Tough Cookie

“Eileen, why don’t you let Goldy relax?” Jack implored her with those eyes.

“I will, I will,” Eileen protested. “But I do need to talk to you.” She hesitated and stared at my arm. Sympathy and her own desires were clearly in conflict. “I need to ask you what we should do.” What to do? Hmm. I followed Eileen and Jack from the high-ceilinged foyer to their spacious kitchen featuring mauve, lilac, and lime green tiles. The decor was what a designer had thought was Southwestern; it reminded me of a giant Easter egg.

Jack poured boiling water over coffee grounds in a sterling-and-glass French press, then set the timer. On the wall hung a small but intriguing framed collage made up of a complex design of photos of skis, orange-tinged snow-covered slopes, and open-chair lifts. I stared at it while Jack poured me a cup of coffee and placed it next to a piece of coffee cake. I thanked him and took a bite. The delectably buttery cake was laced with tiny bits of fragrant vanilla bean and the solid crunch of toasted pecans.

“Mm-mm,” I murmured appreciatively, and took a sip of coffee. Marvelous.

“You’ve heard the mountain is closed because of the Sheriff’s department and Forest Service looking into Doug Portman’s death?” Eileen asked without preamble.

I nodded. “So are the boys just going to hang out here until Killdeer reopens?”

“No, I set them up with a snowboarding lesson in Vail,” Eileen announced. “Semiprivate, just the two of them. I’ll take them and pick them up.” I swallowed my coffee too quickly. Eileen read my thoughts and waved them away. “My treat. They’ll be done by noon. We’ll come back to Killdeer, give them some lunch, and Arch can still meet you at Big Map at two. They’re only supposed to close our slopes for a couple of hours. The bistro will stay open, people just have to go up and down on the gondola.”

I was suddenly worried for my old friend, tenderhearted, generous Eileen. Her problem must be serious if she wanted my advice, help, or whatever, in return for an expensive semiprivate snowboard lesson. I pushed away the half-eaten coffee cake and waited.

“We need to talk to you—” She stopped when Jack shook his head, clearly opposed to whatever she was about to share. “I need to talk to you, then,” she corrected. “What do the cops know about that ski accident yesterday? The one where Doug Portman died?”

Surprised by her question, I squinted at another collage. This one hung on the kitchen wall. I was pretty sure it was by the same artist who’d done the one above the breakfast bar. Photos of large and small teacups had been set at all angles. It also resembled some of the detailed collages I’d seen behind the watercolors in the Killdeer Art Gallery the day before. Eileen cleared her throat.

What do the cops know about the ski accident? Why do you ask, Eileen?

“I really don’t know,” I said lamely. “They don’t let me in on the status of—”

“Forget it,” Jack interjected, as he looked sadly at the half-finished cake.

Eileen waved her hand. “Listen, Goldy … Jack’s been out on parole for six months.” She leaned forward, her eyes pained and earnest. “Portman was his caseworker, and—”

“What?” I couldn’t compute what she was telling me, and looked from Eileen to Jack and back again. “You’re out on parole? For what?”

“I was convicted of criminally negligent homicide. But I wasn’t guilty of it,” Jack announced matter-of-factly. He poured himself more of the fragrant coffee. No one said anything for several long moments. Jack sighed. “I used to be married. My wife, Fiona, loved to ski as much as I did. Don’t think I’m arrogant, Goldy, I’m just a really good skier. Fiona was more like low-intermediate. One day, we both had too much to drink at lunch. She wanted us to race to an out-of-bounds area beside a black run. It has a great view, and she’d been there once with her son.” His voice had flattened, as if he were reciting his story under hypnosis.

“Jack, don’t make yourself do this,” Eileen implored.

Jack held up a hand. “Please, hon, you wanted advice from Goldy. She needs to hear what happened.” He took a deep breath. “Fiona and I got to the overlook. A minute later, somebody crashed through the trees and attacked us. Fiona lunged for me and I tried to catch her, but she slipped away somehow. The attacker was wearing a ski mask. Whoever it was, was strong and fast. He or she hit me with a rock and I passed out.” He stopped. “Then the attacker must have pushed Fiona over the cliff. Anyway, my wife … was killed.”

“And you were convicted of homicide?” I asked incredulously.

“They had to have somebody to blame. The prosecutor said I shouldn’t have let Fiona ski drunk, that I shouldn’t have taken her down such a dangerous run. She had grabbed my hand when we were trying to defend ourselves against the attacker, and my mitten was by her body when the ski patrol came. They trampled the snow so much, they couldn’t trace our attacker.” He sighed again. “It was a day of unstable snow, too. But that didn’t matter. The police didn’t find enough evidence to charge anyone else, and I was sentenced to three years in prison. I served a year, was granted parole six months ago … I had a record of good behavior.” He snorted cynically.

I felt an ominous tingling at the base of my spine. “If you were granted parole six months ago, what does this have to do with Doug Portman?”

Eileen narrowed her eyes at me. “So you haven’t faced the parole scenario with The Jerk yet, have you?”

“No,” I confessed. “Why?”

Jack grunted. Eileen said, “There were people who were opposed to Jack getting out when he did.” When I looked at her blankly, Eileen added, “Jack’s first wife had a lot of money. Her son is the one who filled her full of wine before she skied off Bighorn Overlook that day. Afterward, he went on and on about how Jack and Fiona weren’t getting along. All crap: Arthur wanted my Jack to be liable for Fiona’s death. Now the money’s all tied up in court. But Jack isn’t going to court, because he doesn’t want Fiona’s money and never did. Only crybaby Arthur doesn’t want the million-dollar trust fund Mama set up for him. He wants the nineteen million she left to charity.”

“Sheesh!” I said impulsively, then struggled to sort out what Eileen had just told me. Arthur? “You say Fiona’s son filled her full of booze before she went out? Do the cops know this?”

There was a silence. Finally Jack said, “Fiona was drinking wines offered in a sampling by her son. He lives in Killdeer and is a wine expert. You’re working with him in the show. Arthur Wakefield. You probably saw how he gave us the cold shoulder yesterday morning.”

“Arthur Wakefield? You were his stepdad?” I was stunned. What if I had to work in close proximity with a relative of The Jerk’s? Say that relative hated me? How would I cook, much less be a chef?

Jack shook his head. “Forget stepdad. We weren’t even friends. Arthur showed up at my parole hearing, claimed he hadn’t been able to sleep since his mother died, that he brooded about her death all the time, and so on, which wasn’t true, if you judged by the fact that he never even came to our wedding, or called Fiona more than three times in the year before she died—”

“Oh, Goldy, I hate to bother you with our problems,” Eileen interrupted in a rush. “It’s just that we’ve been so upset … Look at this.” She handed me a photocopied clipping from a Denver newspaper. “It’s long. You can skip to the end if you want.”

But I never skip to the end. I’d signed too many contracts to know the perils of that particular shortcut. I took a fortifying sip of coffee and began reading a letter to the editor that was headlined:Kangaroo Court or Porkers’ Parole?When rough justice for rough crimes prevailed in the Australian outback, an out-of-doors court often had to be convened. Kangaroos sometimes hopped up to watch the trial. The big marsupials would sit on their haunches and silently observe the proceedings like solemn jurors. Hence the term “kangaroo court.”Although the criminal court system in Colorado may be slow and inefficient, families of crime victims CANNOT rest easily once the perpetrator of a crime has been placed behind bars. You think a three-year sentence may be light for the person who has killed your loved one. You think: At least it’s a sentence. But it isn’t.The kangaroos have left. The pigs are on their way. If the killer of your loved one plays the parole board right, he could be out on the streets in a mere six months to a year. Surely the parole board is smarter than that, you think? Don’t count on it.Are you aware that in Colorado, a criminal has to meet with only one member of the parole board when his case is reviewed? Do you know that only that one member, who may be a newspaper critic who’s donated heavily to the governor’s campaign, makes a recommendation to the full board? And that the board, never having met with the criminal, or even read his file, follows the one member’s recommendation ninety percent of the time?Speak out, Colorado! Let’s change the parole system. And while we’re at it, let’s make sure none of our current piglet parole board members are succumbing to the temptations that might be offered by rich criminals. Better yet, let’s eliminate those parole board members altogether.

The letter was signed, Arthur Digby Wakefield.

This was a morning of surprises. I took another sip of coffee to steady myself. You didn’t need a degree in psychology to see that Arthur Wakefield was dealing with a truckload of unresolved anger.

“May I keep this?” I asked. “To show to my husband?”

Jack nodded. His beautiful eyes bored into me. “Do you know what he means by ‘succumbing to the temptations offered by rich criminals’?”

“No,” I replied. “Do you?”

His pained face relaxed slightly. “Almost all the convicts had heard the stories about Portman. When Portman worked with me, he just heard what I had to say and decided to let me out. He even had a stenographer there. But what if a convict met with Doug Portman without the stenographer?”

I shook my head. Again I saw Doug Portman’s bloodstained cash billowing out over Killdeer Mountain. I asked, “Do you know anyone who actually bribed Doug? Or tried to?”

Jack took a bite of cake and chewed it thoughtfully. “One guy, in for armed robbery, offered Portman a used Porsche that he’d kept hidden from the cops. That guy swore Portman just blew him off, pretended he didn’t even know what he was talking about.” Jack pressed his lips together, then went on: “ ’Nother guy, said he knew Portman already had a Porsche, and that you had to offer him something bigger, or fancier, or funnier in that first meeting. Otherwise, he’d cross you off the list of people he’d allow to bribe him.”

“Did you offer him anything?” I asked neutrally.

“I told him I didn’t kill my wife, that the evidence was all circumstantial and conflicting, that I’d given up drinking. I had an excellent record of good behavior and no prior convictions.” Jack paused. “I added that I’d give him free gourmet-cooked meals for life if he’d take my word for it.” He smiled sourly. “Laugh? I mean, that guy split a gut. He said, ‘What’re you, a comedian?’ Then he flipped through my record and said, ‘G’won, get outta here. I never believe a crook, but I’m believing you. I read about you messing up? I’ll visit the prison and kill ya myself.’”

Eileen expelled a nervous gust of air and shook her head. “Jack’s doing great. He has a steady job at the bistro. Everybody loves him. Except Arthur, of course. Arthur wants the bistro to stock his wines, so he sucks up to me. Then he’s spiteful behind Jack’s back.”

I frowned. “Is that why he was adamant that Jack not do the cooking show?”

Eileen sighed. “Arthur and Jack can’t tolerate each other. Jack wanted to keep a low profile, and I knew you needed business.…”

The way she said it, I sounded like a taxi driver whose cab everyone shunned. I turned to Jack. “What’s it like working with Arthur in the bistro?”

“We hardly ever see each other, and when we do, we see who can ignore the other most effectively. You notice I’m usually not even there for the Friday show. When he comes in for lunch or dinner, I’m either in the kitchen or I’m off.”

I nodded and thought for a minute. “What about those other convicts you just mentioned? The Porsche guy was refused parole by Doug Portman, but what about the one who said you had to offer Doug a big or unusual bribe?”

Jack shrugged. “Portman turned him down for parole. But then the con got cancer, so he just got out. Mad as hell at Portman, of course. The guy doesn’t just have revenge in his mind, he’s got it in his heart.”

“Cancer?” I thought of the transdermal patches in the anonymous card found in Portman’s car. Thanks for nothing, Asshole! You’re dead!!! If these patches contained a high-potency painkiller such as those prescribed by oncologists, what were the chances that touching them would kill you? On the other hand, if you had such an advanced state of cancer that you had to have a transdermal patch filled with a powerful narcotic, would you be able to ski down a black run and murder a guy who’d denied you parole?

More questions for Tom.

I asked, “What’s the name of the convict who had cancer?”

“Barton Reed. The guy used to be a church acolyte, but he went bad. He believes the cancer is God’s punishment for his crimes.”

Well, well. Remembering everything Tom had told me about investigations, I didn’t let on that I recognized Reed’s name. As I drank more coffee, Eileen slipped off her bright pink robe and threw it on a maple wheat-back chair. Underneath she wore a sheer, low-cut top swirled with gold and silver, along with matching billowing sheer pants. She scanned the kitchen, yanked open the refrigerator door, and retrieved a carton of orange juice and a bottle of champagne. The bottle’s tilted cork indicated it had already been opened. She expertly poured both the juice and the champagne into a clean crystal flute to make a mimosa.

Then I noticed four orange-specked champagne flutes on the sideboard. If Jack had truly given up drinking, there was no way I was letting Eileen drive Arch anywhere.

Jack read my mind. “Uh,” he interjected as he sought my eyes, “I’ll be taking Eileen and the boys to Vail.”

I watched him as he filled a china plate with golden orange muffins. The man was truly a fabulous cook. The time Eileen and Jack had invited Arch and me to spend the night, Jack had prepared a spectacular dinner in which he’d grilled chicken, flipped sautéing asparagus, made hollandaise, and pulled out a spectacular baked Alaska faster than you could say culinary school.

I bit into a proffered muffin—it was tender, buttery, and moist with orange. “Very good,” I said to Jack. “Do you share recipes?”

“Sure,” he said proudly. He riffled through a card box and handed me a printed card: Marmalade Mogul Muffins, he called them.

“I’ll make them for clients as soon as I’m reopened,” I promised. “And I’ll give you all the credit.”

“Thanks,” he said happily, and beamed at Eileen, who took a slug of the mimosa.

It worried me to see Eileen drinking again. I wondered how Jack felt about having first an older wife, then an older girlfriend, who overindulged in alcohol. Fiona I didn’t know about, but Eileen never used to drink more than a glass of wine in an evening. Then, she’d caught her husband—the very successful president of a pharmaceutical supply company—mainlining heroin with his girlfriend in the Druckmans’ home library. Eileen had started buying champagne by the case. At first she drank to console herself, then she drank to celebrate receiving ten and a half million dollars for the sale of her husband’s company. He’d been jailed briefly on drug charges, been warned out of the medical supply business, and had moved to Florida.

And then Eileen had met Jack. She’d told me he made her so happy she didn’t want booze. But with the death of Doug Portman, she seemed worried and morose. And drinking more than she should.

I asked Eileen, “What’s the bottom line here?”

“Arthur Wakefield,” Eileen replied promptly. She gestured at the newspaper article with her glass. “Arthur has not had an open conflict with Jack since Jack’s been working for me. But now with Portman suddenly dead, I’m afraid Arthur’ll try to use the local paper to stoke public opinion. Maybe he wants Jack out of town and my restaurant closed. Who knows?” Her voice turned bitter. “I believe Arthur killed Doug Portman yesterday, because he was so angry with him for granting Jack parole. Doug’s death is bound to bring all kinds of negative attention to Jack’s new life. I also believe,” she added, almost spitefully, “that Arthur knocked Jack out and killed his mother, so he could try to inherit her millions before she made Jack a beneficiary of her will. But she’d already changed her will, and Arthur has never recovered.”

I looked at Jack. He shrugged. He said, “That’s all I could think about when I was incarcerated. Who hit me over the head? Who pushed Fiona over the cliff? And why?”

I’d heard a lot of theories this morning, too many to keep straight. On the other hand, I’d seen Tom barely nod at one hypothesis about a crime, laugh at two more, discard a fourth, and jot down his own ideas about a fifth.

“What I don’t understand,” Jack continued quietly, “is all these stories I’ve been hearing from folks in town. Portman had a ton of cash on him when he died. Why?”

I sighed and shrugged. I didn’t want to tell them about my connection to Doug and the unconsummated sale of the skis. I finished my coffee and set the cup down on the saucer. “Thanks for the goodies. I’ll report to Tom everything you told me.”

I nodded to them and they smiled. From habit, I rose and put my dishes in the sink next to the dirty crystal glasses. When I turned back around, Eileen had clasped Jack’s hand in hers.

I let myself out.

CHAPTER 10

Moments later, I was lost in a condo maze. Despite the curving roadways’ fanciful names—Sweethearts’ Summit, Lynx Lane, Mogul Avenue, and Snowcone Court—all the houses were painted monotonous tones of gray or beige, and featured yards piled high with identical mountains of snow. I was baffled and frustrated, as I hadn’t yet mastered crucial details of driving the Rover, including how to signal. After fifteen minutes of winding around in search of Arthur’s condo, I whipped the Rover onto a new, unmarked roadway and searched for clues to my whereabouts.

Arthur had said he lived on Elk Path. Bouncing along the snow-pocked street, I saw signs for the Elk Ridge Nature Trail and Picnic Area, and followed them to a parking lot. I wound between day-skiers unloading equipment from the backs of sport-utility vehicles. A couple of fellows directing traffic did not understand my question, and said I was on Elk Path. Maybe the elk can find it just fine, but I’m having problems, I longed to retort, but didn’t.

It was nine o’clock. I wasn’t due at Arthur’s until ten. One sure way of finding any residence in Killdeer was to locate the street on the town map. It was a smaller version of Big Map, and it was conveniently located next to Cinda’s Cinnamon Stop. Come to think of it, I could get a quadruple-shot espresso there, too! A mind-clearing detour could help, especially since I’d just discovered all kinds of things about Arthur Wakefield that had never emerged in our five weeks of work together.

I parked in one of the gondola lots, trod carefully across the snowpack to the Killdeer map, and found Elk Path. I had missed a turnoff that I had mistaken for a driveway; Arthur’s house was less than five minutes away. I growled and headed for the back of a lengthy walk-up line at Cinda’s. If no one was allowed to ski until the cops finished their investigation, I couldn’t imagine what kind of boom was happening for the shopkeepers and restaurant folks at the base. From inside the shop, though, a waiter recognized me and waved. A moment later, he brought out a quadruple-shot espresso. “PBS lady, right? No charge.”

“Public television has great fans.” I thanked my benefactor, a diminutive fellow with gray eyes set in a freckled face topped with curly red hair. I wondered if this was Davey, but he wore no nametag. I sipped the dark, hot, life-giving stuff. Fantastic. “What’s your name? I want to tell Cinda how nice you were.”

“Ryan,” he said with a grin and a wink.

“Well, Ryan, is Cinda in?”

“Naw, she had a doctor’s appointment for her knee.”

“It’s flaring up again?”

“Yeah. Old boarding injuries never really heal. She lives with a lot of pain. That’s why she opened the shop,” he added helpfully. “She can wash down a painkiller with espresso and feel sorta normal in twenty minutes.”

I thanked Ryan again and moved off toward the Killdeer Art Gallery, where a floppy black-and-white ribbon bow tied on the door had caught my eye. Next to the bow was a calligraphy note.We’re open in honor of our dear departed critic, Doug Portman. Come in and see the artworks he honored as “Best of Killdeer” over the last five years.

When I peered into the gallery, I saw a fur-clad customer and what looked like a saleslady. I pushed through the door and tried to shed my nosy-caterer persona to take on the air of a short, female tycoon. A wealthy patron of the arts, just sipping her espresso …

The fur lady departed. In my backup quilted parka (my better one having been torn in my plummet down the hill) and black ski pants, it was pretty clear that I hadn’t done anything in the presence of a tycoon except serve barbecued ribs. After ten minutes of being ignored by the saleslady, I wandered down “Prize Row,” so indicated by another black-framed calligraphy note lauding the late Doug Portman.

I frowned at the twenty works displayed there. Maybe I was missing something, but I didn’t like them. Then again, what did I know? I stared at the paintings. Some commonsense inner critic was announcing that the work Doug Portman had liked ranged from imitative to mediocre to terrible. I walked past a bad-rip-off-of-Peter-Max acrylic-painted canvas of a racing skier exploding through a snowbank, a Monet-ish drizzly watercolor featuring a rain-soaked elk, and a Dutch-style still-life of a gun cabinet full of rifles. Finally, there was a slashing-brushstroke oil of a bucolic cabin in a daisy-strewn mountain meadow. Bor-ing, as Arch would say. Yet from the right corner of each frame dangled a sometimes-dusty “Best of Killdeer” blue ribbon or bright red ribbon declaring, “Honorable Mention.”

I finished my espresso and yearned for another. Failing that, I thought, eyeing the paintings, a shot of Arthur Wakefield’s Pepto-Bismol.

I yawned and took a third trip down prize row. All but three First Prizes and two Honorable Mentions were still for sale for sums in excess of a thousand dollars. Signs announced that the others were on loan. This left me with a question: If these prizewinners are so good, how come they haven’t sold?

But really, the problem was the pretensions of poor, dead Doug. His own paintings had been mediocre and derivative, and he’d believed they’d make him rich. How then could he judge what was good? I felt sorry for him, even in death.

When another five minutes elapsed and I still hadn’t been asked if I needed help, I meandered to the rear of the store to find a trash can for my paper coffee cup. Beside a water cooler, above the garbage receptacle, three collages hung on the wall. They were all by the same person, the artist whose collages I’d seen at the bistro and in Eileen’s home. For some reason, these works of art made me smile. “Spring Detritus” featured torn photographs of bright-white snow melting on churned-up soil, ski poles speared into patches of matted neon green grass, and dirty lilac mittens caught up in the teeth of a yellow snowcat. “Ski Patrol at Dusk” was crowded with images of ski runs in a blizzard, blurred inmotion images of athletic uniformed skiers, a snowmobile hauling a sled with an injured, faceless skier, and dark, forlorn-looking crossed skis, the signal for help.

Finally, there was “Celebrity on the Mountain.” Pieces of photographs showed hordes of burly guards speaking into walkie-talkies, a stand of metal microphones gleaming in the sunshine, a photograph of half of the vice-president’s face. The other half of the veep’s face lay underneath an ad for a videocamera. I laughed aloud, and this finally brought a saleswoman to my side.

“Is there a problem?” she asked. Short and compactly slim, she wore heavy matte makeup on a face framed with chic-cut jet black hair. Her clothes, a black turtleneck and pants edged at the neck and cuffs with faux tiger fur, seemed to have been form-fitted.

“No,” I replied with a very slight smile and a glance at my watch. I had been in the gallery almost twenty minutes. “No problem at all.”

She considered the collages, then sniffed. “They make me want to puke.”

“Puke? If you feel that way, why do you have them here at the gallery? I think they’re wonderful.”

She sneered at me. “They’re saccharine. Do you prefer decoration to art?”

I looked back at the collages. “How’re you defining ‘decoration’?”

“Doug Portman, our critic, used to say Boots Faraday’s art is purely decorative,” the woman commented with an if-only-you-understood shrug. “We handle Boots because she accounts for half of our profits. Most of it goes to decorators, of course.…”

“So is that how you define ‘decorative’? Who buys it? Or what critic says it’s ‘decorative’?”

Her face turned smug. She looked me and my noncouture outfit up and down. “It’s too complicated to explain.”

“How much for ‘Spring Detritus’?” I demanded impulsively.

Startled, the saleslady took a step away from me. “Uh, two-fifty. That’s two hundred and fifty dollars. You’re going to buy it? Today? Now?”

“Yes,” I said. “Now,” I added decisively. It would make a great Christmas present for Tom, debts be damned.

The woman took down the collage and swaggered to the front counter. I whipped out my credit card and ventured aloud, “To tell you the truth, I think the stuff Doug Portman picked as being good is pretty awful.”

“You’re talking about our town’s premier art critic—”

“You knew him?”

“Of course. Unfortunately, he has just died. Yesterday. In a ski accident.” She scanned my credit card. “There’s no way you’d see Boots Faraday’s work in Doug’s Best of Killdeer picks.”

“I’m sorry to hear Mr. Portman died,” I murmured. “What happened?”

“I don’t know exactly,” she replied. She handed me my receipt. “Probably a snowboarder got going too fast and whacked him. That’s why the authorities are up there investigating.”

“Hmm.” Arch railed against snowboarder prejudice. If something goes wrong and they don’t know why, he’d say, they’ll blame it on a boarder.

“Will it hurt the gallery,” I inquired pleasantly, “not to have the critic reviewing the art you display?”

“Of course it will. Doug loved to talk about art. He would come in and explain things. He was brilliant. And we had a major, major New York art critic in here, who just raved about Doug’s picks.”

“Really? Who was that, exactly?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” she replied, again smug.

“Ah, well.” I tried to make my tone conciliatory. “Listen, do you have a card for this collage artist? I’d love to write her a little fan letter.”

“If you’re thinking of buying Boots Faraday’s work direct, to cut us out, I’m just telling you, we’re her exclusive agent in this town.” The saleslady spat out her words. When I didn’t respond, she rummaged reluctantly through a drawer and thrust a card at me.

While the woman wrapped the collage, I glanced casually at the card, then gaped at it. Not only were Boots Faraday’s address, phone number, and e-mail printed on the card, so was a miniature picture of her. Boots was handsome and high-cheekboned. She flashed white teeth set in a powerful smile. And she had an enormous mane of ruffled blond hair.

I had seen her before. Where?

“Now what’s wrong?” demanded the saleswoman when she returned and handed me the wrapped collage. “I can take the card back, if it’s giving you as much trouble as our prize paintings.”

I smiled, gripped Tom’s collage, and walked away. I’d had enough art-appreciation-sniping for one morning. As I headed back to the Rover, a visual memory finally clicked.

I had seen collage artist Boots Faraday. Fleetingly, from afar. The previous morning, the day that Doug Portman had lost his life on these slopes, she’d been hanging artworks on the wall of Eileen’s bistro. Then she’d sat down and watched our live filming of Cooking at the Top just like all the other guests.

I stowed the collage in the back of the Rover. Eileen Druckman owned several of Boots Faraday’s works. Did Eileen know Boots Faraday? Had Eileen invited the artist to the PBS show? What about Arthur? Did he know Ms. Faraday?

Stop, I reprimanded myself. If the occasion arose where I needed to talk to Boots Faraday, I now had her address and phone number. And her picture. She shouldn’t be that hard to find.

As I drove toward Elk Path, my mind came back to the image of the blond artist up the ladder. She was an artist deemed “decorative” and not the “Best of Killdeer” by a man who died very shortly thereafter.

Tom always told me to look for what was out of place. Boots Faraday was an artist, not a TV fan, and certainly not a foodie. So on the day Doug Portman died, what was she doing at the bistro? Anything besides hanging artworks?

CHAPTER 11

At five to ten, I pulled into Arthur Wakefield’s driveway. Unlike the other houses along Elk Path, and undoubtedly pushing the limits of Killdeer’s covenants, his residence was painted the darkest gray I’d seen all morning. Charcoal siding contrasted with pearly decks and a steep slate roof. The place had a Loire-Valley château feel to it, which was undoubtedly what le wine-geek had in mind. Or had his mother chosen the place—and paid for it—before she died?

Peering through my windshield, I wondered about doleful Arthur’s agenda. If his mother had left him a good chunk of change, why would he need to work for PBS? Was the wine import business struggling? Or was Arthur living in a Killdeer condo for other, more personal reasons? His letter to the paper suggested a whole lot of rage. At least there was no Subaru wagon parked outside.

I hauled my box of goodies to the front door, balanced it on a silvery-gray railing, and rapped the gleaming knocker. I almost didn’t recognize Arthur when he opened the door. Gone were the black artiste clothes, the Pepto-Bismol bottle, the menacing body angle. The man actually looked happy to see me. His black hair was freshly washed and fluffed. Unfortunately, his cheeks were still gaunt and translucent, and his eyes retained their haunted look. Arthur may have been a bit happier, but the man was neither well rested nor relaxed. Maybe he’d been penning another tirade to the paper.

“Uh, Arthur?” I rebalanced my box. “May I come in?”

“Yes,” he rasped. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been … I mean, I just couldn’t wait for you to arrive.”

“Are you all right?” When he shook his head, I crossed the threshold and edged around an expensive-looking, intricately patterned wool Oriental. Another gift from Mom? I wondered. The formal living room, all mahogany furniture and light walls hung with Old-Master-style oil paintings, was strangely impersonal. In the hallway, porcelain figurines adorned a mahogany end table. Nowhere did photos or memorabilia give a clue as to Arthur’s background.

Something more astonishing adorned the walls: at least a dozen collages by Boots Faraday. I tilted my head at one, a montage of tall grasses, bushes, and evergreen shrubs, all sprinkled with snow. I peered close and read the title: “Winter Garden.”

From behind me, Arthur gushed, “Boots is one of my best customers.” I almost dropped my box in surprise. “It’s coming into her busy season,” Arthur continued airily, “Christmas and all. She’ll be ordering cases and cases of wine for the showings in her house. She sells tons of her work that way.”

“More than in the local gallery?” I asked innocently. I’d had a feeling that saleslady wasn’t entirely forthright.

“Oh, please. Those Killdeer Gallery people think ‘Western Art’ is anything with a pony in it. Come on out to the kitchen, please,” he entreated. “And in answer to your earlier question, no, I’m not doing well today.” I shot him a sympathetic glance. He looked piqued. “My first wine shipment was supposed to arrive and didn’t. I’m going to have to postpone the party until Monday, which makes me look terrible. I tossed all night, trying to think how to re-invite people. Haven’t had a thing to eat.”

“Let’s go, then!” I said heartily. Postponement was no problem for me: My calendar was depressingly open. No matter what the problems were, if Arthur was hungry, he was mine.

He pointed down the hall. I schlepped my box into a cheerful space with yellow walls, bright white tile counters, and a yellow-and-white floor of handmade tiles: hallmark of a noncook, because tiles spell major back pain. On the walls were bright tourist posters of France splashed with hues of lavender, yellow, and gray.

Arthur slumped into a ladder-back chair at his tiled breakfast bar, where eight or so bottles of wine sported jaunty ribboned bows and handwritten cards screaming You’re Invited, Again! “I’ve got ten cases of wines sitting at Denver International Airport,” he complained glumly. He stared at the wine bottles and a handwritten list next to them.

I raised my eyebrows. “Where at DIA?”

“Customs,” he answered dolefully.

“Got a medium-sized pan?”

He gestured wearily to a bank of drawers. I located a saucepan and started cooking the oatmeal mixture I’d brought. I wanted to ask Arthur if he’d heard anything new about Doug Portman’s suspicious death. More importantly, I wanted to see his reaction to my question. I also wondered fleetingly how we were supposed to do an intake interview if Arthur needed to 1) have something to eat and 2) spring valuable cases of wine from Customs. I stirred the creamy oatmeal mixture when it started to bubble. I couldn’t ask him questions yet. I knew the dangers of trying to discuss business with, or elicit information from, a client with low blood sugar. I’d face crankiness, irrationality, and indecision. You don’t get to be a successful food person without taking instant stock of such things.

Within five minutes the spicy orange-and-cinnamon oatmeal was hot and ready to be topped with a chunk of butter and spoonfuls of dark brown sugar. Arthur stirred in the melting pond of butter and sugar and hungrily scooped up enormous mouthfuls. It wouldn’t help him deal with a bureaucracy, but it would get him through the next couple of hours. I sat down and pulled out my notebook.

“Gosh, this is fabulous,” he commented. “You have to do this for our last show.” Did I detect color seeping into those cheeks, or was it wishful thinking on my part? He looked at me sheepishly, then scraped up the last of the cereal. “I realized in the middle of the night that I hadn’t been very nice to you after you had your car accident. I’m sorry. This day has been crazy trying to figure out how I’m going to change the buffet. Are you okay?”

“I am, thanks. Actually, the car accident was the second terrible thing to happen to me yesterday. After our show, I … discovered the guy who’d been killed while skiing.” Arthur raised his eyes questioningly. I said, “The guy was someone I used to know.”

Arthur jumped up to rinse his bowl. With his back to me, he said warily, “How did you know Doug Portman?”

“Through my husband. Do you remember, he’s in law enforcement?”

“Yes. Coffee?” he asked as he reached for a liter bottle of spring water.

“Sure, thanks. Did you know Portman?”

His face when he turned back to me was even more flushed. I was sure it wasn’t owing to the oatmeal. “I guess you could say I knew him. You know, he lived here in town. But listen,” he said with sudden energy, “you didn’t tell me how you’re doing.” He stopped the coffee-making and beamed at me. “That’s what I really want to know. Can’t have my star in pain for our last show.”

I sighed. “My arm’s a bit banged up. The van’s totally trashed. But I’m borrowing a vehicle, and I’m still alive, so I’m very thankful.”

“Well, then. So am I.” He returned to his coffee preparation. First he fastidiously poured the bottled water into an espresso-machine tank. When he opened an airtight crock, it went pow! and I jumped. Arthur giggled as he ladled out coffee beans. Next he pressed a button on his grinder, which growled like a motorcycle. He then dosed, tapped, and revved up the coffee machine. Half a minute later, he placed two tiny cups of hot, dark, foamy espresso onto the tiled bar. I took a sip, pronounced it marvelous, and refrained from any mention of how it was certainly the most noisily-produced cup of coffee I’d ever imbibed.

“Okay,” I began, with a glance at the kitchen clock, then at my notebook. “When do you have to leave for the airport?”

“Five minutes.” His eyes immediately turned anxious. “I’m not going to be able to discuss the food for the wine-tasting today. It’s just …” He slurped his espresso, then squealed when he, too, glanced at the clock. “I also need to … darn it!”

“Need to what? Why don’t you let me help out?” I offered. “There is that personal in ‘personal chef.’”

“I need to deliver these wines with the new invites. I don’t suppose you … never mind. Let me go get the buffet wine list. Then I really have to leave. We can finish planning on the phone.”

As soon as he whisked out of his kitchen, I put the foodstuffs into his barren refrigerator. It looked as if Arthur never ate properly. I washed our coffee cups and laid out instructions for reheating the pork dinner. I also glanced at the list of folks to receive the new bottles-with-invitations. It included the name Boots Faraday. Hmm. I’d just finished setting Arthur’s dinner table—for one—when he returned. He’d slicked down his hair and wore a black turtleneck, black pants, and black sport coat. He handed me a piece of paper scribbled with foods and names of wines. Then his eyes shot to the beribboned bottles of wine. Indecision tightened his face. One of the best ways to get what you want out of people, I’d discovered, is to apply light pressure when they’re in a hurry. I gave him a bright smile.

“Look, Arthur, can I do anything else for you? Since we’re not going over the menu, I have until two. Why not let me help you?”

“I have to deliver these wines to people coming to the buffet.”

“Let’s see.” I set aside the wines sheet and frowned at the list of guests. “Boots Faraday,” I mused aloud.

“Boots is very well known in the Killdeer arts community.”

“Sure, I know.” That’s why I wanted to weasel my way into her affections, I added mentally, because she was so well known with the local artsy-craftsy crowd. She might know more about Doug Portman than I’d ever learn from Arthur. I also wanted to find out what she was doing at the bistro the day of Doug’s death. “Boots Faraday,” I repeated pleasantly, as if the artist and I were big buds. “I bought one of her works for my husband for Christmas. I saw her up at the bistro before we started our show on Friday. I just didn’t get a chance to say hello.”

“Ah,” he said, visibly relaxing. “So you know Boots, then.”

“Not intimately—”

He waved this away. “All right, you know Mountain Man Wines in town?” I murmured that I would find it. “They’ll do these deliveries. Have them send me a bill.”

I nodded and asked, “How about the one for Boots? Can I take it to her?”

He shrugged. “She usually has lunch at the Gorge-at-the-Gondola Café, know it?”

“I can find it. Happy to be your wine courier, Arthur.”

“Great. Here’s the guest list and a general list of food for the buffet, then. Remember …” He blushed. “I … want the guests to think I did most of the cooking myself. So whatever you choose to prepare, make it something that I can very obviously be finishing when they get here.” I shot him a serious look. “I just need them to think I’m a great cook, that’s all. I’ll say you helped me, don’t worry.”

“No problem, Arthur. I’ll even write out the directions on a tiny piece of paper and you can eat that when your doorbell rings.”

His smile was mirthless. “Good thing I’ve been working with you all this time. I’m used to your sense of humor.” I repressed a sigh and thought, Ditto, brother. I tucked both lists into my notebook. “With any luck,” he added wearily, “I’ll have the wines this afternoon. We can discuss the dishes themselves tomorrow. That won’t be too late, will it?”

“Of course not.” Never tell clients the problems they’re causing you, even if you long to strangle them for their sudden changes of plans. As he packed up the wine-invitations, I said, “There’s dinner in the refrigerator for you, Arthur. Gift from me. Instructions are on the counter.”

“Okay, thanks.” He spoke with more fatigue than gratitude. He glanced at the paper on the counter, then gave me a curious look. “That’s what you did while I was changing? Wrote out all those instructions?”

“Well, yes—” What did you think I was going to do, just sit here?

“Hmm,” was his only comment as his eyes flicked around his kitchen. I had the distinct feeling that he suspected I’d stolen something while he was out of the room. Without saying more, he picked up the box of bottles and led me toward the front door. In the hallway, he clumsily turned to check that a door beside the kitchen entry was locked. Then he glanced at one of the figurines on the hall table.

It was a Dresden shepherdess, I noted. Gee Arthur, I thought, why not hoist a neon sign saying Valuables Here! Why else would he lock a door inside his house? What did Arthur have that was so valuable?

Wines? Duh, Mom.

I carefully reversed the Rover down the snowy driveway, then waited as Arthur’s garage door slid open and he backed out. No Subaru for him, but a huge, shiny, black Escalade, the Cadillac of four-wheel-drives. He’d decorated the grille with a bushy green Christmas wreath. His vanity plate read: VinGeek. Either he’d inherited a bundle or the wine business was great. But if either possibility were true, why would you work as a PBS floor director? Arthur was an enigma, I decided, as I drove into Killdeer to find the Gorge-at-the-Gondola Café.

I knew her as soon as I stepped into the restaurant: the golden mane of hair, the strong-featured, slender face. Boots Faraday even looked artistic. With her head tilted, she’d fixed her gaze out the window. She wasn’t expecting me, so I watched her while coming up with my lines of introduction.

A sudden crash made her turn. Next to her table, a chubby, tow-headed toddler had tripped over his ski boots and toppled to the floor. He was crying with fear. Without missing a beat, Boots leaned over and scooped the boy up. In one fluid movement, she lifted him, boots and all, to his mother. When the mother declined to take him—he had to weigh over fifty pounds in those boots—Boots playfully threw the child up into the air and caught him. Both of them squealed with laughter.

So: artistic-looking, and strong as an ox. Her angular, British-film-star face was complemented by a long, lithe, muscular body. Unfortunately, as soon as she had the delighted boy righted on his boots, she straightened and caught sight of me. If you could chill someone with a look, I’d say I’d just been flash-frozen.

I gripped her wine bottle and made my way resolutely across the crowded room. If what Tom had said the previous day was true, my own motives for meeting with Doug Portman could be called into question. I really needed to chat with Boots, to find out what she’d seen the previous morning, and, if I was lucky, what she knew. But did she know who I was? Why had I received that icy look? Boots Faraday did not exactly look thrilled at the prospect of chatting with me. My heart sank.

“You’re the artist, right?” I blurted out when I arrived at her table. “Boots Faraday, the collage person? This wine and buffet invitation is for you. It’s from Arthur Wakefield, but he had to go to Denver. A little problem with Customs.”

Intense blue eyes assessed me: Was I friend or foe?

I introduced myself and said I was a caterer and personal chef, maybe she’d seen Cooking at the Top! She nodded slightly, and I plunged recklessly on: “I love your work. I’ve just bought one of your collages for my husband for Christmas. I’d love to hear a bit about how you create your collages. I’ll pay for my own meal, of course. Or, do you not like to eat with fans?”

In the face of my obnoxiousness, she stared down at her silverware and ran a long-fingered hand along the knife. Her face remained unreadable.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to lunch with a stranger,” I gushed. “People are always wanting me to talk about recipes. Frankly, I’d rather not talk than hear tales about substituting cooking sherry for Dry Sack—”

She lifted her eyes at that, and smiled, Mona Lisa-ish. “You’re the one with the eggshells in the cookies.” Her voice was deep and pleasant. “I saw the show.” She paused. “The annual fund-raiser in memory of Nate Bullock is very dear to my heart.”

I placed the wine on the table. “Oh, really? How come?”

“Arthur probably told you Nate Bullock and I were good friends.”

“That Arthur! No, he didn’t mention it.”

Boots glanced out the window again. Was she looking for someone? “I thought my old friendship with Nate Bullock was the reason Arthur asked me to do some collages for the set.” She turned back and regarded me. Her formidable blue eyes were clouded, inscrutable. “You can sit down.”

Her table afforded a panoramic view of the base of Killdeer Mountain. The investigators must have finished, for skiers and snowboarders now raced down the runs. When our waitress shuffled up, I ordered while Boots tucked the wine bottle into her large leather handbag. Boots said, “Ditto,” to a Chicken Caesar Salad. Not sure where to start with her, I launched us into an emotionally flat exchange of pleasantries about food, wine, and living in Killdeer.

Boots seemed enigmatic, almost on her guard. Maybe it was because she was famous and met adoring fans all the time. I gabbled on, pretending not to notice. By the time we were taking dainty bites of crisp romaine lettuce sprinkled with hot grilled chicken, freshly grated Parmesan, and butter-sautéed croutons, every innocuous subject had been exhausted.

I moved my plate aside. Now or never. How to broach the subject of Doug Portman without seeming nosy? On the other hand, I’d probably already hit the top of the Intrusivity Chart by crashing her lunch.

“The collage I bought was ‘Spring Detritus,’ ” I began. “And I’ve seen your work all over. Being in a small town like Killdeer, was it hard to establish an art-making career?”

Her deep laugh was rich and seductive, and made me smile. Then she narrowed those startling blue eyes. “You must think I’m pretty dumb.”

My smile melted. “Excuse me?”

The eyes once again turned chilly. “What’s this about, really?”

I fiddled with the side of the plate. Uh-oh. “What is what about?”

“Just tell me what you really want to know. Aside from”—she raised her voice to mimic my question—“if it was hard to establish an art-making career?” Her eyes mocked me.

“Uh, I’m just a caterer who bought one of your—”

“Cut the crap.”

“I—”

“Why are you here?”

“Well, I am doing a personal-chef gig for Arthur Wakefield, and he did ask me to bring you the wine. I bought one of your pieces and I do want to know about your career. And”—I took a fortifying breath—“since you’re a local artist, then you must know, have known, Doug Portman. The local art critic.”

She tilted back in her chair and narrowed her eyes. “You want to know if I knew Doug Portman? Why?”

“I … was supposed to meet him after the show yesterday,” I confessed. “As you no doubt have heard, he was killed skiing down from the bistro before we could meet.” Time to tell the truth. “The Sheriff’s department is classifying his accident as a suspicious death. That’s why they had to close the mountain for so long this morning.” Boots lifted her eyebrows. “As I’m the only one who seems to know why he was carrying a lot of cash when he died, the police are asking me a bunch of questions. Believe me, you don’t want to be the one the cops are questioning, when it’s a suspicious death.”

“Really.”

“Anyway,” I continued, “once I figured out you were the artist who was hanging work yesterday morning, I was wondering if you saw anything … you know, strange. With Doug, I mean.”

“No, I didn’t,” she replied immediately, then looked away, out the window.

“No, you didn’t? Did you see Doug at all? Was he talking to anybody during the show? Did he seem upset? Sick? Can’t you tell me anything?”

She swiveled to face me. “I read that article on you, you know. The one in the Killdeer Courier that Arthur placed to publicize your cooking show.”

“An article? Actually, publicity for the show is Arthur’s department—”

“You should have read the article,” she interrupted me sharply. “It said you were a caterer, and that you were starting in the personal chef business.” I shook my head and opened my eyes wide, as in So? “And that’s not all. Let’s see—‘Goldy Schulz is also known for occasionally, and unofficially, helping her husband—a homicide investigator—solve crimes. So if she cozies up to you for a chat, you might want to call your lawyer.’”

“Is that why you think I did Arthur’s wine delivery for him? To cozy up to you?”

“Isn’t it? Everyone knows I was no friend of Doug Portman. Doug Portman was a rotten judge of art who thought he was very smart. His ignorance hurt people. Including me. So what’s the real point of you asking me about Doug Portman at the bistro?”

“Whoa. Listen. I do love your work. I do want to know how you got started. And it would be helpful if you could tell me if you saw anything suspicious on Friday. That’s it. You don’t want to talk, just say so.”

She snorted impatiently. “I’ll let you know if I mind talking. Regarding your first question. I tried to make a living as a painter of large abstract oils. Critics, including Doug Portman, loved them. I didn’t sell a single one.”

“That’s too bad—”

She lowered her voice and held up an imaginary magazine. “ ‘Ms. Faraday’s groundbreaking canvases depict violence with passion, color, and ontology.’”

“Doug said that?”

“Are you kidding? Doug Portman wouldn’t have known the difference between ‘ontology’ and ‘on-line trading.’ Those lines were from some Denver critic. Anyway, I needed to pay the rent, so I tried my hand at making collages. Some critics dismissed them as ‘craftwork.’ Most ignored them. Unfortunately, our one local critic, Doug Portman, hated them because they were small and intimate, not grand or grandiose.”

“I’m sorry.”

Her smile was a thin slash. “Don’t be. I sold every one of those first collages. I even enjoyed ignoring Doug when he referred to my work as”—here she lowered her voice again—“ ‘saccharine and domestic.’ I formed the Killdeer Artists’ Association, so the artists in town could network to make money instead of being jealous and competitive. Eventually, a few magazine writers did pieces on my work, and I received a stream of orders. Now I have a tidy little business, and I don’t give a hoot about passion and ontology.” She speared a piece of chicken. “Ready for the answer to Question Two? No, I didn’t see anything Friday morning.”

Watch it, I warned myself. I stalled by taking a sip of water. Actually, I had thought of a couple more questions, on the subject of Nate Bullock and his pregnant widow. If Boots Faraday felt so close to Nate that she came to the annual fund-raiser held in his name, maybe she knew what was going on with my old friend Rorry.

“I admire your spunk,” I commented with a smile, then pretended to ponder a bit. “The Bullocks used to live in Aspen Meadow, where I’m from. You mentioned an artists’ association. Is that how you got to know Nate?”

“Yes, I met Nate through KAA.” Her answer was curt, as if she were suddenly under legal cross-examination. “He was a good cameraman, but public television doesn’t pay that much. He joined the artists’ association when he was trying to make some extra money. Then he died.”

“Nate wanted to make extra money? Doing what?”

Her face turned rigid. “I really can’t say.”

“But … he’s been dead for three years. Look, Boots, Rorry was my friend. A long time ago, we taught Sunday school together. She seemed so terribly unhappy yesterday—”

Boots snarled: “Don’t get me started on Rorry,” then seemed to regret it. After a moment, she continued in a steadier voice: “I’ll tell you why Nate wanted extra money. When you taught Sunday school with Rorry, was she complaining about wanting to have children, but not being able to afford it?”

I thought back. Had she? I only remembered her wistful admiration for Arch, then a toddler. “No … but that was years ago. I’d love to get in touch with her again—”

“She works for Killdeer Corp. I think she’s still in the same trailer where she and Nate lived. Shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“Was Nate trying to make that extra money when he died?”

Boots glanced out at the gondola whizzing along, high above the beautiful, treacherous mountain. “I told you: I can’t say exactly. He had some film ideas, he had his PBS work. That’s what I know.”

I got the distinct feeling that that was not all she knew. But I said only, “Rorry is pregnant now. Do you know if she’s seeing someone?”

“Man, you don’t quit, do you? I don’t know anything about Rorry Bullock’s social life. She doesn’t confide in me.” She took a bite of salad and regarded me warily over her fork. “The gallery called and told me you were in this morning. You turned your nose up at their show and went straight to my stuff. Now all of a sudden you’re my biggest fan, pumping me with questions about my career, Doug Portman, and Nate and Rorry Bullock. Why?”

The waitress reappeared. I ordered a double espresso and a brownie with vanilla ice cream. Boots declined anything.

“I just wanted to find out more about Doug Portman. That’s all. Asking about Rorry popped into my head when you mentioned Nate. Honest.”

“And why do you want to know about Portman?”

I sighed. “I told you that already. If you don’t want to believe me, don’t.”

Again she tilted her chin back in appraisal. “How do you take to criticism? I find myself wondering what you thought of the first two sentences under your photo in the Killdeer paper? ‘Some call her the corpulent Queen of Cream. But this caterer is one tough cookie’?”

I shook my head. The Killdeer paper was not part of my regular reading material, I was happy to say. Which was probably a good thing, since discussing it filled Boots’s voice with vitriol. How she must have hated Doug Portman, with his uncomplimentary critiques. I replied tentatively, “I’d say I’m a tad shy of corpulent—”

“I know why you wanted to have lunch with me,” Boots interrupted. “You don’t care about my work. Or the artists’ association. And you certainly don’t give a damn about Nate Bullock. You think I killed that son-of-a-bitch know-nothing wannabe critic, Doug Portman.”

“Did you?”

“No. But I wish I had. Am I a suspect?”

“No, you’re paranoid. I’m higher up on the list of suspects than you are.”

“Were you there when he died, Goldy?”

“No.”

“Then why is the sheriff’s department asking you about his so-called suspicious death?” She grinned maliciously. “I mean, if you don’t mind me asking a question or two.”

“My ex-husband is in jail. Doug was a member of the state parole board. I was skiing with him. It looks peculiar.”

My dessert arrived and we fell silent. When the waitress left, Boots demanded, “Why do the cops even think it’s a suspicious death in the first place?”

I sipped my espresso. I couldn’t tell her about the medical patches and the threat, couldn’t tell her about the mysterious closure of the run, or the blood all over the snow. “I don’t know exactly.”

Boots pursed her lovely lips. Then she said, “Baloney.”

I shrugged. The anger in her was making me nervous.

She stood, snatched up her jacket, and flipped her blond hair over her shoulders. “Go to hell, tough cookie.”

CHAPTER 12

Well! Let’s do lunch any ol’ time.

I finished the brownie, sipped my espresso, and reflected on Boots’s news that my crime-solving exploits had been written up in the local paper. How had I missed that? The waitress returned and told me the blond lady had thrown a fifty-dollar bill at her. I told her to keep the change.

I got directions to Mountain Man Wines, where the manager said he would happily deliver the rest of Arthur’s bottled invites. By the time I got to Big Map, a light snow had begun to fall. Pink-cheeked skiers, their boot buckles clanking, headed past me, bound for lunch after a brisk morning on the slopes. And speaking of food, not only had my meeting with Boots Faraday been less than perfect, I had to assess my first day as a personal chef as a failure. Arthur had not given me a check, had not signed a contract, had only given me a vague list of foods I could put together for his wine-tasting buffet.

He was going to call, though, and wanted me to do the buffet Monday. Wonderful.

I passed a line of skiers waiting for the gondola. I clambered up to the bottom of Base View Run, where skiers and snowboarders had to stop to take off their equipment before heading back to the gondola or across the footbridge. At the far left of the run’s end stood Big Map, a fifteen-by-eight-foot plastic-covered diagram of the ski area. Arch was not there.

I wiggled my toes to keep warm. As the bottom of a run is a precarious place to spend any time just standing around, I worked my way through the snow to get closer to the map. To my right, hooting, calling skiers and snowboarders produced waves of snow as they made sudden hockey stops and stepped out of their bindings. Children, fat as doughboys in their brightly colored down jackets, wheeled this way and that, searching for parents from whom they’d become separated on the hill. Occasionally an out-of-control skier or snowboarder would biff—slang for crash—into one of the kids and send him sprawling. Two ski patrol members standing near the map called warnings, helped the children up, and yanked the tickets of particularly reckless skiers and boarders.

Arch knew where to find me, so I didn’t waste time trying to spot him among the hordes descending the last leg of the run. I turned to the map and ran my fingers along Widowmaker and Jitterbug Run. My eyes inexorably turned to Hot-Rodder, where Doug Portman had died. With all the stamping around done by the patrol as they tried to rescue Doug, there couldn’t have been much of a crime scene left for the police and Forest Service to investigate.

My eyes wandered over the diagram to Elk Valley, where Nate Bullock had died three years ago. Nate wanted to make extra money. Doing what? I really can’t say…. Striped red lines indicated both the valley and the ridge above it as out-of-bounds for skiing. Just to the west of Elk Valley lay a green-dotted area labeled Area III Expansion. On the map, I retraced my route this morning along the main road and then to the parking lot by the Elk Ridge Nature Trail. If I had come out the other side of the parking lot the first time, I could have found Arthur’s condo without a hitch. Speaking of directions …

Near me a ski patroller was carefully buckling yellow straps around a transport sled. I called a greeting down and received an answering smile from the patroller, a young woman with a thin, tanned face.

“I don’t want to interrupt you,” I began.

“You’re not. Have you lost somebody? Do you need help?”

I told her I was just waiting for my son. “But I do have a couple of questions about the map, if you don’t mind.” I introduced myself and said that yesterday I’d done a fund-raiser for Nate Bullock up at the bistro.

“Yeah,” the patroller said mournfully, “I knew Nate. Everybody did.” Her genuine sadness seemed a contrast to Rorry’s bitter words from yesterday: I’m not sad. Just puzzled. And then there had been Boots’s angry comment: Don’t get me started on Rorry.

I turned back to the map. “What I can’t figure out is why a high-country-wise person like Nate would go into a dangerous area like that.”

She shrugged. “There hadn’t been a slide there in thirty years. Nate probably thought he’d be okay.”

I glanced at the slope. “Rorry Bullock, Nate’s widow? She’s an old friend of mine.”

The patrolwoman put her hands on her knees, sprang up agilely, and brushed snow from her legs. She was about my height, with dark blond hair poking from beneath her red hat. She moved with a graceful, unconscious athleticism, and as usual at the ski resort, I felt horridly uncoordinated and chubby. But not corpulent. At least, I hoped not.

“Yeah,” she said, “Rorry’s getting close, now. With that baby about to pop, I’m surprised she came up to the bistro yesterday.”

“But she did,” I said. “Unfortunately, I was so busy yesterday that I didn’t get a chance to talk with her very much. I know she’s an employee of Killdeer Corp and lives in a trailer, but I don’t know where she works or have her exact address or phone number any more. Any ideas?”

The patrolwoman harnessed the sled to her shoulders. “Last I heard, Rorry was working the night shift at the container warehouse. I’m pretty sure her number is listed. Oh, and she has the only green-and-white mobile home in Killdeer.” She expertly stamped snow off her boots, signaling that she was ready to go.

“Ah,” I said hesitantly. “Do you think it’s okay to talk to Rorry about the avalanche? I kind of got weird vibes from her yesterday.”

The patrolwoman shrugged inside her harness, then pointed to two patrol members working the bottom of the slope. “Ask Gail. The tall one. She knows Rorry pretty well. She was also on the search team that found Nate.”

I thanked her and galumphed between skiers and boarders to Gail, whose windburned, leathery face was framed with long, shiny black hair pulled off her forehead with a thick red band. I scanned the slope—still no Arch. As I introduced myself to Gail, I recognized her: she was the woman who’d pulled me up from the snow yesterday morning, when I’d fallen after disembarking from the gondola. She recognized me, too, and said I’d done a great job on the Bullock fund-raiser. How about that, I thought. A compliment, for a change!

I told her I was looking for my son and his friend, both snowboarders, both late. Gail asked for their description and said she hadn’t seen them, but she’d keep an eye out.

“The patrolwoman over there by the map?” I asked. “The one with the sled? I told her I was a friend of the Bullocks. She mentioned you were on one of the search teams that went out for Nate.”

Gail nodded sadly. “Yeah, I was.”

“Uh, Rorry and I were real close before she moved to Killdeer. I’d like to hook up with her again, bring her some casseroles for when the baby arrives. But she seemed to be in an awfully bad mood when I saw her yesterday …”

“That figures. The memorial is hard on her, I think. And of course, losing Nate, and then their baby, that was horrible, too.”

I’m not sad, Goldy. Just puzzled.

“Uh,” I ventured, “the patrolwoman over there said an avalanche hadn’t come down Elk Ridge for thirty years.”

Gail shrugged. “You get the right snow conditions, a slope steeper than thirty degrees, a trigger, it could happen anywhere. That’s why we set explosives on some peaks. We want to anticipate slides.”

“But there wasn’t an explosive trigger for the avalanche that killed Nate. Or was there?” Before she could answer, I heard a familiar yell: Mom! followed by Goldy Schulz! just in case there was any doubt what Mom was being summoned.

From the other end of the run, Arch waved at me with both hands. “Hey, Mom!” He and Todd, their snowboards leashed to their ankles, scooted toward me. Snow clung to Todd’s hat, jacket, pants, and mittens. His lowered chin indicated discouragement, pain, and embarrassment. He must have taken an awfully bad fall. At least he hadn’t had to be carried off the slope. Speaking of which.

“The other patroller said you were on the team that actually brought out Nate’s body,” I said to Gail.

Gail flipped her glossy hair back and scowled at the mountain. “There was a report, all public record, if you want to look it up. I read about you in the paper, wanting to do your own investigations.”

I shook my head. “I want to know what’s bothering Rorry. I just don’t want to say something to her that would hurt her feelings—”

Gail’s voice softened. “We believe there was a human trigger for the avalanche. So you might not even want to mention the slide to Rorry.”

“What?”

She looked away. “It’s all public record,” she repeated. “There were three sets of tracks at the Elk Ridge trailhead that day. It’s a well-marked hiking area in the summertime, but this was winter, with seven inches of new snow. We saw two sets of boot prints going up, one Nate’s, one somebody else’s. Snow-depth was almost identical, so there’s reason to believe Nate went up with somebody. Still, it’s not impossible that the other person came up later. It’s just unlikely—”

I stopped her. “Why is it unlikely?”

“If you follow someone else, you usually step in their tracks. It makes it easier to walk. Nate’s and this other person’s tracks were side by side.”

“Somebody else was hit by the avalanche that day, but didn’t get killed? Or was killed and never found?”

“No,” Gail corrected patiently, holding me with her dark eyes. Arch and Todd were twenty feet away. “Somebody went partway up the path with Nate. Then his companion or whoever split off and went up the ridge. Nate descended to the valley. We don’t know why he went there. His footprints led into the slide. We didn’t find him for five hours. By then, he’d suffocated.”

“And the third set of tracks?”

Again I got the dark eyes. “Nate’s companion came back down. Running, from the look of the tracks. We never found out who he was. Or she. I don’t know if anyone ever told Rorry about the second person on the slope that day. Probably she knows anyway. So as I say, you might not want to talk to her about it.” She strode away to admonish a skier who’d slammed into an entire family.

Openmouthed, I struggled to process what I’d just been told. Two sets of tracks up? One down? Did Rorry indeed know about Nate’s companion? And who could it have been? Why hadn’t that person ever shown up?

“Mom!” Arch was panting. His flushed cheeks were wet with melted snow. “Todd got hit by a lady skier. She bounced off him and crashed into me. Major yard sale and I’m not kidding. Then she yelled at us for getting in her way. I told her, ‘Y’ever heard of Yield to the downhill skier?’ and she shouted, ‘You’re not a skier!’”

I consoled him while he brushed clumps of snow from his shoulders and complained of prejudice against snowboarders. Poor Todd shuffled up and I asked if he was all right. His ambiguous I guess was followed by a request to take him back to his condo, which I did.

Arch fell asleep in the Range Rover within five minutes of our leaving Killdeer. By the time I pulled into High Country Towing in Dillon, he was snoring. A man in oil-splashed coveralls unlocked the gates to a lot crammed with vehicles, all of which had seen better days. When I caught sight of my ruined van, an unexpected lump rose in my throat. My trustworthy vehicle, its Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right! now crumpled and illegible, had been my companion through years of catering. The van’s sorry state seemed an omen of the loss of my business. I patted the bumper and bid it a silent farewell. Then, before the overall-guy could call the local mental health center, I scooped up Tom’s skis—miraculously unharmed—as well as my own ski gear and my backpack, and roared toward home.

Arch woke up as we pulled into our driveway. I needed to talk to Tom about all I’d learned, about Barton Reed, the cancer-suffering convict; Jack Gilkey, the paroled chef; Arthur Wakefield, the wine-loving antiparole activist; and Boots Faraday, the savagely unfriendly artist who’d hated the town’s art critic. But visiting time at the jail was almost over, and Tom had promised Arch he’d take him down to see his father. Before they left, Tom added that he wanted to help me make dinner, so I should wait until he returned to start.

I thanked him and hauled the precious skis upstairs, where I screamed bloody murder when I tripped over what turned out to be Arch’s physics experiment. Once I’d stored the still miraculously unbroken skis, I stomped back to the hallway, seething. A god-awful mess awaited me. According to the skewed label, Arch had meticulously dropped bleach on black fabric to demonstrate the random spatter patterns of quantum mechanics. I, unfortunately, had kicked the bucket of bleach down the carpeted hallway and taken out not only our gold shag rug but a pile of blue jeans waiting to go into the laundry. With rags, I blotted what bleach I could from the ruined rug. Then I threw the jeans into the wash—they’d be okay for painting and gardening—and hung the grossly spotted and experiment-ruined black fabric in the bathroom.

I tried desperately to be a good mother in the teach-your-kids-and-support-their-interests department, but every now and then my failure quotient became awfully high. Regardless of American sentimentality toward motherhood, I longed to create a Mother’s Day card that told the truth: You can’t win.

In the kitchen, I typed Arthur’s wine list and suggested foods into my computer. Then I contemplated my next few culinary events. I checked the number of cookies I had made for the following day’s library reception. I decided that in addition to the wrapped platters of almond Christmas cookies and Chocolate Coma cookies, I should make Jack’s delicious marmalade muffins and more of the gingersnaps I’d muffed on television. When you fall off a horse, you should get right back on, right?

I took out unsalted butter to soften and made sure I had whole nutmeg, then hunted for my molasses and cider vinegar. By the time Tom came in, loaded with bags containing chilled cans of pasteurized crab and a dozen different sauce ingredients, I was loading scoops of buttery, spicy cookie dough onto baking sheets.

“Aha!” he said expansively as he pulled me in for a hug. “The Queen of Cream tackles gingersnaps again!”

“You read the article in the Killdeer paper?”

“Yeah, somebody faxed it to me,” he replied absent-mindedly. “How’re you doing? You’re not corpulent, by the way.”

“Thanks.” I sighed. “How was The Jerk?”

“His usual self. I felt sorry for Arch, so I bought some lean ground beef and—don’t kill me—Velveeta and picante to make him some Chile Con Queso. We can have it with chips and vegetables. He always orders it in restaurants, so I figured I’d give it a go for him.”

I laughed. “Great. So much for corpulence. I’ll thaw some halibut steaks for us, too. The queso will be good. I need some comfort food myself, since I had to say good-bye to my van today. It was awful.”

“We will buy you another van.”

“You don’t understand. It was so sad.”

His green eyes searched mine. “Hey, Miss G., y’know how many prowlers I’ve wrecked?” The slight scent of his aftershave made me shiver…. Whose idea was it to have dinner before you went to bed?

I said, “Is this a statistic that’s going to upset me?”

“Six wrecked. Four totaled.”

“Ah.”

“What are you making there, Queen of Cream?”

“Marmalade Mogul Muffins,” I said happily. That was the thing about Tom: You never could stay in a sad mood for very long when he was determined to cheer you up. I removed halibut steaks from our freezer while Tom sautéed the ground beef for his Mexican appetizer. Then I pulled my zester over plump oranges, whirred the fragrant strands of zest in a small electric grinder, and measured out thick, best-quality marmalade.

“Mind if we invite Marla over?” I asked. “All this back and forth to the ski area, I haven’t seen or talked to her. She loves halibut.”

“Okay,” he said as he stirred picante sauce into the lake of melted cheese and browned beef. “Only tell her not to come until six, I need to talk to you first.”

“Sounds sexy. I need to talk to you, too. Suppose we could do it somewhere else?”

He grinned. “Later. Call Marla—”

At that moment Arch screamed from upstairs that he wanted to know who had ruined his experiment! I called back that I had, because he’d left it where someone could trip over it in the hallway. I was rewarded with a slammed door. I sighed. Well, we could all make up at dinner. Hopefully, Tom’s queso dip would smooth over my son’s mood.

“Call Marla,” Tom said calmly, “then I’ll tell you about this artist who filed a complaint against you today.”

“Who did what?”

But Tom was ripping open a bag of chips. I phoned Marla, who declared she was famished, thank you very much, and what kind of wine should she bring to go with the halibut? Not that she could drink any, but maybe Tom and I would, she said. I racked my noggin for a stored tidbit of oenophilic advice from Arthur Wakefield, and told her a full-bodied, spicy white. Marla promised she’d be over in twenty minutes, armed with the vino.

Tom asked: “Miss G., did you pretend to be an undercover cop, and have lunch with a woman named Boots Faraday so you could grill her on the Portman case?”

“Oh, sure, Tom.” The oven timer beeped. I gently levered the crispy cookies onto waiting racks, then put in the muffin cups. “I invited Boots Faraday to lunch and said, ‘I’m an undercover policewoman. Don’t tell anybody. I do have a bunch of questions for you, though. Don’t tell anybody that, either.’”

Tom asked, “Want to make a pasta dish to go with the halibut?”

I nodded, angrily chopped garlic and onion, and tossed them into a pan shimmering with heated olive oil. “I did not pretend to be anything with that woman.” I didn’t want to tell Tom about the collage I’d bought him, because now I was wondering if the gallery had a return-for-cash policy.

“Watch yourself, because that woman has served time for assault.”

“You’re kidding.” I set water on to boil for orzo pasta. Then I chopped a few ounces of smoked ham and a couple of tomatoes, and stirred them along with some whole-grain mustard, Madeira, white wine, marjoram, and oregano into the headily fragrant, sizzling garlic mixture. A spicy pasta dish would go wonderfully with the halibut. When the sauce was simmering, I asked, “Boots Faraday assaulted somebody?”

“Seems she did a series of artworks for a client. Man owned a snowboard store, he used a snowboard as a down payment on half a dozen collages featuring snowboarders. When Ms. Faraday finished them, the guy said he’d changed his mind. He didn’t want the collages anymore, but he told her to go ahead and keep the board. She could even hang the collages in Killdeer restaurants, he added happily.”

“For heaven’s sake.”

Chile Con Queso Dip

1 pound lean ground beef

12 ounces English-Cheddar flavor Velveeta, or regular Velveeta

½ cup medium picante sauce (or ½ recipe of the tomato, onion, and chili sauce from Sonora Chicken Strudel, well drained)

Corn chips and crudités

In a wide frying pan, sauté the ground beef over medium-high heat, until brown but not overcooked. While the meat is cooking, cut the Velveeta into 1-inch cubes. When the beef has browned, add the Velveeta cubes, turn the heat to medium-low, and stir until the Velveeta has melted. Turn the heat to low and add picante sauce or the Mexican strudel sauce. Heat just until bubbly and serve with chips and/ or crudites.

Marmalade Mogul Muffins

½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter

1¾ cups sugar, divided

4 large eggs

2 cups buttermilk

4¾ cups all-purpose flour (High altitude: add ¼ cup)

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons orange zest, minced

1 cup best-quality bitter orange marmalade (recommended brand: Harry and David Wild & Rare Bitter Orange Marmalade)

Preheat the oven to 350°F (High altitude: 375?).

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter with 1½ cups of the sugar until well combined. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well. Add buttermilk and mix thoroughly.

In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. The batter will be stiff. Stir in the zest and marmalade. Using a ⅓-cup measure, divide the batter among 28 muffin cups that have been fitted with paper liners. Using the last ¼ cup of sugar, sprinkle a teaspoon or so over each muffin.

Bake 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Makes 28 muffins

“Now, most reasonable people would take their complaint to small-claims court. Not our Ms. Faraday. She drove her Chevy Suburban smack into the guy’s truck. Broke both his legs, which put a stop to his snowboarding that winter. At first, she claimed she didn’t know who the fellow was she’d hit. But since his truck was custom-painted with the words Killdeer Boards, nobody believed that. She spent ten days in the clink. The rest was a suspended sentence.”

“Hmm.” I showered orzo into the boiling water and set the timer. “Did she have any parole-type run-ins with Doug Portman?”

Tom shook his head. “But he was the art critic, and at least half a dozen people have told us she hated his guts because he didn’t review her work favorably. She even tried to get him fired from the Killdeer paper, but they ignored her, probably because they weren’t paying him very much to write his columns.”

“I didn’t interrogate her. For the record.”

“No, I know,” Tom said with a broad smile. “You were probably just being your usual nosy self. Figured that as soon as I got word of the complaint.” He stirred the bubbling cheese concoction; my stomach growled.

“Boots Faraday wasn’t the only one I was nosy with today.” I told him about Jack Gilkey being out on parole for his role in Arthur’s mother’s death and Arthur’s taking very public exception to Jack’s release.

“Let me guess who granted Gilkey parole,” mused Tom.

“Yep. And guess who Portman did not grant parole to.”

“Barton Reed,” replied Tom promptly. He was heating water for a chafing dish. “I know, I looked him up today. I arrested him for fraud a while back. And by the way, John Richard has written to the board asking for an early parole date. But it’ll be at least a month before they even consider letting him out.”

I sighed. “So do you think Barton Reed might have killed Portman?”

“We’re a long way from knowing that, Miss G.”

I set the table, lightly dressed a salad of romaine and Bibb lettuces, and set out slices of a five-grain homemade bread Julian had left for us.

“I do have a question for you, though,” Tom said after further thought. “Seems Ms. Faraday, too, read that article in her paper about your more-or-less successful career as an amateur sleuth.”

“Don’t get me started on that. Publicity, as I told Ms. Faraday, is strictly Arthur’s department.”

Tom stirred my orzo. “Uh-huh. But a lot of people did read the article. Maybe one person who read it decided to rear-end your van. Maybe they were worried you’d go nosing into Doug Portman’s death.” I sighed. “Just a theory,” Tom added. “Speaking of Portman, we got a preliminary drug screen back on him. He had touched the patches, but they’d already been used, so there was just a trace of opioid in his system. Not enough to kill him. No, that particular job was left to whoever smashed him in the head with a big rock found tossed off the run. He was hit repeatedly, apparently. Rock had stuff on it that you don’t want to hear about while we’re fixing dinner. One thing it didn’t have on it were fingerprints, sorry to say.”

“So it was murder, then?”

“It was murder, definitely,” Tom said grimly. “They think somebody knew he took that run and was waiting for him. Saw him go by and quickly put up the poles and ropes closing the run. Then skied down and did him in.”

I hadn’t liked Doug Portman, but I suddenly felt heavy with sadness. Tom gave me a long hug.

He poured the steaming queso dip into the chafing dish and lit the Sterno underneath. I’d given him the chafing dish for Father’s Day. Tom had done more positive things for Arch in two short years than The Jerk had done in the preceding twelve. So he’d deserved a Father’s Day gift.

“Snow, snow, snow!” cried Marla as she came in and threw off another full-length coat, one she’d assured me was fake fur, although I had my doubts. Underneath, she wore a Christmasy crimson dress streaming with sewn-on ruby-colored beads. “Where’s that son of yours? I brought him some Christmas candy, that ribbon stuff. Tell him I want to know what kind of candy his girlfriend likes, too. I’m putting in another big order next week. Yum! I swear it always smells great in this house!”

I decided against telling her that the subject of a gift for Arch’s girlfriend was a sore one, and called him. He clomped down the stairs and accepted Marla’s gift of candy with guarded enthusiasm. When she bustled over to open the Gewürztraminer, he squinted skeptically at the thick, brightly colored candy ribbons, unsure whether the confection was too babyish to consume in public. I ignored him and broiled the halibut steaks. Before long we were digging chips into Tom’s hot dip and agreeing that halibut was perfect with a spicy orzo dish. Funny how—when you’re not being filmed—cooking is much easier.

“How many more shows?” Marla asked, as if reading my mind.

“One, right before Christmas.”

“I heard about yesterday. Portman’s suspicious accident was on the news,” she commented matter-of-factly. “I’m sure Elva the ex-wife didn’t do it, though. She’s found a new boyfriend and they’re in New Zealand. He’s real cute, she sent me a picture.” She looked at me ruefully. “Is there anything good about your work in Killdeer?”

“Free skiing,” Arch and I said in unison, and we all laughed.

“I know it’s heresy, and I do ski, but I’m not sure it’s all the fun it’s cracked up to be.” Marla shook her head as she accepted a second heaping plate of pasta from Tom. “I mean, it’s expensive, you get cold, you fall. I say, why not go straight to the après-ski food, wine, and hot tub, and skip the stuff on the slopes?” Arch rolled his eyes. Marla went on: “About the fund-raiser. You did a great job, Goldy. It wasn’t your fault the mixer blew up on you. I mean, I called in a pledge, and it wasn’t even because I felt sorry about Nate Bullock. I couldn’t bear that show, High Country Hallmarks. The only hallmark the high country has gotten in the last decade is Neiman-Marcus.”

I smiled.

Marla munched salad and considered. “I do feel sorry for Rorry Bullock, I suppose. You know, when you work in Killdeer, you can’t afford to have decent housing. It’s like Aspen that way. The rich folks have driven the cost of housing out of sight—I hear some workers have to live in tipis in the woods all winter. Can you imagine that? Rorry lives in a trailer park, but it’s not much more secure than a tipi. St. Luke’s is raising money to help her buy a new car. Can you believe somebody borrowed her car without even asking? Banged it into something and then just left it parked by her trailer! What a drag!”

“That’s terrible!” I exclaimed, and thought of my own accident. “When did it happen?”

Marla shrugged. “Not sure when. Recently, though. I’m glad the church is going to help her buy another one.”

Tom said, “How’d you hear all this?”

“She’s on the prayer list, but the money request isn’t confidential,” Marla replied as she licked the last of her salad dressing from her fork. “Thank goodness! I’m so tired of keeping secrets!”

I couldn’t help laughing; neither could Tom. Arch grinned, too, perhaps remembering how Rorry had showered him with hugs when he was little. He announced to us all that he was going to do another physics experiment. He shyly added that he was sorry he’d left his stuff in the hall. Then, to my astonishment, he opened his bag of ribbon candy to share with everyone.

CHAPTER 13

The next morning, I stood in my beautiful-but-drainless kitchen and admired the heaping platters of library reception cookies and muffins. Even when things aren’t going very well, I consoled myself, it’s best to bake. I fixed myself an espresso and filled small vases with cheery sprigs of holly and ivy for the library tables. Tom came in, kissed me, then whipped together a golden German pancake that puffed so hugely even Arch smiled. By seven-thirty, I had everything packed into the Rover and we were ready to roll.

As the Rover chugged behind Tom’s Chrysler, snow-flakes swirled down from an ominous charcoal sky. Despite the fact that we were heading for the much-complained-about early Sunday service at St. Luke’s, Arch seemed less sullen than usual. That might mean Lettie was coming to the service. Then again, maybe it was the pancake.

Marla waved to us from a pew near the front. As we slid in next to her, I shot her a look of surprise. She usually did not get up to attend this service. Maybe her prayer-chain duties demanded she haul herself out of bed at dawn so as not to miss any rumors. Marla hated to think people were having crises without her knowledge.

I focused on the liturgy. At least, I tried to. An unidentified worry gnawed at me. I’d always told the Sunday schoolers to hand their problems over to the Almighty. Now I tried to take my own advice.

When we reached the beginning of the intercessory prayers, one of the ushers handed the priest a note. This practice of passing forward written prayers had been presented as a way to bring us together. It smacked a bit of TV-evangelist-land, but never mind. The priest solemnly intoned that we needed to pray for a former parishioner who was struggling with a pregnancy. This far-flung member of our parish family, he added, had also had her car stolen and vandalized.

“You see,” Marla leaned over to whisper. “I told you.”

Rorry. Questions about her behavior were what bothered me. And now this. When, I wondered, when was her car stolen and smashed? I would call her as soon as I finished at the library, and make that formal offer to bring casseroles to freeze until her baby arrived. Maybe she’d open up and tell me why she was in such a snarly mood at the fund-raiser in honor of her dead husband. Maybe she’d also share what had happened to her vehicle, so close to the time when mine had been struck.

The service ended. I hugged Arch. Tom kissed my cheek. Arch had spent Saturday snowboarding and visiting his father at the Furman County Jail, only to come home to a wrecked science project. So this afternoon, he was starting over on the project and memorizing the lines from Spenser he was supposed to recite in English class this week. Tom would take him home, before going down to the department for a few hours. He wanted to check up on the information I’d given him. Marla asked what type of goodies I would be serving at the library. I told her they were delicious, guaranteed to please, and plentiful. What more could a caterer give? She said she’d be first in line. I took off.

Our small-town library, with its brick walls, steeply pitched copper roof, and two peaked reading towers, was an enchanting spot. I was alone in this opinion, though: Hundreds of letters to the local paper had protested the year-old structure as unmountainish. Unless public edifices looked like lodges, Rocky Mountain folks found them repulsive. Ever-resourceful Marla wrote in that we should call the place the “Château de Volumes.” No one took her up on it.

I squinted through the snowflakes and was surprised to see a very large banner hung across the library entrance. HOLIDAY RECEPTION—REFRESHMENTS! it screamed. Might as well have said FREE CHOW! On the other hand, the thickening snow might deter the hordes. Tom liked to tease that I was unhappy if there were too many folks, and miserable if there were too few. In other words, like the original Goldilocks, I was too picky.

As it turned out, the event was wonderful, or rather, just right. Over a two-hour period, about sixty wellbundled patrons tramped into the reading tower, shed coats, boots, mittens, and scarves, cozied up to the gas fireplace, and indulged in cookies, muffins, and each other’s company. Marla gushed to every single guest that these were the best treats in the universe. People enthusiastically replied, Yes, the best indeed. My heart warmed, especially when a dozen patrons begged me to do their Christmas parties. Rather than shamefully admit to my official closure—with my business shut, I could only give munchies away, I couldn’t sell them—I replied that my personal chef work and the TV show in Killdeer had me fully booked up to the new year. To which Marla, ever the optimist, added that I was compiling a waiting list for February. She urged patrons, Call Goldy and order your special Valentine’s Dinner, delivered right to your door!

When I shot her a blank look, she winked and gave me a thumbs up. At least ten people swore they’d give me a ring. What would I do without Marla?

The afternoon’s only wrinkle came as I was packing up. One of the librarians told me in a low voice that I should not forget to pick up the books I had ordered. When I said I hadn’t ordered any books, she said that I had a whole packet of material at the front desk. It had been there since late yesterday, she added. Must be late-arriving reference material for Arch’s physics project, I thought. I packed up the Rover, then made my way to the counter.

“There must be some mistake,” I told the checkout librarian as soon as I leafed through the contents of a manila file folder and glanced at two rubber-banded books, both labeled for me. “I didn’t request these.”

“Library card, please.” Without looking at me, she held out her hand for my card. I riffled through my wallet, confessed I couldn’t find the card, and waited while she tapped keys on her computer, frowning. After a moment, she asked me if I was Goldy Schulz and recited my street address. When I said yes, she frowned some more, tapped more keys, then said I must have forgotten I’d ordered the books and articles, because I’d certainly used my card to request them.

Doggone it. I looked down at the books in my hand: Avalanche Awareness and The Stool Pigeon Murders. The first was a safety manual. The second appeared to be a true-crime slasher story, complete with grisly photographs of corpses left in Boston parking lots. The stool pigeons, apparently, had witnessed crimes, turned in the criminals, and been slaughtered for their civic-minded-ness. I set these aside and opened the file with its typed label: GOLDY SCHULZ. The bumper stickers it contained said: Want to Die? and Friends don’t let friends kill themselves.

What in the world?

I flipped carefully through a sheaf of photocopied pages. There was no note, not a single indication of who had sent them. The half-dozen articles in the file were from the Killdeer Courier, the weekly Furman County Register, and the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News. Some paragraphs had been highlighted in neon green. I flipped back to the beginning, then cursed softly: Now fingerprinting the pages would be impossible. Then again, a whole slew of librarians had probably already touched the pages. And maybe I was getting a trifle paranoid. Was leaving stuff for somebody else at the library in some way threatening? An invasion of privacy? Could you be booked for impersonating another library patron? I gnawed my cheek while contemplating the true-crime slasher book. Whatever it was, it didn’t make me feel good.

To the librarian I said, “Do you have any idea who left these for me?” When she shook her head, I asked if she would be willing to ask the staff if they’d received the manila folder from someone they remembered. The librarian took the file and disappeared. She came back to say one of the volunteers had reported to a staff person that the file had been in the drop box that morning. That meant that someone had left it sometime after closing on Saturday and before opening on Sunday. I tucked the folder under my arm, pressed some leftover cookies on her by way of thanks, and took off for home.

Tom had left an apologetic message on the tape. His captain wanted to see him; he’d be tied up longer than he expected. He’d be listening to the football game on the radio. Maybe he’d be home by the fourth quarter. Would I cheer for both of us?

There was another message, a long one, from Arthur Wakefield. I retrieved his wine list with suggested foods as I listened. He’d been able to rescue all but one of his wines from Customs. Still, he was planning on showcasing all five vintages, and a truck should deliver the sauvignon blanc Sunday afternoon.

He needed food for a dozen people, he went on. He’d invite four more people. He knew he’d only put fish, chicken, and red meat on the list—not very helpful—so this phone call was to spark my thinking. But remember, he himself needed to finish the cooking.

He loved the pork I left for him. He’d bought some pork tenderloins, and I should certainly make that dish again to go with the Châteauneuf-du-Pape. I should bring the ingredients for the marinade, though, then mix them with the red wine at his place. I scribbled madly.

A lot of folks had asked him, Arthur went on airily, about the yummy-looking crab cakes I’d made on TV. He wanted something Mexican to go with the zinfandel, but not the egg rolls, since he didn’t want to be running back and forth for appetizers. So please fix a Mexican main dish, he said vaguely, with chicken. Also a fish dish. He’d picked up some fresh sole and spinach while he was in Denver, could I do sole Florentine to go with the chablis? I nodded to his taped voice and continued to make notes.

Last, Arthur said, could I please make the ginger-snaps from the program? He’d gotten a great deal on that wonderful, lush Sauternes, and wanted to give the snaps another try. Had a lot of folks asked him about the cookies from TV, too, I wondered? He didn’t say. He did say that he’d pay for the foodstuffs, plus give me forty dollars an hour for labor, and another hundred for the time and travel I’d put in so far. Not bad. I rewound the machine and made sure I had the food requests right. I had a lot of cooking to do at his place tomorrow, no question about that.

I set aside Arthur’s directives and gripped the anonymously sent file from the library. I was trying to decide where to sit down and study it when Arch marched into the kitchen. He asked if he could do his splatter pattern with water mixed with confectioner’s sugar, dropped onto a cookie sheet. Great idea, I replied. Much better than bleach, anyway.

To give Arch privacy, I fixed myself an espresso and took it along with three cookies and the articles from the library into the living room. I muted the football halftime show and stared at the unopened file. Had The Jerk ordered this weird collection of material for me? My ex-husband had found ways to sabotage me from jail before.

I sipped the thick, dark coffee, especially welcome on a snowy day after working an event, and started reading the first article, dated three years before and headlined: UNSTABLE SNOW MAY HAVE CAUSED TWO DEATHS IN KILLDEER. In it, I read of avalanche victim Nate Bullock, host of PBS’s High Country Hallmarks, who had died the previous day in an avalanche in an out-of-bounds area. One source, who asked not to be identified, claimed Nate had gone to the valley to track lynx. But Nate had not left a marked map, the way a pilot might file a flight plan, so no one, not even his wife, had been quite sure what he was doing or where he was going the day he died.

On nearby Bighorn Overlook, the article went on to say, Fiona Wakefield—heir to the Wakefield corn oil fortune, and an intermediate skier—had died in a fall off a snow-covered cliff that was less than fifty yards out-of-bounds. Estimation of time of death for both Wakefield and Bullock was two in the afternoon.

I frowned. The two of them died on the same day, at the same time? Nobody had mentioned this to me, although Jack Gilkey had mentioned the unstable snow that day.

The next article stated: QUESTIONS LINGER IN TWO KILLDEER DEATHS. Mysteriously, this writer claimed, both Bullock and Wakefield had not been alone. When the ski patrol had found Jack Gilkey, his skull had been bloodied and he’d been dazed. The patrol had discovered his wife one hundred feet below him, over the cliff. Dead. Gilkey had claimed he and his wife had been attacked by a strong-built, ski-masked person. The three of them had struggled; Jack had been knocked unconscious; Fiona had gone over the cliff edge. In trying to rescue Fiona and Jack, the ski patrol had obliterated any sign of other prints in the snow.

In the case of Nate Bullock, the patrol, Forest Service, and Sheriff’s department had found a set of boot prints beside Nate’s, going into the out-of-bounds area. This I already knew from patrolwoman Gail. But only Nate’s body had been found in the search. No one else had been reported missing.

The third article screamed: SNOWBOARD TRACKS ON ELK RIDGE VANISHED INTO AVALANCHE ZONE. It was possible, the writer hypothesized, that Nate Bullock had hiked partway up the mountain with a snowboarder. The two had then parted ways, Nate tracking in the valley, the snowboarder ascending the ridge. Had the snowboarder triggered the avalanche that killed Nate?

WAKEFIELD WIDOWER QUESTIONED focused on Jack Gilkey’s account of the circumstances surrounding his wife Fiona’s tragic death. More details of Fiona’s last day had emerged: Fiona had had too much to drink at lunch, she’d boasted she could beat her husband to the Bighorn Overlook, a roped-off area just off one of Killdeer’s advanced slopes. The overlook faces the out-of-bounds area that includes Elk Ridge, the writer added parenthetically, and skiers occasionally ducked the boundary line to take in the view. Those pristine mountain forests of Elk Ridge, the article reported, were now earmarked for ski-area expansion. According to Jack Gilkey, Fiona had skied ahead of him and ducked the rope. Fiona and Jack arrived at the overlook, then were attacked by someone bursting from the trees. Jack tried to help his wife and was knocked out himself.

QUESTIONS PERSIST IN DEATH OF HEIRESS cited the postmortem drug screen, which showed a blood-alcohol level in Fiona’s body that made her legally drunk. GILKEY CONVICTED OF CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE added that a mitten belonging to Jack had been found clutched in Fiona’s hand. He had let her drink too much; he had let her go down a run she wasn’t qualified to ski. The nail in Jack’s coffin had been the fact that the ski patrol had apprehended him at the overlook the day before Fiona died. They’d yanked his ticket and warned him away from that spot. But the next day, he and Fiona had raced to the same out-of-bounds overlook.…

Since by law a person who in any way causes another person’s death cannot benefit from it, the article concluded, Jack Gilkey was not inheriting Fiona’s millions. Neither was her son Arthur, however. If Jack for any reason did not inherit, Fiona had specified that her money should go to charity: the Public Broadcasting System.

Finally, WAKEFIELD HEIR FILES COMPLAINT recapitulated Arthur’s furious claim that Jack Gilkey had exerted “undue influence” on Fiona Wakefield in the making of her will. Before Fiona’s remarriage, Arthur had been the sole beneficiary of a twenty-million-dollar estate. Suddenly, Arthur had become, instead of the heir to an immense fortune, the recipient of a paltry million-dollar trust fund. But nineteen million was not going to PBS if Arthur Wakefield had anything to say about it. The article added that ski patrol had verified that it had been Arthur Wakefield who had sent the patrol to the overlook, to try to find his missing mother. They’d found her all right, but she was already dead. Her neck had broken in her fall.

I stared at the silent television. Mile-High Stadium was a mute chaos of orange and blue. The Broncos scored a field goal; the crowd went wild; the station cut to commercial.

Who had left these articles for me? Why? What connection did Fiona have to Doug Portman? Could it have anything to do with my discovery of Doug’s body? But what? Portman had granted parole to Jack Gilkey; Portman had also been despised and vilified by Arthur Wakefield. What did that have to do with the avalanche that snuffed out Nate Bullock’s life?

I shuffled through the material again. The Stool Pigeon Murders had nothing to do with anyone or anything I knew about. Had someone been a stool pigeon? Who?

And then there was the avalanche book. I flipped through it: Always test the snow in a slide area before traversing it. If you are caught near an avalanche, grab a tree, rock, or anything solid. Carry an avalanche beacon in all wilderness areas. Great.

Three years ago, Nate Bullock and Fiona Wakefield had died on the same day, at the same ski area, albeit not on the same slope. Two days ago, Doug Portman, parole board member, had been murdered on a Killdeer ski run. An ex-con had been mouthing threats against the police. My van had been hit, perhaps deliberately. Could there be any connection between the deaths of Fiona Wakefield, Nate Bullock, and Doug Portman? Is that what someone was trying to tell me? If there was a connection, what was it, and how could I uncover it? Waiting for another anonymous library delivery was a slow way to solve a case.

Impulsively, I punched in the numbers for Arthur Wakefield’s Killdeer condo. I’d pretend to have questions about his wine-tasting menu, then I’d ask him point-blank if he’d taken my library card. Then I’d ream him out.

Unfortunately, his machine picked up. Arthur’s throaty-voiced recording featured Chopin piano music and a lofty greeting: He was off searching for the perfect pinot; when he found it, whoever was calling could come over for a glass. I left a brief message asking him if he wanted a salad with all these main dishes; please give me a buzz.

Through an entire series of downs in which Kansas City drove to the ten-yard line and then fumbled, I scanned the two books and reread the newspaper articles. My bafflement only grew. Arthur had connections to Nate through PBS, and to Doug Portman, whose work on the parole board he reviled. Jack Gilkey, of course, had been married to Fiona and been paroled by Doug Portman. Did Jack’s new lady love, my dear old friend Eileen Druckman, know all of this information? Was it my duty to make sure she did?

I frowned at my watch: Sunday afternoon, where would Eileen be? Probably on her way back to Aspen Meadow, so Todd could make it to Elk Park Prep in the morning. Would Jack be with her? With any luck, no.

I put in a call to the Druckmans’ country club residence and reached Eileen on the first ring. After we chatted about the ninth-grade Elizabethan poetry assignment and the quantum mechanics mess—Todd had dropped pebbles onto, and broken, a glass coffee table—I took a deep breath and asked if she’d tell me: How exactly did she meet swashbuckling Jack Gilkey?

Eileen chuckled. “Through John Richard.”

“My ex-husband?” I was stunned. “You met Jack through The Jerk?”

“Oh, come on, Goldy.” She was instantly defensive. “Am I a welfare lady who visits convicts because that’s the only way she can get a date?” I said nothing. “Don’t you remember,” she went on, “last summer? When Tom was trying to fix up your kitchen? You asked me to take Arch down to visit John Richard a couple of times, since you hate to do that.”

“Eileen. Sorry. Of course I remember. I just didn’t think you’d be getting involved with him. I mean, John Richard.”

Her tone softened. “Goldy, I know John Richard was terrible to you.” Terrible doesn’t begin to cover it, I thought. The man is in jail for assault. Eileen went on: “But I think he’s changed. Anyway, John Richard was awfully nice to me. When I said I was thinking of buying a new business in the ski area, maybe a restaurant, John Richard said I was in luck, there was a chef right there in jail with him. This chef had been messed up royally by his lawyers, John Richard said, and I should meet him. I did, and now Jack and I are together, and I can’t remember the last time I was this happy.”

“Did you check the facts of his case?”

There was a pause. “Gee, thanks, friend.” But Eileen’s voice had hardened again. “I’ve already told you: Jack didn’t kill Fiona. Somebody else did. I think that son of hers murdered her, hoping to get her money. Or maybe he hired someone to kill her. He just didn’t know she’d already rewritten her will so that either the money went to Jack, or it went to PBS. Now he’s asking the probate court to set aside the will. And Arthur wants to look like such a good little boy to the probate court. He loves PBS, that’s why he works for them for practically nothing. He wouldn’t mind if the money went to public broadcasting, but really, it’s his. Please, spare me!”

“Eileen—”

“For heaven’s sake, Goldy! Do you really believe I’d be living with a killer? Would I make my own son vulnerable?”

“If you’d just—”

“I believe Jack. He did not kill his first wife. He’s a good man trying hard to rebuild his life. I even offered him money for lawyers to appeal his conviction. He said no. He said, ‘That’s not the way to be healed.’”

I shook my head and turned my attention to the television, where I watched the Broncos execute a successful down-and-in pattern. I asked, “Are you planning on marrying him?” I wanted to add, Since he seems to prefer older, wealthy women, but thought better of it.

Eileen snorted. “Goldy! For heaven’s sake!” She raised her voice a notch. “Listen to me. Here’s how nice Jack is.” On the screen, the Broncos punted, and the illuminated billboard at Mile-High exploded with the words Defense! Defense! “Jack doesn’t have any money. He wants Fiona’s money to go to charity. Even Doug Portman was convinced of Jack’s goodness, that’s why he let him out of prison. Jack is a good man. That’s what petty, greedy, deceptive Arthur Wakefield really can’t stand.”

“Okay, I just wanted to hear what you were thinking about this…. You know, we always talk about everything—”

“I’m sorry, Goldy. I don’t want to fight with you. I just … was so unhappy until Jack came along. At least you didn’t say that Jack’s with me because of my money, and that if I didn’t have any, he’d find somebody half my age.”

“You are smart, funny, and beautiful. What more could a man want?”

“Yeah, yeah. Look, if Jack were after my money, don’t you think he would have asked me to marry him by now? And if he really intended to harm Fiona for her money, don’t you think he would have taken out a fat insurance policy on her or something?” She sighed. “Not to worry, my dear friend. How’s the planning going for your last show?”

I laughed and admitted the planning so far was zilch. We decided on times this week when our sons could work together to finish up their science projects before Christmas break. Hopefully, neither would burn the house down in the process. We hung up smiling. Thank God. Old friendships are too important to lose … especially over vague rumors and unsubstantiated suspicions. Speaking of old friendships—

I called Information, got Rorry Bullock’s number, and punched buttons. Rorry sounded very surprised to hear from me.

I said, “We prayed for you in church today. You’re having trouble with your pregnancy?”

“Still in Med Wives one-oh-one, eh, Goldy?” she shot back. “It’s just a little separation of the placenta. I’ll be fine.”

“And they said something had happened to your car?”

“Borrowed and trashed. This trailer park is the worst place for security in all of Killdeer, and we don’t have anything like what’s in the rich folks’ houses!”

I murmured my sympathy, and offered to bring her some casseroles the next day. Once again, food worked its magic. Rorry softened instantly and said she’d love them. After I left the dinners, she added, would I mind driving her to work at the Killdeer warehouse? I’d passed the warehouse, one of the dark-painted service barns owned by the Killdeer Corporation, when I’d been looking for Arthur’s condo. No problem, I’d be glad to take her to work. When I got off the phone, I realized I’d forgotten to ask her what precisely had happened to her car. I did not call her back because at that moment, Tom walked through the door.

It was the end of the third quarter; the Broncos were leading ten to zip. To my surprise, Tom shuffled heavily into the room and glanced at the score without much interest.

“Tom?”

He sat on the couch and set three sheets of paper on the coffee table. Then he turned and took my hands.

“Tom? What is it?” His expression frightened me.

“Someone broke into Portman’s condo the day he died. He’d lived alone since Elva divorced him, so it was definitely his stuff somebody was after.” Tom sighed. “If anything’s missing, we have no way of knowing. We seized all the files that were there, and we’ve ordered his bank records. We’re trying to fit up a series of deposits with his parole recommendations, but so far we haven’t figured out if he was up to anything.”

“Do you think he might have been taking bribes, then?”

Tom nodded. “Portman was under investigation. A number of prisoners in Cañon City and at the Furman County Jail have told investigators how he asked them for money. He always did it when the stenographer wasn’t there. He always wanted the money to be brought to him personally by a relative or friend. And judging by the stuff in that condo, the guy was loaded. Even with his side business of dealing in military collectibles, and the bit he got from being a critic, there’s little chance you could live the way he did on sixty thou a year from the parole board.”

“So he didn’t get a big divorce settlement from Elva?”

“Not according to our court records. They didn’t have a prenuptial agreement. She sold her gallery and kept the proceeds. She’s on record as saying she hoped he’d have to go digging ditches. Plus, he gave up the forensic accounting when he got the parole board job.”

“What about Jack Gilkey?” I asked. “Did you find any connection between Doug and Jack?”

“Nothing yet. If Gilkey gave Portman money in exchange for an early release, we can’t find any record of it. We talked to Jack, and to Eileen, very informally, and both say Portman really liked Jack, and that there was no money involved. We checked out Jack’s alibi for the times of both Portman’s death and the break-in. There’s one person who remembers being with him for most of the lunch prep. Four people were with him while they were cooking the meal itself. By the time Jack got off work, Portman’s place had been burgled. The receptionist at Portman’s condo complex said a man in a uniform came in around noon, showed ID, claimed he was there to check the security system. She didn’t see him come out, so she figures he was the one who broke into Portman’s place. Eileen says she was skiing most of the day. But she was alone, no witnesses.”

“So her alibi isn’t airtight,” I said reluctantly. “What about Arthur Wakefield?”

Tom shook his head. “Swears he was skiing alone. No alibi for the time of Portman’s death, no alibi for the time of the burglary.”

I thought for a minute. “Could Doug have kept another office, apartment, or house, where he might have hidden records of bribes? A lot of folks have condos in Killdeer as second homes.”

“Not that we’ve been able to determine. He only listed the Killdeer condo with the parole board for an address. Now here’s something puzzling: Portman hadn’t quit the parole board, but it looks as if he was leaving or moving, because most of his belongings were in boxes. His military memorabilia were carefully packed in about forty or so boxes marked Store. Whether that meant put these in storage or sell these at a store, we have no idea. We’re still looking into it.” I nodded, mystified. Tom glanced at his first sheet, then paused. Finally he asked, “Goldy, how many antiques dealers did you contact about selling the Tenth Mountain Division skis?”

“I called a guy in Lodo, a couple on South Broadway, and a woman in Vail. Not one of them was willing to give us more than five thousand dollars, and then they wanted to take a commission on top of that. Wholesale, they called it. But everyone said the skis were worth at least ten thousand. So I figured we—I—ought to be able to sell them on my own.”

“So you offered them to Portman. Because you knew from your dating days that he had an interest in that kind of thing.”

I nodded, but, watching the expression on Tom’s face, felt increasingly uneasy.

He went on: “But you didn’t want to tell me that Portman was our buyer, because you’d dated him before we met, right? And you felt funny about that, contacting an old boyfriend, even though he wasn’t a boyfriend.”

“I didn’t feel funny, I felt foolish.” When Tom said nothing, I mumbled, “Yes, something along those lines.”

“So you struck a deal with Portman for the skis.”

“He was willing to pay eight thousand—”

“Which was close to the amount of cash they found on him, and scattered on the slopes.”

“Tom! Why is that a problem?”

Tom pressed his lips together and stared at the swirling, silent action on the television. “You were selling valuable skis to a parole board member with no intermediary. Meanwhile, your ex-husband is in jail, facing parole in the not-too-distant future. Think about that. You were selling skis to a man who might be in a position to do you a favor down the road, by denying your ex-husband parole.”

“At the time, I didn’t even know Doug was on the parole board!” I protested.

“Someone might say you were trying to influence him.”

“I was trying to pay for new drains—”

He held up his hand. “Miss G. Your plan to sell the skis to the parole board member included your agreeing to charge him less than the full market value of ten thousand dollars for them. You were doing him the favor of selling him a valuable item for two thousand dollars under market price.” His green eyes, full of pain, studied me solemnly. “How do you think that makes you look?”

“I don’t care, because what you’re saying is ridiculous!” I cried hotly. “You can’t honestly think that I would do such a thing!”

Tom did not reply. Unable to bear the look on his face, I glanced at the television. Kansas City jumped offsides but the penalty wasn’t called.

“Miss G.,” he said. “You didn’t warn me, but now I’m warning you. You better pray that the Sheriff’s department figures out who killed Doug Portman. And why.” He sighed. “Your home kitchen’s closed for repairs. Now you’re involved in what could be interpreted as shady dealings. The press gets hold of this, it might get so slanted against you, your client base could dry up. Permanently. And if you’re prosecuted for this—” He broke off abruptly.

“The district attorney is not going to prosecute me for trying to influence Doug Portman, is he?” I demanded. “That’s absurd!”

The phone rang. Tom rose to answer it. “You never actually completed the sale to Doug, so it’s doubtful you’ll have to face prosecution,” he answered slowly. Then he hesitated; the phone bleated. “But, Goldy—it does look very bad.”

CHAPTER 14

Tom was sitting at the table, scribbling in his trusty spiral notebook, phone tucked under his ear, when I entered the kitchen. The game was in overtime, the score tied. I didn’t care. I was angry my kitchen was closed, furious my van had been destroyed, and remorseful that I hadn’t been brave enough to tell Tom who was buying his skis. And why was all this happening? Because, years ago, I’d dated Doug Portman. And then, unabashed, I’d offered to do business with him. I’d figured, he’s the perfect buyer for the skis. I’d thought, This money will solve all our problems, and quick. Sure.

I looked around the kitchen. Action is better than inaction. Or something like that. I carefully moved Arch’s still-wet, splatter-frosted cookie sheet onto another counter, then stared at my old recipe card box. Tom continued to talk on the telephone.

I flipped through the box of stained recipe cards, my old standby before the kitchen computer. What dishes would comfort and nourish Rorry Bullock when she came home from the hospital with her newborn? Two reliable casseroles beckoned from a time before I entered the catering business: lasagne and Swedish meatballs. On one of the walk-in’s side shelves, I miraculously located fresh oregano, basil, and thyme. Serving meatballs and lasagne could jeopardize my upscale reputation, I reflected while removing ground beef, ricotta, Fontina, whipping cream, eggs, and mozzarella from the walk-in. Rorry wouldn’t tell on me, would she?

“Okay, got it. Yeah, sure, send it now. Thanks.” Tom hung up. “We know what opioid was on the patches. A drug called Duragesic.”

“Oh, brother.” Duragesic was a very powerful painkiller, administered through transdermal patches. The potency of the drug diminished over a period of time, at which point a cancer patient or other chronically ill-and-in-pain patient put on another patch.

“You use or even touch more than one Duragesic patch at a time, you’re probably going to die,” Tom added grimly. “But there wasn’t enough on those particular patches to kill anybody.”

“So why would you threaten a law enforcement person, in this case the head of the parole board, with something that wouldn’t work?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe you thought it would work. Maybe you just wanted to scare the guy to death.” He slid his finger down the list of names he’d written in his notebook. “Eleven people I’ve arrested over the last four years have treated their cancer pain with Duragesic. Five of them were denied parole by Doug Portman. One’s in remission in Lamar, one’s a roofer in Pueblo, one’s in a Colorado Springs hospital on life support. One guy died. The last one, man of thirty, was paroled last June by someone else. He’d been denied twice by Portman. But Barton Reed violated his parole three weeks later by assaulting a big guy wearing a Red Wings jersey. He swore the Detroit fan taunted him. But Reed still went back to jail for another six months anyway.” Tom shook his head. “He’s been out for a couple of weeks.”

I set a pot of water on to boil for the pasta. “How’s his health?”

“He’s in remission now. Last May, while he was still in jail, he was in so much pain he was on … Duragesic.” Tom’s fax rang. A moment later the machine spat out a high-quality photocopied photograph. Barton Reed, wide-faced and menacing, a dozen crosses and oval-shaped earrings strung along the edge of each ear, leered off the faxed page. The photocopy undeniably captured the likeness of the man I remembered seeing last summer at Aspen Meadow Health Foods, the man I’d dubbed the Earring King. Last June, he’d been putting together an herbal remedy for his illness. When Cinda had talked to me about him on Friday, he’d been putting together something altogether different: a threatening card with death as its message. What had Jack Gilkey said? Reed has revenge in his heart.

I poured green-gold olive oil into a sauté pan. When the heat made the oil glisten, I tossed in chopped onions and crushed garlic cloves. They sizzled, turning the air mouthwateringly pungent. “So … what was Reed’s original offense?”

Tom cocked one of his bushy eyebrows. “Did you know our friend Barton was a hot snowboarder for a lot of years? Don’t get me wrong, that wasn’t what got him into trouble. He toured the freestyle circuit here and abroad. That takes money—for travel, lodging, entry fees, you name it. In winter, he based himself in Killdeer. In summer, he would search Aspen Meadow and the other wealthy areas of Furman County for elderly women in the last stages of cancer.”

I added the ground beef to the pan and soon the scrumptious aroma of beef sautéing in garlic and onion filled the kitchen. I was beginning to feel a little better, perhaps because I was cooking. Or maybe it was because we were talking about somebody else’s problems. I said, “Rich, elderly women with cancer? Why target them?”

Tom perused my Swedish meatballs recipe card, washed his hands, and whisked together eggs and cream. “To steal from them. He’d tell these women’s families that he knew a doctor down in Mexico, an American genius with a pedigree as long as a prosthetic leg. Reed’s very convincing line was that Doctor Genius had given up on the FDA ever approving his cancer-healing miracle drug. Why wouldn’t they approve? these people would ask. Because the AMA didn’t want their oncologists to go out of business, Reed claimed.”

“For heaven’s sake.”

“At Doctor Genius’s luxurious healing spa in Oaxaca, Barton assured his clients, their terminal relatives could be healed. They’d be back home in six months. He showed pictures, offered testimonials, the whole bit. He had a background as a lay preacher, and was very convincing. Each family handed over sixty thousand dollars—ten thousand a month for the first six months. They’d send Granny off with Reed, and that was that. They got glowing reports from Doctor Genius, from Reed, even from a purported resident chaplain. But never heard a word from their beloved grandmothers.”

“Which should have been their first clue.”

Tom nodded. “Finally, one relative went down to find out what was going on. The women were being kept in dreadful conditions in a sub-par nursing facility. No phone, no medical treatment, no chaplain. And needless to say, no genius doctor. Barton Reed had to hang up his snowboard so he could be incarcerated for three long years.” He paused. “Where’s the allspice?” I handed it to him. “Here’s the irony,” he continued thoughtfully. “After less than six months behind bars, Barton Reed was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Parole board member Doug Portman had no sympathy.”

“Or Barton Reed had no cash to fan the flames of Doug Portman’s sympathy,” I commented sourly.

Tom whirled cornflakes in the blender; he added them, along with dried minced onions, to the egg mixture. “Our guys are picking up Reed now for questioning. Miss G.—I want you to stay away from Reed. The man is fueled by rage.” Tom seasoned the crumb mixture and stirred it into his bowl of fresh ground beef. His large, capable hands formed scrumptious-looking meatballs. He placed them in rows on a jelly-roll pan and popped the pan into the oven. I stirred tomatoes, red wine, and herbs into the sauté pan for the double batch of lasagne sauce. While it was coming to a simmer, I browned two packages of chicken thighs in olive oil and set them to stew with onions, carrots, and bay leaf. These would form the base for the Sonora Chicken Strudel to be served at Arthur’s buffet the next day. Soon the old-fashioned scents of stewing chicken and spicy tomato sauce were wafting through our kitchen. Heavenly.

I layered the cooked pasta, grated cheeses, and rich tomato sauce into two pans—one for us, one for Rorry Bullock—then set the table. When the lasagne was bubbling, I called Arch. He made one of his silent appearances in the kitchen and nodded approvingly at the pasta dish. When Tom cut into the lasagne, a lake of melted Fontina and mozzarella spurted out over the delicate layers of ricotta and tomato-beef sauce. Sauce and melted cheese oozed between the tender pasta. I savored each bite. Best of all was watching Tom and Arch help themselves to thirds.

When we were finished eating, Arch stood up from the table and hugged me. “Great dinner, Mom.”

This sudden display of affectionate enthusiasm made me wary. “Thanks …”

“All right,” Arch began, in a preamble-to-an-announcement tone. “Lettie’s dad is driving the two of us to school early tomorrow, since we’re writing up our theories on the physics project together. Her father is picking me up at seven A.M.” He pushed his glasses up his nose and gave me a very serious look. “When Lettie arrives, Mom, please do not ask her what she wants for Christmas. Okay?”

“No problem,” I replied. “If you want, I won’t even let her in. Does she have a thick winter jacket? So she can wait for you outside?”

My son considered this question. “I don’t know. But you can invite her into the kitchen.”

Tom smiled at me and winked. I said, “So, if Lettie is coming inside, what would she like for breakfast?”

“Will you stop?” Arch implored.

Now what did I do?

Monday morning dawned cold and dark. At six, I scooted across our chilly wood floor and checked the thermometer outside our bedroom window. It seemed stuck at seven degrees. With any luck, we’d make it into the low twenties by afternoon.

I moved through a slow yoga routine, showered, dressed, and went down to the dark kitchen. I fed and watered Jake and Scout, then convinced them to go outside and quickly return from the snow to their own space. Sitting at the oak table, I sipped a much-welcome cup of coffee and made a list of dishes to be prepared and packed up.

First I would make a salad, just in case Arthur wanted one. Then I’d be on my way to his place, to prepare the Sonora Chicken Strudel, plus the dish I was now dubbing Snowboarders’ Pork Tenderloin, Chesapeake Crab Cakes, and Julia Child’s Sole Florentine. Then I’d deliver the meatballs and lasagne to Rorry, pray for reconciliation, and hope for a nugget or two of information as well. I frowned at my list and wondered if I had any baby blankets, bibs, or other paraphernalia of Arch’s still around. Rorry Bullock wasn’t on the parole board; I could do her a favor without getting into trouble, couldn’t I?

Sonora Chicken Strudel

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 cups seeded and chopped tomatoes

2 garlic cloves, pressed

8 ounces (2 small cans) chopped green chiles

1½ cups chopped onions

⅛ teaspoon cumin

2 cups cooked, shredded chicken

1¼ cups grated Cheddar cheese

1 cup lowfat or regular sour cream

1 teaspoon salt

½ pound phyllo dough (approximately), thawed

¼ pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

In a wide frying pan, heat the oil over medium-low heat until it shimmers. Reduce heat to low and add tomatoes, garlic, chiles, onions, and cumin. Cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is thick, about 30 minutes. Set aside to cool slightly.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Butter a 9x13-inch glass pan. In a large bowl, combine the chicken, Cheddar, sour cream, and salt. Stir in the tomato mixture. Pour this mixture into the pan.

Working quickly with the phyllo, lay one sheet at a time over the chicken-tomato mixture and brush thinly but thoroughly with the melted butter. Continue until you are almost out of butter, then lay on a last piece of phyllo and brush it with the last of the melted butter. With a sharp knife, cut down through the layers of phyllo in (12 places to make 9 evenly spaced rectangular servings.

Bake 20 to 30 minutes, or until filling is hot and phyllo is puffed and golden brown. Serve immediately.

Makes 9 large servings

I was still trying to remember where I’d stowed Arch’s baby things while I creamed soft—not rock-hard—butter with brown sugar and mixed in apple cider vinegar, eggs—broken without mishap—and molasses, to make the snaps. Oh, yes: The blankets and clothes were in a box in the attic. I mixed flour and spices into the cookie dough, scooped balls of spicy dough onto a cookie sheet, and ran upstairs to find the box marked Baby Stuff. I raced down with it, placed it in the Range Rover, then rushed back to retrieve the first cookie sheet. The snaps had flattened and crinkled on top. The gingery aroma in the kitchen absolutely demanded another cup of coffee and a taste-test of the soft, dark cookies. Mm-mm. They were really more of a molasses cookie than a gingersnap, but older clients always had to worry about denture problems, Arthur had informed me, and nothing should be too crunchy. I ate another cookie to confirm the texture was perfect. Whether I called them molasses cookies or gingersnaps, I definitely should have them for breakfast more often.

Soon I had packed the stewed chicken along with the other ingredients for the strudel. Next to them, I placed the marinade components and miscellaneous items for the fish and crab dishes. Amazing how much you can accomplish when you’re enjoying what you’re doing.

Promptly at seven, Lettie’s father pulled up in his black Jeep. Lettie, a leggy fourteen-year-old with blond French braids, a sweet, lovely face, and perfect teeth, strode up our sidewalk. She wore a white blouse, red plaid kilt, black leather car coat, and ankle-high black boots. The picture of a teenage model—which she was.

“Hey, Mrs. Schulz!” she said brightly when I opened the front door. I had yet to discover how the old Southern version of hello had migrated westward, but never mind.

“Hey,” I replied congenially. “Come in.”

Lettie stepped across the threshold, closed her eyes, and inhaled. “It always smells so great in here!”

“Can I offer you a cookie? Some juice? It’s all ready—”

“That sounds—”

“Hey,” came Arch’s growled greeting from the top of the stairs.

Lettie sparkled. “Good morning, Arch.”

“How about a snack?” I ventured.

“We need to go, Mom,” Arch answered sternly. Today he wore baggy khaki pants, an oversized green sport shirt, and a sleek black vest. He’d combed his dark brown hair back with mousse; it stood in short spikes. If I hugged him a bit carelessly, my cheek would be speared. Not that I would be so thoughtless as to hug him this morning. Rule #32 when dealing with a teenage son: Never touch the coiffure.

I hustled back to the kitchen, tucked two tiny boxes of apple juice and four bagged cookies into Arch’s backpack, then handed him the pack in the foyer. I mumbled, “Treats inside.” Arch glared and shook his head: Stop talking, Mom. Lettie waved gracefully as she bounced down the sidewalk. Arch did not look back.

I rechecked the foodstuffs going to Arthur’s place, kissed Tom twice, and set out. After I crossed the Divide, the sky lightened. Approaching Killdeer, smoke from wood-fires hovered in the valley and turned the air pleasantly acrid. By nine I was pulling into the Elk Ridge Nature Trail parking lot. It was chock-full of brightly clad day-skiers. They were pulling out their skis and poles, calling to each other as steam issued from their mouths, and jouncing along merrily in their ski boots toward the bus stop.

As I wended the Rover through the lot to get to the turnoff to Arthur’s, I passed the glistening humps of snow that marked the base of the Elk Ridge trail. I felt a twinge of jealousy for the skiers. The mid-December day seemed made for skiing: the sun glittered off pristine slopes, the sky extended endlessly in a cloudless periwinkle dome, a light breeze carried fresh, sweet air off the peaks, and five inches of new powder topped an eighty-five-inch base. What more could you want?

Let’s see, I answered myself playfully as I pulled into Arthur’s driveway. How about a friendlier relationship with my son? But I doubted that was really possible with a fourteen-year-old boy. Well, what else would I like? How about a new van, and my business restored? And oh, yes, to find out what had happened to Doug Portman, and why someone had left me a pile of articles about two other Killdeer deaths from three years ago.

The doorbell bing-bonged into the depths of Arthur’s condo. I realized I was going alone into the house of a man I worked with, but didn’t know very much about. Remembering Tom’s admonition I put down the box I was carrying—causing my injured arm to yelp with pain—and pulled the cellular phone out of my pocket. I dialed my husband’s sheriff’s department answering machine and announced to the tape that I was at the doorstep of Arthur Wakefield’s place. It wasn’t exactly protection, but it was something. Arthur pulled the door open. As usual, he was clutching a pink bottle of antacid.

“Come in, come in,” he said.

“Good morning, Arthur! I was just letting my husband the cop know where I was.”

He shot me a curious look, noticed the box at my feet, struggled to get the Pepto into his pocket, then took the carton. “I’m in a phone battle with a supplier. Might have to go over to Vail to look for some cases of the sauvignon blanc.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmured. Being a wine importer did not sound like a whole lot of fun.

“You can set up in the kitchen. Need me to carry in any more boxes?”

“That’s okay, Arthur, I can handle it.” Thankfully, the phone rang. Arthur dumped the box into my hands and rushed to take his call.

In the barely-used-but-beautiful yellow-and-white kitchen, it was slow going finding the utensil drawers, cupboard for baking sheets, and bowl and cutting board cabinets. At least Arthur had made a neat design of the buffet schedule, with meticulous notes beside each entrée concerning its placement. Now I just had to teach him how to finish the dishes themselves.

“I heard you had some trouble with Boots Faraday,” Arthur said grimly as he rushed into the kitchen and slammed the portable phone onto the tile counter.

What had Boots Faraday done after we’d met? Spent the rest of the afternoon calling people to complain about me? “I delivered your wine and stayed for lunch. Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to like me very much. And by the way, you didn’t tell me you ran an article that described me as a crime-solver, for goodness’ sake.”

“Sorry, sorry, that’s show biz. Hype. Look, I’ll talk to Boots. The Bullock thing is extremely sensitive to her. Rorry is convinced to this day that Boots was having an affair with Nate. I’m sure they weren’t. Boots was just trying to help Nate with some business venture. But Rorry was so jealous that Nate got paranoid. Boots started calling him from pay phones and using coded messages, and that just made matters worse. She’ll come to her senses, don’t worry. I’ll get her to apologize—”

“Please forget it, Arthur.” I hesitated. “What business venture was Boots helping Nate with?”

Arthur shrugged. “Come on, Goldy. It’s all I can do to keep the wine business straight.”

And speaking of business, I was desperate to ask Arthur about his love/hate connection with PBS. But I figured that his TV work, along with his vintages and his complaints to the probate court, was what kept him on antacids. “All right, then,” I said pleasantly, “We’ve got a lot of cooking to do here. Should we start? Please? How about with the salad? I made one of mixed field greens. Didn’t dress it, though.”

“Thank you. Sorry I didn’t call you back about that. Field greens would be marvelous. No vinegar in the dressing, remember.” He gestured at the row of bottles. “Unfortunately, I have only the single bottle of Sancerre for you to make an oil-and-wine vinaigrette.” He sighed and flipped through his Day-Timer. “I’m up to fourteen people, by the way. Two of my customers just returned from Mexico and they want to come. That’s no problem, is it?”

Rule of catering: Never panic in front of the client. Especially on the day of the event. “Um, fourteen people,” I said, stalling. I’d planned on four main dishes—crab, sole, pork, and chicken. Unless we had massive food allergies, that was no problem. “That’s fine,” I replied cheerfully. “And the clients are … ?”

“In the trade. I’ve got two wholesalers coming,” Arthur ticked off on his manicured fingernails, “plus nine of the best customers west of the Divide. And of course, three retailers, who will fill the orders for the customers. Two of the retailers own wine shops, and the third is a restaurateur, not, I might add, your friend Eileen or her dreadful chef.”

“Jack Gilkey,” I supplied gently, and Arthur grimaced. “I was wondering if you’d be in the mood to talk about him—”

He turned away and opened the refrigerator. “Sorry, but I thought you said we needed to talk about the food. Ah, here we go. Two pork tenderloins.” Pulling out a shrink-wrapped packet and a box of phyllo dough, he placed both on the counter, then frowned at the wine bottles as if they were chess pieces. Finally he pulled one forward. “Here’s the Châteauneuf du Pape—”

“Wait. If you’re finishing the dishes later—”

“I already told you that,” he said crossly.

“Phyllo goes back in to chill.”

He sighed hugely, stuffed the slender box on a refrigerator shelf, then energetically twisted the cork out of the red wine. He bonged the bottle onto the counter. “For the pork marinade. It’s a big red from the southern Rhône, just the ticket for a rich meat dish.”

“Okeydoke. Please, Arthur, Jack Gilkey is living with one of my closest friends. I really need to talk to you about him.”

Arthur whirled away from the refrigerator. “So, was Boots right? All you want to do is interrogate people?” he snarled.

“Arthur, calm down. You and I are friends. Somebody sent me books and articles anonymously. To the Aspen Meadow Library. Was it you? The articles were all about your mother’s death.”

Arthur snorted and turned back dismissively to his refrigerator. “You think I have time to do that kind of thing? If I want you to read something, I’ll give it to you, Goldy.” He pulled out a butcher-paper-wrapped package and slapped it on the counter next to the pork. “This is your sole.”

“Arthur, we work together. Please talk to me.”

He whirled, his face furious. “Jack Gilkey is a gold digger. He married my mother for her money. He was twenty years younger than she was, handsome, attentive, quite the flirt. He systematically got her to cut me out of her will, set up a minuscule trust for me, and made himself the beneficiary. My mother must have felt slightly guilty about all this, so if Jack predeceased her, the money would go to public television, since I’d learned to read watching The Electric Company.” He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t find out any of this until after her death, I’m sorry to say. Only none of Jack Gilkey’s planning and organization worked, because he was a bit too obvious. I’m just glad a jury could see through his story. End of subject.”

“Do you think he bribed Doug Portman to get out of prison early?”

Arthur laughed. “I’m sure he did.”

“Where’d he get the money?”

Arthur put his hands on his hips. “Well, crime-solver, whose dear old friend has scads of money, where do you think?” The phone rang and he grabbed for it. I could tell from the expression the news was not good: the cases of Sancerre still had not arrived.

Eileen had given Jack money to bribe Portman? I didn’t believe it. I washed my hands and pulled out the covered container with the stewed chicken. I separated succulent chunks and strands of chicken and studied the French posters on the walls.

When Arthur hung up, I said, “Look, Arthur, let’s forget about Jack Gilkey for the moment. Doug Portman’s death puts me in a compromising position. I was about to sell him some valuable skis, at less than their market value. He was a parole-board member, and now it looks as if I was trying to buy a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“A favor as in please keep my ex-husband behind bars. All I was trying to do was get a quick sale for the skis. But it still looks very bad.”

Arthur’s dark eyes twinkled. “And you without a wholesale license.”

“Don’t joke.”

“I didn’t send you any articles, Goldy. But Doug Portman was on the take. Guess what Portman said to me?” His tone turned vicious; his black eyes narrowed. “That he’d keep Gilkey behind bars, but it would cost me twenty thousand dollars a year. Problem was, my mother’s millions were going to Sesame Street, and I couldn’t spare an extra twenty thou a year.”

“The trust-fund background was in the articles left for me,” I told him. “The article also said that you were challenging the will, claiming Jack had unduly influenced your mother.”

“He did. He turned my mother against me, discouraged her from seeing me, changed their phone number every week, fired the family lawyer, you name it. He thought he could kill her and inherit, so no one would be the wiser. He just didn’t figure he’d get caught. Mother allowed him to swindle her because she wanted that handsome snake-oil salesman to love her.”

I folded sour cream, grated cheddar, and spicy picante sauce into the chicken. “Kill and inherit? Kill is a strong word.”

Arthur seemed intent upon assembling wineglasses on the tiled counter next to the array of bottles. “I don’t use the word lightly. I wish to God the prosecutor could have proved premeditation on Jack’s part, but she couldn’t. I’ll guarantee you this, though: Gilkey will marry Eileen Druckman for her money. You’d better watch out for your friend.”

“I know. And I’m sorry to bring up painful memories.”

Arthur sighed. “I sure do wish I’d taped Portman’s call to me about paying him to keep Gilkey behind bars. Now he’s dead. So it’s up to me to prove Portman was taking bribes. Then my claim to have the will set aside is infinitely strengthened. Gilkey will be proven once and for all to be a bounder, and I’ll be able to—” He abruptly stopped talking. His eyes rested on the poster on his wall.

“Be able to what?” I kept my tone lighthearted as I began to measure out the marinade ingredients. “Travel to France? Go live in Tuscany? My fantasy is to eat my way through Italy on a six-month walking tour. The exercise works off the meals.”

After a moment, Arthur said softly, “My dream is right there.” He gestured toward the travel poster, the lavender-surrounded village with its high church steeple.

“To go to France? To live there?”

“Not just France, Goldy, but a particular place.” He stared lovingly at the poster. “I’m going to buy a vineyard in the town of Bandol, in Provence. Here, let me have you taste something.” He reached for a corkscrew, then disappeared to another part of the house. When he returned five minutes later, he carried a bottle of red wine. “I just want you to try this.”

“Arthur, please. It’s not even nine o’clock in the morning.”

“Just a sip.” He uncorked the bottle and poured a half-inch in each of two wineglasses. I sighed. Two rules of catering were in conflict: Do not drink alcohol on a job, especially in the morning and The more you need the client, the crazier the client will act. Arthur dramatically proffered me a glass; we toasted each other silently; I took a sip. It was delicious. Even I knew enough about wine to call this red hearty, spicy, and just the ticket for getting your morning off to a great start.

“That’s my future you’re drinking,” he told me, very seriously. “My wasted future,” he added glumly.

“Why ‘wasted’?”

Arthur cocked his head. “What do you taste in the wine? What spices?”

“I’m not that good at—”

“I will tell you what you’re tasting.” He clattered his glass onto the counter. “You smell lavender. You taste rosemary. Basil. Bay leaf. You taste Bandol.” He gestured at the poster. “A corner of it, anyway.” His voice cracked. “Bandol is a lovely Provençal village, where I could have bought an operating vineyard for two million dollars. I keep that picture here to remind me what Jack Gilkey stole from me. I could be growing my grapes and relaxing each evening with my view of the sea. But Jack Gilkey ruined that. And your buddy Doug Portman let that killer out of prison.”

“Doug Portman was not my buddy.” And the sheriff’s department also thinks he was taking bribes, I added mentally. But I did not know how much of what Arthur was telling me was true, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Yes, yes. It doesn’t matter now, does it?” He felt in his pocket for his Pepto and pulled it out. He did not drink any of it, thank goodness. After staring at it for a moment, he stuffed it back into his other pocket.

I had one more question for Arthur. “If you’re trying to deprive public broadcasting of your mother’s fortune, why do you work for them?”

He sipped his wine. “Because a love for public television was something my mother and I shared. Yes, I want the money. But I can’t turn my back on something that was dear to my mother and me. You know? Her favorite show was Nate’s High Country Hallmarks. And they died the same day.”

I set the wine down, murmured sympathetically, and wondered if I could ask Arthur to fix me one of his perfect espressos. My brain was starting to spin, after only three sips of wine. Unfortunately, the phone rang again. Arthur refilled his glass as more disastrous news was delivered: the cases of Sancerre, including the one intended for tonight’s party, had been left on the loading dock of a warehouse in Glenwood Springs. The only way they could be in Killdeer that night was if Arthur drove over and picked them up. He banged down the phone.

“I have to go,” he said frantically.

“I’ll be done in a couple of hours. I can lock up for you,” I assured him. Arthur groaned and patted the Pepto-pocket. “I do it all the time for absentee clients, Arthur. And I’m bonded.”

He frowned at the food on the counter. “Well … all right. I know how to heat up the pork, but what about the rest of it?”

“I’ll write it all out for you.”

His face relaxed. “Thanks, Goldy.” His face tightened again. “Just do the food. I’ll get out the other wines when I come home.”

“Okay, but you’ll never be back before five, and you should chill the whites for—”

“No, thanks,” he said abruptly as he opened drawers and scanned the kitchen counters. “Don’t get me wrong. I am grateful for what you’re doing. Looks like my checkbook’s in the car. Can I pay you Wednesday? In fact, can I take you to lunch at the bistro? Wednesday is Gilkey’s day off. We can talk about the last show. Save Thursday, please. I want you to make that oatmeal you gave me, maybe a bread.…”

“Sounds great.”

“Afterward, we could ski together, if you want.”

I laughed. “Sure. But I’m strictly a slow-going blue-run skier. And I rarely have wine with lunch.”

His puzzled look said Are you joking? But he merely mumbled, “See you at the bistro Wednesday at noon,” grabbed his keys, checked the locked door in the hallway, glanced at the Dresden shepherdess figurine on his front table, and took off.

I studied the three “sample” bottles on the counter. Why did he have a fit when I offered to get out the rest of the wines? As his Escalade roared down the driveway, I began mixing the crab cake ingredients, thinking hard. Arthur probably didn’t want me fetching the wines because wine geeks are notoriously secretive about their cellars. I rolled the crab cakes in crumbs and slid them into the refrigerator next to the strudel, then peeked out the front window. The Escalade was nowhere in sight.

The door in the hallway was indeed locked. I hesitated. If I snooped around, but didn’t steal anything, could I lose my bonding? If I snooped around, and Arthur came back and caught me, would he break a wine bottle over my head? Would it be full or empty?

I won’t steal a thing, I promised myself. If he comes back, I’ll just say I was looking for the wines. To try to help him out, I’ll tell him. What I wouldn’t tell him was that his locked door and furtive ways had me convinced he was trying to hide something besides chardonnay. And that always provokes me to find out if I’m right.

First I checked his leather jacket for the key. His “lost” checkbook was sticking out of one of the pockets. I remembered his visual check of the Dresden shepherdess on the table. I lifted the delicate china piece and found a small brass key beneath it. When I unlocked the door, it opened onto a carpeted staircase.

I tiptoed down, holding my breath, and found myself in a long hallway lined with color photographs. This lower level held two guest rooms, a bathroom, and another closed door. The wine cellar?

Someone desperate for information, valuables, or something had broken into Doug Portman’s apartment the day he died. The sheriff’s department had discovered no evidence linking Portman to alleged under-the-table payments, although they had yet to search through his sealed boxes of military memorabilia. If an uncategorized piece of art or an antique weapon had been within reach of the burglar, it could have been stolen. If there had been files or papers in the condo, they could have been removed. Most significantly, if there had been any immediately recognizable clue as to what Doug Portman was up to, it had vanished. Who needed something belonging to Doug Portman? Needed it badly enough to burglarize a dead man’s home? If you had nineteen million dollars riding on finding evidence of Portman’s wrongdoing, wouldn’t you rush to go through the place? And if you’d killed him, wouldn’t you know you had only a few hours’ jump on the cops?

I gulped. How well did I really know Arthur? He had been friendly when he wasn’t nerve-wracked, which was most of the time. Did I really think he was capable of killing someone? Hard to tell.

I turned the knob on the closed door at the end of the basement hallway. Locked. Did Arthur have the wine-cellar key on him, or was it hidden down here? Where had he kept the key to the basement? In the hallway, under a figurine.

I walked up and down the hall, much the same way I’d strolled past the “Best of Killdeer” show at the art gallery. Here, finally, were the family photographs that one would have expected to see on the upper floor. All had dates underneath. Several of them featured Arthur a decade ago, standing beside a tall, good-looking woman whom I recognized from the articles left for me: Fiona Wakefield. She smiled with her son from the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, from the steps of the Parthenon. There was a picture from the Sixties, taken in front of the Waldorf-Astoria. In this one, Fiona had her arm around a handsome man I assumed to be Arthur’s father.

But one photograph in particular caught my attention. In sunglasses, clad in bright snowgear, Fiona smiled on a snowy mountaintop. There had been someone standing next to her, but that person’s image had been neatly sliced away; all that remained were the tips of another pair of skis. A penned-in date indicated a time four years ago.

The person cut out of the picture had to be Jack Gilkey.

The photograph was mounted in an acrylic frame. Gilkey stole my future, Arthur had told me. I carefully lifted the framed photo off the wall. Something clinked to the floor. I looked down: At my feet was a gleaming key ring. Dangling from the ring were a door-size brass key and a small steel padlock key.

CHAPTER 15

Now that I had the key, the locked door opened easily. Behind it, a padlocked gate barred entry to the cold, gloomy cellar itself. I undid the padlock and removed it, then creaked the gate open.

I groped for a switch; overhead lights blazed through the gloomy space. The walls were made of Colorado river rock. Stacks of crisscross-style bins held hundreds of wine bottles, each lying on its side. My shoes crunched against the stone-paved floor as I moved cautiously forward. The cellar was not a square, it was not even symmetrical: It had angled walls and dark corners. I shivered. How much had it cost Arthur to put in this storage bunker? Worse, through these thick walls, how would I even hear him if he came back?

I quickly scanned the bins for anything besides wine. Ignoring the cold, I crossed to a near wall where a bin contained two file folders. I flipped through the first file: it apparently contained a log of what was stored in the cellar. The second file was stuffed with papers detailing outflow from Arthur’s supply—to whom the wine went, when, and how much. I moved on to a set of shelves built into the rock wall. This held two rows of empty bottles; names and dates were scribbled on each label. The labels were difficult to read, but seemed to be records of when the bottles had been consumed. The man obviously carried wine-obsession to new heights. On the floor were more empty labeled bottles, as if Arthur had run out of room for his souvenirs.

A foot away from the empty-bottle rack, he’d mounted a color poster of limestone cliffs next to a dark blue sea. The poster-photograph looked familiar. I suddenly realized I was looking at the Mediterranean: This was another view of the French village of Bandol.

I keep the picture here to remind me.

The four corners of the poster were affixed to the wall with gummy adhesive. I peeled up the bottom right corner, then the left, and discovered what I’d suspected: behind the poster was a double set of shelves just like the one with the empty bottles. For some reason, Arthur had emptied out these shelves and put the bottles on the floor, to make an impromptu—and hidden—storage area. Why?

Disappointingly, only one shelf contained something: four letters and a UPS package. I was not surprised to see that every single item had been addressed to Doug Portman. Nor was I shocked to note that every one had been slit open and, presumably, read.

I worked my way through the letters first. Their postmarks indicated they’d been mailed in the first two weeks of December. One was from a potential buyer in Minnesota who wrote to say he was interested in unjacketed bullets from the Civil War. Another was from someone wanting to sell Doug a rifle complete with bayonet. The earliest postmarked letter was from Mexico. It was from one Juanita Martinez, and explained in formal English that Señor Portman’s guest villa awaited him. Señor would be able to do business in the town, Puerto Escondido. Spanish for Hidden Port; I knew that much. I also knew Puerto Escondido was not a high-profile American tourist destination.

Finally, there was the UPS package, stamped with the return address of Copper Mountain Worldwide Travel. Inside was a ticket and a note. The ticket was a round-trip to Puerto Escondido with a departure date of the twentieth of December and an open return. The scrawled note from the travel agent said: Mr. Portman, This time of year, it’s much cheaper to buy a round-trip ticket. Thank you for your check.

Heart pounding, I stuffed the ticket and note back in the UPS packet, then folded the letters and tucked them back in their envelopes. I placed the pile on the stone shelves exactly as I’d found them and reattached the poster to the rock wall. Then I fled the dreary cellar, turning off the lights and relocking as I went.

Safely back in the kitchen, I poached the sole, braised the spinach, and made the easy sauce for the sole Florentine. I whisked together a wine-only vinaigrette. Then I wrote out all the directions for Arthur. He had to be very careful to brush each delicate sheet of phyllo dough with melted butter, I admonished, and stack the buttered sheets on top of the chicken to make a puffed, crispy strudel topping. I wrote out directions for reheating the crab cakes and sole and tossing the salad. Last, I locked the heavy front door, swung it closed behind me, and walked quickly to the Rover. My brain whirled with questions.

Doug Portman had been leaving Colorado, going one-way to a small town on the Pacific coast of Mexico. He’d used the travel agency of a nearby resort town. He had found himself a villa and business opportunities. He’d been packed. All this Arthur Wakefield had discovered when he’d broken into Doug’s condo the day he was murdered.

Arthur Wakefield was in the process of battling to have his mother’s will reversed. He desperately needed to prove Jack Gilkey had had undue influence over his mother before she died. Clearly, he believed that if he could prove Jack Gilkey had had undue influence over anybody, that would strengthen his case. If nineteen million clams were at stake, wouldn’t you want a strong case? So Arthur had broken into Portman’s condo to see what he could find.

Why would Doug Portman be leaving, anyway? Had he gotten wind of the investigation into his parole board activities and decided to take a powder? Was it possible that Arthur had discovered Doug’s travel arrangements—through the travel agent or some other source—and killed him? After the fact, why rob the condo? Could someone else have discovered Doug’s departure plans, and tried to stop him, permanently?

I shifted gears and headed toward the trailer park that perched on the outskirts of Killdeer. Maybe Rorry Bullock would enlighten me on some of these people. I would certainly welcome some illumination. The more I tried to figure out what was going on in this mountain town, the more muddled I became.

Actually, I decided when I once again lost my way on the too-quaint, too-curvy streets of Killdeer, what I really needed was caffeine. Cooking, wine-tasting, and snooping were too much to handle before eleven o’clock in the morning, even if you were the toughest cookie in the Rockies.

The sunshine and fresh snow had lured so many day-skiers that their cars filled the lots near the gondola. I backtracked to the Elk Ridge lot and walked to Cinda’s. It wasn’t a bad trek if you weren’t wearing ski boots. Twenty minutes later I was bellying up to the coffee bar and wondering if I didn’t deserve four shots instead of two. And how about a luscious cheese-filled croissant to go with it? After all, I hadn’t had any lunch.

Cinda, her cottony-pink hair held back with twisted rubber bands, opened her pale eyes wide when she spotted me. She beckoned with a ring-studded hand and then whispered ominously in my ear: “He’s here. The snowboarder. Barton Reed.”

“Here, now?” Then I added, “May I have a four-shot espresso and ricotta-stuffed croissant to clear my vision?”

Cinda said, “It’s the guy who made the threat, remember? My other waiter, Ryan, and I have just been talking about it. Barton Reed used to be big in the snowboard circuit, and he drove us all nuts with his temper. Then he went to jail on a fraud charge. Now he’s back, and the law enforcement guys found some threatening card he supposedly wrote. So I don’t want to have to deal with him.” She hustled off. Since it was late-morning coffee-and-hot-chocolate time, her shop was mobbed. She returned quickly, however, balancing a tray of goodies for me: a cup brimming with steaming, crema-topped espresso, a plate with a hot, flaky, ricotta-oozing croissant, and a jar of plum preserves. Zowie! I took a sip of the coffee and looked around the shop. I instantly recognized the chunky-faced profile and spill of earrings: Barton Reed.

“Did he say anything to you when he came in?” I whispered to Cinda.

“Yeah. The cops picked him up yesterday,” she replied sotto voce, “but then let him go. His fingerprints weren’t on the threatening card, and it wasn’t his handwriting. But it looked like his handwriting. Then he came in here and demanded to know if we’d told the cops he’d threatened some cop. We played dumb. A couple of other shopkeepers told me Barton’s been making threats all over town. So he can’t be sure who spilled the beans to the cops.”

“Why is he here now?”

“Says he’s looking for somebody. He’s clutching a cross. Maybe he’s waiting for a vampire.”

I started in on the flaky, hot croissant. It was superb. “You said he was waiting for somebody? Could he be waiting for Doug Portman? Does he know Portman is dead?”

“He didn’t say. But he must, everybody in town knows. I’m telling you, that guy’s lift doesn’t go to the peak.” She tapped her forehead meaningfully. As she did so, Reed shuffled to his feet and stomped toward the exit. At the door, he stopped and turned. He held Cinda and me briefly in a withering glare.

“Who could he be looking for?” I wondered in a low voice.

“I sure don’t know.” Cinda shook her pink-filament hair. “But it’s not likely he’ll be opening up his soul to any of our waiters again soon.”

I didn’t like the feeling this gave me. I thanked Cinda for the coffee, told her I’d see her later, and backed away from the bar. Before heading for the Rover, I made a visual check of the lift ticket windows, repair shop walk-up, and crowds going into and out of the Karaoke and Gorge-at-the-Gondola cafés. No Barton Reed. No, wait.

He was across the creek, standing in line for the gondola. With the crowd around him, I couldn’t see if he was carrying a snowboard. Had he spotted the person he’d been waiting for, or had he given up?

If the Sheriff’s department had released Barton Reed, there was nothing I could or should do. I asked for directions to Rorry’s trailer park at one of the lift ticket windows, then trekked back to the Rover.

The West Furman County Mobile Home Court—so named to distinguish it from any connection to the much-sought-after appellation Killdeer—was surrounded with a snow-laced five-foot-high chain-link fence. The fence was hung with fierce no-parking warnings, and the entry was flanked with signs informing the unwary that the motor court was for residents and their guests only; other vehicles would be towed and their owners fined. All the ski resorts had parking problems. No doubt some skiers thought nothing of leaving their vehicles here, in the low-rent district.

Where the rest of Killdeer featured picturesquely winding roads, the snow-covered-but-unplowed roads of the employees’ trailer park were laid out in ramrod-straight gridlines. I pulled in behind a red Subaru wagon. Hmm. Like its neighbors, the Bullock trailer stood perpendicular to the curb. Green and white siding peeled away from a sagging bay window; the trailer’s bottom rim was patched with rust. There were no signs of life.

I hopped out of the Rover and walked up to Rorry’s red car. The front bumper was crumpled, the right headlight gone. I fingered the cold metal of the impacted area. Rorry claimed somebody had stolen her Subaru, then smashed it up. I believed her. It hardly made sense that a pregnant woman would risk her unborn child to wreck a caterer’s van. I edged back over the thick ice to the Rover, loaded up the casseroles I’d made, then carefully made my way to a rickety wooden staircase that led to an unpainted aluminum door.

There was no doorbell, but the door opened the moment I started to shift the dishes around to find a way to knock.

“Bummer about the car, huh?” Rorry said wistfully. “It’s my fault, I guess. I shouldn’t have left the keys in it.” She wore a navy blue knitted maternity dress with thick cables and an uneven hem. Her skin was the color of mashed potatoes; her light brown eyes looked cloudy; her hair, blond and thin, curled softly around her face. She looked like an unhappy ingenue. If my arms had not been full of covered casseroles, I would have given her a hug. She pulled the door open as wide as it would go.

“Yeah, bummer,” I agreed, with a backward glance at the red Subaru. I decided not to mention what had happened to my van. When possible, I’d learned, do not upset a very pregnant woman.

“It’s the second time I’ve been a crime victim in this park,” Rorry said bitterly.

“The second time?” I prompted as I followed her to the tiny kitchenette.

Rorry opened the freezer section of a small refrigerator. “The first time was after Nate died. When I had to go down to see the coroner, some kid broke in and stole our TV and Nate’s videocamera. The cops caught him with the television, but he denied stealing the camera. The little creep.”

“For heaven’s sake,” I muttered as I tucked the casseroles into the only freezer space free of icy stalactites and stalagmites. Respect for personal property was a very low priority in Killdeer, it seemed. I shook my head, turned, and gave Rorry a long, tight hug. I told her I’d be right back.

“Do you still love coffee?” she asked when I returned with the box of baby blankets.

“More than ever.”

She pressed a button on an ancient drip machine to start a pot brewing. Rorry had always invited me in for a cup of coffee, even when she and Nate had lived in a tiny Aspen Meadow apartment. Back then, he’d had a little business making videos of recitals, high-school graduations, and weddings. Apparently he and Rorry had also badly wanted children, and now … On the counter, a torn herb-tea package and half-full glass mug of green liquid indicated the mother-to-be wasn’t indulging in caffeine these days. Next to them stood one of those porcelain coffee-bean containers and a grinder from an expensive mail-order coffee bean house. Low-income folks, I’d found, always bought a few food luxuries in case someone dropped in.

Rorry waved at her minuscule living area. “Please, sit down. And thanks for the casseroles and baby blankets.”

“No problem. It was fun putting it all together. And it’s nice to know someone can make use of Arch’s things.” I walked into the wood-paneled living area, where the linoleum of the kitchenette gave way to green shag carpet. This space featured a miniature sagging green-and-gold brocade couch, two stained gold chairs, and a fruitwood-veneer coffee table with a small pile of cardboard coasters featuring beer logos. The furnishings were all from that Seventies-era style known as “Mediterranean.” It must have been in that decade, I reflected as I sat on the couch, that this trailer had been built and sold as a furnished home. If Killdeer could spend millions expanding onto adjacent slopes, why couldn’t they subsidize low-income housing for their workers?

“Here you go.” Rorry set a large mug of steaming coffee on one of the cardboard coasters. She winced. “Don’t look at the rug. My boss back at Aspen Meadow Carpets would have had a fit.”

“I won’t tell,” I vowed, “if you promise not to squeal to my food-snob clients that I brought you meatballs.” She laughed and sipped her tea. I drank some of the coffee and pronounced it delicious.

Rorry smoothed the blue dress over her huge belly, then said, “Thank you for being so nice, Goldy. I don’t deserve it, after how bitchy I was to you.” Her light brown eyes held mine. Flecked with gold, puffy from lack of sleep, they were weary and apologetic. And sad.

“Don’t worry about it, I can handle bitchy. Remember when the president of the Episcopal Church Women objected to our class doing Ezekiel-in-the-Valley-of-Dry-Bones in the narthex? Now that was bitchy.”

She smiled thinly and shifted with obvious discomfort in her chair. “We had fun with that class, didn’t we?” When I nodded, she pulled a miniature bottle of lotion from a pocket, squirted some onto her right palm, and rubbed her hands with a nervous wringing motion. “We did Ezekiel after we did Joshua and the walls of Jericho,” she mused. “We were a pretty rambunctious group.” She took a deep breath. “I still stay in touch with St. Luke’s through the prayer chain. That was a great community. In Killdeer, there’s nothing like it. You’ve got the very rich and then you’ve got their servants, who live in trailers at the edge of town. Guess what category I fall into?” She laughed humorlessly.

“If you don’t like it,” I blurted out, “why do you stay?”

“We used to love to ski.” Rorry’s voice was unexpectedly defiant. What had she said at the fund-raiser? She was just puzzled. Her mood swings were bewildering. Or maybe not. After all, she was nine months pregnant and, as far as I could tell, alone. “I suppose you’ve heard the rumors,” she went on bleakly. “That’s one way that Killdeer doesn’t differ from Aspen Meadow. The gossip mill runs around the clock.”

“Nope, haven’t heard any rumors. And I’m a servant, too, you know.”

“But you’re dying of curiosity, and so is everyone at Front Range PBS. They sent you.”

“Nobody sent me, Rorry,” I told her. “I saw you Friday … and suddenly missed our friendship. So I called.”

She stared at the low, stained ceiling and went on as if I had not spoken. “The TV people won’t tell me anything. Oh, sure, they have their annual do in memory of Nate. They’re not raising funds for me, because the FCC says they can only raise money for themselves. For equipment! What a joke!”

“Rorry, I don’t know what—”

She banged her mug down on the battered coffee table and glared at me. “Nate’s the father of this baby I’m carrying.”

“Ah.” Either she’d been artificially inseminated, or she was losing her mind.

She read my expression accurately. “The first time we conceived, we had to freeze his sperm and go through artificial insemination. I was seven months pregnant when I had the miscarriage. Then last year I read an article, about women laying claim to the frozen sperm of their deceased lovers. So I decided to use what I had left of Nate.” When she scowled, her eyes crinkled in anger. “Use it before his girlfriend did, that is—”

I gagged on my coffee and remembered what Arthur had told me about Rorry’s suspicious nature, about her claims Nate was having an affair with Boots Faraday. “You think another woman would actually—”

Rorry held up a hand. “Nate said he and Boots Faraday—the collage artist, do you know her?” When I nodded, she raised a thin blond eyebrow. “Nate said Boots was giving him business advice. Then he went out-of-bounds to film something, and she said he was tracking lynx. Unfortunately, the wildcat population doesn’t buy a lot of videotapes, so I doubt a film of tracks was his so-called moneymaking idea.” She tsked and asked, “Do you know anything about tracking wild animals?”

“Not a thing, I’m happy to say.”

“You hear of a sighting,” Rorry continued in the same aggressive tone, as if determined to prove something to me. “You go where the trail might be and you look for scat. You find it, you start filming.”

“Rorry, I’m not following you—”

She heaved herself up, crossed to the kitchenette, and pulled something out of a drawer. Wordlessly, she thrust an envelope at me. I pulled out a much-crumpled note. Meet me at the Ridge trail at 2:00. Make sure nobody sees you. And remember your equipment, pal. The handwriting was slanted and feminine.

Rorry, bitterly triumphant, announced: “Lynx don’t buy videos, and they don’t write notes, no matter how endangered they are. Arthur Wakefield and the TV people claim Nate was not doing a tracking project for them. But they didn’t know what he was doing, so the spin, the story, the myth came out of the Killdeer Artists’ Association and Boots Faraday.” She raised her voice to a mocking falsetto. “ ‘Brave Outdoorsman Loses Life Tracking Vanishing Colorado Wildlife.’ What crap! The only prints on that trail were from a man and a woman. Nate and his girlfriend, Boots. Bring your equipment, puhleeze. They sneaked into the out-of-bounds area to make love. Where no one would see.”

“There’s no hay to roll in in Killdeer Valley, Rorry.” She shook her head dismissively. I persisted. “But the footprints diverged. One set went up, one went down.”

“So you have heard some rumors.” Her eyes blazed.

“Not rumors, but information. From the ski patrol. After the fund-raiser, I was worried about you. So I asked a patrolwoman to tell me about the avalanche. I thought it might help me understand what was going on with you. That’s it.” I took a deep breath. “But if their paths parted, maybe he was just keeping her company—”

“Maybe he was planning on getting undressed at the bottom of the hill and waiting for her,” she said hotly.

I bit the inside of my cheek. My old friend had clearly spent three years of sleepless nights worrying over details, trying to piece disparate data bits into a coherent theory of her husband’s death. She hadn’t grieved properly because she didn’t know what had happened. Worse, too many unknowns had left her with a sense of betrayal deeper and more devastating than grief.

“Rorry, the Killdeer Artists’ Association said that Nate was trying to diversify, to provide a better living—”

“Oh, don’t give me any of Boots Faraday’s bullcrap. I’ve heard her line about Nate wanting to raise money for us, blah, blah, blah. Boots is a great skier and snowboarder and a successful artist. She called here and called here and called here before Nate died. Each time, she tried to hide her identity. Why? She’s sexy as can be, as I saw when I went to one of the association’s meetings with Nate. She was flirting all around, trying to get everyone to sign a petition, to get rid of Doug Portman. You saw her at the fund-raiser on Friday, didn’t you? You see, she just can’t get Nate out of her mind. She’s obsessed. I think she’s the one who wrecked my car, then returned it just to torment me.”

“Rorry, you’re an old friend.” I asked gently, “Why did you decide to have Nate’s baby, now? After all these years?”

She pressed her lips together, struggling to keep the emotion in. Then she answered, “I lost one baby when he died. And … I miss Nate terribly, even with all the … unanswered questions. The baby is for me—for us. I decided to have the baby now for what Nate and I could have been.” Before I could reply, she pulled back her sleeve to check her watch. “I need to go. Can you still take me to work at the warehouse? I’m doing a double shift today. A coworker can bring me home later.” Before I could ask whether doing a double shift was a good idea, she excused herself to freshen up.

I sighed quietly, picked up our mugs, and fit them into the trailer’s small, packed dishwasher. When Rorry returned wearing snow boots, a jacket, and a hat, we took off for the Killdeer warehouse.

The enormous supply area was only a quarter-mile beyond the turnoff for the path to Elk Ridge and Elk Valley. I didn’t want Rorry to see the signs to the place where her husband died. To distract her, I asked her to tell me about her work.

“It’s not very exciting,” she said with a laugh. “I just track the inventory for the supplies going up the mountain.” We pulled into the parking area of several mammoth, brown-painted warehouses. Two heavily clad workmen were unloading boxes from a truck bearing the logo of a Denver wholesale food supplier. Numerous signs warned not to park, not to enter, not to do anything but go away. “That’s the central storage area for produce, meats, canned goods,” Rorry said as she pointed beyond a row of snowcats. “The tracks for the canisters start up there and go straight to the bistro. It’s pretty efficient, really. Well, gotta go.” She hesitated before opening the car door. “Goldy … I’m sorry to burden you with all my troubles.”

“Rorry,” I tried one final time, “it’s possible that even if Nate did go up the ridge with a snowboarder, it was completely innocent. He could have been filming something else, and then things went wrong—”

“Then where’s his camera? Sony VX-One Thousand, digital-video, industry-standard for filming out-of-doors? You gotta have a camera if you’re going to film tracks or skiers or just do clips of trees. Suppose the kid didn’t steal it when he took our television. If Nate was carrying that camera, the avalanche team or groomers or somebody should have found it, shouldn’t they? They found Nate’s hat, fifty feet from his body. They even found the note still inside his jacket.” She raised her eyebrows and held out her hands. “Don’t know? Me, either. And if his little hike was so innocent, why wouldn’t his girlfriend come forward afterward? ‘We weren’t making love, we were just hiking and chatting about public television! Then he went down the hill, and I went up!’”

“Rorry—”

She unsnapped her seatbelt. “Look, thanks for your concern. The casseroles will be great. I’ll call you when the baby comes.” She struggled to find her next words. “Please, Goldy. If I could turn Nate’s death into a Sunday school lesson in redemption, believe me, I would. But I can’t.”

“If you could just find this person—”

Her golden eyes blazed and her cheeks flushed with anger. “I don’t want to know who it is anymore. Or to see her. I’m pregnant again. I have to stay calm. My husband was unfaithful to me, I barely have enough money to live on, and my car’s been wrecked. But I am not going to lose this baby. I’m not stupid, Goldy. Nate’s girlfriend never came forward because she didn’t want to admit she was screwing a man with a pregnant wife.”

With that, Rorry climbed out of the car and slammed the door. She walked away clumsily, her shoulders slumped, her head bent. Somehow I knew there were tears in her eyes. You have not thought of every angle, I wanted to call after her.

The girlfriend—or whoever the snowboarder was with Nate that day—had triggered an out-of-bounds avalanche. But Rorry was wrong. The snowboarder hadn’t stayed silent because of an affair with a man with a pregnant wife. The snowboarder hadn’t come forward because she—or he—had started an avalanche that had killed a man with a pregnant wife.

CHAPTER 16

I drove out of Killdeer feeling as low as I had since the health inspector closed my kitchen. Poor Rorry. I was personally acquainted with the bitterness that welled up after betrayal. Yes, indeedy, I reflected as I moved into an unplowed lane on the interstate, a husband’s cheating could poison your whole outlook. Not only that, but I also had firsthand experience in the no-income, no-vehicle department. But I was lucky: Now I had a husband with an income, and a friend who’d loaned me a car. Rorry was vastly, vastly unlucky. Had someone stolen her car and deliberately wrecked it? Why would someone do that? Had it been her Subaru that had hit the van behind mine? Or would that be too much of a coincidence? In any event, I kept a kestrel-eye on the Rover’s rearview mirror. One catapult off a cliff per week was all I could handle.

When the Rover crunched over the snowpack in our driveway, Arch and Todd were outside throwing snowballs at each other with the intensity of a full-scale military battle. I powered down the window and asked for a truce, just until I could get into the house. Arch galumphed to the car to ask if I remembered Todd was spending the night. Of course, I replied. They had to finish their stanza memorization of “The Faerie Queene,” Arch explained. Todd and Arch disliked memory work, so they were coaching each other. And, Arch added, Tom wanted to talk to me.

I jumped from the Rover. “He’s home?”

“Yeah. The kitchen drains were delivered and he’s putting them in.” My son turned and took huge footsteps through the deep snow to get back to packing snow-missiles.

“How’d the work with Lettie go?” I called after him.

“Fine!” he yelled before throwing a new white grenade. So much for sociable chitchat.

Tom was sprawled on his back on our kitchen floor. Strewn by his legs were two dozen plumbing tools and pieces of dismantled cherry cabinet. The top half of his torso disappeared beneath the sink.

I leaned down. “How’s it going, O multitalented mate?”

With a grunt, he slid out and heaved himself upright. His face and work clothes were filthy. Undaunted, he smiled hugely, white teeth in a portrait of grime.

“Your pipes and drains arrived.” He got to his feet. “I’m not assigned to any cases now, so I convinced the lieutenant to let me take two vacation days and put’em in.”

I hugged him, hard. “Thank you!” In my enthusiasm I backed over a wrench and almost crashed onto Arch’s second spatter-pattern experiment, the dried frosting on a cookie sheet. “But, why can’t we hire a plumber? There’s no reason you should have to—”

Tom winked, set me upright, then lowered himself again to the floor. “Don’t trust me, eh?” He slid back under the sink. His muffled voice said: “I’m doing it because I want to know exactly what kind of plumbing we have. I’ll be done in a few hours.”

“Tell me what your heart desires for dinner. Anything.”

“Ah, Miss G., I am very much in the mood for a curry. I bought some fat raw shrimp, peeled and deveined, in the hope that you would make just such an offer. But you’re going to have to do the sink work in the bathroom. Want me to come out and help?”

“Of course not. Shrimp curry it is. But listen, I’ve got something to tell you—”

“I want to hear it, but there’s something I forgot,” his hollow voice boomed. “You need to call your buddy the wine guy before six.”

Uh-oh. Had Arthur discovered the raid on his cellar? And what would my husband the cop think of my subterranean foray?

“Actually, Tom, Arthur Wakefield is who I need to talk to you about—”

“Call him first, okay? I promised you would.”

It was five-thirty. A long chat with Arthur would make preparing a curry dinner impossible. I washed my hands in the ground floor bathroom, then rinsed the shrimp and half a pound of fresh, plump mushrooms. After drying, trimming, and chopping the mushrooms, I minced shallots, onions, and garlic, swirled oil in a wide sauté pan, and tossed in all the vegetables. They sizzled and filled the room with a yummy scent. Once they were tender, I measured in curry powder and flour, stirred the pungent mixture for a couple of minutes, then removed it from the heat, crushed dried thyme over it, and poured in homemade chicken stock, cream, and dry white French vermouth. I suppressed a smile. Only a true wine geek would insist on pouring fifty-dollar-a-bottle Grand Cru chablis into curried shellfish. Still, by the time I added the shrimp, this thick, flavorful dish would be a suitable reward for Tom’s hard work.

He again reminded me to call Arthur; I promised him I would as soon as I started the raisin rice. In another skillet, I sprinkled rice into sputtering melted butter, stirred until the kernels were toasted golden brown, and dropped in a handful of moist raisins. Then I poured in more homemade chicken stock, lowered the heat, and gently placed a lid on top.

“Sure smells fantastic up there,” was Tom’s sub-sink comment.

“Thanks.” I punched in Arthur’s number, tucked the phone under my ear, and gathered my dishes to rinse in the bathroom. He answered on the first ring.

“My guests are due in ten minutes,” he said hurriedly. “I have my wines ready. Your wonderful food is heating. Thank you for everything,” he gushed.

“No problem, Arthur.” Compared to his attitude that afternoon, he sounded suspiciously mellow.

“I feel awful for not paying you. We’re still on for lunch Wednesday?”

I felt a frisson of unease. “You bet—”

“Wednesday will be three years since Mother’s funeral,” he interrupted dolefully. “I … I want to show you the spot,” he said quickly, then hung up.

Show me what spot on the anniversary of his mother’s funeral? The spot where she was buried? The place where she died? Now there was a cheerful incentive to join the man for lunch.

“Tom,” I called downward, “may I talk to you about this Killdeer mess?”

“Yes,” came his echoing-inside-the-pipe voice.

I started filling bowls with sour cream, chopped peanuts, chutney, coconut, pineapple chunks, chopped hard-cooked egg, and more raisins. “Doug Portman was about to leave for Puerto Escondido before he died. It’s a small town on the Pacific coast of Mexico. I, uh, I found his plane ticket hidden in Arthur Wakefield’s wine cellar. So I’m a tad concerned about having lunch with Arthur on Wednesday.”

“What?” Banging on metal was followed by a groan as Tom worked to extract himself again. By the time I’d finished setting the table, he was leaning on the marble counter and giving me a skeptical look. “What did you do, exactly?”

I checked the refrigerator for beer—our preferred drink with curry—and soft drinks for the boys. “Look, I know I wasn’t supposed to snoop around Arthur’s place, but the man is obsessed with the Portman case.”

“I know, I know, everybody in the Department of Corrections is sick of Arthur Wakefield and his letters about Portman. But you’re the one who decided to go through his stuff.”

“I didn’t steal anything.” Tom grunted and I went on: “Look, he’s got nineteen million dollars at stake. My best guess is, when you’re trying to get a will set aside because you think someone exerted undue influence over your rich mother, you try to make that influential someone look bad. Very bad. In this case, that person is Jack Gilkey, who was granted parole by Doug Portman. So you also want to find out everything negative you can about Doug Portman. If Arthur can prove Portman took a bribe to grant Gilkey parole, he’d be in better shape to have his mother’s second will overturned. Of course he’d steal Portman’s mail, if he thought it might help him find out exactly what Doug was up to. If you want to get a warrant,” I added hastily, “the ticket-issuers were Copper Mountain Worldwide Travel.”

“Oh, Miss G., why do you do this to me? Tickets don’t prove anything by themselves. You want to lose your bonding? Did you think about that?” But he was reaching for the phone.

“I didn’t take the ticket,” I repeated stubbornly.

Tom did not reply. He was using his answering-machine voice to ask Marla if she could meet me at eleven o’clock on Wednesday at Killdeer, to ski for a couple of hours and have lunch. He’d phone again later to confirm.