged SAE. And also, I didn’t get along with my campus host. I mean, in the real world we wouldn’t have been friends, so why pretend? I’m just trying to explain how everything went so wrong, for which I am sincerely sorry.

” ‘After my campus host and I parted company – I did not ditch him, as he claimed – I went over to SAE to see the guys. They were having a keg party and invited me to join in. I didn’t want to be rude and I did sort of feel bad about the campus-host situation. So I thought, well, this time I would be polite.’ “

The laughter grew louder. Macguire looked up. To Miss Ferrell, he said in a low voice, “I know you jus said one page for the essay, but this is a long story. I had to add extra sheets.”

“Just read,” ordered Miss Ferrell. She gave the giggling mass of students a furious look. They fell silent.

” ‘So anyway,’ “ Macguire resumed with a twitch of his lanky body, ” ‘there we were, and I was being polite and a good guest. Yes, I know I am underage, but as I said, I was trying to be polite. Now, after I was polite for all those hours, of course I couldn’t find my way back to the dorm, because you’ve built all those buildings out of Indiana limestone, and to be perfectly honest, they all look alike. While I was lost I was real sorry I had dumped my campus host.

” ‘I did finally find the dorm, and I am truly sorry for the guy on the first floor whose window I had to knock on so he could let me in. He was mad at me, but it wasn’t that cold out, I mean I’d just been lost out there for over an hour, and I wasn’t cold. So why should he have minded so much to come outside in his underwear? And why would you lock up the dorms on a Friday night, anyway? You must know people are going to stay out late partying.’ “

I looked around. All the senior parents looked somewhat shellshocked. Macguire plunged on. ” ‘I don’t want to be, like, too graphic, but my college counselor is always telling us to write an honest essay. So to be perfectly honest, after I passed out for a couple of hours I woke up and had to puke. It was an overwhelming urge brought on by all that time I was being a good guest over at SAE, and you should be glad that I didn’t ruin all that nice Indiana limestone outside my window but instead hauled ass down to the bathroom.

” ‘After I hurled I felt better. I wanted to go right back to sleep so I could be on time for my interview the next morning and tell you how I helped bring Elk Park Prep to the state finals in basketball with my three-point shots, and not have to listen to you ask me a bunch of questions about Soviet foreign policy. Okay, I told you in my letter that I did a paper on it my junior year, but who cares now? I mean, the world has changed.

” ‘Anyway, at three A.M. I was in the bathroom ready to go back to bed. Here’s an honest question: Why do you put the exit to go back outside right next to the bathroom door? So there I was again, outside, and not smelling too good this time, knocking again on that guy’s window to be let in, and this time he was pissed.

“ ‘You know really, now that I look back on it, he didn’t have to get that ticked off. It was Friday night! He didn’t have classes the next day! But as I told you…’ “

Macguire looked hopefully at Miss Ferrell. “You see, I’m not one of those guys who use bad grammar and say, Like I told you. That ought to count for something.”

“Macguire! Read!”

Macguire cleared his throat and found his place. ” ‘I am sorry,’ ” he read. ” ‘I’m sorry to the guy in the underwear, I’m sorry for drinking when I was a minor, I’m sorry that when you asked me about Soviet foreign policy I said, Who gives a shit? and I’m sorry to my campus host, can’t remember his name. You can tell him that if he wants to come out to Colorado, I’ll show him a good time. Promise.’ “

The applause from the students was immediate and deafening. The parents sat in stunned silence. Macguire, flushed with pleasure, gave the class a broad smile. I began to clap too, until I saw Miss Ferrell’s frown. My hands froze in mid-clap. She rapped on her desk until she had quiet. “Can I go back to my desk?” implored Macguire.

“You may not. I will talk to you later about that… essay. Meanwhile, I want you and Greer Dawson to sit down and role-play an interview. Greer will be the director of admissions at … hmm … Vassar. Macguire, you will be the applicant.”

Macguire slumped unhappily into a chair while Greer Dawson walked primly to the front of the room. Today she was dressed like an L.L. Bean ad: impeccable white turtleneck, navy cardigan, Weejuns, and a tartan skirt. Being paired with Macguire Perkins obviously annoyed her. Miss Ferrell directed her to the desk at the front, then crossed her arms. Macguire gave Greer a goofy look. Greer closed her eyes and exhaled deeply. It seemed to me that Macguire would be better off auditioning with Bar-num and Bailey than trying to go to I.U., but I was not in the college advisement business.

Thank God.

“Gee,” said Macguire in a deep voice. He tilted his head and eyed Greer lovingly. “I’d really like to go to Vassar now that it’s coed. I want to watch the Knicks play in New York and I can’t get into Columbia.” Laughter erupted from the gallery.

“Miss Ferrell!” protested Greer with a shake of her straight, perfectly cut blond hair. “He’s not taking this seriously!”

“I am too!” said Macguire. “I really, really want to go to your school, Hammer, uh” – he opened his eyes wide at Greer and she tsked – “Miss Dawson.”

Miss Ferrell gestured to Greer to continue.

Greer’s sigh was worthy of any martyr. “I understand you are interested in basketball, Macguire, and foreign relations. We have a year-abroad program, as you know. Does that interest you?”

“Not that much,” drawled Macguire, his mouth sloped downward. “I really hate Spanish, and German is too hard. What interests me is your coed dorms. I did my senior thesis on sexual liberation.”

“Macguire, please!” cried Miss Ferrell over the squeals of amusement. “I told you not to talk about sex, religion, or politics!”

“Oh, God, fuck, I’m sorry, Miss Ferrell… well, I don’t care about politics anyway.”

“Macguire!”

“Well, I don’t want to go to Vassar anyway,” he whined. “I can’t get into Stanford or Duke. I just want to go to Indiana.”

“Yes, and we’ve all seen just how likely that’s going to be,” snapped Miss Ferrell. “Let’s get two more people up here. Julian Teller,” she said, pointing, “and Heather Coopersmith. What school interview do you want to role-play, Julian?”

Julian shuffled between the desks. He flopped into the chair formerly occupied by Macguire, ran his hand nervously through his mowed hair, and said, “Cornell, for food science.”

“All right,” said Miss Ferrell. “Heather,” she said to Audrey’s daughter, a dark-haired girl with her mother’s face, pink-tinted glasses, and thin, pale lips, “let him ask the questions.”

“This is not fair.” Greer Dawson was miffed. “I didn’t really get a chance.”

“That’s true, she didn’t,” piped up her father.

“You will, you will,” said Miss Ferrell dismissively. “This is a learning experience for everybody – “

“But the period’s almost over!” Greer cried.

Miss Ferrell opened her eyes wide. The sherbet-colored dress trembled. “Sit down, Greer. All right, Julian, what are you going to ask Heather about Cornell?”

From the gallery came the cry, “Ask her about home ec! Can I learn to be a smart caterer here?”

Julian flushed a painful shade, My heart turned over. Julian touched his tongue to his top lip. “I don’t want to do this now.”

The exasperated Miss Ferrell surrendered. “All right, go back to your desks, everybody.” During the ensuing chair-scraping and body-squishing, she said, “People, do you think this is some kind of joke?” She put her hands on her sherbet-clad hips. “I’m trying to help you.” She panned the classroom. She looked like a Parisian model who had been told to do peeved. And the class was taking her about that seriously.

To my great relief, the bell rang. Miss Ferrell called out, “Okay, drafts of personal essays before you leave, people!” I fled to a corner to avoid the press of jostling teenage bodies. By the time everybody had departed, Miss Ferrell was slapping papers around on her desk, looking thoroughly disgusted.

“Quel dommage,” I said, approaching her. What a pity. “Oh! I didn’t see you here.” She riffled papers on top of her roll book. “It’s always like this until a few days before the deadlines. What can I help you with? Did you come to see me? There’s no French Club today.”

“No, I was here to see the headmaster. Forgive me, I just wanted to drop in because, actually, Arch loves French Club. But he’s having trouble with his schoolwork – “

She looked up quickly. “Did you hear about this morning?” She drew back, her tiny body framed by a rumpled poster of the Eiffel Tower on one side and a framed picture of the Arc de Triomphe on the other. When I shook my head, she walked with a tick-tock of little heels over to the door and closed it. “You’ve talked to Alfred?”

“Yes,” I said. “Mr. Perkins told me about Arch. About his academic and… social problems.” Come to think of it, he’d only mentioned the schoolwork mess.

“Did he tell you about this morning?”

“No,” I said carefully, “just that Arch was flunking a class.” Just.

“This is worse than that.”

“Worse?”

Miss Ferrell eyed me. She seemed to be trying to judge whether I could take whatever it was she had to say.

I asked, “What happened to Arch this morning?”

“We had an assembly. The student body needed to know about Keith.” Her abrupt tone betrayed no feeling. “When it was over, I’m sorry to say Arch had a rather strenuous disagreement with someone.”

I closed my eyes. For being basically a kind and mature kid, Arch seemed to be getting into quite a few disagreements lately. I wondered what “rather strenuous” meant. “Who was it, do you know? We’ve just had someone throw a rock through one of our windows, and maybe…”

“Later Arch came and told me he’d gotten into a fight with a seventh-grader, a boy who is frequently in trouble. The other boy apparently said Keith was a tattler. Puzzling… most seventh-graders don’t even know seniors.”

“Is that all?”

“No. When Arch arrived at his locker, he found a nasty surprise. I went to check and… there was something there… .”

“What?”

“You’d better let me show you. I put my own lock on the locker, so it should be undisturbed.”

She peeked out into the hallway. The students had settled into the new class period, so we were able to make it down to the row of seventh-grade lockers without being seen.

Miss Ferrell minced along just in front of me. Her bright red scarf fluttered behind her like a flag. She fiddled expertly with the clasp on Arch’s locker. “I told him to leave it alone and the janitor would clean it out. But don’t know what to do about the paint.”

What I saw first was the writing above Arch’s locker. Block letters in bright pink pronounced: HE WHO WANTS TO BE A TATTLER, NEXT TIME WILL FACE A LIVE…

Miss Ferrell opened the locker door. Strung up and hanging on the hook was a dead rattlesnake.

6

It was all I could do to keep from screaming. “What happened when Arch saw this?”

When Miss Ferrell did not answer immediately, I whacked the locker next to Arch’s. The snake’s two-foot-long body swayed sickeningly. It had been strung up just under its head, and hung on the hook where Arch’s jacket should have gone. I couldn’t bear to look at the expanse of white snake-belly, at the ugly, crimped mouth, at those rattles at the end of the tail.

Miss Ferrell closed her eyes. “Since my classroom was nearby, he told me.”

I felt dizzy. I leaned against the cold gray metal of the adjacent locker. More quietly, I said, “Was he okay? Did he get upset?”

She shook her head. I recognized generic teacherly sympathy. “Of course he was a bit shaken up. I told the headmaster.”

“Yes, right.” Tears burned at the back of my eyes. I was furious at the crack in my voice. Hold it in, hold it in, I warned myself. “What did Perkins do? Why didn’t he tell me about it this morning? What happens now?”

Suzanne Ferrell drew her mouth into a slight moue. Her topknot with its bright scarf bobbed forward. “AIfred … Mr. Perkins said that it was probably just one of those seventh-grade pranks. That we should ignore it.”

Beg to differ, I said silently as I whirled away from Miss Ferrell and headed back to the headmaster’s sumptuous office.

“Is he still in?” I demanded of the receptionist.

“On the phone. If you’ll just take a se – “

I stalked past her.

“Excuse me, sir!” I barked as heartily as any marine. “I need to talk to you.”

Perkins was staring at the oil painting of Big Ben, droning into his receiver. “Yes, Nell, we’ll see you then. Okay, yes, great for everybody. We’ll be like… underground bookworms who have come up to feast on – “

At that moment he registered my presence. Just for a fraction of a second he raised the bushy white eyebrows at me, and I knew Nell had hung up. No worm feast for her. Perkins finished lamely, “… feast… on volumes. Ta-ta.” He replaced the receiver carefully, then laced his short fingers and studied me. There was a shadow of weariness in his pale eyes.

“Yes? Here to check on Friday night’s event at the Tattered Cover? Or about the muffins and whatnot before the SATs? Or is it something else?”

“When you told me how my son was doing academically, you oddly neglected to mention that someone had left a threat, along with a dead rattlesnake, in his locker. And you say he’s having a little trouble socially? You’re not only the master of metaphor, Perkins, you’re the emperor of euphemism.”

His expression didn’t change. He un threaded his hands and opened his palms, a mannered gesture of helplessness. “lf we had any idea – “

“Have you tried to find out? Or are you sticking with the environment-of-trust idea?”

“Mrs. Korman, In seventh grade – “

“First of all, Mrs. Korman is not my name. Second, you’ve just had a murder here, at your school, as a matter of fact in your home. Third, somebody threw a rock through our window the night of that murder. You can’t dismiss that snake as a prank! This school is not a safe place!”

“Ah.” He adjusted his glasses and pursed his lips. Portrait of pensive. The wild white hair gleamed like a clown’s. “Goldy, isn’t it? I d~ believe we have a safe environment here. Whatever happened to unfortunate Keith was… out of the ordinary.”

I swallowed. Headmaster Perkins drummed his fingers on the antique mahogany desk. “The kids,” he mused aloud, “engage in this… alternative behavior… all the time. I refer to the reptile, of course. If we become authoritarian, they’ll rebel with… more antisocial behavior, or with drugs. Look around you.” His delicate hands indicated his elegantly appointed office. “Do you see any graffiti here? No one is rebelling. And that’s because we make this school an environment where our students don’t need to rebel.”

“Thank you, Mr. Freud. Threats are worse than graffiti, don’t you think? Maybe the kids rebel in ways you don’t know. A murder, Mr. Headmaster. Rattlesnakes. Now, let’s get back to it being your job to at least try to find out who – “

The headmaster waved this away. “No, no, no. That simply is not possible, Mrs. K–Goldy. We do not have a regimen of conduct, and we do not go after offenders. We encourage responsibility. This… reptile incident should be viewed as a challenge for your son, a social challenge. It is young Arch’s responsibility to learn to cope with hostility. What I am trying to say to you, what I have to say to so many parents, is that we simply cannot legislate morality.” Perkins gave me his patronizing grin. “And Mr. Freud is not my name, sorry to say.”

Oh, cute. A social challenge. Can’t legislate morality. I stood. At the door, I stopped.

“Tell me this, Mr. Perkins. Why exactly do you spend so much time and effort raising money for this school? And worrying about its precious reputation?”

“Because money is the”-he pondered for a moment, then spread his hands again-“money is the… yeast that… leavens this institution’s ability to provide the best possible education. Our reputation is like our halo – “

“Is that right? Well. You can have a huge doughball of responsibility, Mr. Headmaster, sir, but without morality it’s going to fall flat. Halos are elusive. Or, put another way, even a reptile knows when he’s in the dirt. Ta-ta.”

At home I forced my mind off the school and set it onto the penitential luncheon four days away, the bookstore reception that same Friday evening, and the SAT spread for Saturday morning. Thank God I was going to Schulz’s for dinner. But not until I set some menus, ordered food, and had a heart-to-heart with Arch.

For the clergy luncheon I decided on triangles of toasted sourdough spread with pesto, followed by Sole Florentine with fruit salad. The original recipe for Sorry Cake called for a rich batter developed to offer penance, my cookbook told me. The offender, a thirteenth-century French baker, had confessed to overcharging for bread. The local priest had ordered that the baker give away sweet cakes to all the villagers on Shrove Tuesday. Let the punishment fit the crime, I always say.

For the bookstore affair, there were soft ripened cheeses-Gorgonzola and Brie and Camembert – to order for the Volvo set and Chocolate-Dipped Biscotti to make for the young crowd. Better than trick-or-treat any day.

Chocolate-Dipped Biscotti

1 cup sugar

˝ cup (I stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2 tablespoons anise-flavored liqueur

1 ˝ tablespoons sour mash whiskey

2 tablespoons anise seed

3 large eggs

1 cup chopped almonds

2 ž cups all-purpose flour

1 ˝ teaspoons baking powder

1 12-ounce package semisweet chocolate chips

2 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the sugar and melted butter. Add the liqueur, whiskey, and anise seed. Beat in the eggs, then stir in the nuts. Sift the dry ingredients together. Gently stir in the dry ingredients until well incorporated. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for about 3 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375°. Butter 2 cookie sheets. Shape the dough on cookie sheets into 3 loaves, well spaced. Each loaf should be about 2 inches wide and ˝ inch thick. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the loaves are puffed and browned.

When the loaves are cool enough to touch, cut each loaf into diagonal slices about ˝ inch thick. Lay the slices on their cut sides and toast them at 375° for an additional 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool.

Dip biscotti in chocolate the day they are to be served. In the top of a double boiler, melt the chocolate chips with the shortening, stirring frequently.

Remove from the heat and stir until a candy thermometer reads 85 . Holding each cookie by its bottom, gently dip the tops into chocolate. Turn immediately and allow to dry, uncoated side down, on wax paper. Continue until all biscotti are topped with chocolate. Makes about 4 dozen.

Which reminded me. Since I had to be at the school for the SATs very early in the morning after the bookstore reading, I’d have the pleasure of baking fresh corn, blueberry, and oat bran muffins at four A.M. Saturday. That ought to make me real sharp for dealing with lots of hungry, nervous seniors.

Arch traipsed in and groaned deeply, not a good sign. Over the summer Arch had fallen under Julian’s spell. In the clothes arena this had meant eschewing sweatsuits and working to coordinate school outfits, holding pants up to the light to see if the color matched a shirt, trying on leather bomber jackets and baggy pants in our local used-clothing store until he resembled Julian as closely as possible. But the three shirts that Arch had carefully layered in hues of blue and gray this morning now hung in uneven tails over his gray cotton pants. His face was unnaturally pale; his eyes behind the glasses, bloodshot.

I said, “I saw the snake.” He slung his heavy bookbag across the kitchen floor. The bookbag, another new accoutrement, had replaced his elementary-school backpack. Not that the new books seemed to be getting a lot of use. Arch dropped heavily into one of the kitchen chairs. He did not look at me, and he was fighting the tremble in his bottom lip.

Arch, do you have any idea who – “

“Mom, don’t.”

“But I’ve been so worried! And that painted message! Tattle about what? What do you know that you could possibly tattle about?”

“Mom! Quit babying me!” This would get us nowhere. I asked, “Where’s Julian?” Since Arch no longer took the bus home, Julian was in the habit of driving him.

“Left me off and went to the newspaper office.” He pushed the glasses up on his nose and released another sigh, as in, You are so nosy. “The Mountain Journal. Okay? Can I go now? I don’t want a snack.”

I ignored this. “Arch, I also need to talk to you about your grades – “

“Seventh grade is hard for everybody! Just let me worry about my grades!”

“Are you worried about your grades? Are the other kids doing this poorly?” I changed my tone. Try soft, I ordered myself. “Do you think we need to go back into therapy together?”

“Great! This is just great!” My son’s thin face was pale and furious. “I come home after a horrible day and you’re just going to make it more horrible!”

“I am not!” I hollered. “I want to help you!”

“Sure!” he screamed before he banged out. “It really sounds like it!”

So much for adolescent psychiatry. I looked at my watch: 4:45. Too early for a drink. I slapped bratwurst on a platter, cooked spinach and previously frozen homemade noodles for the boys’ evening meal, wrote them a note on how to heat it all up, and wondered vaguely about the suicide statistics for parents of teenagers. But self-preservation as a single mother meant not dwelling on such notions. If things got worse, I promised myself, we would take the therapy route again. Arch had not, after all, thrown his own rock or strung up his own snake.

Being in a temper made me think I’d better keep busy. I cut butter into flour and swirled in buttermilk, caraway seeds, raisins, and eggs to make a thick speckled batter for Irish Soda Bread. This I poured into a round pan and set to bake while I nipped off to soak in a steaming bubble bath. Great-tasting bread and a great-smelling caterer. What else could Tom Schulz want?

Better not think about that, either.

Irish Soda Bread

2 ˝ cups all-purpose flour

˝ cup sugar

1 ˝ teaspoons baking powder

ž teaspoon salt

˝ teaspoon baking soda

˝ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 cup raisins

1 tablespoon caraway seeds

1 large egg

1 ź cups buttermilk

ź cup sour cream Preheat the oven to 350 . Butter 9-inch round cake pan. Sift together the dry ingredients. Using a food processor with the steel blade or pastry cutter, cut the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles small peas. Blend in the raisins and caraway seeds. Beat the egg, butter milk, and sour cream together until blended.

Stir the egg mixture into the dry mixture just until blended. Transfer the batter to the pan and bake for about 50 to 55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Makes 1 round loaf.

When the bread was done, I began to wrap myself in a down coat, mittens, and earmuffs. After a two-day respite, thick, smoke-colored clouds had poured over the mountains. During the afternoon, the mercury had dropped fifteen degrees. The red sunrise was proving its warning. Flakes drifted down as I emerged from my front door. The icy wind made me hug the warm, fragrant round of Irish bread to my chest. I was thankful to see Julian chug up our street. Without telling him where I was going, I begged him for the four-wheel-drive Range Rover. I could just imagine myself facing a sudden blizzard and then saying to Schulz, “Oops, guess I’ll have to spend the night.”

Right.

Turning the Rover around sounded and felt like an advanced tank maneuver. But once I had managed it, I headed toward Main Street through the thickening snow and began to reflect on my relationship with the homicide investigator.

Being with Schulz was like… I smiled as I put the Rover into third and skittered through a channel of mud on the edge of the road. Like what, Mr. Perkins? Like an enigma, sir.

During the emotional stages of my divorce, numbness had been followed by hatred and then resentment. During that time I’d had neither the energy nor the desire for relationships. I had forsworn marriage, for ever and ever and ever. And since I was a good and faithful Sunday school teacher, swearing off marriage didn’t leave many options in the fulfilling physical relationship department. Which was okay with me. I thought.

A strange thing happened, though, after the cocoon of animosity had worn off and John Richard had become merely an annoyance to deal with on a weekly basis. Not so strange, Marla had insisted at our frequent meetings where we, his two ex-wives, discussed addiction to unhealthy relationships. Anyway, I began to have unexpected waves of Sexual Something. I’d met Schulz, but kept my distance. I’d had a short-lived, nonphysical (but disastrous nonetheless) crush on a local psychologist. Then when Arch gave up his swimming lessons at the athletic club, I was surprised to realize how much I would miss his coach’s easy smile. And there had been Arch’s art teacher at the elementary school, whom I had helped on occasion. I had unexpectedly found myself watching his trim backside as he walked slowly from student to student, correcting their drawings.

Shame! Marla had teased me. Of course, she suffered from no such compunctions. Marla insisted that after the Jerk, she was not only giving up on marriage forever, she was going to have a great time doing so. And she had, while I felt guilty thinking about the swimming coach and the art teacher.

And then I met Schulz. Schulz, who had a commanding presence and green eyes the color of seawater.

As the fat flakes of snow swirled, I eased the Rover into fourth and remembered a time during the summer when I had driven out of town alone to Tom Schulz’s cabin. “Cabin” was much too diminutive a word for Schulz’s stunning two-story home built of perfectly notched logs. He had bought it at an IRS auction after a locally famous sculptor had been caught for back taxes. Now, while the sculptor was carving license plates in a federal penitentiary, Schulz could leave the crises of the sheriff’s office behind to retreat to his remote haven with its rocks and aspens and pines, its panoramic view of the Continental Divide.

On that night four months before, Schulz had fixed me an absolutely spectacular dinner that had helped get my mind off the crises of the moment, which included that ill-fated trademark-infringement lawsuit instigated by Three Bears Catering in Denver. Having the last name Bear had never been more trying. The same evening, our conversation had turned serious when Schulz had told me about his one and only fiancee. Twenty years earlier, she had served as a nurse in Vietnam. She’d been killed during an artillery shelling. Arch made an unexpected appearance after Schulz revealed this aspect of his past, and personal conversation had ended abruptly when our dinner for two became a cookout for three.

It was not long after this that the homicide investigator had asked me if I’d like to get rid of a whole bunch of problems by changing my last name to Schulz. He’d taken my negative answer with a heartbreaking look.

No matter how much I enjoyed Schulz, the memory of the emotional black hole within my marriage to John Richard still remained. Many of my single women friends complained of loneliness, now that they were divorced. But my worst experience of loneliness, of lovelessness, of complete abandonment, had come when I was married. For that I blamed the institution, and not the man. Intellectually, I knew this was wrong. Still, emotionally, I never wanted to get into another situation where it was even possible to feel that low.

I put the Range Rover back into third and chugged my way through deep slush on the dirt road. I thought back, involuntarily, to John Richard and his showers of blows, to the punch to my ear that had sent me reeling across the kitchen, to the way I screamed and beat my hands against the floor. I started to tremble.

Pulling the Rover to the side of the road, I rolled down the window. Take it easy, girl. The snow made a soft, whooshing sound as it fell. Listening to it, feeling the chilled air and the occasional icy flake on my face, chased away the ugly memories. I looked out at the whitened landscape, breathing deeply. And then my eye caught something on the road, half covered with snow.

It was a dead deer. I turned away immediately. It was an unbearable sight, and yet something you saw all the time here, deer and elk smashed by cars going too fast to swerve away. Sometimes the cracked and bloodied carcasses lay by the side of the road for days, their open, huge brown eyes causing pain to any who cared to be caught in that sightless gaze.

Oh, God, why had I been the one to find Keith Andrews? Had he, too, had that experience of thinking he was loved and admired? The black hole of hatred had come over him so suddenly, so prematurely, and now his parents were en route back from Europe to bury him… . Involuntarily, I thought of my heart as I had imagined it after John Richard. It was an organ torn in half, a rent, ripped, and useless thing. My heart would never be healed, I had become convinced; it would just lie forever like an animal by the side of the road, smashed and dead.

Oh, get a grip! I revved the engine and recklessly gunned the Rover off the shoulder and onto the road. An evening with Schulz didn’t need to cause such emotive eruption. You’re just going there for dinner, Goldy. You can handle it.

7

When I pulled into his dirt driveway, Schulz was kneeling on the ground. Despite the weblike layer of new snow, he was spading soil energetically by the irregular flagstone walk that led to his front door.

“Hi there.” I climbed carefully out of the Rover with the loaf of Irish bread. The image of the fallen deer still haunted me: I didn’t trust myself to say anything else.

He turned and stood. Clods of wet soil clung to his jeans and jacket. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry, please finish what you’re doing. I just – ” My voice wobbled. Damn. The words were tumbling out; I was shaking my head, appalled at how shaken I was. “I just saw a dead animal by the side of the road and it reminded me … no, no, please,” I said as he started to move toward me. “Please finish what you were doing.”

He regarded me with one eye crinkled in appraisal. After a moment he crouched down again. “It never will leave you,” he said without looking at me. “Seeing a real dead body is nothing like the movies.” His large, capable fingers reached for a handful of bulbs and carefully pressed them at intervals into the newly spaded trough. Gently he refilled the area with potting soil from a bag. The gesture reminded me of putting a blanket around a sleeping child.

I breathed lungfuls of the sharp air. I hugged the fragrant bread. Although I wore a down coat, it felt as if my blood had stopped circulating.

“Cold?” Schulz asked. “Need to go in?” I shook my head. “I’m sorry you were the one who had to find him,” he said gruffly. He finished patting down the soil, rose easily, and put an arm around my shoulders. “Come on, I made you some nachos. Then I need you to look at something.”

We came through his sculpted-wood door and entered the large open space that was his living room. I stopped to admire the moss-rock fireplace that reached up two stones between rough-hewn mortared logs. A carefully set pile of aspen and pine logs lay in the grate. On I one Shaker-style table was a pot Arch had made at the end of sixth grade. On a wall was an Arch-made woodcut print of a .45, the kind Schulz carried. A pickled-oak I hutch held a display of Staffordshire plates and Bavarian I glass. The sparse grouping of an antique sink and a cupboard between the sofa and chairs upholstered in nubby brown wool gave the place a homey feel. When I had complimented Schulz on his good taste during my last visit, he had replied without missing a beat: “Of course. Why d’you think I’m courting you?”

Nachos Schulz

1 15-ounce can chili beans in chili gravy

9 tablespoons picante sauce

1 15-ounce bag corn tortilla chips

4 cups grated cheddar cheese

1 avocado

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 ˝ cups sour cream

1 tablespoon grated onion

4 scallions, both white and green parts, chopped

1 cup pitted black olives, chopped

1 tomato, chopped

Preheat the oven to 400 . Mash the beans with ˝ cup of the picante sauce until well mixed. Grease 2 9-by 13-inch pans. Place half the chips in each pan, then spoon the bean mixture over them. Sprinkle the grated cheese on top. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the beans are bubbling. Meanwhile, peel, pit, and mash the avocado, then mix it with the lemon juice, ˝ cup of the sour cream, the grated onion, and 1 tablespoon picante sauce. Garnish the nachos with the guacamole, the remaining 1 cup sour cream, scallions, tomato, and olives. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

I moved away from that thought and arrived in the kitchen just as he was pulling an au gratin casserole out of the oven. The platter was heaped with sizzling corn chips, refried beans, and melted cheddar. A complicated smell of Mexican spices filled the air.

“Agony,” I said when he had placed the platter in front of me and relieved me of the Irish bread. But I smiled.

“Wait, wait.” He rummaged around in the refrigerator, then brought out tiny bowls and sprinkled chopped scallions, tomatoes, and black olives on top of the melted cheese. With a directorial flourish, he brandished – yes! – an ice cream scoop that he used to ladle perfect mounds of sour cream and guacamole on top of the platter of chips.

“Nachos Schulz,” he announced with a proud grin. “For this, we use the special china.” He brought out a beautiful pair of translucent Limoges plates painted with tiny, stylized roses.

“These must have set you back a bit,” I said with admiration. “You don’t expect to find a china collector in the Sheriff’s Department.”

“What do I have to spend money on? Besides, the Sheriff’s Department is an equal-opportunity employer. You can have any hobby that helps get your mind off your job.”

“Beans, cheese, tomatoes, and avocado are all aphrodisiac foods.”

“Is that right? Well, Goldy, we both know you’re impervious to all that.” We laughed. It was good to be with him; I felt my anxiety recede. Digging into the Mexican mountain, Schulz retrieved a loaded chip stringy with hot cheese. “Open up, ma’am.”

I held a plate under my chin and let him pop the nacho into my mouth. Heaven. I closed my eyes and made appropriate moans of pleasure.

“Speaking of aphrodisiacs,” he said when we were halfway through the platter, “I need to ask you something about a book. Belonged to Keith Andrews.”

“Oh, that reminds me …” I handed him the rock that had broken our upstairs window, then the Neiman-Marcus credit card. I had put the rock in a plastic bag; Schulz eyed it, turned it over in his big hands, then laid it carefully aside. Between bites he studied the credit card, ran his fingers over the letters and numbers, then pocketed it without indicating what he was thinking. He put a last chip into his mouth and slid off his barstool all in one motion. When I hesitated, he gestured for me to follow.

Like many of the more rustic homes in the mountains, Schulz’s did not have a garage. I put on my coat and followed him outside to his car, where he opened the trunk and carefully emptied out a plastic bag onto some more plastic.

“Look but don’t touch,” he warned. Not knowing what this was about or why I was doing it, I peered in and saw a jumble of papers, pens, and half-eaten pencils; Stanford, Columbia, and Princeton catalogues and pamphlets; a few books – a German-English dictionary, Faust, as well as the Cliff’s Notes for same; Professor Romeo and Aceing the ACT; several old copies of the Mountain Journal, and some frayed articles held together with staples.

“What’s all this?”

“Stuff from the trunk of Keith Andrews’ car. You probably didn’t notice his old Scirocco over in the corner of the parking lot at the school. I’ve got custody of this stuff until tomorrow. His locker had more textbooks and some papers, but given that he was a supposed computer whiz, it’s odd we can’t find any disks. The department’s checking the locker contents out. No credit cards or bills, though, we know that.”

“Why show me?”

He leaned against the trunk lid and looked up at the dark clouds. After a moment he shook his head. “I don’t understand that school. I talk and talk to people and nothing comes up. The kid was smart, but not well liked. He worked hard on extracurricular activities, but nobody admired him for it. He brought back postcards from Paris for the whole French Club, and according to Arch, nobody thanked him. His windshield got broken, but by whom? Somebody hated him enough to kill him by bashing in his head. It doesn’t sound like the supportive school community the headmaster is trying to convince me it is.”

“His windshield got broken? When? What do you mean, according to Arch ?”

“I talked to Arch this morning. He called me about some snake in his locker.”

I shook my head. Unbelievable. Why not just label myself obsolete?

“Anyway,” Schulz was saying, “Arch told me what I’d already heard from a parent, that Dawson fellow, that Julian and Keith Andrews had had some kind of argument a few weeks ago. I guess things got kind of out of hand. Keith’s windshield ended up getting shattered, but not at the time of the argument.”

“When, then?” Why didn’t Julian ever tell me things like this?

“Before one of the bigwig college reps showed up at the school, is what I was told.” He paused. “Do you think Julian’s ashamed of being raised without money, his parents down in Utah, him having to work for and live with you his senior year, anything like that? Something Keith Andrews could have made fun of?”

“Not that I know of,” I said firmly. Julian’s financial situation caused him pain, but he had never mentioned students’ ridiculing him for it. “I do think they had a girlfriend dispute,” I said lamely. “Remember, Julian told us about it.”

“This argument was different. This took place last week in front of the Mountain Journal offices. Arch was in the Rover, didn’t hear the whole thing, said that it had something to do with schools. Seems Julian was worried that Keith was going to write something negative about Elk Park Prep, when everyone was uptight enough already about the college application process. All they can say over at the paper was that Keith was doing some kind of expose. They were going to read it before they decided whether or not to print it.”

“Expose about what?”

“About Elk Park Prep, I think.” He gestured at the stuff in the trunk. “About test scores. About using Cliff’s Notes. About a professor who thinks he’s a Romeo. About taxes, for God’s sake.” Before I could ask him what he meant by that, he picked up a typed letter that had been done on perforated computer-printer paper. The letter looked like a draft. Words had been crossed out and new words hand-printed above. Mr. Marensky, it read, I’d be more than happy to pay you your two hundred dollars if you’d call the director of admissions at Columbia for me. Or maybe you’d prefer I call the IRS? IRS had a line through it, and Internal Revenue Service had been neatly written above it.

“I don’t get it.” Schulz shrugged. “Stan Marensky had Keith do some yardwork for him. Marensky gave Keith a check for six hundred dollars for a four-hundred-dollar job with the agreement that Keith would refund him two hundred in cash. That way, Marensky could claim a six-hundred-dollar expense on his taxes. Petty thievery, not all that uncommon, and Marensky owned up to it pretty quick.”

“So much for Saint Andrews. This is a pretty dark side. Maybe it explains why he wasn’t universally liked. I mean, an expose? Blackmailing a powerful parent?”

Schulz’s hand grasped the trunk lid, making it creak. “Well, Marensky thought the blackmail was a joke, since he’d gone to Columbia so many years ago, and didn’t have any influence there. He says. Claims he never got his two hundred dollars back. I asked the headmaster about Marensky, and he said he was like a, a, now, let’s see, what did he say…”

I punched Schulz lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t.” Looking down at the jumble of papers in the trunk, I shivered. “I can’t look at this stuff anymore. Let’s go have some of your shrimp enchiladas.”

“You peeked.”

“Hey! This is a caterer you’re talking to! Every meal someone else slaves over is a spy mission.”

“Just tell me if you know whether Julian and Keith had any real animosity. Before I question Julian again myself. You think he’d break some body’s windshield?”

“He’s got some hostility, but I doubt he’d do that.”

“Do you know whether any of the teaching staff were Romeos?”

I felt my voice rising. “No! I don’t! Gosh, what is the matter with that school? I wish I could find out what’s going on.”

“Well, you’re doing those dinners for them. You hear stuff. I want to know about anything that sounds strange, out of place.”

“Look, this murder happened at a dinner I was catering! It’s my window that was broken and my son’s locker that was vandalized! For crying out loud, Tom, the Andrews boy even looked like Arch. You think I want my kid in a school with a murderer on the loose? I have a stake in finding out what’s going on out there. Believe me, I’ll keep you informed.”

He tilted his head and regarded me beneath the tentlike brows. “Just don’t go off half cocked, Miss G.”

“Oh, jeez, give me a break, will you? What do you think I am, some kind of petty criminal?”

Schulz took large steps ahead of me back to the house. “Who, you? The light of my life? The fearless breaker-and- enterer? You? Never!”

“You are so awful.” I traipsed after him, unsure how I felt to be called the light of anyone’s life.

Schulz settled me at his cherrywood dining room table, and then began to ferry out dishes. He had outdone himself. Plump, succulent shrimp nestled inside blue corn tortillas smothered with a green chile and cream cheese sauce. Next to these he served bacon-sprinkled refried black beans, a perfectly puffed Mexican corn pudding, and my fragrant Irish bread. A basket of raw vegetables and pot of picante made with fresh papaya graced the table between the candles. I savored it all. When was the last time I’d enjoyed an entire dinner that I had not exhausted myself preparing? I couldn’t remember.

“Save room for chocolate,” Schulz warned when the room had grown dark except for the candlelight flickering across his face.

“Not to worry.” Twenty minutes later, I was curled up on his couch. Schulz lit the enormous pile of logs. Soon the snap and roar of burning wood filled the air. Schulz retreated to the kitchen and returned with cups of espresso and a miniature chocolate cake.

I groaned. “It’s a good thing I’m not prone to jealousy. I’d say you were a better cook than I am.”

“Not much chance of that.” He had turned on his outside light and was peering into the night. “Darn. It’s stopped snowing.”

So we had had the same thought. Once again I veered away from this emotional territory, the way you leap onto a makeshift sidewalk when the sign says HARD HATS ONLY!

Schulz wordlessly cut the cake and handed me a generous slice of what was actually two thin layers of fudge cake separated by a fat wedge of raspberry sherbet. Unlike my ex-husband, who had always had a vague notion that I liked licorice (I detest it), Schulz invariably served chocolate – my weakness.

Of course, the cake was exquisite. When it was reduced to crumbs, I licked my fingers, sighed, and asked, “Does Keith Andrews’ family have money?”

He shrugged and leaned over to turn off the light. “Yes and no.” He picked up my hand and ran his fingers over it lightly. The same gesture he had used with the credit card, I remembered. “Thought any more about my name-change offer?”

“Yes and no.”

He let out an exasperated chuckle. “Wrong answer.” The firelight flickered over his sturdy body, over his hopeful, inviting face, and into eyes dark with a caring I wasn’t quite willing to face.

“Goldy,” he said. He smiled. “I care. Believe it?”

“Yeah. Sure. But… aren’t you… don’t you … think about all that’s happened? You know, your nurse?”

“Excuse me, Miss G., but it’s you who lives in the past.” He took both of my hands in his, lifted them, and kissed them.

“I do not live in the past.” My protest sounded weak. “And I have the psychotherapy bills to prove it.”

He leaned in to kiss me. He caught about half of my mouth, which made us both laugh. The only sounds in the room were fire crackle and slow breaths. For a change, I was at a loss for words.

Without unlocking his eyes from mine, Schulz slipped one hand to the small of my back and inscribed gentle circles there. How I wanted to be loved again.

I said, “Oh, I don’t know…”

“You do care about me, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

And I did, too. I loved having this beautiful meal, this hissing fire, this lovely man whose touch now made me shiver after all the years of self-righteous celibacy. The wax from the lit red candles on the dining table melted, dripped, and spiraled. I took Schulz’s hands. They were rough, big hands, hands that every day, in ways I could only imagine, probed questions about life and death and feeling morally grounded in your actions. I smiled, lifted my hands to his face, and corrected the angle of his head so that when I brought his lips to mine, this time they would fit exactly.

We made love on his couch, our clothes mostly on, in a great shuddering hurry. Then, tenderly, he put his hands around my waist and said we should go upstairs. On the staircase, with my loosened clothes more or less falling around me, one of his hands caught me by the hip and pressed me into the wall. And this time he did not miss when his warm mouth found mine.

His log-paneled bedroom with its high-pitched ceiling had the inviting scent of aftershave and pinewood. Schulz handed me a thick, soft terry-cloth robe. He lit a kerosene lamp next to his hewn four-poster. The flame lit us and the bed, leaving the far reaches of the room deep in shadow. Beneath my bare feet the wood floor felt creamy-cold. i slipped between cool cotton sheets, keeping the robe on.

He bent toward me. “You all right?”

“I am very all right.”

Schulz’s body depressed the mattress next to me when he slid between the sheets and I involuntarily slid toward him. The sensation was odd after five years of sleeping alone. He pulled the down comforter around my shoulders and whispered, “I love you now and forever and ever.”

I couldn’t help it. Tears slid out of my eyes. My breath raked across the back of my throat. He hugged me tightly and I mumbled into his warm shoulder, “Thank you. Thank you,” as his fingers tenderly worked their way under the robe.

This time the caresses were slow and lingering, so that the great heaving release took us by surprise. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I saw Schulz, somewhere in my mind’s eye, take my ripped carcass of a heart and gently, gently begin sewing.

I woke up with a start sometime in the middle of the night. I thought: I have to get home, God, this is incredible. Schulz and I had rolled apart. I turned to look at his face and the shape of his body in the moonlight streaming through the uncurtained window. His cheeks were slack, like a child’s; his mouth was slightly open. I kissed his eyelids. They were like the velvety skin of new peaches. His eyes opened. He propped himself up on an elbow. “You okay? Need to go? Need some help?”

“Yes, I need to go, but no thanks, I don’t need help.” And I was fine. For a change.

I dressed quickly, gave Schulz a long, wordless hug, and hightailed it toward home in the Rover. It was just past midnight. The snow had stopped and the clouds had parted. The moon shone high and bright in the sky, a pure white crescent. The clean, cold air gushing through the car windows was incomparably sweet. I felt wonderful, light-headed, lighthearted, giddy. I steered the Rover with one hand and laughed. An enormous weight had lifted from me; I was floating.

Unfortunately, my hope of sneaking quietly to bed was not to be realized. When I pulled up curbside, it was my house, and mine alone on the snow-covered street, that shone like a beacon. Lights blazed from every window.

“Where have you been?” Julian accused when I came through the security system.

The house reeked of cigarette smoke. Julian had beer on his breath. He looked horrid. His face was gray, his eyes bloodshot. His unwashed mohawk haircut stood up in tiny tepees.

“Don’t tell me you had more trouble with someone throwing – ” I began, stunned out of my idyll. When he shook his head, I said, “Never mind where I’ve been. What is going on here? You don’t smoke. You’re a swimmer, for God’s sake! And what’s with the beer breath, Mr. Underage?”

“I have been so worried!” Julian hollered as he slammed into the kitchen ahead of me.

So much for my great mood. What in heaven’s name was going on? How had Julian gotten himself into such a state? I came home late all the time, although now I recalled belatedly that Julian and Arch usually checked the calendar to see where my catering assignment was on any given evening. Maybe Julian just wasn’t used to not knowing where I was. On the other hand, maybe he was worried about something else. Stay calm, I resolved.

.I followed him into the kitchen. “Where is Arch?” I said in a low voice.

“In bed,” Julian tossed over his shoulder, and opened my walk-in refrigerator. Next to the sink were three glass beer bottles, empty, ready to be recycled. Three beers! I could be put in jail for allowing him to drink in my home.

Chinese stars were scattered over the financial aid books stacked on the gingham tablecloth. Chinese stars are sharp-edged metal stars about the size of an adult’s palm, which is where you can hide them, I had once been told. I had learned about the weapons unexpectedly, when a boy at Arch’s elementary school had been caught with them. The principal had sent the students home with a mimeographed note about the weapons. Used in Tae Kwon Do, Chinese stars were banned at the school because when thrown, the letter explained, they could inflict great damage. The fellow who had brought them to Furman Elementary School had been summarily suspended. Looking straight at Julian, I scooped them all up and placed them in a pile on the counter.

“What is going on?”

Julian emerged from the refrigerator. He held a platter of cookies. In times of stress, eat sweets.

He said, “I’m going to kill the kid who threatened Arch.” So saying, he popped two cookies into his mouth and chewed voraciously.

“Really. If you have cookies on top of beer, you’ll throw up.”

He slammed the platter down. “Don’t you even care? Do you realize he’s not safe at that school?”

“Well, excuse me, Mr. Mom. Yes, I realize it. Mr. Perkins seems to think it’s a joke, however. A seventh-grade joke.” I took a cookie. “Arch called Schulz, though, and told him all about the snake.”

Julian slapped his compact body down on a chair; he ran a hand through the sparse crop of hair. “Do you think we could hire a bodyguard for Arch? How much would that cost?”

I swallowed. “Julian. You are very protective and sweet. However. You are overreacting. A bodyguard is not the answer to Arch’s problems.”

“You don’t know these people! They’re vicious! They steal and cheat! Look at what they did to Keith!”

“What people?”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “You just don’t get it. You’re just… indifferent. The Elk Park Prep people, that’s what people. Perkins is always talking about trust and responsibility. Two coats, a cassette, and forty dollars were stolen out of my locker last year. Trust? It’s a crock.”

“Okay. Look. Julian, please. I’m not indifferent; I agree with you that there’s a problem. I just don’t know what to do. But I can tell you a bodyguard is out of the question.”

His eyes opened; he scowled. “I went to the newspaper because I know there’s a snake lady in Aspen Meadow. You know, she comes into the schools and does demonstrations with live snakes. Maybe we can find out who got the rattler by contacting her, I know she sells them – “

“Julian! For heaven’s sake!” “Don’t you understand what’s at stake here? He’s not safe! None of us is safe!”

With a third cookie halfway to my mouth, I gaped at him. “Couldn’t you please cool off? The way to react to this is not to smoke, drink, pullout your weapons, and put the screws on the snake lady, okay?” I put the cookie back on the platter and took a deep breath. “Won’t you please go up and get some sleep? You’re going to need your energy, with that midterm tomorrow and the college boards right around the corner. I need to go to bed too,” I added as an afterthought.

“Do you promise me you’ll follow through with Schulz?”

“I’m way ahead of you, Julian.” He thought about that for a minute, then shot an accusing look at me. “You never told me where you were.”

“Not that I need to answer to you, but I actually had dinner with Schulz. Okay?”

He glanced at the ceramic clock that hangs over my sink. One o’clock. “Kinda late for dinner, wouldn’t you say?”

“Julian, go to bed.”

8

My phone rang at seven o’clock. I groped for it. “Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything – “